BANGKOK (AP) — The Southeast Asian grouping known as ASEAN has made a point of not pressuring member nations over internal issues such as rights abuses, and in the case of Myanmar's persecuted Rohingya minority, the policy has come back to haunt it. Three other ASEAN nations — Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand — now must contend with a humanitarian crisis involving thousands of Rohingya and Bangladeshis stranded off their shores. After years of ignoring the issue, their chances of using diplomacy to achieve any change in Myanmar's behavior appear bleak.
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesia has "given more than it should" to help hundreds of Rohingya and Bangladeshi migrants stranded on boats by human traffickers, its foreign minister said Tuesday, a day before she was to meet with her counterparts from the other countries feeling the brunt of the humanitarian crisis. Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said that at Wednesday's meeting with Malaysian and Thai officials, she will discuss how to solve the migrant problem with help from their countries of origin, the U.N. refugee agency and the International Office for Migration.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A top U.S. military officer says North Korea is "many years" away from being able to launch ballistic missiles from a submarine. But vice chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. James Winnefeld, said Tuesday such missiles could eventually present a "hard-to-detect" danger to Japan and South Korea and U.S. forces stationed there.
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A large suicide car bombing struck downtown Kabul on Tuesday afternoon, apparently targeting justice ministry employees and killing four people, an Afghan official said. Shortly after the blast, the Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. The bombing took place in the car park of the Justice Ministry when a car packed with explosives was detonated, said Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi.
WASHINGTON (AP) — If the U.S. doesn't write the rules of international trade, President Barack Obama warns, China will. In fact, China is already helping write those rules, and in some ways has jumped ahead of the game. There's intense competition between the U.S. and China for economic influence in the world. As Obama seeks to persuade lawmakers to back his trade agenda, he has cast that competition as an economic threat.
ISLAMABAD (AP) — The spy agencies of Pakistan and Afghanistan have agreed to share intelligence and carry out "coordinated intelligence operations" against militants operating along their porous border, in the latest sign of improved relations following years of mistrust that undermined the fight against the Taliban. Pakistan's army spokesman Maj. Gen. Asim Saleem Bajwa announced the signing of the Memoranda of Understanding between Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence and Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security in a Twitter post late Monday. Bajwa did not say when the accord was signed.
BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — China's Premier Li Keqiang and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff agreed on Tuesday to embark on studies for an ambitious railway linking Brazil's Atlantic coast with a Pacific port in Peru, and announced billions in other investments and trade deals. Rousseff emphasized the importance of the project to cut down the time and cost to move commodities to the Asian market.
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — A delegation from Afghanistan's Taliban has arrived in Iran to discuss the situation of Afghan migrants and issues in the Islamic world, Iran's semi-official Tasnim news agency reported Tuesday. The report said the delegation arrived in Iran on Monday and was headed by Muhammad Tayyab Agha, who is in charge of the Taliban's political bureau in Qatar. It says the delegation met Iranian security officials and that similar delegations have visited Iran twice in the past.
KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistani federal investigators on Tuesday raided multiple offices of a software company after a report in The New York Times said it made millions of dollars marketing fake degrees worldwide, officials said. The raids in the southern city of Karachi and elsewhere came after the report said the Axact company marketed online degrees from several nonexistent schools and universities, charging clients thousands of dollars for fake credentials.
In this photo by Niranjan Shrestha, people whose home was damaged in an April 25 earthquake construct a temporary shelter out of galvanized sheet metal in Bhaktapur, Nepal. More than 756,000 buildings and homes in Nepal were damaged in the earthquake and another strong temblor last week, and the need for shelter is becoming urgent because the monsoon season starts in June. The two quakes killed more than 8,600 people, according to Nepal's Home Ministry, and rebuilding is expected to require sustained international support. The U.N. has appealed for $423 million to meet the essential needs of residents over the next three months but only a small portion of the appeal has been met.
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — An Afghan judge on Tuesday sentenced 11 policemen to one year in prison for dereliction of duty during the mob killing of a woman in Kabul who was falsely accused of burning a Quran. Judge Safiullah Mojadedi, presiding in Afghanistan's Primary Court, released another eight policemen for lack of evidence.
PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — A group of female peace activists including Gloria Steinem and two Nobel laureates arrived in North Korea's capital on Tuesday for a march across the Demilitarized Zone that they hope will bring world attention to calls for a resolution to tensions on the Korean Peninsula. The rare crossing of the DMZ, approved by both Koreas, is to take place Sunday.
BANGKOK (AP) — Thailand's military government on Tuesday approved holding a referendum on the newly drafted constitution, the prime minister said, but he indicated that the decision could delay a general election. Before a referendum can be held, an amendment to an existing interim charter will have to be made to insert a clause making a public vote possible.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Tuesday that he will visit an inter-Korean factory park just north of the two Koreas' heavily fortified border, saying he hopes his trip to the last major cooperation project between the rivals helps improve ties. Ban would be the first U.N. chief to visit the factory park, which opened in 2004 in the town of Kaesong. He would also be the first head of the U.N. to visit North Korea since Boutros Boutros-Ghali traveled there in 1993.
DERA ISLAMIL KHAN, Pakistan (AP) — Two missiles fired from a U.S. drone hit a compound in a Pakistani tribal region near the Afghan border, killing three militants, Pakistani intelligence officials said Tuesday. The two officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters, said the strike took place Monday night in Shawal village, in the North Waziristan region.
- North Korea
- President Barack Obama
- Afghanistan
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