diplomacy

Pope in Equatorial Guinea criticises prison conditions

US

Iran defies US blockade to claim tolls from Hormuz shipping

BY AFP TEAMS IN TEHRAN, DUBAI, JERUSALEM, WASHINGTON AND BEIRUT

  • Ghalibaf's deputy, Hamidrez Hajibabei said Iran has received its first revenue from tolls it is imposing on ships seeking to cross Hormuz, a route that in peacetime accounts for a fifth of the world's oil and gas flows, and other vital commodities. 
  • Iran has banked the first proceeds from the tolls it is exacting on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a senior official said Thursday, as disruption triggered by the US-Israeli war against the Islamic republic continued to batter the world economy.
  • Ghalibaf's deputy, Hamidrez Hajibabei said Iran has received its first revenue from tolls it is imposing on ships seeking to cross Hormuz, a route that in peacetime accounts for a fifth of the world's oil and gas flows, and other vital commodities. 
Iran has banked the first proceeds from the tolls it is exacting on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a senior official said Thursday, as disruption triggered by the US-Israeli war against the Islamic republic continued to batter the world economy.
With planned peace talks hanging in the balance, more fuel-hungry airlines cancelled flights, oil prices opened higher and the keenly-watched S&P Global PMI index showed eurozone business activity shrinking for the first time in 16 months.
Iran vowed it will keep the strait closed to all but a trickle of approved vessels for as long as the United States blockades its ports, brushing off demands from President Donald Trump that it buckle to US threats and both reopen Hormuz and surrender its enriched uranium.
While strikes around the region have mostly ceased since the two-week-old truce began, there has been no letup in the stand-off over the crucial trade route, with both sides seeking economic leverage -- only for Trump to announce an indefinite ceasefire to create space for more Pakistani-mediated talks.
"A complete ceasefire only has meaning if it is not violated through a naval blockade," said Iran's parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who led Tehran's delegation at a first round of talks. "Reopening the Strait of Hormuz is not possible amid a blatant violation of the ceasefire."
Ghalibaf's deputy, Hamidrez Hajibabei said Iran has received its first revenue from tolls it is imposing on ships seeking to cross Hormuz, a route that in peacetime accounts for a fifth of the world's oil and gas flows, and other vital commodities. 

'Escalate'

Analysts said Tehran, in particular its hardline leaders associated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), believes that Iran's blockade gives it sufficient economic leverage to force Washington to back down on its main demands in eventual peace talks.
And some, such as Danny Citrinowicz of the Tel-Aviv Institute for National Security Studies, criticised Israel and the US for misreading the Iranian government's position. 
"Tehran has consistently demonstrated a willingness to absorb economic pain while holding firm on what it views as core national interests. There is little reason to believe this time will be different," he said, in  a social media post.
"Rather than moving toward concession, Iran is positioning itself to escalate." 
A brief from the Soufan Center think tank said Iran's hardliners "argue that a prolonged elevation of global energy prices and mounting global shortages of some goods will increasingly pressure Trump to accede to Iran's positions, end the war, and eventually withdraw US forces from the region.
"Trump and his team calculate the opposite -- that the US blockade of Iran's seaborne trade, which carries all of its oil exports, will quickly cripple Iran's economy and force Iran to accept US demands."
On Wednesday, Trump told the New York Post that talks could resume in Pakistan within two to three days, even though Iran has not confirmed participation and Vice President JD Vance put his travel to Islamabad on hold on Tuesday.
In the Pakistani capital Islamabad blanket security remained in place for the fourth straight day in anticipation of possible talks, with transport disrupted and the city's government quarter and adjacent commercial centre all but shut down.
Schools in a so-called "Red Zone" remained shut and universities have shifted to distance learning, ahead of the planned arrivals of delegations from Washington and Tehran.

Ships seized

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said they forced two ships to the Iranian shore from the Strait of Hormuz, the gateway for about one-fifth of the world's oil and gas flows.
They identified the vessels as the Panama-flagged container ship MSC Francesca and the Liberia-flagged Epaminondas. 
UK-based maritime security monitors confirmed that three commercial vessels had reported incidents involving gunboats in the strait.
The US military's Central Command, meanwhile, said its forces blockading Iran's ports during the ceasefire had so far "directed 31 vessels to turn around or return to port". 

Lebanon-Israel talks

After agreeing the ceasefire with Iran, the United States helped broker a truce between Israel and Lebanon, including Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed movement that had fired rockets into Israel in revenge for the attacks on its patron.
Despite the declared truce, Israeli strikes killed five more people on Wednesday, Lebanese media said.
Amal Khalil, a journalist for the newspaper Al-Akhbar, was killed and her fellow reporter Zeinab Faraj was wounded in an Israeli strike near the border, the paper said.
"Israel deliberately targets journalists in order to conceal the truth about its crimes against Lebanon," said President Joseph Aoun in a statement, denouncing "war crimes."
The Israeli army said it had "identified two vehicles in southern Lebanon that had departed from a military structure used by Hezbollah".
The Israeli air force then struck a vehicle carrying "terrorists", it said, who had crossed what Israel calls the "forward defence line" in southern Lebanon and approached its troops.
The army denied preventing rescue teams from "accessing the area" and said the incident was under investigation.
Israel and Lebanon, which have no diplomatic relations, will hold a second round of talks in Washington on Thursday.
Lebanon will request a one-month extension of the ceasefire during the meeting, a Lebanese official told AFP.
Israeli attacks on Lebanon have killed more than 2,450 people since the start of the war, according to Lebanese authorities.
burs/dc/ser

US

Pentagon denies clearing Hormuz Strait mines will take six months

  • "One assessment does not mean the assessment is plausible, and a six-month closure of the Strait of Hormuz is an impossibility and completely unacceptable to the Secretary," Parnell told AFP on Thursday.
  • The Pentagon blasted as cherry picking and false on Thursday a news report saying that the department assessed it could take six months to completely clear the Strait of Hormuz of Iranian-laid mines.
  • "One assessment does not mean the assessment is plausible, and a six-month closure of the Strait of Hormuz is an impossibility and completely unacceptable to the Secretary," Parnell told AFP on Thursday.
The Pentagon blasted as cherry picking and false on Thursday a news report saying that the department assessed it could take six months to completely clear the Strait of Hormuz of Iranian-laid mines.
The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that the Pentagon shared the six-month estimate during a classified briefing for the members of the House Armed Services Committee, citing three unidentified officials familiar with the discussion.
Iran has vowed not to reopen the Strait of Hormuz as long as the United States blockades its ports, with the blocked waterway sharply driving up oil and gas prices and disrupting the global economy.
Asked about the report, Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell said "the media cherry picking leaked information, much of which is false, from a classified, closed briefing is dishonest journalism."
"One assessment does not mean the assessment is plausible, and a six-month closure of the Strait of Hormuz is an impossibility and completely unacceptable to the Secretary," Parnell told AFP on Thursday.
Lawmakers were told that Iran could have placed 20 or more mines in and around the strait, some floated remotely using GPS technology that makes them harder to detect, according to the Washington Post.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards have warned of a "danger zone" covering 1,400 square kilometres -– 14 times the size of Paris –- where mines may be present.
A spokesman for German transportation giant Hapag-Lloyd cautioned last week that shippers needed details on viable routes because they remain fearful of mines.
Only a few ships trickled through when the Hormuz strait briefly reopened at the start of the ceasefire this month because of concerns about attacks or mines.
The US Navy said this month its ships transited the waterway to begin removing the mines but that claim was denied by Iran's Revolutionary Guards, which threatened any military vessels attempting to cross the channel.
London hosted talks with military planners from more than 30 countries starting on Wednesday about a UK and France-led multinational mission to protect navigation in the Strait of Hormuz once hostilities end.
The "defensive" coalition is set to discuss plans to reopen the strait and conduct mine clearance operations.
It took multinational coalition forces more than two years to remove hundreds of mines and declare the northern gulf mine-free after the 1990-91 Gulf War, according to US researcher Scott Truver.
aks-hol/pbt

US

Iran economy looks set to withstand US naval blockade

BY CALLUM PATON WITH AFP TEAMS IN TEHRAN AND LONDON

  • In response to Iran's blockade of the strait since the start of the Middle East war, the US imposed a counter-blockade of the Islamic republic's ports, a push to force its leaders into a compromise in peace talks.
  • A US naval blockade of Iranian ports is likely to squeeze Iran's oil output in the coming weeks but claims it will throw the Islamic republic into economic free fall remain premature, analysts say.
  • In response to Iran's blockade of the strait since the start of the Middle East war, the US imposed a counter-blockade of the Islamic republic's ports, a push to force its leaders into a compromise in peace talks.
A US naval blockade of Iranian ports is likely to squeeze Iran's oil output in the coming weeks but claims it will throw the Islamic republic into economic free fall remain premature, analysts say.
After weeks of bombing and counter-strikes, focus has shifted to the standoff in the Strait of Hormuz, which ordinarily carries around a fifth of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas.
In response to Iran's blockade of the strait since the start of the Middle East war, the US imposed a counter-blockade of the Islamic republic's ports, a push to force its leaders into a compromise in peace talks.
That bid, however, looks set to fail, at least in the short term.
"If the blockade lasts for more than two or three months, it can cause more damage" to Iran, economic analyst and professor at Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran Saeed Laylaz told AFP.
"If Iran suffers any damage, the damage to the countries in the southern Persian Gulf will definitely be greater," he added. 
There's a limit on how long Iran can bide its time, however.
Arne Lohmann Rasmussen, chief analyst at Global Risk Management said Iran "was expected to run out of storage capacity within approximately one month, but it may already be forced to shut in part of its oil production within a couple of weeks".

