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US-Pakistan tensions

Pakistan's foreign office has lodged a formal protest with the US over what it calls threatening remarks by a senior US official. According to local media reports, the government summoned the acting US envoy in Islamabad late on Thursday. It came shortly after Pakistan’s top security authority, the national security committee, voiced concern over threatening remarks by a foreign official in a meeting with Pakistan’s envoy to the US. Reports said an American official told the ambassador that the Asian country could face dire consequences if a parliamentary motion aiming to oust its premier Imran Khan failed. A foreign ministry source said the US envoy was told that such undiplomatic language was unacceptable and amounted to blatant interference in the internal affairs of Pakistan. Prime Minister Khan has rejected opposition calls to resign ahead of a no-confidence vote.

EU's Russia sanctions

A senior official from Russia’s foreign ministry says his country will not ask the European Union to end sanctions against Moscow. Nikolai Kobrinets said the country has a sufficient "margin of safety". Kobrinets, who is the head of the EU cooperation department at the ministry, said the bloc is not the center of the universe. He noted that the EU might realize that a confrontation with Russia conflicts with its interests. The official added that anti-Russia bans are negatively affecting the lives of ordinary European people. The EU has imposed a series of harsh sanctions against Russia over its military operation in Ukraine. The bloc is heavily dependent on Russia’s energy sector, and a halt to supplies will cause a major energy crisis.

Canada indigenous rights

Canadian Representatives of the Assembly of First Nations have urged Pope Francis to revoke centuries-old papal orders used to justify the colonial powers’ seizure of Indigenous land in the Americas. The delegates made the demand during a private meeting with the Pope at the Vatican. The so-called Doctrine of Discovery declared territory held by Indigenous Peoples to be nobody's land. The group says there's a direct connection between the doctrine and the disappearances and deaths of Indigenous women in Canada. The delegates also urged the Pope to release all residential school records held by the Catholic Church. Following the meeting, they said they believed Pope Francis would soon apologize for the Church's role in the abuse at residential schools. The stated aim of the schools, run between the 1830s and the 1990s, was to assimilate indigenous children. More than 4,000 children reportedly died either from neglect or abuse in those schools.

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