Chinese President Xi Jinping will visit North Korea next week, state media said Friday, his first trip abroad this year after hosting a series of leaders as Beijing asserts itself as a global diplomatic superpower.

State broadcaster CCTV said Xi would visit from June 8 to 9 at the invitation of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, his first trip to Pyongyang in seven years.

Beijing is a vital source of political and economic support to North Korea, which is one of the most diplomatically isolated countries in the world and under heavy international sanctions.

The upcoming meeting will be Xi’s first official overseas trip this year, and comes after he hosted back-to-back summits with US President Donald Trump and Russia’s Vladimir Putin last month.

“China is meeting leaders from around the world, coordinating positions and playing a mediating role,” Lim Eul-chul, a North Korea expert at South Korea’s Kyungnam University, told AFP.

“As China’s international standing rises, Beijing is likely seeking to draw Pyongyang more actively into its diplomatic orbit as a partner in advancing a more multilateral order.”

The two leaders will “exchange views on bilateral relations and issues of common concern”, Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said at a press briefing on Friday.

The visit was “an opportunity to promote the development” of bilateral relations and “make greater contributions to regional and even world peace”, Mao said.

Pyongyang depends on China for up to 95 percent of total trade and 85 percent of its exports, according to 2022 statistics from the National Committee on North Korea, a Washington-based think tank.

But North Korea has drawn closer to Russia since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, with Pyongyang sending thousands of troops and weapons to support the war effort.

In return, analysts say North Korea is receiving financial aid, military technology, food and energy, helping it circumvent sanctions over its banned nuclear programmes.

Xi’s choice of Pyongyang for his first overseas trip of 2026 is “a deliberate visual rebuttal to the prevailing read in Western capitals that Pyongyang had quietly migrated into Moscow’s orbit”, said Seong-Hyon Lee from the George H. W. Bush Foundation for US-China Relations.

Managing the relationship

Xi last met Kim in September, when he invited the North Korean leader and Putin as guests of honour to a military parade in Beijing marking the 80th anniversary of the victory over imperial Japan in World War II.

In 2019, Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan were welcomed to North Korea with great pomp and fanfare to celebrate the two countries’ “unbreakable friendship”.

Beijing’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi said during a visit to Pyongyang in April that China and South Korea should “enhance coordination” on international and regional issues.

China’s interests include keeping an eye on North Korea’s nuclear programme, the advancement of which is “extremely rapid”, Hong Min of the Korea Institute for National Unification (KINU) told AFP.

“This aspect needs to be managed. If North Korea acts in a provocative and belligerent manner, it could trigger regional conflict, which could run counter to China’s interests,” Hong said.

Kim vowed an “exponential” increase in nuclear military capabilities on Wednesday as he visited a new atomic facility, Pyongyang’s state-run Korean Central News Agency reported.

South Korea’s foreign ministry has said it hopes exchanges between North Korea and China contribute to peace and stability, and that China can play a constructive role.

Pyongyang has repeatedly shunned efforts by the South Korean government to improve relations, calling Seoul its most “hostile” adversary.

Analysts have viewed Xi’s recent diplomatic flurry as part of attempts to position China as a stable, strategic alternative to an unpredictable United States.

Traditional US allies, including Britain’s Keir Starmer and France’s Emmanuel Macron, have also come to Beijing.

However, Hong, of KINU, judged the chances that Xi might help broker a meeting between Trump and Kim as “very low”.

Start of talks delayed as world leaders kept waiting for Trump, Macron and Zelenskyy

… and given the delay this morning, the meeting may or may not have happened already – guess we will find out at some point during the day.

in Évian-les-Bains

US president left last meeting early, but world leaders aim to end Ukraine war and push for resolution in Gaza and Iran

Emmanuel Macron, the host of the G7 summit in Évian-les-Bains, has framed an agenda to make it as palatable as possible to his guest of honour, but the French president has no idea if Donald Trump, a haphazard summit attender, will last the full three days – or disrupt the proceedings every hour he stays.

The US president quit the last G7 summit in Kananaskis, Canada, early to work on the Iran conflict, and this year, plus ça change, Iran may also draw presidential attention. For good measure, he insulted this summit’s host before leaving Canada last year, describing Macron as “publicity seeking” and adding: “Purposefully or not, Emmanuel Macron always gets it wrong.”

PARIS, June 1 — France said today that nearly 900 people had been arrested in riots that broke out after Paris Saint-Germain club won the coveted Champions League for a second consecutive year over the weekend.

“We’ve had more than 890 arrests. In total, that’s 45 per cent more than last year,” Interior Minister Laurent Nunez told broadcaster France Inter, adding that nearly 180 law enforcement officers had been injured.

Celebrations were blighted by clashes between youths and police in Paris and other cities, cars set on fire and shops looted.

Yesterday evening, President Emmanuel Macron received the team at the Elysee Palace. While he said PSG were an “immense pride” for France, he denounced the “unspeakable” violence.

“Enough. We are fed up,” he said.