'Collapsing financially'?

Trump said Tuesday that Iran was "collapsing financially" under the blockade imposed by the US Navy on April 12, claiming that the country was "starving for cash". 
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the blockade meant storage at Iran's Kharg Island, the main export terminal through which most of the country's crude is shipped, "will be full and the fragile Iranian oil wells will be shut in".
Jamie Ingram, managing editor of Middle East Economic Survey (MEES), told AFP it was likely the timeline for Iran to hit its oil storage limits would be measured in "weeks rather than days".
He added it was likely that "Iran will slightly reduce production before getting to the stage where storage constraints start to bite".
According to analysis by oil expert Homayoun Falakshahi shared by energy intelligence firm Kpler, Iran's crude production has already slowed since the start of the war. 
Output fell by around 200,000 barrels per day in March to 3.68 million bpd and is expected to drop a further 420,000 bpd in April to about 3.43 million bpd, reflecting "the broader impact of export disruptions and refining constraints linked to the ongoing conflict," Falakshahi said.
But Laylaz in Tehran said beyond the psychological effect of the blockade, the "real material effect has been small so far".
Ingram said Kharg Island "shouldn't be a particular bottleneck," for Iran. 
"This is the final storage facility used before oil is exported and Iran can divert crude oil to other facilities rather than straight to Kharg," he said.

'Mutually assured disruption'

The MEES expert also said Iran's dependency on oil exports via Hormuz had "deepened due to the damage caused by US and Israeli strikes to other sections of the Iranian economy".
"But Iran has also proven its ability to withstand huge oil-revenue declines during previous rounds of sanctions. I would not underestimate the regime's resilience in this regard," he added.
As the initial two-week truce between Iran and the US was set to expire Trump had said Tuesday he would maintain the ceasefire to allow more time for peace talks.
Iran said it welcomed the efforts by mediator Pakistan but made no other comment on Trump's announcement, while vowing not to reopen Hormuz so long as the US blockade remains in place.
"It will take a long time before such economic pain forces Iran to compromise," Ingram said, explaining it is "more likely economic disruption... pushes China into exerting more pressure on Iran to negotiate". 
Ali Vaez, Iran project director at the International Crisis Group, said "Iran's economy was battered before the war, is contending with added strains caused during it, and now faces the combination of sanctions, seizures and potential strikes".
"Iran's leadership has previously shown a high threshold for pain even if the pressure on ordinary Iranians increases. It also likely calculates that its own efforts to subdue traffic through Hormuz act as a sort of mutually assured disruption," he added.
bur-csp/ser

US

War in the Middle East: latest developments

  • "The first revenue received from the Strait of Hormuz tolls was deposited into the Central Bank account," said deputy speaker of parliament Hamidreza Hajibabaei, according to Tasnim news agency. 
  • The latest developments in the Middle East war: - Iran gets first Hormuz toll - A senior Iranian parliament official said on Thursday that Tehran has received the first revenue from tolls it imposed on the strategic Strait of Hormuz in its war with the United States and Israel. 
  • "The first revenue received from the Strait of Hormuz tolls was deposited into the Central Bank account," said deputy speaker of parliament Hamidreza Hajibabaei, according to Tasnim news agency. 
The latest developments in the Middle East war:

Iran gets first Hormuz toll

A senior Iranian parliament official said on Thursday that Tehran has received the first revenue from tolls it imposed on the strategic Strait of Hormuz in its war with the United States and Israel. 
"The first revenue received from the Strait of Hormuz tolls was deposited into the Central Bank account," said deputy speaker of parliament Hamidreza Hajibabaei, according to Tasnim news agency. 

Clearing Hormuz may take 6 months

A Pentagon assessment said it could take six months to completely clear the Strait of Hormuz of Iranian-laid mines, which could keep oil prices high, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday.
Iran has all but blocked the vital waterway since the start of a war with the United States and Israel, sharply driving up oil and gas prices and disrupting the global economy.

Hormuz standoff

Iran vowed it would not reopen the Strait of Hormuz as long as the United States continues to blockade its ports.
"A complete ceasefire only has meaning if it is not violated through a naval blockade," said Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who led Tehran's delegation in the first round of talks in Islamabad.
"Reopening the Strait of Hormuz is not possible amid a blatant violation of the ceasefire."

Iran execution

Iran hanged a man after he was convicted of membership in a banned opposition group and alleged collaboration with Israel. 
"Sultan-Ali Shirzadi-Fakhr was hanged early this morning for membership in the terrorist group" of the People's Mujahedin Organisation (MEK) and "collaboration with the Israeli regime's spy service," the judiciary's Mizan Online website reported.

Lebanon-Israel meeting

Israel and Lebanon hold a new round of talks in Washington on Thursday, during which Beirut plans to request a one-month extension of a ceasefire due to expire within days.
Israel stated ahead of the talks that it has no "serious disagreements" with Lebanon, calling on it to "work together" against the pro-Iran Hezbollah, which is notably absent from and opposed to the negotiations. 
 

US turns back 31 vessels

US Central Command (CENTCOM) said late Wednesday that it had "directed 31 vessels to turn around or return to port" as part of its own "blockade against Iran".
It said on X "the majority of vessels have complied with US directions" adding that "most vessels turned around have been oil tankers".

Oil jumps before easing

Oil prices jumped four percent before easing Thursday after Iran vowed not to reopen the Strait of Hormuz so long as a US blockade remained in place.
At around 0025 GMT, the benchmark US oil contract West Texas Intermediate (WTI) climbed 4.1 percent to $96.73 per barrel. International oil benchmark Brent North Sea crude rose 3.6 percent to $105.63. 
Asian stocks mostly fell however, with Tokyo, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Sydney, Singapore and Wellington all down.

Israel strikes journalists in Lebanon

Israeli airstrikes in southern Lebanon, where a ceasefire is officially in place, killed veteran Al-Akhbar newspaper correspondent Amal Khalil and wounded freelance journalist Zeinab Faraj.
A Lebanese Red Cross official told AFP Faraj was rescued but Khalil died under rubble.
Lebanon's Information Minister Paul Morcos called the targeting of journalists "a grave crime and a blatant violation of international humanitarian law".
burs-ach/gv

Global Edition

Stocks sink and oil rises with Iran, US no closer to peace talks

  • Oil prices remained elevated Thursday, with Brent holding above $100 following a surge to more than $106 in the morning.
  • Equities fell and oil prices rose Thursday as the United States and Iran appeared no closer to holding fresh peace talks and Tehran continued to refuse to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
  • Oil prices remained elevated Thursday, with Brent holding above $100 following a surge to more than $106 in the morning.
Equities fell and oil prices rose Thursday as the United States and Iran appeared no closer to holding fresh peace talks and Tehran continued to refuse to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
Hopes that the two would meet for a second round of negotiations in Pakistan have dissipated, with the Islamic republic targeting three container ships in the waterway and citing Washington's blockade as its reason for keeping it closed.
Investors have spent most of the week upbeat that a breakthrough to end the seven-week conflict will be made soon, while healthy earnings and a resumption of the AI trade has also provided support.
Crude prices jumped as much as four percent in early Asian business after global security monitors and Iran's Revolutionary Guards said Iranian forces had seized two ships and fired on a third in the Strait of Hormuz.
Tehran has said vessels must seek permission to leave or enter the Gulf through the waterway, which in peacetime accounts for around a fifth of the world's oil and gas exports along with other vital commodities.
However, the White House said Donald Trump did not consider the move to be a ceasefire violation because the vessels are not American or Israeli.
Meanwhile, Iran's parliament speaker said the Islamic republic would not reopen the Strait as long as the US naval blockade remained, calling it a "blatant violation" of the two countries' ceasefire.
"A complete ceasefire only has meaning if it is not violated through a naval blockade... Reopening the Strait of Hormuz is not possible amid a blatant violation of the ceasefire," speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said on X.
Still, Trump's Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said he "has not set a firm deadline to receive an Iranian proposal" for talks.
"Ultimately, the timeline will be dictated by the commander in chief," she told journalists.
Oil prices remained elevated Thursday, with Brent holding above $100 following a surge to more than $106 in the morning.
Equities fell, though, with Tokyo, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Sydney, Singapore, Taipei, Mumbai, Bangkok and Wellington all down.
But Seoul rose to a new record thanks to a fresh rally in the tech sector that has been the backbone of a surge in the Kospi index this year.
London and Frankfurt fell but Paris edged up.
"Whether it's conflict fatigue or confidence that the conflict between the US and Iran will be resolved soon, there is limited evidence that the rise in the oil price dampened bond and equity markets," said National Australia Bank's Skye Masters.
However, she added that the Washington Post had reported a senior Defence Department warned it could take six months to fully clear the Strait of Hormuz of mines and that such an operation would probably not unlikely start before the end of the war.
"It is questionable whether financial markets are correctly pricing the reality that supply constraints will remain an issue for some time," she wrote.
Raphael Olszyna-Marzys, of Bank J. Safra Sarasin, added: "Financial markets are pricing a high likelihood that traffic through the Strait of Hormuz will soon normalise.
"Our game-theory model suggests that a narrow agreement to reopen the strait is in both parties' best interests. This outcome remains our base case. But it also reveals that a misreading of the other party's intentions could lead to a further ratcheting-up of tensions before we get there."
Investors took some heart from strong earnings reports, with South Korean chip titan SK hynix posting a nearly 400 percent jump in net profit that hit a record for January-March thanks to the artificial intelligence boom.
That came after Tesla announced forecast-topping first-quarter profits and Texas Instruments offered a healthy outlook.
Bloomberg said almost 80 percent of the S&P 500 firms that have reported first-quarter earnings had beaten analyst estimates so far. 

