World

YEREVAN — Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Thursday called on Azerbaijan to begin consultations on signing a peace treaty, a text of which the arch-foe Caucasus neighbours agreed upon last week.

Baku and Yerevan fought two wars for control of Azerbaijan's Armenian-populated region of Karabakh, at the end of the Soviet Union and again in 2020, before Azerbaijan seized the entire area in a 24-hour offensive in September 2023.

Both countries have repeatedly said a comprehensive peace deal to end their long-standing conflict is within reach, but previous talks had failed to reach consensus on a draft agreement.

On Friday, the two countries said they had wrapped up talks on resolving the conflict, with both sides agreeing on the text of a possible treaty.

"The draft of Armenia-Azerbaijan peace agreement has been agreed upon and awaits signing," Pashinyan said Thursday in an English post on Telegram.

"I propose Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to begin joint consultations on the signing of the agreed draft peace agreement."

The deal to normalise ties would be a major breakthrough in a region where Russia, the European Union, the United States and Turkey all jostle for influence.

Baku has made clear its expectations that Armenia remove from its constitution a reference to its 1991 declaration of independence, which asserts territorial claims over Karabakh.

Any constitutional amendment would require a national referendum that could further delay the treaty's finalisation.

Pashinyan has recognised Baku's sovereignty over Karabakh after three decades of Armenian separatist rule, a move seen as a crucial first step towards a normalisation of relations.

Armenia also last year returned to Azerbaijan four border villages it had seized decades earlier.

Nearly all ethnic Armenians, more than 100,000 people, fled Karabakh after its takeover by Baku.

Washington, Brussels and European leaders such as France's President Emmanuel Macron have welcomed the breakthrough. They have all tried to play a mediating role at various times in the conflict.

BOGOTÁ — Colombia's leftist president called thousands of supporters to the streets Tuesday, a political show of strength in an effort to press lawmakers into passing stalled health and labour reforms.

In major cities from Bogota to Medellin, thousands of Gustavo Petro's supporters blocked streets, waved flags and chanted slogans of support.

Petro, 64, is the first leftist president in Colombia's history, but has failed to pass the bulk of his reformist agenda through Congress.

With little more than a year left in his four-year term, Petro is now in a race to fulfil key pledges and cement his political legacy.

The ex-guerrilla cannot run in the 2026 elections, but he hopes populist support in favour of his reforms will bolster goodwill for his as-yet unannounced successor.

Petro has blamed powerful business interests for blocking reforms, which among other measures would give workers extra pay for working nights, Sundays or public holidays.

He joined the march in Bogota's Plaza de Bolivar, telling protesters that a corrupt "oligarchy" has "betrayed the Colombian people, for greed and for money."

"Colombia's Congress is turning its back on the people," he said, demanding a referendum on the reforms -- a vote unlikely to pass Congress.

Pensioner Edgar Sanchez said he was protesting so that his children and grandchildren can regain what he once had: "eight-hour workdays, night pay and an end to outsourcing."

Maritza Rodríguez, a 48-year-old teacher in Bogota, complained of mistreatment by employers.

"Workers should have the opportunity to change their lifestyle... we would be happier. The economic situation would recover," she said.

Petro's approval rating stands at 32 percent, according to the latest poll by Invamer.

His disapproval rate has soared to 63 percent, thanks in part to perceived failures in countering narcotrafficking, armed guerrilla groups and corruption.

Petro is also facing a cabinet crisis after calling last month for the resignations of senior officials, who he accused of falling behind on the delivery of key projects.

The latest was Finance Minister Diego Guevara, who on Tuesday announced on social media platform X that he had submitted his resignation after a "personal, calm, and friendly conversation" with the president. 

KYIV — The Kremlin accused Kyiv Wednesday of countering US-Russia efforts to end the conflict in Ukraine, saying it had tried to strike Russian energy infrastructure despite Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump agreeing a halt on such attacks.

Putin announced a 30-day pause on striking Ukrainian energy facilities following a call with Trump on Tuesday, after turning down the US president's previous demand to pause all hostilities.

"Unfortunately, so far see there has been no reciprocity on the part of the Kyiv regime. There were attempts to strike our energy infrastructure," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

"These attacks are countering our common [Russian-American] efforts."

