A spa in oil-rich Azerbaijan offers customers a chance to treat their health issues by bathing in crude oil. Elly Park reports.
Asian shares mostly declined Thursday as investors awaited a flood of global earnings reports, including updates from U.S. tech companies known as the “Magnificent Seven.” Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 slid 2.1% to 37,670.50. Hong Kong's Hang Seng gained nearly 0.1% to 17,215.51, while the Shanghai Composite was virtually unchanged at 3,044.41.
Taiwanese president-elect Lai Ching-te named his cabinet and security team appointees on Thursday as he prepares to take office next month.Lai named security council head Wellington Koo as his new defence minister, replacing Chiu Kuo-cheng.
Thailand issued fresh warnings about scorching hot weather on Thursday as the government said heatstroke has already killed at least 30 people this year.The health ministry said late Wednesday that 30 people had died from heatstroke between January 1 and April 17, compared with 37 in the whole of 2023.
The US Supreme Court will hear arguments Thursday on whether Donald Trump, as a former president, should be immune from criminal prosecution for acts he committed while in office.Two lower courts flatly rejected that argument but the Supreme Court agreed in February to hear the case.
Nearly 282 million people in 59 countries suffered from acute hunger in 2023, with war-torn Gaza as the territory with the largest number of people facing famine, according to the Global Report on Food Crises released Wednesday. The U.N. report said 24 million more people faced an acute lack of food than in 2022, due to the sharp deterioration in food security, especially in the Gaza Strip and Sudan.
A Philippine court has blocked the commercial propagation of genetically modified golden rice because it said conflicting scientific views gave rise to "severe" health and environmental safety concerns."By reason of the conflicting scientific views and uncertainties on the risks and effects of Golden Rice and Bt Eggplant, potential severe and grave threats to the welfare of people and the environment arise," the court said.
Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski is to give a speech to parliament on Thursday in which he will lay out the government's vision at a historically crucial moment with war across the border in Ukraine. Sikorski will lay out the priorities of the government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk as it seeks to show leadership in Europe with growing fears that Russian aggression will not stop in Ukraine. Sikorski's speech is aimed at both the world and the domestic audience in the nation of 38 million people located along a geopolitical fault line.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has put on a friendly face during his visit to Shanghai, but the Washington-Beijing relationship remains broken.
North Macedonian presidential candidate Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova held a big lead over incumbent Stevo Pendarovski with votes counted from 99.03% of polling stations on Thursday, but both were short of the 50% backing needed to win outright. Siljanovska-Davkova of the rightist VMRO-DPMNE had 40.08% of votes while pro-European Pendarovski, who has the support of the Social Democratic party, stood at 19.93%, the State Election Commission said.
China is providing moorage for a U.S.-sanctioned Russian cargo ship implicated in North Korean arms transfers to Russia, according to satellite images obtained by Reuters, as U.S. concerns grow over Beijing's support for Moscow's war in Ukraine. Britain's Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think tank said the Russian vessel Angara, which since August 2023 has moved to Russian ports thousands of containers believed to contain North Korean munitions, has been anchored at a Chinese shipyard in eastern Zhejiang province since February.
When a small number of cases of locally transmitted malaria were found in the United States last year, it was a reminder that climate change is reviving or migrating the threat of some diseases. Take Funmilayo Kotun, a 66-year-old resident of Makoko, an informal neighborhood in Nigeria’s Lagos city. Its ponds of dirty water provide favorable breeding conditions for malaria-spreading mosquitoes.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday confronts a major test of the power of the presidency in arguments over Donald Trump's bid for immunity from prosecution for his efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat. The justices at 10 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT) will hear Trump's appeal after lower courts rejected his request to be shielded from four election-related criminal charges on the grounds that he was serving as president when he took the actions that led to the indictment obtained by Special Counsel Jack Smith. Trump, the Republican candidate challenging Democratic President Joe Biden in the Nov. 5 election, is the first former U.S. president to be criminally prosecuted.
When Antony Rudkovsky was about 15, he began to teach himself how to build virtual private networks (VPNs) to access Internet content unavailable in Russia. At first, the young programmer just wanted to listen to music on the Spotify streaming app in his bedroom in Nizhny Novgorod, a city roughly 270 miles (430 km) east of Moscow. Three years later, Rudkovsky, now 18, snagged $1,200 – the biggest share of the prize money – at a competition last month organised by a civil society group to design a VPN to evade Russia's censors.
As the coffin bearing the body of Rosebella Awuor was lowered into the grave, heart-wrenching sobs from mourners filled the air. It was the latest of five deaths in this family attributed to malaria. The disease is common in Kenya, and it is preventable and curable, but poverty makes it deadly for those who can't afford treatment.
Chinese car giants locked in a cut-throat price war descended on the capital for the start of the Auto China show Thursday, vying to draw consumers and headlines in the world's biggest electric vehicle market and abroad.Beijing's Auto China show, which lasts until May 4, sees dozens of firms square off in a bid to draw customers at one of the country's biggest car shows.
The Apple supplier posted an operating loss of 469 billion won ($341 million) for the January-March quarter after a profit in the previous quarter. LG Display had posted six consecutive quarterly losses before reporting a profit in the fourth quarter of 2023 because of an increase in year-end holiday seasonal demand. LG Display is working to change its business portfolio so its bottom line is less affected by roller coaster seasonal cycles, company executives said on Thursday.
"Officers who initially approached Dexter’s vehicle were outrageously escalatory," the lawsuit says,
Columbia University president Minouche Shafik is no stranger to navigating complex international issues, having worked at some of the world’s most prominent global financial institutions. At the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, for example, she tackled both the European debt crisis and the Arab Spring. It remains to be seen, however, if her experience with world conflicts has sufficiently equipped her to navigate the thorny challenges she faces amid ongoing student protests over the Israel-Hamas war.
Spicy, steaming, slurpy ramen might be everyone’s favorite Japanese food. In Tokyo, long lines circle around blocks, and waiting an hour for your ramen is normal. Often cooked right before your eyes behind dingy counters, the noodle dish starts here at around 1,000 yen ($6.50), and comes in various flavors and local versions.
A top Hamas political official told The Associated Press the Islamic militant group is willing to agree to a truce of five years or more with Israel and that it would lay down its weapons and convert into a political party if an independent Palestinian state is established along pre-1967 borders. The suggestion that Hamas would disarm appeared to be a significant concession by the militant group officially committed to Israel’s destruction. It has vowed to crush Hamas following the deadly Oct. 7 attacks that triggered the war, and its current leadership is adamantly opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state on lands Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war.
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