Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will recommit the United States on a visit to Bangkok to supporting the development of Southeast Asian nations in the face of a rising China, an official said Thursday.
Pompeo will travel to the Thai capital for the July 29-August 3 ministerial meeting of the ASEAN bloc and will lead talks on the Lower Mekong Initiative, said Mark Clark, a US official in charge of the region.
The initiative was launched 10 years ago by then secretary of state Hillary Clinton as a way to promote coordination and economic growth in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam -- several of which have increasingly close ties with China.
"When ministers and our secretary meet in Bangkok in early August, we will highlight what we have achieved over the past decade and recommit to our joint efforts supporting the people of the Mekong," Clark told a conference on the Mekong River region at the Meridian International Center in Washington.
Clark, an acting deputy assistant ...

Pompeo to visit Bangkok, commit to Southeast Asia: official

PTI Automatic

Israel's attorney general on Thursday rejected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's request to postpone a court hearing over corruption allegations against him, media reports said.
The prosecutor's office said Netanyahu had requested "that the hearing be delayed due to the dissolution of the Knesset and the elections due on September 17" to a date after the polls, the Ynet news site said.
After considering the matter, the prosecutor's office said "nothing justified agreeing to the request to change the dates fixed for the hearing", it added.
Netanyahu is facing possible indictment for bribery, fraud and breach of trust in the months ahead and is reportedly seeking legislation in the new parliament that would result in him being granted immunity.
Last month, Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit pushed back to October the date by which Netanyahu needed to respond to the allegations against him.
The prosecutor's office stressed that the hearing scheduled for October 2 and 3 would not be ...

Netanyahu fails to get postponement of corruption court hearing: reports

Democrats urged President Donald Trump Thursday to drop plans to give a July 4 speech on the National Mall, saying it would look like a campaign rally on a holiday that is traditionally apolitical.
Back in February Trump tweeted that his administration would host "A Salute To America," an independence day celebration which he predicted would be "one of the biggest gatherings in the history of Washington, DC."
The event, he said, would be held at the Lincoln Memorial on the west end of the National Mall and feature a fireworks display, entertainment, "and an address by your favorite President, me!"
With less than a month to go before the holiday, three House Democrats including Majority Leader Steny Hoyer wrote the president to say they were "deeply troubled" that Trump intended to hold an event coinciding with the annual festivities.
"For decades, the Fourth of July on the National Mall has been non-partisan and apolitical," a time to celebrate America's founding and reflect on the ...

Democrats urge Trump: No July 4 speech on National Mall

The United States on Thursday praised Kazakhstan for not turning back Uighurs fleeing neighboring China, which has rounded up an estimated one million people from the mostly Muslim ethnic group.
David Ranz, a US diplomat in charge of Central Asia, pointed to Kazakhstan as an example as he addressed a symposium in Washington on the mounting human rights concerns in the western Chinese region of Xinjiang.
The United States is "grateful" to Kazakhstan "for resisting Chinese pressure to forcibly return Uyghurs and other members of Muslim minority groups back to China," said Ranz, an acting deputy assistant secretary of state.
"We urge all countries to provide this protection, to allow them access to asylum, and allow these individuals to travel to third countries of their choosing, as Kazakhstan has done," he told the event organized by Uighur rights groups and George Washington University.
Kazakhstan, which has sought warm relations both with China and the United States, has been placed .

US praises Kazakhstan over Uighur rights

Spain's King Felipe VI on Thursday tasked acting prime minister Pedro Sanchez with forming a new government, a complex undertaking that involves negotiating with many diverging parties.
While they won a general poll in April and gained lawmakers compared to the previous term, Sanchez's socialists failed to secure a majority in parliament and will need the support of other groupings.
But despite the obvious horse-trading that entails, Sanchez is widely expected to get the backing he needs to start his second term as prime minister.
Without the necessary seats in parliament to form a majority, the conservative Popular Party, centre-right Ciudadanos and far-right Vox have already resigned themselves to being in opposition.
Sanchez was tasked with forming a new government after holding talks with the king, the Spanish parliament's speaker, Meritxell Batet, told a news conference The monarch has since Wednesday been meeting party representatives at the royal palace, is the norm after ...

