MOSCOW: The Kremlin said on Friday (Jan 19) it regretted Argentina’s decision not to join the BRICS bloc of nations and hoped that Buenos Aires would reconsider. Argentina’s incoming Foreign Minister Diana Mondino said in November that his country would not join the BRICS grouping of developing nations despite beingContinue Reading
TOKYO: Japan’s “Moon Sniper” was set to touch down early on Saturday (Jan 20) on the lunar surface, one of myriad new missions on the back of renewed interest in Earth’s natural satellite. If its Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) mission succeeds, Japan will be the fifth nation toContinue Reading
WASHINGTON: A US congressional committee on China has sent a letter to the Secretary of the Navy raising doubts about a plan to move fuel from Hawaii to storage facilities across the Indo-Pacific and warning that the US military risks being unprepared for a possible conflict. In a letter datedContinue Reading
MOSCOW: Russia is developing its relations with North Korea in all areas, including “sensitive” ones, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday (Jan 17). North Korea’s foreign minister lauded comradely ties with Russia on Tuesday and then held rare talks in the Kremlin with President Vladimir Putin, who has beenContinue Reading
DAVOS: Chinese Premier Li Qiang told the world’s political and business elites in Davos on Tuesday (Jan 16) that “discriminatory” trade barriers were a threat to the global economy, but the United States defended its restrictions on microchips as a national security measure. Li’s remarks came as the World EconomicContinue Reading
WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden said on Saturday (Jan 13) that the United States does not support the independence of Taiwan, after Taiwanese voters rebuffed China and gave the ruling party a third presidential term. Earlier in the day, the Taiwanese ruling Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) presidential candidate William Lai Ching-teContinue Reading
BERLIN: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz urged democrats to stand against far-right “fanatics” after reports emerged of Alternative for Germany party members attending a meeting where expelling citizens with foreign ethnic backgrounds was discussed. The AfD did not deny that two of its senior politicians attended the November meeting in aContinue Reading
A top White House official, Jon Finer, met on Wednesday with a senior Chinese official and the two discussed tensions over Taiwan and the South China Sea, the White House said. Finer, who is deputy national security adviser, met Liu Jianchao, head of the International Liaison Department of China’s CommunistContinue Reading
WASHINGTON: The United States and China wrapped up two days of military talks in Washington on Tuesday (Jan 9), the Pentagon said, the latest engagement since the two countries agreed to resume military-to-military ties. Washington and Beijing are at loggerheads over everything from the future of Taiwan to territorial claimsContinue Reading
Photos taken by police showed writhing lizards piled on top of each other in small plastic bins filled with soiled pellets. Another photo showed a snake curling around a clutch of eggs in a clear plastic tub packed with wood chips. Each lizard could fetch as much as A$5,000 (US$3,360)Continue Reading