Italy’s antitrust watchdog said on Thursday it had fined Amazon more than 1.3 billion USD for alleged abuse of market dominance, in one of the biggest penalties imposed on a US tech giant in Europe. Amazon said it “strongly disagreed” with the Italian regulator’s decision and would appeal. Italy’s watchdog

  New Zealand plans to ban young people from ever buying cigarettes in their lifetime in one of the world’s toughest crackdowns on the tobacco industry, arguing that other efforts to extinguish smoking were taking too long. People aged 14 and under in 2027 will never be allowed to purchase cigarettes

 President Joe Biden is committed to elevating US engagement with ASEAN to “unprecedented” levels, the top US diplomat for Asia said ahead of a visit to Southeast Asia by Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Daniel Kritenbrink, the US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific affairs, told a news briefing

  – US State Department senior officials have told Ukraine that its NATO membership is “unlikely to be approved in the next decade”, according to a person familiar with the private talks who spoke on condition of anonymity, the Associated Press news agency said on Thursday.  In early September, German Ambassador