Politics

  Beijing / AFP The size of China’s workforce may decline by as much as 23 percent by 2050, a government official said, as the population of the world’s second-largest economy rapidly ages. China’s working age population, defined as those between the ages of 16 and 59, peaked in 2011 and would soon “experience a process of sharp decline”, particularly after ...

  Munich, Germany / AFP The lone teenager who shot dead nine people in a gun rampage in Munich was “obsessed” with mass killers such as Norwegian rightwing fanatic Anders Behring Breivik and had no links to the IS group, police said on Saturday. Europe reacted in shock to the third attack on the continent in just over a week, after ...

  Kabul / AFP IS extremist group claimed responsibility for twin explosions on Saturday that ripped through crowds of Shiite Hazaras in Kabul, killing at least 64 people and wounding 265 others in their first major attack in the Afghan capital. The bombings, apparently aimed at sowing sectarian discord in a country well known for Shia-Sunni harmony, came as thousands of ...

  Washington / AFP Hillary Clinton tapped Tim Kaine, a popular Spanish-speaking senator from the swing state of Virginia, to be her running mate in the White House showdown against Donald Trump. The pick comes three days before the start of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, where Clinton — and now Kaine — will be elevated as the nominees ...

  Vientiane, Laos / AFP Staunch China ally Cambodia is preventing Southeast Asia from reaching a consensus on the South China Sea after an international tribunal rejected Beijing’s territorial claims to the waters, a diplomat said on Saturday. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is meeting in Laos for the first time since the UN-backed tribunal ruled earlier this month ...

  Ankara / AFP Turkish authorities on Thursday imposed a three-month state of emergency, strengthening powers to round up suspects accused of staging the failed military coup despite global alarm over a widening purge. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared the state of emergency, Turkey’s first in 14 years, shortly before midnight after a marathon meeting of his national security council, ...

  Beijing/ AFP Torrential rain lashing northern China in recent days has left nearly 100 people dead or missing, official figures showed. At least 24 people in the provinces of Hebei, which surrounds Beijing, Shanxi, Henan and Shaanxi have been confirmed dead in a rainstorm that has been pounding the region since Monday, according to figures from the civil affairs ...

  Gyeonggi / Emirates Business Man Hee Lee, Chairman of Heavenly Culture, World Peace, Restoration of Light (HWPL) was bestowed with the “Mahatma Gandhi Prize for Non-Violent Peace” at the Peace Palace in Gyeonggi, South Korea on July 19. Mahatma Gandhi Prize for Nonviolent Peace, is an international award boasting of renowned past winners, including Jimmy Carter, Nelson Mandela, Margaret ...

  Dublin / AFP French President Francois Hollande on Thursday urged Britain to begin talks to leave the EU “as soon as possible” and ruled out granting access to the EU’s single market without access by EU workers to Britain. “The sooner these negotiations begin the better, and the shorter they are the better,” Hollande said after meeting Irish PM ...

  Bloomberg In his strongest remarks to date on the future of the western military alliance, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said the U.S. would only defend NATO members attacked by Russia after reviewing whether those nations “have fulfilled their obligations to us.” In an interview with the New York Times on Wednesday, the billionaire cast doubt on whether he ...