Salvador Nasralla, one of Honduras’ three incoming vice presidents, stated that Honduras would not seek to switch diplomatic relations from Taiwan to China in order to maintain close trade relations with the United States, South China Morning Post reported Dec. 2.
The thousand-kilometer China-Laos high-speed railway opened, linking the Laotian capital of Vientiane to China’s southern hub of Kunming after five years of construction, South China Morning Post reported Dec. 3.
Brazil’s economy officially fell into a recession after the country’s gross domestic product sank 0.4% in Q2 and 0.1% in Q3, Brazil’s national statistics agency announced Dec. 2.
Gazprom-affiliated entities and structures closely tied to Russian President Vladimir Putin will effectively become the controlling shareholders of VK, a social media network and one of Russia’s most visited sites, The Moscow Times reported Dec. 3.
Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shiite cleric whose Saeroon movement won the most votes in Iraq’s recent parliamentary elections, met with representatives of the Shiite Coordination Framework in a highly publicized meeting at the home of Fatah political bloc head Hadi al-Amiri, Al-Monitor reported Dec. 3.
Lebanese Information Minister George Kordahi resigned to "give Lebanon a chance" ahead of a visit by French President Emmanuel Macron, Middle East Eye reported Dec. 3.
Turkish Finance Minister Lutfi Elvan will leave his post, and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will replace him with Deputy Finance Minister Nureddin Nebati, according to a Dec. 1 decree in the Turkish government's Official Gazette.
Twenty of China's 31 provinces increased their minimum wages in 2021, Nikkei reported Dec. 2.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called on all parties to resolve the Donbas conflict by implementing the Minsk agreements after Russian President Vladimir Putin demanded "legal guarantees" prohibiting NATO’s eastward expansion, The Moscow Times reported Dec. 2.
South African health authorities reported that the country’s daily COVID-19 cases have nearly doubled since Nov. 30, and the new omicron variant of COVID-19 is “rapidly becoming the dominant variant,” Reuters reported Dec. 1.
