Protesters have grown increasingly frustrated as the country has been unable to form a legitimate government for more than three months.

"The scene of confrontations, fires and acts of sabotage in Beirut Downtown is a crazy, suspicious, and unacceptable scene that threatens civil peace and warns of the most severe consequences," he said. "Beirut will not be an arena for mercenaries and deliberate policies to strike the peacefulness of popular movements."

The team, led by White House counsel Pat Cipollone and Mr Trump's personal lawyer Jay Sekulow, said they were challenging the impeachment on both procedural and constitutional grounds, claiming that the president did nothing wrong and had not been treated fairly.

In their own 111-page filing on Saturday, Democratic lawmakers leading the case against Mr Trump summarised arguments made during weeks of testimony in the impeachment investigation last year. They said the president should be convicted and removed from office "to avoid serious and long term damage to our democratic values and the nation's security."

The production and sale of plastic bags that are less than 0.025mm thick will also be banned. The restaurant industry must reduce the use of single-use plastic items by 30%. Hotels have been told that they must not offer free single-use plastic items by 2025.

Thailand announced earlier this year that single-use plastic bags would be banned in major stores, with a complete ban across the entire country in 2021.

Indonesia's capital Jakarta also is banning single-use plastic bags in department stores, supermarkets and traditional markets by June 2020.

The Indonesian island of Bali has also banned single-use plastic.

Viral samples have been taken from patients and analysed in the laboratory and officials in China and the WHO have concluded the infection is a coronavirus.Coronaviruses are a broad family of viruses, but only six (the new one would make it seven) are known to infect people.

Ponce is one of several cities in the island’s southern region hit by the recent 6.4 magnitude earthquake that killed one person and caused more than an estimated $200 million in damage. More than 7,000 people remain in shelters since the quake.

most Rohingya are unwilling to return to Myanmar due to safety concerns. Government officials didn’t have an estimate of how many refugees would be willing to be relocated to the island.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has repeatedly told the U.N. and other international partners that her administration will consult them before making a final decision on the relocation, and that no refugees will be forced to move. Bangladesh attempted to start sending refugees back to Myanmar under a bilateral framework last November, but no one was willing to go. The Rohingya are not recognized as citizens in Myanmar, rendering them stateless, and face other forms of state-sanctioned discrimination.

The bill — which would have allowed Hong Kong residents to be sent to mainland China to stand trial — has been withdrawn, but the protests have continued for more than seven months, centered around demands for voting rights and an independent inquiry into police conduct.

The months of unrest have sent the financial hub’s economy reeling, as shops have shuttered during clashes and tourists have stayed away. Hong Kong police gave approval for Sunday’s rally, but not for a march that organizers had also planned. The march didn’t happen, and the protest was curtailed by clashes after police ordered an end to the rally hours before the pre-approved finishing time.

Several young protesters were handcuffed outside the park, as officers made arrests and conducted searches into the evening. One man who refused to be searched retreated into a public restroom that was promptly surrounded by riot police.

Even the Mongols, famed for their brutality in conquest, realized the necessity for coexistence. In the 13th century, after creating the largest contiguous land empire the world has ever known, they established the “Pax Mongolica” — the Mongol Peace — that guaranteed religious freedom to all Mongol subjects.

As war has devastated Syria­­­­­­­ in the past nine years, the conflict has taken on an overtly sectarian dimension, and it’s not uncommon for observers to issue fatalistic comments along the lines of K.T. McFarland’s. Sectarian conflict has been said to date back 1,400 years to the founding of Islam, and we frequently hear, as Fox news viewers did this week, that somehow people in the region are irrational, stubbornly embroiled in ancient conflicts and unable to join the modern world. There were sectarian identities in the medieval era, of course, and these sometimes led to conflict. But the intensity of current sectarian cleavages is a surprisingly recent development, effectively beginning with the arrival of European political modernity and only made worse by the post-WWII rise of the authoritarian Arab state. Later, tensions were aggravated by the Lebanese Civil War and by the post-2003 U.S. occupation of Iraq, which remade its sectarian landscape.

“We want to show the Chinese Communist Party that Hong Kong people can be economically self-sufficient through the yellow economic circle,” Mr. Liu said. “We want to put pressure on blue shops to close.”

months of unrest, along with the trade war between the United States and China, have battered Hong Kong’s economy, which entered recession last year.

As tempers have flared, businesses on both sides of the color divide have been attacked.

