Japan extends non-military assistance to Jordan
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledges to extend non-military assistance to the region, after being greeted by King Abdullah in Amman. Rough Cut (no reporter narration).
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledges to extend non-military assistance to the region, after being greeted by King Abdullah in Amman. Rough Cut (no reporter narration).
South Korea said on Saturday it will consult with Naver, after media reported that the domestic internet company was under pressure from Japan to divest from a venture, adding that its companies should not face discrimination. The South Korean foreign ministry was asked to respond to a Kyodo news agency report earlier this week that Japan's SoftBank Group was in talks to buy shares of LY Corp from Naver after administrative guidance from Japan's internal affairs and communications ministry over a data leak last year.
Columbia University said Friday that it has banned a student protest leader from campus after a video resurfaced Thursday that showed the student saying Zionists "don't deserve to live."
Israeli soldiers killed two Palestinian gunmen who opened fire at them from a vehicle in the occupied West Bank, the military said on Saturday. There was no other immediate comment from Palestinian officials in the West Bank, where violence has been on the rise as Israel presses its war against Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza. Israel launched its offensive in Gaza after Hamas led an attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7 in which 1,200 people were killed and 253 taken hostage.
China has rolled out the largest restructuring of its military in almost a decade, focusing on technology-driven strategic forces equipped for modern warfare.
The principal of a high school in Albuquerque, New Mexico, has been replaced and multiple employees have been put on administrative leave as the district investigates a drag queen show that took place during prom.
The two major opposition parties in the Solomon Islands struck a coalition deal on Saturday as they vie with former Prime Minister Manesseh Sogavare's party to form a government after an election delivered no clear winner. Last week's election was the first since Sogavare struck a security pact with China in 2022, inviting Chinese police into the Pacific Islands archipelago and drawing the nation closer to Beijing. Election results on Wednesday showed Sogavare's OUR party won 15 of the 50 seats in parliament, two more than the opposition CARE coalition.
Severe spring storms will bring heavy rain and thunder to the Plains and into the Mississippi Valley this weekend — including possible powerful tornadoes, large hail and flooding.
Lawyers for Sean “Diddy” Combs pushed back against a woman's lawsuit that accused him of sexual assault, filing a motion on Friday to dismiss some claims that were not under law when the alleged incident occurred. The motion filed in a New York court claims Combs cannot be sued because certain laws didn't exist when Joi Dickerson-Deal made the allegations against him in 1991. The music mogul's lawyers want certain statues from Dickerson-Deal's claims such as revenge porn and human trafficking to be dismissed with prejudice.
Students protesting the Israel-Hamas war at at universities across U.S., some of whom have clashed with police in riot gear, dug in Saturday and vowed to keep their demonstrations going, while several school faculties condemned university presidents who have called in law enforcement to remove protesters. As Columbia University continues negotiations with those at a pro-Palestinian student encampment on the New York school's campus, the university's senate passed a resolution Friday that created a task force to examine the administration's leadership, which last week called in police in an attempt to clear the protest, resulting in scuffles and more than 100 arrests.
Stretching their fingertips to the reddening sky, hundreds of yoga devotees rolled out their mats on the runway of Bangkok's main airport Saturday, practising their downward dog as early morning flights rumbled overhead."We have so many people come here to just join the yoga class, and take a picture on a runway," she told AFP, praising Bangkok's yoga community.
Destructive tornadoes gutted homes as they plowed through Nebraska and Iowa, and the dangerous storm threat could escalate Saturday as tornado-spawning storms pose a risk from Michigan to Texas.
TAIPEI (Reuters) -Taiwan reported renewed Chinese military activity near the island on Saturday with 12 aircraft crossing the sensitive median line of the Taiwan Strait, a day after U.S. Secretary State Antony Blinken ended a visit to China. The United States is Taiwan's most important international supporter and arms supplier despite the absence of formal diplomatic ties. Blinken said he had stressed the "critical importance" of maintaining peace and stability across the strait while in China.
May's election for the Georgia Supreme Court is playing out as races for the state's highest court have for decades: sitting justices running uncontested. Justice Andrew Pinson is the only one of four incumbents seeking election to draw a challenge, and it's a formidable one. Former U.S. Rep. John Barrow, a Democrat, hopes to harness a voter backlash to abortion restrictions to unseat Pinson in what could be a model for future Georgia court contests in a state that has become a partisan battleground.
South Africans celebrate their “Freedom Day” every April 27, when they remember their country's pivotal first democratic election in 1994 that announced the official end of the racial segregation and oppression of apartheid. Saturday is the 30th anniversary of that momentous vote, when millions of Black South Africans, young and old, decided their own futures for the first time, a fundamental right they had been denied by a white minority government. The first all-race election saw the previously banned African National Congress party win overwhelmingly and made its leader, Nelson Mandela, the country's first Black president four years after he was released from prison.
Alejandro Fonseca stood in line for several hours outside a bank in Havana hoping to withdraw Cuban pesos from an ATM, but when it was almost his turn, the cash ran out. Converting those Cuban pesos to other currencies poses yet another challenge, as there are several, highly fluctuating exchange rates in the island.
On a recent afternoon, Grant Oh zigzagged across the University of Southern California campus as if he was conquering an obstacle course, coming up against police blockade after police blockade on his way to his apartment while officers arrested demonstrators protesting the Israel-Hamas war. In many ways, the chaotic moment was the culmination of a college life that started amid the coronavirus pandemic and has been marked by continual upheaval in what has become a constant battle for normalcy. Oh already missed his prom and his high school graduation as COVID-19 surged in 2020.
Violence against women is an "epidemic" in Australia, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Saturday, as thousands attended rallies in Sydney and other major Australian cities urging tougher laws on gendered violence. The rallies were spurred by a wave of violence against women that the government says has seen a woman killed every four days this year. The rallies also followed a mass stabbing in Sydney this month that killed six people, including five women.
Tornadoes wreaked havoc Friday in the Midwest, causing a building to collapse with dozens of people inside and destroying and damaging hundreds of homes, many around Omaha, Nebraska. Tornado warnings continued to be issued into the night in Iowa. Three people were hurt in Nebraska’s Lancaster County when a tornado hit an industrial building, causing it to collapse with 70 people inside.
A spokesperson at China's embassy in Manila said on April 18 that the two had agreed early this year to a "new model" in managing tensions at the Second Thomas Shoal, without elaborating. Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro said on Saturday his department was "not aware of, nor is it a party to, any internal agreement with China" since President Ferdinand Marcos Jr took office in 2022. Defence department officials have not spoken to any Chinese officials since last year, Teodoro said in a statement.
The retrial in New York of Harvey Weinstein — whose moviemaking prowess once wowed Hollywood — won’t be coming to a courtroom anytime soon, if ever, legal experts said on a day when one of two women considered crucial to the case said she wasn't sure she would testify again. A ruling Thursday by the New York Court of Appeals voided the 2020 conviction of the onetime movie powerbroker who prosecutors say forced young actors to submit to his prurient desires by dangling his ability to make or break the their careers. The appeals court in a 4-3 decision vacated a 23-year jail sentence and ordered a retrial of Weinstein, saying the trial judge erred by letting three women testify about allegations that were not part of the charges and by permitting questions about Weinstein’s history of “bad behavior” if he testified.