World

Venezuela President Maduro Breaks Diplomatic Relations with US
2019-01-23 20:40:45 UTC
CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said on Wednesday he was breaking diplomatic relations with the United States, after the Trump administration recognized opposition leader Juan Guaido as the South American country’s interim president. Speaking to supporters outside the Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas, socialist leader Maduro said he would give U.S. diplomatic personnel 72 hours to leave Venezuela, which is suffering from a hyperinflationary economic collapse. Reporting by Caracas Newsroom, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien
Germany to Accelerate Development of Autonomous Driving
2019-01-23 18:33:15 UTC
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Germany’s top carmakers including BMW and Volkswagen are looking at ways to speed up development of the next generation of self-driving cars, possibly by even working together, as tech giant Google forges ahead with plans to mass produce such vehicles. Carmakers and tech companies have been in a race to develop self-driving robotaxis since 2012 when Google unveiled a self-driving car. BMW announced a development pact with tech firm Mobileye in 2016 and Daimler struck an alliance with autos supplier Bosch in 2017. BMW and Daimler’s first-generation autonomous cars will start to emerge after 2020/2021 using comput...
Brexit: EU To Prepare For Worst Variant
2019-01-16 04:37:26 UTC
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union leaders expressed dismay and regret on Tuesday after the British parliament rejected a Brexit divorce deal, saying they were stepping up emergency planning and warned London was running out of time. The EU’s chief executive, the European Parliament Brexit negotiator and a host of prime ministers took to Twitter to call on London for ideas on what to do now to stop Britain crashing out of the bloc with no deal on March 29. European Council President Donald Tusk, who chairs EU summits, suggested the only real solution was for Britain to stay in the EU after British lawmakers defeated Prime Minister T...
China's Chang'e-4 Probe Touched Down on Far Side of Moon
2019-01-06 05:35:05 UTC
China's Chang'e-4 probe touched down on the far side of the moon, state broadcaster CCTV reported on Thursday morning. The successful "soft landing" marks a groundbreaking development in space exploration, being the first time that a spacecraft has landed on the side of the moon that faces away from Earth. Chang'e-4, which is named after the Chinese goddess of the moon, entered its planned orbit to allow the landing on Sunday. It landed in the Von Karman crater, which is in the lunar South Pole's Aitken Basin, at about 0226 UTC. <strong>Lunar surface explorer</strong> Chang'e-4 is set to release a rover to map contours and surface...
China’s Population to Reach 1.442 Billion in 2029
2019-01-06 05:03:07 UTC
SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China’s population is set to reach a peak of 1.442 billion in 2029 and start a long period of “unstoppable” decline in 2030, government scholars said in a research report published on Friday. The world’s most populous country must now draw up policies to try to cope with a declining labor force and a rapidly ageing population, according to the summary of the latest edition of the “Green Book of Population and Labor” published by the China Academy of Social Sciences (CASS). Growth in the working population had now stagnated, the report said, and the rising number of elderly people will have a far-reaching impact o...
France's Yellow Vest Protests Enter 8th Week
2019-01-06 03:25:12 UTC
PARIS (Reuters) - Rioters in Paris torched motorbikes and set barricades ablaze on the upmarket Boulevard Saint Germain on Saturday, as protests against high living costs and the perceived indifference of President Emmanuel Macron turned violent on the fringes. The latest “yellow vest” marches began peacefully but degenerated in the afternoon as protesters threw missiles at riot police blocking bridges over the Seine. Officers fired tear gas to prevent protesters crossing the river and reaching the National Assembly. One riverboat restaurant was set ablaze and a policeman was wounded when he was hit by a bicycle hurled from a street ...
Pelosi Plans New Legislation to Reopen Parts of US Government
2019-01-06 03:12:02 UTC
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Democrats would pass new legislation to try to reopen parts of the government next week after talks between the Trump administration and Democratic negotiators on Saturday failed to end a two-week partial government shutdown. President Donald Trump is demanding $5.6 billion to build a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico but Democrats in control of the House of Representatives this week passed a bill to reopen the government without providing additional funding for the wall. Trump says he will not sign the bill until he gets the money for the wall. After a meeting aimed...
Britain Will Be Worse Off In Any Scenario Outside The EU: Brexit
2018-11-28 20:47:57 UTC
LONDON (AFP) — Britain will be economically worse off in any scenario outside the EU, the government said Wednesday, as the Bank of England warned that a no-deal Brexit would trigger a financial crisis. The government's plans for post-Brexit ties with the European Union would still cost the economy around 3.9 percent of gross domestic product over 15 years, a government report found. Finance minister Philip Hammond said the departure deal agreed Sunday between Britain and the EU was the optimum way to minimise the cost of leaving the bloc. The report comes as Prime Minister Theresa May took the divorce deal to a sceptical Scotland...
