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Every weekend, Asia Pacific Daily will provide you with a run-down of the latest hot news.
This week, the following hot news you should know:
Top 1 | Biden campaign had three times more money than Trump's as they entered the final phase
President Trump entered the final weeks of the campaign at a severe financial disadvantage to Democratic nominee Joe Biden, according to fundraising disclosures filed Tuesday night with the Federal Election Commission.
Biden’s campaign ended September with $180.6 million in the bank, while Trump’s committee reported $63.1 million.
The gap helps explain why the president on Sunday — 16 days before election day — took hours off the campaign trail to headline a fundraiser in Newport Beach. Both men have outside groups and party committees supporting their efforts. But the new numbers show how dramatically the finances for each campaign have changed in the 2020 election.
Top 2 | Putin proposes Russia, U.S. extend New START arms control treaty for one year
Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed on Friday that Russia and the United States extend their New START arms control treaty that expires in February for at least a year without imposing any conditions.
The New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) accord, signed in 2010, limits the numbers of strategic nuclear warheads, missiles and bombers that Russia and the United States can deploy. A failure to extend the pact would remove all constraints on U.S. and Russian deployments of strategic nuclear weapons and their delivery systems, fueling a post-Cold War arms race and tensions between Moscow and Washington.
Putin, speaking at a meeting by video link with Russia’s Security Council that was broadcast on state television, said the treaty had worked effectively until now and it would be “extremely sad” if it were to stop working.
Top 3 | Canada PM Trudeau wins backing of opposition party to avoid snap election
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau survived a confidence vote on Wednesday after a key opposition party backed his ruling Liberals, averting the chance of a snap election as a coronavirus outbreak worsens.
Legislators voted 180-146 against a motion from the Conservatives, Trudeau's main rivals, to set up a committee with wide-ranging powers to probe whether the government improperly handed contracts to friends as it battled the pandemic earlier this year.
Trudeau won only a minority of seats in the House of Commons in an election a year ago and needed the support of other lawmakers to survive. The left-leaning New Democrats backed the Liberals, saying the House should keep working to help Canadians harmed by the pandemic.The result, on the anniversary of last year's election, means Canadians will be spared from going to the polls again as winter approaches and the country faces a second wave of COVID-19 infections.
Top 4 | DPRK leader pays tribute to Chinese People's Volunteers martyrs
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) leader, Kim Jong Un, paid tribute to Chinese People's Volunteers (CPV) martyrs in commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the CPV army entering the DPRK during the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea, local media reported.
The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Thursday that Kim, together with DPRK officials, visited CPV's martyrs tower at the cemetery for martyrs of the CPV in South Pyongan Province. A flower basket was presented in Kim's name.
Kim Jong Un said that although it has been 70 years since the war, the people of DPRK still remember the heroic achievements of the CPV in resisting U.S. aggression and selflessly supporting the DPRK under extremely difficult circumstances. He said that the country will never forget the CPV soldiers' noble spirit of selflessness as they risked their lives and made sacrifices to conquer invasion of the forces of imperialism.
Top 5 | Brexit: Boris Johnson asks Britons to 'get ready' for no-deal with EU
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Friday that the UK was ready to walk away from post-Brexit trade talks with a "no-deal" unless the European Union shifted its position.
He accused the EU of failing to negotiate seriously and said Britain should "get ready" to operate on stripped-down World Trade Organization rules from January, "unless there is a fundamental change of approach" from Brussels.
At what was supposed to be the "Brexit summit" on Thursday, EU leaders delivered an ultimatum which demanded the UK to compromise on fair trade rules to unblock the stalled post-Brexit negotiations or see a rupture of ties with the bloc from January 1. A tumultuous "no-deal" finale to the UK's five-year Brexit crisis would sow chaos through the delicate supply chains that stretch across the UK, the EU and beyond just as the economic hit from the coronavirus pandemic worsens.
