Guterres and Lula push negotiators at COP30 as deadline looms

BELEM, Brazil (AP) — Two global power players pushed negotiators on Wednesday to find compromises at UN climate talks in Brazil’s Belem, where a self-imposed deadline is rushing up fast. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva arrived at the COP30 talks to take a hand, in what some attendees hoped could signal progress by day's end. Lula's tentative schedule included meetings with negotiators for the EU, emerging nations in Latin America, the Middl

Nov. 20, 2025

Explosive weapons killed most children on record in 2024: NGO

LONDON (AFP) -- Explosive weapons killed or injured children at record levels last year, as wars increasingly move into urban areas, Save the Children said in a report published Thursday. Nearly 12,000 children were killed or injured in conflict last year worldwide, said the UK-based charity, citing UN figures. This was the highest number since records began in 2006, and was up by 42 percent on the 2020 total. Previously, children in war zones were more likely to die from malnutrition, disease o

Nov. 20, 2025

Israel's military carries out strikes in Lebanon and Gaza, killing dozens of people

SIDON, Lebanon (AP) — The Israeli military carried out barrages of airstrikes in southern Lebanon Wednesday on what it said were Hezbollah sites, including weapons storage facilities, after a drone strike earlier in the day killed one person and wounded several others, including students on a bus. The new wave of strikes came a day after an airstrike killed 13 people in the Palestinian refugee camp of Ein el-Hilweh, the deadliest of Israeli attacks on Lebanon since a ceasefire in the Israel-Hezb

Nov. 20, 2025

[Graphic News] Spain tops Korean travel satisfaction

Spain has claimed the top spot in overseas travel satisfaction among Korean travelers for the first time, overtaking Switzerland, which had held the position for the past four years. Southern European countries performed strongly, while Central and Western European destinations such as Switzerland saw a decline. Meanwhile, Eastern European countries like the Czech Republic and Croatia are emerging as new favorites. According to the travel research institute ConsumerInsight, based on a survey con

Nov. 20, 2025

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum rejects Trump's offer of military intervention against cartels

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico's president on Tuesday ruled out allowing US strikes against cartels on Mexican soil, a day after US President Donald Trump said he was willing to do whatever it takes to stop drugs entering the US. “It’s not going to happen,” President Claudia Sheinbaum said. “He (Trump) has suggested it on various occasions or he has said, ‘we offer you a United States military intervention in Mexico, whatever you need to fight the criminal groups,’” she said. “But I have told him on

Nov. 19, 2025

One of 25 abducted students in Nigeria escapes as search continues for missing girls

A schoolgirl who was abducted with 24 others from a dormitory in northwestern Nigeria has escaped and is safe, the school's principal told The Associated Press on Tuesday, as hunters joined security forces in the search for the missing students in forests close to the school. The girls were kidnapped before dawn on Monday, when gunmen attacked the dorm at the Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School in Kebbi state's Maga town. Local police said the gunmen scaled the fence to enter the sch

Nov. 19, 2025

Trump says visiting Saudi crown prince knew nothing about Khashoggi killing, contradicting US intel

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that Mohammed bin Salman knew nothing about the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents, offering a fierce defense of the visiting Saudi crown prince that contradicted a US intelligence assessment. The controversy over the killing of Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist and US-based critic of the Saudi leadership, flared again in the Oval Office in front of cameras as the kingdom's de facto ruler made his firs

Nov. 19, 2025

US Congress approves release of Epstein files

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The Republican-controlled US Congress voted almost unanimously on Tuesday to force the release of Justice Department files on the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, an outcome President Donald Trump had fought for months before ending his opposition. Two days after Trump's abrupt about-face, the House of Representatives passed the measure with a vote of 427-1, sending a resolution requiring the release of all unclassified records on Epstein to the Republican-maj

Nov. 19, 2025

Amazon, Google named by EU among 'critical' tech providers for finance industry

PARIS (Reuters) -- European Union regulators on Tuesday designated 19 technology companies, including Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud and Microsoft , as critical third-party computing providers for the bloc's finance industry. Under the EU's Digital Operational Resilience Act, which started being applied in January 2025, three EU-level financial regulators can together name certain technology providers as critical and supervise them directly. The new rules are part of an attempt to protect the

Nov. 19, 2025

Israeli airstrike on Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon kills 13 people, Lebanese ministry says

SIDON, Lebanon (AP) — An Israeli airstrike on a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon on Tuesday killed 13 people and wounded several others, state media and government officials said. It was the deadliest strike on Lebanon since a ceasefire in the Israel-Hezbollah war a year ago. The drone strike hit a car in the parking lot of a mosque in the Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp on the outskirts of the coastal city of Sidon, the state-run National News Agency said. The Lebanese Health Ministry sa

Nov. 19, 2025

Spain rolls out $946m Ukraine aid package during Zelenskyy visit

MADRID (Reuters) -- Spain pledged 817 million euros ($946 million) in military and other aid for Ukraine on Tuesday during President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's visit as he aims to bolster Kyiv's air defenses against Russia's invasion. The bulk of the aid, in which defense equipment will amount to 300 million euros, is part of a 10-year bilateral security and defence agreement signed in May 2024 that envisages an annual 1 billion euros. As part of the package, Spain will purchase US military equipment

Nov. 19, 2025

Host Brazil pushes for progress on big issues at COP30 and some see cause for optimism

BELEM, Brazil (AP) — As UN climate talks bubble to a critical point, negotiators on Tuesday were pressured to ensure that oil — along with fossil fuels, coal and natural gas — won't be burned in the future. Although the conference, known as COP30, is scheduled to run through Friday, the Brazilian presidency is pushing for an interconnected decision sooner on four issues that weren't originally on the agenda. Meanwhile, dozens of nations — rich and poor — banded together in a concerted call to de

Nov. 19, 2025

Fully functional, solid gold toilet sells for $12.1m

NEW YORK (AP) -- A Gustav Klimt portrait painting sold Tuesday for $236 million, a record for a modern art piece, at an auction where a solid gold, fully functional toilet satirizing the ultrarich also fetched $12.1 million. The toilet, by Maurizio Cattelan -- the provocative Italian artist known for taping a banana to a wall -- went up for auction Tuesday evening at Sotheby's in New York. The starting bid for the 101-kilogram, 18-karat-gold work was about $10 million. Cattelan has said the piec

Nov. 19, 2025

Pope slams treatment of migrants in US

ROME (AFP) -- Pope Leo XIV on Tuesday renewed his criticism of US President Donald Trump's immigration policies, slamming "extremely disrespectful" treatment of migrants. "We have to look for ways of treating people humanely," the first US pope said in English to journalists outside his secondary residence near Rome. While he said "every country has a right to determine who and how and when people enter," there were people who were "living good lives, and many of them for 10, 15, 20 years" who w

Nov. 19, 2025

1 Israeli killed and 3 wounded in West Bank stabbing as UN approves Trump's Gaza plan

JERUSALEM (AP) — Palestinian attackers stabbed an Israeli to death and wounded three more in the West Bank Tuesday before being shot down by troops in the latest violence to rock the occupied territory, the Israeli military said. The attack follows a spate of settler violence against Palestinians across the West Bank. Officials, including US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, have warned that such unrest could spill over and undermine the fragile truce in Gaza. It came a day after the UN Security C

Nov. 19, 2025