China’s state-run Global Times on Wednesday suggested that a recent increase in Chinese naval activity near waters surrounding the Japanese archipelago will soon “become routine,” as Beijing ramps up its militaristic ambitions across the greater Pacific Ocean.
France’s government announced plans on Wednesday to nationalize Electricite de France S.A. (EDF), a French state-owned multinational electric utility company, to help EDF better manage a worsening energy crisis currently plaguing both France and greater Europe, Bloomberg reported.
Southern China’s Shenzhen city, which is considered a special economic zone by China’s central government, recently became the first community in China to pass a regulation protecting a person’s “right to die,” the Global Times reported on Tuesday, noting that the novel legislation aims to help terminally ill patients refuse “excessive life-saving treatment.”
A group of people clad in costumes, including a man dressed as a Star Wars Stormtrooper and a woman dressed as Disney’s Snow White, performed a citizen’s arrest of a man on Sunday after he vandalized a famous topiary clock in Chile’s Viña del Mar coastal city, the website of ADN Radio Chile reported.
The government of Macau, which is the globe’s top gambling hub, locked down one of the city’s best-known hotels, the Grand Lisboa, on Tuesday after health officials detected over a dozen new Chinese coronavirus cases there, Reuters reported on Wednesday.
Shanghai’s government announced a snap lockdown Tuesday across 9 of its 16 residential districts to allow officials to conduct mass testing for the Chinese coronavirus, Xinhua News Agency reported, adding that the movement restrictions will last through Thursday.
Australian government officials ordered roughly 50,000 residents of Sydney to evacuate their homes on Tuesday after local waterways swelled beyond danger levels amid heavy rains, Reuters reported.
Three Russian warships sailed through a contiguous maritime zone bordering Japanese territorial waters on Monday night, Japan’s defense ministry said Tuesday, noting that the ships traveled near the Japan-administered and China-claimed Senkaku Islands.
Copper prices recently fell to a 16-month-low indicating to some financial analysts that a recession may be on the horizon, as the metal’s use across diverse industries means its price reliably gauges world economic health.
Leprosy is an ancient disease that many may associate with a bygone era. In some of the most populous areas of the world, however – such as Nigeria and India – the disease continues to proliferate, forcing victims to live on the margins of society in leprosy colonies.
Ferdinand Marcos Jr. became the Philippines’ 17th president last week after over four decades in politics that began under the shadow of his father, former Philippine leader Ferdinand Marcos Sr.
African workers for Chinese-owned mines and factories across southern Africa told the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) in a report published Thursday that they regularly experienced various labor rights violations including a lack of compensation for all hours worked and poor safety conditions.
A 53-year-old man died in Sri Lanka’s western town of Aluthgama on Tuesday while waiting in line for gasoline, which has been strictly rationed in the country since March because of a dire financial crisis, Sri Lanka’s News First website reported Wednesday.
Japan’s foreign ministry confirmed Thursday that a flotilla of Chinese Navy ships that entered waters near Japan’s Tsushima Strait on June 12 completed a circumnavigation of the archipelago after a nearly three-week mission that saw the ships end their journey near Taiwan, Kyodo News reported.
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari claimed his country was ready to fill a natural gas supply gap in Europe.
China’s state-run Global Times published several articles this week — including portions of an in-depth, four-part installment — all expressing criticism of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)’s apparent intention to expand its reach across Europe.
Two Muslim men beheaded a Hindu tailor on Tuesday in India’s western state of Rajasthan allegedly after the tailor expressed support on social media for controversial remarks by a now-former spokeswoman for the country’s ruling Hindu nationalist party.
China’s ruling Communist Party gifted the parliament of Zimbabwe — a severely impoverished nation that regularly struggles to feed its own citizens — a new luxury building on Wednesday, with Xinhua, China’s official state press agency, describing the opulent space as a “six-story building [that] is a fine piece of magnificent architecture.”
A Pew Research Center poll of 25,000 adults across 19 countries found that nearly 80 percent of respondents viewed China’s human rights violations as a “serious problem,” the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported on Thursday.
Houses of worship across Nigeria, including Christian churches, have hired security services in recent weeks after a Catholic church in southwestern Nigeria suffered a deadly terror attack by suspected members of the Islamic State West African Province (ISWAP) in early June, Voice of America (VOA) reported Tuesday.
