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Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (left) is welcomed by North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui upon arriving on a two-day visit at Pyongyang International Airport Thursday.…
The Philippine Coast Guard command centre on Thitu Island in the South China Sea Thursday. (AFP) The Philippine Coast Guard unveiled Thursday its first dedicated command centre in the Spratly island chain, a flashpoint in the disputed South China Sea that has been the site of repeated confrontations with Chinese vessels.The headquarters of a newly established coast guard district, formerly overseen from neighbouring Palawan, will cover an area of about 68,000sq km (26,000 square miles).An AFP journalist travelling to the new command centre on Pagasa Island, known as Thitu in the Philippines, saw multiple Chinese Coast Guard vessels patrolling nearby waters. The vessels issued radio warnings to the plane carrying the journalist.Beijing claims the South China Sea in nearly its entirety, despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis.Pagasa will now have a commodore-level commander on site, Philippine Coast Guard Commandant Ronnie Gil Gavan told reporters after “activation” ceremony Thursday, along with a permanently stationed ship, more response vessels and an unspecified number of specialists.”The establishment of the coast guard district here will also enhance the psyche, the mindset of each and every coast guard member, that… the defence of Kalayaan island group is a top priority,” Gavan said, using the Filipino name for the Spratlys.The move will also include the dredging of a deeper port that will allow for the docking of coast guard vessels, which must currently ferry personnel to and from Pagasa on small boats.The far-flung Kota and Parola islands will also see their substations raised to full station status, coast guard spokesman Jay Tarriela said.The Pagasa upgrade, meanwhile, will mean a bigger budget for greater community assistance to the island’s inhabitants, including more teachers and doctors, he said.Pagasa Island is home to about 400 Filipinos, mostly fishermen and their families, who China accuses of living there illegally.The Chinese Embassy in Manila did not immediately reply to a request for comment on Thursday.The Philippines last month revealed plans to rename more than 100 island features in the Spratlys in a bid to reinforce its “sovereignty” in the South China Sea.China subsequently accused Manila of breaking international law while threatening unspecified measures to protect its own claims. Source link
Cuba’s Vice-Foreign Minister Josefina Vidal, accompanies a women protest against the sanctions imposed by the United States, in Havana on Tuesday. (AFP) Talks between Cuba and the United States on de-escalating tensions are still at a “very preliminary” stage, Cuba’s Deputy Foreign Minister Josefina Vidal told AFP on Tuesday.Cuba has been bracing for a possible US attack following threats from US President Donald Trump about “taking” the communist-run island after ousting Venezuela’s leader and attacking Iran.The former Cold War rivals have, at the same time, held exploratory talks.”We are in a very preliminary, very initial phase, and there are still no structured negotiations between the two governments,” Vidal told AFP during a demonstration in Havana to denounce the impact of US sanctions on the impoverished island.Trump effectively shut down oil exports to Cuba in January after US forces ousted Havana’s main regional ally and crude supplier, Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro.Trump also threatened tariffs on other countries that ship oil to Cuba, deepening an energy crisis on the island marked by recurring blackouts.Last week, however, Washington allowed through a Russian oil tanker.Vidal, 65, was a key figure in the restoration of relations between Washington and the communist-run island during Barack Obama’s presidency in 2015.In February, the Miami Herald listed her as one of Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s interlocutors, along with Raul Guillermo Rodriguez Castro, grandson of former president Raul Castro.Cuba has taken apparent steps in recent weeks to ease tensions, notably releasing groups of prisoners in two batches, in what it called a “humanitarian gesture.”Last week it announced the pardon of more than 2,000 prisoners. However, none of these were political prisoners, according to human rights NGOs.At least 20 political prisoners were released in mid-March.Vidal contrasted the current talks with the negotiations between the Obama and Raul Castro administrations, which led to an historic rapprochement that Trump later walked back.In 2015, “we worked to create a relationship that was not without differences, but that did not place those differences at the centre,” Vidal stressed.She insisted however that “Cuba has always believed in dialogue” and “not in confrontation.” Related Story Source…
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi attends a press conference on the sidelines of the National People’s Congress, in Beijing. (Reuters/File Photo) China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi will visit North Korea this week, his ministry said Wednesday, signalling efforts by the East Asian neighbours to revitalise ties that chilled after the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.Wang’s last publicly known visit to North Korea as China’s foreign minister was in late 2019, following reciprocal visits by the two countries’ top leaders earlier that year.”China is willing to strengthen strategic communication with North Korea and enhance exchanges and cooperation,” a Chinese ministry spokesperson, Mao Ning, said during a regular press conference.She called Wang’s upcoming visit-scheduled over April 9 to 10-“an important move to advance bilateral ties”.Beijing has worked to draw Pyongyang back into its orbit, after the Covid-19 pandemic froze exchanges and as North Korean leader Kim Jong-un shored up relations with Moscow, sending troops and weapons in support of Russia’s war efforts in Ukraine.Passenger train service between Beijing and Pyongyang resumed in March after being suspended for six years since the onset of the pandemic in 2020.China’s flag carrier Air China has also restarted flights between the two capitals. However, the reopened links have not benefited