The Trump administration has informed Congress it plans to sell F-16 fighters worth $8 billion to Taiwan in a move that will inflame already high tensions with China. Two US officials and a congressional aide say the administration informally notified lawmakers of the proposed sale late on Thursday. They were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on ...

Photo: This illustration provided by NASA on Friday, Aug. 16, 2019, shows a proposed design for an Artemis program ascent vehicle leaving the surface of the moon, separating from a descent vehicle. Cape Canaveral, Aug 17 : NASA picked Alabama’s “Rocket City” on Friday to lead development of the next moon lander for astronauts. Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville ...

Hong Kong, Aug 16 : Hong Kong’s government announced tax cuts and higher social spending Thursday to reverse a deepening economic slump aggravated by anti-government protests and the U.S.-Chinese tariff war. The territory’s financial secretary, Paul Chan, cut this year’s official growth forecast to 0 to 1%, which could be the worst performance since 2009 during the global financial crisis. ...

Photo: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, left, gestures as he receives Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan at the airport in New Delhi, India. Dubai, Aug 15 : Gulf Arab countries have remained mostly silent as India’s government moved to strip the Indian-administered sector of Kashmir of its limited autonomy, imposing a sweeping military curfew in ...

Photo: Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson talks with prison staff during a visit to Leeds prison, Northern England, Tuesday Aug. 13, 2019. London, Aug 15 : The British government wants to create an “express freight service” to ensure essential medicines are still available if the U.K. leaves the European Union without a divorce deal. The Department of Health said Thursday ...

London, Aug 14 : Official figures show that inflation in Britain has unexpectedly risen back above the Bank of England’s target, but with the Brexit date approaching there is little pressure on policymakers at the central bank to raise interest rates. The Office for National Statistics said Wednesday that consumer prices rose by 2.1% in the year to end-July, up ...

China’s auto sales sank again in July, extending a yearlong contraction in the industry’s biggest global market. Sales of sedans, SUVs and minivans declined 3.9% from a year earlier to 1.5 million, according to an industry group, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. Sales of electric and hybrid vehicles suffered a rare decline in sales that had risen steadily this ...

The British economy shrank in the second quarter for the first time in six and a half years as Brexit uncertainties weighed on business investment and firms reduced their stockpiling of goods after Britain was granted an extension to its departure from the European Union, official figures showed Friday. The decline, the first since the fourth quarter of 2012, was ...

Beijing, Aug 8 : China’s lunar rover Yutu-2 has driven 271 meters on the far side of the moon to conduct scientific exploration on the virgin territory. Both the lander and the rover of the Chang’e-4 probe switched to its dormant mode for the lunar night on Wednesday (Beijing time), according to the Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center of ...

China’s yuan fell further Tuesday against the U.S. dollar, fueling fears about increasing global damage from Beijing’s trade war with President Donald Trump. The yuan declined to 7.0562 to the dollar before strengthening to 7.0388 at midday. That came a day after Beijing sent global financial markets tumbling by allowing the currency to fall past the politically sensitive level of ...