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BEIJING, China (AFP) — Taiwan’s unification with the mainland is “inevitable”, President Xi Jinping said Wednesday, warning against any efforts to promote the island’s independence and saying China would not renounce the option of using military force to bring it into the fold. China still sees democratic Taiwan as part of its territory to be reunified, despite the two sides being ruled separately since the end of a civil war on the mainland in 1949. […]
TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Japan’s Emperor Akihito delivered his final New Year’s address Wednesday before his abdication later this year, telling tens of thousands of well-wishers he was praying for peace. The Imperial Palace said more then 72,000 people flocked to the royal residence on Wednesday morning alone, with many more still arriving for a final chance to see the 85-year-old royal deliver his traditional new year’s greeting. The emperor will become the first Japanese […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — President Donald Trump said Tuesday he looked forward to another summit with Kim Jong Un, a day after the North Korean leader warned Pyongyang could take a different approach to nuclear talks if US economic sanctions persist. “I also look forward to meeting with Chairman Kim who realizes so well that North Korea possesses great economic potential!” Trump said in a brief tweet. The US leader made his comment after […]
by Anna MALPAS Agence France Presse MOSCO, Russia (AFP) — Russian rescuers Tuesday pulled a baby boy hurt but alive from the ruins of an apartment building where he spent the night in sub-zero temperatures after a gas explosion that killed at least nine people. With dozens of inhabitants still missing, authorities identified the 10-month-old boy as Ivan Fokine, and said he had been reunited in hospital with his mother, who also survived the ordeal. […]
by Robin MILLARD / Joe JACKSON Agence France Presse MANCHESTER, United Kingdom (AFP) — A British probe into a stabbing at a Manchester railway station on New Year’s Eve which injured three people is being treated as “a terrorist investigation”, the city’s police force said on Tuesday. The 25-year-old man who was arrested at the scene on Monday night is now being detained under a mental health law, Greater Manchester Police (GMP) said late Tuesday. […]
by Hiroshi HIYAMA Agence France Presse TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Nine people were hurt, one seriously, when a man deliberately ploughed his car into crowds celebrating New Year’s Eve along a famous Tokyo street, police and media said Tuesday. With an “intent to murder”, a man identified as 21-year-old Kazuhiro Kusakabe drove a small vehicle into Takeshita Street in Tokyo’s fashion district of Harajuku at 10 minutes past midnight, a police spokesman told AFP. According […]
BEIJING, China (AFP) — The presidents of China and the US have exchanged messages vowing to boost cooperation despite a bruising trade war on the 40th anniversary of the countries’ diplomatic relations, Chinese state media reported. Tensions between Beijing and Washington soared in 2018 over trade disputes, although US President Donald Trump has frozen the latest planned tariff hike and on Saturday reported “big progress” after a call with his counterpart Xi Jinping. In the […]
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AFP) — A Taiwanese tax reform campaign whose activists dress in yellow ramped up its protests Tuesday, interrupting a New Year flag-raising ceremony attended by the president, partially inspired by the recent success of France’s “yellow vests”. France has been severely rattled by six weeks of often violent demonstrations from “gilets jaunes” protesters, named after the high-visibility vests supporters have adopted. The movement forced French President Emmanuel Macron to jettison his controversial fuel […]
by Jung Hawon Agence France Presse SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — Nuclear-armed North Korea wants good relations with the US but could consider a change of approach if Washington maintains its sanctions, leader Kim Jong Un warned in his New Year speech Tuesday after 12 months of diplomatic rapprochement. At a summit with US President Donald Trump in Singapore in June the two signed a vaguely worded pledge on denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula. But […]
by Louis GENOT, with Marc BURLEIGH in Rio de Janeiro Agence France Presse BRASILIA, Brazil (AFP) — Brazil’s new far-right President Jair Bolsonaro declared a crusade against crime, corruption and leftwing ideology as he took office Tuesday for a four-year term at the helm of Latin America’s biggest nation. In his first public speech wearing the presidential sash, Boslonaro said Brazil will “start to free itself of socialism” and “political correctness,” breaking with policies brought […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — US President Donald Trump congratulated Brazil’s new far-right President Jair Bolsonaro as he took office Tuesday for a four-year term at the helm of Latin America’s most powerful nation. “Congratulations to President @jairbolsonaro who just made a great inauguration speech – the U.S.A. is with you!” Trump wrote on Twitter. © Agence France-Presse
by Anna SMOLCHENKO Agence France Presse MOSCOW, Russia (AFP) — Rescuers hunted for survivors on Monday after a gas explosion tore through a high-rise residential building in central Russia, killing at least four people and leaving dozens unaccounted for. A large section of the building collapsed after the explosion around 6:00 am local time (1100 GMT) at the high-rise in the industrial city of Magnitogorsk, nearly 1,700 kilometres (1,050 miles) east of Moscow in […]
