Iraqi President Jalal Talabani appealed to South American nations to support his country's efforts to defeat its bloody insurgency, saying the terrorists are indiscriminately killing innocents and hampering reconstruction efforts.
"Terrorism is not limited to Iraq, it is a global curse," Talabani said, addressing Arab and South American heads of state and ministers gathered for the Summit of the South American-Arab Countries in the Brazilian capital.
Talabani, in his first foreign trip since being elected president of the new interim government, said Iraq is on course with its strategy to defeat the militants whose daily attacks around the country have limited reconstruction efforts after the US-led war that toppled former President Saddam Hussein.
"We hope for your help in this initiative to combat the terrorism that has been carried out against the Iraqi people, against the cause of freedom and democracy," he said, calling on the 12 South American nations gathered at the summit alongside 22 Arab and North African nations to step forward with investments and bolster business contacts.
"I appeal to you to understand the Iraqi situation and also to send delegations and that companies see for themselves the reality on the ground in Iraq," he said. "It is true that we face numerous problems, but we are determined and sure" of the future.
A declaration widely expected to be approved at the Brasilia summit expresses support for Iraq's efforts to thwart the militants.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, in an interview on the sidelines of the summit, suggested that some of Iraq's neighbors have become unnerved by the US-backed attempt to establish a robust democratic government in Baghdad and still are not doing enough to stop militants.
The Burmese junta has said that detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi is “in good health,” a day after her son said he has received little information about the 80-year-old’s condition and fears she could die without him knowing. In an interview in Tokyo earlier this week, Kim Aris said he had not heard from his mother in years and believes she is being held incommunicado in the capital, Naypyidaw. Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, was detained after a 2021 military coup that ousted her elected civilian government and sparked a civil war. She is serving a
China yesterday held a low-key memorial ceremony for the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) not attending, despite a diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Tokyo over Taiwan. Beijing has raged at Tokyo since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last month said that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Japan. China and Japan have long sparred over their painful history. China consistently reminds its people of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, in which it says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in what was then its capital. A post-World War II Allied tribunal put the death toll
‘NO AMNESTY’: Tens of thousands of people joined the rally against a bill that would slash the former president’s prison term; President Lula has said he would veto the bill Tens of thousands of Brazilians on Sunday demonstrated against a bill that advanced in Congress this week that would reduce the time former president Jair Bolsonaro spends behind bars following his sentence of more than 27 years for attempting a coup. Protests took place in the capital, Brasilia, and in other major cities across the nation, including Sao Paulo, Florianopolis, Salvador and Recife. On Copacabana’s boardwalk in Rio de Janeiro, crowds composed of left-wing voters chanted “No amnesty” and “Out with Hugo Motta,” a reference to the speaker of the lower house, which approved the bill on Wednesday last week. It is
FALLEN: The nine soldiers who were killed while carrying out combat and engineering tasks in Russia were given the title of Hero of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea North Korean leader Kim Jong-un attended a welcoming ceremony for an army engineering unit that had returned home after carrying out duties in Russia, North Korean state media KCNA reported on Saturday. In a speech carried by KCNA, Kim praised officers and soldiers of the 528th Regiment of Engineers of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) for “heroic” conduct and “mass heroism” in fulfilling orders issued by the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea during a 120-day overseas deployment. Video footage released by North Korea showed uniformed soldiers disembarking from an aircraft, Kim hugging a soldier seated in a wheelchair, and soldiers and officials
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