Spanish king tasks Sanchez to form new government

Google on Thursday released new details about its video game streaming service Stadia, which will be available in 14 countries starting in November.
For the launch, Google will sell its "founders edition bundle" hardware pack for USD129, with a monthly subscription price of USD9.99. In Europe, the price will be 129 euros and 9.99 euros per month.
The new gaming platform aims for a Netflix-style subscription that enables players to access games on any device, powered by the internet cloud.
This could disrupt the huge gaming industry by allowing users to avoid consoles and game software on disc or download.
Subscribers will have access to free games and will be able to purchase some blockbuster titles as well.
The first free title will be the shooter game Destiny 2 from developer Bungie.
Users may also purchase hit titles such as Assassin's Creed Odyssey and Ghost Recon Breakpoint from game giant Ubisoft.
"Ubisoft is bringing several fantastic gaming worlds to Stadia at launch and we ...

Google cloud gaming service to launch in 14 countries this year

Interim Algerian president Abdelkader Bensalah on Thursday called for "dialogue" after the authorities ruled out holding a planned election on July 4.
Bensalah urged the political class and civil society in the North African country to hold an "inclusive dialogue" aimed at fixing a new date for elections "as soon as possible" in a televised address.
Algeria's constitutional council said Sunday it was impossible to stage the poll to choose a successor to ousted president Abdelaziz Bouteflika early next month, after the only two candidates were rejected.
The move comes after weeks of demonstrations intented to pressure political leaders into postponing the vote.
Bensalah, the former upper house speaker, was appointed on April 9 under constitutional rules which deem a presidential election must then be held within 90 days.
With that deadline certain to be missed, the constitutional council has suggested his mandate be extended.
The planned vote had drawn widespread protests, with ...

Algeria interim leader calls for 'dialogue' over election

Top US Senate Democrats on Thursday asked the Federal Reserve to scrutinize Deutsche Bank over allegedly suspicious transactions tied to President Donald Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner.
The letter from Ohio's Sherrod Brown, ranking Democrat on a Senate banking panel, and other lawmakers follows recent reporting in The New York Times quoting whistleblowers who accused senior Deutsche Bank staff of deliberately suppressing warnings of suspicious activity.
Deutsche Bank was one of the few lenders to keep Trump afloat after his repeated bankruptcies in the 1990s.
"In light of these most recent press accounts, and Deutsche Bank's extensive history of violations, which have prompted huge penalties for the bank, we urge you to undertake a thorough evaluation of the Bank's compliance" with US money-laundering statutes, the letter said.
It was also signed by presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who has long campaigned for stricter oversight of the financial sector, 

Democrats ask Fed to scrutinize Deutsche Bank over Trump transactions

Jihadists in northwestern Syria on Thursday launched an attack on government forces killing at least 21 fighters, a war monitor said, following a series of regime advances in the area.
The deadly assault in a northern strip of Hama province, comes amid an escalation in violence in parts of the country's northwest held by Syria's former Al-Qaeda affiliate Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).
Damascus and its ally Russia have since late April ramped up deadly air strikes and rocket fire on the region, and fighters have clashed on its edges.
Thursday's attack by HTS militants and allied jihadist groups on the village of Jibeen, follow a series of regime advances in the region in recent weeks, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said.
"The insurgents are launching a counterattack," Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.
"They are making strategic advances," he said, adding that they have seized several hilltops.
He said at least 14 jihadists were killed in ensuing ...

Jihadists kill 21 regime forces in Syria's northwest: Monitor

Mexico said Thursday it has frozen the bank accounts of a group of suspected human traffickers allegedly responsible for organizing US-bound migrant caravans, amid negotiations to try to avoid Washington's threatened tariffs over migration.
The Mexican finance ministry said its Financial Intelligence Unit had blacklisted 26 people "for their probable role in trafficking migrants and illicit support for migrant caravans."
The statement came as officials from both countries met in Washington seeking a deal to avoid five-percent tariffs in return for Mexico stemming the flow of US-bound migrants.

