The international stories making headlines around the world.
Pro-democracy protestors block the entrance to the airport terminals after a scuffle with police at Hong Kong's international airport. Photo: AFP
China compares Hong Kong protestors to "terrorists"
China's Hong Kong Liaison office has compared anti government protesters in the territory were no different to "terrorists".
The Beijing-based Hong Kong and Macau Affairs office on said extremely violent crimes must be severely punished in accordance with the law.
The strongly worded statements by China's central government follows violent clashes between black clad protesters and riot police at Hong Kong's international airport, which saw hundreds of flights halted for a second day.
A few dozen protesters remained at the airport on Wednesday while workers scrubbed it clean of blood and debris. Check-in counters reopened to queues of hundreds of weary travelers who had waited overnight for their flights.
Ten weeks of increasingly violent clashes between police and pro-democracy protesters, angered by a perceived erosion of freedoms, have plunged the Asian financial hub into its worst crisis since it reverted from British to Chinese rule in 1997.
China's Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office said it strongly condemned the "near terrorism criminal actions" in Hong Kong including what it called a violent attack on a mainland Chinese journalist and tourist at the airport.
- Reuters
US delays China tariffs til December.
The US is delaying imposing tariffs on some imports from China until 15 December because of "health, safety, national security and other factors".
The products include mobile phones, laptops, video game consoles, some toys, computer monitors, and certain footwear and clothing.
The surprise news from the United States Trade Representative office sparked a rally in share prices.
Other items facing a 10% tariff will go ahead as planned on 1 September.
President Donald Trump said that the delay was in part to avoid hitting US shoppers this Christmas.
The USTR's announcement was released minutes after China's Ministry of Commerce said Vice Premier Liu He had conducted a phone call with US trade officials.
- BBC
Former UK Chancellor accuses Boris Johnson of "wrecking Brexit"
The former UK Chancellor Philip Hammond has accused the PM of trying to wreck the chance of a new Brexit deal, by making demands the EU could never accept.
Mr Hammond told the Times newspaper a no-deal Brexit would be "a betrayal" of the 2016 referendum result.
He said Parliament would "make its voice heard", adding that a no deal "must not happen".
A No 10 source said the UK would leave on 31 October despite Mr Hammond's "best efforts to the contrary".
The source added that Mr Hammond, as chancellor, "did everything he could" to block preparations for leaving and had "undermined negotiations".
The former chancellor rejected this suggestion in a tweet, saying he wanted to deliver Brexit "and voted to do so three times".
- BBC
Guards suspended after Epstein death
Two prison guards have been suspended and a warden temporarily reassigned at the New York City jail where Jeffrey Epstein died of suspected suicide.
It comes after the FBI opened an investigation into the death of Epstein, who was facing prosecution for sex trafficking when he was found dead.
The suspension, ordered by Attorney General William Barr, came a day after he criticised the jail's "failure".
The circumstance surrounding the financier's death has raised questions.
It remains unclear why Epstein was taken off suicide watch after an attempted suicide last month. He also was supposed to have been checked in on by a guard every 30 minutes.
Before his downfall, Epstein had previously counted many prominent rich and powerful people, including Presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, as friends.
- BBC
Greta Thunberg takes the no-carbon transport option to US
Swedish teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg is about to set sail for New York , crossing the Atlantic in a racing yacht with no shower or toilet to join protests in the United States and take part in a United Nations summit.
To avoid traveling by air, Thunberg is making her trans-Atlantic trip on board the 60-ft yacht, the Malizia II, fitted with solar panels and underwater turbines that produce electricity onboard, with the aim of making the journey zero-carbon.
"I might feel a bit seasick and it's not going to be comfortable but that I can live with," Thunberg told the BBC in Plymouth, from where she is due to leave on Wednesday afternoon.
"If it's really hard then I just have to think it's only for two weeks then I can go back to as usual," said the 16-year-old who will be accompanied by her father, Svante, and a cameraman on the journey.
When she arrives, she will join the U.N. Climate Action Summit in New York in September and the COP 25 climate change conference in Santiago, Chile in December.
"Me speaking to the U.N. is not going to change the situation but if that can help to create awareness ... then I think that together we can try to ... make a change."
- Reuters
Trump official revises Statue of Liberty quote.
A top US immigration official has revised a quote inscribed on the Statue of Liberty in defence of a new policy that denies food aid to legal migrants.
The head of Citizenship and Immigration Services tweaked the passage: "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free".
The official added the words "who can stand on their own two feet and who will not become a public charge".
He later said the poem had referred to "people coming from Europe".
Ken Cuccinelli, the Trump administration's acting head of Citizenship and Immigration Services, announced a new "public charge" requirement that limits legal migrants from seeking certain public benefits such as public housing or food aid, or are considered likely to do so in the future.
- BBC
