Trinidad’s Francis elected next leader of UN General Assembly
June 1, 2023 GMTUNITED NATIONS (AP) — Trinidad and Tobago’s Ambassador Dennis Francis was elected Thursday as the next president of the U.N. General Assembly, the 193-member world body that has been at the forefront of the United Nations' condemnation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and is a key venue for all countries to tackle urgent issues from growing global poverty and inequality to climate change.
UN extends arms embargo on South Sudan over protests from world’s newest nation and 5 abstentions
May 31, 2023 GMTUNITED NATIONS (AP) — A divided U.N. Security Council extended an arms embargo on South Sudan Tuesday over protests from the world’s newest nation and abstentions from Russia, China and the council’s three African nations sympathetic to its demands that sanctions be lifted.
Poland reverts to historic name for Russia’s Kaliningrad
May 10, 2023 GMTWARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland is reverting to using its historical name for Kaliningrad, the Russian city and administrative region that sits on its border.
From now on, it will be designated on Polish maps as Krolewiec, based on the recommendation of the government commission for geographic names abroad.
French expert in Russian history wins Spanish award
May 10, 2023 GMTMADRID (AP) — Ninety-three-year-old French historian Hélène Carrère d’Encausse, an eminence in Russian and Central Asian history, has won Spain's Princess of Asturias Award for Social Sciences, prize organizers said Wednesday.
China says it won’t seek to benefit from war in Ukraine
May 10, 2023 GMTBERLIN (AP) — China's foreign minister said Tuesday that his country has no intention of benefiting from the war in Ukraine and hopes for further discussions on a peace plan Beijing proposed earlier this year.
Ukraine flags block Russian ambassador’s path on Victory Day
May 9, 2023 GMTWARSAW, Poland (AP) — Protesters and a large installation representing Russian atrocities in Ukraine blocked the path of Russia's ambassador to Poland as he sought Tuesday to place a wreath at a Warsaw memorial to Soviet soldiers on Russia's Victory Day holiday.
US: ‘tangible progress’ in Armenia-Azerbaijan peace talks
May 4, 2023 GMTWASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday that Armenia and Azerbaijan have made “tangible progress” in U.S.-hosted peace talks between the two former Soviet republics that have repeatedly clashed over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.
China affirms ex-Soviet nations’ sovereignty after uproar
April 25, 2023 GMTBEIJING (AP) — The Chinese government said Monday it respected the sovereignty of former Soviet Union republics after Beijing’s ambassador to France caused an uproar in Europe by saying they weren’t sovereign nations.
Baltics condemn China envoy’s stance on ex-Soviet nations
April 23, 2023 GMTHELSINKI (AP) — The three Baltic states have strongly condemned comments by China’s envoy to France, who appeared to suggest in a recent French television interview that former Soviet republics aren't sovereign nations.
Russia’s air force accidentally bombs own city of Belgorod
April 21, 2023 GMTMOSCOW (AP) — Russia's military acknowledged that a bomb accidentally dropped by one of its warplanes caused a powerful blast in a Russian city not far from Ukraine's border, injuring two and scaring local residents.
Pope evokes cold-war replay, says leaders should avoid arms
April 12, 2023 GMTVATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis urged world leaders Wednesday to use reason and not arms to resolve differences, evoking memories of the 1960s Cold War between Washington and Moscow, .
UN nuclear chief discusses Ukraine nuclear plant in Russia
April 5, 2023 GMTTALLINN, Estonia (AP) — The head of the U.N.'s atomic energy watchdog met with Russian officials in Kaliningrad on Wednesday for negotiations on the safety of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, currently held by Russian forces.
Russian businessman back after fleeing house arrest in Italy
April 4, 2023 GMTMOSCOW (AP) — A Russian businessman who made a daring escape from house arrest in Italy where he was nabbed on a U.S. warrant for breaching Western sanctions surfaced in Russia on Tuesday, saying he fled because Italian courts would have given in to American pressure to extradite him.
Congressman: US support for aid to Ukraine is ‘overwhelming’
April 3, 2023 GMTKYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The head of the U.S. House Intelligence Committee said Monday that there is “overwhelming” support in the United States to continue supplying aid to Ukraine in its fight against Russia, despite vocal opposition from a hard-right faction of his own Republican Party.
China and Russia: explaining a long, complicated friendship
March 22, 2023 GMTTAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Chinese leader Xi Jinping just concluded a three-day visit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, a warm affair in which the two men praised each other and spoke of a profound friendship.
