COLU @ CONCEPTS

TORONTO (AP) — A former Guantanamo Bay prisoner who pleaded guilty to killing a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan has received a multimillion-dollar payment from Canada’s government after a court ruling said his rights were abused, a Canadian official said Thursday. The official confirmed that Omar Khadr has been given the money. A different official also familiar with the deal said it is for $10.5 million Canadian dollars (US$8 million). Both insisted on speaking anonymously because they were not authorized to discuss the deal publicly. The government and Khadr’s lawyers negotiated the deal last month, based on a 2010 Supreme Court of Canada ruling that Canadian officials violated his rights at Guantanamo. The deal is expected to be announced Friday. A spokesman for the public safety minister declined to confirm a settlement payment was made. News that Khadr would receive millions first leaked earlier this week and sparked anger among many Canadians who consider him a terrori...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A diplomatic standoff between Qatar and four other Arab nations that accuse it of sponsoring terrorism has turned a spotlight on an opaque network of charities and prominent figures freely operating in the tiny Gulf country. It also raises questions about what constitutes a “terrorist” in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain have released a list of two dozen groups and nearly 60 individuals that they allege have been involved in financing terrorism and are linked to Qatar. Qatar insists it condemns terrorism and that it does not support extremist groups. The crisis began last month when the four Arab countries cut ties to Qatar. They demanded it end the alleged support of terrorism, and also that it cut its relations with Shiite power Iran and stop meddling in their affairs through support of Islamist opposition groups. The energy rich nation is an important U.S. ally in a volatile region. It hosts ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — As Donald Trump meets for the first time with Vladimir Putin, resolving a dispute over a pair of Russian diplomatic compounds seized by the United States last year could be a first step in repairing a relationship wracked by Syria’s civil war, Ukraine’s separatist violence and Moscow’s meddling in the U.S. presidential election. But even returning the so-called dachas in Maryland and New York to their Russian owners is running into thorny politics that have all but frozen Trump’s hopes of rapprochement with the Kremlin. The State Department wants a deal that could include restarting U.S. adoptions of Russian children. But some in the FBI and U.S. intelligence agencies fear that giving back the sites could bolster Russian espionage efforts in America. After Trump’s surprising election victory, the outgoing Obama administration expelled 35 Russian officials from the U.S. and ordered the shutdown of the two Cold War-era recreational estates that Russian dipl...

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s president reiterated he’s willing to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un even as he condemned the North’s first intercontinental ballistic missile test-launch this week as a “reckless” move that incurred punishment by the international community. During a speech Thursday ahead of the Group of 20 summit in Germany, President Moon Jae-in also proposed the two Koreas resume reunions of families separated by war, stop hostile activities along their heavily fortified border and cooperate on the 2018 Winter Olympics to be held in Pyeongchang, South Korea. But it’s unclear that North Korea would accept any of Moon’s overtures as South Korea is working with the United States and others to get the country punished for its ICBM launch Tuesday. It’s not the first time Moon has talked about a summit with Kim, but repeating that idea two days after the North’s most successful missile test to date clearly indicates he prefers dialogue to applying mor...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A pre-emptive military strike may be among the “pretty severe things” President Donald Trump says he is considering for North Korea, but it’s a step so fraught with risk that it ranks as among the unlikeliest options. Even a so-called surgical strike aimed at the North’s partially hidden nuclear and missile force is unlikely to destroy the arsenal or stop its leader, Kim Jong Un, from swiftly retaliating with long-range artillery that could kill stunning numbers in South Korea within minutes. President Trump, speaking in Warsaw, Poland, called on the world to confront the North Korean ‘global threat.’ (July 6) An all-out conflict could then ensue. And while Trump’s Pentagon chief, Jim Mattis, says the U.S. would prevail, he believes it would be “a catastrophic war.” In Poland on Thursday, Trump said the time has arrived to confront North Korea. “I don’t like to talk about what I have planned, but I have some pretty severe things that we’re thinkin...

HAMBURG, Germany (AP) — The Latest on the Group of 20 summit in Germany (all times local): 11:35 a.m. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin says Moscow will urge other nations in the Group of 20 to pool efforts more closely in the fight against terrorism. Putin said Russia will issue a call to “jointly neutralize political, economic, social and ideological conditions allowing the expansion of terrorism.” He added that “no nation can deal with this evil on its own and offer a reliable protection to its citizens.” Putin spoke after a meeting with the leaders of China, India, Brazil and South Africa. The leaders of the so-called BRICS countries met just before the opening of the G-20 summit. The Kremlin has said that Putin would also raise the need for closer anti-terror cooperation at his long-expected first meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump. ___ 11:05 a.m. Leaders of China, India, Russia, Brazil and South Africa have met on the sidelines of the G-20 summit ...

