BAKU, 10 December 2021, (TON): An Azerbaijani soldier has died in a shootout with Armenian forces, officials in Baku said, two weeks after the arch-foe countries held talks on easing tensions following their war last year.

The ex-Soviet Caucasus neighbors fought last autumn a six-week war over the contested region of Nagorno-Karabakh which has claimed more than 6,500 lives.

Hostilities ended last November with a Russian-brokered cease-fire under which Yerevan ceded swathes of territory it had controlled for decades.

Baku’s defense ministry said “an Azerbaijani soldier was killed overnight as a result of a provocation by Armenia’s armed forces near the countries’ shared border.

The ministry said in a statement “full responsibility for the escalation lies with Armenia’s political and military leaders.”

Armenia, meanwhile, said Baku had opened fire on its positions on Wednesday night on the eastern part of their shared border.

It called on Azerbaijan to “refrain from provocative actions.”

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev met for rare face-to-face talks under the mediation of Russian President Vladimir Putin last month.

MOSCOW, 10 December 2021, (TON): Russia kept up a barrage of hostile rhetoric toward Ukraine and compared the crisis there to the most dangerous moment of the Cold War as it waited for US President Joe Biden to invite it to possible talks with NATO countries.

The Russian Foreign Ministry accused Ukraine of moving heavy artillery toward the front line of fighting with pro-Russian separatists in the east of the former Soviet republic and failing to engage in a peace process.

The events in the Donbass, or the conflict zone in eastern Ukraine, now “resemble genocide,” state news agency quoted Russian President Vladimir Putin as saying.

The Russian intelligence service (FSB) said of events that happened earlier “a Ukrainian warship headed toward the Kerch Strait, which separates Russia and its annexed peninsula of Crimea, and did not react to a Russian request to change its course.”

The Ukrainian vessel later headed back, Interfax reported, citing FSB.

The Ukrainian defense minister said it was a search-and-rescue ship with no weapons on board.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova told reporters “negotiations on a peaceful settlement have practically hit a dead end.”

LONDON, 10 December 2021, (TON): Their prime ministers said “Australia and Britain will join the United States in a diplomatic boycott of the Winter Olympic Games in Beijing, as other allies weighed similar moves to protest at China's human rights record in Xinjiang.

The United States has said its government officials would boycott February's Beijing Olympics because of China's human rights atrocities, just weeks after talks aimed at easing tense relations between the world's two largest economies.

China said the US would "pay a price" for its decision and warned of countermeasures in response.

It also has denied any wrongdoing in Xinjiang and said allegations are fabricated.

WASHINGTON, 10 December 2021, (TON): US President Joe Biden gathered over 100 world leaders at a summit and made a plea to bolster democracies around the world, calling safeguarding rights and freedoms in the face of rising authoritarianism the "defining challenge" of the current era.

In the opening speech for his virtual "Summit for Democracy" a first-of-its-kind gathering intended to counter democratic backsliding worldwide, Biden said global freedoms were under threat from autocrats seeking to expand power, export influence and justify repression.

He said "we stand at an inflection point in our history, in my view. ...Will we allow the backward slide of rights and democracy to continue unchecked? Or will we together have a vision...and courage to once more lead the march of human progress and human freedom forward?.”

The conference is a test of Biden's assertion, announced in his first foreign policy address in February, that he would return the United States to global leadership to face down authoritarian forces, after the country's global standing took a beating under predecessor Donald Trump.

RIYADH, 10 December 2021, (TON): A senior Saudi representative at the UN has said “Saudi Arabia has made major contributions towards combating poverty, hunger and the effects of natural disasters on communities around the world.”

Sulafa Moussa, a member of the permanent delegation of Saudi Arabia to the UN and chairperson of the Third Committee on Social, Humanitarian and Cultural issues, was speaking at a high-level meeting at the UN to mark the 15th anniversary of the organization’s Central Emergency Response Fund.

She said “the Kingdom confirmed its willingness to respond to global humanitarian appeals and to support the efforts of the UN and programs such as the World Food Program aimed at preventing famine and drought in affected countries to save the lives of millions of people and children.”

UNCERF was launched to establish funding processes for humanitarian aid crises and help responders to deliver life-saving assistance whenever and wherever crises occur.

Contributions for 2021 amounted to $592.4 million from 53 member and observer states, three international organizations and regional authorities, and two private sector and civil society bodies.

