North America

Washington, Dec 13 (AFP/PTI) The United States on Thursday urged China not to interfere in elections next month in Taiwan, where President Tsai Ing-wen, a critic of Beijing, is seeking a new term.

David Stilwell, the top US diplomat for Asia, said that tensions have historically risen whenever Taiwan goes to the polls.

"They should not," he said of the tensions.

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 13 (APP): Pakistan has warned that India’s unilateral annexation of Jammu and Kashmir, imposition of a crippling, military-enforced curfew in the disputed state and mass arrests of Kashmiris, as also its hostile actions against Indian Muslims could propel South Asia “towards a catastrophe”.

“It is high time for the international community to wake up to the clear and present danger and intervene to defuse this India-instigated crisis,” Ambassador Munir Akram told the UN General Assembly on Thursday.

THE UNITED NATIONS, December 13. /TASS/: THE UNITED NATIONSThe United Nations General Assembly on Friday almost unanimously adopted a Russia-proposed resolution on strengthening the system of treaties and agreements on arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation.

Some 179 states, including the United States, voted in favor of the resolution, and no country voted against it. Only Ukraine, Georgia and Palau abstained from the vote, a TASS correspondent reported.

13 December 2019; AFP: US President Donald Trump has declared that a deal to de-escalate the trade war with China was imminent but Beijing remained coy on Friday and cautioned that any agreement must be "mutually beneficial."

Reports Washington and Beijing had struck a bargain at last -- subject to approval by US President Donald Trump -- sent US stocks sailing to their first record closes of December.

WASHINGTON, Dec 13 (NNN-AGENCIES) — US Senate unanimously passed a resolution that formally recognizes the Ottoman Empire’s mass killings against the Armenian people as “genocide,” a move might further strain relations between Washington and Ankara.

By passing Armenian Genocide resolution, “the Senate finally stood up to confirm history: What happened from 1915 to 1923 was – most assuredly – genocide,” said Democratic Senator Robert Menendez.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senior negotiators in the U.S. Congress on Thursday reached a tentative deal with the White House on a series of bills to fund federal agencies through Sept. 30, 2020, which would avert partial government shutdowns next week.

A person familiar with the negotiations said that votes by the full House of Representatives on a series of bills costing around $1.3 trillion could come as soon as Tuesday as Congress races to complete this work before a Dec. 20 deadline when existing money expires.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 12 (Xinhua) -- The Pentagon said Thursday that the U.S. military tested a ground-launched, intermediate-range ballistic missile, which was previously banned by the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty that Washington exited.

The U.S. Department of Defense said in a statement that the U.S. Air Force, in partnership with the Strategic Capabilities Office, at 8:30 a.m. Pacific Time (0030 GMT) Thursday conducted a flight test of a prototype conventionally-configured ground-launched ballistic missile from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A group of California congressional members have proposed tighter safety standards for small boats after a diving charter vessel burned and sank in September, killing 34 people.

Only five people — the captain and four crew members — managed to escape after the 75-foot (23-meter) Conception caught fire on Sept. 2 off the Santa Barbara coast, northwest of Los Angeles. The boat burned to the waterline. One crew member was among the dead.

WASHINGTON (AP) — There’s a campaign going on in Washington that even the most garrulous members of Congress aren’t eager to talk about: to be part of a team of uncertain size, with a risky mission, to be named by a leader who isn’t talking about what she’s looking for or when she’ll decide.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration and China are close to finalizing a modest trade agreement that would suspend tariffs that are set to kick in Sunday, de-escalating their 17-month trade war.

A “deal is close,″ said Myron Brilliant, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s head of international affairs, who has been briefed by both sides.

Brilliant said the administration has agreed to suspend Trump’s plans to impose tariffs on $160 billion in Chinese imports Sunday and to reduce existing tariffs, though it wasn’t clear by how much.