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Argentina’s biggest trade unions mounted one of their fiercest challenges to the libertarian government of President Javier Milei, staging a mass general strike on Thursday that led to the cancellation of hundreds of flights and halted key bus, rail and subway lines.

Main avenues and streets, as well as major transportation terminals were left eerily empty. Most teachers couldn’t make it to school and parents kept their children at home. Trash collectors walked off the job — as did health workers, except for those in emergency rooms.

ARGENTINA'S NEWLY ELECTED PRESIDENT, LIBERTARIAN JAVIER MILEI, SWORN INTO OFFICE

The 24-hour strike against Milei’s painful austerity measures and contentious deregulation push threatened to bring the nation of 46 million to a standstill as banks, businesses and state agencies also closed in protest.

Thursday’s action marked the second nationwide union strike since Milei came to power last December, slashing spending, laying off government workers, and freezing all public works projects in a bid to rescue Argentina from its worst financial crisis in two decades.

He has also devalued the local currency, stabilizing the peso but also causing prices to soar. Argentina’s annual inflation rate now nears 300% — considered the highest in the world, outpacing even crisis-stricken Lebanon.

The government said transport service disruptions would prevent some 6.6 million people from making it to work. During the morning rush-hour on Thursday, few cars could be seen on streets typically snarled with traffic. Garbage was already piling up on deserted sidewalks.

Milei posted a photo on Instagram holding up a soccer jersey emblazoned with the words "I DON’T STOP."

The country’s largest union, known by its acronym CGT, said it was staging the strike alongside other labor syndicates "in defense of democracy, labor rights and a living wage."

Argentina’s powerful unions — backed by Argentina’s left-leaning Peronist parties that have dominated national politics for decades — have led the pushback to Milei’s policies on the streets and in the courts in recent months.

"We are facing a government that promotes the elimination of labor and social rights," the unions said, seeking to portray Thursday’s strike as an eruption of public outrage over Milei’s free-market policies that have disproportionately affected poor and middle classes.

The government downplayed the disruption as a cynical ploy by its left-wing political opponents.

"They want to keep Argentina on a path of servitude," said presidential spokesperson Manual Adorni of the union leaders, accusing them of "extorting Argentines to try to return to power."

Union leaders said they had no choice but to escalate their actions after Argentina’s lower house approved Milei’s state overhaul bill and tax packages last week.

Even as lawmakers scrapped the bill's most controversial articles, unions remain vehemently opposed to parts of the package that relax labor market regulations and grant Milei power to restructure and privatize public agencies. The bill is now being debated in the opposition-dominated Senate.

Rubén Sobrero, general-secretary of the Railway Union, said the unions were prepared to extend the strike if negotiations did not yield results. "If there is no response within these 24 hours, we'll do another 36," he said.

For months, most recently Monday and Tuesday this week, raucous demonstrations by leftist parties gripped Buenos Aires, the country’s capital — in sharp contrast to the silence prevailing on the streets Thursday.

Argentina’s main international airport warned travelers to check in with their airlines as flight boards in terminals displayed a stream of yellow cancellation notices. The country’s flagship carrier, Aerolíneas Argentinas, announced it had canceled nearly 200 domestic and regional flights and rescheduled over a dozen international flights, affecting 24,000 passengers and costing the airline $2 million.

Only one bus company said it would continue regular service on Thursday. Shortly after the strike began at midnight, police said protesters attacked two of the company’s buses in Buenos Aires, breaking windows but causing no casualties.

"We won’t let them (the unions) break everything we are achieving," conservative Security Minister Patricia Bullrich posted on social media with a photo of the shattered bus windows.

Experts say that both sides are politically motivated.

In using the strike to assail his rivals, Milei is compensating for worsening economic pressures, said Sebastián Mazzuca, a political science expert at Johns Hopkins University. In bringing the economy to a halt, unions that had their candidate defeated in the last presidential election are flexing their muscles.

"This conflict is sold to the public as a social conflict, but it's really a political conflict," Mazzuca said. "The outgoing government doesn't want to die. And the new government wants to stay in power."

Guyana’s government on Thursday said it gave permission for the U.S. military to fly two powerful F/A-18F Super Hornet jets over its capital to demonstrate the close military and other forms of cooperation between this oil-exporting South American nation and the United States.

