China

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea’s military says North Korea is again flying balloons likely carrying trash toward the South, adding to a bizarre psychological warfare campaign amid growing tensions between the war-divided rivals. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said Saturday that the winds could carry the balloons to regions north of the South Korean capital, Seoul. Seoul City Hall and the Gyeonggi provincial government …

WUHAN, China — Liu Yi is among China’s 7 million ride-hailing drivers. A 36-year-old Wuhan resident, he started driving part-time this year when construction work slowed in the face of a nationwide glut of unsold apartments. Now he predicts another crisis as he stands next to his car watching neighbors order driverless taxis. “Everyone will go hungry,” he said of Wuhan drivers competing against robotaxis from …

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — An Israeli airstrike hit a school-turned-shelter in Gaza City early Saturday, killing more than 60 people, Palestinian health authorities said, in one of the deadliest strikes in the 10-month-old war between Israel and Hamas. The Israeli military acknowledged the strike, claiming without evidence that it hit a Hamas command center within the school. The strike on the Tabeen school in central …

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea will not seek outside help to recover from floods that devastated areas near the country’s border with China, leader Kim Jong Un said as he ordered officials to bring thousands of displaced residents to the capital to provide them better care. Kim said it would take about two to three months to rebuild homes and stabilize the areas affected by …

Washington — The Philippines and Vietnamese coast guards conducted their first joint drills Friday in firefighting, rescue, and medical response in Manila Bay, off the west coast of Luzon, the Philippines’ main island, leading into the South China Sea. This exercise represents the first such joint activity between the coast guards of the two countries amid ongoing territorial disputes with each other and, more significantly with …

Paris — Jailed Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi and other female inmates were hurt in clashes that erupted at Tehran’s Evin prison following a spate of executions, her family said, raising new concerns for her health. Iranian authorities acknowledged a confrontation had taken place Tuesday but blamed Mohammadi for a “provocation” and denied any of the prisoners had been beaten. Human rights activist Mohammadi, …

Geneva — The U.N. human rights office is expressing concerns about reports that Iran has executed 29 people over two days this week, with the rights chief decrying “an alarmingly high number” of executions in such a short period of time. The office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights said Friday it has verified 38 people were executed in July, bringing the total number …

Bangkok — Armed groups in Myanmar fighting the country’s military regime are making major, even “historic,” gains in the northeast since the breakdown of a cease-fire in June, experts tell VOA, setting up a possible push toward Mandalay, the country’s second-largest city. The centerpiece of the groups’ recent string of wins was the taking last weekend of Lashio, the headquarters of the Myanmar military’s northeast regional …

Sydney — Australia Friday called a new nuclear technology agreement with the United States and Britain a “very significant step down the … path” toward a nuclear-powered fleet of submarines. Australia struck the deal Monday, aimed at allowing transfer of nuclear equipment and technology for the country’s proposed fleet. It is the latest advance in the 2021 AUKUS security pact linking the three countries. The agreement, …

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Israeli troops launched a new assault Friday into the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, targeting Hamas fighters who the military claims still operate there despite repeated offensives, as American, Qatari and Egyptian mediators renewed their push for Israel and Hamas to reach a cease-fire deal. Israeli evacuation orders triggered yet another exodus of Palestinians from the heavily destroyed eastern districts …

TOKYO — Nagasaki marked the 79th anniversary of its atomic bombing at the end of World War II at a ceremony Friday eclipsed by the absence of the American ambassador and other Western envoys in response to the Japanese city’s refusal to invite Israel. Mayor Shiro Suzuki, in a speech at Nagasaki Peace Park, called for nuclear weapon states and those under their nuclear umbrellas, including …

miami — A U.S. federal grand jury on Thursday indicted the former chairman of the Philippines election commission for allegedly taking bribes from a company that provided voting machines for the country’s 2016 elections. Andres “Andy” Bautista, 60, faces one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering and three counts of international laundering of monetary instruments, the Justice Department said in a statement. Three executives of …

NEW YORK — Iran is ramping up online activity that appears intended to influence the upcoming U.S. election, in one case targeting a presidential campaign with an email phishing attack, Microsoft said Friday. Iranian actors also have spent recent months creating fake news sites and impersonating activists, laying the groundwork to stoke division and potentially sway American voters this fall, especially in swing states, the technology …

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Two suspected attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels targeted a ship in the strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait that links the Gulf of Aden to the Red Sea, authorities said Friday. The Houthis did not immediately claim the assaults, though they follow a monthslong campaign by the rebels targeting shipping through the Red Sea corridor over Israel’s war on Hamas in the Gaza …

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washington — Germany’s entry into the U.S.-led U.N. Command, which expanded the multinational body tasked with defending South Korea against North Korea, reflects growing fears in Europe and the U.S. that multiple wars that could break out simultaneously across the globe, said analysts. North Korea this week denounced Germany’s membership in the U.N. Command (UNC), calling the expansion an attempt by the U.S. to create an …

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Israelis see even less hope for a cease-fire agreement after the appointment of Yahya Sinwar as the leader of Hamas, saying Sinwar is even more of an extremist than his predecessor. Linda Gradstein reports for VOA from Jerusalem. …

Geneva — The United Nations on Thursday said the dissolution of Thailand’s main opposition Move Forward Party was “deeply troubling” and seriously affects fundamental freedoms. The Constitutional Court, Thailand’s top court, voted unanimously on Wednesday to dissolve the MFP, the vanguard of the country’s youthful pro-democracy movement, and ban its executive board members from politics for 10 years. “This decision seriously impacts fundamental freedoms of expression …

Taipei, Taiwan — China has been intensifying pressure on some prominent dissidents in recent weeks, as local prosecutors decide whether to impose jail sentences on human rights lawyer Lu Siwei, and police repeatedly threaten to arrest citizen journalist Zhang Zhan again. Some human rights advocates say the renewed threats against Lu and Zhang are part of a broader campaign by the government to intensify crackdowns on …

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Seoul — A North Korean has defected to the South across a de facto maritime border in the Yellow Sea, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported Thursday. Tens of thousands of North Koreans have fled to South Korea since the peninsula was divided by war in the 1950s. The latest defection comes as relations between the two Koreas are at one of their lowest points in …

PARIS — Iran on Wednesday hanged at least 29 convicts in a single day, including 26 in a group execution in one prison, a rights group said, a day after facing international condemnation for executing a man in connection with 2022 protests. Norway-based Iran Human Rights said 26 men were executed in Ghezelhesar Prison in Karaj outside Tehran, while three other men were executed in Karaj’s …