Kazakhs to vote in newly energized parliament elections
March 18, 2023 GMTMOSCOW (AP) — Voters in Kazakhstan will cast ballots Sunday after a short but active campaign for seats in the lower house of parliament that is being reconfigured in the wake of deadly unrest that gripped the resource-rich Central Asian nation a year ago.
Slovakia’s prime minister forms new party before early vote
March 7, 2023 GMTBRATISLAVA, Slovakia (AP) — Prime Minister Eduard Heger said Tuesday that he was creating a new centrist political party before Slovakia's early election in September.
Russians place flowers at burnt out tanks in Baltic cities
March 1, 2023 GMTTALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Burnt-out Russian tanks seized by Ukrainian forces last year have gone on display in recent days in the capitals of the three Baltics states, where Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians are turning out to view them and snap photos in sympathy with the Ukrainians defending their homeland.
China says will train foreign astronauts for space station
February 28, 2023 GMTBEIJING (AP) — China says it will soon begin training foreign astronauts for trips to its newly completed orbiting space station.
Long a source of national pride and symbol of technological advancement, the Chinese space program is taking on a new diplomatic and political role, much in the way the United States and former Soviet Union leveraged theirs.
Borsch without a ‘t’: Kyiv chef uses food to reclaim culture
February 26, 2023 GMTKYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Don’t tell Ievgen Klopotenko that borsch is just food. For him, that bowl of beet-and-meat soup is the embodiment of everything Ukraine is fighting for.
“Food is a powerful social instrument by which you can unite or divide a nation,” said Klopotenko, Ukraine’s most recognizable celebrity chef and the man who in the midst of a bloody war spearheaded what would become an unlikely cultural victory over Russia.
Ukraine urges all nations to vote to preserve its territory
February 23, 2023 GMTUNITED NATIONS (AP) — Ukraine’s foreign minister on Wednesday urged the world’s nations as the anniversary of Russia’s invasion nears to prove they stand for the United Nations Charter and vote in favor of a U.N.
US averts UN diplomatic crisis over Israeli settlements
February 20, 2023 GMTUNITED NATIONS (AP) — The Biden administration has averted a potential diplomatic crisis over Israeli settlements at the United Nations that had threatened to overshadow Western efforts for the world body to spotlight Russia’s war with Ukraine during the one-year anniversary of the Russian invasion this week.
Stop Russia now to prevent a wider conflict, Estonia warns
February 16, 2023 GMTTALLINN, Estonia (AP) — With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine nearing the one-year mark, a top Estonian defense leader warned that if Vladimir Putin is not stopped now, he could entangle the region in a larger conflict, perhaps one with even greater security implications for the U.S.
Balloon bursts hopes for end to spiraling US-China tensions
February 7, 2023 GMTWASHINGTON (AP) — Monday was supposed to be a day of modest hope in the U.S.-China relationship. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was going to be in Beijing, meeting with President Xi Jinping in a high-stakes bid to ease ever-rising tensions between the world’s two largest economies.
Olympic bans and boycotts go back a century
February 3, 2023 GMTUkraine and the three Baltic countries, all former Soviet republics, moved a step closer Friday to boycotting next year’s Paris Olympics because of the participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes.
Shlomo Perel, Holocaust survivor, film subject, dies at 98
February 3, 2023 GMTJERUSALEM (AP) — Shlomo Perel, who survived the Holocaust through surreal subterfuge and an extraordinary odyssey that inspired his own writing and an internationally renowned film, died on Thursday in central Israel.
Baltic leaders: Olympic boycott possible if Russians compete
February 3, 2023 GMTCOPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — The prime ministers of the three Baltic countries urged the International Olympic Committee to ban Russian athletes from next year’s Paris Games because of the war in Ukraine, saying Friday a boycott was a possibility.
Mali defends Russian ties and opposes options for UN force
January 28, 2023 GMTUNITED NATIONS (AP) — Mali’s foreign minister defended the military government’s cooperation with Russia on Friday and rejected three options proposed by the U.N. chief to reconfigure the U.N. peacekeeping force in the west African country where Al-Qaida and Islamic State extremist groups are driving insecurity.
Paul Henderson to celebrate 80th with grandson on the ice
January 27, 2023 GMTBUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — Long accustomed to being recognized in most every rink he enters in Canada, Paul Henderson enjoys attending his grandson’s college hockey games in relative anonymity while seated with his wife Eleanor in Section 10 of Buffalo’s Harborcenter.
