Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Wednesday announced plans to seek the first-ever changes to Japan’s post-war pacifist constitution and said he wants the revisions to take effect in 2020. The changes, which would spell out the status of the nation’s “self-defence” military forces, were announced as Japan marked the 70th anniversary of the constitution written … Read more
The first freight train to link China directly to the UK arrived in the eastern Chinese city of Yiwu Saturday after covering over 12,000-kilometres (7,500 miles), making it the second-longest route in the world. The journey is the latest effort in China’s drive to strengthen trade links with western Europe along a modern-day “Silk Road” … Read more
British Prime Minister Theresa May assured Japanese Premier Shinzo Abe on Friday that the UK remains “steadfast” in its condemnation of North Korea as the two met at her country residence of Chequers. “As we meet today, North Korea continues to take provocative action in the Asia-Pacific region,” May said during a joint news conference. … Read more
Actor and hockey player Michael Mantenuto, best known for his role in Disney’s 2004 sports drama “Miracle,” has died. He was 35. Mantenuto was found in his car by police after reportedly sustaining a self-inflicted gunshot wound on Monday afternoon in Des Moines, Washington, according to TMZ. Seattle’s King County medical examiner’s office told People … Read more
Latvian lawmakers Thursday voted to grant citizenship to renowned ballet star Mikhail Baryshnikov, who defected to the United States while the Baltic state was occupied by the Soviet Union. Lawmakers voted 84 to zero in favour of handing the 69-year-old ballet legend a passport, which he will receive at a ceremony later in the day … Read more
China has launched a new aircraft carrier, boosting its military presence amid rising tensions in the region. It is the country’s second aircraft carrier, after the Liaoning, and the first to be made domestically. State media said the unnamed ship was “transferred from dry dock into the water” in the north-eastern port of Dalian. Previous … Read more
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will visit Russia this week for a meeting with President Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin and Tokyo said Tuesday, as the two sides look to make headway on a decades-old territorial dispute. The Kremlin said talks set for Thursday will focus on “the state and prospects for development of Russo-Japanese cooperation … Read more
Syria’s Tabqa, which US-backed forces entered Monday, is doubly strategic: it lies on the road to the Islamic State group’s Raqa bastion and the nearby dam is the country’s largest. Tabqa is both the name of the town and the dam and capturing both would allow the US-backed Arab-Kurdish alliance known as the Syrian Democratic … Read more
Pope Francis has described some of Europe’s holding centres for migrants and refugees as concentration camps. The Roman Catholic leader made the comments while meeting migrants during a visit to a basilica in Rome. He thanked those who welcomed refugees but said that it appeared “international accords are more important than human rights”. The American … Read more
Russia tried to use Trump advisers to infiltrate campaign The FBI gathered intelligence last summer that suggests Russian operatives tried to use Trump advisers, including Carter Page, to infiltrate the Trump campaign, according to US officials. The new information adds to the emerging picture of how the Russians tried to influence the 2016 election, not … Read more
Russia’s Supreme Court has accepted the government’s request to designate Jehovah’s Witnesses as an outlawed religious group, deeming it to be an extremist organisation. The justice ministry argued that the group had distributed pamphlets which incited hatred against other groups. Lawyers representing the group reject the claims and say they will appeal. The denomination says … Read more
Before tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians marched before him, along with some of the most fearsome weapons at his command, North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un and his audience were shown portraits of his grandfather and father. Pyongyang’s giant weekend parade was intended as a show of military strength aimed at Washington, Seoul, Tokyo … Read more
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who has denied ordering last week’s suspected chemical attack on a rebel-held town, believes his victory is inevitable in the six-year-old war ravaging his country. Bolstered by the steady support of Russia and Iran, Assad has appeared unfazed by Western threats to his regime — even after one of his airbases … Read more
Russia’s Supreme Court has begun hearing a government request to outlaw the Jehovah’s Witnesses and declare it an extremist organisation. The justice ministry has already placed its headquarters near St Petersburg on a list of extremist groups. More than seven million people worldwide are part of the Christian-based movement, best known for going door to … Read more
Legendary US documentary maker Ken Burns’s new 18-hour television history of the Vietnam war is a “visceral” experience which will make viewers feel like they had lived through it, his co-director said Sunday. His longtime creative partner Lynn Novick said they had spent a decade talking to hundreds of veterans from both sides of the … Read more
The Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko has died of heart failure in the United States at the age of 84. Yevtushenko was the last surviving major poet of those who came to prominence in the USSR of the 1960s. He is best-known for his epic work, Babi Yar. It commemorates one of the worst Nazi atrocities … Read more
The top US general in Europe said on Thursday he has seen growing Russian influence on the Afghan Taliban, and raised the possibility that Moscow was helping supply the fighters. Russia has been critical of the US over its handling of the war in Afghanistan – now in its 16th year – where the Soviet … Read more
Russia is “perhaps” supplying the Taliban as they fight US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, a top US general said Thursday. General Curtis Scaparrotti, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander who also heads the US military’s European Command, told lawmakers he had seen Russian influence expand in multiple regions, including in Afghanistan. “I have seen the influence … Read more
Sweden is set to bring hundreds of Cold War-era nuclear bunkers out of mothballs as tensions with Russia in the Baltic are ratcheted up another notch. More than 60,000 bunkers were established after 1945 to protect Swedes in the event of a nuclear attack by the Soviet Union. Although Sweden has always remained neutral and … Read more
It was a top-secret Chinese nuclear facility with a deadly Cold War mission — to make plutonium for an atomic bomb — but these days its doors are wide open as a tourist attraction. The cavernous “816 Nuclear Military Engineering” installation was burrowed into lush green mountains in southwest China over a 17-year span by … Read more