Chinese tourists so far, with bookings available only for some business travellers and exchange students.North Korean leader Kim Jong-un travelled to Beijing in September on board an armoured train to join Russian President Vladimir Putin and other leaders for a massive military parade in the Chinese capital, where Kim met with Chinese President Xi Jinping.That meeting was followed by a visit to Pyongyang in October by China’s No 2 official, Premier Li Qiang.”Preserving, consolidating, and developing China-DPRK relations has always been an unwavering strategic policy of the party and government of China,” Mao said Wednesday.Wang’s Pyongyang visit also comes ahead of an expected summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump next month. Co-ordination between North Korea and China could take place before the China-US summit, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said Wednesday.Trump has repeatedly expressed interest in resuming direct talks with the North Korean leader in his second term, but no meeting has materialised.North Korea analysts have been watching the possibility of a fourth meeting between Trump and Kim after they met three times during Trump’s first term, most recently in 2019.In February, Kim said there is “no reason” North Korea and the US cannot “get along well” if Washington recognises North Korea as a nuclear-armed state and abandons its “hostile” policy against Pyongyang.Subsequent state media messages have refrained from overtly criticising Trump. Related Story Source link
US President Donald Trump said yesterday that imports from countries supplying Iran with military weapons will face immediate 50% tariffs with no exemptions, threatening the new duties just hours after agreeing to a two-week ceasefire with Tehran. After more than five weeks of air strikes against Iran’s missile launchers, military installations and weapons industry, Trump returned to a favourite foreign policy pressure tool — tariffs — effectively warning China and Russia in a social media post against restocking Tehran’s military inventories. But the US Supreme Court stripped the US president of his fastest and broadest tariff authority, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, in February when it ruled that his broadest global tariffs imposed under the 1977 law were illegal. “A Country supplying Military Weapons to Iran will be immediately tariffed, on any and all goods sold to the US of America, 50%, effective immediately, There will be no exclusions or exemptions! President DJT,” Trump wrote on the Truth Social site, without naming any countries. China and Russia have helped Iran build military capacity to counter US and Israeli pressure, supplying missiles, air-defence systems and dual-use technologies intended to bolster deterrence. That support appeared capped during the U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran. Both Beijing and Moscow have denied supplying any weapons recently, although allegations against Russia have persisted. Reuters reported in February, prior to the first U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran, that Tehran was considering a purchase of supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles from China. Reuters also reported in March that China’s top semiconductor maker, SMIC , has sent chipmaking tools to Iran’s military, according to two senior Trump administration officials. “This is a China-related threat, the way I read it. And China will read it that way,” said Josh Lipsky, vice president and chair of international economics at the Atlantic Council. Although drone and missile parts routinely flow from Chinese entities to Iran, evading US sanctions, Lipsky said Trump was unlikely to follow through with new tariffs in the near term because that would derail his planned trip to Beijing to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping. On Tuesday, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said Trump would seek to maintain the current stability in the US-China relationship, to preserve US access to Chinese-produced rare-earth minerals and magnets while maintaining prior tariff levels. Greer said Trump wanted to avoid a “massive confrontation” with Xi. Of Trump’s still available trade tools, an active “Section 301” unfair trade practices action against Chinese goods from his first term would be the most likely vehicle for adding new tariffs quickly, Lipsky said.A more limited tool would be Section 232 of the Cold War-era Trade Expansion Act of 1962, aimed at protecting strategic domestic industries on national security grounds, but it would limit duties to specific sectors, lacking the broad economy-wide impact of the prior IEEPA-based tariffs. Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods over nearly eight years already have cut US imports from China sharply, from a peak of $538.5bn in 2018 to $308.4bn in 2025, with further declines recorded in January and February of 2026. Russia has been another source of arms technology for Iran, but US imports of Russian goods also have shrivelled since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the wave of financial sanctions imposed on Moscow as a result of that move. US imports from Russia, one of the only countries not subject to Trump’s now-cancelled “reciprocal” tariffs, jumped 26.1% to $3.8bn in 2025. These imports are dominated by palladium, which is used in automotive catalytic converters, fertilisers and their ingredients, and enriched uranium for nuclear reactors. The Commerce Department already is moving to impose punitive tariffs on Russian palladium after an anti-dumping investigation. Source link
Nato Secrertary-General Mark Rutte (left) and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio speak with each other as they meet at the State Department in Washington, DC,…
