China
Tianjin blast: 11 government and port officials suspected of negligence
China says 11 Tianjin government and port officials are suspected of negligence in connection to explosions that killed 139 people.
Police have also criminally detained 12 executives from Ruihai International Logistics, some of whom were already held by police.
The 12 August blasts, caused by hazardous materials stored in a Ruihai warehouse, devastated part of the port.
They also sparked concerns about the storage of dangerous chemicals.
In a statement released through Xinhua news agency, prosecutors said 11 government and port officials were accused of negligence in the storage and transportation of of dangerous chemicals.
Philippines seeks US help to protect troops in disputed sea
By JIM GOMEZ
The Philippine defense chief said he asked the visiting U.S. Pacific commander on Wednesday to help protect the transport of Filipino troops and supplies to Philippine-occupied reefs in the disputed South China Sea by deploying American patrol planes to discourage Chinese moves to block the resupply missions.
The Philippines has protested past attempts by Chinese coast guard ships to block smaller boats transporting military personnel, food and other supplies to a Filipino military ship outpost at disputed Second Thomas Shoal, which is also claimed and guarded by Chinese coast guard ships. The tense standoff at the shoal has lasted two years.
Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin said the commander, Adm. Harry Harris Jr., assured him of U.S. readiness to provide assistance, adding that the U.S. military has flown an aircraft at least once when a Philippine boat delivered supplies last year to Filipino marines marooned on the rusty naval ship that ran aground years ago at the disputed shoal.
Venezuela and Colombia hold talks over border dispute
Meeting prompted by Maduro's move to close two border crossings and deport Colombians citing an attack by smugglers.
27 Aug 2015 03:44 GMT
The foreign ministers of Colombia and Venezuela have promised to increase cooperation following the closure of two major border crossings and a crackdown on migrants and smugglers by Venezuela.
Even as the diplomats talked in the Caribbean coastal resort of Cartagena on Wednesday, motorists in the Colombian city of Cucuta complained of long queues for petrol as Venezuela's security offensive cuts off trade between the two nations.
The foreign ministers announced after an hours-long meeting that high-level defence officials from the two countries would speak in the coming days to form a joint plan for border security
Stock meltdown exposes how markets cling to myths about China
Their economy is slowing. Stock prices have plummeted. Global markets gyrate daily amid doomsday predictions for their country, so surely Chinese people are on the brink of panic, right?
Not so. Here in this Chinese city of 15 million people just north of Hong Kong, life goes on pretty much as normal. Outside a branch of China Merchants Bank on Wednesday, the streets were humming, but inside the tellers were having a quiet day.
Jin Jing, a 24-year-old bank manager at the branch and an investor, said the stock market declines have hammered her with paper losses of about 8,000 yuan - or about $1,270. But she treats it as a learning experience.
Mass Migration: What Is Driving the Balkan Exodus?
More than a third of all asylum-seekers arriving in Germany come from Albania, Kosovo and Serbia. Young, poor and disillusioned with their home countries, they are searching for a better future. But almost none of them will be allowed to stay.
When Visar Krasniqi reached Berlin and saw the famous image on Bernauer Strasse -- the one of the soldier jumping over barbed wire into the West -- he knew he had arrived. He had entered a different world, one that he wanted to become a part of. What he didn't yet know was that his dream would come to an end 11 months later, on Oct. 5, 2015. By then, he has to leave, as stipulated in the temporary residence permit he received.
Ruble turning to rubble? No signs of panic in the Kremlin.
Most Russians still blame the West, not their own government, for their intensifying economic pain. President Putin's approval rating has remained around 90 percent.
MOSCOW — Nadezhda Manontova, a Moscow office worker, is starting to feel the pressure as prices for her modest daily food purchases creep up amid unrelenting inflation now running at around 20 percent. Like many Russians, she's been able to supplement her summer diet with vegetables grown in her own garden, so her main worry is how to feed her two dogs.
"You can't give them a piece of bread, you know?" she says. "I'm cutting my own budget just to get the cheapest things, like liver, for them. And when I look around and see what other things cost now ... I just wonder how on earth people can afford it?"
For Russians, now entering the second year of a rolling economic downturn largely brought on by systemic weaknesses, plunging oil prices, and the Kremlin's sanctions war with the West, the relative prosperity of the past decade is clearly ending. Many are reacting like recession-hit people everywhere by changing their buying habits, staying home instead of traveling, and eschewing new consumer debt. Most public opinion polling suggests they are digging in for worse.
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