Category: World

At least 20 people have died in a fire at a nursing home in northern China´s Hebei province, Beijing’s news agency Xinhua said Wednesday. According to the Chinese news agency, the fire broke out around 9:00pm Tuesday at the nursing home in Longhua County, roughly 180 kilometres northeast of the Chinese capital, Beijing. As of 3:00am Wednesday, it added, 20 people were confirmed dead. “Other elderly people in the nursing home have been transferred to nearby hospitals for further observation and treatment,” the Chinese news agency said. The cause of the blaze…

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TAIPEI: A deep, 5.8 magnitude earthquake struck Taiwan’s rural northeastern county of Yilan on Wednesday, the island’s weather administration said, with no reports of damage. The quake, which shook buildings in capital Taipei, had a depth of 72.4km (45 miles), the weather administration said. Taiwan’s fire department said there had been no damage reported, including at the island’s science parks where much of Taiwan’s semiconductor manufacturing takes place. Taiwan lies near the junction of two tectonic plates and is prone to earthquakes. Taiwan’s last major earthquake was in April of…

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Most Americans anticipate rising prices in the wake of Donald Trump’s recent announcement of broad new import tariffs, a Reuters/Ipsos poll has found. In the three-day poll, concluded Sunday, 73% of respondents said they expected prices to rise in the next six months for the goods they purchase regularly. Only 4% believed prices would fall, with others unsure or expecting no change. Last week, Trump proposed the most significant tariff hikes in decades, imposing at least a 10% tax on imports from almost every nation. The decision sparked fears of inflation and…

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Clean energy sources accounted for 40.9% of the world’s electricity in 2024, according to a new report by energy think tank Ember. This is the highest share since the 1940s, when hydroelectric stations dominated a smaller global energy market. Despite this milestone, global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions have reached a record high of 14.6 billion tonnes. Hotter weather, which drove up demand for air conditioning, led to a 4% increase in electricity use—prompting more reliance on fossil fuel power stations. “Solar power has become the engine of the global energy…

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The number of recorded executions worldwide rose to the highest level in a decade in 2024, according to Amnesty International, BBC reported. In its Death Sentences and Executions 2024 report, the human rights group said at least 1,500 people were executed last year—the most since 2015. Three countries were primarily responsible for the increase: Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, which together accounted for at least 1,380 executions. The United States carried out 25. Despite this rise, the number of countries known to have executed people dropped to 15—the lowest ever recorded, and…

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China will firmly implement retaliatory measures to protect its rights and interests if the United States intensifies its tariff actions, the nation’s Ministry of Commerce stated on Tuesday. A spokesperson for the ministry made these remarks following the US’s warning of a potential 50% tariff increase on Chinese imports, a move that China strongly opposes. The US so-called “reciprocal tariffs” against China are groundless and a typical practice of unilateral bullying, the spokesperson said. The spokesperson noted that the countermeasures China has adopted are entirely legitimate actions aimed at protecting…

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In a surprise announcement on Monday, United States President Donald Trump revealed that the US and Iran are set to begin direct talks on Tehran’s nuclear programme on Saturday. While Iran’s foreign minister said the discussions in Oman would be indirect, Trump warned that if the talks are unsuccessful, “Iran is going to be in great danger”, indicating a further sign of the difficult path to any deal between the two geopolitical foes. Recently, Iran had pushed back against Trump’s demands that it directly negotiate over its nuclear programme or…

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BEIJING: China has strongly rejected a fresh US threat to impose higher tariffs on its goods, calling the move a serious mistake and warning that it will respond with firm countermeasures as trade tensions between the two sides continue to escalate. Beijing’s strong response comes as US President Donald Trump threatened fresh levies of 50 percent on imports from the world’s second-largest economy. “The US threat to escalate tariffs against China is a mistake on top of a mistake, which once again exposes the US’s blackmailing nature,” a ministry spokesperson…

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The US Supreme Court has temporarily halted a lower court’s order requiring the return of a Salvadoran man who had been deported, granting an emergency request from the Trump administration. Chief Justice John Roberts agreed to pause the ruling, which had set a deadline of midnight on Monday for Kilmar Abrego Garcia to be brought back to the United States. Mr Garcia, 29, was deported to El Salvador on 15 March in what the US government describes as an “administrative error”. However, officials have also alleged that he is affiliated…

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WASHINGTON: Democratic US Senator Cory Booker accused President Donald Trump of “recklessly” challenging the nation’s democratic institutions in a marathon speech that broke a nearly seven-decade record on Tuesday for length. The 55-year-old New Jersey lawmaker, in a speech that began at 7pm on Monday and went on for 25 hours and five minutes, criticised the crusade by the Republican president and his billionaire top adviser Elon Musk to slash large swaths of the federal government. “Our institutions are being recklessly and unconstitutionally attacked and even shattered,” said Booker, who was first elected to the…

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