WORLD

Vienna, Austria | AFP |  It may sound like a strange thing to enshrine in a country’s constitution: the right to pay cash. But a debate on whether to do just that has entered Austria’s election campaign, shining a light on the country’s love of cold, hard currency. The Austrian …

Biarritz, France | AFP |  British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will on Sunday seek to persuade President Donald Trump to offer flexibility on trade and also win concessions from the EU on Brexit, at a G7 summit hosted by France marked by stark divisions. Johnson was to hold his long-awaited first …

Johnson insists US digital giants must be taxed ‘fairly and properly’ Biarritz, France | AFP |  British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Saturday said that US digital giants needed to be taxed “fairly and properly” in a growing dispute with the United States over taxing the likes of Amazon, Apple, …

Cologne, Germany | AFP | Urging fans to plunge into a virtual high-res surround sound universe of extraordinary games, Google hopes its cloud-based Stadia platform will take the world by storm on its November launch. The US digital behemoth unveiled details of its nascent streaming video platform at this week’s Gamescom …

Washington, United States | AFP | US President Donald Trump threatened his French hosts with taxes on their wines Friday as he headed to a G7 summit in France with a series of parting shots, including another broadside at the Federal Reserve’s chairman. After a day that saw big falls on …

Washington, United States | AFP | The thousands of fires burning in the Amazon don’t look like the major forest fires of Europe or North America — instead, they are fueled mainly by branches, vegetation and other byproducts of deforestation in cleared areas, experts say. The dramatic scale of this year’s …

Beijing, China | AFP | China announced Friday it will hit US soybeans, lobsters, peanut butter and other imports worth $75 billion with new tariffs in retaliation for Washington’s planned duty hikes, further intensifying the bruising trade war between the world’s top two economies. The punitive tariffs of 5 to …

Cologne, Germany | AFP | Gamers at the industry’s biggest  fair in Europe have taken aim at US President Donald Trump’s assertions that violence in video games was partly to blame for recent mass shootings. Experts and fans alike at the Gamescom trade fair in the German city of Cologne rejected …

Paris, France | AFP |  French winegrowers are on tenterhooks as they wait to see whether Donald Trump will follow through with his repeated threats to raise tariffs on French wine in retaliation for the new GAFA tax. As the leaders of the world’s richest countries gather for the G7 opening …

Moscow, Russia | AFP | Russia will launch the world’s first floating nuclear reactor and send it on an epic journey across the Arctic on Friday, despite environmentalists warning of serious risks to the region. Loaded with nuclear fuel, the Akademik Lomonosov will leave the Arctic port of Murmansk to begin …