BEIJING (AP) — China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi is visiting the South Pacific with a 20-person delegation this week in a display of Beijing’s growing military and diplomatic presence in the region. The U.S. has traditionally been the area’s major power, but China has been pursuing inroads, particularly with the Solomon Islands, a nation less […]

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — As she lay buried under the rubble, her legs broken and eyes blinded by blood and thick clouds of dust, all Inna Levchenko could hear was screams. It was 12:15 p.m. on March 3, and moments earlier a blast had pulverized the school where she’d taught for 30 years. Amid relentless […]

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — China wants 10 small Pacific nations to endorse a sweeping agreement covering everything from security to fisheries in what one leader warns is a “game-changing” bid by Beijing to wrest control of the region. A draft of the agreement obtained by The Associated Press shows that China wants to train […]

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin issued an order Wednesday to fast track Russian citizenship for residents in parts of southern Ukraine largely held by his forces, while lawmakers in Moscow passed a bill to strengthen the stretched Russian army. Putin’s decree applying to the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions could allow Russia to […]

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea test-launched a suspected intercontinental ballistic missile and two shorter-range weapons toward its eastern waters Wednesday, South Korea said, hours after President Joe Biden ended a trip to Asia where he reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to defend its allies in the face of the North’s nuclear threat. The suspected […]

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine’s president said Wednesday that Russia must pull back to its pre-war positions as a first step before diplomatic talks, a negotiating line that Moscow is unlikely to agree to anytime soon as it focuses its fire on key regions in the east three months into the war. Speaking by video […]

KRAMATORSK, Ukraine (AP) — Piano music wafted from an apartment block on a recent spring evening in Kramatorsk, blending with distant artillery fire for a surreal soundtrack to a bomb-scarred neighborhood in the eastern Ukrainian city. No matter where they live, the 3-month-old war never seems to be far away. Those in towns and villages […]

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Workers digging through the rubble of an apartment building in Mariupol found 200 bodies in the basement, Ukrainian authorities said Tuesday, as more horrors come to light in the ruined city that has seen some of the worst suffering of the 3-month-old war. The bodies were decomposing and the stench hung […]

LONDON (AP) — WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is expected to be confirmed by the U.N. health agency’s member countries for a second five-year term on Tuesday. No other candidate challenged Tedros for the post amid the ongoing difficulties of responding to the devastating coronavirus pandemic. Tedros, a former government minister from Ethiopia, has directed […]

DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) — As government officials, corporate leaders and other elites at the World Economic Forum grapple with how to confront climate change and its devastating effects, a central question is emerging: to what extent can oil and gas companies be part of a transition to lower-carbon fuels? In different times the question could […]