Mexico freezes accounts of 'migrant traffickers' amid US tariff row

The head of the New York police department on Thursday apologized for a crackdown on the city's LGBTQ community during the notorious Stonewall riots, ahead of the 50th anniversary of the clashes that gave rise to the Gay Pride movement.
"I do know what happened should not have happened," said police chief James O'Neil. "The actions taken by the NYPD were wrong, plain and simple. The actions were discriminatory and oppressive and for that I apologize."
The June 1969 riots, sparked by constant police raids on the Stonewall Tavern, a well-known gay bar in New York's Greenwich Village, proved to be a turning point in the LGBTQ community's struggle for civil rights and gave rise to the Gay Pride movement.
The police chief made the comments to long applause during a briefing on safety measures for the city's Pride Month, the annual celebration for the city's diverse LGBTQ community.
A number of people have called in recent days for the police department to apologize for its actions, ...

50 years on, New York police apologize for Stonewall riots

Barack and Michelle Obama's production company Higher Ground has signed a deal with Spotify to create a series of podcasts for the music streaming service, which is seeking to diversify its content.
"We're excited... because podcasts offer an extraordinary opportunity to foster productive dialogue, make people smile and make people think, and, hopefully, bring us all a little closer together," the former US president said in a statement released by Spotify and Higher Ground.
The former first lady also said she was "thrilled to have the opportunity to amplify voices that are too often ignored or silenced altogether." For the past year, Spotify -- better known for streaming music playlists -- has been moving into the business of podcasting.
In February, it paid USD 230 million for the respected US podcast production house Gimlet Media.
Several major players in the industry are seeking to shift podcast production away from the current model, where the audio broadcasts are free and ...

Obamas sign deal to produce podcasts for Spotify

The US warned Mexico Thursday it needed to make more concessions on slowing migration to avoid President Donald Trump's threatened tariffs, as the Mexican leader announced he would visit the border to "defend our dignity."
Speaking as the two neighbours opened a tense day of talks -- which Trump has vowed will be the last -- White House communications chief Mercedes Schlapp said Mexico's proposals so far to slow the surge of Central Americans crossing the border were "simply not enough."
"Looks like we're moving toward the path of tariffs," she said on Fox News.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador meanwhile announced he would travel to the border city of Tijuana Saturday for what he described as a "unity rally to defend Mexico's dignity and promote our friendship with the people of the United States."
That is two days before Trump's threatened tariffs on Mexican goods would take effect -- starting at five percent and rising incrementally to 25 percent by October if Mexico ...

Tension high as US-Mexico tariff talks go down to wire

A hundred members of the opposition Movement for the Rebirth of Cameroon (MRC) were freed Thursday following their arrest during demonstrations last week, the party told AFP.
However MRC vice president Mamadou Mota, who was also detained on June 1, remains in detention, the same opposition party source said.
"Today 100 of our members, arrested on Saturday... have been freed," said lawyer Christopher Ndong, secretary general of the MRC.
In all, 351 MRC supporters were arrested during protests which took place in several towns throughout the country, including Nkongsamba, in the west, and Yaounde, according to the party's figures.
"There are still 251 people incarcerated in prison cells," said Ndong.
At least 30 of those arrested, including Mota, have been transferred to Yaounde's main prison.
The prison also houses MRC head Maurice Kamto, the country's main opposition figure who has been detained since January.
The MRC has been organising demonstrations since the October 2018 ...

100 Cameroon opposition members freed: Party

The US economy is expanding faster than any other advanced nation, and in weeks will hit a historic milestone, but the International Monetary Fund and many economists are warning of building signs of trouble.
President Donald Trump's multi-front trade wars, especially with economic power China and the coming conflict with Mexico, threaten to stifle growth in those countries and have dire consequences for the global economy.
For now, US data is showing little impact on the overall economy but global financial markets have been shaken by the trade conflict and the US Federal Reserve this week opened the door to cutting interest rates to salvage growth.
The IMF upgraded its forecast for US growth this year to 2.6 per cent, three tenths higher than it predicted in April, while growth in 2020 is seen slowing to just under two per cent.
The US Commerce Department reported Thursday that the trade deficit fell in April -- good news for Trump who has made that a key focus of his ...

