Author: News Desk

President Donald Trump crossed out sentences that distanced him from the rioters who attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and refused to call for their prosecution in a draft of a speech he delivered the next day, congressional testimony showed on Monday. The former Republican president deleted lines that said, “I want to be very clear: You do not represent me. You do not represent our movement,” according to an image of the script posted on Twitter by a member of the Jan. 6 committee investigating the attack, U.S. Representative Elaine Luria. He also deleted a reference to…

Federal Reserve officials are likely to hit a key milestone this week with an interest rate hike that effectively ends pandemic-era support for the U.S. economy and begins to test whether growth can continue without the central bank’s active help. The Fed is expected to raise its benchmark overnight interest rate by three-quarters of a percentage point to a target range of 2.25% to 2.50% at the end of a two-day policy meeting on Wednesday. That would match the high hit before the COVID-19 pandemic and lift rates to a level officials see as roughly “neutral,” or no longer supporting…

Minister of State for International Cooperation Reem bint Ibrahim Al Hashimy affirmed that “the United Arab Emirates, upon the directives of President His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, is determined to continue to support international humanitarian action to provide a coordinated and comprehensive health solution to curb the spread of COVID-19 pandemic. This could be achieved by strengthening the global health system, and ensuring equitable and sustainable access to safe and effective vaccines and treatments for all without discrimination”. Al Hashimy participated in the Virtual COVID-19 Global Action Plan Foreign Ministerial Meeting, organized by Japan and the United…

Electronic registration for the Global Media Congress to be held on November 15-17 is now open, the Abu Dhabi National Exhibitions Company (ADNEC) has announced. The Global Media Congress, under the patronage of HH Shaikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Presidential Court, is organized by ADNEC in partnership with the Emirates News Agency (WAM). The congress will discuss analyses and review the current position of mass media in the Middle East in order to highlight innovative visions for driving further advancement. It will feature a conference and exhibition specialized in the media industry…

China’s securities regulator on Monday denied a media report that said Beijing planned to sort U.S.-listed Chinese companies based on the sensitivity of the data they hold in an attempt to stop U.S. regulators from delisting hundreds of firms. The three-tier system aims to bring Chinese companies into compliance with U.S. rules that would require public companies to let regulators inspect their audit files, the Financial Times reported on Sunday, citing people with knowledge of the matter. The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) “has not studied” a three-tier classification of companies, it said in a statement. “Enterprises are required to…

The Japanese government has notified all the countries it has diplomatic ties with, including Russia, of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s state funeral, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihiko Isozaki said on Monday. The comment comes after Japan’s Sankei daily reported on Saturday the government was leaning toward not allowing Russian President Vladimir Putin to attend the funeral, set for Sept. 27. Abe was gunned down at a campaign rally this month.

China will set up a real estate fund to help developers resolve a crippling debt crisis, aiming for a warchest of up to 300 billion yuan ($44.4 billion), according to a state bank official with direct knowledge of the matter. The size of the fund would initially be set at 80 billion yuan through support from China Construction Bank, and the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), the person, who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter, told Reuters. If the model works, other banks will follow suit with a target to raise up to 200 to…

The number of Australians admitted to hospitals with COVID-19 hit a record of about 5,450 on Monday, official data showed, as the spread of highly contagious new Omicron sub-variants strains the healthcare system nationwide. The figure has grown since late June, as the BA.4 and BA.5 strains became dominant since they can evade immune protection, whether from vaccination or prior infection, while some experts say the latter can be as infectious as measles. The number of those in hospitals is the highest since the emergence of the coronavirus, exceeding January’s high of 5,390 during the first wave of Omicron infections.…

Roads emptied and people were ordered to stay indoors in parts of Taiwan, including its capital Taipei, on Monday for an air-raid exercise as the island steps up preparations in the event of a Chinese attack. Sirens sounded at 1:30 p.m. (0530 GMT) for the mandatory street evacuation drills, which effectively shut towns and cities across northern Taiwan for 30 minutes. A “missile alert”, asking people to evacuate to safety immediately, was sent via text message. “It is necessary to make preparations in the event of a war,” Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je said in a speech after overseeing drills for…

Tesla Inc boss Elon Musk said late on Sunday on Twitter that he and Google co-founder Sergey Brin remain friends and denied a report that he had been involved in an affair with Brin’s wife Nicole Shanahan. Musk’s tweets came after a Wall Street Journal report that cited unidentified sources saying he had engaged in a brief affair with Shanahan. The paper said the affair prompted Brin to file for divorce from Shanahan earlier this year and ended the tech billionaires’ long friendship. Dismissing the report, Musk tweeted, “Sergey and I are friends and were at a party together last…