Peskov said Putin had "immediately" given the command to stop energy attacks on Ukraine, claiming that seven Russian drones were "in the air" to be used on Ukrainian energy infrastructure but were instead shot down by air defences.

Both countries attacked each other with drones after the Putin-Trump call.

The Kremlin said Putin had only committed to a ceasefire in strikes on energy infrastructure, clarifying a discrepancy between Russian and US reports after US envoy Steve Witkoff said Moscow had agreed to halt strikes on all infrastructure.

Kyiv had last week committed to an unconditional ceasefire with Russia.

The Kremlin said that Putin and Trump "trust each other and are intent to gradually move towards the normalisation of ties" more than three years into Moscow's offensive.

Peskov said the phone call between Trump and Putin lasted around two hours and that the pair had also discussed military aid to Ukraine, without giving details as "it is quite a sensitive topic and probably should not be discussed in public".

WASHINGTON — Home at last: After an unexpected nine-month stay in space, a pair of NASA astronauts finally returned to Earth on Tuesday, concluding a mission that gripped global attention and became a political flashpoint.

A SpaceX Crew Dragon spaceship carrying Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, alongside fellow American Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov streaked through the atmosphere before deploying parachutes for a gentle splashdown off the Florida coast at 5:57 pm.

Ground teams erupted in cheers as the gumdrop-shaped spacecraft named Freedom, charred from withstanding scorching temperatures of 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit during re-entry, bobbed steadily on the waves beneath a clear, sunny sky.

Fast boats raced to the capsule for initial safety checks, soon to be followed by a recovery vessel that will retrieve the crew before they are flown to Houston to begin a 45-day rehabilitation program.

"What a ride, I see a capsule full of friends here," Hague said.

The quartet left the International Space Station roughly 17 hours earlier after exchanging final farewells and hugs with remaining crew members.

Wilmore and Williams, both ex-Navy pilots and veterans of two prior space missions, flew to the orbital lab in June last year, on what was supposed to be a days-long roundtrip to test out Boeing's Starliner on its first crewed flight.

But the spaceship developed propulsion problems and was deemed unfit to fly them back, instead returning empty.

They were subsequently reassigned to NASA's SpaceX Crew-9 mission, which arrived at the ISS last September with a reduced crew of two, rather than the usual four, to accommodate the pair, who had become widely referred to as the "stranded" astronauts.

Early Sunday, a relief team called Crew-10 docked with the station, paving the way for the Crew-9 team to depart.

 'Unbelievable resilience'

Wilmore and Williams' 286-day stay exceeds the usual six-month ISS rotation but ranks only sixth among US records for single-mission duration.

Frank Rubio holds the top spot at 371 days in 2023, while the world record remains with Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov, who spent 437 consecutive days aboard the Mir station.

That makes it "par for the course" in terms of health risks, according to Rihana Bokhari of the Center for Space Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine.

Challenges such as muscle and bone loss, fluid shifts that can lead to kidney stones and vision issues, and the readjustment of balance upon returning to a gravity environment are well understood and effectively managed.

"Folks like Suni Williams are actually known for their interest in exercise, and so I believe she exercises beyond what is even her normal prescription," Bokhari told AFP.

Still, the unexpected nature of their extended stay, away from their families and initially without enough packed supplies, has drawn public interest and sympathy.

"If you found out you went to work today and were going to be stuck in your office for the next nine months, you might have a panic attack," Joseph Keebler, a psychologist at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, told AFP.

"These individuals have shown unbelievable resilience."

 Trump weighs in

Their unexpected stint also became a political lightning rod, with President Donald Trump and his close advisor, Elon Musk, who leads SpaceX ,  repeatedly suggesting former president Joe Biden abandoned the astronauts and refused an earlier rescue plan.

Such accusations have prompted an outcry in the space community, especially as Musk offered no specifics and NASA's plan for the astronauts' return has remained largely unchanged since their Crew-9 reassignment.

Trump has also drawn attention for his bizarre remarks, referring to Williams, a former Navy captain who holds the US record for the second-longest cumulative time in space, as "the woman with the wild hair" and speculating about the personal dynamic between the two.

"They've been left up there,  I hope they like each other, maybe they love each other, I don't know," he said during a recent White House press conference.

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin agreed Tuesday on a halt in Russian attacks against Ukrainian energy targets -- but fell far short of securing a full ceasefire in a highly anticipated phone call.

