PARIS (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney are set to meet Sunday to deepen economic and security ties on the remote North Atlantic archipelago of Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon. The meeting comes days after Carney embraced the prospect of Canada becoming the European Union’s first associate member, saying closer ties with the continent would ensure no country could control Canada’s markets or undermine its sovereignty. U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs, demands for economic concessions and repeated talk of making Canada the 51st state have pushed Ottawa to reduce its dependence on its neighbor and pursue deeper economic, security and political relationships with Europe.

 

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GENEVA (Reuters) - Former Chilean president Michelle Bachelet announced on Saturday that she is withdrawing her candidacy to become the next secretary-general of the United Nations, ending a bid that had struggled to gain traction among Security Council members. Bachelet, 74, announced her decision in a video posted on Instagram, saying, “I will now continue, with the same determination as always, my international work.” The two-time Chilean president and former UN human rights chief had positioned her campaign around defending multilateralism and international law at a time she said both were under sustained pressure.

 

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SEOUL (AP) - North Korea launched two short-range ballistic missiles toward the sea on Sunday, South Korea’s military said, days after the North threatened to bolster its nuclear deterrent capabilities and respond to what it called U.S. hostilities. The launches were the latest in a series of weapons demonstrations by North Korea even after U.S. President Donald Trump scaled back a joint military exercise with South Korea last month in an apparent effort to revive diplomacy with the North’s leader, Kim Jong Un.

 

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Washington (AFP) - The U.S. military announced Saturday that it had killed four people on a boat it said was involved in drug smuggling in the Caribbean. “Confirmed intelligence revealed the vessel’s active involvement in narco-trafficking. The operation killed four narco-terrorists,” SOUTHCOM, which commands U.S. forces in the region, said in a statement, along with a grainy video of the attack on the boat. The U.S. military launched operation “Southern Spear” in early September, with President Donald Trump arguing Washington is effectively at war with drug cartels operating out of Latin America.

 

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SYDNEY (Xinhua) - A child died and two other children and a woman were hospitalized with critical injuries after a stabbing west of Sydney on Sunday. Police said in a statement that emergency services were called to reports of three children and a woman suffering from stab wounds in a vehicle in the small town of Valley Heights, 60 km west of central Sydney, around 12:45 p.m. Members of the public performed first aid before the arrival of ambulance paramedics, but one of the children died at the scene. The other two children and the woman were all taken to hospital in critical condition. Police said that all three children are believed to be under five years of age and the woman is in her 40s. A crime scene has been established and police said they are not looking for anyone else in relation to the incident.