Montenegrin authorities on Monday announced the deportation of the business partner of cryptocurrency entrepreneur Do Kwon, after the pair were arrested at an airport in the Balkan country last year carrying fake passports. Police have not officially released the South Korean's name, only referring to him by his initials J.C.H., and saying he had been handed back to officials in his home country. "J.C.H. was handed over to the competent judicial and police authorities in South Korea to

　China’s population fell for a second consecutive year in 2023, as a record low birth rate and a wave of COVID-19 deaths when strict lockdowns ended accelerated a downturn that will have profound long-term effects on the economy’s growth potential. 　The National Bureau of Statistics said the total number of people in China dropped by 2.08 million, or 0.15 percent, to 1.41 billion in 2023. That was well above the population decline of 850,000 in 2022, which had been the first since

Joe Biden easily won South Carolina’s Democratic primary on Saturday, clinching a state he pushed to lead off his party’s nominating process after it revived his then-struggling White House bid four years ago. Biden on Saturday defeated the other long-shot Democrats on South Carolina’s ballot, including Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips and author Marianne Williamson. His reelection campaign invested heavily in driving up turnout in what it saw as a test drive of its efforts to mobi

Russia has refused Ukrainian requests to hand over the bodies of scores of prisoners of war whom the Kremlin claims were killed in the downing of a Russian military transport plane by Kyiv's forces, a Ukrainian intelligence official said. Andrii Yusov, the spokesperson for Ukraine's military intelligence, in televised remarks late Thursday reaffirmed Kyiv's call for an international probe into the Jan. 24 crash inside Russia that would determine whether the Il-76 transport carried

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Friday at least 27,131 people have been killed in the territory during the war between Palestinian militants and Israel. The latest toll includes 112 deaths over the past 24 hours, a ministry statement said, while another 66,287 people have been wounded in Gaza since the war began on October 7. (AFP)

French farmers were gradually lifting their roadblocks around Paris and elsewhere in the country on Friday, a day after the French government offered over 400 million euros ($436 million) in various measures meant to answer their grievances over low earnings, heavy regulation and unfair competition from abroad. On major highways around the French capital, protesters took down tents, cleaned up the road and set fire to straw bales that they were using as barricades. Convoys of tractors were leavi

After a US senator grilled Singaporean TikTok CEO about his nationality and affiliation with the Chinese Communist Party, Singaporeans are complaining about ignorant — or even racist — views of their country. TikTok CEO Shou Chew, along with executives from technology firms such as Meta, X and Snap, testified before US lawmakers on the online harms of social media to children on Wednesday. During the hearing, Chew was repeatedly questioned about his nationality and possible affiliati

Sexual predators. Addictive features. Suicide and eating disorders. Unrealistic beauty standards. Bullying. These are just some of the issues young people are dealing with on social media — and children’s advocates and lawmakers say companies are not doing enough to protect them. On Wednesday, the CEOs of Meta, TikTok, X and other social media companies went before the US Senate Judiciary Committee to testify as lawmakers and parents grow increasingly concerned about the effects of s

The US Federal Reserve held its benchmark lending rate steady for a fourth consecutive time during a monetary policy meeting on Wednesday, amid expectations that it would start lowering rates later this year. After the two-day Federal Open Market Committee meeting, the central bank announced its decision to keep the rate between 5.25 and 5.50 percent, as Fed Chair Jerome Powell said that a rate cut in March is "probably not the most likely case." The bank has maintained the rate at the

HONG KONG — Nicole Kidman's latest project is set in Hong Kong, but people who live there are blocked from seeing it, prompting speculation about censorship in a city where civil liberties are shrinking fast . The first two episodes of “Expats,” a six-episode drama about expat women, were released on Amazon Prime on Jan. 26. But when viewers in Hong Kong try to watch it, they instead get a message saying that “this video is currently unavailable to watch in your loca

LONDON — Elon Musk's social media platform X has restored searches for Taylor Swift after temporarily blocking users from seeing some results as pornographic deepfake images of the singer circulated online. Searches for the singer's name on the site Tuesday turned up a list of tweets as normal. A day earlier, the same search resulted in an error message and a prompt for users to retry their search, which added, “Don’t fret — it’s not your fault.” U

　Former US President Donald Trump easily won New Hampshire’s primary over former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, seizing the lead in the race for the Republican nomination. He also made a November rematch against President Joe Biden feel nearly inevitable. 　Out of the Republican candidates, Florida Gov. Ron Desantis suspended his campaign before the New Hampshire primary. Poor finishes in Iowa’s leadoff caucuses also ended the White House bids of biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy an

As Hungary continues to oppose a $54 billion support package for Ukraine, other EU leaders are losing patience

LONDON -- Six European countries paused funding for the UN refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) on Saturday, following allegations that some of its staff were involved in the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel. Britain, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Finland on Saturday joined the United States, Australia and Canada in pausing funding to the aid agency, a critical source of support for people in Gaza, after the allegations by Israel. "Palestinians in Gaza did not need this

Donald Trump on Saturday underlined his opposition to a bipartisan immigration plan that President Joe Biden has promised to use to "shut down" the border with Mexico if it becomes overwhelmed, while at the same time criticizing the Democrat for "open borders." With immigration one of the hottest electoral issues in what increasingly looks like a Trump-Biden rematch for the White House this year, the fate of the bill being negotiated by the Senate has become a high-stakes bat