The Hebei nursing home’s other residents have been transferred to nearby hospitals as authorities investigate cause of the blaze
Twenty people have died in a fire at a nursing home in northern China’s Hebei province, Beijing’s state news agency Xinhua said on Wednesday.
The fire broke out on Tuesday night at the nursing home in Longhua County, roughly 180km northeast of the Chinese capital Beijing, Xinhua said.
Continue reading...Stock markets down from Australia to Japan and Taiwan as Trump presses ahead with plans to hit China with huge retaliatory tariffs
Today’s tariffs follow Trump’s 10% tariff on all imports from many countries, including Australia, which came into effect at the weekend.
US customs agents began collecting the unilateral tariff at US seaports, airports and customs warehouses on Saturday. Today’s measures are higher levies on goods from 57 larger trading partners.
Continue reading...Chinese government asks: ‘Who represents the real threat?’ after US defense secretary vows to keep canal secure
US secretary of defense Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday that the Panama canal faces ongoing threats from China but that together the United States and Panama will keep it secure.
Hegseth’s remarks triggered a fiery response from the Chinese government, which said: “Who represents the real threat to the Canal? People will make their own judgement.”
Continue reading...Outcry as CNN reports president to stop funds for program that would have created jobs in Middletown, Ohio
Despite promises to bolster the US manufacturing industry, the Trump administration is reportedly planning to cut a key program that invests in some of the biggest manufacturing industries in the US, including in JD Vance’s home town of Middletown, Ohio.
Donald Trump is looking to slash a $500m grant from the Biden administration that was slated for Cleveland-Cliffs, a steel manufacturing giant in America’s rust belt, according to reporting from CNN. The grant was intended to help the company upgrade its ageing blast furnaces, so they would be powered by hydrogen, natural gas and electricity instead of coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel.
Continue reading...Whitehall sources say Starmer and Reeves aligned in seeing steel as of ‘huge strategic importance’
Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves are actively considering nationalising British Steel in an escalation of plans first revealed in the Guardian last year.
The prime minister said all options were on the table to secure the future of the Scunthorpe plant, which is owned by the Chinese firm Jingye and employs about 3,500 people.
Defended the welfare cuts as being based on “dignity” and criticised the Office for Budget Responsibility for not taking into account possible behavioural changes of people affected by the cuts when assessing the consequences of the policy.
Said threats from foreign powers targeting people in the UK were “growing” and the issue was constantly being raised in international talks. He added: “I think we generally underestimate that threat, and it’s very important we’re alive to it.”
Stepped up his criticism of regulators, telling MPs he was “astonished” by how many there were and saying he was “frustrated” by the barriers they put up.
Called for an inquiry into the killing of 15 aid workers in Gaza and said international law “underpins everything we do bilaterally and multilaterally” when questioned about the conflict in the Middle East.
Said he would speak to the intelligence agencies and the Kyiv government after Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukraine president, said two Chinese citizens had been captured fighting as part of the Russian army.
Said changes to the social care system could come as soon as next year amid a review led by Lady Louise Casey.
Continue reading...US president had trailed ‘direct talks’ and said Iran would be in ‘great danger’ if they failed
Iran, wrongfooted by Donald Trump’s revelation that “direct talks” between the US and Iran on its nuclear programme are set to start in Oman on Saturday, insisted the talks would actually be in an indirect format, but added that the intentions of the negotiators were more important than the format.
Trump on Monday threw Tehran off guard by revealing the plan for the weekend talks and saying that if the talks failed Iran would be in “great danger”. There has been an unprecedented US military buildup across the Middle East in recent weeks, and Trump’s decision to make the talks public looks designed to press Iran to negotiate with urgency.
Continue reading...After 15 Palestinian medics and civil defence workers were killed by Israeli forces late last month, Israel began a familiar pattern of denial
The Israel Defense Forces’ changing account of its killing of 15 Palestinian medics and civil defence workers is part of a long familiar pattern in high profile cases involving the killing of civilians.
Often, at first, the IDF denies involvement. Sometimes – in the context of Gaza – it suggests one of Hamas’s own rockets fell short, causing the casualties.
Continue reading...Paul Chambers detained under strict lese-majesty law, which can lead to 15 years in jail on a single charge
A prominent American academic has been detained in Thailand after being charged with insulting the monarchy, a rare case in which a foreign national has fallen foul of the country’s strict lese-majesty law.
Paul Chambers, who specialises in civil-military relations and democratisation in south-east Asia, was denied bail on Tuesday and is being held at Phitsanulok provincial prison in northern Thailand, his lawyers said.
Continue reading...Ukrainian president says men’s capture shows Moscow is trying to involve Beijing in the war ‘directly or indirectly’
Ukrainian forces have captured two Chinese nationals fighting with the Russian army in the eastern Donetsk region, according to Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The Ukrainian president said they were two of many more Chinese members of the Russian armed forces, and he accused the Kremlin of trying to involve Beijing in the conflict “directly or indirectly”.
Continue reading...The move has sent shock waves through a region of US strategic importance that had respected Trump as tough on Beijing
Vietnam had tried to appease Donald Trump: tariffs on US goods were reduced; regulations were passed to allow Elon Musk’s SpaceX to launch its Starlink in the country. The prime minister, Pham Minh Chinh, even joked in January that he would happily “play golf all day long” at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida if it could “bring benefits to my country and my people”.
