China intends to increase imports from neighbouring countries, reduce the negative list for foreign investment and consistently expand openness in areas such as telecommunications and medicine, Chinese President Xi Jinping said at the opening ceremony of the Fourth China International Import Expo. The Chinese leader pointed out that China's determination to share development opportunities with...

Iran will resume talks on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on Iran's nuclear programme in Vienna on 29 November. Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri-Kani announced this on his Twitter page. The date was confirmed by the EU External Action Service and the US State Department. The EU External Action Service issued a press release confirming the date, specifying that...

UN Secretary-General António Guterres, speaking ahead of the opening of the conference, called on OECD countries to withdraw from coal power by 2030 and all other countries by 2040, ending public, private and international investments in coal. A few days before the summit, documents were released in which representatives from Saudi Arabia, Japan and Australia asked the UN not to force a rapid...

The global number of reported cases and deaths from COVID-19 has increased for the first time in two months, the WHO Director-General said. He linked the new rise to the growing incidence in Europe. The number of cases and deaths from COVID-19 has risen globally for the first time in two months. This was announced by the World Health Organization (WHO) at a briefing on Thursday, 28 October....

It is almost as if modern military trends don’t apply to Switzerland: as Western armies tend to follow the same strategic bearings, in terms of strategies and equipment, the Swiss have their own thing going. A truly domestically brewed mix of military doctrine and approach to military equipment, the Swiss way of defending its sovereignty goes against most modern military tendencies, and yet makes the homeland one of the best-defended nations on earth.

One of the main reasons why families in the European Union have been hit so hard by rising energy prices is low wages, but EU leaders at the summit sidestepped the issue, said Luca Visentini, general secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC). "One of the main reasons why families have been hit so hard by rising energy prices is low wages, but this topic seems to be completely...

The Group of Seven (G7) member states have agreed on a common position on digital trade. This was stated in a joint communiqué published on the UK government website. "We oppose digital protectionism and authoritarianism, and today we adopted the G7 Digital Trade Principles, which will define the G7 approach to digital trade," the document said. At the three-day summit of G7 leaders in...

More than 1,180 people have been killed in Myanmar since the military seized power, UN Special Envoy for Myanmar Christine Schraner-Burgener has said. She believes the situation in the country may escalate into a full-scale military conflict. Ms. Schraner-Burgener spoke at a briefing to mark the end of her tenure. She said the situation in Myanmar had deteriorated since the military came to...

The age structure of COVID-related deaths at the end of 2020 differs between middle- and high-income countries. This was the conclusion reached by a World Bank expert team examining the relationship between age, number of deaths and national income during a pandemic. The study drew on information on the coronavirus-related deaths from the worldwide database COVerAGE-DB, as well as on excess...