Taiwan "very concerned that China is going to launch a war" to take over, foreign minister says
CBSN
Hong Kong — Taiwan's president and foreign minister both raised warnings on Tuesday of a hypothetical Chinese invasion of their island. The officials issued the warnings of a possible war with China after Beijing flew a record number of military planes into Taiwan's "Air Defense Identification Zone" between Friday and Monday.
"If Taiwan were to fall, the consequences would be catastrophic for regional peace and the democratic alliance system," wrote President Tsai Ying-wen in Foreign Affairs. "It would signal that in today's global contest of values, authoritarianism has the upper hand over democracy."
China considers democratically-governed Taiwan a renegade province. President Xi Jinping, widely seen as China's most powerful leader since Mao Zedong, has vowed to reunify the island, and he hasn't ruled out the use of military force to do so.
Russia launched a barrage of missiles at Ukraine Thursday in its first major retaliation for Ukraine's attack earlier in the week on a military facility in the Russian region of Bryansk. That strike saw the Ukrainians use American-made and supplied long-range missiles known as ATACMS, which President Biden had given the Ukrainian forces permission to fire deeper into Russian territory only two days earlier.
Amersham, England — Family and friends of One Direction star Liam Payne, who died last month after falling from a Buenos Aires hotel room, gathered for his funeral in Britain on Wednesday. Payne's former bandmates Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Zayn Malik and Louis Tomlinson were among mourners at the private service at St Mary's Church in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, just outside London.