WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Just when it looks like North Korean leader Kim Jong Un may restart his ballistic missile testing programme, U.S. President Donald Trump has proposed trimming the missile defence budget, as one set of deterrents is delayed by two years. The U.S. Missile Defense Agency – charged with developing, testing and fielding a

SAO PAULO (Reuters) – The town of Mangaratiba, in Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro state, fined miner Vale SA and closed its iron ore port terminal on Monday, citing pollution problems and the alleged lack of an operating license. The city’s environment department fined Vale for 30 million reais (£5.9 million) and closed the Ilha da

(Reuters) – Democratic lawmakers, states and others mulling legal challenges to President Donald Trump’s national emergency declaration to obtain funds to build a U.S.-Mexico border wall face an uphill and probably losing battle in a showdown likely to be decided by the conservative-majority Supreme Court, legal experts said. After being rebuffed by the U.S. Congress

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Democratic chairman of the U.S. House Intelligence Committee said on Sunday he was concerned that Special Counsel Robert Mueller may not be investigating President Donald Trump’s ties to Deutsche Bank AG . U.S. Representative Adam Schiff announced last week a wide investigation into attempts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general, William Barr, told U.S. lawmakers in comments released on Monday that while he has never spoken about the substance of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation with Trump, he has discussed it in broad terms with Vice President Mike Pence. In written answers to questions

BRUMADINHO, Brazil (Reuters) – Grief over the hundreds of Brazilians feared lost in a mining disaster on Friday has quickly hardened into anger as victims’ families and politicians say iron ore miner Vale SA and regulators have learned nothing from the recent past. By Sunday night, firefighters in the state of Minas Gerais had confirmed

BRUMADINHO, Brazil (Reuters) – Firefighters on Sunday called for the evacuation of some 24,000 people from the Brazilian town hit by a deadly mudslide from a ruptured mining dam as rains added to concerns a second dam could collapse. Sirens began blaring before dawn, triggered by dangerous water levels at a tailings dam still standing

TOKYO (Reuters) – Carlos Ghosn’s latest request for bail was rejected by a Tokyo court on Tuesday, despite the ousted Nissan chairman offering to wear an electronic ankle tag in an unusual bid to win release after two months of detention for alleged financial crimes. The ruling, widely anticipated, raises the likelihood that the 64-year-old

MUNICH (Reuters) – Facebook has launched German initiatives to defend election integrity and examine the ethics of artificial intelligence (AI), its operations chief said on Sunday, seeking to convince sceptics it is serious about privacy and democracy. The world’s largest social network had a tough 2018 as it was buffeted by revelations that UK consultancy

TAIPEI/SHANGHAI (Reuters) – One of China’s top government-linked think tanks has called out Apple Inc , Amazon.com Inc and other foreign companies for not referring to Hong Kong and Taiwan as part of China in a report that provoked a stern reaction from Taipei. The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) said in a report

JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesia has found the cockpit voice recorder from a Lion Air plane more than two months after the Boeing Co 737 MAX jet crashed into the sea near Jakarta, killing all 189 people on board, search officials said on Monday. Naval Lieutenant Colonel Agung Nugroho told Reuters a weak signal from the

WARSAW (Reuters) – The European Union and NATO should work on a joint position on whether to exclude Chinese telecommunications equipment maker Huawei from their markets, Poland’s internal affairs minister, Joachim Brudzinski, said on Saturday. Poland has arrested a Chinese employee of Huawei and a former Polish security official on spying allegations, officials and sources

GUADALAJARA, Mexico (Reuters) – An offensive by Mexico’s new government against fuel theft at one of the country’s main refineries has led to days of shortages at gas stations in several central states, as authorities move more fuel by tankers and less by vulnerable pipelines. A Reuters witness said many gas stations in the city

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House chief of staff said on Sunday that the U.S. federal government shutdown, now entering its third week, could “drag on a lot longer”. But Mick Mulvaney also raised the possibility of changing the construction materials used to build a barrier on the border with Mexico in order to reach

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Harold Brown, an advocate of nuclear arms control who as President Jimmy Carter’s defence secretary tried but failed to win U.S. Senate approval of a key treaty with the Soviet Union, has died at age 91, the think tank where he worked said. Brown, a native New Yorker, was the first scientist

CARACAS (Reuters) – The newly elected chief of Venezuela’s opposition-run Congress on Saturday said President Nicolas Maduro will be “usurping the presidency” when he swears in for a second term on Jan. 10 after winning a much criticized and broadly boycotted 2018 election. Legislator Juan Guaido of the hard-line opposition party Popular Will, who was

PARIS (Reuters) – French ‘yellow vest’ protesters marched through Paris and other cities on Saturday to highlight their struggle to make ends meet, a day after President Emmanuel Macron’s government hardened its stance against them. Two months after they started blocking roads, occupying highway toll-booths and staging sometimes-violent street demonstrations in Paris, the yellow vests

BANGKOK (Reuters) – Thailand resumed flights on Saturday to its southern provinces, as the first tropical storm in 30 years slowed and headed into the Andaman Sea, leaving behind a trail of homes damaged by fallen trees or blown-off roofs, and disrupted power networks. Before tropical storm Pabuk hit land in Nakhon Si Thammarat on

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday a New York Times report that he was considering former Democratic Senator Jim Webb to be his next defence secretary was “fake news.” The Times, citing an unnamed official, said on Thursday that Vice President Mike Pence and acting White House Chief of Staff Mick

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – A doctors’ strike in Zimbabwe has not been called off, a representative said on Friday, after state media said the action had ended following a meeting between medical staff and first lady Auxilla Mnangagwa. The nationwide strike, now into its second month, is to demand better pay and conditions in a country

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – As a partial U.S. government shutdown hit the two-week mark, President Donald Trump and congressional leaders were scheduled on Friday to discuss ways to break an impasse pitting his demand for building a border wall against Democrats’ call for alternative security measures. About 800,000 federal workers have been affected by the Dec.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democratic U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, who is eyeing a presidential run, blasted former Senator Joseph Lieberman for becoming a lobbyist for ZTE Corp, a Chinese telecommunications equipment maker accused of ties to China’s government. In a tweet posted on Wednesday night, Warren said Lieberman had “joined” lobbyists for ZTE, which she wrote

DUBAI (Reuters) – Saudi Arabian prosecutors will seek the death penalty for five of the 11 suspects detained over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi state news agency SPA reported on Thursday, as a Saudi court held a first hearing on the case. Saudi Arabia said it also sent new letters to the

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – In their first action in control of the U.S. House of Representatives, Democrats plan to adopt a bill on Thursday to end a federal shutdown without funding a Mexican border wall, trying to firmly fasten blame for the 13-day-old closure on President Donald Trump and his Republicans. Passage of the bill by

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump has asked congressional leaders to return to the White House on Friday for talks aimed at ending a partial government shutdown over a dispute on border security funding, House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy said on Wednesday. Speaking after a meeting of congressional leaders with Trump at the White House,