China

BEIJING — Eight people were killed and 17 others injured Saturday in a knife attack at a vocational school in eastern China, and the suspect — a former student — has been arrested, police said. The attack took place in the evening at the Wuxi Vocational Institute of Arts and Technology in the city of Yixing in Jiangsu province, police in Yixing said in a statement, …

MANILA, PHILIPPINES — Super Typhoon Man-yi battered the Philippines on Saturday, with the national weather forecaster warning of a “potentially catastrophic and life-threatening” impact as huge waves pounded the archipelago’s coastline. More than 650,000 people fled their homes ahead of Man-yi, which is the sixth major storm to hit the country in the past month. Man-yi brought maximum wind speeds of 195 kilometers (121 miles) per …

TEHRAN, IRAN — Iranian media were divided Saturday over a reported meeting between Tehran’s ambassador to the United Nations and tech billionaire Elon Musk — unconfirmed by Iranian authorities — with some describing it as “positive” while others called it “treason.” The New York Times reported Friday that Musk, who is a close ally of President-elect Donald Trump, met earlier this week with Iranian Ambassador to …

jerusalem — The United States decided not to punish Israel over the dire humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip after giving it an ultimatum to increase aid entering the territory. But the flow of food, medicine and other supplies to Palestinians is still at nearly its lowest level of the entire 13-month war.  The White House last month gave Israel 30 days to improve conditions or …

OME, Japan — Deep in a dark warehouse the sake sleeps, stored in rows of giant tanks, each holding more than 10,000 liters of the Japanese rice wine that is the product of brewing techniques dating back more than 1,000 years. Junichiro Ozawa, the 18th-generation head of Ozawa Brewery, founded in 1702, hopes sake-brewing will win recognition as a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage, when the decision …

Beirut — A strike hit the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital of Beirut on Saturday, AFPTV footage showed, shortly after the Israeli army issued a new call to evacuate the area. Since Tuesday, Israel has carried out several strikes on the city’s southern suburbs, a stronghold of Hezbollah. AFPTV video showed three plumes of smoke rising over the buildings in the area on Saturday morning. …

LOPBURI, Thailand — Marauding monkeys won’t face slingshots anymore in the historic Thai city of Lopburi, where they have been rounded up and sterilized after turning rampant over the past four years. Before COVID-19 shut Lopburi, some of its 58,000 residents casually fed the 3,000 long-tailed macaques that lived alongside and even threw an annual fruit banquet for them, drawing tourists to “Monkey City,” a three-hour …

CHANGCHUN, China — Crouch through the small metal door and walk down the dark tunnel, and even before you step into the abandoned air raid shelter, the air reverberates with pounding techno beats. Young Chinese holding booze and cigarettes shake and sway in a red-lit passageway, below a big screen rolling through quotations from Chairman Mao. This is an underground rave in China, part of a …

washington — Three investigative journalists are being recognized with international awards for their courage and reporting. Reporters John-Allan Namu from Kenya, Valeriya Yegoshyna from Ukraine and Rana Sabbagh from Jordan were in Washington this week for a ceremony highlighting their work. Namu and Yegoshyna were honored with the ICFJ Knight International Journalism Award by the global media network, the International Center for Journalists, or ICFJ. Sabbagh …

STATE DEPARTMENT — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Taiwan’s envoy to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, Lin Hsin-I, on Thursday ahead of the bloc’s Economic Leaders’ Meeting in Lima, Peru. The discussion centered on economic cooperation, as Blinken highlighted in a social media post. “Met with Lin Hsin-i in Lima. We spoke about our growing economic relationship and our enduring shared commitment …

MELBOURNE, Australia — How do you remove children from the harms of social media? Politically the answer appears simple in Australia, but practically the solution could be far more difficult. The Australian government’s plan to ban children from social media platforms including X, TikTok, Facebook and Instagram until their 16th birthdays is politically popular. The opposition party says it would have done the same after winning …

Beirut — An airstrike hit the Lebanese capital’s southern suburbs on Friday, sending plumes of gray smoke into the sky after the Israeli military called for people to evacuate, AFPTV images showed. Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said an Israeli drone fired two missiles at the Beirut suburb of Ghobeiry before the air force carried out a “very heavy” strike that leveled a building near municipal …

