MOSCOW (Reuters) -- Russia’s Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday it was working to ascertain details about the death of Zambian student on the frontline in Ukraine, the TASS news agency reported. Zambia on Monday asked Russia to explain how one of its citizens who had been serving a prison sentence in Moscow had ended up on the battlefield in Ukraine. The Zambian student was serving a jail sentence at a medium security prison on the outskirts of Moscow after being convicted of contravening Russian law, Kakubo said, without specifying the offence that occurred in April 2020.

 

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SEOUL (Reuters) -- South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol expressed hopes for a mutually beneficial, mature relationship with China during his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday, South Korea’s Newsis agency reported. The two leaders held their first face-to-face talks on the sidelines of the Group of 20 conference in Bali. Yoon expressed hopes for greater cooperation to rein in North Korea’s nuclear and missile development, and to tackle regional and global issues including climate change, Newsis said. Xi told Yoon that the two countries’ relationship is important, according to the report.

 

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NUSA DUA, Indonesia (AFP) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping called for soured relations with Australia to “improve” and “develop” Tuesday, as the two countries held a first formal summit in more than five years. After years of animosity that hampered trade ties and froze top-level meetings, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the meeting had been “positive and constructive”.  The talks lasted just 32 minutes and took place on the margins of a G20 summit in Bali, but signaled a major diplomatic shift. Australian and Chinese leaders had a brief exchange at the 2019 G20 summit in Japan, but have not had a formal sitdown in more than half a decade. China has been angered by Australia’s willingness to legislate against overseas influence operations, to bar Huawei from 5G contracts and to call for an independent investigation into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.

 

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HONG KONG (AFP) -- Hong Kong police said Tuesday that they are investigating how a protest song was played instead of the Chinese national anthem at a South Korean rugby tournament. The city’s sports teams play the Chinese national anthem, but before Hong Kong took on South Korea in the final of the Asia Rugby Sevens Series in Incheon on Sunday, a protest song was broadcast instead. Hong Kong’s government has reacted with fury, with the city’s number two official meeting South Korea’s top diplomat to request Seoul conduct its own “comprehensive” investigation. In a statement, police said they are probing “whether the incident has breached the National Anthem Ordinance or any other legislation of Hong Kong, including the Hong Kong National Security Law”.

 

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ABIDJAN (Reuters) -- Ivory Coast will gradually withdraw its contribution of military and police from a United Nations peacekeeping force in Mali, according to a letter by its ambassador to the UN, after Bamako detained 46 of its soldiers in July.  Mali accused the soldiers of being mercenaries. Ivory Coast says they were part of a security and logistics contingent working under the peacekeeping mission and has made repeated pleas for their release. Ivory Coast has informed the UN it has stopped rotating troops and would not replace personnel in the peacekeeping mission in Mali (MINUSMA) in August 2023, according to a letter to a senior U.N. peacekeeping official dated Nov. 11 which was seen by Reuters. The decision was confirmed by two senior Ivory Coast security sources. MINUSMA and the governments of Mali and Ivory Coast did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Mali has for a decade relied on regional allies and peacekeepers to contain an takfiri insurgency that has killed thousands of people and taken over large areas of the centre and north.

 

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PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria (AFP) -- A court in Nigeria’s oil hub city Port Harcourt has arraigned 16 foreign crew from an oil tanker, with officials accusing them of suspected maritime offenses involving attempts to illegally export crude. The Heroic Idun tanker case comes as Nigeria’s government moves to crack down on massive theft from pipelines and oilfields which costs the country billions of dollars. Nigerian officials accuse the tanker of attempting to illegally load crude at the Akpo offshore oilfield facility in August before fleeing from the Nigerian navy, which came to intercept the vessel. Nigeria’s navy said the tanker was held in Equatorial Guinea since leaving Nigerian waters, but the Equatorial Guinea government earlier this month authorized its return to Nigeria. The crew pleaded not guilty on Monday to the charges of contravening the Suppression of Piracy and Other Maritime Offences Act 2019. Justice Turaki Muhammed ordered them remanded in a Nigerian Navy vessel to allow 10 remaining suspects to be brought to court on Tuesday.