Briefly

UNITED NATIONS

World leaders won't gather for debate

The president of the UN General Assembly said on Monday that world leaders will not be coming to New York for their annual gathering in late September for the first time in the 75-year history of the United Nations because of the COVID-19 pandemic. But Tijjani Muhammad-Bande told a news conference that he hopes to announce in the next two weeks how the 193 heads of state and government will give their speeches on pressing local and world issues during the assembly's so-called General Debate.

SUDAN

Push for 3-way talks on giant dam to resume

Sudan has called for the resumption of talks with Egypt and Ethiopia on the giant Blue Nile hydropower dam after the failure of a United States-led mediation effort this year. The three countries have been at odds over the filling and operation of the $4 billion Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, under construction near Ethiopia's border with Sudan on the Blue Nile, which flows into the Nile. Sudan's irrigation minister on Monday invited his Egyptian and Ethiopian counterparts to resume negotiations digitally on Tuesday "in order to reach a comprehensive and satisfactory agreement".

UNITED STATES

Arms negotiator to meet Moscow peer

US Special Presidential Envoy for Arms Control Marshall Billingslea said on Monday that Washington and Moscow had set the date and venue for nuclear arms negotiations this month. "Today agreed with the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Ryabkov on time and place for nuclear arms negotiations in June," Billingslea said on Twitter, without providing more details. Citing a US Department of State official, Bloomberg reported the same day that a new round of arms control talks between the two nuclear superpowers would be held in Vienna on June 22.

Prince Andrew in Epstein-probe row

US prosecutors and attorneys for Britain's Prince Andrew sniped at one another across the Atlantic on Monday, each saying the other side was to blame for the duke's failure to participate in the Jeffrey Epstein sex-trafficking probe. Andrew's lawyers said in a statement that he had offered three times this year to speak with US investigators after being assured that he "is not and has never been a 'target' of their criminal investigations into Epstein". Hours later, the US attorney in Manhattan, Geoffrey S. Berman, issued a statement saying the prince had tried to "falsely portray himself to the public as eager and willing to cooperate" even as he repeatedly declined to schedule an interview.

Xinhua - Agencies