The US led calls on Friday for action against Syria after a UN investigator implicated top Syrian officials in the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri.
The report by UN investigator Detlev Mehlis is to be discussed by the UN Security Council in New York on Tuesday when possible new moves could be discussed.
US President George W. Bush called the report "deeply disturbing" and said that the US would seek a meeting of the UN Security Council "as quickly as possible to deal with this very serious matter."
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, meanwhile, said: "This is a very serious matter -- that you have Syrian involvement in the assassination of the former prime minister Rafiq Hariri."
"There will have to be some way to ensure accountability for what has already been found here," she said in a joint press conference with UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw in Birmingham, Alabama.
The chief US diplomat also noted that the report shows "clear indications that the Syrian government had not been cooperating" with the investigation into the Beirut bomb blast in February that killed Hariri and 20 other people.
Straw, on a tour of Rice's southern home state, said that the UK fully backed the US position on the report's findings.
The Mehlis report cited "converging evidence" of Syrian and Lebanese involvement and accused Damascus of blocking and misleading the investigation.
Meanwhile, the son and political heir of the slain former Lebanese prime minister yesterday praised the UN probe and called for an international tribunal to try the alleged killers.
"The hour of truth has come. The blood of the martyr Rafik Hariri and his colleagues in the march toward freedom, dignity, sovereignty will not have been shed in vain," Legislator Saad Hariri said.
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Questions remain about Hariri killing

PEACE AND STABILITY: Maintaining the cross-strait ‘status quo’ has long been the government’s position, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Taiwan is committed to maintaining the cross-strait “status quo” and seeks no escalation of tensions, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday, rebutting a Time magazine opinion piece that described President William Lai (賴清德) as a “reckless leader.” The article, titled “The US Must Beware of Taiwan’s Reckless Leader,” was written by Lyle Goldstein, director of the Asia Program at the Washington-based Defense Priorities think tank. Goldstein wrote that Taiwan is “the world’s most dangerous flashpoint” amid ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He said that the situation in the Taiwan Strait has become less stable

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi yesterday lavished US President Donald Trump with praise and vows of a “golden age” of ties on his visit to Tokyo, before inking a deal with Washington aimed at securing critical minerals. Takaichi — Japan’s first female prime minister — pulled out all the stops for Trump in her opening test on the international stage and even announced that she would nominate him for a Nobel Peace Prize, the White House said. Trump has become increasingly focused on the Nobel since his return to power in January and claims to have ended several conflicts around the world,

REASSURANCE: The US said Taiwan’s interests would not be harmed during the talk and that it remains steadfast in its support for the nation, the foreign minister said US President Donald Trump on Friday said he would bring up Taiwan with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) during a meeting on the sidelines of the APEC Summit in South Korea this week. “I will be talking about Taiwan [with Xi],” Trump told reporters before he departed for his trip to Asia, adding that he had “a lot of respect for Taiwan.” “We have a lot to talk about with President Xi, and he has a lot to talk about with us. I think we’ll have a good meeting,” Trump said. Taiwan has long been a contentious issue between the US and China.

UKRAINE, NVIDIA: The US leader said the subject of Russia’s war had come up ‘very strongly,’ while Jenson Huang was hoping that the conversation was good Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and US President Donald Trump had differing takes following their meeting in Busan, South Korea, yesterday. Xi said that the two sides should complete follow-up work as soon as possible to deliver tangible results that would provide “peace of mind” to China, the US and the rest of the world, while Trump hailed the “great success” of the talks. The two discussed trade, including a deal to reduce tariffs slapped on China for its role in the fentanyl trade, as well as cooperation in ending the war in Ukraine, among other issues, but they did not mention