EXPLAINER: Tensions high over isolated Azerbaijan region
January 22, 2023 GMTMOSCOW (AP) — Two years after Azerbaijan and Armenia ended a war that killed about 6,800 soldiers and displaced around 90,000 civilians, tensions between the countries are again high in a dispute over a six-kilometer (nearly four-mile) road known as the Lachin Corridor.
US and Russia clash over violent extremism in Africa
January 11, 2023 GMTUNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United States accused Russian military contractors backed by the Kremlin on Tuesday of interfering in the internal affairs of African countries and “increasing the likelihood that violent extremism will grow” in the Sahel region which is facing increasing attacks and deteriorating security -- an allegation Russia denied.
Ruslan Khasbulatov, who led Russian parliament revolt, dies
January 3, 2023 GMTMOSCOW (AP) — Ruslan Khasbulatov, who led a rebellion against Russia's first post-Soviet president, has died. He was 80.
Khasbulatov's death was reported Tuesday by Russian state television.
An ethnic Chechen, Khasbulatov was elected speaker of the parliament of the Russian Federation shortly before the Soviet collapse.
Final goodbye: Recalling influential people who died in 2022
December 31, 2022 GMTOne would have to go back hundreds of years to find a monarch who reigned longer than Queen Elizabeth II.
In her 70 years on the throne, she helped modernize the monarchy across decades of enormous social change, royal marriages and births, and family scandals.
Fallen colossus: USSR’s terror, triumphs began 100 years ago
December 29, 2022 GMTMOSCOW (AP) — With its brutality, technological accomplishments and rigid ideology, the Soviet Union loomed over the world like an immortal colossus.
It led humankind into outer space, exploded the most powerful nuclear weapon ever, and inflicted bloody purges and cruel labor camps on its own citizens while portraying itself as the vanguard of enlightened revolution.
German parliament labels 1930s Ukraine famine as genocide
November 30, 2022 GMTBERLIN (AP) — Germany's parliament on Wednesday approved a resolution recognizing as genocide Ukraine's 1930s “Holodomor," a famine believed to have killed more than 3 million Ukrainians under the repressive rule of Soviet leader Josef Stalin.
Olympic ice dance champion Gorshkov dies at 76
November 17, 2022 GMTMOSCOW (AP) — Alexander Gorshkov, who won the first ice dance gold medal at the 1976 Olympics and later became a leading official in Russian figure skating, has died. He was 76.
The Russian Figure Skating Federation said in a statement on Thursday that Gorshkov "died suddenly” without giving further details.
Analysis: Ukrainian liberation a powerful dynamic in war
November 14, 2022 GMTLONDON (AP) — Amid the death and destruction war leaves in its wake, there are powerful dynamics and narratives: domination, besieged populations, occupation and their counterparts, resistance, freedom and liberation.
Nuclear memories: Russia, war and childhood fears rekindled
October 31, 2022 GMTThose of us of a certain age remember the threat.
The 1960s were a time of domestic turmoil, yes. But they came, too, with a darker, existential menace: atomic bombs, ICBMs, thermonuclear war, annihilation.
Baryshnikov honors ‘insanely brave’ Putin opponent Navalny
October 25, 2022 GMTNEW YORK (AP) — Ballet dancer, choreographer and actor Mikhail Baryshnikov, who famously defected from the Soviet Union nearly a half century ago, called Alexei Navalny “insanely brave” as a human rights group awarded the jailed Russian opposition leader its annual prize.
Orban lashes out at EU as he marks 1956 anti-Soviet revolt
October 23, 2022 GMTBUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban made veiled comparisons on Sunday between the Soviet troops that attacked Hungary during the 1956 revolution and the institutions of the European Union today.
Russian threats revive old nuclear fears in central Europe
October 21, 2022 GMTWARSAW, Poland (AP) — Two stories beneath a modern steel production plant on Warsaw's northern edge lies an untouched Cold War relic: a shelter containing gas masks, stretchers, first aid kits and other items meant to help civil defense leaders survive and guide rescue operations in case of nuclear attack or other disasters.
General who led Syrian bombing is new face of Russian war
October 21, 2022 GMTThe general carrying out President Vladimir Putin's new military strategy in Ukraine has a reputation for brutality — for bombing civilians in Russia's campaign in Syria. He also played a role in the deaths of three protesters in Moscow during the failed coup against Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991 that hastened the demise of the Soviet Union.