The strategies do not appear to have worked. Trump has inflicted an extraordinary 46% tariff on Vietnam that threatens to devastate its economic growth plans and undermine relations between the two countries. The tariff has sent shock waves through Vietnam, a manufacturing powerhouse where Trump has always been fairly popular, and across south-east Asia.
Continue reading...Crews search for survivors after more than 160 injured at Jet Set in Santo Domingo
More than 70 people have died and about 160 others injured in the Dominican capital early on Tuesday after the roof collapsed at a nightclub where politicians, athletes and others were attending a merengue concert, authorities said.
The death toll reached 79 by the late evening as crews continued to search for survivors in the rubble at the one-storey Jet Set nightclub in Santo Domingo, said Juan Manuel Méndez, director of the Center of Emergency Operations.
Continue reading...Under-16s will be barred from using the app’s Live feature unless they have parental permission
Meta is expanding its safety measures for teenagers on Instagram with a block on livestreaming, as the social media company extends its under-18 safeguards to the Facebook and Messenger platforms.
Under-16s will be barred from using Instagram’s Live feature unless they have parental permission. They will also require parental permission to turn off a feature that blurs images containing suspected nudity in their direct messages.
Continue reading...Illegal practices included use of bots to hoard tickets for attraction in Rome for resale at inflated prices
An Italian ticketing company and six tour operators have been fined almost €20m (£17m) for illegal practices that made it difficult for regular visitors to access Rome’s Colosseum at the standard cost.
Italy’s antitrust authority, AGCM, said the practices, including using software bots to hoard tickets and resell them at higher prices, made it “essentially impossible” to buy tickets online for site.
Continue reading...Pete Hildebrand says health secretary ‘never said anything’ about vaccine’s efficacy when he visited for funeral
A Texas man who buried his eight-year-old daughter on Sunday after the unvaccinated child died with measles says Robert F Kennedy Jr “never said anything” about the vaccine against the illness or its proven efficacy while visiting the girl’s family and community for her funeral.
“He did not say that the vaccine was effective,” Pete Hildebrand, the father of Daisy Hildebrand, said in reference to Kennedy during a brief interview on Monday. “I had supper with the guy … and he never said anything about that.”
Continue reading...Beijing accuses US of blackmail and adding a ‘mistake on top of a mistake’ as Wednesday deadline for latest levies looms
China’s government says it will “fight to the end” if the US continues to escalate the trade war, after Donald Trump threatened huge additional tariffs in response to China’s retaliatory measures.
On Tuesday, China’s commerce ministry accused the US of “blackmail” and said the US president’s threats of additional 50% tariffs if Beijing did not reverse its own 34% reciprocal tariff were a “mistake on top of a mistake”.
Continue reading...Ex-Bank of England deputy governor Charlie Bean says cut of 0.5 points needed because of ‘crazy situation’ in US
The Bank of England should use its meeting next month to cut interest rates by at least half a percentage point to 4% in response to the financial turmoil created by Donald Trump’s trade tariffs, the former deputy governor Charlie Bean has said.
He believes an aggressive strategy is needed to combat the fallout from Trump’s tariff war, which has knocked trillions of pounds off global stock markets, undermining business and consumer confidence.
Continue reading...President says the pair had a ‘great discussion’ while prime minister says Israel will eliminate trade deficit with US
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, met with Donald Trump on Monday for the second time since the US president’s return to office, marking the first effort by a foreign leader to negotiate a deal after Trump announced sweeping tariffs last week.
Speaking alongside Trump in the Oval Office, Netanyahu said Israel would eliminate the trade deficit with the US. “We intend to do it very quickly,” he told reporters, adding that he believed Israel could “serve as a model for many countries who ought to do the same”.
Continue reading...President, sitting in Oval Office with Benjamin Netanyahu, warns Tehran of ‘great danger’ if talks are not successful
Donald Trump has announced that the US is to hold direct talks with Iran in a bid to prevent the country from obtaining an atomic bomb, while also warning Tehran of dire consequences if they fail.
Sitting beside Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in the Oval Office, Trump indicated that discussions would start this coming weekend, though he also implied communications had already begun.
Continue reading...New Civil Liberties Alliance says president’s invocation of emergency powers to impose tariffs is unlawful
A libertarian group backed by Leonard Leo and Charles Koch has mounted a legal challenge against Donald Trump’s tariff regime, in a sign of spreading rightwing opposition to a policy that has sent international markets plummeting.
The New Civil Liberties Alliance filed a suit against Trump’s imposition of import tariffs on exports from China, arguing that doing so under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) – which the president has invoked to justify the duties on nearly all countries – is unlawful.
Continue reading...Flemming Hansen and Mette Helbæk, now in Guatemala, had racked up large tax debt at Stedsans forest retreat
A Danish chef couple who attracted international acclaim with a “forest resort” in Sweden have been tracked down to Guatemala after apparently going on the run from tax authorities, leaving behind 158 barrels of human waste.
Flemming Hansen and Mette Helbæk founded their purportedly eco-friendly retreat, Stedsans, in Halland, southern Sweden, after claiming to have “felt the call of the wild” in Copenhagen, where they ran a popular rooftop restaurant.
Continue reading...