HAMBURG, Germany (AP) — The Group of 20 leaders’ summit opened in Hamburg Friday amid ongoing protests in the German port city, with terrorism, global trade and climate change high on the agenda. The host, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, says she hopes to find “compromises and answers” on a range of issues at the two-day meeting of leading industrial and developing nations. While there’s little disagreement on fighting terrorism, the first item on the agenda, prospects of finding common ground on climate change and trade look uncertain. The gathering, at which President Donald Trump will hold his first meeting with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, follows skirmishes Thursday evening between police and protesters at a demonstration in Germany’s biggest city that was expected to be the biggest flashpoint around the summit. Police said that at least 111 officers were hurt during the clashes, one of whom had to be taken to a hospital with an eye injury after a firew...

HAMBURG, Germany (AP) — President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin shared a brief encounter Friday ahead of their highly anticipated meeting on the sidelines of an international summit in Germany. The two leaders had a brief encounter upon arrival at the G-20 summit of industrialized and developing nations, shaking hands and exchanging a few words. Their sit-down meeting, which may tackle a number of vexing foreign policy issues from the conflict in Syria to Russia’s provocations in Ukraine, will be overshadowed by the investigations into whether Trump’s campaign coordinated with Moscow during last year’s presidential election. For Vladimir Putin, a meeting Friday with President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the G-20 summit offers a long-sought opportunity to negotiate a rapprochement with Washington, but controversy remains over the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia. (July 6) In the lead-up to the meeting, Trump, during a speech in Warsaw on Thursd...

WASHINGTON (AP) — When U.S. and Russian presidents meet, the rest of the world stops to watch. For decades, summits between leaders of the world powers have been heavily anticipated affairs in which every word, handshake and facial expression is scrutinized. President Donald Trump’s first face-to-face meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Hamburg, Germany, on Friday will be no different. Some encounters have yielded diplomatic breakthroughs, even during the worst of Cold War tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union. Others ended in unseemly displays of diplomatic discord. A look at some of the U.S.-Russian and U.S.-Soviet summits of the past: ___ 1945 — Yalta Conference With World War II winding down, the leaders of the U.S., the Soviet Union and Britain came together to plan for Europe’s postwar future and try to hasten an end to the conflict in the Pacific. Soviet leader Josef Stalin agreed to enter the war to help defeat Imperial Japan....

HAMBURG, Germany (AP) — The Latest on President Donald Trump’s second official visit to Europe (all times local): 12:12 p.m. President Donald Trump was spotted chatting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister Theresa May as he sat down with fellow world leaders for a discussion on fighting terrorism at a German summit. Merkel and Trump sat next to each other and exchanged pleasantries at the opening session of the Group of 20 leaders’ summit Friday. Trump also chatted with May, who was seated immediately to his left. Russian leader Vladimir Putin sat several seats away. Trump has alienated some U.S. allies with his decision to pull the U.S. out of an international climate agreement and his tough talk on trade. German Chancellor Angela Merkel welcomed US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping to the G-20 Summit in Hamburg on Friday. Trump’s schedule includes his first in-person meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Ju...

Written by  Samuel Ibemere By Samuel Ibemere… I have laughed ceaselessly since the image for this write-up crept up. All I hoped for when I shared the story idea with our budding creative guy was an illustration of an innocuous assembly of the five South-East governors. I didn’t tell him to put them in diapers, I swear. This was entirely his idea, and I have said to him, ‘ Bros, my hand no dey o! But here I am, stuck with a picture that more than tells the story of the crawling state of affairs in Kanu’s dream country, Biafra. The grin on my face returns each time a painting of the toddler-governors invades my subconscious. Same grin breaks into laughter  when Hezekiah, that is his name, tries to find justification for the mischief he calls a caricature. “Oga, dis na special cartoon o. Na Fani Kayode give me the inspiration. Him describe Rochas Okorocha as diaper-wearing governor. Dat one means say, the man na pipkin where elders dem gather. ...