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by Amal JAYASINGHE Agence France Presse NEHINNA, Sri Lanka (AFP) — As once relatively wealthy Sri Lanka suffers a dire economic crisis with shortages of everything from medicines to gas, people are returning to cooking with firewood. The switch began at the beginning of the year when more than 1,000 kitchens exploded across the country, killing at least seven people and injuring hundreds more. The reason was suppliers looking to cut costs and increasing […]
BEIJING, China (AFP) — Tens of millions of people were under lockdown in China on Wednesday as businesses in a major tourist city were forced to shut their doors and fresh clusters sparked fears of a return to blanket restrictions. Health authorities reported over 300 infections Wednesday, with clusters found in the historic northern city of Xi’an — home to the Terracotta Army — as well as the country’s biggest city Shanghai. The fresh […]
by Shaun Tandon Agence France-Presse WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will hold a rare meeting with China’s foreign minister seeking to contain tensions, but will shun his Russian counterpart at a conference in Bali this week, officials said Thursday. Blinken will arrive Thursday in the Indonesian resort island for talks of foreign ministers of the Group of 20, the club of major economies that still includes Russia — despite […]
BANGKOK, Thailand (AFP) – Thailand scrambled F-16s after a Myanmar jet involved in clashes with anti-coup fighters violated its airspace, officials said Thursday, as a regional envoy urging dialogue visits Yangon. Fighting in eastern Myanmar has escalated since a putsch last year ousted a civilian government led by Aung San Suu Kyi, with thousands fleeing to Thailand to escape the violence according to the United Nations. The conflict has sparked concern among Myanmar’s neighbours, […]
BEIJING, July 4, 2022 (AFP) – Twelve bodies have been found following a shipwreck in the South China Sea over the weekend that left more than two dozen crew members missing, Chinese authorities said Monday. The announcement came days after an engineering vessel 160 nautical miles (296 kilometres) southwest of Hong Kong suffered substantial damage and broke into two pieces during a typhoon. “As of 3:30 pm on July 4, rescue forces found and recovered […]
TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Japan lodged a protest with China on Monday over a Chinese naval vessel sailing near disputed islands, a Japanese official said, as reports emerged of Russia also sending its own navy ship to the area. The islets in the East China Sea, known as the Senkaku by Tokyo and the Diaoyu by Beijing, are at the centre of a long-running dispute between Japan and China. Japanese officials regularly protest the […]
BEIJING, China (AFP) — China placed 1.7 million people under lockdown in central Anhui province, where authorities reported nearly 300 new cases Monday in the latest of a string of outbreaks testing Beijing’s no-tolerance approach to Covid-19. The country is the last major economy wedded to a zero-Covid strategy, responding to all cases with strict isolation orders and tough testing campaigns. The outbreak in Anhui — where officials first found hundreds of cases last week […]
TEHRAN, Iran (AFP) — A series of strong earthquakes rocked southern Iran on Saturday, killing at least five people, injuring over 90 others and reducing an entire village to rubble. The quakes, including two of magnitude 6.0, struck west of the major port city of Bandar Abbas in Hormozgan province, the US Geological Survey said. The first rattled an area north of the town of Dezhgan shortly after 2:00 am (2130 GMT), before a […]
HONG KONG, China (AFP) — A Hong Kong lawmaker who posed for a group photo with Chinese President Xi Jinping during the leader’s visit to the financial hub this week confirmed Sunday he has since tested positive for coronavirus. Xi visited Hong Kong under strict security measures to mark the 25th anniversary of the city’s handover from Britain in his first trip outside mainland China since the outbreak of the pandemic. Steven Ho, a […]
SINGAPORE (AFP) — A Malaysian drug trafficker is due to be hanged in Singapore next week, campaigners said Friday, two months after the execution of a mentally disabled man in the city-state sparked outrage. Kalwant Singh, who was convicted in 2016 of trafficking heroin into the city-state, is scheduled to be executed on Thursday, Singapore-based activists and advocacy group Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network said. Singapore has faced mounting calls to abolish the death penalty, […]
COLOMBO (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s inflation hit a ninth consecutive record in June, official data showed Friday, rising to 54.6 percent a day after the IMF asked the bankrupt nation to rein in galloping prices and corruption. It was the first time the increase in the Colombo Consumer Price Index (CCPI) crossed the psychologically important 50 percent mark, according to the department of census and statistics. The figures came hours after the International Monetary Fund […]
WELLINGTON (AFP) – China accused New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Friday of making “wrong and thus regrettable” statements that were unhelpful for keeping the two countries’ relationship “on the right track”. Ardern attended the NATO leaders’ summit in Spain this week, saying in a speech Wednesday that China had become “more assertive and more willing to challenge international rules and norms”. The Chinese embassy in Wellington hit back Friday that it had taken […]
