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SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said that Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons guarantee its safety, state media reported Tuesday, signalling once again that it will not give up its arsenal. Kim was addressing a conference of veterans on the 67th anniversary of the 1953 armistice that ended Korean War hostilities, the official Korean Central News Agency said. Up to three million Koreans died in the three-year conflict, in which the armistice […]
by Su Xinqi HONG KONG, China (AFP) — Everyone in Hong Kong will have to wear masks in public from this week, authorities said Monday, as they unveiled the city’s toughest social distancing measures yet to combat a new wave of coronavirus infections. The ramped-up rules came as authorities revealed China would help officials build an emergency field hospital to help deal with a surge in patients. “The epidemic situation in Hong Kong is remarkably […]
by Leo Ramirez and Noel Celis CHENGDU, China (AFP) — The American flag was lowered at the US consulate in Chengdu on Monday and Chinese authorities entered the building as Beijing carried out a Cold War-style retaliatory closure of the mission. Relations have deteriorated in recent weeks in an intensifying standoff between Washington and Beijing, with the Chengdu mission ordered to shut in retaliation for the forced closure of the Chinese consulate in Houston, Texas. […]
BEIJING, China (AFP) — China recorded 61 new coronavirus cases on Monday — the highest daily figure since April — propelled by clusters in three separate regions that have sparked fears of a fresh wave. The bulk of 57 new domestic cases were found in the far northwestern Xinjiang region, according to the National Health Commission, where a sudden outbreak in the regional capital of Urumqi occurred in mid-July. Fourteen domestic cases were also […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — A huge fleet of Chinese fishing boats has been operating illegally in North Korean waters catching hundreds of millions of dollars worth of squid, a study showed Wednesday. The competition from hundreds of larger, better-equipped Chinese vessels was forcing North Korean fishermen to poach in Russian waters, according to a group of international researchers involved in the Global Fishing Watch study. The study combined four satellite technologies to identify widespread […]
SEOUL, SOuth Korea (AFP) — North Korean authorities have imposed a lockdown on the border city of Kaesong after discovering what they called the country’s first suspected case of the novel coronavirus, state media reported Sunday. Leader Kim Jong Un convened an emergency politburo meeting on Saturday to implement a “maximum emergency system and issue a top-class alert” to contain the virus, official news agency KCNA said. If confirmed, it would be the first officially […]
HANOI, Vietnam (AFP) — Vietnam has detected its first locally-transmitted case of coronavirus in nearly 100 days, authorities said Saturday, in a country whose swift and full lockdown won praise for controlling the spread of the disease. “Patient 416” is a 57-year-old retired Vietnamese man in the southern city of Danang, and the first community transmission since April 16. Local health officials have tested 105 people who had been in close contact with him, the […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — South Korea reported a surge in new coronavirus infections on Saturday, recording its highest figure in nearly four months with dozens of imported cases. The country added 113 new cases, including 86 among people who arrived from overseas, bringing the total to 14,092, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It was the second highest figure since March 31, when the country reported 125 new cases. It […]
BEIJING, China (AFP) — China said Friday it had revoked the license for the US consulate in the southwestern city of Chengdu, in retaliation for the closure of China’s Houston consulate earlier this week. The move is a “legitimate and necessary response to the unreasonable measures by the United States”, the foreign ministry said in a statement. “The current situation in China-US relations is not what China desires to see, and the US is responsible […]
NEW DELHI, India (AFP) — India’s death toll from the novel coronavirus overtook France’s on Friday with 30,601 fatalities and nearly 50,000 new cases overnight, official data showed. The death toll is the sixth-biggest behind the US, Brazil, Britain, Mexico and Italy, according to an AFP tally. It has the third-highest caseload with almost 1.3 million infections. In the past 24 hours the country recorded 740 new deaths from the virus and 49,310 fresh […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — South Korea’s economy recorded its worst performance in more than 20 years in the second quarter, the central bank said Thursday, as the coronavirus pandemic hammered its exports. Asia’s fourth-largest economy contracted 2.9 percent year-on-year in the April-June period, the Bank of Korea said. It was the fastest decline since a 3.8 percent drop in the fourth quarter of 1998, in the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis. Quarter-on-quarter, it […]
by Mark Felix Agence France Presse HOUSTON, United States (AFP) — US-Chinese relations, already tense over the coronavirus pandemic and Beijing’s crackdown in Hong Kong, deteriorated once again Wednesday as Washington ordered the closure of the Chinese consulate in Houston within 72 hours. China slammed the US move, which came one day after the unveiling of a US indictment targeting two Chinese nationals for allegedly hacking hundreds of companies worldwide and seeking to steal […]