The country had about three hours notice of the exercise through an American embassy announcement but most people appeared to have been surprised by the noisy and unprecedented fly over that comes in the midst of simmering tensions between Guyana and Venezuela over a large swath of Guyana’s territory.

VIDEO OF GUYANA’S PRESIDENT SNAPPING BACK AT BBC REPORTER’S CLIMATE QUIZ GOES VIRAL: ‘LET ME STOP YOU’

A Guyana government statement said the "exercise seeks to deepen the ongoing security cooperation between our two countries," but both sides stayed clear of any reference to moves by neighboring Venezuela to annex the oil and mineral-rich Essequibo region.

President Nicolás Maduro recently signed a law annexing the region. The U.S. has made it clear it supports Guyana in the ongoing dispute and had assisted with surveillance flights for Guyana late last year when Venezuela had threatened to invade the country.

The military exercise came just a day after U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Gen Julie Nethercot visited Guyana for talks pertaining to "deterring aggression, defeating threats and rapidly responding to crises," as the Florida-based U.S. Southern Command reiterated its unwavering support for Guyana.

Guyana is awaiting a World Court decision on Venezuela's claim to the region but Venezuela has said it does not recognize the court and will ignore its decision whenever it is handed down.

A shipment of two types of precision bombs to Israel remains in limbo after being paused by the U.S. in opposition to Israeli forces’ operation in Rafah.

The shipment contains 1,800 2,000-pound bombs, and 1,700 500-pound bombs the Biden administration has said may be used in Rafah.

Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder confirmed the shipment of bombs was paused, though the future of the shipment remains undetermined.

"We’ve not made a final determination on how to proceed with this shipment," Ryder said.

BIDEN VOWS TO WITHHOLD WEAPONS FROM ISRAEL IF NETANYAHU GOES FORWARD WITH RAFAH INVASION

A U.S. official said in a statement to Fox News Digital on Wednesday that the U.S. position has been that Israel should not launch a major ground operation in Rafah, where over a million people are currently sheltering.

"We have been engaging in a dialogue with Israel in our Strategic Consultative Group format on how they will meet the humanitarian needs of civilians in Rafah, and how to operate differently against Hamas there than they have elsewhere in Gaza," the official continued. "Those discussions are ongoing and have not fully addressed our concerns. As Israeli leaders seemed to approach a decision point on such an operation, we began to carefully review proposed transfers of particular weapons to Israel that might be used in Rafah. This began in April."

Following this review, the U.S. decided last week to pause shipment of the bombs, according to the official, who said the administration is "especially focused" on the end-use of the 2,000-pound bombs and "the impact they could have in dense urban settings as we have seen in other parts of Gaza."

MANY ISRAELIS FEEL ‘BETRAYED’ FOLLOWING BIDEN THREAT TO WITHHOLD ARMS TO DEFEAT HAMAS IN RAFAH

The official also emphasized that these shipments do not have anything to do with the Israel supplemental appropriations passed last month.

The statement from the U.S. official comes after two Israeli officials told Axios that U.S.-manufactured ammunition to Israel was paused last week for the first time since Hamas' Oct. 7 attack against the Jewish state.

On Tuesday, the Israel Defense Forces announced that it had gained operational control of the Gazan side of the Rafah Crossing after troops began a "precise counterterrorism operation" in eastern Rafah aimed at killing Hamas terrorists and dismantling "Hamas terrorist infrastructure within specific areas of eastern Rafah."

Fox News Digital's Landon Mion contributed to this report.

Chad’s military leader, Mahamat Deby Itno, was declared the winner of this week's presidential election, according to provisional results released Thursday. The results were contested by his main rival, Prime Minister Succès Masra.

The national agency that manages Chad’s election released results of Monday's vote weeks earlier than planned. The figures showed Deby Itno won with just over 61% of the vote, with the runner-up Masra falling far behind with over 18.5% of the vote. Gunfire erupted in the capital following the announcement.

Preliminary results were initially expected on May 21.

CHAD HOLDS LONG-AWAITED PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION SET TO END YEARS OF MILITARY RULE

Chad held its long delayed presidential election following three years of military rule, a vote that analysts widely expected the incumbent to win. Deby Itno, also known as Mahamat Idriss Deby, seized power after his father, who spent three decades in power, was killed fighting rebels in 2021.

The oil-exporting country of nearly 18 million people hasn’t had a free-and-fair transfer of power since it became independent in 1960 after decades of French colonial rule.

