If last year was the Xi Jinping show, the 2019 National People’s Congress (NPC) — China’s annual rubberstamp parliament — has been all about the economy.

Twelve months have past since Xi’s coronation as China’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong at last year’s NPC, when presidential term limits were officially scrapped and Xi’s eponymous political thought enshrined in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) charter. By comparison, this year’s NPC, which opened Tuesday, had a markedly less triumphant feel.

It’s hardly surprising. Growth had slipped to its slowest rate in 28 years while crucial exports have also shrunk. Xi’s signature Belt and Road Initiative — a Beijing-bankrolled trade and infrastructure network tracing the ancient Silk Road — has encountered opposition from Hanoi to Madrid. Governments around the world are raising concern about China’s tech ambitions, particularly security concerns regarding 5G rollout.

Premier Li Keqiang sounded a cautionary note during Tuesday’s Wor..

(CANBERRA, Australia) — Asylum seekers who are allowed to leave Australia-run migrant camps in Pacific nations to get medical treatment will be sent to a prison-like facility on a remote Australian island, the prime minister said on Wednesday.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison flew to tiny Christmas Island in an overnight flight to announce his government’s strategy aimed at preventing asylum seekers from reaching the Australian mainland. The island is 5,170 kilometers (3,210 miles) northwest of the Australian capital, Canberra, and is closer to Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta.

Australia pays Nauru and Papua New Guinea to accommodate almost 1,000 asylum seekers who have attempted to reach the Australian coastline by boat since 2013. Boats carrying asylum seekers from Africa, the Middle East and Asia had been arriving daily from Indonesian ports, but the smuggling attempts have all but stopped since the government announced that no refugee who arrives by boat will ever be allowed to settle i..

Move over, MacGuyver: some quick-thinking teens are being hailed as heroes for rescuing an 8-year-old boy who was dangling from a chairlift at a Vancouver ski resort using an unlikely assortment of items.

The nightmarish scenario unfolded when the child was riding a chairlift at Grouse Mountain and somehow slipped from his seat. His father’s hand was the only thing holding the boy up as he dangled “20 or 25 feet in the air” over the mountain, Canada’s Global News reports. That’s when a group of five teenagers jumped into action

After seeing the dire situation, one teen asked a grownup to go fetch the orange netting that the resort used to mark the ski resort’s off-limits area. The teens pulled padding from a pole and lined the net to make a soft cushion so the boy could land safely as they held the net taut. While they worked, another teenager tried to keep the boy calm as he dangled off the chairlift as panicking could have hastened his fall.

Once the net and padding were set, the ..

(LONDON) — Three small explosive devices in plastic mailing bags arrived at offices for two London airports and at a train station Tuesday, and Irish police said they were helping British counterterrorism police with the investigation.

London’s Metropolitan Police Service said the devices found near London’s Heathrow and City airports and at Waterloo Station “appear capable of igniting an initially small fire when opened.” A staff member did unseal the bag sent to an office building on Heathrow’s grounds, “causing the device to initiate,” the police department said.

Part of the package burned, but no one was injured, police said. The Compass Centre was evacuated as a precaution. Flights at Heathrow, Britain’s busiest airport, were not affected.

Another mailer turned up at the administration building for City Airport, a much smaller commercial airport. The third was found in the mail room at busy Waterloo Station. Those packagers weren’t opened.

The Metropolitan Police Counter Terro..

A female cyclist who was soaring past her competitors during a renowned bicycle race in Belgium was abruptly forced to stop for several minutes when she came too close to the “very slow” men’s race ahead of her.

The cyclist, Nicole Hanselmann, described the “awkward moment” in an Instagram post after Saturday’s annual Omloop Het Nieuwsblad race, during which male cyclists were given an eight-minute head start.

As the race progressed, Hanselmann built a lead of almost two minutes against the other women cyclists and “almost saw the back of the men’s peloton.”

“[Maybe] the other women and me were [too] fast or the men [too] slow,” she wrote in the Instagram post.

Hanselmann, a 27-year-old cyclist and the 2017 national champion in Switzerland, said officials paused the women’s race to stop them from catching up to the men.

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Today was the first spring classic in Belgium. I attacked after 7km, and was alone in the break for around 30km…but then a awkward m..