“This is not football, this is not sport, this is not what we love,” he added.

One man died riding his motorbike around the Paris ring road in celebration while authorities reported stabbings and other attacks. — AFP

On April 17, the government of Myanmar (formerly Burma) announced a reduction in the 27-year prison sentence imposed on Aung San Suu Kyi, the political leader deposed in the 2021 coup and jailed ever since. After the announcement, rumors began circulating about a possible transfer, so that she could serve the remainder of her sentence under house arrest.

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The G-7 summit, which brings together seven of the world’s most industrialized democracies, will gauge this week the depth of the rift in the West — the division between the United States and its traditional allies. The summit runs from Monday through Wednesday in the French town of Évian-les-Bains, on the shores of Lake Geneva. The eve of the meeting was marked by a protest in Geneva, attended by thousands, during which there were acts of vandalism and clashes with police.

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Ukraine’s president dismisses Moscow’s claim that it did not target Kyiv’s Pechersk Lavra monastery, ahead of meeting of G7 leaders in France

• Kyiv monastery set on fire in night of Russian attacks across Ukraine

• Macron frames Évian G7 agenda in hope Trump will stay for whole summit

Meanwhile, Unesco has formally condemned the Russian strikes on Ukraine that hit the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, “one of Ukraine’s most significant spiritual and cultural landmarks.”

In a statement, the body said:

“The strike reportedly caused significant damage to the exterior and interior of the Dormition Cathedral. Adjacent historic structures, including elements of the Lavra’s fortification complex and Ivan Kushnik Tower, were also reportedly impacted.

Unesco condemns attacks against cultural property, educational institutions, students, education personnel and media professionals protected under international law. Damage to such institutions deprives communities of access to culture, education, and shared spaces that are essential for recovery and social cohesion.

WASHINGTON, June 13 — Little is known about what President Donald Trump hopes to achieve at next week’s G7 summit in Evian, France, beyond one certainty: the US president is likely to set the tone – and perhaps the agenda.

Much may depend on the outcome of peace talks involving Iran, which appeared to be gaining momentum on Friday.

“It is not possible to ‘manage Trump’ the way it has been possible during his first term,” Liana Fix, an associate fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told AFP ahead of the summit.

The gathering will bring Trump face-to-face with the leaders of France, Germany, Canada, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom.

Most of those leaders have at some point been targets of Trump’s trade threats, diplomatic pressure or public criticism, with the notable exception of Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, whom he is known to admire.

‘Expect the worst’

Neither Trump’s declining approval ratings nor the US Supreme Court’s decision to strike down his blanket tariffs is expected to soften his approach towards allies.

European leaders, in particular, have learned through disputes over Greenland, trade and the Iran conflict “to hope for the best but to expect the worst”, Fix said.

The US has also informed European partners of plans to significantly reduce the number of aircraft and warships committed to Nato operations in Europe, according to a New York Times report.

“I don’t think you’re going to see a weakened president,” Jackson James, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the US, told AFP.

“I think he’s going to go over there and do what he always does, which is just try to bully his way through these very, very complicated issues and try to get the American agenda, as he sees it, fulfilled.”

Trump “says he doesn’t like these multilateral meetings”, but “cannot bear for an assembly of world leaders to meet and he not being there”, said Victor Cha of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“So he shows up at these things and he leaves early,” Cha said, referring to Trump’s behaviour at previous summits.

Versailles charm offensive

French President Emmanuel Macron is reportedly hoping to persuade Trump to stay for a dinner at Versailles on Wednesday evening, appealing to the US leader’s fondness for grandeur and ceremony.

France has already adjusted the summit dates so they do not clash with Trump’s 80th birthday celebrations or a mixed martial arts event he is due to host at the White House.

Some analysts also see the absence of South Africa from the summit guest list as a gesture towards Washington.

Paris has denied any pressure to withdraw an invitation to South Africa, which Trump has repeatedly accused – without evidence – of discriminating against its white population.

Analysts say one topic likely to attract Trump’s attention is trade relations with China.

Ukraine dynamics shift

The balance of power has also evolved on the issue of Ukraine, where Europe is no longer viewed as being as dependent on Washington as it was a year ago.

In 2025, “Europeans just sort of agreed that they had to bend the knee to Trump because of Ukraine” and its need for US military support, said Max Bergmann, a Europe expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“But now we’re just in a different dynamic where Ukraine is not as dependent on the United States.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been invited to participate in discussions in Evian, setting the stage for another potentially high-stakes encounter with Trump. — AFP

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, 74, electrified the streets on Sunday at the launch of his campaign. It was in Saint-Denis, land of kings, a Paris suburb turned epicenter of immigration and multiculturalism. But also where he gets the narrative material that weaves the idea of the New France that the leader of the far-left party La France Insoumise (LFI, or France Unbowed) has put forward to win over the suburbs in the presidential election of spring 2027. And, incidentally, to capture the roughly 400,000 votes that were missing last time to reach the runoff.

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