Key figures at 0810 GMT

West Texas Intermediate: UP 0.8 percent at $93.74 a barrel
Brent North Sea Crude: UP 1.0 percent at $102.92 a barrel
Tokyo - Nikkei 225: DOWN 0.8 percent at 59,140.23 (close)
Hong Kong - Hang Seng Index: DOWN 1.0 percent at 25,915.20
Shanghai - Composite: DOWN 0.3 percent at 4,093.25 (close)
London - FTSE 100: DOWN 0.3 percent at 10,442.71 
Euro/dollar: DOWN at $1.1700 from $1.1709 on Wednesday
Pound/dollar: DOWN at $1.3488 from $1.3506
Dollar/yen: DOWN at 159.63 yen from 159.49 yen
Euro/pound: UP at 86.76 pence from 86.70 pence
dan/abs

Eswatini

US says China used 'intimidation' to block Taiwan leader's Africa trip

  • Beijing said on Wednesday it had "high appreciation" for the African countries that blocked the permits for Lai's trip planned for this week.
  • The United States slammed China's "intimidation campaign" on Wednesday after several African countries were reportedly pressured by Beijing to derail an official trip by Taiwan's President Lai Ching-te by revoking overflight permits.
  • Beijing said on Wednesday it had "high appreciation" for the African countries that blocked the permits for Lai's trip planned for this week.
The United States slammed China's "intimidation campaign" on Wednesday after several African countries were reportedly pressured by Beijing to derail an official trip by Taiwan's President Lai Ching-te by revoking overflight permits.
Taiwan announced Tuesday that Lai was postponing his trip to Eswatini -- the island's only diplomatic ally in Africa -- after "Seychelles, Mauritius and Madagascar unexpectedly and without prior notice revoked the charter's overflight permits."
China claims Taiwan is part of its territory and opposes the self-governed island's participation in international organisations and exchanges with other countries.
"We are concerned by reports that several countries revoked overflight clearances to prevent the Taiwan president from visiting Eswatini," a US State Department spokesperson told AFP.
"These countries are acting at the behest of China by interfering in the safety and dignity of routine travel by Taiwan officials," the spokesperson added, without naming the countries.
"This is yet another case of Beijing waging its intimidation campaign against Taiwan and Taiwan's supporters around the world."
Lai's secretary-general Pan Men-an earlier said "the real reason is that the Chinese authorities exerted intense pressure including economic coercion."
China's foreign ministry said on Thursday that Washington's remarks were "baseless accusations."
"The US has irresponsibly criticised China's legitimate actions to safeguard its national sovereignty and territorial integrity," spokesman Guo Jiakun told a news briefing.
"Such conduct constitutes a complete distortion of facts and a confounding of right and wrong," he added.
Washington does not officially recognize Taiwan, but is the island territory's main security backer -- though the tone of that support has softened slightly under US President Donald Trump.
The US leader is due to meet China's President Xi Jinping next month.
Beijing said on Wednesday it had "high appreciation" for the African countries that blocked the permits for Lai's trip planned for this week.
"Relevant countries maintained support for the one-China principle, completely in line with... the basic norms of international relations, China expresses high appreciation," a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said in a statement.
Lai's last official overseas trip was in November 2024, when he visited Taiwan's Pacific allies and transited through the US territory of Guam.
Trump's administration reportedly denied Lai permission to transit through New York last year as part of an official trip to Latin America. Taiwan's foreign ministry denied that he was blocked.
aks/hol/isk/dhw/lga

economy

South Korea e-commerce probe opens rift in US ties

  • The statement followed a letter by Republican lawmakers to the South Korean ambassador in Washington, in which they called for an end to "discriminatory regulatory actions" against US businesses.
  • South Korea pushed back on Thursday against criticism of its business environment by US lawmakers, as a rare spat deepens over Seoul's investigation into online retail company Coupang.
  • The statement followed a letter by Republican lawmakers to the South Korean ambassador in Washington, in which they called for an end to "discriminatory regulatory actions" against US businesses.
South Korea pushed back on Thursday against criticism of its business environment by US lawmakers, as a rare spat deepens over Seoul's investigation into online retail company Coupang.
US-listed Coupang's South Korean arm operates the country's most popular shopping platform.
But it has faced a backlash since a massive data leak last year exposed the details of over 30 million customers.
South Korean authorities are investigating Coupang for potential negligence and regulatory breaches, and statements from Seoul and Washington this week revealed cracks in the relationship between the longtime allies.
On Thursday, South Korea's foreign ministry said the Coupang probe was "being conducted in strict accordance with our domestic laws and due process", adding that it was not discriminating against American firms.
The statement followed a letter by Republican lawmakers to the South Korean ambassador in Washington, in which they called for an end to "discriminatory regulatory actions" against US businesses.
The letter claimed that South Korea "leveraged a low-sensitivity data leak... as a pretext to launch a whole-of-government assault on Coupang".
It accused Seoul of "indiscriminate raids... punishing fines, unprecedented tax audits, and pressure on public pension funds to divest their Coupang holdings".
The evident strain is remarkable given that South Korea and the United States are major economic and defence partners, with Washington stationing 28,500 troops there to help guard against North Korea.
On Wednesday, Seoul said talks with Washington over a security agreement should proceed separately from issues related to Coupang.
The unusual statement came after multiple South Korean media outlets reported that the United States had threatened to halt high-level security talks unless Seoul guaranteed the legal safety of Coupang Chairman Kim Bom, an American citizen also known as Kim Bom-suk.
The reports said that US negotiators had asked South Korea to lift a travel ban on Kim and ensure that he would not face arrest or detention when visiting the country.
The talks carry high stakes for South Korea, as they would touch on its plan to build nuclear-powered submarines as a deterrent against the North.
Coupang declined to confirm Kim's current whereabouts. South Korea has not confirmed that Washington made any such demands regarding Kim or linked them to the security talks.
cdl/mjw/kaf

trade

US firms voice 'concern' over China's new supply chain rules

  • The rules appeared aimed at stopping companies from removing China from their supply chains, AmCham China's president Michael Hart said on Thursday. 
  • China's new supply chain regulations could be a "concern" for US firms, the American Chamber of Commerce in China warned on Thursday.
  • The rules appeared aimed at stopping companies from removing China from their supply chains, AmCham China's president Michael Hart said on Thursday. 
China's new supply chain regulations could be a "concern" for US firms, the American Chamber of Commerce in China warned on Thursday.
The regulations, released on April 7, allow Chinese authorities to take measures against foreign companies or individuals that "harm China's industrial and supply chain security".
The rules appeared aimed at stopping companies from removing China from their supply chains, AmCham China's president Michael Hart said on Thursday. 
Western governments are increasingly concerned about their reliance on Chinese supply chains, particularly in rare earths, which China dominates.
The minerals are critical for a wide range of products from everyday consumer electronics to weapons, and Chinese export curbs during a blistering trade war with the United States last year sent shockwaves across industries.
"There's a little bit of irony as China continues to build up its own supply chain to make sure it's not reliant on others," Hart told a news conference launching his group's annual report on American business in China.
Most US companies are not moving manufacturing out of China, he said, but some were looking to diversify, and if the new rules restrict those moves, it would be a "concern".

