Britain remains a world-leading destination for foreign investment despite Brexit clouds and the departure of a number of companies, International Trade Secretary Liam Fox said Wednesday.
Interviewed by AFP at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Fox also welcomed a proposal by Poland that could potentially unblock a problem surrounding the Irish border that is holding up a deal on Britain's exit from the European Union.
And with the risk looming of Britain crashing out of the EU in March without a deal, Fox said he expected soon to sign several pacts with trading partners outside Europe to try to ensure a seamless transition.
He shrugged off news that both Sony and appliance maker Dyson are shifting premises out of Britain, pointing to figures showing Britain has attracted more foreign investment than Germany and France combined since it voted to quit the EU in 2016.
"So clearly the UK is open for business and is an attractive destination for foreign direct investment -- and that ...

UK 'open for business' despite firms leaving: trade minister

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China on Wednesday accused the United States of "bullying behaviour" after US authorities confirmed plans to seek the extradition of a top Chinese telecom executive detained in Canada.
The United States faces a January 30 deadline to file an extradition request for Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou, whose arrest last month sparked diplomatic tensions.
"We will continue to pursue the extradition of defendant Ms Meng Wanzhou, and will meet all deadlines set by the US/Canada Extradition Treaty," said US Justice Department spokesman Marc Raimondi on Tuesday.
Meng, the daughter of Huawei's founder, was arrested at Vancouver airport on December 1 at the request of the United States, which says she violated American sanctions on Iran.
She has since been freed on Can$10 million (US$7.5 million) bail and is awaiting a hearing on her extradition.
According to the agreement between the two countries, the United States has 60 days after an arrest made at its request in Canada to ...

China blasts US 'bullying' with Huawei CFO extradition bid

The British government will face a multibillion euro divorce settlement with the European Union even if it leaves the bloc without a deal, Brussels negotiator Michel Barnier warned Wednesday.
Some anti-Europeans, opposed to a negotiated settlement with Brussels, balk at the idea of settling a bill that their own government estimates at ?39 billion (44 billion euros) to cover outstanding obligations.
But Barnier, in interviews with several European newspapers, said the bill would still be settled at some point, even if London rejects the withdrawal agreement Britain signed in November and crashes out on March 29.
"For the EU budget, we've always said one simple thing: the totality of the commitments made by the United Kingdom while still an EU member will be respected," the senior EU official said, according to Le Monde.
"It will be more difficult to make them respect them in the case of a 'no deal', but we will continue to insist: These commitments are legally binding under ...

Britain must pay EU bill even in 'no deal': Barnier

Thailand will hold a general election on March 24, authorities said Wednesday, the first national poll since a 2014 coup knocked out the civilian government of Yingluck Shinawatra.
The military has since rewritten the constitution, muzzled all dissent and appointed junta allies across the bureaucracy in a bid to scratch the Shinawatra clan from the Thai political scene and embed its own influence in the country's future.
"March 24 will be the election day," an Election Commission official told reporters, hours after the publication of a decree signed by King Maha Vajiralongkorn empowered the EC to give a date.
Thailand's history is pockmarked by coups, short-lived civilian governments and political crises. The poll date is set to ignite campaign season in a country where colourful and boisterous political rallies have often tipped into deadly violence.
The office of Prayut, who is also prime minister, called for an "environment of orderliness, civility and unity" -- although violence .

Thailand to hold first election since coup on March 24

The White House said high-level trade talks with Beijing were proceeding uninterrupted, quickly rebutting media reports that progress toward resolving their trade war had faltered.
Chinese Vice Premier Liu He is to meet his US counterparts in Washington next week as the two sides work to resolve their trade disagreements by March 1, when a 90-day truce is due to expire, allowing US import duties on Chinese goods to increase sharply.
Washington and Beijing imposed tit-for-tat tariffs on more than USD 360 billion worth of goods in two-way trade last year.
Trump initiated the trade war because of complaints over unfair Chinese trade practices -- concerns shared by the European Union, Japan and others.
The Financial Times and CNBC both reported Tuesday afternoon that Washington had canceled a preliminary meeting set for this week ahead of Liu's visit.
American officials had reportedly cited a lack of progress on the most difficult issues in the trade dispute -- including allegedly forced .