Coast of annexed Crimea: Russia seized three Ukrainian naval ships
2018-11-26 00:41:03 UTC
MOSCOW/KIEV (Reuters) - Russia seized three Ukrainian naval ships off the coast of Russia-annexed Crimea on Sunday after opening fire on them and wounding several sailors, a move that risks igniting a dangerous new crisis between the two countries. Russia’s FSB security service said early on Monday its border patrol boats had seized the Ukrainian naval vessels in the Black Sea and used weapons to force them to stop, Russian news agencies reported. The FSB said it had been forced to act because the ships — two small Ukrainian armored artillery vessels and a tug boat. — had illegally entered its territorial waters, attempted illegal ac...
Catastrophic Effects of Climate Change
2018-11-25 02:46:14 UTC
(Reuters) - Climate change will cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions of dollars by the end of the century, hitting everything from health to infrastructure, according to a government report issued on Friday that the White House called inaccurate. The congressionally mandated report, written with the help of more than a dozen U.S. government agencies and departments, outlined the projected impact of global warming on every corner of American society in a dire warning that is at odds with the Trump administration’s pro-fossil-fuels agenda. “With continued growth in emissions at historic rates, annual losses in some economic secto...
Germany Halts Arms Sales, Bans 18 Saudis
2018-11-19 23:31:54 UTC
BERLIN — Germany is halting previously approved arms exports to Saudi Arabia. The government says it is also banning 18 Saudi citizens suspected of being involved in Jamal Khashoggi's death from entering Europe's Schengen zone. Germany has triggered proceedings to ban 18 Saudi citizens allegedly involved in the murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi from entering Europe's border-free Schengen zone, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said on Monday. "We still have more questions than answers in the Khashoggi case," Maas said on the sidelines of a European Union meeting in Brussels, adding that he had discussed the decision wi...
France to Trump: Common Decency Would Have Been Appropriate
2018-11-14 23:04:40 UTC
PARIS (Reuters) - President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday told Donald Trump that France was the United States’ ally and not a vassal state after the U.S. president attacked him in a series of tweets that demonstrated how much their relationship had soured. Although Macron’s response was restrained, his government spokesman showed Trump’s criticism had struck a chord. When asked earlier about Trump’s tweets, French government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux said they were posted on the day France was mourning the anniversary of militant attacks in Paris. “Yesterday was November 13, we were marking the murder of 130 of our people,” Grive...
Angela Merkel Lays Out Germany's Vision For Europe
2018-11-13 18:45:01 UTC
Strasbourg/ France — The German chancellor has addressed MEPs in Strasbourg, laying out Germany's vision for the future of Europe. Seven months ahead of EU parliamentary elections, she gave her personal assessment of where the bloc stands. As the clock winds down on her final term as chancellor, Angela Merkel began by looking back on the EU's achievements and highlighting Europe's diversity, which was also its strength, she told the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Tuesday. Merkel warned that Europe's values were under attack and she highlighted the principle of European solidarity: "We are experiencing that it is more and more d...
France, Germany Mark 100 Years Since End of World War I
2018-11-10 18:13:56 UTC
The leaders of Germany and France on Saturday made a pilgrimage to the spot where an armistice was signed a century ago to end World War I. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron took part in a memorial ceremony at the Compiegne forest, 90 kilometers (56 miles) northeast of Paris. On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, 1918, an initial agreement to end four years of one of the world's deadliest conflicts was signed by the Allies and Germany in a train carriage in a nearby forest clearing, from where the two leaders on Saturday held a symbolic repeat signing ceremony. Merkel and Macron then watc...
Angela Merkel Ally Urges New Era in German Politics
2018-11-07 19:51:09 UTC
The battle to be the next leader of Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats is heating up. Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the candidate considered closest to the chancellor personally and politically, has now made her case. Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the woman many consider the natural successor to Angela Merkel both in leadership style and political agenda, has set out why she should be the next head of Germany's embattled conservative party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Wednesday's press conference in Berlin was a home game for the CDU general secretary, who staged it in the office representing Saarland, the small southwestern st...
Brexit Pulls UK and Ireland Apart, Undermines Relationship
2018-11-05 04:16:25 UTC
DUBLIN (Reuters) - Brexit has undermined the Good Friday Agreement which ended thirty years of violence in Northern Ireland, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said on Saturday. “Brexit has undermined the Good Friday Agreement and is fraying the relationship between Britain and Ireland,” he told Irish state broadcaster RTE. The border between Ireland and Northern Ireland after Brexit has been one of the major sticking points in Britain’s negotiations to leave the European Union in March next year. “Anything that pulls the communities apart in Northern Ireland undermines the Good Friday Agreement, and anything that pulls Britain and...
Angela Merkel offering to step down as CDU head
2018-10-30 18:58:10 UTC
BERLIN (AP) — Angela Merkel set off Monday on what could be a three-year countdown to the end of her leadership of Germany, a stint that has made her the European Union’s longest-serving leader and a key figure in facing the continent’s many crises. Merkel announced that she will give up the leadership of her conservative Christian Democratic Union in December and won’t stand for a fifth term as chancellor — signaling the beginning of the end at the helm for the woman many had labeled the “leader of the free world.” That’s a title she herself objected to, saying leadership is never up to one person or country. But she has been a stal...
