Mes: septiembre 2019

Last Updated 5:17 p.m. ET (AP) VATICAN CITY – The Vatican has brought in the Fox News correspondent in Rome to help improve its communications strategy as it tries to cope with years of communications blunders and one of its most serious scandals in decades, officials said Saturday. Greg Burke, 52, will leave Fox to become the senior communications adviser in the Vatican’s secretariat of state, the Vatican and Burke told The Associated Press. “I’m a bit nervous but very excited. Let’s just say it’s a challenge,” Burke said in a phone interview. He defined his job, which he said he had been offered twice before, as being along the lines of the White House senior communications adviser: “You’re shaping the message, you’re molding the message, and you’re trying to make sure everyone remains on-message. And that’s tough.” Burke, a native of St. Louis, Missouri, is a member of the conservative Opus Dei movement. Pope John Paul II’s longtime spokesman, Joaquin Navarro-Valls, was also a member of Opus Dei and was known for the papal access he enjoyed and his ability to craft the messages John Paul wanted to get out. After Pope Benedict XVI was elected in 2005, Navarro-Valls was replaced by the Rev. Federico Lombardi, a Jesuit who had long headed Vatican Radio and still does, along with running the Vatican press office and Vatican television service....

Updated 6:40 PM ET (CBS/AP) WASHINGTON – The Obama administration said Tuesday that Pakistan was reopening its supply lines into Afghanistan, after the U.S. belatedly issued an apology for the November killing of 24 Pakistani troops in a NATO airstrike. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton expressed her condolences for the deaths in a telephone conversation with Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar. The incident badly damaged already strained relations between the two countries and forced the U.S. and its allies to send supplies via costlier northern routes into Afghanistan. “We are sorry for the losses suffered by the Pakistani military,” Clinton said in a statement, recounting her discussion with Khar. “I offered our sincere condolences to the families of the Pakistani soldiers who lost their lives. Foreign Minister Khar and I acknowledged the mistakes that resulted in the loss of Pakistani military lives.” More in Afghanistan: The way forward White House, Pakistan in talks on supply linesPakistan FM: Time to reopen NATO supply route It is the first time any U.S. official has formally apologized for the deaths, a step hotly debated within the Obama administration and one demanded by Pakistan while its supply routes remained closed for seven months. It came as key Pakistani civilian and military leaders were meeting Tuesday evening in Islamabad to discuss whether to reopen NATO supply routes. Some 7,000 truckloads of equipment...

YANGON, Myanmar – The military-backed government of Myanmar has deported Hollywood actress Michelle Yeoh, who stars as pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi in an upcoming movie, officials said Tuesday. The Malaysian actress arrived in the country’s main city, Yangon, on June 22 and was deported the same day because she was on a blacklist, a government official said. The official, who declined to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the press, did not say why Yeoh was on the list. But Myanmar’s repressive government has routinely rejected visa requests of journalists and perceived critics for years. Suu Kyi spokesman Nyan Win confirmed Yeoh was deported but had no other details. The Luc Besson movie about Suu Kyi’s life, “The Lady,” is due out later this year, and Yeoh has said she hopes her portrayal of Suu Kyi will raise awareness about the Nobel Peace Prize winner’s story. Suu Kyi, 66, (pictured at left) spent most of the last two decades detained by the former military junta. She was released last year, just days after an election that her party boycotted and in which she was barred from being a candidate. The vote was the nation’s first in 20 years, and in March, the junta handed power to a civilian government. But critics say little has changed and the new government is merely a front...