BRUSSELS, 10 December 2021, (TON): The Council adopted the regulation establishing the EU asylum agency. This regulation aims to improve the application of asylum policy within the EU, by turning the current European asylum support office (EASO) into a fully-fledged agency.

This agency will be responsible for improving the functioning of the common European asylum system, by providing enhanced operational and technical assistance to member states and by contributing to more convergence in the assessment of applications for international protection.

Having a fully-fledged EU asylum agency is an important step in the building of our common EU asylum policy. This agency will be able to provide quick, tangible support to member states wherever needed. It will also contribute to our cooperation with third countries, showing in a very concrete way the strength of our joint action.

The EU asylum agency regulation strengthens the current EASO mandate and facilitates the deployment of experts to member states that have requested operational support.

The new legislation increases the agency’s support to cooperation among member states and third countries, thereby also contributing to the solidarity among member states and the EU overall external dimension. It also takes into account that discussions on a new migration and asylum pact are ongoing and defers the entry into application of the monitoring mechanism to a later stage.

WASHINGTON, 10 December 2021, (TON): The US House of Representatives on Wednesday passed legislation restricting imports from China's Xinjiang region over its treatment of the Uighur Muslim minority, as tensions continue to escalate between Washington and Beijing.

Members of the House voted 428-1 to pass the “Uighur Forced Labour Prevention Act” which requires corporations to prove “with clear and convincing evidence” that any goods imported from the region were not made using forced labour.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi told lawmakers ahead of the vote “right now, Beijing is orchestrating a brutal and accelerating campaign of repression against the Uighur people and other Muslim minorities.”

“In Xinjiang, across China, millions are enduring outrageous human rights abuses: from mass surveillance and disciplinary policing; to mass torture including solitary confinement and forced sterilisations; intimidation of journalists and activists who have dared to expose the truth.”

She added “and, the government of China's exploitation of forced labour reaches across the oceans to our shores and across the world.”

The US Senate has previously approved a similar measure and the two will now need reconciling.

The bill will then need to be signed into law by President Joe Biden and it was unclear whether it had White House support.

RIYADH, 10 December 2021, (TON): Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman arrived in Bahrain, on the fourth leg of his tour of Gulf countries aimed at bolstering relations.

Upon his arrival at Sakhir Air Base airport in the capital, Manama, Prince Mohammed was received by King Hamad and his Bahraini counterpart Prince Salman bin Hamad.

The crown prince and the Bahraini monarch headed an official procession to Sakhir Palace, where Bahrainis lined the road, raising the flags of the two kingdoms and chanting the Saudi and Bahraini national anthems to welcome Prince Mohammed.

Bahrainis line the road, raising the flags of the two kingdoms and chanting the Saudi and Bahraini national anthems to welcome Prince Mohammed. (MOFA).

A statement on Saudi Press Agency said “reviewed the historical fraternal relations between the two countries and ways to enhance cooperation in various fields.”

Later, Crown Prince Mohammed and Crown Prince Salman co-chaired the Saudi-Bahraini Coordination Council.

KABUL, 10 December 2021, (TON): Turkish construction companies operating in Afghanistan are earning praise for their state-of-the-art projects in Afghanistan, which currently needs such developmental projects as well as investment.

Mujiburrahman Omar said "we highly value the work of this Turkish company.”

Taliban administration's interim deputy minister for energy and water, during an on-site visit to an electricity project in the country's southern province of Helmand.

He said "we came here from Kabul to inspect the progress of work at their project site.”

A Turkish company is building the 100-megawatt Kajaki Hydroelectric Power Station, some 700 kilometers (435 miles) from Afghanistan's capital Kabul.

Omar said “Afghanistan is open to all investors.”

The minister said "starting with Turks, we appeal to investors all over the world to come and invest in our homeland.”

He said the Taliban administration was committed to infrastructure development in the war-torn country.

KABUL, 10 December 2021, (TON): Foreign Minister of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) Mawlavi Amir Khan Muttaqi met UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Ms. Rosemary DiCarlo.

In the meeting, Ms. DiCarlo pledged to continue assisting Afghanistan and discussed security along with a number of other issues.

During the meeting, Foreign Minister expressed gratitude for the assistance and gave assurances about cooperation, adding that not giving a seat to the new Afghan government in the UN is a violation of the right of the Afghan people and using it as a pressure tool only complicates matters.