LAHORE, Pakistan A Pakistani opposition lawmaker on Wednesday proposed banning 24-hour cartoon TV channels, specifically the popular Japanese series “Doraemon”, drawing ridicule on social media in a country fighting corruption, poverty and Islamist militants. ... More »
BEIRUT Syrian rebel fighters have launched a major assault on government-held southwestern parts of Aleppo to try to reopen supply lines after the army and its allies tightened their siege of opposition-held parts of the city last week. The rebels are trying t... More »
BANGKOK The mother of a leading activist against the military junta in Thailand was charged on Monday with insulting the country’s monarchy in a one-word Facebook post. Patnaree Chankij was brought to a military court in Bangkok after the country’s attorney ge... More »
CUENCA, Spain Artist Ai Weiwei has reproduced scenes of his incarceration for a new art installation, a series of almost life-size dioramas – encased in steel boxes – showing his life in jail. Visitors to the exhibition, in a cathedral in central Spain, have t... More »
MANILA New Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte will lay out his goals for his six-year term on Monday and has set a simple tone for his inaugural national address by ordering the event stripped of its trademark swank and opulence. For years the State of the N... More »
BERLIN When record Olympic champion Michael Phelps and the king of sprinting Usain Bolt resume their hunt for world records and gold medals at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics next month they will not be the only big stories in town. A team of refugees, hand-picked... More »
BANGKOK Two 8-year-old girls in Thailand have been charged for violating campaigning rules ahead of a contentious referendum next month after tearing voter lists off a wall because they liked the pink paper they were printed on, police said on Sunday. The mili... More »
BUDAPEST Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Saturday said Donald Trump had proposed security policies that Europe should take to heart to solve a security crisis he blames on uncontrolled immigration. Speaking at a summer university in Baile Tusnad, Roma... More »
BRUSSELS The swift rounding up of judges and others after a failed coup in Turkey indicated the government had prepared a list beforehand, the EU commissioner dealing with Turkey’s membership bid, Johannes Hahn, said on Monday. Following a failed coup attempt ... More »
HONG KONG When activists began setting fire to trash bins and hurling bricks at police during a February riot in Hong Kong, Chris Lee became more convinced his decision to leave his siblings and mother behind and move to Taiwan was the right one. Hong Kong, lo... More »
CLEVELAND The head of the Cleveland police union on Sunday urged Ohio’s governor to declare a state of emergency and to suspend laws allowing the open carrying of firearms during the Republican National Convention, after the shooting of six police officers in ... More »
HARARE Dozens of Zimbabwean anti-riot police surrounded the court where preacher Evan Mawarire was due face charges on Wednesday relating to his calls for “stay at home” protests against President Robert Mugabe. Mawarire, whose social media movement has rattle... More »
Roger Ailes, chairman and CEO of Fox News and Fox Television Stations, answers questions during a panel discussion at the Television Critics Association summer press tour in Pasadena, California July 24, 2006. Picture taken July 24, 2006. REUTERS/Fred Prouser/... More »
LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – When British art curator Sue McAlpine first visited makeshift migrant camps in Calais on Frances’s northern coast, the sight of families living in muddy tents and children wearing flip-flops in the middle of winter saddene... More »
For Bob Arum, the famed promoter who befriended Muhammad Ali some 50 years ago, the former heavyweight champion’s legacy in the boxing ring pales in comparison to his impact on America and the world. Arum told Reuters on Saturday, the day after Ali died in a P... More »
AMMAN The Syrian army pushed into Raqqa province, home to the de facto capital of Islamic State, after a major Russian-backed offensive against the militants, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Saturday. The offensive is the third big assault on t... More »
WASHINGTON/WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. A fight between the Obama administration and North Carolina over a state law limiting public bathroom access for transgender people escalated on Monday as both sides sued each other, trading accusations of civil rights violations... More »
SACRAMENTO, Calif. A bill requiring all single-occupancy public restrooms to be open to anyone regardless of gender or gender identity passed the California Assembly on Monday, and will proceed to the state Senate. The most populous U.S. state already bars dis... More »
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. Cirque du Soleil said on Friday it was canceling shows in North Carolina over a new state law that it called discriminatory, the performance group said on Friday, becoming the latest entertainment act to take a stance against the measure. “... More »
BERLIN Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Tuesday Germany wanted to find a solution to the migrant crisis but this was separate to artistic freedom after the Turkish leader filed a complaint against a comedian for insulting him with a satirical poem. “I want to ... More »