The US and Russian leaders spoke for more than an hour and a half and both expressed hopes for repairing relations between the countries.

However, there was no agreement from the Russian president for Washington's proposed full 30-day ceasefire in Russia's invasion of its pro-Western neighbor.

The Kremlin said Putin agreed to pause strikes on Ukraine energy targets for 30 days and that Putin had already given the order to his military. The White House said separately that the "leaders agreed that the movement to peace will begin with an energy and infrastructure ceasefire."

Russia has launched a series of devastating attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure throughout the three-year-old war. According to the Kremlin statement, Ukraine -- which has bombed multiple Russian oil installations -- had also agreed to the truce on energy targets, although Kyiv had yet to comment.

The two leaders agreed that broader truce talks would "begin immediately in the Middle East," the White House said in its statement, also citing a "huge upside" if Russia and the United States improve their relations.

But the Kremlin statement said a "key condition" for peace would be ending Western military and intelligence support to Ukraine's embattled military -- a position that will alarm Kyiv and European capitals that have already accused Putin of stalling.

 'Wants peace' 

Trump had already made clear before the call that he was ready to discuss "dividing up certain assets" -- what parts of occupied Ukraine that Russia would be allowed to keep.

The US president had said on his Truth Social network on the eve of the call that "many elements of a final agreement have been agreed to, but much remains" to be settled.

US allies, alarmed by Trump's recent pivot towards Russia, fear the Republican will give too much ground to the Russian president, a leader for whom he has repeatedly expressed admiration.

Kyiv had already agreed to the US proposal to halt fighting for 30 days. It said on Tuesday before the call that it expected Moscow to "unconditionally" accept to the ceasefire.

"It is time for Russia to show whether it really wants peace," Ukraine's Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga said.

But Putin has repeatedly said that there were further issues that needed discussion, which Tuesday's call apparently failed to fully resolve.

Putin gave a hardline anti-Western speech Tuesday before the call, saying the West would still try to undermine Russia even if it lifted sanctions imposed over its invasion of Ukraine.

He mocked the G7 group of rich democracies -- from which Russia was expelled in 2018 -- to wild applause from the audience, saying it was too small to "see on a map."

 'End NOW' 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned Putin does not want peace and is trying to achieve a better position militarily ahead of any halt in fighting. 

Russia has attacked Ukraine with near daily barrages of drones and missiles for more than three years, occupying some 20 percent southern and eastern Ukraine and pressing a grinding advance in recent months.

The Kremlin has also hailed Moscow's quick offensive in the Kursk region, parts of which Ukraine seized last year and was hoping to use as a bargaining chip.

The push towards a ceasefire began in February when Trump announced that he had spoken to Putin -- a surprise call that broke Western efforts to isolate the Russian leader while his invasion continues.

As Trump upended years of US policy he then had a televised shouting match with Zelensky in the Oval Office on February 28, which led to the United States temporarily suspending its billions of dollars in military aid to Kyiv.

On Sunday Trump said he would discuss issues of "land" and "power plants" with Putin -- a likely reference to the Moscow-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. 

Trump is however intent on delivering on an election pledge to end fighting in Ukraine, blaming his predecessor Joe Biden's policy on Russia for fueling the war.

"It must end NOW," he said on Truth Social.

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis called Tuesday for an end to war and urged reflection in a letter published by Italy's newspaper of record, as the 88-year-old pontiff recovers from pneumonia in hospital.

Emphasising the need for responsible journalism, he called in his letter dated March 14 for calm minds, noting that the media had a duty to "feel the full importance of words".

"They are never just words: they are facts that build human environments. They can connect or divide, serve the truth or use it," he wrote in the letter published on the front page of the newspaper. 

"We must disarm words, to disarm minds and disarm the Earth. There is a great need for reflection, for calmness, for a sense of complexity."

"While war only devastates communities and the environment, without offering solutions to conflicts, diplomacy and international organisations need new life and credibility," he wrote.

Thanking Corriere's director Luciano Fontana, to whom the letter was addressed, Francis noted that "in this moment of illness... war appears even more absurd".

"Human fragility, in fact, has the power to make us more clear about what lasts and what passes, what makes us live and what kills," he wrote.

