CHISINAU (AFP) -- Moldovan President Maia Sandu on Tuesday urged citizens to remain calm while she stepped up security measures after a series of explosions in the breakaway Russia-backed region of Transnistria. Sandu convened the country’s Supreme Security Council after blasts on Monday and Tuesday in the separatist region bordering Ukraine raised fears of a spillover from the conflict there. Sandu said after a meeting of the Supreme Security Council: “We urge citizens to keep calm and feel safe.” She condemned the explosions that hit Transnistria’s security ministry, a radio tower and a military unit, causing damage but no reported injuries. “This is an attempt to escalate tensions. We decisively condemn such acts,” she said, attributing the explosions to “internal differences between various groups in Transnistria that have an interest in destabilizing the situation”.

 

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BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday there was no basis to speculation that Beijing could try to use leverage over electric car maker Tesla Inc in order to influence content on U.S. social media site Twitter Inc. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin was responding to a question during a regular daily briefing on Tuesday, after Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk struck a deal on Monday to buy Twitter. Roughly half the cars Tesla sold globally last year were made at its plant in Shanghai.

 

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SYDNEY (Reuters) -- The United States wants to expand security cooperation with the Pacific island nation of Papua New Guinea, a U.S. official said on Tuesday, amid concerns in Washington about China’s motives for striking a security pact with the nearby Solomon Islands. A U.S. delegation met PNG Prime Minister James Marape and its defense chiefs last week and plan to hold further security discussions in the coming months, said U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Daniel Kritenbrink. China offered to redevelop a naval base in Papua New Guinea in 2018 but the government there struck a deal instead for Australia and the United States to upgrade a former World War Two U.S. naval base at Manus Island. Papua New Guinea is Australia’s nearest northern neighbour. “We do know that the PRC is seeking to establish a more robust overseas logistics and basing infrastructure that would allow the PLA to project and sustain military power at greater distances,” Kritenbrink said, referring to the People’s Republic of China and its military.

 

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MADRID (Reuters) -- Spain’s King Felipe VI disclosed that his wealth is worth about 2.6 million euros ($2.8 million) as the government pushes rules to make the Royal House more transparent and end the opaqueness that prevailed during the reign of his father Juan Carlos. The king’s assets include just under 2.3 million euros in checking or savings accounts and securities, and he currently owns art, antiques and jewelry with a value of more than 305,000 euros, a statement released by the Royal House showed. It did not mention any property or real estate. Felipe came to the throne in 2014 after his father Juan Carlos abdicated amid a tax fraud case involving members of the royal family, as well as a scandal over an elephant-hunting trip at a time when Spain was struggling with a deep recession. Juan Carlos, who retains the title of King Emeritus, left Spain for the United Arab Emirates in August 2020 under a cloud of scandal and has lived there since.

 

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TOKYO (AP) — Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida indicated his willingness Tuesday to mend badly strained ties with South Korea, saying relations between the two U.S. allies are crucial when the rules-based international order is threatened by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “There is no time to waste in improving Japan-South Korea relations,” Kishida said he told a delegation sent by South Korean President-elect Yoon Suk Yeol. “Strategic cooperation between Japan and South Korea, and among Japan, the U.S. and South Korea, is more necessary than ever.” The seven-member delegation sent by Yoon, who takes office on May 10, arrived in Tokyo on Sunday for policy talks with Japanese officials. Yoon has expressed his intention to improve the two countries’ ties, which have plunged to their lowest levels in years over disputes stemming from Japan’s actions during its 1910-1945 colonization of the Korean Peninsula.

 

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KARACHI (AFP) -- A woman suicide bomber from a Pakistan separatist group killed four people, including three Chinese nationals, in an attack on a minibus carrying staff from a Beijing cultural program at Karachi University on Tuesday. The Baloch Liberation Army -- one of several groups fighting for independence in Pakistan’s biggest province -- claimed responsibility, saying it was their first suicide attack by a woman assailant. Chinese targets have regularly been attacked by separatists from Balochistan, where Beijing is involved in huge infrastructure projects as part of its Belt and Road Initiative. CCTV footage broadcast by local channels showed a woman standing near the gate of a Confucius Institute -- the cultural program that China operates at universities around the world -- as a minibus pulls up.