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[Body] => Sony upgrades its full-year sales and profit forecast on Thursday, saying it expected strong performances in the music and movie sectors.
Sony Group is now projecting a net profit of 730 billion yen ($6.4 billion) for the fiscal year to March 2022, up from its earlier estimate of 700 billion yen. — AFP
[LastUpdate] => 2021-10-28 14:18:38
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[Body] => Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen has confirmed a small number of US troops are present in Taiwan to help with training, adding she had "faith" that the American military would defend the island in the event of a Chinese attack.
In an interview with CNN, Tsai described Taiwan as a regional "beacon" of democracy that is facing down a giant authoritarian neighbour as she warned that the threat from Beijing is growing "every day".
The presence of US troops was first confirmed to AFP and other media by a Pentagon official earlier this month.
But Tsai's comments are the first time a Taiwanese leader has publicly made such an admission since the last US garrison left in 1979 when Washington switched diplomatic recognition to Beijing.
Asked how many US troops were in Taiwan, Tsai replied "not as many as people thought". — AFP
[LastUpdate] => 2021-10-28 13:16:33
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[Body] => US President Joe Biden criticises Beijing's "coercive" actions across the Taiwan Strait in an address to a summit of Asia-Pacific nations also attended by China's premier.
Tensions have soared as Beijing steps up air incursions near Taiwan, a self-ruled democracy that China considers to be a province awaiting reunification, by force if necessary.
Speaking via video link to the summit, Biden says the United States was "deeply concerned by China's coercive and proactive actions... across the Taiwan Strait" which separates the island from mainland China.
Such actions "threaten regional peace and stability", he says, according to a recording of his remarks obtained by AFP. — AFP
[LastUpdate] => 2021-10-28 09:56:25
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[Body] => Vaccinated tourists will be allowed into Israel from November 1, the government said on Wednesday, after a campaign to get booster shots into arms succeeding in driving down infections.
Israel was the first country to launch a mass booster campaign, with more than 3.9 million getting a third dose since the summer.
In late August and early September, cases rose to more than 10,000 a day, a number that has since fallen to just a few hundred. — AFP
[LastUpdate] => 2021-10-28 07:21:15
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[Body] => Hong Kong passed a toughened film censorship law on Wednesday empowering authorities to ban past films for "national security" threats and impose stiffer penalties for any breaches in the latest blow to the city's artistic freedoms.
Authorities have embarked on a sweeping crackdown to root out Beijing's critics after huge and often violent democracy protests convulsed the city two years ago.
A new China-imposed security law and an official campaign dubbed "Patriots rule Hong Kong" has since criminalized much dissent and strangled the democracy movement.
Films and documentaries have become one of many cultural areas authorities have sought to purge.
In June the city announced censors would check any future films for content that breached the security law.
But the law passed on Wednesday by the city's legislature — a body now devoid of any opposition — allows scrutiny of any titles that had previously been given a green light. — AFP
[LastUpdate] => 2021-10-27 19:17:05
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[Body] => In her Moscow apartment, reporter Yelizaveta Mayetnaya motions to her laptop displaying a message now infamous among independent Russian journalists.
"This news media/material was created and/or disseminated by a foreign mass media performing the functions of a foreign agent and/or a Russian legal entity performing the functions of a foreign agent."
Since being branded a "foreign agent" by authorities this year, the 47-year-old is obliged to add the disclaimer to each and every one of her social media posts, whether they're part of her reporting or a picture of her dog digging through autumn leaves.
It's one of the tedious regulations that she and dozens of other reporters recently slapped with the label are learning to navigate in a year that has seen the walls close in on independent media.
The authorities want "everyone to exhaust themselves doing this, so there isn't any time for anything else," Mayetnaya told AFP.
The label is a "form of repression", she added, predicting it would be used more and more to silence Kremlin critics. — AFP
[LastUpdate] => 2021-10-27 17:43:52
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[Body] => The Department of Health logs 3,218 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the national tally to 2,768,849.