'Increased risks'

The European Union Chamber of Commerce in China (EUCCC) criticised the provisions as "unclear and vague" earlier this month, saying their implementation "increases the risk of doing business in or with China".
They "leave open the possibility that several legitimate commercial decisions" could be construed as threatening China's supply chains, it said.
"The threat that individual employees could be punished through exit bans is concerning," the EUCCC added.
Hart said more clarity on the rules' implementation was needed.
China accounts for around 90 percent of global production of rare earths, and the elements are expected to be a key talking point at a summit between US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, scheduled for mid-May.
They could reach agreements on aviation, agriculture and food export restrictions, but major diplomatic or economic deals are unlikely, AmCham China's chairman James Zimmerman said Thursday.
"We are not anticipating any grand bargains. We're not anticipating any huge breakthroughs," he said.
AmCham China's report showed US firms in China had seen some regulatory improvements and steps towards a more open economy in the last 12 months, but still face uneven market access and structural pressures on competition and investment.
They also worried about weak demand and squeezed profitability, with China's economic slowdown seen as their top challenge, ahead of US-China tensions, according to AmCham China's business survey released in January.
sam/dhw/cms

Global Edition

UN leadership hopefuls stress need for peace and restoring confidence

BY AMéLIE BOTTOLLIER-DEPOIS

  • The General Assembly, where every member state has a seat, can only elect the secretary-general upon the recommendation of the Security Council, where the five permanent members -- the United States, China, Russia, Britain and France -- hold veto power.
  • Contenders for next UN secretary-general made their case this week for a United Nations more invested in peace, but avoided taking positions that could antagonize the member states who will choose the world body's next chief.
  • The General Assembly, where every member state has a seat, can only elect the secretary-general upon the recommendation of the Security Council, where the five permanent members -- the United States, China, Russia, Britain and France -- hold veto power.
Contenders for next UN secretary-general made their case this week for a United Nations more invested in peace, but avoided taking positions that could antagonize the member states who will choose the world body's next chief.
Chile's Michelle Bachelet, Argentina's Rafael Grossi, Costa Rica's Rebeca Grynspan and Senegal's Macky Sall are all hoping to succeed Antonio Guterres on January 1, 2027, when his second five-year term ends.
Each candidate spent three hours this week answering wide-ranging questions from the 193 member states and representatives of civil society.
However, "a lot of diplomats are a bit cynical about the hearings," Richard Gowan of the International Crisis Group told AFP.
"There is a widespread suspicion that the US and other vetoes in the Security Council will select a winner in private and minimize the Assembly's role in the process."
The question-and-answer sessions, dubbed "interactive dialogues," were introduced in 2016.
The General Assembly, where every member state has a seat, can only elect the secretary-general upon the recommendation of the Security Council, where the five permanent members -- the United States, China, Russia, Britain and France -- hold veto power.
Much of what the contenders said was "formulaic" but they did send some "important messages," according to Gowan.
He said Grossi emphasized "how fragile the UN is today" and appeared more "radical" than Guterres on reform.
All the candidates stressed the urgent need to restore confidence in a United Nations teetering on the brink of financial collapse. Its relevance has also been called into question in a world facing a level of armed conflict not seen since World War II.
Chile's Bachelet, a former UN human rights chief, said the secretary-general should be "physically present in the field" wherever problems need solving -- a position also taken by Grossi.
Sall, a former president of Senegal, suggested a "reinvented role" so that the UN might "regain its place at the global table."
Some have criticized Guterres for failing to exert influence over conflicts in Ukraine or the Middle East.
Grynspan said the next UN chief "needs to take a risk" and lamented: "We have become a risk-conservative organization."
"The UN only fails when we don't try, we have to try," added Grynspan, who as head of UN Trade and Development negotiated a deal that facilitated the export of Ukrainian grain following the 2022 Russian invasion.

Waiting in the wings

The candidates acknowledged the link between the UN's three pillars of peace, human rights and development, while emphasizing the organization's primary role in upholding the first tenet.
US President Donald Trump has called for the UN to return to its "original mission" of peace.
Very few of the questions focused on specific conflicts, and the candidates largely refrained from answering in concrete terms, preferring instead to invoke a commitment to the UN Charter.
When asked about Gaza, however, Grynspan urged "unrestricted" entry of humanitarian aid and voiced support for a long-term solution for two states to live side-by-side in "peace and security."
Sall highlighted the "human tragedy" of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Candidates' past stances and actions will undoubtedly influence the final selection.
Republican lawmakers have already called on Washington to block Bachelet due to her defense of abortion rights. 
Grossi, the current head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, is involved in sensitive matters such as the response to Iran's nuclear programme.
The five Security Council permanent members remain tight-lipped about their intentions, and other contenders for UN chief might still emerge.
"I think that there are still quite a few candidates circling and waiting to see how things play out" before declaring their candidacy, Gowan said.
abd/msp/aks/hol

migration

UK, France agree three-year deal to stop migrant crossings

BY ESTELLE EMONET

  • "This landmark deal will stop illegal migrants making the perilous journey and put people smugglers behind bars," said Mahmood. - 29 dead at sea - The deal's renewal comes at a crunch time for Starmer, who faces political pressure to curb immigration.
  • Britain and France have agreed a new three-year deal to stop undocumented migrants making the risky journey across the Channel in small boats, the two sides announced.
  • "This landmark deal will stop illegal migrants making the perilous journey and put people smugglers behind bars," said Mahmood. - 29 dead at sea - The deal's renewal comes at a crunch time for Starmer, who faces political pressure to curb immigration.
Britain and France have agreed a new three-year deal to stop undocumented migrants making the risky journey across the Channel in small boats, the two sides announced.
Under the deal, France pledged to increase law enforcement on the coast by more than half to fight irregular migration to Britain -- reaching 1,400 officers by 2029.
Britain will meanwhile provide up to 766 million euros ($897 million) in funding -- though nearly a quarter of that will be conditional.
The cross-Channel neighbours have wrangled for months over renewing the Sandhurst treaty, which sets out the UK's financial contribution to French efforts to stop migrants attempting the perilous sea crossing to Britain.
The UK has accused France of doing too little to prevent would-be asylum seekers from setting off from French shores, with smugglers and migrants taking ever-greater risks to avoid detection.
As a result, London insisted it would only renew the Sandhurst treaty -- first signed in 2018, extended in 2023 and set to expire this year -- if it could impose conditions on how British money is used by the French government.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Annglo-French work had "already stopped tens of thousands of crossings", and that "this historic agreement means we can go further: ramping up intelligence, surveillance and boots on the ground to protect Britain's borders".
According to a French interior ministry document on the accord, if the new measures do not deliver "sufficient results, based on a joint annual assessment, the funding will be redirected to new actions".
Even if the conditional portion is not paid, however, the UK's core contribution of 580 million euros still represents a 40-million-euro hike on what it paid under the last treaty.
French interior minister Laurent Nunez and his UK counterpart Shabana Mahmood are to lay out further details of the plan on Thursday while visiting the site of a proposed accommodation centre for people to be deported from France at Loon-Plage, near Dunkirk.
"This landmark deal will stop illegal migrants making the perilous journey and put people smugglers behind bars," said Mahmood.

29 dead at sea

The deal's renewal comes at a crunch time for Starmer, who faces political pressure to curb immigration.
The centre-left leader is also engulfed in an unrelenting scandal over the appointment of Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the United States despite his friendship with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Many believe Starmer's political survival depends on his Labour party's performance in local electiions in May. Polls indicate that it faces major losses.
Besides the step-up in law enforcement on the beaches, France is looking to deploy drones, helicopters and digital resources to prevent crossings, the roadmap said.
By the terms of the international law of the sea, once a boat has set off from shore, the authorities can only intervene to save people from drowning.
According to official British figures, 41,472 people reached the UK illegally in small boats in 2025, the second-highest figure since large-scale crossings were first detected in 2018.
At least 29 migrants died at sea in the Channel in 2025, according to an AFP tally based on official French and British sources.
France has pointed to the fact that since the beginning of 2026, arrivals to the United Kingdom have halved compared with the same period last year. Around 480 smugglers were also arrested in 2025, according to the French interior ministry.
est/sbk/jhb/tw

US

War in the Middle East: latest developments

  • It said on X "the majority of vessels have complied with US directions" adding that "most vessels turned around have been oil tankers".
  • The latest developments in the Middle East war: - US Central Command turns back 31 vessels - US Central Command (CENTCOM) said late Wednesday that it had also "directed 31 vessels to turn around or return to port" as part of its own "blockade against Iran".
  • It said on X "the majority of vessels have complied with US directions" adding that "most vessels turned around have been oil tankers".
The latest developments in the Middle East war:

US Central Command turns back 31 vessels

US Central Command (CENTCOM) said late Wednesday that it had also "directed 31 vessels to turn around or return to port" as part of its own "blockade against Iran".
It said on X "the majority of vessels have complied with US directions" adding that "most vessels turned around have been oil tankers".

Oil jumps before easing

Oil prices jumped four percent before easing Thursday after Iran vowed not to reopen the Strait of Hormuz so long as a US blockade remained in place.
At around 0025 GMT, the benchmark US oil contract West Texas Intermediate (WTI) climbed 4.06 percent to $96.73 per barrel. International oil benchmark Brent North Sea crude rose 3.62 percent to $105.63. Both eased back in the following minutes.
Asian stocks mostly fell however, with Tokyo, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Sydney, Singapore and Wellington all down.

