World

U.S. lawmakers urged the government Monday to rethink banking ties with Hong Kong, citing its "increasing role" in money laundering, sanctions evasions and reported funneling of banned technology to Russia.

Since Beijing imposed a sweeping national security law on the semi-autonomous Chinese city in 2020, "Hong Kong has shifted from a trusted global financial center to a critical player in the deepening authoritarian axis of the People's Republic of China (PRC), Iran, Russia, and North Korea," the US Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party said in a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.

by Julien Dury

The number of new HIV infections and deaths has fallen across the world, marking significant progress in the fight against the disease.

Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte on Tuesday denied she was plotting to kill President Ferdinand Marcos, saying her comments that sparked a government probe only reflected "consternation" with her one-time ally.

The country's justice department on Monday called Duterte the "self-confessed mastermind" of a plot to assassinate the president and issued a subpoena demanding she appear at a formal inquiry.

Landmine victims from across the world gathered at a conference in Cambodia on Tuesday to protest the United States' decision to give landmines to Ukraine, with Kyiv's delegation expected to report at the meet.

More than 100 protesters lined the walkway taken by delegates to the conference venue in Siem Reap where countries are reviewing progress on the the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Treaty.

Miriam Elder, a veteran journalist who reported from Russia for nearly a decade, has interviewed dissident Russian journalists who are delivering warnings to Trump-opposing Americans about growing complacent during his second term.

Writing in the New York Times, Elder describes the political apathy that took over much of Russia's middle class after Vladimir Putin fully returned to the presidency in 2012 and promptly cracked down on dissent.

South Africa's award-winning writer Breyten Breytenbach, an anti-apartheid activist who was jailed for his beliefs, died on Sunday in Paris at the age of 85, his daughter told AFP.

A poet, author and painter, Breytenbach left his native country in the early 1960s to settle in Paris, where he became one of the most influential voices against South Africa's legalized system of racial segregation.

The United Arab Emirates said on Sunday it had arrested three suspects in the murder of an Israeli rabbi, which Israel has called an anti-Semitic attack.

"The ministry of interior announced that the UAE authorities have arrested in record time the three perpetrators involved in the murder" of Tzvi Kogan, a statement carried by the official WAM news agency said.

Amina Abu Maghasib's livelihood rests on one animal: a donkey that pulls the cart she uses to transport people around Gaza, where more than a year of war has led to a widespread shortage of fuel for cars.

"Before the war, I used to sell milk and yoghurt, and the factory used to take the milk from me," she said from the central Gaza city of Deir el-Balah, holding reins in one hand and a rubber stick in the other that she uses to manoeuvre her cart.

The Philippines justice department on Monday labelled Vice President Sara Duterte the "mastermind" of a plot to assassinate the country's president, giving her five days to respond to a subpoena.

Duterte is being asked to explain herself in the wake of a blistering weekend press conference where she said she had instructed that President Ferdinand Marcos be killed should an alleged plot to kill her succeed.

French far-right figurehead Marine Le Pen on Monday threatened to back a no confidence motion that could topple the government of Prime Minister Michel Barnier in a standoff over the budget, saying after talks both sides were entrenched in their positions.

Months of political tensions since right-winger Barnier became prime minister at the helm of a minority government appointed by President Emmanuel Macron in the wake of this summer's elections are coming to a head over the budget which has yet to be approved by parliament.

President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance have both upheld Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán's regime as a model for Trump's second term in the White House. One former member of Hungarian parliament who witnessed Orbán's ascent is now pointing out ways Democrats can avoid the mistakes of Hungary's opposition.

In an essay for Politico, former Hungarian MP Gábor Scheiring noted that there are numerous similarities between Orbán and Trump. Both men are authoritarians bent on expanding executive power and crushing institutional opposition. Both are former presidents who lost elections and then returned to power. And both are strident culture warriors who are intent on dominating the media. Scheiring wrote that Orbán deployed populist "software" and "hardware" that paved the way for his far-right power grab, and alerted readers to watch for certain things that Trump will borrow from Orbán in the coming years.

Pro-Kremlin Muscovites voiced confidence in President Vladimir Putin on Friday, a day after Russia test-fired a new intermediate-range missile at Ukraine in a stark escalation of tensions.

Putin delivered an unscheduled TV address after the strike, in which he told Russians that the Ukraine conflict had taken on "elements of a global character".

President-elect Donald Trump needs to change the tone of his love letters, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un reportedly said this week.

Kim belittled and rebuffed Trump — who once boasted "'We fell in love, okay? No, really, he wrote me beautiful letters" — and the prospect of reviving nuclear diplomacy with the U.S., the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.