MEXICO CITY(Xinhua) – 

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has again expressed her opposition to the U.S. tariff policy, arguing there are more effective ways to strengthen a regional economy and resolve trade disputes between countries. “We haven’t agreed with the tariffs ... nor has virtually any other country, because we believe there are other mechanisms ... to strengthen one economic region relative to another,” Sheinbaum said at her daily press conference at the National Palace. Her remarks came amid growing debate in the United States over President Donald Trump’s trade policy, after a coalition of 25 U.S. states filed a lawsuit challenging the new blanket tariffs imposed on imports from most U.S. trading partners.

 

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ISLAMABAD (AP) – As former Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan marks three years in jail, his family, political party and a prominent international rights group have condemned his solitary detention and demanded a restoration of his constitutional rights. Amid heavy security on Wednesday, thousands of members and supporters of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party held demonstrations across the country to call for his immediate release. Khan, 73, served as Pakistan’s premier from 2018 until April 2022 when he was removed in a no-confidence vote he alleged to be a military-enabled conspiracy hatched with the United States, an allegation both Washington and the military denied.  

 

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KYIV (Reuters) - Allies have 

supplied just a third of the air defense missiles to Ukraine in 2026 compared with 2025, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Wednesday, as Russia escalates strikes on the capital of Kyiv and its southern port hub. Ukraine has been short on U.S.-made Patriot interceptors capable of downing Russian ballistic missiles since the start of the war. But in recent weeks, the acute shortage came into focus, with Moscow pummelling Kyiv, on average, every three days in July alone. “And this is not just a summer phenomenon - it applies to every period of the first half of 2026,” Zelenskiy added on the Telegram app.

 

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BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese court on Wednesday sentenced Zhang Jianhua, a former deputy director of its defense industry regulator, to 10 years in prison for bribery in part of a wider anti-graft shake-up in China’s defense sector and military. From 2008 to 2025, Zhang illegally took in over 55 million yuan ($8.15 million) during his tenure at the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (SASTIND) as well as after retirement, state-run Xinhua news agency cited the court’s first-instance verdict as saying. He leveraged his positions, including as director of the military project review center at SASTIND, to “provide assistance to relevant individuals in matters such as administrative approvals and equity investments,” the court said. Zhang was indicted earlier this year.

 

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NEW DELHI (Xinhua) -- 

Bangladesh’s former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, living in exile in India for the past two years, on Wednesday said that she would return to her home country by year-end. “The date of my return will be announced later. But I will return to my people,” she said while addressing the media in New Delhi through audio. Hasina added that she wanted to return to her home country to revive its path of progress. In the audio message, she demanded that the ban on her party, the Bangladesh Awami League, be lifted, false cases against her and her partymen be dropped, and freedom of speech be restored in Bangladesh.