Hours ahead of Thursday’s announcement, Masra published a speech on Facebook accusing the authorities of planning to manipulate the outcome.

During the 11 minute speech, Masra appeared in a blue suit at a podium with the national flag in the background and claimed victory, saying the incumbent was planning to reverse the outcome of the vote. He called on Chad’s military, police and other security forces to stop following Deby Itno’s orders.

"These orders will lead you to side with the wrong side of Chad’s history, these orders will lead you to fight your brothers and sisters, these orders will lead you to commit the irreparable and unforgivable," he said in the speech. "Refuse to obey these unjust orders!"

There was no immediate response from the president's office.

Masra, president of The Transformers opposition party, fled Chad in October 2022. The country’s military government at the time suspended his party and six others in a clampdown on protests against Deby Itno’s decision to extend his time in power by two more years. More than 60 people were killed in the protests, which the government condemned as "an attempted coup."

An agreement between the country’s minister of reconciliation and Masra’s political party late last year allowed the exiled politician and other opposition figures to return to Chad. He was later appointed prime minister.

Chad is seen by the U.S. and France as one of the last remaining stable allies in the vast Sahel region following military coups in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger in recent years. The ruling juntas in all three nations have expelled French forces and turned to Russia’s mercenary units for security assistance instead.

About half of Zimbabwe’s population urgently needs food and water after the country’s worst drought in four decades, the U.N. humanitarian agency said Thursday as it launched an appeal for $430 million to help those most in need.

About 7.6 million of the country's 15 million people need "lifesaving and life-sustaining" humanitarian assistance, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said. But the agency is asking donors for the money to help the 3.1 million people in the most severely affected districts for the coming year, said Edward Matthew Kallon, U.N. resident humanitarian coordinator.

ZIMBABWE RELEASES OVER 4,000 PRISONERS UNDER AMNESTY TO REDUCE OVERCROWDING

A drought induced by the El Nino weather phenomenon is sweeping across much of southern Africa and has left both people and animals in desperate need of food and water. Zimbabwe, an agriculture reliant nation and one time exporter of food, is among the hardest hit by the drought.

Harvests for the staple corn for the 2023-24 season are estimated at about 700,000 tons, which is 70% down from last season. Zimbabwe requires 2.2 million tons annually to meet demand for humans and livestock, according to government crop assessment figures.

The U.N. appeal said that help will range from food assistance to cash transfers and construction of solar-powered boreholes that would provide drinking water for people and starving livestock such as cattle that are a key source of both food and labor.

El Nino, a naturally occurring climatic phenomenon that warms parts of the Pacific Ocean every two to seven years, has varied effects on the world’s weather. In southern Africa, it typically causes below-average rainfall, but this year has seen the worst drought in decades.

In southern Africa it has resulted in some of the hottest days in decades in some areas and floods in others, destroying livelihoods in a region where many people rely on farming to survive.

More than 60% of Zimbabwe’s population live in rural areas, growing the food they eat, and sometimes small surpluses that they sell meet expenses such as school fees. With relatively little participation in the cash economy, many of those won’t be able to buy food even when it’s available in markets.

"Immediate action is required to avert loss of life and livelihoods over the coming months," read part of the 45-page appeal document.

Children under the age 5 and pregnant and breastfeeding women are more vulnerable, while the risk of gender-based violence, sexual exploitation and abuse are heightening as a result of the drought, according to the appeal document.

In patriarchal Zimbabwe, children, particularly girls, are often tasked with trekking long distances to search for water, putting their safety at risk. Close to 2 million children, both boys and girls, could be forced to drop out of school due to the impact of the drought, the U.N agency said.

The drought also could exacerbate a cholera outbreak by leading to unsafe hygiene, such as lack of hand washing and and drinking from polluted wells.

A Brazilian horse nicknamed Caramelo by social media users garnered national attention after a television news helicopter filmed him stranded on a rooftop in southern Brazil, where massive floods have killed more than 100 people.

About 24 hours after he was first spotted and with people clamoring for his rescue, a team in Brazil’s Rio Grande do Sul state on Thursday successfully removed Caramelo, providing a dose of hope to a beleaguered region.

