Global top news Live | Blinken to visit China in February

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit Beijing on February 5-6, a US official said Tuesday, giving dates for a long-awaited trip aimed at keeping high tensions in check, reports Reuters news agency, quoting a US official. 

The official said Blinken would arrive in the Chinese capital on February 5 and also hold talks the following day, going ahead with the visit despite mounting concern about Covid-19 cases in China.

Blinken will be the first US secretary of state to visit China since October 2018 when his Republican predecessor Mike Pompeo, known for his outspoken criticism of Beijing, made a brief stop following talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has condemned Russian mercenary group Wagner for trying to recruit fighters from his country, after the group ran a local media advert for Serbs to fight in Ukraine.

The criticism marks a rare public rebuke from the Serbian leader toward Russia -- a steadfast ally of the Balkan country.

"Why do you do that to Serbia?" Vucic said during a televised interview late Monday, according to the Beta news agency.

"Why do you, from Wagner, call when it is against the regulations?" 

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Tuesday he will appoint a regional official as the new defense minister following the resignation of the much-criticised Christine Lambrecht.

The defense minister-designate, Boris Pistorius, is a member of Scholz’s Social Democratic Party and has served as interior minister of Lower Saxony state since 2013.

Pistorius, 62, is set to take his oath of office in parliament on Thursday.
 

Ukraine said Tuesday rescuers had called off search operations at a residential building in the central city of Dnipro that was destroyed by a Russian missile over the weekend, killing dozens.

"At 1:00 pm (1100 GMT) on January 17, search and rescue operations in the city of Dnipro at the site of the rocket attack were completed," the state emergencies service said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Tuesday his war-torn country had received the first instalment of an 18-billion-euro loan from the European Union to get through 2023.

Russia's invasion has devastated Ukraine's economy, with the former Soviet country relying on Western donors to shore up the economy.

"Ukraine received the 1st €3 billion from the new €18 billion macro-financial program," Zelensky said on Twitter.

He thanked the European Union and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for their "strong support".
 

The United States imposed visa restrictions Tuesday on 25 people including lawmakers for undermining democracy in Belarus with politically motivated trials of opposition leaders and activists, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.

"Those regime officials targeted in today's action include members of the National Assembly of Belarus for their role in passing legislation to authorize the death penalty for persons convicted of supposed 'attempted acts of terrorism,' a charge used to repress and intimidate the democratic opposition and civil society," Blinken said in a statement

Britain will seek to ban conversion therapy targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, cracking down on treatments claiming to change a person's sexual orientation or gender identity.

Culture minister Michelle Donelan said on Tuesday the government would publish draft legislation shortly setting out proposals to ban conversion practices in England and Wales.

"The Bill will protect everyone, including those targeted on the basis of their sexuality, or being transgender," Donelan said in a statement.

Goldman Sachs reported a 69 percent drop in fourth-quarter earnings on Tuesday to $1.2 billion, reflecting a weaker environment for mergers and acquisitions and lower gains in private equity investments. Shares of Goldman dipped after the report, which missed analyst expectations for revenues and earnings per share. The investment bank also set aside higher provisions tied to its consumer credit card business.

An accidental grenade blast in a Russian region bordering Ukraine has led to at least seven deaths, the Interfax news agency reported Tuesday. "Four dead have been found among the missing. The number of victims has increased to seven people," the emergency services told Interfax.

It added that the search for four more people was continuing. Over the weekend a sergeant in the southern Belgorod region "unintentionally" detonated a hand grenade inside a dormitory at a location for military personnel, Interfax said, citing emergency services. According to Interfax, the grenade triggered an ammunition blast and subsequent fire, killing three servicemen and injuring 16 others, including the perpetrator.  

China's vice premier warned Tuesday about the impact of "spillover effects" of Western interest rate hikes on emerging economies.

"We call for more attention to the spillover effects of major countries' rate hikes on emerging market and developing countries so as not to add to more debt or financial risks," Liu He told the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

EU chief Ursula von der Leyen took China to task over clean-technology industries on Tuesday, threatening investigations over Beijing's subsidies in the sector.

In a speech to the World Economic Forum Davos, Switzerland, Von der Leyen announced plans for a "sovereignty fund" and a "Net Zero Industry Act" to defend Europe's industrial base from massive US and Chinese subsidies.

"We see aggressive attempts to attract our industrial capacities away to China and elsewhere," von der Leyen told the world's global political and business elite at their annual meeting in the Swiss Alpine resort.

Al-Shabaab launched a deadly attack on a Somali military base on Tuesday, just a day after the government claimed a "historic victory" over the jihadists with the capture of a strategic coastal town.

There were conflicting reports about the death toll after the Islamist fighters stormed the camp in the town of Hawadley north of the capital Mogadishu.

Army chief Odowaa Yusuf Rage said on national radio that five soldiers including a senior officer had died in the attack claimed by the Al-Qaeda-allied militant group. 

A suspected security official from the Islamic State terrorist group was arrested by the Dutch police on Tuesday on the suspicision of war crimes in Syria, AFP reported.

The 37-year-old Syrian was held in the southwestern village of Arkel, where he was living after being granted asylum, a prosecution service statement said.

He "is said to have played an important role in the Syrian civil war within the terrorist organisations Jabhat al-Nusra and Islamic State", prosecutors said.