Australia has scrapped agreements tied to China's Belt and Road initiative (BRI), prompting anger from Beijing and adding further strain to tense relations between the countries.The federal government used new powers to rip up two deals made between the state of Victoria and China.Canberra said it was backing away from the agreements to protect Australia's national interest.The Chinese embassy in Australia branded the move "provocative".It said the action by Canbe

Four of the world's five top executioners in 2020 were Middle East states, Amnesty International says.

China continues to take internet censorship, surveillance and propaganda to “unprecedented levels”, according to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), making it one of the world’s worst countries for journalists.In its annual press freedom index, published on Tuesday, the global watchdog also highlighted an increase in repression and attacks on journalists worldwide during the COVID-19 pandemic.The index examines the press freedom situation in 180 countries and territories, and RSF said its data s

China's President Xi Jinping will attend United States (US) President Joe Biden's virtual climate summit this week, Beijing said Wednesday, as the world's top polluting nations seek rare common ground despite wider political tensions.Biden has invited 40 world leaders including Xi and Russia's Vladimir Putin to the meet starting on Earth Day, meant to mark Washington's return to the front lines of the fight against climate change after former president Donald Trump di

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said he is willing to deploy military ships to the South China Sea to assert the country's claim over oil deposits in a contested part of the waterway.Duterte, who has embraced China since taking power in 2016, has faced growing domestic criticism for his reluctance to confront Beijing over its activities in Philippine-claimed waters. Tensions spiked last month after hundreds of Chinese vessels were detected at Whitsun Reef in the Spratly Isl

United States (US) President Joe Biden has announced that he will withdraw American troops from Afghanistan by 11 September, finally ending his country’s longest war ever. The move was indicative of a broader shift by the US away from the Middle East – one that has been a long time coming. Will anyone take its place in the region?

Under the Paris Agreement on climate, nearly every country will have to drastically reduce their carbon emissions, and they were supposed to submit renewed plans to do so by the end of 2020.The first raft of "nationally determined contributions" (NDCs) submitted in 2015 would put Earth on course to be at least three degrees Celsius (C) hotter than pre-industrial times, a far cry from the Paris temperature cap goal of keeping warming "well below" two degrees C.Under the dea

Time and again, the deceptive and misleading “Chinese Threat” rhetoric has been hyped-up by the political detractors of the Duterte administration and by some mainstream media outlets; capitalising on the current skirmish in the South China Sea (SCS) involving the alleged more than 200 Chinese fishing vessels spotted in the Whitsun Reef or commonly known to Filipinos as the Julian Felipe Reef. One of the obvious reasons is to discredit President Rodrigo Duterte’s “rapprochement” poli

United States (US) envoy John Kerry will visit China this week for climate change talks – the first official trip under the Biden administration – in a trip Washington hopes will put aside diplomatic spats and focus on joint environment challenges.Kerry's trip comes shortly after a testy meeting in Alaska between two top Biden administration officials and their Chinese counterparts, with tensions high on a number of fronts.But the former secretary of state has said climate needs "to

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte must end his “policy of subservience” towards Beijing, lawmakers and foreign policy experts have said, warning that the Filipino leader’s silence is sending the wrong signal as hundreds of Chinese “maritime militia” vessels continue to congregate within Manila’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the South China Sea.While several Filipino officials, including the country’s top diplomat and the defence chief, have openly demanded that the Ch