US economy reigns supreme but IMF warns of growing risks

Jihadists in northwestern Syria on Thursday launched an attack on government forces killing at least 11 fighters, a war monitor said, following a series of regime advances in the area.
The deadly assault in a northern strip of Hama province, comes amid an escalation in violence in parts of the country's northwest held by Syria's former Al-Qaeda affiliate Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).
Damascus and its ally Russia have since late April ramped up deadly air strikes and rocket fire on the region, and fighters have clashed on its edges.
Thursday's attack by HTS militants and allied jihadist groups in the village of Jibeen, follow a series of regime advances in the region in recent weeks, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said.
"The insurgents are launching a counterattack," Observatory head Rami Abdul Rahman told AFP.
He said at least five jihadists were killed in ensuing clashes.
State news agency SANA said that militants launched rocket attacks on a number of villages in .

Jihadists kill 11 regime forces in Syria's northwest: Monitor

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday said the West was "crazy" for supporting an opposition leader in Venezuela over its president.
Putin said Juan Guaido was "likeable" but warned that the world would plunge into chaos if there were no rules.
"But if we adopt this way of coming to power --  a man walks into a square, lifts up his eyes to heaven and declares himself president before God -- would this be normal or not?" he told heads of global news agencies at an economic forum in the second city of Saint Petersburg.
"Well, then chaos will consume the world," he warned. "Let's elect a US president, a British prime minister, a French president like that. What will it be? I feel like asking those who support this: have you gone crazy, do you understand where this is going? Should there be rules or not?"
In January, Guaido declared himself acting president, claiming Nicolas Maduro's re-election last year was illegitimate.
More than 50 countries led by the United States lined up ...

Putin says West 'crazy' for backing Venezuela's Guaido

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday said Moscow and London should mend fences after the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in Britain.
The 2018 poisoning of the ex-double agent, which the UK has blamed on Russia, led to dozens of tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions and a breakdown in already fragile ties between Moscow and London.
"There's a need to finally turn this page -- linked to spies and assassination attempts," Putin told heads of global news agencies at an economic forum in Saint Petersburg.
"Global issues related to national interests in the economic and social spheres and global security are more important than games of security services," the Russian president said.
Putin added that Skripal was not a "Russian spy." "It was not us who spied on you," Putin said. "It's your agent, not ours. That means you were spying on us."
London said a new relationship would only be possible following changes from Moscow.
"We can only have a different relationship if ...

Putin says time to 'turn the page' on UK ties after spy scandal

Merger negotiations between Renault and Fiat-Chrysler had reached a point where continuing would be "unreasonable", the Italian-American carmaker's boss John Elkann said on Thursday after the talks' spectacular collapse.
"When it becomes clear that the conversations have been brought to the point beyond which it becomes unreasonable to go, it is necessary to be equally brave to interrupt them," Elkann wrote in a letter to employees published by Italian media.

Renault talks became 'unreasonable': FCA boss Elkann

The captain of a river cruise ship involved in a deadly collision last week with a smaller sightseeing boat in Budapest is already under investigation over another accident in April, Hungarian prosecutors said Thursday, as the toll rose to 17.
After last week's crash, the 64-year-old Ukrainian captain of the larger Viking Sigyn ship was arrested on suspicion of "endangering waterborne traffic resulting in multiple deaths".
Hungarian press reports said another Viking ship captained by the same man, named as Yuriy C., collided with an oil tanker near the Dutch city of Terneuzen on April 1.
"He is being treated as a suspect in Holland," the Metropolitan Chief Prosecutor's Office told AFP in a statement, citing information from the EU judicial agency Eurojust, but without confirming the incident they were referring to.
Prosecutors also said the captain was suspected of "deleting data from his telephone after the collision" in Budapest.
The captain's lawyers could not be reached for ...

Hungary boat tragedy captain already under investigation over earlier accident

Britain said Thursday that resetting ties with Russia depended on Moscow changing behaviour, hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin said it was time to "turn the page" on the difficult relationship.
"We can only have a different relationship if Russia changes its behaviour," a spokeswoman for Prime Minister Theresa May said, noting that the 2018 poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain, blamed on Moscow, was a "despicable act".
"We have been clear that Russia's pattern of aggression and destabilising behaviour undermines its claim to be a responsible international partner," the spokeswoman added.
"We will continue to engage with Russia on matters of international security as this is in the UK's national interest." Britain has accused Russia of orchestrating the March 2018 nerve agent attack against former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the English cathedral city of Salisbury, which Moscow has furiously denied.
The incident sparked dozens of tit-for-tat ...

AFP

AFP

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