By Stephen Jewkes and Giulio Piovaccari MILAN (Reuters) -Greta Thunberg and fellow youth campaigners struck a sceptical tone for this week’s climate talks in Italy, saying much has been promised but little done to tackle global warming in almost three decades since the landmark Earth Summit. Fears that climate change is worsening grew after a […]
Suh Wook (L), defense minister of South Korea, and Chung Eui-yong, foreign minister of South Korea, walk at the government complex in Seoul after attending an emergency meeting of the National Security Council in response to North Korea’s launch of a “short-range missile.” North Korea fired a short-range missile into the open sea, the South […]
By Michael Martina WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Two American siblings prevented from leaving China since 2018 returned to the United States over the weekend, according to a U.S. official, their release by Beijing coming shortly after the United States ended a legal case against a top Huawei executive. Cynthia and Victor Liu returned to America after […]
Two men who were imprisoned in China for nearly three years have returned home to Canada. “These two men have gone through an unbelievable difficult ordeal for the past 1,000 days, they have shown strength, perseverance and grace and we are all inspired by that,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said during a late Friday night […]
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Senator Marco Rubio said on Saturday the release of Huawei’s finance chief raised serious questions about President Joe Biden’s ability to confront the threat posed by the technology giant and the Chinese Communist Party. Rubio, in a text message to Reuters, called on the Biden Administration to brief Congress urgently on […]
SHANGHAI (Reuters) – Chinese state media welcomed telecoms giant Huawei’s chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, back to the “motherland” on Saturday, after more than 1,000 days under house arrest in Canada, on what they called unfounded charges of bank fraud. But they have kept silent about Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, the two Canadians released […]
Washington (AFP) – President Joe Biden on Friday deepens his bid to cement US leadership of the Indo-Pacific against a rising China with the first in-person summit of the regional Quad group. Meeting in the White House, Biden and the leaders of Australia, India and Japan will discuss a Covid vaccines drive, regional infrastructure, climate […]
By Ben Blanchard and Yimou Lee TAIPEI (Reuters) -There is a “risk” to Taiwan’s application to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) if China joins first, Taiwan’s government said on Thursday, flagging a potential political roadblock. Taiwan formally applied to join on Wednesday, less than a week after China, the world’s […]
Former President Donald Trump said this week that the man who he appointed as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is a “dope.” During an interview on Glenn Beck’s radio show, Trump responded to reports that Milley had assured China that he would give an advanced warning if the then-president tried to start a […]
MANILA (Reuters) -Boxing star Manny Pacquiao said on Sunday he will run for president of the Philippines next year, after railing against corruption in government and what he calls President Rodrigo Duterte’s cozy relationship with China. Pacquiao accepted the nomination of his political allies during the national assembly of the faction he leads in the […]
Australia on Friday shrugged off Chinese anger over its decision to acquire US nuclear-powered submarines, while vowing to defend the rule of law in airspace and waters where Beijing has staked hotly contested claims. US President Joe Biden announced the new Australia-US-Britain defense alliance on Wednesday, extending US nuclear submarine technology to Australia as well […]
France on Friday recalled its ambassadors to the United States and Australia in a ferocious row over the scrapping of a submarine contract, an unprecedented step that revealed the extent of French anger against its allies. President Emmanuel Macron recalled the envoys after Canberra ditched a deal to buy French submarines in favor of US […]
By Mary Milliken and Michelle Nichols UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – United Nations chief Antonio Guterres said a critical meeting on climate change later this year in Scotland is at risk of failure due to mistrust between developed and developing countries and a lack of ambitious goals among some emerging economies. The U.N. COP26 conference in […]
Donald Trump appears to be greatly troubled by bombshell new reports on his administration that were published by The Washington Post on Tuesday. “Twice in the final months of the Trump administration, the country’s top military officer was so fearful that the president’s actions might spark a war with China that he moved urgently to […]
Trump biographer Tim O’Brien penned a column on Tuesday explaining one big thing the new Bob Woodward/Bob Costa’s book Peril gets wrong. It was reported Tuesday that Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was terrified that Trump would go to war and launch a nuclear strike to try to stay […]
