In Washington’s embassy district, years’ worth of wildly overgrown vegetation outside an empty building was finally pruned away in September as the flag of Syria was raised.The symbolic reopening of the compound after 11 years of closure serves as a reminder that a number of buildings in the area of Washington called Kalorama are in a state of sad abandon, thanks to the violent jolts of world diplomacy.Since the embassy of Afghanistan closed a few months after the Taliban returned to power in 2021, its mailbox outside has been filled with yellowing newspapers.And not far away, weeds grow in the parking lot of a mansion that used to house the Russian trade delegation in Washington. The State Department ordered it closed in reprisal for Russia’s alleged attempt to interfere in the 2016 US presidential election.The Syrian Embassy was shut down by the US government in 2014 after three years of civil war. Now, in principle at least, it can reopen.The Trump administration announced this on November 10 after a White House visit by Syria’s new president Ahmed al-Sharaa, the formerly blacklisted jihadist who led the ouster of Assad in late 2024.- Angry neighbors -But the building is in such bad shape it could take years to get it up and running again, former Syrian diplomat Bassam Barabandi told AFP.Barabandi left his post in 2013 after it emerged that he had secretly made passports for people opposed to the Assad regime.He recalled that even back then, before he left, areas of the building had been partially condemned.”So, just imagine,” he said, of its state now.Down the street, the overgrown hedges outside the abandoned ambassador’s residence were sometimes trimmed by gardeners employed by wealthy neighbors irked by the unsightliness.A utility company notice of gas being cut off still hangs from the front door knob.A few buildings away, near a mansion owned by Barack and Michelle Obama, the embassy of Afghanistan stands.”So one day it was there. The next day it just was, it was gone,” said US postal worker Trina Thompson, who has done rounds in the neighborhood for 25 years.That was in March 2022 and then-deputy ambassador Abdul Hadi Nejrabi watched it all. It was he who handed the keys to the embassy back to the US government.Kabul had fallen to the Taliban seven months earlier and Hadi Nejrabi and his diplomatic colleagues represented a government that no longer existed.Soon their bank accounts were frozen and they were no longer paid.The embassy was still offering consular services to Afghan citizens but “we reached a point the State Department officially asked us to close the embassy and just hand over the keys,” Hadi Nejrabi told AFP.A team from the State Department’s Office of Foreign Missions went to the embassy to oversee the closure.”We checked every room, and then we just came out and we locked the door and I just gave the key,” the former diplomat said.It is this State Department section which is responsible for the upkeep of other countries’ embassies.Under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, states are supposed to respect and protect other countries’ embassies in cases where diplomatic relations are severed.- ‘Border on theft’ -The State Department lists 29 such buildings which it is supposed to be looking after: three associated with Afghanistan, six with Venezuela, and 11 with Iran — these three countries have no relations with the United States now. But the list also features three buildings for China and six Russian ones.The buildings now off limits to the Russians include consulates in San Francisco and Seattle and a massive compound in Maryland.They were closed in a spat of tit for tat reprisals after the 2016 election won by Donald Trump.The Russian Embassy told AFP these closures are illegal under the Vienna Convention and “border on theft.””While property rights of the Russian Federation for these six objects are recognized and have not been challenged by the US side, continuously denying access for Russian diplomats even to inspect the grounds and buildings is preposterous, cementing the bilateral relations’ ‘toxic legacy’ of previous years.”Elsewhere in Kalorama the embassy of Iran has stood empty since 1980, after the Islamic revolution that ousted the US-backed shah.The squat, blue-domed building used to host fancy receptions for the Washington diplomatic crowd. But unlike the Syrian embassy, it looks far from reopening as US-Iran tensions remain fierce.

