International

Japan’s Parliament has approved a trade deal that was agreed upon by President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe earlier this year. The deal cutting tariffs between the countries takes effect at the beginning of next year. It cleared Japan’s upper house Wednesday after clearing the more powerful lower house earlier. Some critics say the deal is more ...

Congress overwhelmingly approved a bill Tuesday aimed at pressuring China over a brutal mass crackdown on ethnic Muslims in the far west of the country, legislation that follows a similar measure over human rights abuses in Hong Kong that angered the Chinese government. The House of Representatives voted 407-1 to approve the Uighur Human Rights Policy Act, which has already ...

A US appeals court ruled Tuesday that two banks must hand over documents about Donald Trump’s finances to Congress, in the latest legal blow to the president. Two Democratic-controlled committees issued subpoenas to Deutsche Bank and Capital One in April demanding that they hand over financial records related to Trump and his family. Trump, who is fighting attempts by Democrats ...

A United Arab Emirates diplomat has praised Syrian President Bashar Assad’s “wise leadership,” describing relations between the two Arab countries as “solid and special.” The comments by Charge d’affaires Abdul-Hakim Naimi came during a ceremony late on Monday in Damascus to mark UAE’s National Day. In December 2018, the UAE reopened its embassy in Damascus for the first time in ...

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter was admitted to a south Georgia hospital over the weekend for treatment of a urinary tract infection, a spokeswoman said Monday. Deanna Congileo, a spokeswoman for The Carter Center, said in a statement that the 95-year-old former president was admitted to Phoebe Sumter Medical Center in Americus over the weekend. “He is feeling better and ...

A small town near the U.S.-Mexico border began cleaning up Monday, gripped by fear after the killing of 22 people in a ferocious weekend gunbattle between drug cartel members and security forces. A 72-year-old woman living near Villa Union’s city hall recounted how she huddled with two of her grandchildren inside an armoire during the shooting. The street in front ...

The Trump administration has quietly released more than $100 million in military assistance to Lebanon after months of unexplained delay that led some lawmakers to compare it to the aid for Ukraine at the center of the impeachment inquiry. The $105 million in Foreign Military Financing funds for the Lebanese Armed Forces was released just before the Thanksgiving holiday and ...

A suspected Syrian government airstrike on a market in a northwestern rebel-held town killed 13 civilians on Monday while Turkish artillery shells landed near a school in a Kurdish-held town, killing at least nine, including eight children, activists said. The violence is part of rising tension in Syria’s north, along the border with Turkey. Syrian government troops have renewed their ...

The White House has said US President Donald Trump and his lawyers will not attend an impeachment hearing in the House of Representatives on Wednesday. Trump could not be expected to participate “fairly”, White House counsel Pat Cipollone said in a letter to the House Judiciary Committee. Last week, Chairman Jerrold Nadler said  Trump could either attend or “stop complaining ...

Heavy rain is likely to continue to hammer parts of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry today (Monday) after normal life was hit in several districts in the two southern states over the last few days. Fifteen people have died after a wall collapsed in a village this morning in Tamil Nadu’s Coimbatore district amid heavy rain. Rescue operations are on to ...