By Soo-hyang Choi and Daewoung Kim SEOUL/POCHEON, South Korea (Reuters) -South Korean and U.S. forces began live-fire exercises simulating a “full-scale attack” from North Korea on Thursday in what they said were the biggest such drills to demonstrate their “overwhelming” military capability against the North’s threats. Howitzers pounded into a mountainside in Pocheon near the…
By Joan Faus BARCELONA (Reuters) – Scrawled across Barcelona’s opera house, along the city’s renowned La Rambla boulevard, is expletive-laden graffiti urging tourists to “go home”. In another district, the messaging is more emphatic still: “Tourism kills neighbourhoods”. The signs, which appeared in recent days, underline how anti-tourism sentiment is bubbling up in the Spanish…
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – A ban on smoking marijuana on the streets of Amsterdam’s red light district went into effect on Thursday, part of a push by the city’s first female mayor to clean up the area. Signs were posted in the canal-lined neighbourhood known for its brothels, sex clubs and marijuana cafes, which attract millions…
By Olivier Sorgho (Reuters) – First-time asylum applications from people seeking international protection in European Union countries soared in February, driven largely by Syrians and Afghans, a report from the bloc’s statistics agency Eurostat showed on Thursday. The bloc received 76,505 first-time asylum requests from non-EU citizens applying for international protection, an increase of 41%…
GENEVA (Reuters) – Argentina has initiated a dispute against the United States at the World Trade Organization regarding tubular goods used in oil production, the trade watchdog said on Thursday. The so-called “request for consultations” which is the first formal step in the WTO’s dispute settlement process concerns allegations that the United States has used…
By Tetsushi Kajimoto TOKYO (Reuters) -Debt-laden Sri Lanka should be able to conclude a new round of restructuring talks by September or November at the latest, its president said on Thursday, adding that the negotiations had made “remarkable” progress. The island nation defaulted on its foreign debt for the first time in its history in…
By Peter Hobson (Reuters) – The United Arab Emirates has become a key trade hub for Russian gold since Western sanctions over Ukraine cut Russia’s more traditional export routes, Russian customs records show. The records, which contain details of nearly a thousand gold shipments in the year since the Ukraine war started, show the Gulf…
By Dave Graham MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s increasing attacks on adversaries and interventions in the economy are part of a calculated drive to cement his legacy and consolidate support for his successor in an election next year. The veteran leftist on Friday spooked investors when he ordered the temporary occupation…
BERN (Reuters) – The Swiss government on Thursday moved to speed up work on extending a public liquidity backstop Credit Suisse received access to in March under emergency rules to other systemically important banks and make it a permanent part of regulatory framework. Provision of state-guaranteed cash for such banks were they to fall in…
By James Oliphant MIAMI (Reuters) – As he toured the country before the formal announcement of his presidential bid on Wednesday, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis regaled crowds with the story of his surprising re-election victory last year in sprawling, largely Hispanic Miami-Dade County. It was the first time a Republican had won the Democratic-leaning county…
