Virus could double food insecurity in nine African countries, U.N. says
The spread of COVID-19 risks devastating countries across East Africa, where food insecurity could more than double in just three months, the United Nations warned Tuesday. The U.N.'s World Food Programme (WFP) estimates that some 20 million people currently do not have secure provisions of ...
G7 to provide debt relief to poor nations amid coronavirus outbreak
Finance chiefs from the Group of Seven industrialized nations have agreed to provide debt relief to help developing countries finance emergency measures against the spread of the new coronavirus. The G7 finance ministers and central bank governors said after a video conference late Tuesday that ...
Coronavirus slows China's major belt and road projects in Asia
From an artificial island in Sri Lanka to a bridge in Bangladesh and hydropower projects in Nepal and Indonesia, China's trillion-dollar Belt and Road plan is stuttering under the effects of the deadly coronavirus. The outbreak that emerged in China in late December and spread ...
An influx of Chinese that some Cambodians once resented for bringing noise, dust and chaos to the port of Sihanoukville is the cause of more pain now that it has gone into reverse. The new coronavirus has meant yet another setback for Sihanoukville after the ...
The United States and Japan have signed an agreement to jointly encourage more private investment in energy and infrastructure projects, the U.S. Treasury said Tuesday. The Treasury said the world's largest and third-largest economies "will work together to address regulatory, market, and legal barriers to ...
A day after the European Union waved goodbye to Britain, some of Europe's poorest nations urged the bloc's leaders not to implement a "sharp and disproportional" cut to their aid money in the next long-term budget. The European Union provides aid known as cohesion funds ...
Just 13% of Japan's local governments working to meet U.N. Sustainable Development Goals
Only about 13 percent of local government authorities in Japan are working to achieve the United Nations' 17 Sustainable Development Goals, in areas such as the fight against climate change, a Cabinet Office survey has shown. Some 58 percent of local governments are interested in ...
Myanmar and China agree to speed projects but ink no new deals
China and Myanmar inked dozens of deals on Saturday to speed up infrastructure projects as Beijing seeks to cement its hold over a neighbor increasingly isolated by the West. But no major new projects were agreed on during the two-day visit by President Xi Jinping, ...
Citizens battle to save the Yangtze, China's sickly 'mother river'
Water has been a source of death as well as a source of life for a generation in Shenqiu, a region fed by a tributary of China's heavily polluted Yangtze River and pockmarked with notorious "cancer villages." Residents often faced a bitter choice: drink dirty ...
Beijing sets sights on mighty Mekong as passage to South China Sea
Ninety-seven kilometers of rocks in Thai waters stand between Beijing and dominance over the Mekong, a mighty river that feeds millions as it threads south from the Tibetan Plateau through five countries before emptying into the South China Sea. China has long wanted to dredge ...
Decade after killer quake, Haiti says global aid system needs overhaul
The international aid system is deeply flawed and needs an overhaul, Haitian President Jovenel Moise said on Saturday, almost 10 years since the impoverished Caribbean island nation was struck by one of the deadliest earthquakes in history. Haitians were on Sunday to commemorate the thousands ...
Japan, China and South Korea step up banking cooperation with ASEAN for infrastructure projects
Government-backed development banks of Japan, China and South Korea have signed an agreement with public and private financial institutions in Southeast Asia to meet increasing demand for infrastructure projects in the fast-growing region. The Japan Bank for International Cooperation, the China Development Bank and the ...
