World News

By Florence Tan, Jonathan Saul and Phil Stewart

SINGAPORE, May 13 (Reuters) – The trading arm of Vietnam’s state oil company has urged the U.S. Navy to allow a crude oil tanker laden with Iraqi oil to sail through its blockade in the Middle East Gulf to provide a Vietnamese refinery with critical supplies, PVOIL said in a letter on Tuesday.

The U.S. military has expanded its shipping blockade on Iran to include cargoes deemed contraband, although it has said other oil exports from the Gulf are free to sail through. 

The Maltese-flagged Agio Fanourios I supertanker, carrying 2 million barrels of crude oil, sailed out of the Strait of Hormuz on May 10 and was sailing in the Gulf of Oman before making a U-turn on May 11, ship tracking data on the MarineTraffic platform showed on Tuesday.

“U.S. forces redirected the vessel as part of ongoing enforcement of the blockade against Iran,” the U.S. military’s Central Command said in a statement in response to a Reuters query about the tanker.

It was not clear from the statement if the U.S. Navy would eventually allow the vessel to proceed to Vietnam as requested.

The vessel had sailed through the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday using Iran’s designated route for tankers, according to Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency.

The U.S.-Israeli war on Iran has prompted the closure of the Strait of Hormuz with hundreds of ships stranded and global energy supplies disrupted from the critical waterway through which 20% of the world’s energy supplies pass.

“This cargo is of extreme importance to Nghi Son Refinery (NSRP), to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and to the Vietnamese people,” Petrovietnam Oil Corporation (PVOIL) Vice President Hoang Dinh Tung said in a May 12 letter seen by Reuters and sent to U.S. military and diplomatic missions.     

“NSRP’s feedstock inventories are critically low; any further delay risks halting refinery throughput, with cascading consequences for millions of Vietnamese consumers, businesses, public services and industries.” 

PVOIL said it “unequivocally” confirmed that the vessel loaded Iraqi Basra crude sold by Iraq’s state oil company SOMO after the tanker was loaded between April 10 and 14.  

(Reporting by Florence Tan, Jonathan Saul and Phil Stewart; Additional reporting by Timothy Gardner and Idrees Ali; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani and Tom Hogue)

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BEIJING (AP) — It’s a verbal tightrope American presidents have had to walk for nearly 50 years, where even small slip-ups when stating official U.S. policy toward Taiwan and China can trigger geopolitical alarm bells.

The way the U.S. views Taiwan under the “One China” policy recognizes the Chinese position that Taiwan is part of China, while still allowing for informal U.S. relations with the self-governing island.

It is intended to be vague — built on what’s become known as strategic ambiguity. That is, the U.S. has agreed to ensure Taiwan has the resources to defend itself if China attempts to force a unilateral change, without saying how far it will go militarily to counter Beijing.

As assistant U.S. defense secretary Joseph Nye said in 1995 to Chinese officials wondering how the U.S. would react to a Taiwan crisis: “We don’t know, and you don’t know.”

“The idea was, stick to the very careful language that’s been crafted and don’t vary,” said Mike McCurry, former White House press secretary under Bill Clinton. “Because there are too many people listening and paying attention.”

Carefully balanced to protect Taiwan’s security and sovereignty without promising too much but also not irking Beijing, the policy could again be pushed into the spotlight during President Donald Trump’s visit to China this week. In the past, some U.S. officials have flubbed it, requiring swift diplomatic cleanup.

“It’s the precision of the words,” said John Kirby, who served across multiple Democratic administrations as a spokesman at the State Department and Pentagon and at President Joe Biden’s White House. “They just have to be so extraordinarily precise when you’re talking about Taiwan because, quite frankly, the stakes are enormously high.”

A look at how the Taiwan policy has tripped up presidents:

He suggested four times that the U.S. would intervene militarily if China were to invade Taiwan, forcing White House officials to clarify that he wasn’t undoing decades of precedent.

During an August 2021 ABC News interview, Biden talked about a U.S. commitment to respond militarily if NATO allies were attacked and added, “Same with Taiwan.” The White House later said that U.S. policy toward Taiwan hadn’t changed.

Biden said during a CNN forum that October that the U.S. was committed to defending Taiwan should China attack, resulting in similar White House backtracking.

In a May 2022 news conference in Tokyo, Biden said “yes” when asked if he was willing to use the military to defend Taiwan. “That’s the commitment we made,” he added, forcing Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to reaffirm U.S. commitment to the “One China” policy.