The battle has gone online, too. Ken Leung helped create WhatsGap, a popular app in Hong Kong that maps businesses that are considered yellow, helping them draw customers.

Libya remains a major transit and jumping-off point for sub-Saharan Africans hoping to make the crossing to Europe.

Individual European countries, at the same time, pursued their own, divergent interests in Libya, often at cross-purposes.But the entry of Russian proxies into the conflict last year and, more recently, Turkey’s pledge to send its own forces into the mix, meant Europe could no longer ignore the matter.

Washington is not very involved, and has just announced that it will sharply reduce the United States military presence in West Africa, intended to fight terrorism alongside the French, so the American influence will be further eroded.A senior State Department official said that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who altered his schedule to attend the high-level meeting, would urge three things: the continuation of a cease-fire; the withdrawal of all external forces; and a return to a Libyan-led political process facilitated by the United Nations.

Experts say the slowdown is rooted in several trends, including the rise of women in the work force who are educated and don’t see marriage as necessary to achieving financial security, at least for themselves. For Chinese couples, many cannot afford to have children as living costs increase and their jobs demand more time and energy. And attitudes have shifted.

While many countries are struggling with low fertility rates and aging populations, these issues are even more pressing in China, because the country’s underdeveloped social safety net means that most older adults rely heavily on their families to pay for health care, retirement and other expenses.

the slowing birthrate has meant that China’s main state pension fund, which relies on tax revenues from its work force, risks running out of money by 2035 because of a decline in the number of workers

Despite the looming demographic crisis, the government still maintains tight control over reproduction.

The government’s effort to raise the birthrate is also running into broader economic and social changes. Education, housing and health care costs are rising. More women are getting university degrees and are reluctant to interrupt their careers. Some among the current generation of women of childbearing age, themselves the product of the “one child” policy, don’t see what the fuss about offspring is all about.

China’s total fertility rate — an estimate of the number of babies a woman would have over her lifetime — has fallen to 1.6 children per woman, and for years has generally remained below the “replacement” level of 2.1. That means China could soon see a shrinking population and a work force too small to support its pensioners.

Libya has been wracked by conflict since the 2011 uprising which ousted long-time strongman Muammar Gaddafi.

According to the UN, the fighting has killed hundreds of people and displaced thousands more from their homes.

"If the US leaves, people across the region will think that despite his flowery rhetorical devices, Trump does not really have a strategy for the Middle East and at the end of the day will fold and go home," Gerges said.

Watling questioned what Trump's "maximum pressure" campaign against Iran was aiming to achieve. Iran's long-term strategy in Iraq, on the other hand, is paying off.

According to Watling, there are now around 113,000 salaried personnel in the powerful Tehran-backed Iraqi militia group. Of those, some 60,000 are actively deployable as fighters, and of those, 36,000 are directed by Iran.

As Iran made steady headway in the Iraqi government and military, the US' objective in Iraq has changed so many times that it's become muddy and unfocused.

Much of Iran's power in Iraq comes through militia groups that have roots in the 1980s Iraq-Iran war. Recruiting fighters from Iraq wasn't that difficult. Iraq was a Shia-majority nation led for more than two decades by brutal dictator Saddam Hussein, born a Sunni. Iran, which has long pitched itself as the world's leader of Shia Muslims, took in Shia prisoners of war and refugees, and turned them into soldiers who would go back to Iraq to act in Tehran's interests, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Some became part of what is now known as the Badr Organization, the report said, both a militia group and an anti-US political party in Iraq today.

Despite achieving the regime change the US was looking for, with the capture and execution of Saddam, the US left Iraq in 2011 with an unsteady government in place. It had no choice but to send troops back to put out fires with the spread of ISIS. Iran also took part in the fight against ISIS, but it continued with its drive to boost influence in Iraq.

Anti-government protesters galvanized by deep economic grievances that have accumulated over many years have found themselves facing off with Iranian-backed forces.

Under Japanese rule, many Koreans were brutalized, murdered and enslaved. It's still living memory for elderly Koreans and remains a highly emotive subject in both North and South Korea.

But Harris isn't Japanese, he's a US citizen. And calling him out for his Japanese ancestry would almost assuredly be considered racist in the United States.

South Korea is a homogenous society without racial diversity like the United States. The CIA World Factbook doesn't even list other ethnic groups living in South Korea on the country's page, instead just referring to the country as "homogenous." Mixed-race families are rare and xenophobia remains surprisingly common.