LIMA Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of a jailed former president, led Peru’s election on Sunday but she likely faces a tight run-off against centrist economist Pedro Pablo Kuczynski in a vote that would protect the country’s free-market economic model. Fujimori,... More »
DIKILI, Turkey/LESBOS, Greece Migrants sent back from the Greek island of Lesbos began arriving in Turkey on Monday under a disputed European Union scheme aimed at closing the main route by which a million people poured across the Aegean Sea to Greece in the l... More »
BEIJING Exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama is “making a fool” of Tibetan Buddhism with suggestions he may not reincarnate, or reincarnate as something inappropriate, and the faithful are not buying it, a Chinese official wrote on Monday. China says... More »
BUENOS AIRES U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday championed Argentina’s new center-right leader Mauricio Macri as an example for other countries in Latin America, praising the fast pace of reforms to strengthen the economy. Obama, on a two-day visit to Ar... More »
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. North Carolina’s governor on Wednesday signed into law a measure that blocks local governments in the state from enacting ordinances to allow transgender people to use public bathrooms that match their gender identities. The legislation cam... More »
BUENOS AIRES U.S. President Barack Obama said on Wednesday he did not expect a breakthrough on Middle East peace before he leaves office and reiterated his support for a two-state solution in which Israelis and Palestinians could live peacefully side by side. ... More »
BEIJING China is taking a “distinctly Chinese approach” to national security with a raft of new laws, including one on counterterrorism, the third-ranked leader said on Wednesday, offering a strong rebuttal to Western criticism. The U.S., Canadian, German and ... More »
Amid Yemen’s misery, two young women living in the war-damaged cities of Aden and Sanaa know they are among the relatively fortunate. They are not starving, their homes have not been destroyed and they have survived bombs and bullets unscathed. But both long t... More »
GENEVA/BRUSSELS The United Nations and human rights groups warned on Tuesday that a tentative European Union deal to send back all irregular migrants to Turkey in exchange for political and financial rewards could be illegal. “I am deeply concerned about any a... More »
RIYADH Saudi Arabia’s plans for economic reform foresee winding down ‘jobs for life’ in an inefficient state bureaucracy and replacing them with new careers in a dynamic private sector. That’s the theory, at least. But in the short term, there is a problem: 20... More »
Bernie Sanders’ Democratic presidential campaign has sued Ohio’s secretary of state in federal court over what it calls an unconstitutional attempt to prevent young people from voting in the state’s March 15 primary election. “It is an outrage that the secreta... More »
ISTANBUL A day after Turkey’s top-selling newspaper Zaman was taken over by the state, it dropped its criticisms of the government on Sunday and published flattering stories on President Tayyip Erdogan. The episode is the latest twist in a long-running conflic... More »
WASHINGTON One of Donald Trump’s sons appeared along with a white supremacist while giving an interview on a conservative radio show, adding to concerns that the front-runner in the battle to be the Republican candidate in November’s presidential election is w... More »
HONG KONG Four of the five Hong Kong booksellers who went missing in October appeared on Chinese television confirming for the first time they’d been detained for “illegal book trading” in mainland China. The five booksellers – including a British and Swedish ... More »
NEW YORK At last May’s annual meeting of his Berkshire Hathaway Inc, Warren Buffett said he had “no apologies whatsoever” for the lending practices of the company’s Clayton Homes mobile home unit, which had been accused in a published report of predatory lendi... More »
BANGKOK Sitting in her busy Bangkok noodle shop, Bunruen Klinnak professes “love” for Thailand’s former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was toppled in a 2006 military coup and later fled abroad. But Klinnak, 55, also fears Thaksin’s return to politics c... More »
WASHINGTON President Barack Obama launched a final push on Tuesday to persuade Congress to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, despite strong opposition from lawmakers who do not want detainees transferred to the United States. The presiden... More »
WASHINGTON Republican lawmakers introduced legislation on Tuesday to counter President Barack Obama’s bid to close the Guantanamo detention center, underscoring the difficulty he faces keeping a promise to close it before leaving office next year. Republican R... More »
KARACHI/ISLAMABAD An Oscar-winning filmmaker hopes her latest Academy Award-nominated documentary will help bring tougher laws against honor killings in Pakistan, which account for the deaths of hundreds of women and men each year. The film, which follows the ... More »
GENEVA Syria’s main opposition group is considering a proposal by U.N. special envoy Staffan de Mistura that could pave the way to the delegation pressing ahead with talks after holding their first meeting with him on Sunday, a Western diplomatic source said. ... More »