U.S. President Joe Biden will meet with leaders of South Korea and Japan Friday to come up with a “coordinated” response to the deployment of thousands of North Korean troops to help Moscow’s war against Ukraine and on Pyongyang’s nuclear threat more broadly, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum in Lima, Peru. Pyongyang’s troop deployment is a “significant development,” White House national …

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea tested exploding drones designed to crash into targets and leader Kim Jong Un called for accelerating mass production of the weapons, state media said Friday. The country’s latest military demonstration came as the United States, South Korea and Japan engaged in combined military exercises involving advanced fighter jets and a U.S. aircraft carrier in nearby international waters, in a display …

While fighting continued in Gaza and Lebanon on Thursday, a United Nations special committee said that Israeli policies and practices in Gaza are “consistent with the characteristics of genocide.” In a report published Thursday, the U.N. Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices also accused Israel of using “starvation as a weapon of war” and running an “apartheid system” in the occupied West Bank. There was …

BANGKOK — China is likely to continue its aggressive naval approach toward the Philippines amid their disputes in the South China Sea, experts say. Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has signed two new maritime laws to protect Manila’s disputed territory: the Philippine Maritime Zones Act and Philippine Archipelagic Sea Lanes Act. According to the Philippines Presidential Office, the Philippine Maritime Zones Act “seeks to designate the …

WASHINGTON — VOA’s Persian Service has expressed shock and grief at the suicide of a former colleague, Kianoosh Sanjari, who jumped to his death from a building in Tehran on Wednesday in protest against Iran’s authoritarian rulers. Sanjari, a 42-year-old Iranian, was a former journalist and rights activist who worked at VOA Persian’s Washington bureau from 2009 to 2013 before returning to Iran in 2016 to …

wellington, new zealand — A vote in New Zealand’s parliament was suspended and two lawmakers ejected on Thursday when dramatic political theater erupted over a controversial proposed law redefining the country’s founding agreement between Indigenous Maori and the British Crown. Under the principles laid out in the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, which guide the relationship between the government and Maori, tribes were promised broad rights to …

DAMASCUS, SYRIA — Israel carried out at least two airstrikes on a western neighborhood of Damascus and one of the capital’s suburbs on Thursday, killing at least 15 people and wounding 16, Syria’s state news agency said. The airstrikes on the Mazzeh neighborhood in Damascus and the suburb of Qudsaya, northwest of the capital, struck two buildings, the SANA news agency said. An Associated Press journalist …

A study by the World Bank on Thursday said urgent action is needed to address rising sea levels in the Pacific atoll islands of Kiribati, the Marshall Islands and Tuvalu, which under current projections could be 50% to 80% submerged in the next 50 years. The World Bank’s “Pacific Atoll Countries Country Climate and Development Report” says the low-lying nations and the roughly 200,000 people …

hong kong — Hong Kong’s high court on Thursday sentenced a man to 23 years and 10 months in prison for being the leader of an alleged plot to attack police with explosives during the city’s pro-democracy and anti-China protests in 2019. The man, Ng Chi-hung, had been charged under the United Nations Anti-Terrorism Ordinance, for offences linked to a conspiracy to use explosives and firearms …

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Malaysia will send a protest note to the Philippines over its new maritime laws due to their overlapping claims in the South China Sea, its deputy foreign minister said on Thursday. The protest will follow a complaint also from China over the Philippines’ Maritime Zones Act and the Archipelagic Sea Lanes Act, which Manila said was intended to strengthen its maritime claims …

While fighting continued in Gaza and Lebanon on Thursday, Human Rights Watch issued a report accusing Israel of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The report said Israeli officials who have repeatedly displaced and relocated civilians are “committing the war crime of forcible transfer,” and the actions “appear to also meet the definition of ethnic cleansing” in the areas where Palestinians will not be able …

Tehran, Iran — International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi was to hold talks with top Iranian officials Thursday on Tehran’s nuclear program, a week after Donald Trump’s re-election as US president. During his first term in the White House from 2017 to 2021, Trump was the architect of a policy called “maximum pressure,” which levied against Tehran biting sanctions that had been lifted through a …