Category: International

WASHINGTON: The US President Donald Trump released material related to the 1963 assassination of former president John F Kennedy on Tuesday, seeking to honour his campaign promise to provide more transparency about the unfortunate event in Texas. An initial tranche of electronic copies of papers flooded into the National Archives website in the evening with a total of more than 80,000 expected to be published after Justice Department lawyers spent hours scouring them. The digital documents, including PDFs of previously classified memos, offer a window into the climate of fear at the time surrounding…

President Donald Trump announced on Monday that Chinese President Xi Jinping would visit the United States in the near future, as trade disputes between the two economic giants intensify, AFP reported. Speaking at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, Trump stated, “He’ll be coming in the not-too-distant future,” without providing further details. Reports from The Wall Street Journal suggest that Washington and Beijing have started discussions about a potential summit in June, coinciding with both leaders’ birthdays. Since his return to office in January, Trump has imposed tariffs on…

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump says he plans to speak to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Tuesday about ending the war in Ukraine, adding discussions are already ongoing about “dividing up certain assets” between the warring parties. US officials had expressed optimism Sunday that a Ukraine-Russia ceasefire deal could be reached in weeks after Washington proposed a halt in fighting in the three-year war after talks in Saudi Arabia, which Kyiv accepted. “I think we’ll be talking about land… we’ll be talking about power plants,” Trump said aboard Air…

LONDON: UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said Russian President Vladimir Putin will eventually have to come to the negotiating table, as he called on world leaders to strengthen support for Ukraine and keep up the pressure on Moscow. The British leader told around 26 fellow leaders in a group call he hosted that they should focus on strengthening Ukraine, protecting any ceasefire, and maintaining pressure on Moscow. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky had, he said, “shown once again, and beyond any doubt, that Ukraine is the party of peace” by…

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump on Friday launched a bitter attack against the “illegal” media and his political enemies, as a speech at the Department of Justice turned into a grievance-filled diatribe. Trump, who is the first convicted felon to sit in the White House, was meant to be talking about law and order at an organisation supposed to be insulated from political pressure. But instead the 78-year-old Republican spent much of his time rehearsing complaints that predecessor Joe Biden had “weaponised” the department against him and pledging to “expose”…

WASHINGTON: Former US President Donald Trump has reiterated his push for American control over Greenland, as he told NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte that the strategic Arctic territory is crucial for international security. “You know, Mark, we need that for international security, not just security – international – we have a lot of our favourite players cruising around the coast, and we have to be careful,” Trump told Rutte as they sat side by side in the White House Oval Office for talks. “We’ll be talking to you.” Asked directly about the…

US Energy Secretary Chris Wright has pledged to reset federal energy policy to favour fossil fuels, marking a major departure from the previous administration’s approach to climate change, AFP reported. Addressing industry leaders at the Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) conference, Energy Secretary Chris Wright criticised the Biden administration’s policies, calling them “irrational quasi-religious” restrictions that burdened US citizens. Wright highlighted the Trump administration’s swift action in reducing bureaucratic hurdles for oil projects and promoting liquefied natural gas exports. “The Trump administration will end the Biden administration’s irrational quasi-religious policies on climate…

KYIV: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has reaffirmed his country’s commitment to engage in a constructive dialogue with the United States representatives in Saudi Arabia next week over ways to end the war with Russia. Since taking office in January, US President Donald Trump has paused US military aid to Ukraine as well as intelligence-sharing with Kyiv. He has accused Zelensky of not being serious about reaching a peace agreement with Russia, which invaded Ukraine three years ago and has seized about 20% of its territory. “Ukraine has been seeking peace from the…

PARIS: President Emmanuel Macron has raised the possibility of France offering nuclear protection to its European partners, warning that the continent must confront the growing threat from Russia. France and Britain are Europe’s only two nuclear powers. “Our nuclear deterrent protects us: it is complete, sovereign, French through and through,” Macron said in his televised speech. “But, responding to the historic call of the future German Chancellor, I have decided to open the strategic debate on the protection of our allies on the European continent through our (nuclear) deterrence,” Macron said.…

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday he regretted last week’s extraordinary Oval Office clash with Donald Trump and wanted to “make things right”, adding that Kyiv was ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible, Reuters reported. In a fulsome statement issued a day after Trump halted military aid to Ukraine, Zelenskiy said he was ready to sign “any time and in any convenient format” a deal giving the United States access to Ukrainian minerals. He had left the deal on the table when he abandoned a visit…