BEIJING The different ethnic groups who live in China’s violence-prone far western region of Xinjiang should make friends with each other to improve trust between them, the Chinese government’s top official there was quoted as saying on Monday. Hundreds of peo... More »
ROME Italian fashion designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana have appeared to weigh in to an impassioned debate about gay people’s rights in their home country with cozy designs showing same-sex couples with children. Last year, Dolce angered many when he... More »
MANITOWOC, Wis. The television documentary “Making a Murderer,” a gripping series about two Wisconsin men convicted of murder, has put this blue-collar city of 35,000 on the map, to the dismay of many residents. The wildly popular Netflix series, spread out ov... More »
ISLAMABAD A Pakistani man has been arrested for hoisting the flag of arch rival India on his roof, an act police described as “anti-state” but which the accused says was a tribute to Indian cricket captain Virat Kohli, officials said on Wednesday. Umar Draz, f... More »
BANGKOK Thai police on Monday said they will charge 11 activists who tried to stage a protest over suspected corruption in an army-built park with illegal assembly as allegations of irregularities in the park’s funding persist. Dozens of students activists wer... More »
SEOUL A South Korean court cleared a Japanese journalist on Thursday of defaming the South Korean president in a case that raised new questions about media freedom and had threatened to inflame relations between the uneasy neighbors. Tatsuya Kato, former Seoul... More »
HAVANA U.S. President Barack Obama is welcome to visit Cuba but not to meddle in its internal affairs, a senior foreign ministry official said on Wednesday on the eve of the first anniversary of the two countries’ historic rapprochement. “The day that the pres... More »
WASHINGTON Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Saturday reframed his claim that he saw Muslims in Jersey City, New Jersey, cheering the attacks on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in Manhattan on Sept. 11, 2001 by asserting the sentiment... More »
NAIROBI “I have lost a lot of people I knew to crime,” says George Kiru, nursing a drink at 2 in the morning in a bar on the edge of Nairobi’s Korogocho slum. Music blares as he lists childhood friends who joined gangs, many of them now dead or in jail. “Perso... More »
YANGON Hopes faded on Monday that any of 100 people still missing would be found alive two days after a landslide near a jade mine in northern Myanmar smashed into a makeshift settlement, burying mine workers as they slept. Rescue workers had recovered 104 bod... More »
SHANGHAI Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, enjoys strong support in the United States, Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi told Chinese officials during a visit this week to the Himalayan region, while expressing concern about human rights there. Pel... More »
JAKARTA When Indonesia’s anti-drugs czar announced plans to guard a death-row prison island with crocodiles, the government rushed to explain that it was just a joke, but on Friday Budi Waseso said he was now thinking of using tigers and piranha fish too. Medi... More »
BERLINGerman Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere retains the confidence of Chancellor Angela Merkel, a government spokesman said on Monday, after a spat within her cabinet over whether to limit the asylum rights of refugees from Syria. The government was forc... More »
BANGKOKA Thai fortune teller arrested as part of a high-profile royal insult investigation has died, the government said on Monday, the second suspect in as many weeks to die in police custody. Suriyan Sucharitpolwong, a well-known soothsayer and former aide t... More »
DUBLINIrish women are tweeting details of their periods to Prime Minister Enda Kenny to help publicise a campaign to repeal restrictive abortion laws. Abortion is a divisive issue in Ireland where, after large street protests from both sides of the debate, a c... More »
BRUSSELS Saudi blogger Raif Badawi, who has been sentenced to 1,000 lashes and 10 years in jail for insulting Islam and for cyber crime, was awarded the European Union’s prize for human rights and freedom of thought on Thursday. Badawi received the first of hi... More »
COPENHAGEN Ai Weiwei will launch collection points in cities around the world for LEGO bricks after the Danish toy maker declined to fulfill a bulk order due to the Chinese artist and dissident’s political activism, his studio said. LEGO confirmed on Monday th... More »
LONDON The Western-backed Free Syrian Army said on Monday it had not refused an offer of military support from Russia and that Moscow needs to stop targeting its bases in Syria. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview broadcast on Saturday ... More »
SYDNEY Australia’s hardline immigration policies overshadowed the launch of its bid to join the U.N. Human Rights Council on Monday, with the government and rights lawyers arguing bitterly over a pregnant Somali asylum-seeker who claims she was raped. Immigrat... More »
LONDON Some of Britain’s most senior former judicial figures criticized Prime Minister David Cameron’s government on Monday for its response to the EU migrant crisis, saying it was inadequate and was pushing people into the arms of smugglers. A statement, sign... More »
