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“This is Orwellian nonsense and part of a growing trend by the Chinese Communist Party to impose its political views on American citizens and private companies,” the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said in a statement . “China’s efforts to export its censorship and political correctness to Americans and the rest of the free world will be resisted,” she said. Mr. Geng did not mention Ms. Sanders’s swipe about “Orwellian nonsense,” nor did he say how China would enforce its wishes on the websites and the promotional materials of foreign companies. But he said these companies should follow official Chinese orders. After President Trump took office, he tried to foster a cordial relationship with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping , and Mr. Trump says he and Mr. Xi are friends. But ties between China and the United States have become increasingly strained over Mr. Trump’s complaints that trade and investment flows and rules are significantly skewed in China’s fav

(Reuters) – Japan’s Taro Daniel grabbed his first ATP title after beating Tunisian Malek Jaziri 7-6(4) 6-4 in the Istanbul Open final on Sunday. Daniel, who entered the tournament ranked 114th, and Jaziri, ranked 78th, were both competing in their first ATP final. Jaziri, who beat world number four Marin Cilic en route to the final, started strongly and served for the first set with the score at 5-4 but failed as his 25-year-old opponent stepped up to level the scores, eventually force a tiebreak and win the set. The situation was reversed in the second set as Daniel charged to a 5-4 lead and failed to capitalize on three match points before finally converting the fourth. “Obviously really happy. I think today was a great match, a lot of long rallies from the beginning until the end,” Daniel said after lifting the trophy. “Very happy. I’m obviously pretty surprised that I suddenly won an ATP (title). But I guess things like this happen.” Daniel is expected to reach a career-hig

HAVANA (Reuters) – A group of Cuban artists launched an alternative arts festival this weekend in Havana in response to the Communist government saying it was postponing the official biennial by a year to prioritize funding on rebuilding after Hurricane Irma. The artists had been indignant at the delay of the state-run arts extravaganza, which typically takes over Havana for a month and allows them to showcase their art to international collectors, galleries and curators. They said they felt the decision to postpone it to 2019 had to do with the political transition this year and a fear of anything that could cause instability. Cuba named a new president last month, Miguel Diaz-Canel, to replace Raul Castro. While the “00Biennial” which runs for 10 days until May 15 does not have the scope of the official one, it is offering an unusual independent platform for artists in a country where the state dominates all aspects of society. The government has criticized it as a “provocative

ABUJA (Reuters) – At least 45 people died in an attack on a village in northern Nigeria, a police official told Reuters on Sunday, the latest in a string of incidents underscoring insecurity in parts of the country. President Muhammadu Buhari won Nigeria’s 2015 elections partly on promises to bring security to Africa’s largest economy and most populous nation, but has struggled to fulfill those pledges. He is now seeking a second term in February 2019. His critics and opponents question his track record tackling the multitude of conflicts that plague Nigeria, from Boko Haram and a thriving Islamic State West Africa insurgency in the northeast, to clashes between farmers and herders in the hinterlands that have left hundreds dead. It was not immediately clear why the Gwaska village in the northern state of Kaduna was attacked on Saturday. “Yesterday we recovered 12 corpses and today we retrieved 33,” Austin Iwar, Kaduna’s commissioner of police, told Reuters by phone. The village

The scandal is threatening to become one of the biggest credibility tests of the European institution; concerns over how Azerbaijan was using its membership have been rife for years. In 2012, a Berlin-based think tank called the European Stability Initiative investigated how officials and lobbyists linked to the Azerbaijani government had illicitly influenced the assembly’s policies. It produced a report titled “Caviar Diplomacy: How Azerbaijan Silenced the Council of Europe.” The Council of Europe was created after World War II to help protect human rights and the rule of law across Europe. It has 47 member states and predates the 28-nation European Union. The council’s assembly is made up of lawmakers from the members’ national parliaments. Azerbaijan joined the council in 2001. The 324 members of the assembly cannot vote on binding laws, but recommend that countries make democratic reforms and defend human rights. While the institution has a low profile, it has been credited w

