Environmentalists had been hoping China's five-year national development plan, unveiled at its annual parliamentary session, would give a roadmap for its goal of carbon neutrality by 2060.

China, which claims democratic Taiwan as its own territory, has increased its military activity near the island in recent months, responding to what it calls "collusion" between Taipei and Washington, Taiwan's main international backer and arms supplier.

The Australian television, radio and web outlet -- which specialises in multilingual, multicultural content -- said it was investigating CGTN and CCTV's airing of dozens of forced prisoner confessions.

"The United States remains fully committed to the people of Burma, and strongly condemns violence by the Burmese military against peaceful protesters," the department said, using Myanmar's other name. The department also suggested further measures may be taken.

Officials had warned that waves could reach three metres (10 feet) above high tide levels after the quakes - the strongest a magnitude 8.1 - but the threat had passed by the afternoon, the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said.

In New Jersey, at a timber farm turned shelter for women who have suffered domestic violence, Gloria's struggles, like those of many abuse victims, have worsened with the coronavirus pandemic.

Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the highest religious authority for Iraq's Shiite Muslims, has wielded subtle but unprecedented power for a cleric, guiding his followers through decades of dictatorship, occupation and conflict.  

Fewer than half of firms' policies directly address sex harassment, despite years of #MeToo campaigns that show the extent of abuse at work, said the report by women's workplace equality organisation Equileap.

Russia quickly said it was ready to provide jabs for 50 million Europeans as soon as the shot gets the green light from the Amsterdam-based European Medicines Agency (EMA).

The office will aim to boost economic diplomacy in Asia, the spokeswoman of Lithuania's Economic and Innovation Ministry told Reuters on Wednesday.

In the visit through March 17, Blinken and Austin plan to hold so-called two-plus-two talks with Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi and Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi to further strengthen the bilateral alliance, they said.

Polls indicate a slim majority support the move, in a vote that comes after years of debate following similar bans in other European countries -- and in some Muslim-majority states.

A leading French daily has rattled the ruling party and sparked intense speculation about next year's presidential election by suggesting that voters won't come to Emmanuel Macron's aid if he finds himself in a rematch with the far-right.

A sweeping police reform package that bans choke holds and combats racial profiling cleared the US House of Representatives Wednesday, five days before the trial of a white officer charged with murdering African-American George Floyd.

Yuto Naganuma looks silently as the cold sea breeze sweeps over the crumbling walls of the school where his little brother was lost in Japan's devastating 2011 tsunami.

A transgender South Korean soldier who was forcibly discharged from the army after gender-reassignment surgery has been found dead, police said, prompting anger Thursday and calls for legal reforms.

As US states Texas and Mississippi defy federal guidelines and ditch mask requirements, Biden told reporters at the White House that this is no time to relax, despite declining case counts. More than half a million Americans have died from the coronavirus, and the toll ticks upward daily.

Macron met four of the grandchildren of Ali Boumendjel and admitted "in the name of France" that the lawyer had been detained, tortured and killed in Algiers on March 23, 1957, his office said Tuesday. 

A strong 6.3-magnitude earthquake hit central Greece on Wednesday, injuring a dozen people, damaging scores of buildings and causing panicked crowds to rush into the streets.

The International Criminal Court opened a formal investigation on Wednesday into alleged war crimes in the Palestinian territories, in a move blasted by Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu as the "essence of anti-Semitism."

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday that the United States was ready to confront China where need be, calling the Asian power the "biggest geopolitical test" of the century.

Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung, who heads the Central Epidemic Command Center, told a press conference that the shipment of 117,000 doses flew in from South Korea and arrived at Taoyuan International Airport.

Colombo banned burials of Covid-19 victims in April, despite expert assurances they would not spread the virus, implementing a policy of forced cremations.

The 27-year-old from Mahalingapur town in the southern state of Karnataka was brought to a private hospital in a critical condition on the weekend, where doctors declared him dead and took him off a ventilator.

Guo Weimin, spokesman for the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), said some suspect China is using COVID-19 vaccines to "expand our geopolitical influence."

Pope Francis, on a historic trip to Iraq, will on Saturday hold a hugely symbolic meeting with Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, seeking to deepen his cautious dialogue with Muslim leaders.

They grew up bearing the stigma of "children of torturers", shunned by their own communities, locked in a quest for identity that decades later remains without an end.

Ambassador Kyaw Moe Tun spectacularly broke with the junta before the General Assembly on Friday in an emotional plea for help to restore ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

US President Joe Biden suffered his first cabinet defeat Tuesday as he pulled an ill-fated nomination, the clearest signal yet that immensely powerful moderates in the deadlocked Senate can imperil his administration's ambitious agenda. 

The two spoke via video call.