US President George W. Bush wants fresh assurances that Afghan President Hamid Karzai is dealing with his country's soaring drug trade and pervasive security struggles.
Bush was to meet with Karzai yesterday, a reliable ally, for the first time since hosting him in last month at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland. The two are to review the familiar challenges that undermine Afghanistan's stability despite progress there.
Afghan opium poppy cultivation has hit a record high this year, fueled by Taliban militants and corrupt officials in Karzai's government, a UN report found last month. The country produces nearly all the world's opium, and Taliban insurgents are profiting.
Also, Afghanistan remains in a fight for basic security, a constant threat to its growth as a new democracy. Karzai is pledging to work hard on peace talks with the Taliban to draw the insurgents and their supporters "back to the fold," as he put it this week.
Bush, in New York for the annual gathering of the UN General Assembly, made only brief mention of the war in Afghanistan during his speech to world leaders on Tuesday. He said the people of Afghanistan -- and Iraq and Lebanon -- were in a deadly fight for survival.
"Every civilized nation has a responsibility to stand with them," Bush said.
The president is hosting a two-day climate meeting, starting today, of major industrialized nations, the UN and a few developing countries.
Bush attempted to emphasize throughout his meetings in New York that his efforts on climate change were in support of -- not in competition with -- a UN conference in December in Indonesia. That later session will be a time of negotiations on a new international climate agreement.
Meanwhile, Afghan President Hamid Karzai called on world leaders to provide more help in strengthening his country's military and police forces to battle resurgent Taliban militants.
"The war against those who continue to pose a threat to the security of our people will continue unabated," he said on Tuesday in a speech at the UN General Assembly.
He requested greater international assistance to help train Afghan security forces "to take a leading role" in protecting the country.
While Karzai praised the US for helping Afghanistan build its security forces to their present capabilities, he also urged international forces to avoid the unintentional killings of civilians.
"I emphasize the need for maximum caution on the part of international forces operating in Afghanistan, as well as increased coordination with Afghan authorities, in order to avoid civilian casualties," Karzai said.
In the past two years, the number of terrorist attacks have increased in Afghanistan, as well as the degree of brutality with which they are carried out, Karzai said on Tuesday, emphasizing that the country has only been a victim and not a perpetrator of the problem.
"Terrorism was never, nor is it today, a homegrown phenomenon in Afghanistan," Karzai said.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion