WASHINGTON – China’s leader-in-waiting Xi Jinping wooed and warned the United States on Wednesday, offering deeper cooperation on trade and global troublespots while demanding Washington heed Beijing’s demands on Tibet and other contentious “core interests.”
– – – –
AMMAN/BEIRUT – Syrian opposition leaders and the West have scorned a new offer by President Bashar al-Assad to hold multi-party elections, as his troops mounted more attacks on rebel-held areas.
– – – –
TEHRAN – Iran proclaimed advances in nuclear know-how on Wednesday, including new centrifuges able to enrich uranium much faster, a move that may hasten a drift towards confrontation with the West over suspicions it is seeking the means to make atomic bombs.
– – – –
WASHINGTON – U.S. lawmakers yesterday reached a sweeping tax cut deal that provides a victory to Democrats and frees Republicans of an issue that threatened to stalk them to the November elections.
– – – –
DETROIT – After weeks of skirmishes, the two leading Republican U.S. presidential candidates are locked in their biggest head-to-head battle in Michigan – one that tests Mitt Romney’s status as the favorite in the race and Rick Santorum’s ability to go beyond an insurgent campaign.
– – – –
MANAMA – More than 120 protesters have been wounded in clashes with police in Bahrain this week, activists said on Wednesday, in a crackdown to stop majority Shi’ites breaking out of their neighbourhoods to stage protests one year after an uprising.
– – – –
ATHENS – Greece expressed hope it can secure its second EU/IMF bailout in as many years and a deal on easing its debt burden next week, but its euro zone peers made clear the months of increasingly ill-tempered argument are not quite over yet.
– – – –
PARIS – President Nicolas Sarkozy declared his candidacy for a second term yesterday, seeking to overturn a wide opinion poll deficit with promises to get the unemployed back to work and to listen more to French voters by calling referendums on reforms.
– – – –
CARACAS – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez vowed on Wednesday to thrash newly chosen opposition leader Henrique Capriles in an October election and mocked his foes for copying him to woo voters.