World

TAIPEI,  (Reuters) – China’s military simulated precision strikes against Taiwan in a second day of drills around the island today, with the island’s defence ministry reporting multiple air force sorties and that it was monitoring China’s missile forces.

(Reuters) – A U.S. judge in Texas on Friday suspended the two-decade-old approval of the abortion pill mifepristone while a legal challenge proceeds, dealing another setback to abortion rights in the United States.

(Reuters) – In a further attempt to rein in the increasing number of women defying Iran’s compulsory dress code, authorities are installing cameras in public places and thoroughfares to identify and penalise unveiled women, the police announced yesterday.

JERUSALEM,  (Reuters) – Israel fired rockets at Syria yesterday in retaliation for launches against Israeli-controlled territory, the military said, as tension along Israel’s northern border remained high following a cross-border exchange of fire.

MILAN,  (Reuters) – Drugs cartels operating in Italy are increasingly using shadow networks of unlicensed Chinese money brokers to conceal cross-border payments, according to Italian judicial and law enforcement authorities.

OUAGADOUGOU,  (Reuters) – Unknown assailants killed 44 people in two attacks in northern Burkina Faso overnight on Thursday, authorities said.

KINSHASA,  (Reuters) – Islamic State yesterday claimed responsibility for an attack on a village in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo that authorities said killed around 20 people.

UKRAINE/BELARUS BORDER,  (Reuters) – More than 30 children were reunited with their families in Ukraine this weekend after a long operation to bring them back home from Russia or Russian-occupied Crimea, where they had been taken from areas occupied by Russian forces during the war.

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria,  (Reuters) – At least 74 people were killed in Nigeria’s Benue state in two separate attacks by gunmen this week, local officials and police said on Saturday, the latest clashes in an area where violence between pastoralists and farmers is common.

   (Reuters) – In a further attempt to rein in increasing numbers of women defying the compulsory dress code, Iranian authorities are installing cameras in public places and thoroughfares to identify and penalise unveiled women, the police announced today.

MOSCOW,  (Reuters) – Russian Federal Security Service investigators have formally charged Evan Gershkovich with espionage but the Wall Street Journal reporter denied the charges and said he was working as a journalist, Russian news agencies reported on Friday.

BEIJING,  (Reuters) – China’s Xi Jinping expressed willingness to speak to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the head of the EU said yesterday, after French President Emmanuel Macron urged Beijing to talk sense to Russia over the war in Ukraine.

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – Conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has for decades accepted luxury trips from a Dallas businessman without publicly disclosing them despite a federal law requiring disclosure of most gifts, a media report said yesterday, prompting Senate Democrats to call for an investigation.

JERUSALEM/GAZA,  (Reuters) – Israeli jets hit sites in Lebanon and Gaza early today, in retaliation for rocket attacks it blamed on the Islamist group Hamas, as tensions following police raids on the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem this week threatened to spiral out of control.

NASHVILLE, Tennessee,  (Reuters) – Republicans in control of the Tennessee House of Representatives expelled two Democratic representatives yesterday for breaking decorum during a gun control demonstration at the statehouse last week in the wake of the latest school shooting.

SIMI VALLEY, California,  (Reuters) – U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy hosted Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen in California yesterday, becoming the most senior U.S.

KYIV,  (Reuters) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said during a trip to Warsaw yesterday that Poland would help form a coalition of Western powers to supply warplanes to Kyiv, adding that Ukrainian troops were still fighting for Bakhmut in the east but could withdraw if they risked being cut off.

DUBLIN,  (Reuters) – Ireland’s government is to ask the public for their views on the country’s tradition of military neutrality in a consultative forum, the foreign minister said yesterday, the latest sign of a possible shift in the wake of Russia’s Ukraine invasion.

GLASGOW,  (Reuters) – The husband of former Scottish leader Nicola Sturgeon has been arrested as part of an investigation into the funding of the governing pro-independence Scottish National Party.

NEW DELHI,  (Reuters) – Indian officials are in contact with foreign authorities and have held meetings in Africa to ensure its drug exports do not suffer, the government said today, after Indian-made cough syrups were linked to deaths in Gambia and Uzbekistan.