And Biden suggested similarly during a September 2022 interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes,” prompting more White House clarifications.

Trump was president-elect in 2016 when he took a call from Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen — likely the first president to do so since the U.S. severed diplomatic relations with the island in 1979. He later scoffed at the hubbub, posting: “Interesting how the U.S. sells Taiwan billions of dollars of military equipment but I should not accept a congratulatory call.”

The following year, the Trump White House issued a statement about a meeting in Germany between Xi and Trump that described Xi as president of the Republic of China, the formal name for Taiwan — not the correct People’s Republic of China. The event’s White House transcript was later altered to fix the mistake.

“There is a lot of difficulty to navigate a lot of these concepts. However, the reason why that is the case — a lot of misunderstanding and misspeaking — is because those concepts are conceptual traps set up by China,” said Miles Yu, who was principal China policy adviser to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during Trump’s first administration. “You cannot explain something that’s unexplainable.”

Yu, now a senior fellow and director of the China Center at the Hudson Institute, has advocated for more firmly stating the U.S. commitment to defending Taiwan. He said the concept of a “One China” policy or a “One China” principle, as Beijing calls its insistence that Taiwan is an inalienable part of China, was “completely of Chinese making.”

“No one inside the Chinese high command has ever believed there is any ambiguity as to America’s resolve to defend Taiwan,” Yu said.

Instead, he said, the U.S. has long adhered to plans to defend Taiwan in proportion to Chinese threats, as evidenced by Washington repeatedly mobilizing forces to the Taiwan Strait over the years amid heightened tensions.

Today, the Trump White House says there’s been no change in policy but scoffs at the idea of verbal gymnastics required in stating it, noting that Trump has approved major arms sales to Taiwan over the years.

After the Chinese civil war ended in 1949, Washington recognized Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists as China’s leaders, even after that government fled from Beijing to Taiwan. But, under an agreement with Beijing beginning in 1979 with Jimmy Carter, the U.S. began adhering to the “One China” policy.

Carter’s administration spent months in secret negotiations with China to reach the agreement. Yet Carter later said that it “does nothing to prevent” a future president or Congress from “even going to war” to protect Taiwan.

Bill Clinton, during a 1998 roundtable in Shanghai, said he supported the “three no’s”: The U.S. not supporting Taiwan independence; not supporting the “two Chinas” idea, which would be a separate China and Taiwan; and not backing Taiwan’s admittance into international organizations.

But the following year, Clinton said, “You know what I’ve done in the past,” seeming to point to previous U.S. military interventions and suggesting he could do something similar involving Taiwan.

During a 2001 interview with The Associated Press, George W. Bush was asked whether the U.S. might use military force to counter a Chinese attack on Taiwan and answered, “It’s certainly an option.” Bush later told CNN that didn’t mean the U.S. was toughening its stance, saying, “I have said that I will do what it takes to help Taiwan defend itself.”

Five years later, during a state visit to Washington by then-Chinese President Hu Jintao, Bush’s White House announcer mistakenly said the national anthem of the Republic of China would be played, instead of the People’s Republic of China. The correct anthem was ultimately played.

In 1989, George H.W. Bush said during a banquet in China that while the U.S. adheres to “the bedrock principle that there is but one China, we have found ways to address Taiwan constructively without rancor.”

During a 2014 joint news conference in Beijing with Xi, Barack Obama said, “We encourage further progress by both sides of the Taiwan Strait towards building ties, reducing tensions and promoting stability on the basis of dignity and respect.”

Still, getting it right can be tricky.

“Anybody who has been at the State Department, the Pentagon or even the White House podium can tell you: When the issue of Taiwan came up, you went to your notes,” Kirby said. “You didn’t freelance it.”

Yet Kirby recalled that he “got cocky once and didn’t,” mischaracterizing the policy and causing “a little kerfuffle.”

Any big error usually first draws complaints from U.S. policy officials, Kirby said, who aren’t shy with their displeasure: “You’ll be highly encouraged to make a statement correcting it right away.”

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MEXICO CITY, May 12 (Reuters) – One of the U.S. officials who was killed in a car crash in northern Mexico last month, whom sources say were CIA officers, had been seen days earlier carrying a gun in local security office, said Wendy Chavez, head of a specialized unit of the Chihuahua attorney general’s office tasked with investigating the incident.

U.S. officials are generally not permitted to carry firearms in Mexico.

