News in Brief
TAIPEI (Reuters) -- Eight Chinese bomber planes and four fighter jets entered the southwestern corner of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone on Saturday, and Taiwan’s air force deployed missiles to "monitor” the incursion, the island’s Defense Ministry said. China, which claims Taiwan as its own territory, has conducted almost daily flights over the waters between the southern part of Taiwan and the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Islands in the South China Sea in recent months. However they have generally consisted of just one or two reconnaissance aircraft. The presence of so many Chinese combat aircraft on this mission - Taiwan said it was made up of eight nuclear-capable H-6K bombers and four J-16 fighter jets - is unusual. Beijing has watched with growing concern increasing U.S. support for Taiwan, especially during Donald Trump’s administration which left office on Wednesday.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The leaders of the U.S. Senate agreed to push back former President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial by two weeks, giving the chamber more time to focus on President Joe Biden’s legislative agenda and Cabinet nominees before turning to the contentious showdown over Trump. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, said the trial is set to begin during the week of Monday Feb. 8, an arrangement praised by the chamber’s top Republican, Mitch McConnell. The House of Representatives is due to formally deliver to the Senate on Monday the impeachment charge accusing Trump of inciting an insurrection, a move that ordinarily would have triggered the beginning of the trial within a day. The charge stems from Trump’s incendiary speech to supporters before they stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 in a rampage that delayed the formal congressional certification of Biden’s election victory and left five people dead, including a police officer.
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TORONTO (Reuters) -- Canada deported thousands of people even as COVID-19 raged last year, data seen by Reuters shows, and lawyers say deportations are ramping up, putting people needlessly at risk in the midst of a global health emergency. Lawyers and human rights advocates are decrying Canada’s November decision to resume deportations. Until now, the extent of the country’s pandemic deportations was not known, but recent interviews with immigration lawyers and scrutiny of government numbers has shed light on the situation. Canada counted 12,122 people as removed in 2020 - 875 more than the previous year and the highest number since at least 2015, according to Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) data seen by Reuters. The government says this was necessary and done safely.
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ATHENS (Reuters) -- Greece’s foreign minister said he hoped Turkey would have a positive approach towards a meeting next week aimed at reviving long-stalled efforts to open negotiations over disputed territorial claims. The neighboring countries held 60 rounds of talks between 2002 and 2016, but plans last year for discussions to be resumed foundered over a survey vessel sent by Ankara into disputed waters and disagreements over the topics to be covered. "The only sure thing is the positive approach of Athens. I hope the Turkish side will come to these talks in the same spirit,” Nikos Dendias told the Efimerida Ton Syntakton newspaper in an interview. He said the exploratory talks, which were halted in March 2016, were not negotiations but aimed to discover whether there was enough convergence for possible future negotiations on just one specific issue.
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LOS ANGELES (AFP) -- Larry King, the suspenders-sporting everyman whose broadcast interviews with world leaders, movie stars and ordinary Joes helped define American conversation for a half-century, died Saturday. He was 87. King died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, Ora Media, the studio and network he co-founded, tweeted. No cause of death was given, but CNN had earlier reported he was hospitalized with COVID-19. A long-time nationally syndicated radio host, from 1985 through 2010 he was a nightly fixture on CNN, where he won many honors, including two Peabody awards. King conducted an estimated 50,000 on-air interviews. In 1995 he presided over a Middle East peace summit with PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, King Hussein of Jordan and Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Between 150 and 200 National Guard deployed to Washington, D.C., to provide security for President Joe Biden’s inauguration have tested positive for the coronavirus, a U.S. official said on Friday. The U.S. government imposed unprecedented security measures in the city following the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by supporters of former President Donald Trump, including fences topped with razor wire and checkpoints manned by National Guard. The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the number of National Guard troops who tested positive could rise but was still a small fraction of the more than 25,000 troops deployed in city over the past few days. The United States reported more than 4,000 daily deaths from COVID-19 for a second consecutive day on Thursday, according to a Reuters analysis of public health data, bringing the cumulative number of U.S. lives lost to almost 410,000.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The leaders of the U.S. Senate agreed to push back former President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial by two weeks, giving the chamber more time to focus on President Joe Biden’s legislative agenda and Cabinet nominees before turning to the contentious showdown over Trump. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, said the trial is set to begin during the week of Monday Feb. 8, an arrangement praised by the chamber’s top Republican, Mitch McConnell. The House of Representatives is due to formally deliver to the Senate on Monday the impeachment charge accusing Trump of inciting an insurrection, a move that ordinarily would have triggered the beginning of the trial within a day. The charge stems from Trump’s incendiary speech to supporters before they stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 in a rampage that delayed the formal congressional certification of Biden’s election victory and left five people dead, including a police officer.
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TORONTO (Reuters) -- Canada deported thousands of people even as COVID-19 raged last year, data seen by Reuters shows, and lawyers say deportations are ramping up, putting people needlessly at risk in the midst of a global health emergency. Lawyers and human rights advocates are decrying Canada’s November decision to resume deportations. Until now, the extent of the country’s pandemic deportations was not known, but recent interviews with immigration lawyers and scrutiny of government numbers has shed light on the situation. Canada counted 12,122 people as removed in 2020 - 875 more than the previous year and the highest number since at least 2015, according to Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) data seen by Reuters. The government says this was necessary and done safely.
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ATHENS (Reuters) -- Greece’s foreign minister said he hoped Turkey would have a positive approach towards a meeting next week aimed at reviving long-stalled efforts to open negotiations over disputed territorial claims. The neighboring countries held 60 rounds of talks between 2002 and 2016, but plans last year for discussions to be resumed foundered over a survey vessel sent by Ankara into disputed waters and disagreements over the topics to be covered. "The only sure thing is the positive approach of Athens. I hope the Turkish side will come to these talks in the same spirit,” Nikos Dendias told the Efimerida Ton Syntakton newspaper in an interview. He said the exploratory talks, which were halted in March 2016, were not negotiations but aimed to discover whether there was enough convergence for possible future negotiations on just one specific issue.
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LOS ANGELES (AFP) -- Larry King, the suspenders-sporting everyman whose broadcast interviews with world leaders, movie stars and ordinary Joes helped define American conversation for a half-century, died Saturday. He was 87. King died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, Ora Media, the studio and network he co-founded, tweeted. No cause of death was given, but CNN had earlier reported he was hospitalized with COVID-19. A long-time nationally syndicated radio host, from 1985 through 2010 he was a nightly fixture on CNN, where he won many honors, including two Peabody awards. King conducted an estimated 50,000 on-air interviews. In 1995 he presided over a Middle East peace summit with PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, King Hussein of Jordan and Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Between 150 and 200 National Guard deployed to Washington, D.C., to provide security for President Joe Biden’s inauguration have tested positive for the coronavirus, a U.S. official said on Friday. The U.S. government imposed unprecedented security measures in the city following the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by supporters of former President Donald Trump, including fences topped with razor wire and checkpoints manned by National Guard. The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the number of National Guard troops who tested positive could rise but was still a small fraction of the more than 25,000 troops deployed in city over the past few days. The United States reported more than 4,000 daily deaths from COVID-19 for a second consecutive day on Thursday, according to a Reuters analysis of public health data, bringing the cumulative number of U.S. lives lost to almost 410,000.