European lawmakers vote to ban single-use plastics
2018-10-25 19:15:10 UTC
European lawmakers have approved measures to reduce plastics polluting seas and oceans. A proposed ban targets the top 10 single-use plastic products that litter Europe's beaches. The European Parliament on Wednesday approved measures that could lead to a ban on single-use plastic items, including straws, cotton swabs and disposable plastic plates and cutlery, by 2021. The parliament backed the proposals with a 571-53 majority. <blockquote> In May, the European Commission proposed EU-wide rules to target the top 10 single-use plastic items that litter Europe's beaches or are found in its seas, as well as lost and abandoned fishing gea...
Son of murdered Saudi journalist has flown out of Saudi Arabia
2018-10-25 19:11:25 UTC
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The eldest son of murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi has flown out of Saudi Arabia, two sources close to the family said on Thursday. Salah Khashoggi, who one source said holds dual U.S.-Saudi citizenship and had thus far been under a travel ban, departed Saudi Arabia on Wednesday. The sources provided no further details. Salah Khashoggi’s departure came a day after a meeting at the al Yamama Palace in Riyadh in which he and other family members received condolences from King Salman and his son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Turkish officials and some U.S. lawmakers allege the crown prince ordered...
Migrant caravan: Trump deliberately lying to American people
2018-10-24 01:02:20 UTC
<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Mike Pence misstated federal statistics Tuesday when trying to help President Donald Trump make the case that terrorists are among thousands of migrants moving through Mexico toward the U.S. border. Trump himself acknowledged he’s got no proof terrorists are in the mix. A look at their remarks: PENCE: “In the last fiscal year, we apprehended more than 10 terrorists or suspected terrorists per day at our southern border from countries that are referred to in the lexicon as other than Mexico. That means from the Middle East region.” — remarks at a Washington Post event.</p><bl...
Germany to halt all arms exports to Saudi
2018-10-22 21:35:32 UTC
ORTENBERG, Germany (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday called the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul a “monstrosity” and vowed to halt all German arms exports to Riyadh until the case is cleared up. Merkel, in her harshest comments to date, decried what she called “the monstrosity there in the Saudi consulate in Turkey” during a campaign rally in the town of Ortenberg before a regional election in the state of Hesse on Sunday. “It must be cleared up. As long as it’s not cleared up, there will be no arms exports to Saudi Arabia. I assure you of that very decidedly,” Merkel said...
Brexit: EU to break a deadlock over the Irish border
2018-10-22 17:03:04 UTC
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union negotiators are looking at ways to promise Britain a customs deal that could stretch Brussels’ Brexit red lines but might break a deadlock over the Irish border, EU sources close to the talks have told Reuters. Accounts of how British and EU negotiators came close to a deal on Oct. 13 focus on how Prime Minister Theresa May balked at an EU demand for a “backstop” clause. This could put Northern Ireland in a special relationship with the EU that might distance it from the British mainland to avoid putting up customs posts on Britain’s only EU land border, with Ireland. But as the two sides try to re...
UK can remain in EU single market until end of 2020
2018-10-25 19:02:53 UTC
BERLIN (Reuters) - The European Commission has offered to allow Britain to remain in the EU customs union and internal market beyond an agreed transitional arrangement until the end of December 2020, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported on Tuesday. “In a goodwill gesture to Britain, the commission has raised the possibility of extending the transitional period,” the newspaper reported, citing a German government document. It did not say what the new date was. <hr><i>Reporting by Joseph Nasr; Editing by Alison Williams</i><hr> <h2>European lawmakers vote to ban single-use plastics</h2> European lawmakers have approved measu...
Brexit: The Irish border has become a sticking point
2018-10-15 16:25:14 UTC
LUXEMBOURG (AP) — Britain and the European were still both refusing to blink Monday over the question of the Irish border in Brexit talks — only two days ahead of a summit once seen as the moment when they would have to reach deal on Britain’s divorce from the bloc. A flurry of diplomatic meetings over the weekend had raised hopes for a Brexit agreement, but they were derailed by the issue that has dogged the talks for months — how to ensure that no hard border is created between the EU’s Ireland and Britain’s Northern Ireland once Brexit happens on March 29. The EU has proposed a “backstop” solution that would keep Northern Ireland ...
Critical Journalist 'killed inside Saudi consulate': Proof
2018-10-12 17:29:39 UTC
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey’s government has told U.S. officials it has audio and video proof that missing Saudi Arabian writer Jamal Khashoggi was killed and dismembered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, the Washington Post reported Friday. The newspaper, for which Khashoggi is a columnist, cited anonymous officials as saying the recordings show a Saudi security team detained the writer when he went to the consulate on Oct. 2 to pick up a document for his upcoming wedding. The Associated Press was not immediately able to confirm the report, and Turkish officials would not comment. A delegation from Saudi Arabia arrived in Turk...