(Reporting by Lizbeth Diaz;)

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PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Residents of the Cite Soleil neighborhood in Haiti’s capital protested Tuesday, demanding government protection after gang violence forced hundreds of people to flee their homes over the weekend.

Roselaine Jean-Pierre, 67, was among two dozen people who gathered at an intersection in Cite Soleil holding tree branches and demanding that police intervene in the area, even as gunshots were ringing nearby.

“I did not do anything to deserve this,” said Jean-Pierre, who fled her home on Sunday, and is now sleeping in the streets of the capital, Port-au-Prince.

Some of the protesters said they saw people getting killed over the weekend in Cite Soleil, where burned cars and dead cows could also be observed. Haitian authorities have not released any information on casualties.

“I know of seven people that have been killed and also people that have been shot,” said Michel-Ange Toussaint, who had returned briefly to her home in Cite Soleil to gather some clothes.

She said the attacks on civilians began Sunday around 6 p.m., prompting many people to flee the area in search of safety. “It is our good feet that saved us,” Toussaint said.

Gangs have overtaken Port-au-Prince since the assassination of President Jovenal Moïse in July 2021 at his home. Police say they control about 70% of the capital — down from 90% — and have expanded their activities — including looting, kidnapping, sexual assaults and rape — into the countryside. Haiti has not had a president since the assassination.

In a statement released Monday, the humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders announced the evacuation of its hospital in Cite Soleil following the intense clashes Sunday.

The Centre Hospitalier de Fontaine, another hospital that operates in Cite Soleil, said on Tuesday that it had also suspended operations due to the outbreak of violence that began Sunday, and had to evacuate all of its hospitalized patients, including 11 newborns.

In April, the first foreign troops linked to a U.N. force arrived in Haiti to help quell ongoing violence.

The U.N. Security Council in late September approved a plan to authorize a 5,550-member force, which has not fully arrived in the island nation. An unknown number of troops from Chad have so far been deployed.

A report published earlier this year by the International Organization for Migration found that gang violence has displaced more than 1.4 million people in Haiti, with approximately 200,000 of them now living in crowded and underfunded sites in the nation’s capital.

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SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazil said Tuesday that the European Union has moved to block its animal product exports from September, just days after a mega deal between the South American trade bloc Mercosur and the EU on a trans-Atlantic market estimated at $22 trillion went into effect, at least provisionally.

The deal, which is now before the European Court of Justice, has faced opposition from European farmers and environmental groups worried about unfair competition, threats to their livelihoods, price pressures and environmental standards.

A statement from Brazil’s agriculture ministry said Europe’s decision was received “with surprise,” adding that the South American country’s government will try to reverse it. Brazilian media said the EU claimed it had not received proof that animal products from Brazil and other countries were free of antimicrobial substances used to stimulate animal growth.

Brazil’s head of mission at the EU will meet the bloc’s authorities on animal products on Wednesday “to seek explanations about the decision,” the ministry said.

According to the Brazilian government’s association for animal products, EU countries were the third biggest destination for Brazil’s beef in 2025, after the United States and China.

The EU-Mercosur free trade agreement came into force on May 1. It was signed Jan. 17 at a meeting of the South American group, which includes Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s has provisionally enacted the deal, effectively sidestepping the EU Parliament where the agreement is now being challenged by EU lawmakers at the bloc’s judiciary. The agreement will be halted if the European body rules against it.

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BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Tens of thousands of Argentines flooded the streets of major cities nationwide on Tuesday to protest funding cuts by libertarian President Javier Milei to the public university system that represents a near-universal point of pride in this crisis-prone country.

Vast crowds in downtown Buenos Aires marched toward the government headquarters to denounce budget shortfalls eroding the financial foundation of the country’s higher education. Argentina’s public university system, a cornerstone of its well-educated workforce cherished by its large middle class, has been tuition-free since 1949 and produced five Nobel Prize laureates.

Congress passed a law last year to fund universities’ operational costs and raise teacher salaries in line with high inflation. But the government has not implemented it as it challenges the legislation in court.

Like his powerful backer and ally U.S. President Donald Trump, Milei routinely attacks university campuses as bastions of “woke” indoctrination. He has slashed public education funding as part of his plan to take a chain saw to state funding in a sharp break from what he describes as decades of reckless spending that spawned corruption under his left-leaning predecessors.