SACRAMENTO, Calif. California will ban public schools from naming their sports teams “Redskins,” a name seen as a slur against Native Americans, but will not stop municipalities from naming parks and buildings for Confederate heroes, Governor Jerry Brown said ... More »
The U.S. Supreme Court’s June decision to legalize same-sex marriage did not eliminate the unique financial planning needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) clients. For years, same-sex couples in domestic partnerships needed financial advisers ... More »
STOCKHOLM/MINSK Belarussian author Svetlana Alexievich won the Nobel Prize for Literature on Thursday for her portrayal of the harshness of life in the Soviet Union and in her first public response denounced Russia’s intervention in Ukraine as an “invasion”. T... More »
HAVANA Amnesty International on Tuesday declared a Cuban graffiti artist as the country’s only prisoner of conscience, demanding the release of a man held for “disrespect of the leaders of the revolution” over a satire of Fidel and Raul Castro. Danilo Maldonad... More »
UNITED NATIONS China’s President Xi Jinping told the United Nations on Sunday that all Chinese women have the opportunity to excel, touting his government’s record on women’s rights as the United States slammed Beijing and others for jailing women for their vi... More »
MENLO PARK, California Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi received a warm welcome at Facebook headquarters on Sunday for a town hall hosted by CEO Mark Zuckerberg that focused as much on the two men’s backgrounds as the business potential of the world’s secon... More »
UNITED NATIONS (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and a host of celebrities kicked off a campaign on Saturday to make Internet access universal, saying this was critical to fulfilling the United Nations’ newly adopted agenda to com... More »
HAVANA Pope Francis met Cuba’s revolutionary leader Fidel Castro on Sunday, hours after warning Cubans to beware the dangers of ideology and the lure of selfishness as their country enters a new era of closer ties with the United States. Latin America’s first ... More »
Apple Inc is stepping up aid to the thousands of migrants that are streaming into Europe from war-torn countries, Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook told employees in an internal message on Friday. Cook wrote in a message on the company’s intranet site that the ... More »
Companies and organizations are pledging to provide funds, goods and services to help thousands of migrants arriving in Europe from war-torn and impoverished countries. Companies are helping through both corporate and employee schemes. Following are some examp... More »
VIENNA/MUNICH Austria said on Sunday it planned to end emergency measures that have allowed thousands of refugees stranded in Hungary into Austria and Germany since Saturday and move step by step “towards normality”. Austria had suspended its random border che... More »
WASHINGTON President Barack Obama on Monday will officially restore Denali as the name of North America’s tallest mountain, siding with the state of Alaska in ending a 40-year battle over what to call a peak that has been known as Mount McKinley. The historic ... More »
WASHINGTON, August 3 Women’s health group Planned Parenthood, under attack by anti-abortionists posting hidden-camera videos online, will be the focus of a partisan showdown on Monday in the U.S. Senate, with any wider influence on voters from the charge still... More »
CAIRO The United States and Egypt are returning to a “stronger base” in bilateral ties despite tensions and human rights concerns, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Sunday after talks with his Egyptian counterpart. “Egypt remains vital … to engagement... More »
TAIPEI Protests in Taiwan over textbook revisions which students say aim to brainwash them into accepting a “one China” view of history underscore the island’s growing sense of independence from its vast neighbor and geopolitical foe. Hundreds of youths storme... More »
CAPE TOWN Veteran South African anti-apartheid campaigner Desmond Tutu was discharged from hospital on Tuesday after a week fighting a persistent infection that is not related to his prostate cancer, his daughter said. Tutu, 83, who has been living with prosta... More »
CHICAGO It was an image that shocked and angered many: a dead, black 18- year-old left face-down for hours in the middle of a street after being shot multiple times by a white police officer, his red Cardinals baseball cap knocked from his head by the fall. No... More »
WASHINGTON The top Senate Republican said on Sunday that Congress is likely to block any nominee that President Barack Obama names as ambassador to Cuba and retain broad economic sanctions, even as Obama moves to establish diplomatic and economic ties with the... More »
CHARLESTON, S.C. South Carolina lawmakers took a step on Monday toward removing the Confederate battle flag that flies at the state house in Columbia, long denounced as a symbol of slavery by critics. A bill to banish the flag from a Civil War memorial on the ... More »
ASHGABAT Turkmenistan, which rights groups view as one of the most repressive countries in the world, celebrated President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov’s 58th birthday on Monday by opening a park in the capital Ashgabat bearing his name. It was the latest tribut... More »