White House denies reports of cancelled trade meeting

Lucas Pouille became the first Frenchman to reach the semi-finals of the Australian Open since Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in 2010 when he stunned Canada's 16th seed Milos Raonic on Wednesday.
Pouille, the 28th seed, fought back from a break down in the first set to win 7-6 (7/4), 6-3, 6-7 (2/7), 6-4 and reach the last four of a Slam for the first time.
The 24-year-old had never won a match at Melbourne Park before this year but will on Friday face either Novak Djokovic or Kei Nishikori for a place in the final.
Pouille recently recruited 2006 Melbourne Park champion Amelie Mauresmo to his team after a splitting with long-time coach Emmanuel Planque in the off-season.
But the world number 31 came into Melbourne in poor form: he had lost all three of his singles matches at the Hopman Cup and suffered a first-round exit at the Sydney International.
"I'm very happy," Pouille said. "I was trying to forget the start of the year.
"I just kept working hard. All the matches I decided to take step by ..

Pouille beats Raonic to reach first Slam semi-final

South Korea's Son Heung-min said he was blocking out thoughts of being tired as he slogs it out at the Asian Cup on the back of a frantic spell of football in recent months.
The World Cup, Asian Games and Premier League have all taken their toll, and talk of fatigue drew a rueful look from Son after South Korea were taken to extra time in their 2-1 last-16 win over Bahrain.
"It's about mentality I think," the Tottenham Hotspur player said, grimacing and rubbing the back of his head. "If you think you're tired, you get tired.
"After the game I feel tired of course but still I try to recover as quickly as possible and play again. In three days I can recover.
"It's the same when I'm playing with Tottenham as well. I have to recover as quick as possible and look forward to play."
Coach Paulo Bento has voiced concerns over the condition of his captain, who is leading South Korea's charge for a first Asian Cup title in 59 years.
Before arriving in the United Arab Emirates, Son, 26, played ..

'It's about mentality' -- Son fighting fatigue in Asian Cup bid

Australia have named debutants Kurtis Patterson and Jhye Richardson and recalled opener Joe Burns for the first Test against Sri Lanka beginning in Brisbane on Thursday.
Patterson scored centuries in both innings playing for the Cricket Australia XI against Sri Lanka in Hobart last week, prompting selectors to call him into the squad.
The 25-year-old has scored 3,813 first-class runs for New South Wales at an average of 41.00 and will bat at number six.
West Australian fast bowler Richardson, who was impressive in the ODI series against India, comes in for the injured Josh Hazlewood.
Selectors resisted the temptation to blood 20-year-old batsman Will Pucovski, who many are touting as the next Ricky Ponting, opting instead for the experienced Burns.  Burns, 29, played his last Test against South Africa in April last year but has three Test centuries to his name.
Australia: Tim Paine (capt), Marcus Harris, Joe Burns, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Travis Head, Kurtis Patterson, Pat .

Australia name two debutants for first Sri Lanka Test

Petra Kvitova's surging win over Ashleigh Barty to make the Australian Open semi-finals ensured Simona Halep's reign as world number one is over, not that the Romanian is bothered.
The Czech star overtook Halep's points total, while Naomi Osaka and Karolina Pliskova also have a mathematical shot at assuming the mantle when the new rankings come out next week.
Entering the opening Grand Slam of the year, 11 players had a chance to hold the top spot, but that has now been whittled down.
Of the three in the running, only Pliskova has been there before, in 2017 when she became the first Czech women to do so.
To do so again she must win the title on Saturday.
Halep held the number one ranking for 48 weeks, but after her loss to Serena Williams in round four, she said it wasn't her priority.
"The main goal is just to play as good as I can every match, to win every match I play, so the ranking doesn't really matter," she said.
"End of the year is more important, the ranking, so I will not ...

Halep's reign as world number one over

Kurdish-led fighters overran the last village held by the Islamic State group in Syria on Wednesday, confining its once vast cross-border "caliphate" to two small hamlets, a war monitor said.
It is the culmination of a broad offensive launched by the Syrian Democratic Forces last September with US-led coalition support in which they have reduced the jihadists' last enclave on the north bank of the Euphrates valley near the Iraqi border to a tiny rump.
The capture of the village of Baghouz leaves the few remaining diehard IS fighters holed up in scattered homesteads among the irrigated fields and orchards on the north bank of the Euphrates Valley.
"Search operations are continuing in Baghouz to find any IS fighters who are still hiding," the head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.
"The SDF will now have to push on into the farmland around Baghouz." "Around 4,900 people, mostly women and children but including 470 IS fighters, have fled 

Kurd-led forces overrun last IS-held village in Syria: monitor

Australian captain Tim Paine said Wednesday that Sri Lanka should prepare themselves for a bouncer barrage when the first day-night Test gets under way in Brisbane this week.
Paine said that Australia's much-vaunted pace attack hadn't used the bouncer effectively in their recent series loss to India.
The Australians went into the Test series against India boasting one of the most formidable pace attacks in world cricket -- but Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins were comprehensively outbowled by their Indian counterparts.
To make matters worse, the three pacemen failed to get a single lbw decision as India claimed a historic series win.
Paine said while praise should go to the Indian batsmen, his bowlers will be better prepared when the day-night Test against Sri Lanka begins Thursday.
"India batted really well," he conceded.
"Sub-continent players, when the wickets are good, like the ball being bowled at their stumps and they don't miss too many when they're in the form ...