Tuesday’s protest gathered people of all ages and political persuasions as Milei faces declining approval ratings over slumping economic activity, falling wages and climbing unemployment. A recent series of corruption scandals has also struck a nerve, with fallout particularly growing from an investigation into lavish spending by Milei’s close ally, Cabinet chief Manuel Adorni, that appears inconsistent with his modest public salary and declared assets.

“How much does Adorni cost us?” read one of several student protest signs alluding to the alleged misuse of public funds.

Milei’s undersecretary for university policies, Alejandro Álvarez, criticized Tuesday’s march as “completely political” and said the government had compensated universities for higher operating costs — marginal increases that unions have rejected as insufficient.

In seeking to annul the legislation, Milei’s administration argues that it fails to specify how the state will supply the mandatory funding increases in a time of harsh fiscal austerity. The case is expected to go to the Supreme Court. Student protesters on Tuesday called on the nation’s highest court to “listen to the outcry throughout the country’s public squares.”

Since Milei took power in late 2023, university professors’ paychecks have declined by roughly 33% after accounting for stubborn inflation, according to the main teachers’ federation.

The rector of the prestigious University of Buenos Aires, Ricardo Gelpi, said the steep losses in purchasing power has driven at least 580 research professors in the engineering and science departments to ditch the public system for private universities or other better-paying jobs.

“It’s very clear this government is determined to defund public education,” said Sol Muñíz, 24, a law student at the University of Buenos Aires at the march. “University is a source of pride for us. It is the best thing we have.”

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Associated Press writer Isabel DeBre contributed to this report.

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Follow AP’s Latin America coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

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TRIPOLI, May 12 (Reuters) – Authorities in eastern Libya say they have found and deported 120 migrants who were being held captive by people traffickers south of Benghazi, and have recovered the bodies of three other migrants from the Mediterranean shore.

A statement by the security directorate in the city of Ajdabiya said an Egyptian migrant who had escaped and was found lost and exhausted in the coastal town of Bishr had led security services to the locations where the other migrants were being held.

The Egyptian had been held with compatriots and migrants of other nationalities “inside a den used to torture migrants and blackmail their families”, according to the statement, which was released late on Monday.

Since the toppling of Muammar Gaddafi in a NATO-backed uprising in 2011, Libya has become a transit route for migrants fleeing conflict and poverty to Europe via dangerous routes across the desert and over the Mediterranean.

The oil-dependent Libyan economy is also a draw for impoverished migrants seeking work, but security throughout the sprawling country is poor, leaving migrants vulnerable to abuse.

The operation to free the captive migrants lasted almost a fortnight, the Ajdabiya security directorate said.

In captivity, they had been “forced to plead for help under whippings and beatings, while their suffering is documented in videos sent to their families to extort money from them,” it said.

The bodies of two Bangladeshi migrants and one Egyptian were found on the shore in Bishr, which is located about 122 kilometers (76 miles) west of Ajdabiya, the directorate added. A boat was also found on the shore.

The directorate posted pictures appearing to show migrants sitting on the floor after they had been recovered from traffickers, and other pictures of passports, boat engines, blue plastic water containers and wooden boats, some fully assembled and others still under construction.

It said a small boat plant was also seized and that arrest warrants had been issued for “fugitive” human traffickers.

The migrants had been deported, it said, without providing details.

(Reporting by Ahmed Elumami; Editing by Aidan Lewis)

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KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Malaysian authorities searched Tuesday for 14 missing Indonesians after a boat carrying over 30 people sank.

The maritime office in central Perak state said that 23 people were rescued Monday by a local fishing vessel after the boat capsized off the island of Pangkor in Perak, adding it was believed to be carrying “undocumented migrants.”

Perak maritime chief Capt. Mohamad Shukri Khotob said the fishing vessel called for help after finding the people floating at sea before dawn. The search and rescue operation, which began Monday, would continue until all missing individuals were located, the statement said. A total of 37 people were believed to be on board, he said.

Mohamad Shukri said the victims were believed to have departed from Kisaran, Indonesia, on May 9 and were headed to multiple territories in Malaysia, including Penang, Selangor, and Kuala Lumpur.

The 23 survivors were handed over to marine authorities for questioning.

Malaysia has long been a destination for Indonesian workers seeking better job opportunities. Many attempt to enter the country illegally via sea routes, often in overcrowded and unsafe vessels, risking accidents and loss of life. Indonesians make up the large bulk of foreign labor in Malaysia, predominantly in plantations and construction.

