‘No Sense of Fatigue’ When It Comes to Support for Ukraine, Blinken Says 

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken attends a press conference following the NATO Foreign Ministers meeting on Ukraine at its Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium November 29, 2023. (Reuters)
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken attends a press conference following the NATO Foreign Ministers meeting on Ukraine at its Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium November 29, 2023. (Reuters)
TT

‘No Sense of Fatigue’ When It Comes to Support for Ukraine, Blinken Says 

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken attends a press conference following the NATO Foreign Ministers meeting on Ukraine at its Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium November 29, 2023. (Reuters)
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken attends a press conference following the NATO Foreign Ministers meeting on Ukraine at its Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium November 29, 2023. (Reuters)

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday that there was "no sense of fatigue" among NATO allies when it came to helping Ukraine. 

"We must and we will continue to support Ukraine," he said after a NATO-Ukraine meeting in Brussels, adding that NATO allies were unanimous on this position and that he was also hearing continued support for Ukraine in both chambers of the US Congress. 

Kyiv has been concerned that the Israel-Hamas war could divert international attention away from its efforts to defeat Russia, which invaded Ukraine in February 2022. 

Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba urged the West earlier on Wednesday to ramp up arms production. 

The European Union has delivered about 300,000 of its promised 1 million artillery shells to Ukraine so far, he said. 

"We need to create a Euro-Atlantic common area of defense industries," Kuleba said before meeting the NATO foreign ministers, adding this would ensure both Ukraine's security and that of NATO countries themselves. 

Kyiv has recently engaged in a concerted drive to entice leading global arms manufacturers to set up operations in Ukraine, part of a bid to diversify its reliance on weapons and ammunition given by its allies. 

"It is important that our solidarity with Ukraine is not only demonstrated in words but also in deeds," NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said, urging allies to do more. "These are concrete actions, we need more of them and we need sustained and stepped up support." 

Russia has amassed a large missile stockpile ahead of winter, Stoltenberg warned. 

Russia "is now weaker militarily, politically and economically," he said. "At the same time we must not underestimate Russia," he added, stressing that Russia had been making new attempts to strike Ukraine's power grid and energy infrastructure, "trying to leave Ukraine in the dark and cold." 



Mexico’s President Amused by Trump’s Order to Rename the Gulf of Mexico

 Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum delivers a speech at the National Palace, in Mexico City, Mexico January 21, 2025. (Reuters)
Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum delivers a speech at the National Palace, in Mexico City, Mexico January 21, 2025. (Reuters)
TT

Mexico’s President Amused by Trump’s Order to Rename the Gulf of Mexico

 Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum delivers a speech at the National Palace, in Mexico City, Mexico January 21, 2025. (Reuters)
Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum delivers a speech at the National Palace, in Mexico City, Mexico January 21, 2025. (Reuters)

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has an answer for US President Donald Trump about his idea of renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America”: he can call it whatever he wants on the American part of it.

Sheinbaum on Tuesday had been working through the raft of executive orders from Trump that relate to Mexico, emphasizing Mexico’s sovereignty and the need for dialogue, but when she got to the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico, she couldn’t help but laugh.

“He says that he will call it the Gulf of America on its continental shelf,” Sheinbaum said. “For us it is still the Gulf of Mexico, and for the entire world it is still the Gulf of Mexico.”

Trump said in his inaugural address Monday that he will change the name, an idea he first brought up earlier this month during a news conference.

“A short time from now, we are going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America,” he said. Hours later he signed an Executive Order to do it.

Sheinbaum projected on a large screen at her daily press briefing Trump’s order called “Restoring Names that Honor American Greatness.”

The order says that within 30 days, the US secretary of the interior will rename “the US Continental Shelf area bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the States of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida and extending to the seaward boundary with Mexico and Cuba.”

Americans and Mexicans diverge on what to call another key body of water, the river that forms the border between Texas and the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas. Americans call it the Rio Grande; Mexicans call it the Rio Bravo.

The first time Trump mentioned the idea of changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico, Sheinbaum responded sarcastically suggesting instead renaming North America as “América Mexicana” or “Mexican America.”

This time, she just briefly insisted: “For us and for the entire world it will continue to be called the Gulf of Mexico.”