Israel strikes journalists in Lebanon

Israeli airstrikes in southern Lebanon, where a ceasefire is in place, killed veteran Al-Akhbar newspaper correspondent Amal Khalil and wounded freelance journalist Zeinab Faraj Wednesday.
A Lebanese Red Cross official told AFP Faraj was rescued but Khalil died under rubble.
Lebanon's Information Minister Paul Morcos called the targeting of journalists "a grave crime and a blatant violation of international humanitarian law".

Israeli minister says no 'serious disagreements'

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said Wednesday that Israel does not have any "serious disagreements" with Lebanon, calling Hezbollah "the obstacle to peace and normalisation".
A Hezbollah lawmaker, however, had told AFP that the group might accept indirect talks mediated by the United States.
Despite a truce, Israel is continuing strikes in Lebanon, and Israeli attacks on Lebanon have killed at least 2,454 people since the start of the war, according to Lebanese authorities.

Israel hits Gaza, killing five

Three children were among the five Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes targeting a group of civilians near Al-Qassam mosque in Beit Lahia, in the north, Gaza's civil defense agency said Wednesday.
At least 786 Palestinians have been killed since the October 10 ceasefire with Israel, according to Gaza's health ministry, which is under Hamas authority and whose figures are considered reliable by the United Nations.

Second French soldier dies

French President Emmanuel Macron said that a second French soldier died from wounds suffered in a weekend ambush on UN peacekeepers in Lebanon blamed on Hezbollah, which has denied responsibility.

No deadline for peace plan

US President Donald Trump has not set a deadline by which Iran must submit a peace proposal, the White House said on Wednesday.
"The president has not set a firm deadline to receive an Iranian proposal, unlike some of the reporting I've seen today. Ultimately, the timeline will be dictated by the commander in chief," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told journalists.
Trump also does not consider Iran's seizure of two container ships to be a ceasefire violation because the vessels are not American or Israeli, the White House said.

Reopening Hormuz 'not possible'

Iran's parliament speaker said the country would not reopen the Strait of Hormuz as long as the US naval blockade remained in place, calling it a "blatant violation" of the two countries' ceasefire.
"A complete ceasefire only has meaning if it is not violated through a naval blockade...Reopening the Strait of Hormuz is not possible amid a blatant violation of the ceasefire," speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said on X.

Trump says Iran halted executions

Trump said Iran had halted alleged plans to execute eight women arrested over anti-government protests, after he urged Tehran to release them to help peace negotiations.
Iran's judiciary called the claim "false news", saying the women had never faced the death penalty.
burs-ane/tw

diplomacy

Fresh paint, careful choreography as pope visits African prison

BY CLéMENT MELKI

  • Pope Leo was on the 10th day of his African tour, following a hectic schedule that began on Wednesday with a mass in Mongomo, near the border with Gabon.
  • The walls around Equatorial Guinea's notorious Bata prison were freshly painted salmon-pink for Pope Leo XIV's visit Wednesday, but inside there was no masking the acrid smell of sweat and urine.
  • Pope Leo was on the 10th day of his African tour, following a hectic schedule that began on Wednesday with a mass in Mongomo, near the border with Gabon.
The walls around Equatorial Guinea's notorious Bata prison were freshly painted salmon-pink for Pope Leo XIV's visit Wednesday, but inside there was no masking the acrid smell of sweat and urine.
Shouting "freedom" in the pouring tropical rain, hundreds of inmates jumped in unison in the courtyard of the prison as they greeted the leader of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics.
Dressed in bright orange or khaki-green uniforms, around 600 inmates lined up. The men, and around 30 women, all had their heads shaved. Some wore masks over their faces and plastic sandals on their feet.
In the Spanish-speaking country of close to two million, ruled with an iron fist since 1979 by Teodoro Obiang Nguema -- who has regularly been accused of rights abuses -- the US-born pontiff's visit offered officials a rare opportunity to burnish the image of a widely criticised prison system.
The carefully crafted red carpet reception for the papal visit was in sharp contrast to criticism of detention conditions.
In a 2023 report, the US State Department documented cases of torture, extreme overcrowding and deplorable sanitary conditions in Equatorial Guinea's prisons.
At the entrance, facing a tower encircled by a metal walkway where two guards stood watch, Justice Minister Reginaldo Biyogo Mba spoke to journalists, praising conditions at the facility.
Interviews with prisoners were forbidden.

'You are not alone'

As Pope Leo arrived, rhythmic music blared from loudspeakers with inmates breaking into song and dance under the stern gaze of prison officers.
Without warning, a deluge began.
"Rain is a sign of God's blessing," the pope declared in Spanish, prompting raucous cheers and applause.
"The administration of justice aims to protect society," the US-born pontiff, 70, told detainees.
"To be effective, however, it must always promote the dignity of every person."
Leo's comments, although delivered diplomatically, represented an open critique unheard of in a country accused of stifling freedom of expression.
Pope Leo was on the 10th day of his African tour, following a hectic schedule that began on Wednesday with a mass in Mongomo, near the border with Gabon.
During the service, with President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo in the congregation, the Catholic leader called for "greater room for freedom" and human dignity to be safeguarded.
Official figures on the prison population in Equatorial Guinea are scarce and often out of date. 
"Hundreds of prisoners end up locked away for years on end, with no way of receiving visits from their lawyers and families," Amnesty International said in a 2021 report on their website.
"Their relatives do not know whether they are alive or dead." 
cmk/lnf/liu/ane/fox

US

Iran says won't reopen Hormuz as long as US blockade remains

BY AFP TEAMS IN TEHRAN, WASHINGTON AND ISLAMABAD

  • Oil prices jumped four percent before easing Thursday after Iran vowed not to reopen the Strait of Hormuz so long as a US blockade remained in place.
  • Iran's vow not to reopen the Strait of Hormuz -- so long as a US naval blockade remained in place -- was held into Thursday despite a ceasefire extension, as the Gulf nation announced the seizure of two ships trying to cross the strategic waterway.
  • Oil prices jumped four percent before easing Thursday after Iran vowed not to reopen the Strait of Hormuz so long as a US blockade remained in place.
Iran's vow not to reopen the Strait of Hormuz -- so long as a US naval blockade remained in place -- was held into Thursday despite a ceasefire extension, as the Gulf nation announced the seizure of two ships trying to cross the strategic waterway.
US Central Command (CENTCOM) said late Wednesday that it had also "directed 31 vessels to turn around or return to port" as part of its own "blockade against Iran".
As the clock ticked for a return to the war that has engulfed the region, US President Donald Trump had said Tuesday he would maintain the truce to allow more time for Pakistani-brokered peace talks.
Iran said it welcomed the efforts by Pakistan but made no other comment on Trump's announcement.
"A complete ceasefire only has meaning if it is not violated through a naval blockade," said Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who led Tehran's delegation in the first round of talks in Islamabad.
"Reopening the Strait of Hormuz is not possible amid a blatant violation of the ceasefire."
Oil prices jumped four percent before easing Thursday after Iran vowed not to reopen the Strait of Hormuz so long as a US blockade remained in place.
At around 0025 GMT, the benchmark US oil contract West Texas Intermediate (WTI) climbed 4.06 percent to $96.73 per barrel. International oil benchmark Brent North Sea crude rose 3.62 percent to $105.63. Both eased back in the following minutes.
Trump had said he wanted to give time for Iran's "fractured" leadership to come up with a proposal, in what many observers saw as a face-saving way to avoid renewed war.
Trump told the New York Post that talks could resume in Pakistan within two to three days, even though Iran has not confirmed participation and Vice President JD Vance put his travel to Islamabad on hold Tuesday.
Trump also claimed that Iran at his request had halted alleged plans to execute eight women arrested over massive anti-government protests in the weeks before the attack.
But Iran's judiciary described his remarks as "false news", saying the women had never faced the death penalty.

Ships seized

Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards said they forced two ships to the Iranian shore from the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow gateway for about one-fifth of the world's oil.
"The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps naval force this morning identified and stopped in the Strait of Hormuz two violating ships," the Guards said in a statement.
They identified the vessels as the Panama-flagged container ship MSC Francesca and the Liberia-flagged Epaminondas. 
Panama's foreign ministry confirmed the seizure of the MSC Francesca, calling it a "serious attack on maritime security" and an "unnecessary escalation".
UK-based maritime security monitors confirmed that three commercial vessels had reported incidents involving gunboats in the strait.
Among them, a container ship reported being fired upon by a Revolutionary Guards boat 15 nautical miles northeast of Oman, causing damage to the bridge but no casualties, monitor UKMTO said.
Under orders from Trump, the US Navy is attempting to block vessels heading to or from Iranian ports, seeking to ramp up pressure on the Iranian economy even without all-out war.
In the midst of the blockade, the Pentagon announced Wednesday that the Secretary of the Navy John Phelan would leave "immediately".
It gave no reason for his sudden departure, the latest removal of a senior officer under Trump's combative Pentagon chief, Pete Hegseth.
Iran in retaliation for being attacked has said that vessels must seek permission to leave or enter the Gulf through the strait. It had earlier promised free passage during the ceasefire but returned to defiance after Trump announced the blockade.
The US Defense Department said Tuesday that US forces had intercepted and boarded a "stateless sanctioned" vessel. AFP has identified the ship as one linked to Iranian activity. Both sides accuse the other of ceasefire breaches.

