Philippines mulls pullout of Syria peacekeepers The Philippine foreign secretary says he is recommending to President Benigno Aquino III to pull out all Filipino U.N. peacekeepers from the Golan Heights following the abduction of four by Syrian rebels. More
Dollar rises above 100 yen for 1st time in 4 years The dollar has risen above 100 yen for the first time in more than four years as currency traders persist in selling the Japanese currency in reaction to Tokyo's aggressive credit-easing moves. More
8 die in clothing factory fire in Bangladesh as Rana Plaza toll passes 900 Eight people were killed when a fire swept through a clothing factory in Bangladesh, police and an industry association official said on Thursday, as the death toll from the collapse of another factory building two weeks ago climbed above 900. More
Porn and movies, not tech secrets, found on Chinese spy suspect's NASA laptop The Chinese national taken into custody on an airplane waiting to take off for home had pornography and illegally downloaded movies on his NASA computer, not government secrets, reports say. He is now set to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of violating NASA computer rules. More
North Korea plotting attacks on South Korean embassies, spy agency warns North Korea is plotting “terrorist” attacks targeting South Korean officials and citizens abroad, Seoul’s spy agency has warned. The National Intelligence Service (NIS) said it had recently “detected ... 05/3/2024 - 1:06 am | View Link
North Korean official lambasts US over sanctions, state media says North Korea will take more action to maintain its military power despite U.S. sanctions pressure that has only made the country stronger, a North Korean foreign ministry official said on Thursday. 04/24/2024 - 10:08 am | View Link
South Korean opposition wins legislative election, deepens political deadlock The opposition bloc fell short of a crucial two-thirds majority, however, which would have upended South Korean politics. With 200 seats, the opposition could have overridden Yoon’s legislative ... 04/10/2024 - 4:36 pm | View Link
South Korea But then the authorities cracked down. A technology company has been testing autonomous buses on the streets of the South Korean capital. A millennial North Korean who used to develop the regime's ... 01/11/2024 - 6:22 am | View Link
South Korean and Japanese leaders meet again to improve ties It was the first exchange of visits between the leaders ... week were involved in a spat over a South Korean politician’s visit to disputed islets located in the waters between the two countries. 05/6/2023 - 9:34 pm | View Link
LONDON — Sadiq Khan, the Labour Party’s mayor of London, romped to victory Saturday, securing a record third straight term at City Hall, on another hugely disappointing day for the U. K.’s governing Conservatives ahead of a looming general election.
Khan won a little over a million votes, or nearly 44% of the vote, more than 11 percentage points ahead of his main challenger, the Conservative Party’s Susan Hall.
Ahead of the one-year anniversary of King Charles III’s coronation on May 6, the royal family has announced which causes will still receive royal patronages from the King, his wife, Queen Camilla, and other royals, who are taking on some of the late Queen Elizabeth II’s causes.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]
The tradition of patronages, where a royal supports charities, military associations, professional bodies, or public service organizations, dates back to the reign of George II in the 1700s, according to the royal family’s social media.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Canadian police said they arrested three suspects Friday in the slaying of a Sikh separatist leader last June that became the center of a diplomatic spat with India, and are investigating possible ties between the detainees and the Indian government.
Three Indian nationals in their 20s identified as Kamalpreet Singh, Karan Brar and Karampreet Singh were arrested in Edmonton, Alberta on Friday morning in the slaying of 45-year-old Hardeep Singh Nijjar by masked gunmen outside Vancouver, police said.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sparked a diplomatic feud with India in September when he said that there were “credible allegations” of Indian involvement in the slaying of Nijjar.
India had accused Nijjar of links to terrorism, but angrily denied involvement in the slaying.
WASHINGTON — A top U. N. official said Friday that hard-hit northern Gaza was now in “full-blown famine” after more than six months of war between Israel and Hamas and severe Israeli restrictions on food deliveries to the Palestinian territory.
Cindy McCain, the American director of the U. N. World Food Program, became the most prominent international official so far to declare that trapped civilians in the most cut-off part of Gaza had gone over the brink into famine.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]
“It’s horror,” McCain told NBC’s “Meet the Press” in an interview to air Sunday.
Chants of “disclose, divest, we will not stop, we will not rest” are reverberating across the globe as student-led protests in support of Palestine have popped up outside the U. S. and in countries like Australia, Mexico, and the U. K. as the Israel-Hamas war enters into its seventh month.
LONDON — Britain’s governing Conservative Party is suffering heavy losses as an array of election results pour in Friday, piling pressure on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak ahead of a U. K. general election in which the main opposition Labour Party appears increasingly likely to return to power after 14 years.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]
Labour won control of councils in England it hasn’t held for decades and was successful in a special by-election for Parliament that, if repeated in a general election in coming months, would lead to one of the Conservatives′ biggest-ever defeats.
The only negative so far for Labour has been in some areas with large Muslim populations, such as Oldham in northwest England, where the party’s candidates appear to have suffered as a result of leader Keir Starmer ‘s strongly pro-Israel stance in the conflict in Gaza.
Perhaps most important in the context of the looming general election, which has to take place by January but could come as soon as next month, Labour easily won back Blackpool South in the northwest of England that went Conservative in the last general election in 2019, when then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson won a big victory.