United States (US) President Joe Biden will host a virtual democracy summit for leaders from government, civil society, and the private sector on 9-10 December 2021 with the themes defending against authoritarianism; addressing and fighting corruption, and promoting respect for human rights as per the statement released on the website of the US State Department. The invitations for the US Democracy Summit are out and more than half of the world was invited while the rest were left ou

After the exchange of words between Manila and Beijing on the unfortunate incident in the South China Sea (SCS) involving the Philippines and China on 16 November 2021 where three Chinese Coast Guard (CCG) vessels had fired water cannons on two Philippine supply boats have subsided, the area of Ayungin Shoal (Second Thomas Shoal or Rén'ài Jiāo) is now quiet, and the supply run is back to normal. Thanks to the quiet diplomacy and negotiations through bilateral diplomatic channels

The United States (US) is shipping another four million COVID-19 vaccine doses to Vietnam, the White House said Tuesday, bringing the total of US doses donated globally to nearly 270 million.A senior administration official told AFP that 4,149,990 doses of the Pfizer vaccine are being sent, bringing the total delivered to Vietnam by the US to 17,589,110 doses.

Ever since then-United States (US) National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger visited China in 1971, engagement with the People’s Republic has been a fundamental feature of US diplomacy. Yet the deterioration of US-China relations in recent years suggests that this policy may have reached its end. Last week’s virtual summit between US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping can be interpreted as a last-ditch attempt to save the bilateral relationship.

The South China Sea (SCS), one of the most in-demand waterways in the world, is the object of contention of several claimant states with overlapping territorial and maritime sovereignty and sovereign rights claims over the disputed waters. The dispute is still unresolved today and can be dated back to the 1950s.The six-primary claimant states of the contested waters of the SCS are China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines, and Taiwan.

A bipartisan coalition of United States (US) state attorneys general said on Thursday it has opened a probe into Facebook, now known as Meta Platforms, for promoting its subsidiary Instagram to children despite potential harms.The investigation, involving at least nine states, comes at a time when Facebook is under scrutiny over its approach to children and young adults.The attorneys general are investigating whether the company violated consumer protection laws and put young people at risk,

The virtual meeting between United States (US) President Joe Biden and China’s leader Xi Jinping helped ease the growing tension between the two countries but did not make headway in resolving lingering US-China trade war disputes.The US-China trade war, which began in 2018 under former US President Donald Trump, has resulted in both nations paying higher taxes to bring in goods from the opposing country.Escalating import tariffs have caused supply chain disruptions that are affecting busines

United States (US) pharmaceutical giant Pfizer on Tuesday announced a deal to make its prospective antiviral COVID-19 pill available more cheaply in the world's least-wealthy countries.Pfizer will sub-licence production of its promising Paxlovid pill to generic drug manufacturers for supply in 95 low- and middle-income nations covering around 53 percent of the world's population.Under the deal struck with the global Medicines Patent Pool (MPP), Pfizer – which also produces one of th

The strategic folly of United States (US) President Joe Biden’s Afghan policy has been laid bare in recent weeks. First, the country came back under the control of the Pakistan-reared Taliban. The announcement of the interim government’s composition then dashed any remaining (naive) hope that this Taliban regime would be different from the one the US and its allies ousted in 2001.

United States (US) President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping will hold a virtual summit on Monday as tensions between the countries deepen.The competing superpowers surprised many last week by issuing a joint declaration to address climate change, at talks in Glasgow, Scotland.But growing concerns of a military confrontation over Taiwan have thrown their differences into sharp relief.The pair's third meeting will address several thorny topics.Cybersecurity, trade and nuclear n