World Briefs

TAIWAN The former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Paul Ryan, says the U.S. wants the rest of the world to be more like Taiwan. Ryan made the comment yesterday at a celebration for the 40th anniversary of the Taiwan Relations Act, which guides U.S. policy toward the democratically governed island, which is claimed by China.

MEDICINE A drug that’s used to help control blood sugar in people with diabetes has now been shown to help prevent or slow kidney disease, which causes millions of deaths each year and requires hundreds of thousands of people to use dialysis to stay alive. Doctors say it’s hard to overstate the importance of this study.

NEW ZEALAND’s foreign minister confirmed yesterday that nurse Louisa Akavi has been held captive by the Islamic State group in Syria for almost six years, information long kept secret for fear her life might be at risk. 

MALAYSIA’s prime minister Mahathir said yesterday a Chinese company building a rail link across the Southeast Asian nation will jointly help to manage and operate the network, part of revised deal that will get the stalled project off the ground at a lower cost and ease strained relations. The East Coast Rail Link across peninsular Malaysia was suspended. 

SOUTH KOREAN President Moon Jae-in said yesterday he’s ready for a fourth summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to help salvage faltering nuclear negotiations between the North and the United States.

VENEZUELA U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with Venezuelan migrants in Colombia as he wrapped up a four-nation tour of South America aimed at pressuring Venezuela’s socialist president, Nicolas Maduro. Pompeo went to a migrant center in the border town of Cucuta with Colombian President Ivan Duque.

LATIN AMERICA Beijing has fired back at the U.S. after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo criticized China’s role in Venezuela as prolonging the crisis there. China’s foreign ministry said yesterday that Pompeo’s accusations were “unfounded” and “deliberately drove a wedge” between China and Latin America. U.S. treats Latin America like “its own backyard,”  the Foreign ministry said.