HORSE APPEARS TO GRIEVE HIS OWNER'S DEATH DURING FUNERAL PROCESSION IN BRAZIL

The brown horse had been balancing on two narrow strips of slippery asbestos for days in Canoas, a city in the Porto Alegre metropolitan area that is one of the hardest-hit areas in the state, much of which has been isolated by floodwaters.

"We found the animal in a debilitated state," Cap. Tiago Franco, a firefighter from Sao Paulo deployed to lead the rescue, was quoted as saying in a statement from that state’s security secretariat. "We tried to approach in a calm way."

Firefighters and veterinarians climbed onto the mostly submerged roof, sedated and immobilized the horse and then laid him on an inflatable raft — all 770 pounds of him. The operation involved four inflatable boats and four support vessels, with firefighters, soldiers and other volunteers.

The rescue was broadcast live on television networks that filmed from their helicopters. Social media influencer Felipe Neto sent out updates to his almost 17 million followers on X as the rescue was underway. Afterwards, he offered to adopt him.

"Caramelo, Brazil loves you!!! My God, what happiness," he wrote.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's wife, Janja, posted a video of herself sharing the good news with the Brazilian leader, whispering into his ear at an official event. He smiled, gave a thumbs up and hugged her to him. Rio Grande do Sul's Gov. Eduardo Leite also celebrated the rescue, posting on X: "All lives matter, we stand firm!"

Caramelo is recovering at a veterinary hospital affiliated with a university.

Mariângela Allgayer, a veterinarian and professor at the institution, said Thursday afternoon on social media that he remains very dehydrated.

He is about 7 years old and, based on his characteristics, was likely used as a draft animal for a cart, Bruno Schmitz, one of the veterinarians who helped rescue and evaluate Caramelo, told television network GloboNews. He’s also very gentle, Schmitz added, which greatly helped with the administration of sedatives.

"It was a very difficult operation, well beyond the standards even for specialized teams. I think they had never been through something like this before, but thank God everything went well," he said, then showed Caramelo standing up.

The stranded horse is just one of many animals rescue workers have been striving to save in recent days. Rio Grande do Sul state agents have rescued about 10,000 animals since last week, while those in municipalities and volunteers have saved thousands more, according to the state's housing secretariat.

Animal protection groups and volunteers have been sharing images of difficult rescues and heartwarming scenes of pets reuniting with their owners on social media. One video that went viral shows a man crying inside a boat, hugging his four dogs after rescuers went back to his home to save them.

Heavy rains and flooding in Rio Grande do Sul have killed at least 107 people. Another 136 are reported missing and more than 230,000 have been displaced, according to state authorities. There is no official tally for the number of animals that have been killed or are missing, but local media have estimated the number is in the thousands.

Not far from where Caramelo was rescued, pet owners in Canoas celebrated as they waited in line to get donations at a makeshift animal shelter organized by volunteers.

"So much bad news, but this rescue does give people here some more hope," said Guilherme Santos, 23, as he sought dog food for his two puppies. "If they can rescue a horse, why not all dogs that are still missing? We can definitely do this."

Carla Sassi, chairwoman of Grad, a Brazilian nonprofit that rescues animals after disasters, said she is meeting with state government officials in Canoas to discuss emergency measures to rescue pets.

Thousands of protesters gathered Thursday in the Armenian capital, Yerevan, to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan over his government's decision to hand over control of border villages to Armenia's long-time rival Azerbaijan.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have fought two wars since the Soviet Union collapsed and Armenia said in April that it would return the villages to Azerbaijan. That decision came after Azerbaijan in September waged a lightning military campaign in Nagorno-Karabakh, a majority ethnic Armenian region inside Azerbaijan. That caused tens of thousands of people to stream into Armenia, sparking demonstrations as protesters called for the prime minister to be ousted.

Protesters led by a senior cleric in Armenia's church walked a distance of around 100 miles from villages near the border with Azerbaijan to Yerevan where they gathered Thursday in Republic Square.

ARMENIA'S PRIME MINISTER IN RUSSIA FOR TALKS AMID STRAIN IN TIES

Videos shared on social media showed thousands of people waving Armenian flags. A senior Armenian cleric said a prayer and told the protesters he gave Pashinyan one hour to resign, blaming him for the loss of Armenian territory.

Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan told protesters they should "engage in peaceful acts of disobedience," if Pashinyan did not listen to their demands.

Pashinyan visited Moscow Wednesday and held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin amid spiraling tensions between the estranged allies. The meeting took place a day after Putin began his fifth term at a glittering Kremlin inauguration which the Armenian leader did not attend.

