TAIPEI: Taiwan said today its armed forces have the right to self-defence and counter attack amid “harassment and threats,” in an apparent warning to China, which last week sent numerous jets across the mid-line of the sensitive Taiwan Strait. Tensions have sharply spiked in recent months between Taipei and Beijing, […]
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BEIJING: China’s air force has released a video showing nuclear-capable H-6 bombers carrying out a simulated attack on what appears to be Andersen Air Force Base on the US Pacific island of Guam, as regional tensions continue to rise. The video, released on Saturday on People’s Liberation Army Air Force […]
WELLINGTON: New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Monday (Sep 21) lifted all COVID-19 restrictions across the country, except in second-wave hotspot Auckland, as the number of new infections slowed to a trickle. Some restrictions were also eased in Auckland to allow gatherings of up to 100 people, but the […]
VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis has signed off on a two-year extension of a deal with China on the appointment of bishops that critics have condemned as a sell-out to the communist government, a senior Vatican source said yesterday. The two-year provisional deal, which gives the pope the final say on […]
DUBAI: The United Arab Emirates yesterday granted emergency approval for use of a coronavirus vaccine, six weeks after human trials in the Gulf Arab state started. A phase III trial of a Covid-19 inactivated vaccine developed by Chinese state-owned pharmaceutical company Sinopham began in the UAE in July and is […]
MILAN: A group of scientists sent a formal letter to the Lancet yesterday outlining doubts about the accuracy of early data on Russia’s Covid-19 vaccine, one of the authors said, adding further fuel to a dispute surrounding the “Sputnik-V” shot. Fifteen scientists from five countries signed the letter presenting their […]
WASHINGTON: The US announced on Monday (Sep 14) it would block a range of Chinese products made by “forced labour” in the Xinjiang region, including from a “vocational” centre that it branded a “concentration camp” for Uighur minorities. “The Chinese government is engaged in systematic abuses against the Uighur people” […]
TOKYO: Yoshihide Suga, the man expected to become Japan’s next prime minister, is a farmer’s son with a reputation for inscrutability, who has become a key government adviser, spokesman and policy enforcer. The 71-year-old easily won the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s leadership race today and is all but certain to […]
HONG KONG: Concerns were growing today for the fate of a group of Hong Kongers in mainland custody after a senior Chinese official declared them “separatists” and lawyers were pressured to drop them as clients. Authorities said they intercepted the 12 Hong Kongers trying to flee by boat to Taiwan […]
WASHINGTON: US ambassador to China Terry Branstad is stepping down, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced today, at a time of increasingly strained ties between the world’s two biggest economies. Thanking Branstad for his service, Pompeo said in a tweet that he had “contributed to rebalancing US-China relations so that […]