CAIRO (Reuters) – A military chariot that belonged to ancient Egypt’s boy-king, Tutankhamen, has been moved to a new museum near the Pyramids that Cairo hopes will help bring tourists back to the country. The chariot, made from Lebanese cedar wood and animal skin, had been on display at Egypt’s Military Museum in Cairo since 1987. But antiquities authorities have decided to put all artefacts found in the young king’s tomb in Luxor in 1922 on display together at Cairo’s Grand Egyptian Museum. “The military chariot that arrived today from the military museum is King Tutankhamen’s sixth chariot,” said museum director Tarek Sayed Tawfik. He said six chariots were found at Tutankhamen’s tomb, some for ceremonies, some for hunting and one lighter and faster than the rest for war. This had been kept at the Military Museum. “For the first time, inside the Grand Egyptian Museum, these chariots will be displayed together,” Tawfik said. King Tut ruled Egypt as pharaoh for 10 years until hi

PARIS (Reuters) – A Paris museum opened its doors for the first time to nudist visitors on Saturday, granting them special visiting hours to tour an exhibit in a one-off naturist event. The Palais de Tokyo contemporary art museum, in Paris’ plush 16th district, is the city’s first gallery to grant such access, though naturists have recently launched other initiatives in the French capital. A park in the east of Paris, the Bois de Vincennes, last year trialled the city’s first dedicated nudist zone, and the space recently re-opened ahead of the summer months. Naturist campaigners said the museum event, with around 160 attendees, was a breakthrough in one of the culture capitals of the world. “The naturists’ way of life of is to be naked. Culture is part of our daily life, and this is a special opportunity,” said Julien Claude-Penegry, communications director of the Paris Naturists Association, in the Palais de Tokyo’s vast concrete and steel hallways. “Today, the mentality is cha

SEOUL (Reuters) – Park Sang-hyun won the Asian Tour’s Maekyung Open for the second time after nailing a clutch putt for par at the third playoff hole to edge fellow South Korean Chang Yik-eun in Seongnam on Sunday. The 35-year-old watched Chang slide his par putt past the hole on the 18th green then drained his own from three feet to add a second title to the one he won, also in a playoff, at the Namseoul Country Club in 2016. Hwang Jung-gon had earlier blown a two shot lead with a double bogey on the final hole of his fourth round to drop to one-under-par 283 for the tournament and into a four-way playoff with Park, Chang and India’s Gaganjeet Bhullar. Bhullar fell out with a bogey at the first playoff hole after an errant drive and a poor putt saw Hwang eliminated on the second to leave Park and Chang to duel it out on a third trip down the 18th fairway. World number 141 Hwang had appeared to have the trophy in his grasp when he approached the 18th tee for the first time having

(Reuters) – Food delivery company GrubHub Inc ( GRUB.N ) may be one of the first tech firms to feel the impact of a ruling this week from California’s highest court that makes it easier for workers to prove they are a company’s employees and entitled to costly legal protections. Late on Friday, lawyers for a former GrubHub delivery worker asked a U.S. appeals court in San Francisco to send his closely watched case against the company back to a judge who had previously dismissed it. In light of the California Supreme Court’s decision, the lawyers said, the judge should reconsider Raef Lawson’s claims that he was an employee entitled to overtime pay and reimbursement for expenses. Gig economy companies such as GrubHub, Uber Technologies Inc [UBER.UL] and TaskRabbit Inc rely heavily on the use of independent contractors to contain costs. The California court’s ruling on Monday could push some companies to rein in their use of contractors, according to several employment lawyers. Comp

