TOKYO: A total of 87 Japanese nationals and their family members have evacuated from Iran and Israel amid intensifying tensions in the Middle East, the Japanese government said Friday. According to Kyodo news agency, the evacuees arrived by bus in Azerbaijan and Jordan as local airports remained closed and none had health issues, Foreign Minister…
TURKEY: Sitting in his spacious office with a view of the Black Sea, Tayfun Denizer smiles: his rainbow trout, raised in submerged cages, have made him a wealthy man. “Our exports surged from $500,000 in 2017 to $86 million last year, and this is just the beginning,“ said Denizer, general manager of Polifish, one of…
SYDNEY: Australia has shuttered its Tehran embassy and ordered officials to leave Iran, the government said Friday, citing a “deteriorating security situation”. It joins a string of countries closing diplomatic missions in Iran since Israel launched air strikes a week ago, claiming its arch enemy was on the verge of developing a nuclear weapon. Australia…
BEIJING: Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Friday that Beijing had “no fundamental conflicts of interest” with New Zealand, as he welcomed Prime Minister Christopher Luxon on an official visit. Luxon’s trip comes at a time of tension with New Zealand’s close partner the Cook Islands over its ties with Beijing. The self-governing Pacific island…
WELLINGTON: Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown on Friday defended a string of contentious deals with China, saying they did not “compromise” the Pacific island nation’s sovereignty. The agreements prompted major donor New Zealand to halt aid funding to close partner the Cook Islands, citing a “lack of consultation”. The Cook Islands has a “free…
SYDNEY: Australia’s world-leading ban on under-16s joining social media sites cleared a big hurdle Friday as a trial found digital age checks can work “robustly and effectively”. Sites such as Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok and X could face fines of up to Aus$50 million (US$32 million) for failing to comply with the legislation, which was passed…
WASHINGTON: The World Bank said Thursday it is worried that some countries are less and less transparent about their public debt and use complex borrowing tools, making it harder to measure how much they owe. To remedy this the bank called for a fundamental change in the way debtor and creditor countries report and disclose…
WASHINGTON: On the eve of European talks with Iran over its nuclear program, Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy said Thursday after meeting high-level US officials that there is still time to reach a diplomatic solution with Tehran. Lammy met with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and special envoy Steve Witkoff at the White House,…
TAIPEI: Taiwan detected 50 Chinese military aircraft around the island, the defence ministry said Friday, days after a British naval vessel transitted through the sensitive Taiwan Strait. China insists democratic, self-ruled Taiwan is part of its territory and has threatened to use force to bring the island under its control. Beijing has ramped up the…
MORAVIA, COSTA RICA: A retired Nicaraguan soldier who has fiercely criticized President Daniel Ortega from exile was shot dead Thursday in neighboring Costa Rica, his family and officials said. Major Roberto Samcam, 66, was gunned down at his apartment building in San Jose, reportedly by men pretending to deliver a package. “It was something we…