Paine tells bowlers to bounce out Sri Lanka after humbling loss

A former senior South Korean prosecutor was convicted of abuse of power and jailed for two years on Wednesday in connection with a high-profile case that triggered the country's #MeToo movement.
Ahn Tae-geun was accused of repeatedly groping a female junior colleague at the funeral of another co-worker's father. After Seo Ji-hyun filed a formal complaint, he had her transferred to a provincial position and her career went nowhere.
She suffered in silence for years until she went public with a tearful live television appearance last January, detailing her experiences.
The interview was a rarity in a still conservative society where female victims of sexual assault are often reluctant to come forward due to fears of shaming.
But it triggered a flood of similar accusations against powerful men in fields ranging from art and literature to politics and religion that grew into a South Korean #MeToo movement.
Ahn -- who was separately fired for corruption in 2017 -- could not be charged with 

South Korean prosecutor jailed in #MeToo case

Serena Williams vowed Wednesday to keep "soldiering on" in a bid to reach 24 Grand Slam titles, admitting her game needed work after a sensational collapse in the Australian Open quarter-finals.
The 37-year-old American rallied back from a set down against Karolina Pliskova and was leading 5-1 in the final set before losing six games in a row to crash out 6-4, 4-6, 7-5.
It was a cruel blow for a woman who has been chasing Margaret Court's 24 Slams since winning in Melbourne in 2017 while pregnant, then taking time off to have a baby before returning to Grand Slam action at the French Open last year.
She insisted another major win was still achievable despite the clock ticking.
"I mean, the big picture for me is always winning. I'm not going to sit here and lie about that," she said.
"But it hasn't happened yet, but I feel like it's going to happen. Just keep taking it one match at a time, just keep soldiering on, I guess."
Williams admitted that having a year off and then returning to 

Serena to 'keep soldiering on' in search of 24th Slam

President Cyril Ramaphosa has signed into law a bill to regulate public and private funding of political parties as South Africa heads for May elections with the fight against corruption a key issue.
The political funding bill, signed on Monday, repeals a 1997 act and obligates parties to disclose all donations received to the Independent Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC).
The legislation is intended to enhance transparency and accountability in the political and electoral system.
"The Act will help the commission to monitor compliance and may request any person to disclose any relevant information or produce, in whatever form, any relevant books, records, reports and any other document it may deem necessary," the presidency said in a statement.
Ramaphosa, who has staked his reputation on fighting corruption after his predecessor Jacob Zuma was mired in graft scandals, faces a  test at polls in May as public support has waned for his ruling African National Congress ...

SAfrican president signs 'transparent' party funding bill

Moscow on Wednesday insisted the range of a missile system that has prompted Washington to say it will withdraw from a key Cold War arms treaty is allowed under the agreement.
Russian artillery chief Mikhail Matveevsky told a briefing that the 9M729 missile's maximum range is 480 kilometres. The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty bans missiles with a range above 500 kilometres.
Russia has long denied it violates the treaty but Wednesday's briefing was the first time it has offered details of the missiles in question.
"The distance was confirmed during strategic command and staff exercises" in 2017, Matveevsky told an audience of journalists and military attaches.
The United States and Russia agreed to the INF treaty in 1987.
Last month Washington gave Russia a 60-day deadline -- which ends on February 2 -- to dismantle the missiles it claims breach the agreement or the US would begin the six-month process of formally withdrawing from the deal.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei ...

Russia says range of disputed missile is allowed under INF treaty

The European Union will urge member states Wednesday to crack down on schemes to grant "golden visas" to foreign investors, warning they bring corruption and money laundering in their wake.
Officials told AFP the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, will publish its first report urging members to curb the practice of giving wealthy foreigners -- often Chinese, Russians and Americans -- residency or citizenship in return for investment.
"What the reports finds is that these schemes pose a number of risks, in terms of security, money laundering or tax evasion," an EU official told AFP.
If member states fail to tighten their rules and become "more transparent ... the Commission is clear, we will take action if necessary," the official added.
Wealthy candidates for residency or citizenship do not face sufficient security and background checks to prevent them from posing a security risk or laundering money, according to the report.
Non-government organisations have already flagged .

