A group of Australian MPs will leave Sunday for a five-day visit to Taiwan, a spokesman for one of the politicians said Saturday, risking China's ire just as Beijing-Canberra relations appeared to be thawing.. Details of the visit were confirmed to AFP by a spokesman for Scott Buchholz, a conservative MP who is in the delegation.
The Myanmar junta handed out at least seven more death sentences this week, taking the tally of those on death row to 139, according to the United Nations.. The United Nations is also investigating reports another four youth activists were also sentenced to death on Thursday.
The United States on Friday unveiled the B-21 Raider, a high-tech stealth bomber that can carry nuclear and conventional weapons and is designed to be able to fly without a crew on board.. Amy Nelson, a fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank, told AFP ahead of the unveiling that the B-21 is "designed to evolve."
Swedish-Swiss industrial company ABB agreed to pay $315 million to settle US criminal charges that it bribed state-owned Eskom of South Africa over government contracts, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Friday.. Between 2014 and 2017, ABB through its subsidiaries secured "multiple" government contracts, syphoning illicit payments through subcontractors associated with an official at Eskom, South Africa's state-owned power company, the DOJ said.
President Emmanuel Macron on Friday visited New Orleans, a city emblematic of historic Franco-American ties, to promote the French language and conclude his state visit to the United States.. Once a French colonial city, New Orleans was sold to the United States by Napoleon as part of the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, and Macron has called it "the quintessential francophone land."
Bolivia's leftist President Luis Arce said Friday a bill had been approved to hold a national census in March 2024 after weeks of deadly protests over the count.. The census will take place on March 23, 2024," the president said in a televised message.
The United Nations still cannot get unfettered access to bring humanitarian aid into Ethiopia's war-torn northern Tigray region, one month after the ceasefire, the World Health Organization said Friday.. WFP said an estimated 13.6 million people across Tigray and its neighbouring regions of Amhara and Afar were dependent on humanitarian aid as a result of the war, which broke out in November 2020.
French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire on Friday said Washington's $430 billion plan to spur climate-friendly technologies in the United States must be seen as a wake-up call for Europe.. Even though the EU has already "changed its approach" on promoting green industry, the US climate plan must be seen as a "wake-up call" in the European Union, he added.
The United States on Friday added Cuba, Nicaragua and Russia's Wagner mercenary group to a blacklist on international religious freedom, opening the path to potential sanctions.. The report had separately pointed to abuses of Russia's Wagner Group in Central African Republic, citing Amnesty International in linking the mercenaries to killings and sexual violence against Muslims.
Brazilian president-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva confirmed Friday he is planning a trip to the United States to meet with President Joe Biden before taking office on January 1.. US-Brazilian relations have chilled since Biden defeated former president Donald Trump, Bolsonaro's political role model, in the 2020 US election.
