Andrews Air Force Base, United States | AFP | President Donald Trump departed Washington for an almost two week trip to Asia Friday, leaving in his wake a trail of scandal and invective that risks overshadowing efforts at top-level diplomacy. Trump left Joint Base Andrews, just outside Washington, bound for …
Read More »UN, Colombia sign key anti-cocaine pact
Vienna, Austria | AFP | The UN and Bogota signed a major pact Friday to uproot Colombia’s booming cocaine business, as part of ongoing peace efforts between the government and drug trade-controlling rebels. The deal worth $315 million dollars (270 million euros) aims to wean farmers off growing coca — …
Read More »Iran denounces CIA ‘fake news’ in Bin Laden files
Tehran, Iran | AFP | Iran has accused the CIA of spreading “fake news” about the Islamic republic with newly declassified files seized in the 2011 raid in Pakistan in which Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was killed. The CIA on Wednesday released 470,000 additional files found in May 2011 when …
Read More »Spain to seek Catalan leader’s arrest
Madrid, Spain | AFP | A Spanish judge was set Friday to issue an arrest warrant for Catalonia’s deposed leader Carles Puigdemont over his region’s contested independence drive, in a move likely to further escalate tensions in Spain’s worst political crisis in decades. The European arrest warrant was due a …
Read More »US sends supersonic bombers over South Korea
Washington, United States | AFP | US bombers overflew the Korean peninsula Thursday as part of an exercise with Japanese and South Korean warplanes, the US Air Force said, days before President Donald Trump arrives in the region for a trip set to be dominated by the nuclear-armed North. Tensions are …
Read More »Russia accuses US of blocking humanitarian aid in Syria
Moscow, Russia | AFP | Russia on Friday accused the United States of committing a “war crime” in Syria, saying its army had denied Syrian refugees access to humanitarian aid. “The most severe humanitarian situation remains in the Al-Tanf region,” the Russian defence ministry’s Syria reconciliation centre said, referring to a …
Read More »What is the Paris Agreement?
Paris, France | AFP | On December 12, 2015, 195 countries gathered in the French capital to conclude the first truly universal climate treaty, the Paris Agreement, aimed at preventing the worst-case scenarios of global warming. The Palestinian Authority and Nicaragua have since also signed up, while President Donald Trump announced …
Read More »Trump calls for death penalty for NY attacker
New York, United States | AFP | President Donald Trump called Thursday for the man charged over the New York truck attack to be executed, as a picture emerged of an Islamic State group sympathizer radicalized after struggling with life in America. Trump had said he was considering sending Sayfullo Saipov, …
Read More »Tillerson to visit crisis-hit Myanmar
Washington, United States | AFP | Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will go to Myanmar next week, the State Department said, becoming the most senior US official to visit since the start of the Rohingya crisis. Tillerson’s spokeswoman said he would visit Naypyidaw on November 15 for talks on the “humanitarian …
Read More »Trump says will terminate US green card lottery after NY attack
Washington, United States | AFP | President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he would end the popular US green card lottery as police said a radicalized Uzbek man staged the deadly truck ramming in New York after entering the country under the program. The move could spell the end to the …
Read More »
The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price