More Lebanon violence before talks

After the ceasefire with Iran, the United States helped broker a truce between Israel and Lebanon including Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Shia Muslim movement that had fired rockets into Israel in revenge for the attacks on its patron.
Despite the declared truce, Israeli strikes killed five more people on Wednesday, Lebanese media said.
Amal Khalil, a journalist for the newspaper Al-Akhbar, was killed and her fellow reporter Zeinab Faraj wounded in an Israeli strike near the border, the paper said.
French President Emmanuel Macron announced that a second French soldier, who had been wounded in a weekend ambush against UN peacekeepers in Lebanon blamed on Hezbollah, had died.
A first soldier was shot dead in the Saturday ambush, for which Hezbollah has denied responsibility.
Israel and Lebanon, which have no diplomatic relations, will hold a second round of talks in Washington on Thursday.
Lebanon will request a one-month extension of the ceasefire during the meeting, a Lebanese official told AFP.
Lebanon will also seek "an end of Israel's bombing and destruction in the areas where it is present and a commitment to the ceasefire", the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity given the sensitive nature of the talks.
Israeli attacks on Lebanon have killed more than 2,450 people since the start of the war, according to Lebanese authorities.
bur-sct/jgc/ane/lga

defense

Top Peru ministers quit in protest over stalled US fighter jet deal

BY LUIS JAIME CISNEROS

  • Defense Minister Carlos Diaz said the purchase of jets was not political but "for the security and defense of the nation."
  • Peru's foreign and defense ministers resigned on Wednesday in protest over the interim president's decision to stall a $3.5 billion deal for the purchase of 24 US F-16 fighter jets.
  • Defense Minister Carlos Diaz said the purchase of jets was not political but "for the security and defense of the nation."
Peru's foreign and defense ministers resigned on Wednesday in protest over the interim president's decision to stall a $3.5 billion deal for the purchase of 24 US F-16 fighter jets.
The ministers said the deal had already been signed and that to cast doubt on it now jeopardized Peru's reputation as a trading partner.
Despite the president's declared wish to suspend the purchase, the Ministry of Economy announced late Wednesday that it had transferred $462 million as part of an initial payment for the contract with aircraft manufacturer, Lockheed Martin.
The confusion over the purchase and the abrupt resignations deepened instability gripping the South American country, after a recent election to choose the country's ninth president in a decade descended into chaos.
No candidate emerged with an outright majority, meaning a runoff election will be held June 7.
Interim president Jose Maria Balcazar said Tuesday he would leave it up to the victor to finalize the jets deal.
The US ambassador to Peru, businessman Bernardo Navarro, on Friday issued a warning widely believed to relate to the agreement.
"If you deal with the US in bad faith and undermine US interests, rest assured, I, on behalf of @POTUS Trump and his administration, will use every available tool to protect and promote the prosperity and security of the United States and our region," Navarro wrote on X.
He later told Exitosa radio station that the deal is for two squadrons of 12 F-16 fighter jets, with the first 12 to start arriving in 2029.

'Not seeking confrontation'

On Wednesday, Balcazar went on state TV to assure Peruvians that he was "not seeking confrontation with the United States."
He said he halted the defence deal to ensure that public funds were "used appropriately, reasonably, in accordance with the significant social gaps we have to address in the country."
Foreign Minister Hugo de Zela said the decision "endangers our country and undermines its credibility."
He claimed the contracts for the F-16s were signed on Monday, after being approved by the National Defense Council, and that an initial payment was due on Wednesday.
Defense Minister Carlos Diaz said the purchase of jets was not political but "for the security and defense of the nation."
Balcazar, who replaced a previous interim leader who was impeached, denied on Tuesday that the sale of the jets had already gone through.
His term ends on July 28.

US warning

Congress President Fernando Rospigliosi urged Balcazar to honor the deal with the United States to avoid a "political, legal and geopolitical problem."
Ultraconservative congressman Jorge Montoya suggested making Balcazar the fifth president in 10 years to be impeached.
In October 2024, Peru announced that it would renew its aging air defense fleet with the purchase of state-of-the-art fighter jets.
A state evaluation committee last year chose the F-16s over rival bids from France's Rafale and Sweden's Gripens, citing technical and geopolitical criteria.
Peru currently has 12 Mirage 2000 aircraft, according to defense publications.
Its combat fleet also includes Russian MiG-29s and Belarusian Sukhoi Su-27s, most of which are inoperative or in reserve.
The deal with the United States has become swept up in a presidential election marred by logistical problems, unsubstantiated fraud allegations and delays to the ballot count.
Ten days after Peruvians voted in the first round, it is still not known who will face off against conservative frontrunner Keiko Fujimori in June's second round.
Ultraconservative former Lima mayor Rafael Lopez Aliaga is locked a tight race with leftist ex-minister Roberto Sanchez for the second runoff spot.
Lopez Aliaga has alleged election fraud and called for the vote to be annulled.
The final results have been delayed by legal challenges.
The election was dominated by calls for a security crackdown to end an extortion epidemic and related wave of contract killings.
sf/cb/des/msp/sla

Global Edition

Climate scrubbed from G7 meeting to appease US, host France says

  • President Donald Trump's administration has withdrawn the United States from global agreements on climate change and weakened environmental protections since he returned to office in 2025.
  • A meeting of G7 nations on the environment begins in Paris on Thursday but climate change has been left off the agenda to avoid a row with the United States.
  • President Donald Trump's administration has withdrawn the United States from global agreements on climate change and weakened environmental protections since he returned to office in 2025.
A meeting of G7 nations on the environment begins in Paris on Thursday but climate change has been left off the agenda to avoid a row with the United States.
The office of France's ecology minister Monique Barbut said the two-day meeting would focus on "less contentious issues" in an effort to appease the largest and most powerful G7 member. 
"We chose not to address the climate issue head-on... because the United States' positions on this subject are well known," the ministry said.
"We wanted to prioritise G7 unity, particularly to protect this forum."
President Donald Trump's administration has withdrawn the United States from global agreements on climate change and weakened environmental protections since he returned to office in 2025.
France, Italy, Canada, Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom are sending their environment ministers to the meeting of the Group of Seven industrialised economies.
Washington will be represented by Usha-Maria Turner, assistant administrator for the Office of International and Tribal Affairs at the US Environmental Protection Agency.
Barbut's office said attendees would discuss themes including ocean conservation, biodiversity funding, and the transformation of dry areas into desert.
Activists were critical of the decision to leave climate off the agenda.
Gaia Febvre from activist group Climate Action Network said "a G7 moving at the pace of the United States cannot claim to respond to the crises of the century".
"By yielding to pressure, it weakens collective action and renounces its potential leading role," she told AFP.
It takes place just days before more than 50 countries meet in Colombia for the first-ever global conference dedicated to phasing out fossil fuels, the main driver of climate change.
- Forests and funding - 
France is spearheading an initiative to raise public and private finance for the protection of biodiversity and hopes to win the backing of other G7 nations.
Barbut's ministry hopes to announce $800 million in funding for national parks in around 20 African countries, according to sources close to the matter.
Jean Burkard, advocacy director at WWF France, welcomed this inclusion on the G7 agenda but said any funding "must be additional and not compensate" for cuts elsewhere to state budgets for nature. 
The G7 meeting also hopes to reach a political declaration on desertification and security, while sessions on oceans will look to strengthen an alliance on marine protected areas. 
Other sessions are planned, including on water pollution, while a visit to Fontainebleau woodland south of Paris is also scheduled Thursday as part of a session dedicated to forests.
jmi/np/pdw/ane

