North America

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. State Department will do everything necessary to determine whether former U.S. ambassador Marie Yovanovitch was under threat in Ukraine, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Friday.

Documents released this week indicated Lev Parnas, a Ukraine-born U.S. citizen, helped U.S. President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani investigate U.S. presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter.

(Reuters) - President Donald Trump took aim at Virginia Democrats and their push to stiffen the state’s gun laws, saying that the U.S. Constitution was under attack just as thousands of armed militia members began arriving in Richmond for a Monday gun rally.

Trump doubled down with his support of gun enthusiasts in the state, which Hilary Clinton won in 2016 and where Democrats took full control of the state legislature for the first time in a generation in November, as candidates made passing stronger gun control laws a central campaign theme.

MEXICO CITY, Jan 18 (NNN-MERCOPRESS) — Mexico is considering a lottery to get rid of the nation’s presidential jet, after a year of failed attempts to sell the aircraft.

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said this week that Mexico is flying back the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, which has been stored in a California hangar since December 2018, just after he took office, to resume sale efforts.

OTTAWA, Jan 18 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau urged Iran to send the flight and cockpit data recorders from a crashed jet to France for analysis and said the first remains of victims should soon arrive back in Canada.

Trudeau told a news conference in Ottawa that France was one of the few countries with the ability to read the plane’s so-called black boxes, which he said were badly damaged.

Iran says it shot down the Ukrainian airliner last week by accident. A total of 176 people died in the disaster, of which 57 were Canadian.

WASHINGTON, Jan 18 (NNN-XINHUA) – U.S. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, met with Pakistani Foreign Minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, here, on Friday, discussing Afghanistan and bilateral ties, according to a statement released by the U.S. State Department.

The two sides talked about a range of issues, including Iran, U.S.-Pakistan cooperation, on the Afghan peace process, and building bilateral economic ties, the statement said.

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 18 (NNN-Xinhua) — The UN Security Council urged Malian parties to show political will to urgently accelerate the implementation of their 2015 Agreement on Peace and Reconciliation.

In a press statement, the council members noted some progress in the implementation of the agreement but expressed serious concern about delays over many of its substantive provisions.

They were encouraged by the start of the redeployment to the north of the first units of the reconstituted and reformed Malian armed forces.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi here on Friday, discussing Afghanistan and bilateral ties, according to a statement released by the U.S. State Department.

The two sides talked about a range of issues, including Iran, U.S.-Pakistan cooperation on the Afghan peace process and building bilateral economic ties, the statement said.

Qureshi embarked on a three-day visit to the United States on Wednesday for talks on the tension in the Middle East that poses danger to regional security.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- The newly signed China-U.S. phase-one trade deal will reduce the uncertainty that has impeded global economic growth, International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said Friday.

"It is a welcoming sign that we now have the phase-one deal, sign in terms of reducing some of the uncertainty," Georgieva said at an event hosted by Peterson Institute for International Economics, a thinktank based in Washington D.C.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The Democratic National Committee on Friday announced its criteria for the first debate to be held after voting begins in the 2020 presidential campaign, including a new pathway to the stage based off delegate pledges.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Billionaire Michael Bloomberg won’t have to publicly disclose his finances until late March, well after voters in more than a dozen states take to the polls on Super Tuesday.

Presidential candidates are required to reveal their investments, businesses and streams of income. Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor, is the only Democrat seeking the White House who has yet to file paperwork to publicly disclose his.