BEIJING: Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney arrived in Beijing on Wednesday for a state visit, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said.
Carney, who is expected to meet President Xi Jinping for talks on Friday, is the first Canadian leader to visit China in eight years.
The two leaders met on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in South Korea in October, which Carney described as a “turning point” in the two nations’ strained relationship.
Carney’s predecessor Justin Trudeau visited China in December 2017.
But ties withered in 2018 after the arrest of a senior executive from Chinese tech giant Huawei on a US warrant in Vancouver and China’s retaliatory detention of two Canadians on espionage charges.
China has also been accused of interfering in Canadian elections in recent years.
Aside from Xi, Carney will meet with Premier Li Qiang and business leaders for trade negotiations.
Beijing said this week it “attaches high importance” to the visit.
Canada’s Carney arrives in China for state visit
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Canada’s Carney arrives in China for state visit
- Carney is the first Canadian leader to visit China in eight years
- China has also been accused of interfering in Canadian elections in recent years
Four killed in Ukraine as Moscow and Kyiv exchange drone strikes
- Kyiv said Russian drone strikes had killed two people and wounded seven more in Kharkiv
- Synegubov said two people had been killed in the attack on the Shevchenkivsky district
KHARKIV, Ukraine: Russian and Ukrainian drone strikes killed at least four people Wednesday, officials said, as the war between the neighbors dragged on for more than four years with no diplomatic breakthrough in sight.
The latest attacks came with a third round of three-party talks derailed by the war in the Middle East, despite pressure from Washington on both sides to agree to an elusive peace deal.
Kyiv said Russian drone strikes had killed two people and wounded seven more in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.
Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, which lies close to the Russian border, was encircled at the beginning of Russia’s invasion four years ago.
It has been attacked almost daily since Moscow’s forces were pushed back later in 2022.
The governor of the wider region, Oleg Synegubov, said two people had been killed in the attack on the Shevchenkivsky district.
“A civilian enterprise caught fire as a result of the enemy strike,” he said, adding that three women and four men had been hospitalized.
Another Russian drone wounded 20 people in the afternoon, after hitting a civilian minibus in the southeastern city of Kherson, Ukrainian prosecutors said.
In the Russian-occupied part of the southern Zaporizhzhia region, Moscow-installed authorities said two civilians had been killed in their car by a Ukrainian drone strike on the frontline town of Vasylivka.
“The danger of repeated strikes remains,” Kremlin-appointed governor Yevgeny Balitsky said.