For nearly two weeks after they settled in Nangarhar, Bilal’s father, Jamshed, would try to find work. But each day, he would return with nothing except new debt. One day, Jamshed broke down. “All these debts — they need repaying. And when I see you worried like that, I don’t like it,” Mr. Shah recalled Jamshed telling him. “Father, will you give me permission?” Like that, Jamshed joined the army and was sent to the restive south. A war that takes about 50 lives from all sides every day requires new blood. For Bilal, the new life wasn’t easy. His grandmother died of diabetes there. He didn’t have many friends to play with. His three sisters are young, one of them, Lalmina, disabled by what the family says could be polio. “I was scared here. My friends were not here, they were left there,” Bilal said. “I got sick; my eyes hurt and I had fever. The doctor gave me pills.” Continue reading the main story But Bilal had Toti. All day, the bird would be on his shoulder as they both

KABUL (Reuters) – Afghan forces backed by air strikes have retaken a district in the northern province of Badakhshan that was seized last week by Taliban insurgents, officials said, as fighting continued across Afghanistan. Provincial police spokesman Sanaullah Rohani said Kohistan district, which fell to the insurgents on Thursday, was retaken by army and police forces backed by air support on Saturday. Taliban fighters were also pushed back in Teshkan district, where they had taken a number of checkpoints. “The Taliban suffered heavy casualties, but there is no updated information on the exact number as the area is remote and the telecommunication system weak,” he said. With the Taliban’s annual spring offensive well under way, there was violence in several parts of the country. Late on Saturday, a district governor in Paktia province, on the border with Pakistan, was among five people wounded in a car bomb explosion, Abdullah Hasrat, spokesman for the Paktia provincial governo

The bodies the trash collectors retrieve also end up at a municipal dump, but they are buried in unmarked mass pits around the edges. If they do find a body that they think belongs to a civilian rather than an Islamic State fighter, they will hand it over to the morgue. Continue reading the main story I followed a team of state workers through the most devastated part of the Old City, where the militants made their last stand, and watched as they searched the rubble for any signs of bodies. Often local residents guided them toward the stench, complaining that they hadn’t been able to return home because of the smell. The Maydan district where the militants were cornered and ultimately killed is now marked by a sign that says in Arabic: “Here is the graveyard of ISIS.” After more than six months of decomposition, it was very hard to tell much about the remains, particularly without any sort of forensic training or equipment. With each body, however, the workers would find a tell

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Abraxas Discala, former husband of “The Sopranos” TV star Jamie-Lynn Sigler, was found guilty on Friday of taking part in what federal prosecutors have called a $300 million stock manipulation scheme. Discala, 47, was convicted of securities fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy charges by a jury in Brooklyn federal court. Sigler was not charged in the case and has not been accused of wrongdoing. She played Tony Soprano’s daughter Meadow in “The Sopranos,” an HBO television drama that followed the fortunes of a New Jersey mafia family. Discala’s lawyer Charles Ross said he planned to file motions challenging the conviction. “We’re obviously disappointed,” he said. “We’re going to continue to fight on behalf of Mr Discala.” Kyleen Cane, a lawyer who was also charged with taking part in the scheme and went to trial alongside Discala, was found not guilty. Her lawyer, Roland Riopelle, said he was “grateful” for the verdict. Discala, who was the chief executive of O

(Reuters) – Belgian Elise Mertens extended her winning streak to 12 matches by beating Australian Ajla Tomljanovic 6-2 7-6(4) in the final of the Rabat Grand Prix in Morocco on Saturday. The 22-year-old Mertens took control of the match from the start as Tomljanovic struggled to keep up with the fierce Belgian’s creative and powerful onslaught of shots and was brushed aside in the first set. Mertens’s blazing form helped her to take a 5-3 lead in the second set before her 24-year-old opponent fought back to force a tie break. The Belgian maintained her composure to comfortably seal her third title of the year after winning the Hobart and Lugano tournaments. Tomljanovic’s cause was undone as she racked up 46 unforced errors in an effort to find the lines against the in-form Mertens. “I’m definitely not holding the trophy I wanted this week but there were a lot of little victories I’m very happy with,” the Australian said after collecting her runners-up trophy. “It was my first ti

