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TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — A powerful blast ripped through a restaurant in northern Japan late Sunday, injuring 42 people, starting fires that took hours to bring under control and leading several neighbouring buildings to collapse, officials and reports said. Images from the scene showed large flames and plumes of smoke rising in the night air after the blast in the northern city of Sapporo. The cause of the blast was still under investigation, police […]
ROME, Italy (AFP) — Several thousand people marched in Rome Saturday in protest at Italy’s tough new anti-migrant law which makes it easier to expel new arrivals. The protesters waved flags and donned yellow vests emblazoned with the slogan “Get up! Stand Up! for your right” in a reference to the famous Bob Marley song. The new law would “only increase the number of people without papers in Italy and force people underground”, protester […]
by Carlos HAMANN Agence France Presse WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — A federal judge in Texas ruled late Friday that the US health care law known as Obamacare is unconstitutional — a ruling that opposition Democrats vowed to appeal. US District Judge Reed O’Connor’s 55-page ruling came in a lawsuit filed by several Republican state attorneys general opposed to the federal government health plan, known officially as the Affordable Care Act. Conservative Republicans have […]
by Daniel DE CARTERET Agence France Presse SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Australia now recognizes west Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Saturday, but a contentious embassy shift from Tel Aviv will not occur until a peace settlement is achieved. Canberra became one of just a few governments around the world to follow US President Donald Trump’s lead and recognize the contested city as Israel’s capital, but Morrison also committed to recognizing […]
By Philippe Rater Agence France-Presse UN special envoy Martin Griffiths on Friday called for the urgent creation of a strong monitoring mechanism in war-ravaged Yemen, one day after fighting parties agreed to a ceasefire at a vital port. Yemen’s warring factions accepted at UN-brokered talks in Sweden on Thursday a truce on Hodeida port, a key gateway for aid and food imports to a country where 14 million people stand on the brink of famine. “A […]
(AFP) — US elementary school Sandy Hook, the scene of a horrific shooting that left 26 children and teachers dead, was evacuated Friday after receiving a bomb threat on the sixth anniversary of the massacre. A police spokesman from Newton, Connecticut told AFP all of the students were evacuated without incident. A police search of the premises did not turn up an explosive device, though school administrators closed the institution for the day as a […]
BEIJING, China (AFP) — China announced Friday it will suspend extra tariffs added to US-made cars and auto parts for three months starting on January 1 as part of the trade war truce with the United States. Beijing raised tariffs on American-made cars and auto parts this summer by 25 percent in retaliation for US tariffs on $50 billion of Chinese goods. “Suspension of the tariffs is a concrete measure to implement the consensus reached […]
by Rouba EL HUSSEINI Agence France Prese BEIRUT, Lebanon (AFP) — Kurdish-led forces seized the Islamic State’s main hub of Hajin Friday, a milestone in a massive and costly US-backed operation to eradicate the jihadists from eastern Syria. The Syrian Democratic Forces secured Hajin, the largest settlement in what is the last pocket of territory controlled by IS, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. “After a week of heavy fighting and air strikes, […]
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Australians in the north east of the country are bracing for a severe tropical cyclone, with authorities warning of flash flooding and destructive winds. Cyclone Owen has been strengthening off the north coast of Queensland state, in warm waters in the Gulf of Carpentaria, and is expected to reach category four — defined as a severe tropical cyclone with very destructive winds — when it makes landfall early Saturday morning. […]
by Ben Simon Agence France-Presse GENEVE, Switzerland (AFP) — Scandal-plagued UNAIDS head Michel Sidibe offered Thursday to resign in June, following an expert report that said his “defective leadership” had plunged the agency into crisis. The timeline for the departure, confirmed by the agency, amounted to a concession from a leader accused of fostering a work environment that has tolerated bullying, sexual harassment and a culture of fear among staff. Agency spokeswoman Sophie Barton-Knott confirmed […]
TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Japan on Friday resumed work to relocate a controversial US military airbase in Okinawa, prompting protests and “strong anger” from the local governor. Okinawa residents have for years called for the relocation of a US base in a populated part of the southern island, but they want it moved elsewhere in the country, rather than to the remote site on Okinawa favored by the government. “I can’t help but feel […]
NEW DELHI, India (AFP) — At least 13 miners were feared dead after being trapped by flooding in an illegal “rat hole” coal mine site in remote northeastern India, police said Friday. Dozens of emergency workers were pumping water out of a large trench that was flooded early Thursday near a river in mineral-rich Meghalaya state. “We are doing our best to reach out to them. Our information is 13 people were inside at the […]
