International

• Thursday, September 20th 2018 - 08:24 UTC

  Polite EU 27 plus Theresa May meeting , but Irish border bogs any deal on Brexit

  

  Prime Minister Theresa May appealed directly to fellow European Union leaders on Wednesday to drop “unacceptable” Brexit demands that she said could rip Britain apart, urging the bloc to respond in kind to her “serious and workable” plan.

• Thursday, September 20th 2018 - 08:20 UTC

  Shouts for unification of the Korean Peninsula at HWPL's World Peace festival

  

  On September 18th, leaders of the two Koreas have met in Pyongyang, North Korea, for the third meeting for inter-Korean reconciliation. With the international attention focused on the movements of the two leaders, families from around the world expecting the peaceful reunification of the Korean peninsula, further world peace attended a peace festival held in South Korea.

• Wednesday, September 19th 2018 - 09:05 UTC

  EU ready to address UK concerns over a “hard border” in post Brexit

  

  The European Union is ready to address key British concerns over Northern Ireland, the EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier said on Tuesday, in a clear push to get a Brexit deal effectively done in the next month.

• Wednesday, September 19th 2018 - 08:59 UTC

  Apple pays €14.3bn to the Irish treasury, an EU tax Dublin does not want to collect

  

  Apple has paid the Irish government €14.3bn (£12.7bn), money that the European Commission ruled the tech giant owed due to illegal tax breaks. Ireland's Finance ministry said the payment was a “significant milestone”, although Dublin insists Apple was not given any special tax treatment. In 2016 the Commission ruled the below 1% effective tax rate the firm paid in Ireland amounted to illegal state aid.

• Wednesday, September 19th 2018 - 08:56 UTC

  Mini factory in Oxford will shut down for a month in April 2019 in case of a no deal Brexit

  

  Mini factory in Oxford will shut down for a month after Brexit at the end of March to minimize disruption in case of a no-deal outcome. Owner BMW said its summer maintenance shutdown had been brought forward to 1 April to reduce any “possible short-term parts-supply disruption”.

• Wednesday, September 19th 2018 - 08:50 UTC

  Record US$ 27.5 million settlement with New York Catholic church regarding sex abuses

  

  The Catholic church in New York has reached a record US$ 27.5 million settlement with four men who said they were sexually abused as children, attorneys said on Tuesday. The Diocese of Brooklyn, one of the city's boroughs, agreed to make the payments to the four, who were sexually abused between 2003 and 2009 by their religion teacher, their lawyers said.

• Wednesday, September 19th 2018 - 08:50 UTC

  Tit for tat: China adds US$ 60bn of US imports to its tariff retaliation list

  

  China and the United States plunged deeper into a trade war on Tuesday after Beijing added US$60 billion of US products to its import tariff list in retaliation for President Donald Trump's planned levies on US$200 billion worth of Chinese goods.

• Wednesday, September 19th 2018 - 08:37 UTC

  Brazilian customs impound US$ 16 million from son of African dictator

  

  The tiny West African state of Equatorial Guinea on Tuesday demanded Brazil hand back more than US$ 16m in cash and luxury watches that border officials confiscated from a delegation accompanying the president's son. Foreign Minister Simeon Oyono Esono Angue denounced the seizure as “paltry and unfriendly behavior” and demanded the items be returned, state television TVGE said.

• Wednesday, September 19th 2018 - 08:11 UTC

  China agreed to invest US$ 5bn in Venezuelan oil, alleges Maduro

  

  Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said on Tuesday that new investments from China will help his country dramatically boost its oil production, doubling down on financing from the Asian nation to turn around its crashing economy.

• Tuesday, September 18th 2018 - 08:58 UTC

  Trump escalates the trade war with China imposing 10% tariffs on US$ 200bn imports

  

  United States president Donald Trump escalated his trade war with Beijing, imposing 10% tariffs on about US$ 200 billion worth of imports in a move one senior Chinese regulator said “poisoned” the atmosphere for negotiations.