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Nine male bodies were found in the back of a pickup truck, abandoned by the side of a road, in the violent Mexican state of Guerrero, the state attorney general’s office said in a statement on Saturday. State prosecutors were investigating the suspected murders, the statement said. It added that the bodies, discovered around 9 a.m. on Saturday on a road near the town of Tixtla, appeared to be those of a group that had been missing from near Tixtla since Thursday. More than 200,000 people have been murdered in Mexico since 2007, when the country’s militarized drug war began. One of the top suppliers of heroin to the United States, Guerrero, in southwestern Mexico, has become one of the country’s most violent states, as drug gangs battle for control of the trade. Reporting by Lizbeth Diaz; editing by Jonathan Oatis The post Nine male bodies discovered in violent southwestern Mexican state appeared first on World The News . from World The News https:

The authorities said at least two of the 15 in custody were village leaders accused of tampering with evidence and meting out their own fines and punishments instead of reporting the crime to the police. “I think it is a degradation in society as a whole for people to take the law into their own hands,” said Jitendra Kumar Singh, the deputy commissioner of police in Chatra. Mr. Bhuiyan, who initially escaped through a window after he killed the girl, was captured on Saturday, Mr. Singh said. Last month, the killing of an 8-year-old girl from a nomadic community in northern India ignited protests across the country and provoked political fallout for the government , including the resignation of two high-level officials from the governing party. Critics said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and members of his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party failed to speak out forcefully against the crime. The girl, who was Muslim, was gang raped and murdered by a group of Hindu men in J

The Abitur exams were created from a national pool of questions and distributed by the education ministry in Baden-Württemberg. The exam is Germany’s equivalent to the United Kingdom’s A-levels or France’s baccalaureate — the final hurdle for students leaving secondary school for university, a series of written and oral tests worth roughly one-third of their school-leaving grade. The resulting grades are used for a system known as “ numerus clausus ” that rations admission to popular university programs. Those who wish to study a high-demand subject like medicine but fail to meet a required minimum score may be required to wait up to seven years for a place. “The Abitur grades are the single most important selecting factor for getting into university,” said Rainer Bölling, an education expert who wrote a book on the history of the Abitur. Mr. Bölling suggested that the test, which holds an important place in German culture, was becoming easier, as a bigger proportion of young peop

RIYADH (Reuters) – A Saudi body seems to have backtracked on a new initiative calling to end prayer-time store closures and gender segregation in public places – potentially divisive reforms for the deeply conservative kingdom. Arabic-language newspaper Okaz reported that the Quality of Life program to improve life in Saudi Arabia had cited both practices as requiring “immediate change” in order to increase the public’s participation in its activities and boost investor confidence. The article, published on Friday, was later removed. Reuters saw a copy of the document it cited, but a different version posted on an official website did not mention gender segregation or store closures among needed reforms. No timeframe was specified. Loai Bafaqeeh, chief executive of the Quality of Life program, refused to comment on the apparent discrepancy. “We are looking into all things that relate to the citizen and resident, including things that involve improving the quality of life, such as

KABUL (Reuters) – At least 31 Taliban militants were killed by Afghan security forces backed by U.S. air strikes in Afghanistan’s central Ghazni province, as the Afghan army battled to protect a key highway, officials said on Saturday. Mohammad Arif Noori, the spokesman for the provincial governor, said the militants were planning to wrest control of an arterial road and had attacked many security check posts. “With the help of U.S. air forces, the Taliban militants have been pushed back from the areas near Ghazni-Paktika highway, but the road is still closed due to serious damages caused by the Taliban,” said Noori. During clashes on Friday, two civilians were killed and four were injured when a mortar shell hit a home in the Andar district. Andar is one of the unstable districts of Ghazni province, 95 miles (153 km) southwest of the capital, Kabul. In a separate incident, two militants were killed when explosives went off on a highway in Ghazni. The Taliban confirmed the clash