Putin's spokesperson Dmitry Peskov was quoted Thursday by Russian state news agency Tass as saying the two leaders had agreed to the removal of Russian forces from some Armenian regions.

In brief remarks at the start of the talks, Putin said that bilateral trade was growing, but acknowledged "some issues concerning security in the region."

Pashinyan, who last visited Moscow in December, said that "certain issues have piled up since then."

Armenia’s ties with Russia, a longtime sponsor and ally, have grown increasingly strained after Azerbaijan waged its military campaign in September to reclaim the Karabakh region, ending three decades of ethnic Armenian separatists’ rule there.

Armenian authorities accused Russian peacekeepers who were deployed to Nagorno-Karabakh after the previous round of hostilities in 2020 of failing to stop Azerbaijan’s onslaught. Moscow, which has a military base in Armenia, has rejected the accusations, arguing that its troops didn’t have a mandate to intervene.

The Kremlin, in turn, has been angered by Pashinyan’s efforts to deepen ties with the West and distance his country from Moscow-dominated security and economic alliances.

While Pashinyan was visiting Moscow, Armenia’s foreign ministry announced that the country will stop paying fees to the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a Russia-dominated security pact. Armenia has previously suspended its participation in the grouping as Pashinyan has sought to bolster ties with the European Union and NATO.

Russia was also vexed by Armenia’s decision to join the International Criminal Court, which last year indicted Putin for alleged war crimes connected to Russia's actions in Ukraine.

Moscow, busy with the Ukrainian conflict that has dragged into a third year, has publicly voiced concern about Yerevan’s westward shift but sought to downplay the differences.

Kremlin spokesman Peskov conceded Tuesday that "there are certain problems in our bilateral relations," but added that "there is a political will to continue the dialogue."

Tensions in Tunisia ratcheted up as demonstrators seeking better rights for migrants staged a sit-in before European Union headquarters on Thursday, capping a week in which Tunisian authorities targeted migrant communities from the coast to the capital with arrests and the demolition of tent camps.

Several activists were apprehended this week, accused of financial crimes stemming from providing aid to migrants. Authorities razed encampments outside U.N. headquarters, sweeping up dozens of sub-Saharan Africans who had been living there for months.

TUNISIAN OPPOSITION DECLINES TO PARTICIPATE IN ELECTION UNLESS POLITICAL PRISONERS FREED

Fewer migrants have made the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean Sea this year compared to last year, due to weather and beefed-up border security. The 2024 figures are in line with objectives set by the EU as part of a deal worth more than 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) that included assistance to better police the border and prevent migrants without papers from reaching Europe.

However, human rights activists say the crackdown has been damaging for the tens of thousands of migrants stuck in Tunisia as a result.

Demonstrators on Thursday blasted the security-centric approach that governments on both sides of the Mediterranean Sea have chosen to drive their migration policies. Some of the signs at the protests decried Tunisia's cooperation with Italy and Europe, while others mourned the lives of Tunisians who have died or gone missing at sea.

Bodies continue to wash ashore on the country's central coastline not far from small towns where migrants have clashed with police and farmers have grown increasingly wary of the growing presence of encampments in olive groves where they make their livings, claiming rampant theft and staging protests demanding government intervention, according to local media.

The number of migrants reaching Italy in 2024 fell by two-thirds, compared to the same point last year, according to figures from Italy’s Interior Ministry on May 8.

The U.N. refugee agency UNHCR reported that more than 24,000 migrants travelled from Tunisia to Italy in the first four months of 2023 while fewer than 8,000 had successfully made the journey over the same time period this year.

These trends relieve pressure on European officials hoping to avoid overcrowded detention centers, high numbers of asylum claims and increased concern about immigration ahead of EU parliamentary elections in June.

But in Tunisia, an opposite reality is taking shape.

In April, authorities directly thwarted 209 migration attempts and in total prevented more than 8,200 migrants from reaching Italy, the majority from sub-Saharan African countries. The Tunisian Coast Guard said it had prevented more than 21,000 migrants from reaching Italy this year.

"Tunisia is deepening the crisis and promoting the idea that there is no solution," Romdane Ben Amor of the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights, a leading NGO known by its French abbreviation FTDES, told Radio Mosaïque, the country’s largest private radio station.

