Ukraine is seeking an opportunity to speak “directly” with Chinese leader Xi Jinping to help end its war with Russia, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, the South China Morning Post reported on Thursday.
In an interview with SCMP, the Ukrainian leader urged China to use its outsize political and economic influence over Russia to bring an end to the fighting.
“It’s a very powerful state. It’s a powerful economy … So (it) can politically, economically influence Russia. And China is [also a] permanent member of the UN Security Council,” the report quoted Zelenskyy as saying.
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Elon Musk’s Twitter countersuit due by Friday as acrimony grows
Twitter Inc and Elon Musk, who are suing each other over the world’s richest person’s effort to exit their $44 billion merger, couldn’t even agree on how much to tell the public about their dispute. The presiding judge, Chancellor Kathleen McCormick of Delaware Chancery Court, ruled on Wednesday that Musk’s countersuit shall be made public by the afternoon of Aug. 5, two days later than Musk wanted.
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McDonald’s worker shot in New York over cold fries
A man in New York has been charged with attempted murder after allegedly shooting a McDonald’s worker for serving his mother cold french fries, police and reports said. In this latest case, Michael Morgan, 20, shot the 23-year-old McDonald’s employee in Brooklyn on Monday evening, according to police and the New York Post. The victim is in critical condition in hospital. Morgan then shot the employee, according to a police source cited by the Post.
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US president Joe Biden signs executive order to protect travel for abortion
President Joe Biden on Wednesday signed an executive order aimed in part at making it easier for women seeking abortions to travel between states to obtain access to the procedure. The order came one day after Kansas voters protected the right to abortion in the conservative state, an outcome that Biden celebrated. The new order nonetheless falls short of what many Democratic lawmakers and abortion advocacy groups have demanded of the Biden administration.
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UN chief to launch ‘fact-finding’ mission over bombed Ukraine prison
The UN secretary-general announced Wednesday Antonio Guterres will launch a fact-finding mission to uncover the “truths” about a jail where dozens of Ukrainian prisoners of war died in a bombing strike last week. Kyiv and Moscow have traded blame over the strikes on the prison in Kremlin-controlled Olenivka in eastern Ukraine. The prison attack left over 50 people killed.
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G7 warns China against escalatory response to Pelosi’s visit
WASHINGTON Ramping up the diplomatic offensive against China, while providing it a signal of reassurance, G7 countries and the European Union have said that there is “no justification” to use Nancy Pelosi’s visit as a “pretext for aggressive military activity” in the Taiwan Strait, called Beijing’s actions destabilising, and reiterated that there had been no change in the “one-China policy” or “basic positions” on Taiwan of the G7 members.