Asia

China decries U.S. comments on South China Sea as ‘not constructive’

BEIJING Sat Feb 8, 2014 10:05pm EST (Reuters) – China has accused the United States of undermining peace and development in the Asia-Pacific after a senior U.S. official said concern was mounting over China’s claims in the South China Sea. “These actions are not constructive”, Hong Lei, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, said in a statement issued late on Saturday. “We urge the U.S. to hold a rational and fair attitude, so as to have […]

China slams Aquino for “Hitler” remark on its South China sea position

(Reuters) — China on Friday (February 7) expressed “strong dissatisfaction” over remarks made by Philippine President Benigno Aquino that compared Beijing’s claims in the disputed South ChinaSea to demands for land made by Nazi Germany to the former Czechoslovakia. In an interview with The New York Times published on Tuesday (February 4), Aquino called for more global support for the Philippines over the territorial issue, comparing it to the failure by the West to support Czechoslovakia against Adolf Hitler’s demand in 1938. “It is unthinkable and utterly groundless […]

Growing concern with China’s behavior at sea: senior U.S. diplomat

(Reuters) – The United States has growing concerns that China’s maritime claims in the disputed South China Sea are an effort to gain creeping control of oceans in the Asia-Pacific region, a senior U.S. official said on Wednesday. In congressional testimony, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Danny Russel said China’s vague territorial claims in the South China Sea had “created uncertainty, insecurity and instability” among its neighbors. While the […]

Syria misses chemical weapons handover deadline

By Anthony Deutsch AMSTERDAM Wed Feb 5, 2014 5:01pm EST (Reuters) – Syria on Wednesday missed a deadline to hand over all the toxic materials it declared to the world’s chemical weapons watchdog, putting the program several weeks behind schedule and jeopardizing a final June 30 deadline. At the same time, opposition activists say the Syrian air force is attacking the country’s biggest city, Aleppo, with barrel bombs, forcing many to flee. Turkey was turning […]

Suicide bomb attack hits passenger van in south Beirut

By Laila Bassam BEIRUT Mon Feb 3, 2014 2:32pm EST (Reuters) – A suicide bomber blew himself up in a passenger van in a southern suburb of Lebanon’s capital Beirut on Monday as the country continued to struggle with the fallout from the civil war in neighboring Syria. At least two people were wounded in the blast, including the driver and a woman, but no one was killed apart from the bomber, the health minister […]

Iraqi forces kill 57 Islamist militants in Sunni province

BAGHDAD Mon Feb 3, 2014 2:49pm EST (Reuters) – Iraqi troops and allied tribesmen killed 57 Islamist militants in Anbar province on Monday, the Defense Ministry said, in advance of a possible assault on the Sunni Muslim rebel-held city of Falluja. There was no independent verification of the toll among the militants, said to be members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), a jihadi group also fighting in the civil war […]

U.N. nuclear agency may press Iran on rare isotope in probe

By Fredrik Dahl VIENNA Mon Feb 3, 2014 2:30pm EST (Reuters) – The U.N. nuclear watchdog says it wants Iran to clarify past production of small amounts of a rare radioactive material that can help trigger an atomic bomb explosion, but which also has non-military uses. The comment about polonium by U.N. atomic agency chief Yukiya Amano at a weekend security conference in Munich suggested the issue may be raised at talks between his experts […]

Japan condemns anti-whaling activists over boat collision

(Reuters) — Japan condemned animal conservationist group Sea Shepherd on Monday (February 3), after the group said one of its vessels was rammed by Japanese whalers in the Southern Ocean. Footage released by Japan’s Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR) showed a collision between activists and whalers on Sunday (February 2). ICR, the public face of Japan’s whaling program, said another video showed an inflatable boat deployed by Sea Shepherd Conservation Society dropping a rope across the bow of another of its three […]

Demonstrators disregard Thai poll, vow march to oust PM

(Reuters) – Thai anti-government protesters planned to forge ahead on Monday with efforts to topple Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, a day after a disrupted election that is unlikely to settle the country’s long-running political conflict. The demonstrators blocked balloting in a fifth of the country’s constituencies and say Yingluck must resign and make way for an appointed “people’s council” to overhaul a political system they say has been taken hostage by her billionaire brother and […]

North Korea proposes meeting with South Korea to discuss family reunion issue

  (Reuters) — North Korea proposed to hold a working-level meeting with South Korea to discuss the reunions of families separated since the Korea War that divided the neighbours, the SouthKorean Unification Ministry said on Monday (February 3). “The North Korean side accepted our Red Cross’s (earlier) offer to hold a working-level meeting to discuss the reunion of separated families and proposed to hold a working-level meeting in the northern side of the Panmunjom on February 5 or 6 at a convenient […]

Series of violence in Syria results in 90 deaths

Ninety people, including women and children, were killed in air raids carried out by the Syrian army in the city of Aleppo, adding up to the list of more than a hundred thousand casualties in the nearly three-year civil war. The raids, which targeted opposition strongholds, took place Saturday, CNN reported Sunday. “The situation is very urgent,” an unnamed medical staffer from a field hospital in Aleppo told CNN. “We need U.S. pressure on the […]

Pakistan’s privatization tsar embarks on quest to revive economy

By Mehreen Zahra-Malik ISLAMABAD Sun Feb 2, 2014 6:55pm EST (Reuters) – Mohammad Zubair was on a cruise dinner with Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in Thailand when he was offered the hardest job of his life: privatizing a huge chunk of the economy while fighting resistance from the opposition and trade unions. When the prime minister left the table, a colleague of former IBM executive Zubair rushed to his side. “Are you mad? Three […]