(Al Jazeera Media Network) China has blamed a U.S. “provocation” for an incident in which a Chinese plane crossed in front of an American surveillance aircraft over the South China Sea.
“The United States’ long-term and frequent sending of ships and planes to conduct close surveillance on China seriously harms China’s national sovereignty and security,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said on Wednesday.
“This kind of provocative, dangerous activity is the cause of the security issues on...
(BBC News) A NSA panel investigating unidentified flying objects has collected around 800 mysterious reports – but only a fraction are truly unexplained, researchers say.
The agency set up the panel last year to explain its work on what it calls unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP).
UAP are defined as sightings "that cannot be identified as aircraft or known natural phenomena from a scientific perspective."
The panel, which will issue a report later this year, held its first...
(BBC News) A hard-line Republican revolt could not prevent legislation to raise the U.S. debt ceiling from clearing its first procedural hurdle in the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday evening.
drama is playing out on Capitol Hill and a guide to what comes next.
The two parties finally reached a deal after a showdown lasting months, then weeks of painstaking negotiations. It was an uphill battle — but there are more steep hills to climb.
Now...
(BBC News) Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro has visited Brazil for the first time since he was banned by former President Jair Bolsonaro in 2019.
Maduro was received by the new president, fellow leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, ahead of a summit of Latin American leaders in Brasilia.
"What's important about Maduro coming here is that it's the beginning of Maduro's return," Lula said.
Maduro talked of a "new era" in bilateral relations.
Lula said the region should...
(Al Jazeera Media Network) The debt-ceiling deal between President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy would suspend the United States’ debt limit through 2025 to avoid a federal default while limiting government spending, but its details are unlikely to be popular with progressive Democrats or hard-right Republicans.
The Democratic president and Republican speaker are trying to win lawmakers over to the plan, announced Saturday, in time to avert a default that would shake the global...
(Al Jazeera Media Network) North Korea has notified Japan of a plan to launch a ‘satellite’ that could be a ballistic missile between May 31 and June 11, a Japanese coastguard official has said.
North Korea has undertaken a series of missile and weapons tests in recent months, including a new, solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).
Japanese officials believe the launch will involve a ballistic missile, according to a tweet from the prime minister’s office that refers...
(BBC News) Recep Tayyip Erdogan's supporters celebrated well into the night after Turkey's long-time president secured another five years in power.
"The entire nation of 85 million won," he told cheering crowds outside his palace on the edge of Ankara.
But his call for unity sounded hollow as he ridiculed his opponent Kemal Kilicdaroglu – and took aim at a jailed Kurdish leader and pro-LGBT policies.
The opposition leader did not explicitly concede victory.
Complaining of "the most...
(BBC News) Hundreds of Germans working in the education and cultural sectors will be expelled from Russia next month, the German foreign ministry says.
It confirmed media reports that Russia had decided to cap the number of German employees from the start of June.
They include teachers at the German school in Moscow and staff at the Goethe Institute cultural association.
The move follows tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats and increasingly strained relations between Russia and Germany.
Last month,...
(Al Jazeera Media Network) Moscow and Minsk have signed a deal to formalize the deployment of Russian tactical nuclear missiles on Belarusian territory.
Russia on Thursday said the step was driven by rising tensions with the West.
“In the context of an extremely sharp escalation of threats on the western borders of Russia and Belarus, a decision was made to take countermeasures in the military-nuclear sphere,” Russia’s state-owned TASS news agency quoted Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu as...
(Al Jazeera Media Network) Russia said it scrambled an Su-27 fighter jet to “prevent violations of the state border” by two United States Air Force strategic bombers flying over the Baltic Sea.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday that the military had prevented any border violation by the U.S. planes, and “the flight of the Russian fighter was carried out in strict accordance with international rules for the use of airspace.”
“After removing...