racism

Trump, his 'low IQ' slur, and the right's race obsession

BY MICHAEL MATHES, WITH RAPHAELLE PELTIER IN NEW YORK

  • Trump attacked Jackson -- a double Harvard graduate and the first Black woman on the Supreme Court -- on Wednesday as "that new, Low IQ person, that somehow found her way to the bench."
  • When President Donald Trump this week attacked Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and top House Democrat Hakeem Jeffries, two of America's most prominent Black figures, he chose a particularly pejorative insult: "low IQ person."
  • Trump attacked Jackson -- a double Harvard graduate and the first Black woman on the Supreme Court -- on Wednesday as "that new, Low IQ person, that somehow found her way to the bench."
When President Donald Trump this week attacked Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and top House Democrat Hakeem Jeffries, two of America's most prominent Black figures, he chose a particularly pejorative insult: "low IQ person."
Trump insults people all the time -- online, in speeches, in official statements and directly to the faces of some reporters.
But the "low IQ" jab, with distinct racial overtones in the United States, is especially jarring.
Trump attacked Jackson -- a double Harvard graduate and the first Black woman on the Supreme Court -- on Wednesday as "that new, Low IQ person, that somehow found her way to the bench."
He has similarly assailed ethnic minority Democratic lawmakers, including Jasmine Crockett, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Al Green, Rashida Tlaib and Maxine Waters.
While personally targeting Ilhan Omar -- a Minnesota representative born in Somalia -- the president has also broadly branded immigrants from the Horn of Africa nation as "low IQ people."
He has used the expression against perceived enemies who are white, such as former lawmaker Marjorie Taylor Greene, once a staunch ally, as well as commentators Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly, who have criticized his war against Iran.
But he has applied it more frequently against people of color -- particularly Black women -- including 2024 election rival Kamala Harris, whom he called "a moron," "stupid" and "a very low IQ individual."
The slur is especially offensive for the Black community, experts said, given how white supremacists have historically pushed claims that they have less brain capacity and are therefore more suited for manual labor.
"Trump's characterization of people of color as 'low IQ' is a racist dog whistle with a long history in the US," Karrin Vasby Anderson, a professor of communication studies at Colorado State University, told AFP.
During the periods of colonialism and 19th century slavery, "white male elites took for granted that they were cognitively superior to women and people of color and, thus, divinely appointed for leadership."
Trump's recent repeated use of the expression dovetails with the American far-right's apparent obsession with genetics and phrenology, a pseudoscience of cranium size and shape as a supposed marker of intelligence.
"An interest in phrenology has resurged during Trump's second term," Anderson said. 

'Deniability'

Such so-called "race science" -- the discredited theory that IQ is influenced by racial traits -- has long simmered in far-right chatrooms, but is now entering more mainstream outlets with audiences numbering in the millions.
Speaking with a Republican lawmaker on "The Benny Show" podcast this month about how some "third world" immigrants are incompatible with American culture, rightwing host Benny Johnson appeared to suggest lack of mental capacity as a reason for suppressing migrant inflows.
"The average IQ in Somalia hovers around 70, and that's the threshold for mentally handicapped," said Johnson, who has six million subscribers on YouTube.
Robert Sternberg, a professor of psychology at Cornell University, told AFP that IQ tests get "glorified" but are only "moderately" useful in predicting real world outcomes. 
Regardless, the tests help give a scientific veneer to otherwise amateur or even racist discussion.
While far-right commentators including white nationalist Nick Fuentes -- who has dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago -- openly promote more extremist views, the president has largely avoided direct racist language.
The rhetorical advantage of using coded phrases like "low IQ" gives both speaker and listener "deniability," Anderson said.
"So, Trump and his audience can say that there's nothing racist about 'low IQ' because that label could be applied to anyone," she added. 
"When Trump uses it primarily against Black people, however, and when it's connected to this very specific history of how Black people have been framed in US culture since the 19th century, the white supremacists and casual racists in Trump's audience will respond favorably."
Meanwhile Jeffries, whom Trump branded a "totally low IQ person" on Monday, shot back:
"What's so ironic is that Donald Trump is clearly the dumbest person ever to sit at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue," he told MS NOW.
pel-mlm/des

migrants

Migrants deported from US stranded, 'scared' in DR Congo

  • She only found out where they were headed the day before being expelled from the United States.
  • Spending the past five days cooped up in a hotel in the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo is not quite what a group of Latin Americans expected when they sought asylum in the United States.
  • She only found out where they were headed the day before being expelled from the United States.
Spending the past five days cooped up in a hotel in the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo is not quite what a group of Latin Americans expected when they sought asylum in the United States.
But their predicament is far from the worst of it: the men and women told AFP on Wednesday that they arrived in Kinshasa after a 27-hour flight which they spent with their hands and feet shackled.
Gabriela, a 30-year-old Colombian sporting tattoos and clad like most of her fellow sufferers in a white T-shirt, summed up their plight.
"I didn't want to go to Congo. I'm scared, I don't know the language," she said.
She only found out where they were headed the day before being expelled from the United States.
The DRC -- one of a number of African nations that have agreed to take in deported migrants -- is one of the world's 15 poorest countries, thousands of kilometres from the Americas.
The first batch of deportees arrived last Friday in the central African country under a controversial US migration scheme to pack off undocumented foreign nationals to third countries.
Others include Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Eswatini, Ghana, Rwanda and South Sudan.
The scheme has often been accompanied by US financial or logistical support.
Yet scant information is provided by the authorities in the host countries about the migrants' fate once they arrive on their soil.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM), which takes charge of them once they have obtained short-stay visas, told AFP it can offer "assisted voluntary return to migrants who request it".

Waiting

Since their arrival in Kinshasa, a megacity of more than 17 million people, the 15 South American migrants have been whiling away their time in a complex near the airport.
Rows of neat, white-walled little houses stand side by side. The migrants sleep there and say they are forbidden to leave the premises.
Police and army vehicles are parked outside and on occasion personnel can be seen from a private military firm which AFP was unable to identify.
Cast adrift by US President Donald Trump's immigration policy, the migrants spend their days on their mobile phones, trying to contact their families.
None speaks French, the DRC's official language.
They claim to have received around $100 in aid from IOM officials but are not allowed any visitors.
"Several of our friends have taken ill -- as have I," said Gabriela.
"We've had fevers, vomiting and stomach problems. But we're told that's normal and that we must adapt."
Some have been given medication, but Gabriela said no healthcare worker has come to examine them.
Four residents of the hotel said they had been issued with a seven-day visa, extendable for three months.
But once the seven days are up, they said they are threatened with no further support, as well as with being left to fend for themselves.
"They've got us cornered because they tell us: if you don’t accept the repatriation programme, you'll be stuck in a mess here in Congo," said Gabriela, visibly upset.
"That is inhumane and unfair."

Afraid

The noisy chaos of the overcrowded Congolese capital reverberates behind the walls of the hotel.
A constant stream of minibuses and cars honk their horns on a potholed road that is surrounded by dilapidated buildings.
Most Kinshasa residents have no reliable access either to running water or electricity.
Nearly three-quarters of Congolese people live below the poverty line, according to the World Bank.
The arrival of South American migrants has sparked strong reactions among civil society and on Congolese social media.
"I get three meals a day, the hotel staff cleans the rooms, and we're well protected," said Hugo Palencia Ropero, a 25-year-old Colombian who said he spent five months in US detention before being deported to the DRC.
But he added: "I'm more afraid of being here in Africa than in Colombia.
"If the seven days go by and we don't receive any further assistance, things will get very difficult for us, especially since we don't have work permits."
He said he was willing to accept "any travel document" just to "be able to leave this country".
clt/cld/cw/phz/jhb

