Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Bocelli to sing for China’s president as Italy becomes first G7 nation to back ‘Silk Road’ plan
Rome gave a lavish welcome to the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, his wife and entourage on Friday as Italy and China controversially pledged to strengthen trade and investment ties.
Xi is in the Italian capital on a two-day state visit, along with about 200 officials. He is expected to strike a range of deals worth up to €7bn and attend a gala dinner, where the tenor Andrea Bocelli will perform, during his visit.
Leaders set to endorse Italy’s role in ‘Silk Road’ trade network during Xi Jinping’s visit this week
Italy has signalled its determination to play a central role in China’s grand plan to build a Silk Road-styled global trade network, despite rattling its EU and US allies with its plan.
The country’s populist government is poised to endorse its participation in Beijing’s $1tn Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a global trade project aimed at connecting Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Europe via a network of ports, railways, tunnels and other infrastructure, by signing a non-binding memorandum of understanding (MoU) during the Chinese president Xi Jinping’s visit to Italy this week.
Activists rounded up and dissent stifled as Xi Jinping faces public scrutiny over trade, Xinjiang and Huawei at annual meeting
China’s largest political event of the year, a meeting of legislative delegates and political advisers known as the “two sessions”, gets under way this week and comes at a time when Chinese leader Xi Jinping faces one of the most challenging periods since coming to power.
Thousands of delegates will descend on the Great Hall of the People in Beijing while authorities go into overdrive to prevent any semblance of dissent during the two weeks of meetings of the 3,000-strong National People’s Congress (NPC) , and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), an advisory body.
The US president says he will hold a summit with Xi Jinping to conclude an agreement to end the year-long standoff
Donald Trump has said he will delay an increase in tariffs on Chinese goods that had been scheduled for Friday, citing “substantial progress” in trade talks with China over the weekend.
App’s amazing take-up is not entirely due to merit, the government has ordered members of the party download it
An app produced by the Chinese government has become the most popular in the country, rocketing up through the charts with a little help from the Chinese Communist Party.
The app’s name “Study (Xi) Strong Country”, is a pun – Xuexi being the word for “study” but also containing the president’s name, suggesting users are to “study Xi”.
Open letter says the arrests mean diplomats are more cautious about work in China
More than 140 former diplomats and leading China experts have called on Xi Jinping to release two Canadian citizens detained last month as a diplomatic stand-off between Ottawa and Beijing escalates.
In an open letter Chinese president, former envoys to China from Canada, the UK, the US, Australia, Germany, Sweden and Mexico described how the arrests of Michael Kovrig, a Canadian diplomat on leave, and Michael Spavor, a businessman, have sent a chill through the diplomatic community.
China’s endorsement has strengthened Kim’s hand, while a second US summit could show his independence
Kim Jong-un has told Xi Jinping he wants a second meeting with Donald Trump and is committed to “achieving results” amid an impasse over denuclearisation, according to state media reports of their meeting in Beijing this week.
Kim told Xi that North Korea would “continue sticking to the stance of denuclearisation” and “make efforts for the second summit between the [North Korean] and US leaders to achieve results”, Chinese state media reported.
Beijing meeting comes as denuclearisation talks with the US have stalled
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un arrived in China on Monday for a three-day visit at the invitation of Chinese president Xi Jinping, China’s official Xinhua news agency reported on Tuesday.
Kim’s visit, which state media confirmed would last for three days is his fourth summit with Xi, comes amid reports of advanced negotiations for a second summit between the North Korean leader and US president Donald Trump.
Chinese leader calls for reunification and says independence would be a ‘disaster’
Taiwan independence would lead to “disaster”, Chinese president Xi Jinping has said, pledging efforts for peaceful “reunification” with the self-ruled island but warning China would not renounce the use of force.
Speaking at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People on the 40th anniversary of a key Taiwan policy statement, Xi said reunification must come under a one-China principle that accepts Taiwan as part of China, anathema to supporters of Taiwan independence.
The President who vowed to "Make America Great Again" has lost sight of the values and sacrifices that made America truly great, leaving a vacuum that is "dangerous for our country and is dangerous for the world," former Secretary of State John Kerry said Friday in Morristown. "Russia and China are extremely busy trying to attack our leadership status," said Kerry, in town to promote his book, Morristown Festival of Books.
The Australian government is being urged to escalate its responses to commercial cyber espionage as a new report finds Chinese hacking of Western trade secrets has rebounded in violation of formal commitments made by President Xi Jinping's regime. The report from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute has concluded that Chinese theft of intellectual property and other sensitive information - an issue at the heart of a spiralling trade dispute between Beijing and Washington - has persisted and become more advanced.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping meet chinese tenagers at the Ocean Children's Camp after the plenary of the Eastern Economic Forum, in Vadivostok, Russia, September 12, 2018. Putin and Jinping, along with their senior military staffs, then attended Russia's largest war games in almost four decades.
At a White House meeting scheduled for 2 p.m., the chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, Kevin Brady, may also get a chance to urge Trump to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping to discuss the escalating Sino-American trade dispute. It was unclear if Republicans would press Trump over his summit meeting on Monday with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki that has generated fierce criticism from many U.S. lawmakers including within Trump's party.
President Donald Trump faced unusually blunt criticism from within his own party, as one of the U.S. House's top lawmakers urged him to restart negotiations to stop a costly trade war with China. Representative Kevin Brady, a Texas Republican who heads the powerful Ways and Means Committee, called on Trump to meet Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping and hash out an agreement to settle their trade differences.
G. Bin Zhao says the strengthening of Xi Jinping's leadership will make further reform and opening possible - by removing the obstacles to change This year marks the 40th anniversary of China 's economic reform and opening up. As Confucius said: "At 40, I had no doubts."
President Donald Trump on Monday defended his efforts to help a Chinese telecommunications company that violated U.S. sanctions "get back into business, fast," despite criticism from Democrats and Republicans that the company poses a national security risk. "ZTE, the large Chinese phone company, buys a big percentage of individual parts from U.S. companies," Trump tweeted Monday.
Trump's decision to blow up the Iran deal is a massive attack on Europe - Few ideas are as holy in President Trump's international liturgy as the concept of national sovereignty. His National Security Strategy speaks of a "beautiful vision - a world of strong, sovereign, and independent nations Trump team sends mixed signals to Europe - National security adviser John Bolton on Sunday carefully doubled down on President Donald Trump's threat that European countries could be sanctioned by the United States if they continue to be involved with Iran.
Trump's decision to blow up the Iran deal is a massive attack on Europe - Few ideas are as holy in President Trump's international liturgy as the concept of national sovereignty. His National Security Strategy speaks of a "beautiful vision - a world of strong, sovereign, and independent nations Trump team sends mixed signals to Europe - National security adviser John Bolton on Sunday carefully doubled down on President Donald Trump's threat that European countries could be sanctioned by the United States if they continue to be involved with Iran.
NOVEMBER 19: University of California Los Angeles students Andrea Flores and Kendall Brown and other UCLA students and supporters demonstrate outside the UC Board of Regents meeting where members voted to approve a 32 percent tuition hike next year on November 19, 2009 in Los Angeles, California. Undergraduate fees for students at the California university system would be increasing by about $2,500.
In this April 12, 2018 photo released by Xinhua News Agency, the Liaoning aircraft carrier is accompanied by navy frigates and submarines conducting an exercises in the South China Sea.