A top United States (US) diplomat landed in Taiwan Thursday, the highest-ranking State Department official to visit in 40 years, in a further sign of Washington's willingness to defy China and its campaign to isolate the self-ruled island.Keith Krach, undersecretary of state for economic growth, energy and the environment, is visiting to attend a memorial service for late president Lee Teng-hui on Saturday, the US State Department said.The trip, the second high-ranking US visit in as man

Japan’s parliament is scheduled to confirm Yoshihide Suga this week as the country’s new prime minister. He will replace Shinzo Abe, who announced his resignation last month for health reasons, after almost eight years in office. Japanese and international observers are now asking whether the Abe government’s economic-policy course (dubbed “Abenomics”) will change significantly under Suga, and if so, how. The answer will have important geopolitical implications.

The pandemic that United States (US) President Donald Trump has handled so disastrously – over 200,000 deaths from COVID-19 are expected in the US by Election Day – is persuading an unprecedented number of voters to cast their ballot by mail rather than expose themselves at the polls.

The United States (US) on Saturday called a decision by Beijing to impose restrictions on all American diplomats on Chinese soil an "escalation," the latest rebuke in an ongoing tit-for-tat dispute over foreign missions.Relations between the world's top two economies have deteriorated in recent months, with both sides locked in fierce recriminations over trade disputes, human rights and the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.On Friday, China announced "reciprocal restrict

The World Health Organization (WHO) announced on 11 March that the outbreak of COVID-19 had become a pandemic. Six months on the virus has cost the lives of over 900,000 people.Back in March the death toll stood at 4,200 from 120,000 cases, with most of the fatalities in the Wuhan region of China where the virus first came to light last December.Those figures were enough to cause concern back then.

The United Nations (UN) turns 75 this autumn, and if this were a normal year, many of the world’s leaders would gather in New York City to celebrate this milestone and open the annual meeting of the General Assembly. But this year is anything but normal.

Washington's top diplomat urged Southeast Asia on Thursday to cut ties with Chinese companies helping build islands in the South China Sea, weeks after the United States (US) blacklisted two dozen firms working in the disputed waters.Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's comments came at a regional Asian summit overshadowed by the US-China rivalry over a range of issues, from trade to the coronavirus.Tensions are also simmering over the South China Sea, with the US last month sanctioning

At the Koon Chun Sauce Factory workers are scrambling to cover hundreds of thousands of bottles with new "Made in China" labels as the popular Hong Kong brand falls victim to spiralling diplomatic tensions.Founded nearly a century ago, the family-owned factory has survived a world war, multiple economic crises and the slow withering of Hong Kong's manufacturing base as companies looked for cheaper labour in mainland China.It remains one of the financial hub's most enduring

More than seven years ago, in January 2013, the Philippines took the initiative of contesting the legal basis of China’s maritime claims in the South China Sea (SCS) through the Arbitral Tribunal at the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague under the compulsory dispute resolution provisions contained in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). On 12, July 2016, the Arbitral Tribunal released its ruling on the SCS arbitration in favour of the

An increase in cases in Israel, France and Indonesia, a decline in South Africa: here is a weekly roundup of developments in the coronavirus crisis:Most New CasesIndia, the United States (US) and Brazil remain the three countries recording the greatest number of new cases over the past seven days, with 77,596, 40,875 and 40,035 cases respectively per day on average, according to an AFP count on Friday. While the number of cases was on the increase in India (15 percent more cases comp