diplomacy

Pope in Equatorial Guinea criticises prison conditions

BY CLEMENT MELKI WITH GUILLAUME GERARD IN LIBREVILLE

  • In a 2023 report, the US State Department documented cases of torture, extreme overcrowding and deplorable sanitary conditions in Equatorial Guinea's prisons.
  • Pope Leo XIV on Wednesday made a tightly controlled visit to a notorious prison in Equatorial Guinea's biggest city, after launching a rare criticism of living conditions for inmates.
  • In a 2023 report, the US State Department documented cases of torture, extreme overcrowding and deplorable sanitary conditions in Equatorial Guinea's prisons.
Pope Leo XIV on Wednesday made a tightly controlled visit to a notorious prison in Equatorial Guinea's biggest city, after launching a rare criticism of living conditions for inmates.
Prisoners lined up in the freshly repainted courtyard of Bata prison, breaking into song and dance in the driving rain as they greeted the leader of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics.
"The administration of justice aims to protect society," the US-born pontiff, 70, told the 600 detainees, which included about 30 women.
"To be effective, however, it must always promote the dignity of every person."
Dressed in bright orange or khaki-green uniforms, the inmates -- most of them young men -- all had shaved heads and wore plastic sandals on their feet. Some wore facemasks.
The red carpet, stage, Vatican flags and the speakers blaring festive music reflected the authorities' efforts to give the best possible image of the prison, despite longstanding harsh criticism of conditions inside.
The heavens opened just seconds after the pope's arrival, drenching the prisoners and the courtyard. At the end of the meeting, sodden inmates chanted "libertad" (freedom).
In a 2023 report, the US State Department documented cases of torture, extreme overcrowding and deplorable sanitary conditions in Equatorial Guinea's prisons.
Leo's comments, although delivered diplomatically, represent an open critique usually unheard of in a country accused of stifling freedom of expression.
- Justice - 
Pope Leo was on the 10th day of his African tour, following a hectic schedule that began on Wednesday with a mass in Mongomo, near the border with Gabon.
During the service, with President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo in the congregation, the Catholic leader called for "greater room for freedom" and human dignity to be safeguarded.
Obiang, who has been in power of oil-rich Equatorial Guinea since 1979 and at 83 is the world's longest-serving head of state who is not a monarch, has regularly been accused of rights abuses.
"My thoughts go to the poorest, to families experiencing difficulty and to prisoners who are often forced to live in troubling hygienic and sanitary conditions," he said.
Amnesty International in 2021 called detainees "forgotten people", who are often jailed in notorious prisons such as Bata after flawed trials.
"Since they enter the prison walls, they have neither been seen nor heard from, and their relatives do not know whether they are alive or dead," the global rights monitor said.
But one local teacher, who gave his name as Mr Ondo, questioned whether the pope's intervention would change how justice is administered, denouncing a "lack of independence" in the system and corrupt judges and magistrates.
Leo was due to pay tribute to the victims of a tragedy that killed more than 100 people in 2021 and meet families and young people at Bata stadium.
- Balloons - 
Pope Leo was welcomed at the Mongomo basilica in a supercharged atmosphere, with fireworks and a release of balloons celebrating his arrival, plus a tour through cheering crowds in the popemobile.
He has to strike a delicate balance in Equatorial Guinea, supporting the faithful without backing the government of Obiang. 
The pope arrived on Tuesday after stops in Algeria, Cameroon and Angola.
In a speech, he urged the country to place itself "in the service of law and justice" -- pointed remarks in an authoritarian country that is one of the most closed-off in Africa.
But his tone was more measured than on his previous stops, when he lambasted the "tyrants" ransacking the world, condemned "exploitation" by the rich and powerful, and clashed with Donald Trump after the US president took issue with his call for an end to the Middle East war.
Eighty percent of the small coastal country's two million people are Catholics, a legacy of Spanish colonisation.
Fossil fuel production accounts for 46 percent of Equatorial Guinea's economy and more than 90 percent of exports, according to African Development Bank figures.
But according to Human Rights Watch, "vast oil revenues fund lavish lifestyles for the small elite surrounding the president, while a large proportion of the population continues to live in poverty".
The pope will wrap up his 11-day, 18,000-kilometre (11,200-mile) Africa trip on Thursday with an open-air mass in the capital, Malabo, then return to Rome.
cmk-gge/phz/sbk

election

Trump alleges Democratic-backed Virginia referendum was 'rigged'

  • - Election fraud claims - Democrats argued that the Virginia map was a necessary counterweight to Trump's pressure campaign, while Republicans denounced it as a power grab in a state where Trump took 46 percent of the vote in 2024.
  • US President Donald Trump on Wednesday alleged a vote in which Virginia backed a new electoral map that could favor Democrats was "rigged" -- echoing his false claims over the 2020 election.
  • - Election fraud claims - Democrats argued that the Virginia map was a necessary counterweight to Trump's pressure campaign, while Republicans denounced it as a power grab in a state where Trump took 46 percent of the vote in 2024.
US President Donald Trump on Wednesday alleged a vote in which Virginia backed a new electoral map that could favor Democrats was "rigged" -- echoing his false claims over the 2020 election.
"A RIGGED ELECTION TOOK PLACE LAST NIGHT," Trump said on social media. "All day long Republicans were winning, the Spirit was unbelievable, until the very end when, of course, there was a massive 'Mail In Ballot Drop!'"
The state voted in a referendum Tuesday to allow the redrawing of the congressional map, giving Democrats a strong advantage in 10 of the state's 11 House districts, up from their previous 6-5 edge.
The temporary map is the latest instance of "gerrymandering," the long-established but widely criticized US practice of drawing electoral boundaries to benefit one party.
Gerrymandering has become a defining element in November's midterm elections, in which all US House Representatives and one-third of Senators are on the ballot.
Redistricting usually follows the US national census every 10 years, but Trump last year urged Republican-led states to redraw maps mid-decade to protect the party's fragile House of Representatives majority.
Texas moved first, adopting a map that could add up to five Republican seats. California answered with a ballot measure designed to give Democrats five more of their own.

Election fraud claims

Democrats argued that the Virginia map was a necessary counterweight to Trump's pressure campaign, while Republicans denounced it as a power grab in a state where Trump took 46 percent of the vote in 2024.
"Six to five goes to ten to one, and yet the Presidential Election in November was very close to a 50-50 split," Trump said on Wednesday.
The 79-year-old Republican also criticized the Virginia election as confusing, writing: "In addition to everything else, the language on the Referendum was purposefully unintelligible and deceptive."
In his Truth Social post, Trump expressed hope that the courts would weigh in and block the Virginia redistricting. "Let's see if the Courts will fix this travesty of 'Justice,'" he said.
Republicans have mounted multiple legal challenges to the redistricting, some of which are still being litigated and may eventually be decided by the Virginia Supreme Court, which ruled previously that the referendum could go ahead. 
Trump heavily pushed the Texas redistricting effort, which was jammed through by the state legislature without a referendum.
A vocal critic of mail-in voting as a supposed cause of election fraud -- despite using it himself -- Trump for years has propagated the falsehood to justify his attempt to overturn his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden.
No evidence has been produced by any credible authority that the 2020 vote or any other was impacted by cheating.
Trump has been pushing Republicans to pass a sweeping overhaul of voting rules before November's midterm elections called the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act.
The bill, which has already passed the House, faces steep obstacles in the Senate, where Republicans lack the votes to overcome Democratic opposition.
rle/jgc/cl/mjf

US

Israeli strikes kill 5 in Lebanon, Beirut to seek truce extension

  • Lebanese rescuers said an Israeli strike killed journalist Amal Khalil on Wednesday.
  • Israeli strikes killed five people, including a journalist, and wounded another in Lebanon on Wednesday, despite an ongoing ceasefire that Beirut will request an extension for in upcoming talks with Israel in Washington.
  • Lebanese rescuers said an Israeli strike killed journalist Amal Khalil on Wednesday.
Israeli strikes killed five people, including a journalist, and wounded another in Lebanon on Wednesday, despite an ongoing ceasefire that Beirut will request an extension for in upcoming talks with Israel in Washington.
Ahead of the talks on Thursday, Israel called on the Lebanese government to "work together" with it against Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.
The two governments, which do not have diplomatic relations with each other, are set to hold a second round of talks under US auspices on Thursday, in a bid to end more than six weeks of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah that began on March 2.
Lebanon will request a one-month extension of the ceasefire during the meeting with Israel, a Lebanese official told AFP.
"Lebanon will request an extension of the truce for one month, an end of Israel's bombing and destruction in the areas where it is present, and a commitment to the ceasefire," the Lebanese official told AFP, on condition of anonymity given the sensitive nature of the talks.
The 10-day ceasefire, which expires Sunday, was announced after an initial meeting last week.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, for his part, said that "contacts are underway to extend the ceasefire period".
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said Israel does not have any "serious disagreements" with Lebanon.
"Unfortunately, Lebanon is a failed state, a state that is de facto under Iranian occupation through Hezbollah," he said.
Hezbollah, which is represented in the Lebanese cabinet and parliament, strongly opposes the direct talks with Israel pushed by Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam.
A Hezbollah lawmaker, however, told AFP on Monday that the group might accept indirect talks mediated by the United States.
"The obstacle to peace and normalisation between the (two) countries is one -- Hezbollah," said Saar.

'Serious disagreements'

Israeli attacks on Lebanon have killed at least 2,454 people since the start of the war, according to Lebanese authorities.
On Wednesday, the state's scientific research council estimated that more than 50,000 housing units had been damaged or destroyed by the war.
Israeli forces remain in dozens of southern villages, behind what the army has called a "Yellow Line", described by the Israelis as a 10-kilometre (six-mile) deep "security zone" along the border in southern Lebanon.
Despite the truce, Israel is continuing its strikes in Lebanon.
Lebanese rescuers said an Israeli strike killed journalist Amal Khalil on Wednesday.
Before rescuers had found her body, Lebanon's state media said Israeli strikes had killed four people in the south and east of the country.
Khalil's employer, Lebanese daily newspaper Al-Akhbar, also announced her death and said fellow journalist Zeinab Faraj was wounded.
The health ministry said Faraj was transported to hospital.
Lebanon's Information Minister Paul Morcos said on X that Khalil "was targeted by the Israeli army while carrying out her professional duty".
The Israeli army said in a statement it had "identified two vehicles in southern Lebanon that had departed from a military structure used by Hezbollah".
"After identifying the individuals as violating the ceasefire understandings and posing an imminent threat, the Israeli Air Force struck one of the vehicles. Subsequently, the structure from which the individuals had fled was also struck."
Hezbollah issued four statements on Wednesday saying it had struck Israeli targets in south Lebanon, "in response to the Israeli enemy's violation of the ceasefire".
French President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday that a second French soldier died "of the consequences of his wounds" suffered in a weekend ambush against UN peacekeepers in Lebanon blamed on Hezbollah, which has denied responsibility.
at-ris/amj/jhb