Several flights to Dubai were cancelled and diverted Thursday, airport authorities announced, as heavy rains hit the United Arab Emirates for the second time in a month. An airport authority spokesperson said five inbound flights were diverted overnight, while nine arriving and four departing flights were cancelled. In April, heavy thunderstorms dumped the heaviest rains ever recorded in the UAE in a span of hours, flooding portions of major highways and Dubai International Airport, the world’s busiest for international travel and a hub for the long-haul carrier Emirates.
A group of children holding red, yellow and blue balloons – the colors of Colombia's flag – run to the playground of a newly-opened school built and paid for by the Estado Mayor Central (EMC) guerrillas. The new school - which opened last month in a troubled area in the country's south - is just one example of how the group is consolidating control of certain regions, gaining social support and territorial dominance, and potentially stymieing already-fraught efforts by President Gustavo Petro to ink a new peace deal. The 3,500-strong EMC are rebels who rejected a landmark 2016 peace deal with the government that largely put an end to decades of conflict.
Taiwan's defence ministry on Thursday said that China had carried out a "joint combat readiness patrol" near the island for the second time in a week. Over the past four years, China's military has significantly ramped up its activities around democratically-governed Taiwan. The ministry said that starting from 4 p.m. (0800GMT) on Thursday it had detected 15 Chinese military aircraft, including Su-30 fighters, carrying out "joint combat readiness patrols" with Chinese warships around Taiwan.
Vietnam's legislature on Thursday approved the resignation of National Assembly chairman Vuong Dinh Hue, state media reported, the latest top official to step down amid an intensifying anti-graft crackdown by the ruling Communist Party. Hue's departure, which had already been announced last week by the party's central committee, leaves Vietnam with no permanent holders for two of its four top leadership positions, after president Vo Van Thuong quit in March, raising questions about the country's political stability. Both Hue, 67, and Thuong, 53, were publicly accused of unspecified violations and shortcomings, after corruption cases entangled people close to them, or under their supervision.
(Reuters) -Moderna on Thursday reported quarterly revenue that beat Wall Street estimates but came in dramatically lower than the previous year when demand for COVID-19 vaccines was higher. Sales of Moderna’s COVID-19 shot Spikevax, its only marketed product, dropped 91% from the previous year to $167 million for the quarter but surpassed analysts’ expectations of $97.5 million. The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company reaffirmed that it expects to receive approval from regulators for its respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine in time for it to be included in this fall's U.S. vaccine campaign.
The Norwegian center-left government said Thursday that it wants to add 7 billion kroner ($630 million) to the Scandinavian country’s armed forces over the next 12 years amid increased tensions in the region. The announcement came on top of plans announced last month of a “historic increase” of 600 billion kroner ($54 billion) in the oil-rich country's defense budget over the same period. “We must increase the operational capability of the Armed Forces,” Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, citing heightened tensions in the region as the reason for the boost.
Urris in Donegal, Ireland, was once a hub for illegal Irish “moonshine.” The valley formed an “outlaw republic” for three years, successfully evading authorities.
At Columbia University, tensions between the administration and students protesting over Israel's war in Gaza have reached the point that scores of New York City police marched onto campus to clear an encampment and arrest demonstrators who had commandeered a classroom building. It was the second time in as many weeks that the administration has called on police to control the protests. Students have been suspended, and threatened with expulsion.
Escalating campus protests are forcing U.S. President Joe Biden to walk a careful line of denouncing antisemitism while supporting young Americans' right to protest and trying to limit longer-term political damage. As violent police crackdowns and counter-protests greet spreading demonstrations across U.S. campuses, Biden faces sharp criticism of his Israel policy from both the left and right. Students at dozens of schools have rallied or camped out in recent days to oppose Israel's war in Gaza, demanding institutions stop doing business with companies that support the war.
Human Rights Watch accused Kenyan authorities on Thursday of not responding adequately to ongoing floods that have killed more than 170 people since the start of the rainy season. The New York-based rights group said the government “has a human rights obligation to prevent foreseeable harm from climate change and extreme weather events and to protect people when a disaster strikes.” Kenya's Meteorology Department sent an early warning before the rainy season started, but President William Ruto only formed a response committee on April 24.
Top Israeli ministers will convene on Thursday to discuss a proposed Gaza truce to free some hostages held by Hamas, as well as prospects for an army sweep of the southern tip of the enclave packed with displaced Palestinians, a government source said. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's war cabinet was provisionally slated to meet at 6.30 pm (1530 GMT), followed by the wider security cabinet, the source said. Israel does not generally publish information on sessions of the two groups.
As interest rate cuts get pushed into the future, investors fear potential rate hikes. Fed Chair Jerome Powell, however, appears not to share these worries.
So far, violent scenes seen at universities across the US have not been repeated in Australia where multiple Gaza solidarity demonstrations have emerged on campus.
Russia struck the southern Ukrainian port city of Odesa with ballistic missiles in a nighttime attack, injuring 14 people and starting a massive blaze, local officials and emergency services said. The third attack on the city in a week hit a sorting depot belonging to Ukraine’s biggest private delivery company, Nova Poshta. On Monday, six people were killed in a Russian missile strike on Odesa, and two days later three people died there when the Kremlin’s forces targeted civilian infrastructure.
The European Union announced on Thursday an aid package for Lebanon of 1 billion euros — about $1.06 billion — much of which will go to strengthening border control to halt the flow of asylum seekers and migrants from the small, crisis-wracked country across the Mediterranean Sea to Cyprus and Italy. It comes against a backdrop of increasing hostility toward Syrian refugees in Lebanon and a major surge in irregular migration of Syrian refugees from Lebanon to Cyprus.
The Taliban has agreed with Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to build a logistics hub in western Afghanistan aimed at making the war-torn nation a major logistics point for regional exports, including oil from Russia to South Asia, the country's commerce minister said. Following a meeting between representatives of the three countries in the Afghan capital last week, Taliban acting commerce minister Nooruddin Azizi told Reuters that technical teams would draw up a written agreement within two months on the formal plans for the hub, which all three countries would invest in after six months of talks.
A highway collapsed in southern China early on Wednesday, sending cars plummeting down a hill and killing dozens of people, Chinese state media reported.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida unveiled an international framework for regulation and use of generative AI on Thursday, adding to global efforts on governance for the rapidly advancing technology. Kishida made the announcement in a speech at the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. “Generative AI has the potential to be a vital tool to further enrich the world,” Kishida said.