Xi has spoken to Putin several times since the war began, but has not done so with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Lukashenko is a close ally of Putin and has backed Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Belarus shares a border with both Ukraine and Russia, but is financially and politicallyContinue Reading
BEIJING: China says the United States is overstretching the concept of national security and abusing state power to suppress foreign companies after the White House gave government agencies 30 days to remove Chinese-owned app TikTok on federal devices. “We firmly oppose those wrong actions,” said Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao NingContinue Reading
The viruses that infected two people in Cambodia with H5N1 avian influenza have been identified as an endemic clade of bird flu circulating in the country, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said. The cases reported last week had raised concerns they were caused by a newContinue Reading
WASHINGTON: US intelligence shows that China’s President Xi Jinping has instructed his country’s military to “be ready by 2027″ to invade Taiwan though he may be currently harbouring doubts about his ability to do so given Russia’s experience in its war with Ukraine, CIA Director William Burns said. Burns, inContinue Reading
PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea: A New Zealander and two other hostages have been freed in Papua New Guinea, the country’s prime minister said on Sunday (Feb 26), after they were held for a week in the highlands by an armed group. “It took us a while but the lastContinue Reading
JERUSALEM: Germany believes an independent justice system is a tenet of democracy and is closely watching the Israeli dispute over a government plan for judicial change, its envoy said, as protesters flooded the streets for an eighth straight week on Saturday (Feb 25). The new nationalist-religious government of Prime MinisterContinue Reading
Besides the G7 nations, the G20 bloc also includes such countries as Australia, Brazil and Saudi Arabia. The delegates said the meeting was likely to end with a statement by the host summarising the discussions. “In the absence of a consensus, the option for India would be to issue aContinue Reading
Besides the G7 nations, the G20 bloc also includes such countries as Australia, Brazil and Saudi Arabia. A senior G20 source said negotiations over the communique were difficult, with Russia and China blocking proposals by Western countries. The source and several other officials said barring a last-minute surprise, a consensusContinue Reading
BEIJING: China called on Friday (Feb 24) for urgent peace talks as it released its plan to end the war in Ukraine, but several Western powers rebuffed the proposals while warning against Beijing’s closening ties to Moscow. The United Nations expressed cautious optimism over the Chinese proposals, particularly over theContinue Reading
Following Wang’s visit, Moscow said Beijing had presented its views on approaches to a “political settlement” of the conflict. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Thursday he had not seen any Chinese peace plan and wanted to meet with Beijing over their proposal before assessing it. “I think it isContinue Reading