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NAGATO, Russia (AFP) — Russia and Japan kick off a summit Thursday aimed at reaching a deal over a group of small islands that have prevented the countries from formally ending their World War II hostilities. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will host Russian President Vladimir Putin in the former’s ancestral city of Nagato in hopes of achieving a breakthrough over the territory off Japan’s northern coast seized by Soviet troops in 1945. The four […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — New satellite imagery shows China has apparently installed “significant” defensive weapons on a series of artificial islands it built in the South China Sea, a US-based think tank said Wednesday. Beijing has created seven islets in the Spratly Islands in recent years, built up from much smaller land protuberances and reefs. Although Beijing has said it does not intend to militarize the contested waters of the South China Sea, ongoing satellite […]
PARIS, France (Reuters) — Paris turned off the famed lights of the Eiffel Tower on Wednesday (December 14) as a gesture of solidarity with the citizens of the Syrian city of Aleppo. “This symbolic measure at a building known worldwide will aim to once again alert the international community to the need for urgent action,” Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said in a statement. Thousands of people fled the frontlines of fighting in Aleppo on […]
WASHINTON, United States (AFP) — US intelligence officials now believe that Russian President Vladimir Putin was personally involved in hacking during the American election campaign as part of a vendetta against Hillary Clinton, NBC News reported late Wednesday. Putin personally instructed how material hacked from US Democrats was leaked and otherwise used, the US television network said, quoting two senior officials with access to this information. The officials said they have a “high level of […]
by Rim Haddad and Karam al-Masri Agence France Presse ALEPPO, Syria (AFP) — Syrian rebels announced a new evacuation deal for Aleppo civilians and the injured on Wednesday, after shelling and air strikes sent terrified residents running through the city’s streets. However a source close to Syria’s government denied the development, and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said hostilities were ongoing after an earlier agreement collapsed. Under the initial plan, thousands of civilians and […]
by Andrew Beatty WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The months-long siege of Aleppo is almost over, but the political postmortem is just beginning and Barack Obama’s role is firmly on the slab. “The United States did have countless opportunities to mitigate and prevent slaughter. But time and again, decent men and women chose to look away. We have all been bystanders to genocide. The crucial question is why.” Those were the words, a decade and […]
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Investigators looking for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 are making their last sweep of the search area in the Indian Ocean, Australian authorities leading the search said on Wednesday. Flight MH370 disappeared in March 2014 with 239 passengers and crew on board, most of them Chinese, en route to Beijing from the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur. Its whereabouts have become one of the world’s greatest aviation mysteries. The search is […]
By Ben Blanchard and Faith Hung Reuters BEIJING/TAIPEI (Reuters) – China warned on Wednesday that any interference with or damage to the “one China” principle would have a serious impact on peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, as Taiwan said maintaining peace was in everyone’s interest. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said on Sunday the United States did not necessarily have to stick to its long-standing position that Taiwan is part of “one China”, […]
MOSCOW, Russia (AFP) — Russia’s defense ministry said on Wednesday that the Syrian army resumed its assault in eastern Aleppo after rebels broke a truce intended to allow them to evacuate. The ministry said that its military monitors in Syria had organised the evacuation of fighters from the city by bus following an agreement between rebel leaders and Damascus, a process that was supposed to begin at 0400 GMT. But the convoy of civilian buses […]
BEIJING, China (AFP) — China warned Taiwan that declaring independence would be a “dead end”, state media said Wednesday, after the island’s democratically elected president phoned Donald Trump in a precedent-breaking move. Beijing’s stance of opposing and blocking “Taiwan independence splittism” is “firm and unmovable”, Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman An Fengshan said at a briefing Wednesday, according to state-owned China News. “We have unshakable willpower, ample confidence, and sufficient capability,” he said. “Facts will show […]
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — The United States will keep challenging Beijing’s “assertive, aggressive behavior in the South China Sea”, the US Pacific commander said Wednesday, as tensions between two powers rise over comments by Donald Trump. Admiral Harry Harris, head of the US Pacific Command, warned Washington would not accept Chinese control of the region, despite Beijing’s rapid development of artificial islands capable of hosting military planes. He remarks come as Beijing reacted angrily after […]
by Rim Haddad Agence France Presse ALEPPO, Syria (AFP) — Civilians and rebel fighters were to start evacuating from Syria’s Aleppo Wednesday under a deal that would end years of opposition resistance in the city. The evacuations which were expected to begin at 0300 GMT, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor, had yet to commence more than half an hour after the time had passed, an AFP correspondent in the city said. […]
