Beijing, China | AFP | Xi Jinping will make the first trip to North Korea by a Chinese president in 14 years this week, state media said Monday, as Beijing tightens relations with Pyongyang amid tensions with the United States. Xi will visit Pyongyang on Thursday and Friday at the invitation …
Read More »Heat wave hits Iraq — and sparks begin to fly
Nasiriyah, Iraq | AFP | Hospital ventilators shut down, football matches with obligatory water breaks and food spoiling in fridges without power: Iraq’s notorious summer has arrived. As one of the hottest countries in the world with around half of its terrain covered in desert, Iraq is no stranger to …
Read More »Hong Kong, China | AFP | Young Hong Kongers who marshalled the fight against a police force that was armed with tear gas and rubber bullets have spoken of how they were pushed into embracing more confrontational tactics by the failure of years of peaceful protests. In a series of interviews …
Read More »Rivals for British PM take aim at Johnson
London, United Kingdom | AFP | The six contenders vying to become Britain’s next prime minister held a leadership hustings on Saturday with rival candidates aiming their fire at frontrunner Boris Johnson. The men battling for the leadership of the governing centre-right Conservative Party spoke at a central London hotel ahead …
Read More »Mexico publishes Trump’s ‘secret deal’ on migration
Mexico City, Mexico | AFP | Mexico published the document Friday that US President Donald Trump fleetingly showed the press this week as evidence he had extracted tough new concessions on migration from the neighboring country. Trump theatrically waved the one-page document in front of reporters Tuesday, fending off critics who …
Read More »Hong Kong unrest alarms Taiwan with wary eye on China
Taipei, Taiwan | AFP | Images of riot police battling protesters in Hong Kong this week have reverberated in nearby Taiwan where many recoil at what they fear could be their future if Beijing has its way. Taiwan has been a self-ruled de facto nation in charge of its own affairs …
Read More »Sea of purple: Swiss women strike for equal pay
Geneva, Switzerland | AFP | Several hundred thousand purple-clad protesters blowing whistles, banging pots and pans and brandishing feminist slogans filled the streets of Swiss towns and cities on Friday, as women across the country went on strike for equal pay. “I love badass women” and “Eliminate the patriarchy” figured …
Read More »Boris Johnson rejects ‘white flag’ of Brexit delays
London, United Kingdom | AFP | UK leadership race frontrunner Boris Johnson insisted Friday he would never raise the “white flag” of surrender and plead for a further delay of Brexit if no EU deal was ready by October 31. The former foreign minister also said he would replace the controversial …
Read More »For stomach cancer, aerosol chemotherapy offers breath of hope
Dijon, France | AFP | “Classic chemotherapy was awful… but with this treatment, I feel hope,” says French pensioner Jacques Braud, who is undergoing treatment for stomach cancer with a new form of therapy dispersed by aerosol. Several hours before going into theatre, Braud is waiting in his room, looking surprisingly …
Read More »Far-right AfD eyes control of German town favourite of Hollywood
Görlitz, Germany | AFP | Its cobblestone lanes and Baroque architecture are so quaint that Hollywood directors often come calling, but the German town of Goerlitz may soon have a new claim to notoriety. A run-off election in the small city of around 55,000 people on the Polish border on …
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