International

Casualties in Jerusalem bus blast, cause unclear: Israeli police

(REUTERS) — An explosion aboard a bus in Jerusalem caused around 20 casualties on Monday, Israeli media said, and police said it may have been a militant attack or the result of a fire from other causes. Television images showed smoke billowing from two burned-out buses, one of which apparently set fire to the other, on Derech Hebron, an area in southwest Jerusalem close to the boundary with the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Smoke billowed over the […]

US prepares Ospreys for relief effort in Japan quake regions

FUTENMA, Japan (Reuters) – U.S. military Osprey aircraft took off on Sunday (April 17) from Futenma U.S. military base in Okinawa, Japan, to provide aid for those affected by multiple large-scale earthquakes in the Kumamoto region in the south of the country. The aircraft are scheduled to land first at a Japanese Self Defence Force base in Iwakuni, Yamaguchi prefecture, to load food and water for the evacuees. As early as Monday (April 18), the […]

Clinton tell supporters America is better than anywhere else

STATEN ISLAND, NEW YORK, United States (Reuters) – Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton told supporters in New York on Sunday (April 17) that she was “sick and tired of people running for president who view our country through a negative lens.” Her remarks came while she was campaigning at Staten Island in the Empire State ahead of the Democratic primaries in the delegate heavy state. “This nation of immigrants with Lady Liberty in the harbor […]

Japan drone footage shows landslides and seismic faults after powerful quakes

MINAMI-ASO VILLAGE, Japan (Reuters) -A drone operated by Japan’s Geospatial Information Authority (GSI) captured dramatic footage over the weekend (April 16 and 17) of the extent of some of the landslides triggered by powerful earthquakes in southern Japan, as well as cracks in the ground revealing seismic fault lines. In one video, a landslide carrying large amounts of mud and water is seen running through a neighbourhood, swallowing a nearby public road. Long cracks in […]

Chinese military aircraft makes first public landing on disputed island

(Reuters) A Chinese military aircraft has for the first time publicly landed at a new airport on an island China has built in the disputed South China Sea, state media said on Monday, raising the prospect that China could base fighter jets there. The United States has criticized China’s construction of artificial islands in the South China Sea and worries that it plans to use them for military purposes, even though China says it has […]

In crushing defeat, Brazil’s Rousseff moves close to impeachment

  (Reuters) Brazil’s leftist President Dilma Rousseff suffered a humiliating loss in a crucial impeachment vote in the lower house of Congress on Sunday and is almost certain to be forced from office months before the nation hosts the Olympics. Fireworks lit up the night sky in Brazil’s megacities of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro after the opposition comfortably surpassed the two-thirds majority needed to send Rousseff for trial in the Senate on charges […]

Ecuador quake toll at 272, ‘certain to rise’

by Santiago Piedra Silva with Florence Panoussian in Manta Portoviejo, Ecuador  (AFP) — The biggest earthquake in Ecuador in decades has killed 272 people — but that toll will ‘certainly’ rise even further, the president said on Sunday as overwhelmed rescuers struggled to pull survivors out of the destruction. The 7.8-magnitude quake struck the small, oil-producing South American nation late Saturday, shattering hotels and homes along its Pacific coast popular with tourists and reducing several […]

Obama immigration action goes before Supreme Court

(Reuters) The U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case on Monday that tests the boundaries of presidential powers, confronting the question of whether President Barack Obama exceeded his authority with unilateral action to spare millions of people in the country illegally from deportation. The case, one of the most consequential of the court’s current term that ends in June, pits Obama against 26 states led by Texas that filed suit to block his 2014 immigration […]

South Korea’s Park confirms signs North Korea preparing fifth nuclear test

Seoul, South Korea (AFP)—South Korean President Park Geun-Hye on Monday confirmed a flurry of intelligence reports suggesting that North Korea is readying to conduct a fifth nuclear test in defiance of tightened United Nations sanctions. “Signs that it is preparing a fifth nuclear test have recently been detected,” Park told a cabinet meeting. Her remarks followed South Korean media reports in which unnamed government and intelligence officials spoke of a spike in activity at the […]

Taiwanese children show off stacking skills

TAIPEI CITY, Taiwan (Reuters) – Athletes of the Taiwan branch of the World Sport Stacking Association took up training again on Sunday (April 17), after winning eleven gold medals at the recent world championship in Germany. Sport stacking, first played in the early 1980s, allows competitors to stack a set of plastic cups into a pyramid or other sequences in as little time as possible. The sport encompasses different disciplines including relay and doubles competitions. […]