North America

New York, Sep 28 (AFP) Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi dismissed fears Friday that his country was seeking to overtake the United States as the pre-eminent world power, saying Beijing wants global harmony.

27 Sep 2018; AFP: The Palestinians will no longer accept the United States as the sole mediator in the Middle East peace process, their president Mahmud Abbas said Thursday, accusing Donald Trump's "biased" administration of undermining a two-state solution.

Speaking a day after the US president said he favored a two-state solution to end the conflict between the Israel and Palestinians and revealed he would unveil a new peace plan within months, Abbas said Trump could not be regarded as a neutral broker.

27 Sep 2018; AFP: The UN Human Rights Council voted Thursday to set up a panel to prepare criminal indictments over atrocities committed in Myanmar, amid allegations of genocide against the Rohingya minority.

The top UN rights body voted to "establish an ongoing independent mechanism to collect, consolidate, preserve and analyse evidence of the most serious international crimes and violations of international law committed in Myanmar since 2011".

UNITED NATIONS, September 27./TASS/. Moscow urges all countries that are imposing unilateral sanctions against North Korea to abandon this practice, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a UN Security Council ministerial session on denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- European Council President Donald Tusk said Thursday that the European Union (EU) is fighting to preserve the rules-based international order, which, he said, is under great strain in terms of trade, security, climate change and human rights.

"We say this not only as countries strongly supporting the United Nations, but as a continent that cares deeply about respect, mutual understanding and solidarity between nations," Tusk told the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).

OTTAWA, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Thursday defended Canadian negotiators for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) after U.S. President Donald Trump cast serious doubt on the fate of NAFTA.

"The Americans are finding that the negotiations are tough because Canadians are tough negotiators, as we should be, but a good and fair deal is still very possible," Trudeau said to reporters on his way to a cabinet meeting on Parliament Hill in Ottawa Thursday morning.

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi met Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Thursday, vowing to cement bilateral cooperation.

Being Turkey's friend, China firmly supports Turkey's efforts to safeguard national stability and development, and is willing to maintain communication at all levels with Turkey to strengthen mutual understanding, promote mutually beneficial cooperation, and fully consider each other's core interests and major concerns, Wang said.

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas threatened on Thursday to renege on agreements with Israel, the United States and the Islamic Hamas movement over their failure to be committed to the accords.

Speaking before the United Nations General Assembly, Abbas said, "We have concluded agreements with Israel and they have abrogated all of them. Either Israel abides by these agreements, or else we will renege on them. Israel will bear the responsibility and consequences of this."

New York, Sep 27; PTI: The challenge of tuberculosis cannot be successfully tackled unless special attention is paid to India's tuberculosis epidemic, a top American aid agency official has said as the US and India formed an alliance to combat the deadly disease that kills one person every minute in the country.

The 'USAID-India End TB Alliance' was announced on Wednesday by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) administrator Mark Green at an event in New York in presence of Union Health Minister J P Nadda.

Washington, Sep 28 (AFP) The US Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday charged Tesla CEO Elon Musk with securities fraud, alleging he misled investors last month in tweets about taking the company private.

Musk tweeted August 7 that he had "funding secured" to privatise the electric automaker at USD 420 a share, causing a brief spike in Tesla's share price.

The SEC said Musk's statements on Twitter were "false and misleading" and that he had never discussed the plans with company officials or potential funders.