"I didn't grow a mustache because of my Japanese heritage, because of the independence movement of Korea or even because of my dad. I grew it because I could and I thought I would and I did," he said.

Mishustin's appointment comes after previous prime minister Dmitry Medvedev, along with the entire Russian government, resigned Wednesday to clear the way for reforms that could potentially extend Putin's grip on power after his presidential term ends in 2024.

Putin has proposed constitutional amendments that would effectively strengthen the powers of the prime minister and parliament at the expense of the presidency -- weakening his successor in the process -- but the exact machinations behind the plan remain unclear.

"Mishustin -- this is digitalization, clarity, modern professionalism, decency, the elimination of barriers to legitimate activity, innovative solutions, openness to world technology while taking care of proper sovereignty ... hostility to violent power methods -- in short, everything that we need right now,"

Earlier this month a Taliban attack claimed the lives of two U.S. service members when a roadside bomb exploded as their vehicle passed.

Hundreds of thousands of people from around the country have taken to the streets in opposition to the law since its passage. Opponents say the measure is discriminatory and violates India’s secular ethos.

Monday, a member of Parliament from the ruling party said that any protester who damaged public property should be shot or jailed.

Several protests have devolved into showdowns with the police, who have responded with force. Since December, 24 people have died nationwide, nearly all of them in Uttar Pradesh, India’s largest state.

The peaceful sit-in at Shaheen Bagh began after police stormed a nearby university campus and assaulted unarmed student protesters. The first night, the demonstration consisted of four women and six men. In the following days, the men went to work, but the number of women coming out of their homes kept growing. Now the protest is led by women while the men watch from the sidelines.

“In all my 35 years of working with Muslim women, I had never witnessed a scene such as this,” activist Syeda Hameed, chair of the Muslim Women’s Forum, wrote after a visit. “What I was witnessing was the new generation of Muslim women who speak boldly without an iota of fear.”

India’s powerful home minister, Amit Shah, has said the citizenship law will be followed by a nationwide push to verify all citizens, an exercise that many believe targets Muslims.

As the protest has endured, there have also been points of friction. There are arguments over who should be allowed on stage, whether to accept donations of supplies and how to keep away local politicians. Some chief volunteers recently tried to call off the protest to avoid its becoming a tool for political parties, but the women did not leave. Rumors about impending action by police to clear the road has not deterred them, either.

Mr Bernhardt's review of the drone programme reflects a growing concern among US officials about Chinese technology and espionage.President Donald Trump has spoken in dark terms about China, saying that its leaders have "cheated" the US and that its intelligence agents spy on people here. Chinese officials deny the accusations.

US officials have said in the past that Huawei, the telecommunications company, and other Chinese companies could pose a security threat. Some Chinese analysts say the fight is not over national security but market share. The Chinese are better at making products, they say, and Americans are jealous. The Chinese analysts see the US policies as a form of protectionism.

The drones are now at the centre of the US-China dispute.Many of the drones that are used by US scientists are made by a Shenzhen-based company called Da Jiang Innovations Science and Technology Company, or, DJI. The company dominates the drone market, according to a research company, Skylogic.

Rules and norms are different for private companies in China than they are in the US. Business executives in China stay in close contact with government officials. US officials worry about the information that Chinese drones could collect and what might be done with the data.

Executives who work for DJI say their drones are trustworthy. Michael Oldenburg, a spokesman for DJI Technology Inc, tells the BBC there is no "credible evidence to support a broad country-of-origin restriction on drone technology".Many US analysts agree with Oldenburg's assessment. "I doubt the Chinese government is using the drones to conduct massive surveillance," says David Fidler, an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

The real assessment, the one from the secretary of the interior, is yet to be announced, however. In the meantime, scientists and others wait - and wonder - about the fate of the drones.

The Chinese intelligence service is also involved in the inquiry, Mr. Schmitt said.

China is one of Germany’s most important trading partners, and the two countries collaborate on international issues like climate change and hold regular government-level discussions.But the relationship has come under scrutiny since the Chinese acquired several German technology companies in 2016. The next year, Germany’s domestic intelligence agency accused China of using LinkedIn and other social media sites to infiltrate the government in Berlin, a charge that Beijing denied.A year ago, Poland arrested two people, including a Chinese employee of Huawei, and charged them with spying for Beijing.