EU pushes for crackdown on 'golden visas'

Opposition supporters and regime loyalists in Venezuela are set to hold competing mass street rallies on Wednesday, two days after a failed mutiny by soldiers hoping to spark a movement that would overthrow President Nicolas Maduro.
"We have a historic appointment with our country, with the future of our children," said National Assembly president Juan Guaido, the driving force behind the opposition protest.
"Venezuelan military, tomorrow we have a historic appointment with the people," he said Tuesday during a session of the legislature, which the regime has stripped of power.
Guaido, 35, called for the demonstration earlier this month after Maduro was sworn in for a second term of office over objections from both the opposition and large sections of the international community.
Maduro earned his second term by winning snap elections in May that were boycotted by the opposition and dismissed as a fraud by the European Union, the United States and many Latin American countries.
The ...

Tensions rising in Venezuela ahead of rival protests

Pope Francis jets into Panama on Wednesday for a gathering of young Catholics that will likely see him speak out strongly in defence of Central American migrants and human rights.
The festive five-day meeting with an expected 200,000 young people from around the world offers the 82-year-old pontiff a brief respite from a torrent of sex scandals that have jolted his papacy.
Groups of young pilgrims have been flocking into the small Central American country for days.
Wrapped in the flags of their nations, many resemble soccer fans on the eve of a major tournament, except this is one event in which they will be shouting for the same side.
At a Mass to open the festivities on Tuesday evening, tens of thousands of young pilgrims stood to chant, "this is the youth of the pope."
Panama's archbishop, Cardinal Jose Domingo Ulloa, told them the future of the church lay "in your vision of a better world".
Ulloa said he prayed the gathering "will be a balm for the difficult situation in which ...

Panama youth meeting offers pope respite from scandals

A drone briefly disrupted air traffic Tuesday at Newark airport, one of New York's three major hubs for air traffic, US officials said.
There were no further drones sighted, and arrivals were allowed to resume after a short suspension, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman told AFP.
The FAA ordered a ground stop for other flights heading to Newark, however, until the "backlog" of arrivals landing at the airport were cleared.
"Around 5:00 pm, we received two reports from incoming flights into Newark that a drone was sighted at about 3,500 feet (1,070 meters) above Teterboro," another nearby airport in New Jersey, the spokesman added.
Drones have caused a growing number of flight disruptions in recent weeks. In December, London's Gatwick airport was paralysed for 36 hours after a drone sighting.
Europe's busiest airport, Heathrow in London, was shut down for an hour on January 8 because of a drone incident.
US law bars drone pilots, unless they have special permits, from flying ...

Drone disrupts air traffic into Newark

Usain Bolt is giving up on his dream of forging a career as a professional footballer following his try-out last year with Australian side Central Coast Mariners.
In remarks reported by Jamaican media outlets on Tuesday, the eight-time Olympic sprint champion said he had drawn a line under his hopes of playing football as a professional.
The 32-year-old athletics icon had told reporters last month he had not given up hope of becoming a footballer.
However at an event in Kingston on Monday, Bolt said he now planned to concentrate on his business career.
"I don't want to say it wasn't dealt with properly, but I think we went about it, not the way we should and you learn your lesson, you live and you learn," he was quoted by Television Jamaica as saying.
"It was a good experience. I really enjoyed just being in a team and it was must different from track and field and it was fun while it lasted.
"The sports life is over, so I'm now moving into different businesses, I have a lot of things 

Bolt hanging up boots on football dream

They may boast seven World Cup victories between them and two of the game's biggest stars in Lionel Messi and Neymar, but Argentina and hosts Brazil will be under immense pressure when the Copa America begins in June.
First they have a nerve-wracking wait ahead of Thursday's draw in Rio de Janeiro to see who they will face in the group stages.
Argentina haven't lifted a major tournament trophy in 26 years and while it has only been a dozen years for hosts Brazil, the trauma of their 2014 World Cup humiliation on home soil is still fresh in their collective memory.
The 7-1 thrashing inflicted by Germany in the semi-finals left a wound that only trophies could heal.
The two South American giants can ill afford a false step in such a competitive tournament.
Brazil failed to even make it out of the group stages last time around, their only victory coming against Haiti, while a 1-0 defeat to Peru sent them packing.
They haven't gone beyond the quarter-finals since last lifting the trophy ..

AFP

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