International

• Monday, August 5th 2019 - 07:20 UTC

  French inventor crosses the English Channel of a hover board in 20 minutes

  

  French inventor Franky Zapata on Sunday succeeded in crossing the English Channel on a jet-powered hover board he designed, zooming over the Strait of Dover in just over 20 minutes.

• Saturday, August 3rd 2019 - 20:31 UTC

  Fentanyl, the powerful synthetic opioid painkiller poisoning US/China relations

  

  President Donald Trump has repeatedly hit out at China for failing to curb the export of illegal fentanyl to the United States. The powerful painkiller is the primary synthetic opioid available in the US, a class of drug that was responsible for almost 32,000 overdose deaths last year.

• Saturday, August 3rd 2019 - 19:57 UTC

  Record price for rare Assam tea: 2 kg of Maijan Orthodox Golden sold for US$ 2.035

  

  A rare Assam tea has sold for a world record price at auction in India, highlighting a boom for speciality teas while the industry as a whole is in crisis. A 2kg lot of Maijan Orthodox Golden tea sold for 141,002 rupees (US$2,035) last Wednesday.

• Saturday, August 3rd 2019 - 17:07 UTC

  Bulgaria's Kristalina Georgieva, EU's candidate for IMF chief

  

  Known for rolling up her sleeves, Bulgaria's Kristalina Georgieva has been lauded as the life of the party, as well as for her tenacity. The guitar-playing environmental specialist, who was nominated on Friday as the EU's candidate to head the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

• Saturday, August 3rd 2019 - 12:00 UTC

  Venezuela and opposition continue talks in Barbados, Norwegian minister reveals

  

  The government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and the opposition are continuing talks in Barbados to try to find ways to resolve the Latin American country's political crisis, the Foreign Ministry of mediator Norway said on Friday.

• Saturday, August 3rd 2019 - 11:54 UTC

  Trump calls Hong Kong unrest “riots” and suggests it's an issue between HK and Beijing

  

  President Donald Trump has labelled recent protests in Hong Kong as “riots”, adopting the language used by Chinese authorities and suggesting that the United States would stay out of an issue that was “between Hong Kong and China”.

• Saturday, August 3rd 2019 - 11:45 UTC

  US lawmakers urge Trump administration to suspend sales of crowd control equipment to Hong Kong

  

  A bipartisan group of US lawmakers on Friday urged the Trump administration to suspend future sales of munitions and crowd-control equipment to Hong Kong police which has been accused of using excessive force against anti-government protesters.

• Saturday, August 3rd 2019 - 11:19 UTC

  Forest fires devastating millions of hectares in Siberia: military and shamans to the rescue

  

  While Russian military is sending planes to stop wildfires that have affected millions of hectares of forest in isolated areas in Siberia, Siberian shamans announced that they will ‘unite their powers’ to extinguish the flames.

• Saturday, August 3rd 2019 - 11:12 UTC

  Law banning face-covering clothes in public came into force in the Netherlands

  

  The law that bans face-covering clothes on public transport, in government buildings and at health and education institutions has come into force in the Netherlands.

• Saturday, August 3rd 2019 - 11:06 UTC

  Largest cocaine bust in Germany, 4.500 kilos, was shipped from Montevideo

  

  German customs have confiscated a record 4.5 metric tons (5 short tons) of cocaine in a shipping container in Hamburg, with a street value of nearly €1 billion (US$ 1.1 billion). The drugs were discovered two weeks ago during a routine check, resulting in the largest cocaine shipment ever seized in Germany.