The year coming within days, 2021, is shaping up to be a humanitarian catastrophe and rich countries must not trample poor countries in a “stampede for vaccines” to combat the coronavirus pandemic, top U.N. officials told the 193-member U.N. General Assembly on Friday.

Japan, France, and the United States will hold joint military drills on land and sea for the first time in May next year as the Chinese military steps up activity in the region, the Sankei newspaper said on Sunday.

President-elect Joe Biden tapped a businessman and lobbyist with ties to Chinese Communist Party-run technology firms to help lead a trade agency review team. Ted Dean joined Biden’s agency review team for the Office of the United States Trade Representative in November. A former Obama administration bureaucrat, Dean also worked …