Pompeo to seek stronger strategic ties with India
Reuters, Washington
US Securtary of State Mike Pompeo arrives in New Delhi on Tuesday for talks that are aimed at laying the ground for a meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi later in the week at a G20 meeting in Japan.
India is embroiled in disputes with the United States over tariffs, Indian price caps on imported medical devices, most from the United States, and Indian rules on e-commerce that impose conditions on the operations of major U.S. companies such as Amazon and Walmart.
Afghan leaders begin peace summit in Pakistan
AP, Islamabad
Dozens of Afghan political leaders attended a peace conference in neighboring Pakistan on Saturday to pave the way for further Afghan-to-Afghan dialogue.
The conference is to be followed by meetings and working sessions over the next two days, all of which come in the run-up to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s visit to Pakistan next week.
Regime strikes kill 4 civilians in Syria
AFP, Beirut
Syrian government air strikes on the rebel-held northwest killed four civilians, two of them children, on Saturday, a war monitor said, as a two-month flare-up showed no let-up.
The Idlib region of some three million people is supposed to be protected by a September buffer zone deal, but the jihadist-run enclave has come under mounting bombardment by the government and its ally Russia since late April.
Putin bans Russian flights to crisis-hit Georgia
AFP, Moscow:
President Vladimir Putin signed a decree Friday banning Russian airlines from flying to Georgia, starting in July, after violent clashes in the neighbouring country over a Moscow lawmaker speaking in parliament in Tbilisi.
“From July 8, 2019, Russian airlines are temporarily banned from undertaking flights from the territory of the Russian Federation to the territory of Georgia,” said the decree published on the Kremlin website.
Three dead in central Paris fire
AFP, Paris
Three people died and another was seriously injured in a fire that broke out in a building in central Paris in the early hours of Saturday, fire services said.
One of the victims died after jumping out of the window of the six-storey block of flats situated in the 11th district, which also housed a restaurant and a hammam, a spokesman for the fire services said.
7 dead in Cambodia building collapse
AFP, Phnom Penh
At least seven people died Saturday when an under-construction building owned by a Chinese company collapsed at a Cambodian beach resort, officials said, as rescuers scoured the giant rubble heap for survivors.
The building went down before sunrise in the casino-resort town Sihanoukville in southwestern Cambodia.