Today in History: October 4, Soviets launch Sputnik
October 4, 2022 GMTToday in History
Today is Tuesday, Oct. 4, the 277th day of 2022. There are 88 days left in the year.
Gorbachev’s home village remembers him well
September 3, 2022 GMTPRIVOLNOYE, Russia (AP) — As Moscow paid last respects to Mikhail Gorbachev on Saturday, residents of the far-away village where he spent his youth lauded him too.
Gorbachev buried in Moscow in funeral snubbed by Putin
September 3, 2022 GMTMOSCOW (AP) — Russians who came for a last look at former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on Saturday mourned both the man and his policies that gave them hope. President Vladimir Putin claimed to be too busy to attend.
Gorbachev to be buried in low-key funeral snubbed by Putin
September 2, 2022 GMTMOSCOW (AP) — Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev is set to be buried Saturday in a ceremony falling short of a state funeral that will not be attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin or top international leaders.
Covering Gorbachev: AP remembers his wit, wisdom, warmth
September 2, 2022 GMTWhen news hit that Mikhail Gorbachev had died at age 91, Associated Press journalists around the world began sharing their “Gorby” stories from covering the last Soviet leader or interviewing him in Russia or abroad in the three decades that followed.
History’s bookends: Putin reversed many Gorbachev reforms
September 1, 2022 GMTNEW YORK (AP) — One stood for freedom, openness, peace and closer ties with the outside world. The other is jailing critics, muzzling journalists, pushing his country deeper into isolation and waging Europe’s bloodiest conflict since World War II.
Gorbachev mourned as rare world leader but some still bitter
August 31, 2022 GMTBERLIN (AP) — Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union and for many the man who restored democracy to then-communist-ruled European nations, was saluted Wednesday as a rare leader who changed the world and for a time brought hope for peace among the superpowers.
Major events in the life and career of Mikhail Gorbachev
August 31, 2022 GMTA timeline of major events in the life of former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who has died at age 91.
Slice of life: Gorbachev’s Pizza Hut ad a time capsule
August 31, 2022 GMTMOSCOW (AP) — Call it a slice of life. The television commercial that Mikhail Gorbachev did for Pizza Hut 25 years ago might be seen as a 60-second gloss of his career, both cheerful and glum.
Mikhail Gorbachev, who steered Soviet breakup, dead at 91
August 31, 2022 GMTMOSCOW (AP) — Mikhail Gorbachev, who set out to revitalize the Soviet Union but ended up unleashing forces that led to the collapse of communism, the breakup of the state and the end of the Cold War, died Tuesday.
Gorbachev, who redirected course of 20th century, dies at 91
August 31, 2022 GMTMOSCOW (AP) — Before Mikhail Gorbachev came along, the Soviet Union seemed an immovable superpower in perpetual antagonism to the United States. With a breathtaking series of reforms, Gorbachev changed all that — and redirected the course of the 20th century.
Russian liberal sentenced for comparing Stalin to Hitler
August 30, 2022 GMTMOSCOW (AP) — A Moscow court on Tuesday handed a 15-day prison sentence to a liberal politician who drew parallels between Soviet dictator Josef Stalin's regime and Nazi Germany.
Leonid Gozman, 72, was sentenced for his 2020 Facebook post, in which he mocked the Russian legislation that banned likening the Soviet Union to Nazi Germany, saying that “it's wrong to put an equal mark between them — Hitler was an absolute evil and Stalin even worse.”
Latvia to topple Soviet-era monument a week after Estonia
August 22, 2022 GMTCOPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Latvia will tear down a Soviet-era monument on Tuesday that commemorates the Red Army's victory over Nazi Germany, authorities said, coming a week after Estonia removed a similar landmark.
Jewish volunteers bond with Ukrainian kids at summer camp
August 1, 2022 GMTWARSAW, Poland (AP) — A 5-year-old girl's drawing at a summer camp in Poland's capital caught the eye of one of her counselors. Why did she use black and white, and not red or pink, to make a heart, Rabbi Ilana Baird asked the child.
Afro-Colombian politician tapped as ambassador to Washington
July 12, 2022 GMTWASHINGTON (AP) — A veteran Afro-Colombian politician who studied in the Soviet Union and fled his homeland after being kidnapped by a paramilitary group has been tapped to become Colombia's first Black ambassador to the United States.