Australia’s second-largest home appliance chain, The Good Guys, announced on Tuesday plans to temporarily pause a trial of facial recognition software it recently piloted in some stores after a consumer group submitted a formal complaint to Australia’s privacy regulator over the trial, citing privacy concerns, Reuters reported.
Roughly one-quarter of the world’s population is currently at risk from “once-in-a-century” floods, with nearly 70 percent of this demographic living across South and East Asia, the South China Morning Post reported on Tuesday citing a new assessment published by the journal Nature Communications.
Iran and Argentina recently submitted applications to join an association of emerging economies known as BRICS, which is headed by China and Russia, Reuters reported on Tuesday.
Vietnam’s Ministry of Health issued a regulation in recent days requiring citizens who refuse to receive a Chinese coronavirus booster shot to “write a letter of accountability” if they later contract the disease and spread it to others, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported on Tuesday, noting that some observers doubt the edict’s legality.
The mayor of Australia’s Redland City, Karen Williams, crashed her car into a tree last week while drunk on “several glasses of wine” one hour after meeting virtually with families of drunk driving victims, Australia’s 9News reported Monday.
Two teenage survivors of a mysterious mass death incident at a South African nightclub on Sunday told Al Jazeera and Agence France-Presse (AFP) separately on Monday that they each suspect that staff at the venue sprayed an unidentified gas-like substance onto patrons of the overflowing bar, which may have contributed to the deaths of 21 minors.
China’s state-run Global Times reported on Monday that 13 Chinese regions were “devastated” Sunday by floods that are projected to last through the coming days. Southern China’s annual rainy season began in recent weeks and has caused record flooding nationwide.
At least 11 people died and 251 more were injured on Monday after a large cylinder containing “toxic gas” with a “very high chlorine content” exploded at a port in southern Jordan’s Aqaba city, Jordan’s state-run Al Mamlaka TV reported.
Government officials in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province said at least 21 teenagers were “found dead” at a bar on Sunday morning under unclear circumstances, South Africa’s DispatchLive reported, noting that while the cause of the deaths remains unknown, some have speculated that the youths may have been “exposed to some form of poison.”
Police officers in northeastern China’s Dandong city arrested a 41-year-old woman surnamed Hao last week after she attempted to drive her elderly father to a hospital to retrieve medicine during a local Chinese coronavirus lockdown, the Global Times reported over the weekend, noting that the woman’s father attempted to slap one of the police officers after the officer shoved Hao to the ground.
At least four people were killed and hundreds more were injured after wooden stands full of spectators collapsed during a bullfight exhibition in the Colombian city of El Espinal on Sunday, the Colombian news website Noticias RCN reported Monday.
An Indonesian nightlife venue called Holywings apologized on Thursday for offending religious sentiments in the Muslim-majority country after it offered men named Muhammad free alcohol in a promo.
The premier of China’s State Council, Li Keqiang, “urged” energy officials to ramp up coal production this week to stave off electricity blackouts across several Chinese provinces experiencing record power usage during a regional heatwave, the U.K.’s Guardian newspaper reported on Friday.
Workers for CODELCO, Chile’s state-run mining company and the largest copper producer in the world, launched a nationwide strike on Wednesday to protest plans to shut down a foundry employing 350 people.
Canadian leftist Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday issued a statement on his official Twitter account describing the U.S. Supreme Court’s overruling of Roe v. Wade as “horrific,” Canada’s National Post reported.
Argentine truck drivers’ unions called for a nationwide strike on Wednesday, causing miles-long road closures and other transportation disruptions that threatened to jeopardize the country’s food supply during its peak harvest season, Reuters reported.
The number of South Korean families that moved from “urban areas to farming villages” reached an “all-time high” last year, Yonhap News Agency reported Thursday, noting that the phenomenon came in response to prolonged pandemic restrictions and surging home prices nationwide.
Independent grocery shop owners in Quito told Ecuador’s El Comercio newspaper on Wednesday that they have struggled with intense food shortages in recent days caused by distributors’ fears of violence by leftist rioters.
Japan’s government said this week it spotted three Chinese warships “sailing an unusual route around the archipelago,” the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported on Wednesday, noting that the sighting comes amid heightened tensions between Tokyo and Beijing over maritime territorial disputes.
Al Jazeera reported on Tuesday that 14 of Nigeria’s 18 Supreme Court judges recently signed a formal complaint sent to the nation’s chief justice in which they allege to have suffered from a lack of employee welfare traditionally provided by Nigeria’s federal government, such as housing accommodations, motor vehicles, and electricity.