Ukraine would give up a swathe of eastern territory to Russia and slash the size of its army under a sweeping 28-point peace plan backed by US President Donald Trump, according to a draft obtained by AFP.Kyiv would also pledge never to join NATO, and would not get the Western peacekeepers they have called for, although European warplanes would be stationed in Poland to protect Ukraine.A US official told AFP the draft plan includes a powerful security guarantee for Kyiv, modeled on NATO rules, which would commit the US and European allies to respond to any attack on Ukraine.Russia would meanwhile be readmitted to the G8 group of nations and be rewarded with sanctions relief under the plan, which US officials said was still a “working document.”The proposal involves major concessions by Kyiv, which has previously refused to cede any land, while appearing to meet many of Moscow’s maximalist demands following its 2022 invasion.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he expected to discuss the plan with Trump “in coming days.” He said any deal must bring a “dignified peace” that respected Kyiv’s sovereignty.The White House denied reports it had cooked up the proposal with Moscow, saying envoy Steve Witkoff and Secretary of State Marco Rubio had been “quietly” working with both sides for the past month.”The president supports this plan. It’s a good plan for both Russia and Ukraine,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters.Trump himself would preside over a “peace council” to oversee the ceasefire, similar to the one proposed for the Gaza truce between Israel and Hamas, according to the plan.- Territory – Key parts of the proposal correspond to Moscow’s previous demands and cross Ukraine’s red lines.These include that Ukraine would withdraw from the Lugansk and Donetsk regions, the frontline industrial belt known collectively as the Donbas that Ukraine still partly holds.The two regions and Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, “will be recognized as de facto Russian, including by the United States,” while a demilitarized zone would be created in the Donbas.The war-torn southern regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia — which Russia falsely claims to have annexed — will be “frozen along the line of contact,” it said.Russia’s army occupies around a fifth of Ukraine — much of it ravaged by years of fighting.- Ukraine security – Ukraine had been hoping for European-led peacekeepers but Russia’s refusal to accept any such force also wins out in the plan.NATO would agree not to station troops in Ukraine, while the country would be barred from joining NATO by both its own constitution and the alliance’s statutes.Kyiv meanwhile would reduce its army by a little less than half, to 600,000 personnel.In return, Ukraine would receive “reliable security guarantees,” the plan says without specifying, but “European fighter jets” would be stationed in neighboring Poland.Ukraine would also have to hold elections in 100 days — a further Russian demand and one echoed by Trump, who called Zelensky a “dictator without elections” earlier this year.Amid a spiralling corruption scandal in Ukraine that has claimed the jobs of two ministers, Kyiv had meanwhile removed language about an audit of foreign aid and replaced it with a call for a “full amnesty,” a senior US official told AFP.- G8 return for Russia? – Under the proposal, Russia would be “reintegrated into the global economy” and be allowed back into the G8, from which it was expelled in 2014 after the annexation of Crimea.Sanctions would snap back if it invades Ukraine again.Yet Russia meanwhile faces few military restrictions under the plan, which says only that “it is expected that Russia will not invade neighboring countries.”The contents of the proposal plan have fuelled suggestions that Moscow was involved in drafting it. “It seems that the Russians proposed this to the Americans, they accepted it,” a senior Ukrainian source told AFP.But US officials insisted all sides were involved. Zelensky also met a Pentagon delegation headed by US Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll in Kyiv on Thursday.The timing has also raised questions, coming as the corruption row rattles Zelensky and Russia pushes forward with its grinding offensive.On the ground, Russia claimed Thursday to have recaptured the key city of Kupiansk in eastern Ukraine — which Kyiv denied — as Putin visited an army command post to speak with officers.A Russian strike on the city of Zaporizhzhia in southern Ukraine on Thursday killed five people and wounded three others, emergency services said.Since returning to the White House, Trump’s position on the Ukraine war has shifted dramatically back and forth.He rowed with Zelensky in the Oval Office in February but has also shown increasing frustration with Putin after a summit in Alaska produced no results.burs-dk/sla/jgc

A Mexican court sentenced a woman to 20 years in prison for her involvement in the April 2024 killings of two Australian surfers and an American at a surfing hotspot in Baja California, judicial authorities said Thursday.The victims were Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson, aged 30 and 33, respectively, and Jack Carter Rhoad, a 30-year-old US citizen. The three had been camping in a remote beachside area when they were killed in what investigators believe was an attempt to steal their pickup truck.A Mexican judge in Ensenada sentenced Ary Gisell Silva, 23, who admitted during the trial that she had instigated and participated in the robbery of the tourists’ belongings, which subsequently led to the murder of the three surfers.”They have good phones and good tires” on their truck, the young woman allegedly told her three accomplices before they committed the murder, according to evidence gathered in the prosecutor’s investigation.Silva was found guilty of crimes related to “violent robbery,” according to the ruling published Thursday in the public records of the judicial authority of Baja California, bordering the United States.According to evidence presented by the prosecution, Silva was the first to make contact with the tourists and noticed they had valuables. That prompted her to urge her boyfriend and the other two men to commit the robbery.The three other individuals have already been arrested and charged with murder, but they are being tried in separate proceedings.The surfers were reported missing on April 27, 2024, while camping in Ensenada, where they had traveled from the United States to surf.According to the prosecution, the assailants “intentionally surprised the surfers and shot them with firearms, taking their lives on Sunday, April 28.”The crime caused great indignation and sadness in their home countries, where an intense search campaign was launched in the media and on social networks. The bodies were found on May 3, 2024, hidden in a cliff.Other foreign tourists visiting the Mexican Pacific region had already been targets of criminal attacks.In November 2015, two other Australian surfers, Dean Lucas and Adam Coleman, were murdered and their bodies later burned while traveling through the state of Sinaloa.

Towering stacks of oversized saucers and furniture fit for giants are some of the treasures on display in Los Angeles at a new exhibition of the work of Robert Therrien.The landmark showing at The Broad is the largest ever museum exhibition of the late artist’s oeuvre.With more than 120 works created over five decades, the show offers visitors the chance to explore both the intimate sketches and the large-scale work of one of Los Angeles’ most celebrated artists.”There’s a lot of works in this show that are sort of an environmental headspace,” Paul Cherwick, co-director of the Robert Therrien Estate, told AFP.”Being under those tables…where it takes you in that area of like remembering being a different size and scale.”Your…perceptions are altered.
”Therrien, who died in 2019 at the age of 71, bucked the minimalist trend in sculpture during the late 20th century, reimagining the mundane as gigantic immersive artworks.Museum managers promise visitors will be able to walk under the huge table and chairs, marvel at enormous hanging beards, and wonder at the stacks of pans huddled in a human-sized cupboard.Ed Schad, curator at The Broad, said the sheer size of some of the exhibits had an almost visceral effect on the viewer.”Sometimes things are bigger than us, sometimes things are smaller than us, but that impacts us physically, but it also impacts us psychologically,” he said.”So when I look at this table and chairs, I think of those experiences from our childhood that might still loom very large for us.””Robert Therrien: This is a Story” runs at The Broad until April 5.