US to back nations that say China violated their South China Sea claims
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Wednesday the United States will support countries that believe China has violated their maritime claims in the South China Sea but suggested it would do so through diplomatic rather than military means.
"We will support countries all across the world who recognise that China has violated their legal territorial claims as well - or maritime claims as well," Pompeo told reporters.
"We will go provide them the assistance we can, whether that's in multilateral bodies, whether that's in Asean, whether that's through legal responses, we will use all the tools we can," he said at a news conference.
The United States on Monday rejected China's claims to offshore resources in most of the South China Sea, drawing criticism from China which said the US position raised tension in the region, highlighting an increasingly testy relationship.
Trump rebukes aide Navarro for attacking popular disease expert Fauci
President Donald Trump issued a rare rebuke of his senior adviser Peter Navarro on Wednesday, saying Navarro should not have written a scathing opinion piece about Anthony Fauci, a top government coronavirus expert who is hugely popular.
Navarro, a trade adviser who at times has expanded his reach within the Trump White House, launched an attack on Fauci in an article for USA Today.
The initial lack of a pushback from the White House for the article fed a belief that Navarro's article was supported at the top levels of the White House. But departing for a trip to Atlanta, Trump was asked whether Navarro had gone rogue.
Hong Kong pro-democracy activist says he feels 'relatively safe' in Britain
Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Nathan Law said on Wednesday he feels safe in London at the moment but described the extra-territorial reach of national security laws imposed by China as "scary" and urged Britain to do more to help.
Law, a former legislator, left Hong Kong earlier this month after China imposed a new national security law on the territory that has been heavily criticised by the West.
He said he had agreed with fellow senior activists to come to London, where allies and a large Diaspora would help keep an international voice for their protest against Beijing.
Twitter accounts of Apple, Musk, Gates, others hit in major hack
The official Twitter accounts of Apple, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and others were hijacked on Wednesday (July 15) by scammers trying to dupe people into sending cryptocurrency bitcoin, in a massive hack of the social media platform.
The list of accounts commandeered simultaneously grew rapidly to include Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Uber, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, bitcoin specialty firms and many others.
Posts, which were largely deleted, were fired off from the array of high-profile accounts telling people they had 30 minutes to send US$1,000 (S$1,400) in bitcoin in order to be sent back twice as much.
Van Dijk, Alisson errors end Liverpool's record bid in Arsenal defeat
Liverpool's hopes of setting a new Premier League record points tally came to an end as uncharacteristic errors from Virgil van Dijk and Alisson Becker saw the champions beaten 2-1 at Arsenal.
Just a third league defeat of the season for Jurgen Klopp's men means the Reds cannot now match Manchester City's record 100 points from two seasons ago.
Alexandre Lacazette and Reiss Nelson were the beneficiaries of misplaced passes from Van Dijk and Alisson as Arsenal kept their chances of European football next season alive by moving up to ninth and within two points of Tottenham.