“When institutions fail, that means that gradually we will lose trust, and that means that we lose confidence in our society,” he said. “When we realized that the Swedish Academy, that the institution doesn’t work, it hurts our self perception.” The resignations have left the academy with only 10 active members. Academy appointments are for life, and until this week, the organization’s rules did not provide for resignations; members who quit were treated as merely inactive, but could not be replaced. On Wednesday, King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, the academy’s patron, who said he had followed the matter “with great concern,” announced that he had changed the rules to allow resignations, and to allow the panel to replace any member who had been inactive for two years. It was a rare intervention by the monarch, whose role is mostly ceremonial. The academy has promised increased transparency and “more and better dialogue” both internally, and with the monarchy and the Nobel Foundati

Here are the highlights of the demands: China must … ■ Cut its trade surplus by $100 billion in the 12 months starting in June, and by another $100 billion in the following 12 months. ■ Halt all subsidies to advanced manufacturing industries in its so-called Made In China 2025 program. The program covers 10 sectors, including aircraft manufacturing, electric cars, robotics, computer microchips and artificial intelligence. ■ Accept that the United States may restrict imports from the industries under Made in China 2025. ■ Take “immediate, verifiable steps” to halt cyberespionage into commercial networks in the United States. ■ Strengthen intellectual property protections. ■ Accept United States restrictions on Chinese investments in sensitive technologies without retaliating. ■ Cut its tariffs, which currently average 10 percent, to the same level as in the United States, where they average 3.5 percent for all “noncritical sectors.” ■ Open up its services and agricultural se

Nickolay E. Mladenov , the United Nations special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, said such statements were “unacceptable, deeply disturbing and do not serve the interests of the Palestinian people or peace in the Middle East,” and he accused Mr. Abbas of perpetuating the conspiracy theories that fuel anti-Semitism. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel called Mr. Abbas a “Holocaust denier,” and the speech prompted some liberal Israelis to rule Mr. Abbas out as a partner for peace. “No Israeli prime minister can negotiate with someone who holds views like Abu Mazen,” Shlomo Avineri, a professor emeritus of political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said after the speech, referring to Mr. Abbas by his nickname. Gilad Erdan, the country’s public security minister, said on Twitter that the “apology” — he put the word in quote marks, as if to mock Mr. Abbas’ sincerity — revealed distorted thinking and political opportunism. “He should start by makin

Known as the Great Return March, the protests began on March 30 as a campaign against the blockade of the isolated and impoverished coastal enclave and to press the Palestinian demand to return to lands in what is now Israel. A popular initiative adopted by Hamas, the Islamic militant group that controls the territory, the campaign is expected to peak on May 15, when the Palestinians commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Nakba, or “catastrophe,” referring to the 1948 war over Israel’s founding, during which hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes. The Israeli military says it is acting within international law to protect its borders and nearby civilian communities from a potential mass breach of the fence and from terrorist attacks planned under the cover of the popular protests. The fifth Friday of protest, on April 27, was the most concerted attempt to breach the fence so far . Hundreds of Palestinians, urged on by a Hamas leader in a fiery

In November, the newspaper Dagens Nyheter reported that he had groped, harassed or assaulted at least 18 women over the years. Accusers said that Mr. Arnault used his sway in the arts world, including his connections to the academy, to pressure young women into sex, and that some of his offenses took place at academy-owned properties in Stockholm and Paris. One woman, the artist Anna-Karin Bylund, says she complained about to the academy in 1996 that Mr. Arnault had assaulted her, only to be rebuffed. Another woman, the novelist Gabriella Hakansson, says Mr. Arnault assaulted her in 2007. Just this week, it was reported that Mr. Arnault had groped Crown Princess Victoria, heir to Sweden’s throne. The police have opened an investigation; through his lawyer, Mr. Arnault has denied any wrongdoing. Sara Danius, the first woman to be chosen as the academy’s permanent secretary (essentially, its chief administrator), severed the group’s ties with Mr. Arnault and Forum, and commission