Top 6 | US is nearing 'rapid acceleration' of Covid-19 cases, expert warns, as daily infections top 60,000
A leading health expert says US Covid-19 cases will begin to rapidly accelerate in a week as the country topped 60,000 new infections Tuesday -- triple what the daily average was back in June, when restrictions had begun to ease.
The prediction comes after several state leaders reimposed some measures to help curb the spread of the virus, fueled by small gatherings increasingly moving indoors with the colder weather, as well as other factors such as college and school reopenings. The national seven-day case average has increased at least 18% since the previous week and is now a staggering 61% higher than what it was five weeks ago. And as multiple experts have warned, things will likely get worse before they get better.
"It's going to be a difficult fall and winter," Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration, told CNBC Monday. "I think we're about two or three weeks behind Europe -- so we're about a week away from starting to enter a period where we're going to see a rapid acceleration in cases."
Top 7 | Australian media praises 'extraordinary mobilization' of Qingdao
The Australian praised the "extraordinary mobilization of national resources" to manage the outbreak in the city.
"Chinese officials have significantly refined their approach to stifling the coronavirus" since the outbreak in Wuhan, said the paper. Qingdao authorities performed more than 8.8 million tests in less than a week to stop a small cluster to grow into large scale. The Chinese city has a population roughly twice that of Melbourne, which is still in the fourth month of its second lockdown.
In June, the pandemic spread through the outer suburbs of Melbourne. And now the city is still in its second lockdown. More than 20,000 cases have been found in Victoria. The coastal city adopted measures like testing of more than one million people a day, the deployment of more than 10,000 medical officials, and strict, targeted restrictions on travel using a health code embedded in the ubiquitous social media platform WeChat.
Top 8 | Azerbaijan, Armenia trade accusations of cease-fire violation after new truce agreed
Azerbaijan and Armenia traded accusations of violating a new cease-fire on Sunday, hours after they agreed for the second time to halt fighting over the Nagorno-Karabakh region.
The two sides have agreed on a new "humanitarian truce" in the region starting midnight (2000 GMT) Saturday, the two countries' foreign ministries announced on Saturday evening. The first truce came on Oct. 10, following lengthy negotiations in Moscow on Oct. 9.
Azerbaijan's defence ministry said in a statement on Sunday the country shot down another Armenian Su-25 attack aircraft attempting to airstrike Azerbaijani forces in the Jabrayil region Sunday noon. The ministry also accused the Armenian army of attacking Azerbaijani forces in Gadabay and Tovuz regions after the cease-fire agreement took effect.
Top 9 | French militant group, mosque to close after teacher slaying
France’s president on Tuesday named a domestic militant Islamist group as “directly implicated” in last week’s gruesome street beheading in a Paris suburb of a teacher who had shown his class caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.
Emmanuel Macron said the group will be ordered dissolved Wednesday, when a mosque that relayed a denunciation of the teacher is also to shut.
Speaking after a meeting with regional officials working to counter radical Islamists, Macron added that other associations and individuals are on the radar to be shut or silenced. Meanwhile, more than 1,000 people gathered in drizzly rain to honor Samuel Paty where he was beheaded Friday as he left school in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, northwest of Paris. Bouquets of flowers were piled in front of the school.
Top 10 | Japan's Suga sends offering to war-linked Yasukuni Shrine: Report
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has sent an offering to the war-linked Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, Japan's national broadcaster NHK reported on Saturday.
It would be Suga's first such offering to the shrine since taking office last month. His predecessor, Shinzo Abe, had also regularly sent offerings via an aide on the anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War Two (WWII) and during the shrine's spring and autumn festivals, refraining from visiting the shrine in person to avoid angering China and the Republic of Korea (ROK).
The Shinto shrine honors 14 Class-A convicted war criminals among 2.5 million Japanese war dead from WWII. Seen by neighboring countries as a symbol of Japan's past militarism, the shrine has long been a source of diplomatic friction with Japan's neighbors as it honors convicted war criminals together with the war dead.
Related news：
APD | China overtakes US as world’s economic superpower!
APD | Corona pandemic - US braces for tough winter days ahead!
(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)