The logo of Norwegian telecoms operator Telenor. (AFP/File photo) Myanmar customers of the Norwegian telecoms group Telenor have sued the company for sharing their sensitive personal data with the junta, in a civil class action lawsuit filed in Norway Wednesday.The plaintiffs are seeking damages, arguing the military used the information to identify, arrest and prosecute pro-democracy activists suspected of opposing the 2021 coup in Myanmar, which constituted “serious human rights violations”, they said in a statement.The information included names, physical addresses, Facebook and bank accounts, location data and call logs, they said.They allege that the data sharing led to, among other things, the 2022 execution of a prominent government opponent and lawmaker, Zewa Thaw, and the arrest and jailing of civil society activist Aung Thu, the statement said.Telenor, in which the Norwegian state owns a 54 percent stake, denied responsibility.”In Myanmar, refusing requests from the military authorities could, in the worst case, have led to imprisonment, torture or the death penalty,” it said in a statement to AFP.”Telenor Myanmar had no real options. We could not play Russian roulette with the lives of our employees.”Acknowledging that it was “terrible” if Telenor data had been “misused by the authorities,” it said it was “solely the military authorities in Myanmar who are responsible for how they treat their own population”.The plaintiffs said Justice and Accountability Initiative (JAI), a Swedish non-profit, and a Norwegian law firm had filed the lawsuit with the Asker og Baerum district court on their behalf.If successful, the case would be “the first ever to hold a telecoms company to account for not sufficiently protecting user data from access by an authoritarian regime”, according to Beini Ye, a lawyer for the Open Society Justice Initiative, which is supporting the suit.Telenor Myanmar began operations in 2014 and had more than 18 million customers by 2021.After a February 2021 coup, the junta launched a crackdown on the civilian resistance movement.In July 2021, Telenor announced plans to sell its Myanmar subsidiary “despite warnings by civil society organisations”, the plaintiffs said.The company later cited junta demands that it install monitoring equipment on the network as a reason for leaving the country.According to the plaintiffs, the transaction meant all customer data and surveillance technology that Telenor had installed were turned over to a military-linked company.They said they were aware of “at least 1,253 phone numbers belonging to users whose data was shared”.Telenor exited Myanmar in March 2022. Source link
Venezuela's interim president Delcy Rodriguez vowed on Tuesday to ‘monitor’ the application of an amnesty law aimed at freeing political prisoners jailed under former leader Nicolas Maduro.The interim leader said she would keep an eye on the amnesty law in order to address the opposition's ‘extremism,’ which she said was inciting ‘conflict’ in the country.The law was passed in February by Rodriguez under pressure from Washington, after US forces captured Maduro and took him to New York to face drug trafficking charges that he denies.One of the most significant reforms championed by Rodriguez, it aims to turn the page on nearly three decades of state repression, but has been criticised by human rights organisations as being selectively applied.’More than 8,000 people have benefited’ from amnesty, Rodriguez said in a televised speech.’Don't think that we don't know’ that ‘people who have benefited and continue to benefit from this amnesty law… are currently fomenting conflict,’ Rodriguez said in her address at the Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas.’It is therefore important that we monitor the implementation of the amnesty law.”I'm not excluding anyone. I am simply saying that we need to monitor the situation to ensure that the opportunity we're providing to address extremism and radicalism can truly, truly help resolve these issues and secure the future,’ she added.Around 700 political prisoners have been freed under the law, but between 500 and 700 remain behind bars, according to humans right organisations. Some groups say the law is being unfairly applied by judges accused of supporting the government.The law excludes those accused of involvement in alleged coups and assassination attempts.Opposition figures such as activist Javier Tarazona, one of the country's most prominent dissidents, and Perkins Rocha, legal advisor to Nobel Peace Prize laureate and longtime opposition figure Maria Corina Machado, have been excluded from its scope. Source link
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres strongly condemned the massive strikes launched by Israel on Lebanon, which resulted in hundreds of civilians being killed and injured, including children.”The ongoing military activity in Lebanon poses a grave risk to the ceasefire and the efforts toward a lasting and comprehensive peace in the region”, the Secretary-General said in a statement issued Thursday, reiterating his call to all parties to immediately cease hostilities.Guterres called for respect for international law, including international humanitarian law, and the protection of civilians and civilian objects, stressing that any attacks targeting them are unacceptable.The Secretary-General emphasized that there is no military solution to the conflict and urged all sides to avail themselves of diplomatic channels and recommit to the full implementation of Security Council resolution 1701.Lebanon was subjected yesterday, Wednesday, to the most intense Israeli attacks since March 2, targeting the capital Beirut and areas in the Beqaa Valley and southern Lebanon, just hours after the United States and Iran announced a two-week ceasefire as a prelude to ending the war. Source link
US President Donald Trump announced late Tuesday a two-week suspension of military action against Iran.Writing on Truth Social, Trump stated that the ceasefire is strictly conditional on Tehran agreeing to open the Strait of Hormuz.”Based on conversations with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Field Marshal Asim Munir of Pakistan, who requested that I hold off on sending destructive force to Iran tonight,” Trump posted, “I agree to suspend the bombing and attacks on Iran for a period of two weeks. This will be a double-sided ceasefire.”The President added that the US has already “met and exceeded all military objectives” and suggested a “definitive agreement” regarding long-term peace in the Middle East is near. He described a 10-point proposal received from Iran as a “workable basis for negotiation,” noting that most previous sticking points have been resolved.Earlier on Tuesday, Prime Minister of Pakistan Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif had publicly urged the US to extend its deadline and called on Iran to reopen the vital shipping lane as a “goodwill gesture” to prevent full-scale war. Related Story Source link