President Kaïs Saïed acknowledged on Monday that migrants were being deported from coastal cities to the borderlands in "continued cooperation" with neighboring countries. He claimed that pro-migrant "traitors and agents" were being funneled millions in euros and dollars to help settle migrants without legal status in Tunisia.

He made similar remarks last year, when he said sub-Saharan African migrants were part of a plot to erase his country’s identity.

His comments followed the arrest earlier this week of Saadia Mosbah, a Black Tunisian anti-discrimination activist, and Sherifa Riahi, the former president of an asylum rights group.

Mosbah was taken into custody and her home was searched as part of an investigation into the funding for the Mnemty association she runs. She was arrested after she posted on social media condemning the racism she faced for her work from people accusing her of helping sub-Saharan African migrants, said Bassem Trifi, the president of the Tunisian League for the Defense of Human Rights.

Riahi was arrested on Wednesday under the same financial crimes law, Radio Mosaïque reported.

Last week, more than 80 migrants were arrested in Tunis after clashes with law enforcement during the clearance of encampments in the capital that the authorities said were "disturbing the peace," according to Radio Mosaïque.

Hundreds of migrants had camped near the headquarters of UNHCR and the International Organization for Migration, many of them demanding the agencies resettle them outside of Tunisia. Law enforcement used heavy machinery to raze their tents and then bused them outside of the city to "an unknown destination," said Ben Amor from FTDES.

An estimated 244 migrants — most of them from outside Tunisia — have died or disappeared along the country's Mediterranean coastline this year, including 24 whose bodies were found last week, the NGO said.

In a report based on government data released Monday, it noted that the number of migrants without papers crossing the Mediterranean had decreased as Tunisian authorities reported an increasing number of interceptions. This was the case for both migrants from Tunisia and migrants passing through the country en route to Europe.

North African and European officials have sought to curb human trafficking and to improve the policing of borders and coastlines to prevent deaths at sea. However, thousands of migrants fleeing conflict, poverty, persecution or hoping for a better life have continued to make the journey. They take boats from the coast north of Sfax, Tunisia's second-largest city, to Italian islands such as Lampedusa, about 130 kilometers (81 miles) away.

The European Union hopes to limit migration with policies including development assistance, voluntary return and repatriation for migrants and forging closer ties with neighboring governments that police their borders. The EU and member countries such as Italy have pledged billions of dollars over the past year to countries including Tunisia, Mauritania and Egypt to provide general government aid, migrant services and border patrols.

Suspected militants blew up a school for girls in a former stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban in the country's volatile northwest, badly damaging the structure but no one was harmed in the overnight attack, a local police official said Thursday.

The attack happened Wednesday night on the only school for girls in Shawa, a town in the North Waziristan district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, local police chief Amjad Wazir said.

He said the attackers used an explosive device to destroy the private Aafia Islamic Girls Model School, where 150 girls studied. Wazir said the school guard was beaten up by the insurgents, who then fled the scene.

PAKISTANI FORCES KILL 6 MILITANTS IN VOLATILE AFGHAN BORDER REGION

There was no immediate claim for the attack, but suspicion was likely to fall on Islamic militants who have often targeted girls' schools in the province in recent years as they believed women should not be educated.

On Thursday, the United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, strongly condemned the attack, calling it a "despicable and cowardly act that could jeopardize the future of many young and talented girls."

In a statement, Abdullah Fadil, the UNICEF representative in Pakistan, said the "destruction of a girls’ school in a remote and underserved area is a heinous crime detrimental to national progress."

He pointed to a statement by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday, declaring an education emergency and pledging to work towards enrolling 26 million out-of-school children.

Pakistan witnessed multiple attacks on girls' schools until 2019 especially in the northwestern Swat Valley and elsewhere in the northwest where Pakistani Taliban for years controlled the former tribal regions. In 2012, the insurgents attacked Malala Yousafzai, a teenaged student and advocate for the education of girls who went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

The Pakistani Taliban, who are known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP, were evicted from Swat and other regions in recent years. TTP is a separate group but an ally of the Afghan Taliban, who seized power in Afghanistan in 2021.

Hungary and China signed a number of new agreements on Thursday to deepen their economic and cultural cooperation during a visit to the Central European country by Chinese President Xi Jinping, a trip meant to solidify China's economic footprint in the region.