Peace, he said, "requires commitment, work, silence, words".

Pope Francis, in hospital for over a month with pneumonia, did not need to use an oxygen mask overnight, the Vatican said Tuesday, as the 88-year-old's condition gradually improves.

Doctors at Rome's Gemelli hospital have said Francis is now stable, after a critical period marked by breathing crises that raised fears for his life -- though they have yet to say when he might leave hospital.

"There have been some slight improvements" in the pope's condition and he "did not need to use" an oxygen mask overnight, the Vatican said in an evening briefing.

Instead, Francis used a cannula -- a plastic tube tucked into his nostrils that delivers high-flow oxygen.

But the Vatican cautioned that this did not mean the pope will no longer need the mask, which he has worn overnight for most of his stay.

Francis, who had part of one lung removed as a young man and is prone to respiratory illnesses, is "stable" but his "clinical picture remains complex", it said.

The next medical bulletin is expected on Wednesday afternoon.

RUSSIA — Russian pensioner Olga Shkuratova trembled, clutching a scrap of paper bearing a handwritten phone number for her son.

She had not spoken to him in the seven months that she was trapped by Ukraine's incursion into Russia's Kursk region -- more than half a year cut off from the outside world.

Shkuratova was on a Russian evacuation bus after Moscow's forces took back her village of Goncharovka and much of the land Ukrainian forces had seized in a riposte against Russia's three-year military campaign in Ukraine.

Just last week, the 62-year-old had to bury her husband in the couple's garden. 

He was killed in a strike during fierce fighting that ensued when Russian troops begun ousting Ukrainian troops from the border area.

"I'm alive! I love you!", she shouted down the phone to her son, who lives more than 1,000 kilometres away in a region north of Moscow.

A volunteer came to calm her down. 

since last week, Russia has moved several hundred civilians from zones it has recaptured from Ukraine in the Kursk region to safer areas east of the main town, Sudzha.

Shkuratova's husband, a vet called Nikolai, was killed in a strike on Wednesday. 

"A shell hit. Everything was blown apart in a second. No house, no garage, no barn. 

"Grandpa [her husband] was crushed by the garage," she told AFP, clutching her purple coat and shaking. 

She buried him in their garden with the help of a neighbour, who now sat behind her on the evacuation bus.

"We washed him, covered him in a blanket, men dug out a hole and we put him there," Shkuratova said.

"During that time there was shooting."

 'They pumped water for us' 

Her neighbour, retired medic Tatiana Shapovalova, said the villagers were treated well by Ukrainian troops.

"We did not meet any scoundrels" the white-haired 71-year-old told AFP. "Quite the opposite."

"They were fixing things, cooking... We had a well but we could not pump water and they pumped water for us with their generator," she said. 

The women were taken with around 10 other evacuees from the side of a road near the black-earth fields for which the region is renowned.

They were not allowed to disclose the exact location for safety reasons, said a representative of Russia's emergency ministry.

Russian military police armed with Kalashnikovs kept a watchful eye on proceedings.

Military trucks zoomed past, decorated with the "Z" or "V" symbols of Moscow's forces in Ukraine.

Soldiers filled a nearby petrol station, smoking cigarettes and eating hot dogs.

 'It is just trashed' 

Viktor Vodyannikov, who was being evacuated from Sudzha, was visibly devastated. 

The bespectacled architect had designed buildings in Sudzha, which had a population of around 6,000 before fighting erupted and it was bombarded. 

His life's work now lies in ruins. 

"It was a good little town... All my projects there are destroyed," he said, slapping his knee and shaking his black bereted head.

"It is just trashed. There is rubbish everywhere."

Images of Sudzha released by Russia after battles to retake it show rows of houses destroyed and a town centre badly damaged, with rubble littering the streets. 

The fact that no civilian corridor was created in the Kursk region sparked anger towards the authorities, mostly from relatives of those trapped.

As she stepped off an evacuation bus, a woman called Tatiana fell into her sister-in-law's arms, both of them sobbing.

After three years of conflict -- which the Kremlin had said would not affect life back home -- many in the Kursk region are placing their hopes in moves by US President Donald Trump, who has said he can end the fighting.

"Peace agreements and peace negotiations," said Yelena Sukhareva, a volunteer from the city of Kursk helping the civilian evacuate. 

"This is the only solution."