Politics

  MUNICH / AP Iran’s foreign minister brushed aside new pressure from the United States on Sunday, declaring that his country is “unmoved by threats” but responds well to respect. President Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized the 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran, the US and five other world powers, under which Tehran agreed to curb its uranium enrichment in exchange ...

  KUALA LUMPUR / AP Investigators are looking for four North Korean men who flew out of Malaysia the same day Kim Jong Nam, the North Korean ruler’s outcast half brother, apparently was poisoned at an airport in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian police said on Sunday. Since Kim’s death last week, authorities have been trying to piece together details of what ...

  BANJUL / AP As Gambia enters a new era of democracy, President Adama Barrow has reiterated his commitment to ending human rights abuses in the country. “Orders have already been given for all those detained without trial to be released,” he said on Saturday before thousands of Gambians who gathered at Independence Stadium Saturday to witness his official inauguration ...

WASHINGTON / AP The apparent assassination of the North Korean leader’s estranged half-brother is strengthening bipartisan calls for the US to re-list North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism, a designation lifted nine years ago. Doing so would increase the country’s isolation, while potentially complicating any future diplomacy to halt its nuclear and missile programs. The US kept North ...

  BANJUL / AP Gambia’s new president was set to be inaugurated on Saturday as this tiny West African nation celebrates wider freedoms after a tense political standoff with its former leader. Several heads of state were scheduled to attend the ceremony for President Adama Barrow. He was sworn into office last month at Gambia’s embassy in neighboring Senegal as ...

  MINSK / AP In more than two decades in power, the leader of Belarus has cast his nation as Moscow’s closest ally, securing tens of billions of dollars in Russian subsidies. At the same time, President Alexander Lukashenko has skillfully exploited Russia’s security fears by occasionally reaching out to the West to win concessions from Moscow. Now, the Kremlin ...

  ISLAMABAD / AP Pakistani authorities shut down a second key border crossing into Afghanistan, halting trade supplies to the neighboring landlocked country and increasing tension between the two nations in the wake of a bloody suicide bombing at a beloved shrine in Pakistan, officials said on Saturday. The border closure at Chaman in Pakistan’s southwest Baluchistan province came after ...

  ISTANBUL / AP Turkish officials say 26 people have been detained following a car bomb attack, which killed two people in the southeast of the country. The car bomb exploded near the lodgings of judges and prosecutors in the mainly Kurdish town of Viransehir in Sanliurfa province, bordering Syria. Footage from the scene showed a heavily damaged building and ...

  MUNICH / AP UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says that the US decision to block a former Palestinian prime minister from leading the UN political mission in Libya was “a serious mistake.” Washington blocked the proposed appointment of Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian Authority’s prime minister from 2007 to 2013, a week ago. It said it was acting to support its ...

  MUNICH / AP Vice President Mike Pence vowed on Saturday that the United States will “hold Russia accountable” even as President Donald Trump searches for new common ground with Moscow at the start of his presidency. Pence, in an address to the Munich Security Conference, also offered assurances to European allies that the US “strongly supports” NATO. He said ...