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By Francois Murphy

VIENNA, May 12 (Reuters) – The Eurovision Song Contest gets off to a tense start in Vienna on Tuesday with a protest due to be held hours before the first semi-final featuring Israel, whose attendance prompted five countries to boycott over the Gaza war.

The contest, traditionally a good-natured celebration of pop music and high camp now in its 70th year, has become mired in crisis over Israel’s military offensive in Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023.

The public broadcasters of five countries – Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland, Iceland and Slovenia – are boycotting this year’s event, making it the smallest since 2003 with 35 entries. That will also most likely reduce viewership from last year’s estimated 166 million, more than the Super Bowl’s 128 million.

‘WE WILL NOT BE TERRORISED’

A first protest, expected to draw an estimated 500 people, was planned for Tuesday afternoon and the tension in the city was palpable ahead of the semi-final scheduled for 9 p.m. (1900 GMT).

“We won’t let ourselves be terrorised into silence,” Vienna Mayor Michael Ludwig of the Social Democrats said on Friday in an angry response to a small group of pro-Palestinian protesters who blew whistles at a concert he was speaking at.

“Unfortunately we will need large security measures because of people like you, for example. That will incur great expense, but we will nevertheless hold a festival of togetherness, I can promise you that,” he said.

The joint head of Amnesty International Austria, Shoura Hashemi, said on X Ludwig should apologise for his “unbearable, false, divisive” remarks aimed at peaceful protesters.

Austrian officialdom is strongly supportive of Israel, and pro-Palestinian protests are small. A handful of protests are planned this week, with attendance estimated at up to 3,000.

IRELAND SAID ATTENDANCE WOULD BE ‘UNCONSCIONABLE’

Police also say there could be spontaneous protests, particularly on Saturday, the day of the final. A cold snap, with rain and temperatures not due to exceed 18 degrees Celsius (64 degrees Fahrenheit) all week, could help keep numbers down.

Irish broadcaster RTE referred back to its statement in December that it would be “unconscionable” to take part.

Israel often alleges a global smear campaign against it.

At least 1,200 people were killed in the October 7 attack, most of them civilians. Israel responded by launching an assault on the enclave that killed more than 72,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and left much of Gaza in ruins.

Israel’s contestant last year was Yuval Raphael, a survivor of the attack, who came second thanks to a massive public vote.

Its contestant this year, Noam Bettam, has no obvious political connotation but did receive a formal warning on Saturday for posting videos instructing the public to vote for him 10 times, the maximum allowed.

Contest Director Martin Green told Reuters he hoped those boycotting would return.

“They are members of our family, right? We miss them,” he said, adding: “We remain in dialogue to see if we can find pathways for them back.”

(Editing by Alexandra Hudson)

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By Jasper Ward

May 12 (Reuters) – Bahamians headed to the polls on Tuesday to decide whether to grant Prime Minister Philip Davis and his ruling Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) a second consecutive term, a feat no leader has accomplished in nearly 30 years.

The vote pits the incumbent PLP against its primary rival, the Free National Movement (FNM), led by Michael Pintard. Polls open across the archipelago as voters weigh concerns about affordability and housing against the government’s record.

The election, which was not due until October, was called early by Davis. An official in his office stated the decision was made to hold the vote to get ahead of the upcoming Atlantic hurricane season. The previous election in September 2021, which brought Davis to power, was also a snap election. 

At stake are 41 seats in the Bahamian House of Assembly. This represents an increase of two seats from the last election, following recommendations from the independent constituencies commission to add two new seats. The PLP, which held a strong majority with 32 of the 39 seats heading into Tuesday’s vote, is campaigning to build on its mandate, while the FNM seeks to return to power after its 2021 defeat.

Key issues dominating the campaign have been the rising cost of living, stagnant wages, and a persistent housing shortage. The International Monetary Fund noted these challenges in a 2025 report, acknowledging government efforts on housing while suggesting more public spending could be necessary.

Months ahead of the election, Davis took steps to remove value-added tax from food sold in grocery stores – a move that the opposition said would have little impact on Bahamians. 

Several high-profile races are expected to draw significant attention. In the Garden Hills constituency, incumbent Mario Bowleg faces a challenge from three-time NBA champion Rick Fox, who is running as a candidate for the FNM.

Former Prime Minister Dr. Hubert Minnis, who Davis defeated in 2021, is running as an independent candidate for a seat he has held for nearly two decades. His independent bid comes after the FNM, the party he once led, refused to ratify him as its candidate.

(Reporting by Jasper Ward; Editing by Brendan O’Boyle and Stephen Coates)

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