TOKYO (Reuters) – U.S. climate envoy John Kerry arrived in Tokyo for talks on Tuesday with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga on cooperation on carbon emissions and cutting support for fossil fuels, especially coal, before heading to China tonight. Talks in the two Asian economic powerhouses will be “to engage with international counterparts on efforts […]
President Joe Biden said Friday that China was withholding “critical information” on the origins of Covid-19 after the US intelligence community said it did not believe the virus was a bioweapon — but remained split on whether it escaped from a lab. The United States, however, does not believe Chinese officials had foreknowledge of the […]
By David Shepardson WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Republican Senator Marco Rubio urged President Joe Biden on Tuesday to block short-form video app TikTok in the United States after China took an ownership stake in a key subsidiary of ByteDance, the Beijing-based parent company of TikTok. The Biden administration in June withdrew a series of Trump-era executive orders […]
Hong Kong’s leader on Tuesday warned one of the city’s top legal bodies against getting involved in politics, in the latest sign of the government telling professional bodies to toe Beijing’s line. Chief executive Carrie Lam’s comments towards the Law Society come as China remoulds Hong Kong in its own image and pursues civil society […]
China is ready to deepen “friendly and cooperative” relations with Afghanistan, a government spokeswoman said Monday, after the Taliban seized control of the country. Beijing has sought to maintain unofficial ties with the Taliban throughout the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, which spurred an advance by the Islamist hardliners across the country that saw them capture […]
By Yew Lun Tian BEIJING (Reuters) – A series of photos published last month by Chinese state media of Foreign Minister Wang Yi standing shoulder to shoulder with visiting Taliban official decked out in traditional tunic and turban raised eyebrows on the country’s social media. Since then, China’s propaganda machinery has quietly begun preparing its […]
US President Joe Biden will gather world leaders in December for a virtual “Summit for Democracy” that is being seen as a challenge to authoritarian China and an alternative to the traditional G20 meeting. Biden is seeking to bring together heads of state with major figures in philanthropy, civil society and the private sector “from […]
The desire to simply drop everything and do nothing is so prevalent among young people in China that now there’s a name for it: “tangping,” or “lying flat.” And the government isn’t happy. People who subscribe to this way of life refuse to take part in the performance-oriented and consumer society in which they are […]
We ignored the warnings, and now it’s too late: global heating has arrived with a vengeance and will see Earth’s average temperature reach 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels around 2030, a decade earlier than projected only three years ago, according to a landmark UN assessment published on Monday. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change […]
SHANGHAI (Reuters) – Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd said on Sunday it has suspended several staff following an employee’s allegations on the company’s intranet that she was sexually assaulted by her boss and a client. The woman’s account, published via an eleven-page PDF that went on to circulate widely online, prompted a social […]
By Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber, Karolos Grohmann and Amy Tennery TOKYO (Reuters) -Simon Biles will compete in the balance beam competition, officials said on Monday, in what would be the U.S. superstar gymnast’s last chance for gold in Tokyo after pulling out of other events citing mental health issues. Biles, who shocked the world last week when […]
A succession of record-breaking natural disasters have swept the globe in recent weeks. There have been serious floods in China and western Europe, heatwaves and drought in North America and wildfires in the sub-Arctic. An annual report on the UK’s weather indicates extreme events are becoming commonplace in the country’s once mild climate. August 2020 […]
The United States is “deeply concerned” over the harassment and intimidation of foreign correspondents covering deadly floods in China, a State Department spokesman said Thursday. His remarks came less than 24 hours after Beijing accused the BBC of broadcasting “fake news” about last week’s devastating flooding in the central province of Henan, and as the […]
Britain’s Tom Daley paid tribute to his late father after he and Matty Lee narrowly edged out hot favourites China to win gold in the synchronised 10m platform diving at the Tokyo Olympics on Monday. Daley, 27, who revealed that he might have missed the Games after knee surgery, wiped away tears on the podium […]
(Corrects ratio in final paragraph to copper/gold) By Saikat Chatterjee and Ritvik Carvalho LONDON (Reuters) -A drubbing in world equity markets and a huge flight to safety into U.S. Treasuries this week suggests investors now doubt that a much-anticipated return to post-COVID normality is feasible any time soon. Data from the United States and China, […]