Daily Express

CAIRO -- For many Libyans, clashes that erupted in the capital of Tripoli last month were all too familiar — a deja vu of street fighting, reverberating gunfire and people cowering inside their homes. A video circulated online on the day, showing a man shouting from a mosque loudspeaker “Enough war, we want our young generation!" The fighting underscored the fragility of Libya’s relative peace that has prevailed for more than a year but it also looked like history was repeating itself. Now, observers say that momentum to reunify the country has been lost and that its future is looking grim. Once again, there are two competing governments vying for control in Libya, already torn by more than a decade of civil war. The clashes in the capital broke out after one of Libya's two prime ministers challenged the other by coming to Tripoli, his rival’s seat. Libya has for years been split between rival administrations in the east and the west, each supported by rogue militias and for...

WELLINGTON, New Zealand -- Australia and China continued their tit-for-tat diplomatic rivalry in the Pacific on Thursday as the foreign ministers from each country paid separate visits to island nations. In Samoa, Australia 's Foreign Minister Penny Wong announced that her country would donate a patrol boat to replace a similar one that was wrecked after it ran aground last year. Meanwhile, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited Papua New Guinea to meet with leaders there on the penultimate stop of an eight-nation regional tour. Wang had hoped to ink an ambitious multilateral deal with 10 South Pacific nations this week covering everything from security to fisheries. He couldn't find consensus on that deal but has been notching up smaller wins by signing bilateral agreements with many of the countries he’s been visiting. The diplomatic push by China, especially around Pacific security, has caused deep concern among some of the island nations as well as farther afield in Can...