By Lisa Barrington DUBAI (Reuters) – Omanis no longer need state permission to marry a foreign national according to a royal decree issued this week, a rare example of social reform in the conservative Gulf country. Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said has, since assuming power in 2020 after the 50-year reign of the late Sultan…
By Oliver Denzer and Laurie Chen HAMBURG/BEIJING (Reuters) -Dazed and terrified, Yicheng Huang narrowly managed to escape being detained by police in Shanghai while attending historic protests calling for an end to China’s COVID-19 curbs that spread across numerous cities last November. The protests, unprecedented in President Xi Jinping’s decade in power, were suppressed by…
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – China is seeking to acquire equipment and knowledge in the Dutch space sector, sometimes in circumvention of export restrictions, the Netherlands’ military intelligence agency said on Wednesday. The agency, known by its Dutch acronym MIVD, said in its 2022 annual report that its analysis “shows the Chinese satellite launch capacity will increase…
By Khalid Abdelaziz, Nafisa Eltahir and Humeyra Pamuk KHARTOUM (Reuters) – Heavy gunfire shattered a 24-hour truce in Sudan on Tuesday shortly after it was due to take effect under U.S. pressure on warring military factions to halt fighting that has touched off a humanitarian crisis. Loud shooting reverberated in the background of live feeds…
By Andrew Chung WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court should restrict the availability of the abortion pill mifepristone, anti-abortion groups challenging the medication’s federal regulatory approval told the justices in a filing on Tuesday, urging them to implement curbs ordered by a conservative federal judge in Texas. The challengers urged the Supreme Court to reject…
By Soyoung Kim, Ju-min Park and Hyonhee Shin SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea might extend its support for Ukraine beyond humanitarian and economic aid if it comes under a large-scale civilian attack, President Yoon Suk Yeol said, signalling a shift in his stance against arming Ukraine for the first time. In an interview with Reuters…
By Andy Bruce and David Milliken LONDON (Reuters) – Britain was the only country in western Europe with double-digit inflation in March after it fell less than expected, official data showed on Wednesday, bolstering bets that the Bank of England will raise interest rates again in May. Consumer price inflation (CPI) dropped to an annual…
BEIJING (Reuters) -The death toll rose to 29 on Wednesday from a fire at a Beijing hospital that was one of the Chinese capital’s deadliest in at least two decades, killing 26 patients and wounding dozens. Social media showed dramatic videos of people using tied bed sheets to climb down the walls to escape smoke…
By Jason Lange WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden’s public approval fell to 39% this month, nearing the lowest level of his presidency, as the U.S. economy showed signs of losing steam, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed. The three-day poll, which ended on Sunday, showed a modest decline from last month, when 42% of respondents…
By Arshad Mohammed and Jonathan Landay WASHINGTON (Reuters) – It was huge, expensive and top secret. In the early 1970s the CIA built a gigantic ship called the Hughes Glomar Explorer to lift a sunken Soviet submarine from the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, according to a declassified history by the U.S. intelligence agency. But…
