North America

Washington, Dec 4 (PTI) The United States Congress has passed the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act, which among other things, proposes that America redirects resources to address the mass internment of over 1,000,000 Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic minorities in China.

The move by the House of Representatives is expected to generate a sharp reaction from China.

Washington, Dec 4 (PTI) US President Donald Trump abused his power of office, a key Congressional committee from the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives has alleged in a report based on its impeachment hearings against the president.

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 04 (APP): Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories has cost Palestine’s economy more than $2.5 billion a year for the past two decades, a UN report has said.

The report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) estimated the total fiscal loss to the Palestinian government between 2000 and 2017 at $47.7 billion. The figure is almost triple the Palestinian GDP in 2017, the report said.

The figure included $28 billion in accrued interest and $6.6 billion in leakage from Palestinian fiscal revenues.

WASHINGTON, December 4. /TASS/: The United States has not issued visas for delegates from the Russian Federal Treasury who planned to take part in the international conference on auditing on December 3, the press service of the Russian Embassy in Washington said on Tuesday.

4 December 2019; AFP: The UN launched a humanitarian appeal for nearly $29 billion on Wednesday as climate change and increasingly protracted conflicts put tens of millions of people in urgent need of aid.

The world body's Global Humanitarian Overview estimated that 168 million people worldwide will need some form of emergency assistance in 2020, including food, shelter and healthcare.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner has added another role to his long list of White House duties - U.S.-China trade negotiator - as Washington and Beijing try to reach an initial agreement to avoid new U.S. tariffs on Dec. 15.

People familiar with the talks said Kushner, who helped bring the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement (USMCA) to fruition, has increased his direct involvement in the negotiations with China over the past two weeks.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - High-tech entrepreneur Elon Musk testified at his defamation trial on Tuesday that his “pedo guy” Twitter message at the center of the case was not meant to be taken literally and was sent in response to an “unprovoked” insult he received from the man now suing him.

Musk, 48, the billionaire chief executive of electric carmaker Tesla Inc and founder of the rocket company SpaceX, also apologized to the plaintiff from the witness stand in the packed Los Angeles courtroom.

WASHINGTON/BEIJING (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump’s comments that a trade deal with China might have to wait until late 2020 raised fresh doubts on when the dispute might end, while a U.S. House bill targeting camps for Muslims in Xinjiang drew Beijing’s ire.

“In some ways, I like the idea of waiting until after the election for the China deal. But they want to make a deal now, and we’ll see whether or not the deal’s going to be right,” Trump told reporters in London on Tuesday, triggering a sharp fall in stocks and a flight to government bonds.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 (Xinhua) -- The U.S space agency NASA is going to send a "robot hotel" to the outside of the International Space Station with the upcoming SpaceX commercial resupply mission.

The Robotic Tool Stowage (RiTS), a protective storage unit for critical robotic tools, will be launched on Dec. 4 with SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, according to NASA.

Its first residents will be two robots designed to detect leaks from the station, which are capable of "sniffing" out the presence of gases such as ammonia. The robotic tools are on board the station right now.

NEW YORK (AP) — A federal appeals court in New York handed President Donald Trump another legal defeat, ruling Tuesday that Congress can see his banking records for investigations into possible foreign influence in U.S. politics or other misdeeds.

A panel of 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judges said two banks, Deutsche Bank and Capital One, should comply with subpoenas from the House Financial Services and Intelligence committees seeking records related to Trump’s business ventures.