Xi and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán held talks in the capital Budapest as part of the Chinese leader's final stop on a five-day European tour that also took in Serbia and France. During a press briefing following the talks, Orbán praised the "continuous, uninterrupted friendship" between the two countries since his tenure began in 2010, and promised that Hungary would continue to host further Chinese investments.

"I would like to assure the president that Hungary will continue to provide fair conditions for Chinese companies investing in our country, and that we will create the opportunity for the most modern Western and the most modern Eastern technologies to meet and build cooperation in Hungary," Orbán said.

CHINA'S XI VISITS HUNGARY IN BID TO SOLIDIFY EUROPEAN ECONOMIC INFLUENCE

Beijing has invested billions in Hungary and sees the European Union member as an important foothold inside the 27-member trading bloc. In December, Hungary announced that one of the world’s largest EV manufacturers, China’s BYD, will open its first European EV production factory in the south of the country — an inroad that could upend the competitiveness of the continent’s auto industry.

Hungary is also hosting several Chinese EV battery plants and hopes to become a global hub of lithium ion battery manufacturing, and has undertaken a railway project — part of Xi's Belt and Road Initiative — to connect the country with the Chinese-controlled port of Piraeus in Greece as an entry point for Chinese goods to Central and Eastern Europe.

On Thursday, Xi said he and Orbán agreed the Belt and Road Initiative "is highly consistent with Hungary’s strategy of opening to the east," and that China supports Hungary in playing a greater role within the EU on promoting China-EU relations.

Hungarian and Chinese officials concluded a strategic partnership agreement and signed 18 other agreements and memoranda of understanding, but no major investments were announced at the news briefing.

However, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó later said in a video on Facebook that initial discussions had begun on China developing a freight railway bypass of Budapest and a rail link between the capital and Budapest Ferihegy airport.

Orbán, a nationalist populist leader who has pursued deeper ties with Beijing while distancing himself from his more mainstream partners in the EU, noted during the news conference that three-quarters of investments in Hungary last year came from China, and spoke of Beijing's role in the world's shifting balance of power.

"Looking back at the world economy and commerce of 20 years ago, it doesn’t resemble at all what we’re living in today," Orbán said. "Then, we lived in a single polar world, and now we live in a multi-polar world order, and one of the main columns of this new world order is China."

He added that Hungary would seek to expand economic cooperation with China to the field of nuclear energy. Hungary is currently working with Russia on adding a new reactor to its Paks nuclear facility, which is expected to go online by the end of the decade.

Budapest residents met with road closures and increased security during Xi's visit as groups of his supporters and critics gathered in various points of the city to demonstrate.

Hundreds of people gathered near Budapest’s Buda Castle waving Chinese and Hungarian flags, hoping to catch a glimpse of Xi's motorcade. Many Chinese nationals in red baseball caps and claiming to be volunteers with China's embassy were present.

A Hungarian lawmaker with the opposition Momentum party told The Associated Press that he and a colleague had been approached by a group of such men on Wednesday as they attempted to place EU flags on a bridge in Budapest.

In a video obtained by the AP, the lawmaker, Márton Tompos, said that the men, all wearing red baseball caps, confronted him to make sure that no flags or symbols referencing China-claimed Tibet or Taiwan would be hung on the route of Xi's motorcade.

"They told me that they were volunteers for the Chinese embassy here, and they said they wanted to make sure that there weren't Tibetan or Taiwanese flags, because that wouldn’t be nice," Tompos said. The men wouldn't let his colleague proceed "until he showed them that it was an EU flag," he added.

Other minor conflicts broke out during the day between Tibetan protesters and some of the red-capped Chinese nationals, who attempted to prevent activists from displaying Tibetan flags by obscuring them with their own Chinese national flags.

One activist, Tenzin Yangzom, a campaign coordinator for the International Tibet Network, criticized Hungary’s government for "allowing the Chinese police to be operating on Hungarian streets."

"This is not China, is it? This is Hungary, it’s a free country, you have freedom of speech," she said.

High-level mediation talks on South Sudan were launched Thursday in Kenya with African presidents calling for an end to a conflict that has crippled the country's economy for years.

South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir thanked his Kenyan counterpart, William Ruto, for hosting the talks and said that his government would negotiate in good faith and with an open mind.

SUDANESE PARAMILITARY CARRIES OUT ETHNIC CLEANSING IN DARFUR, RIGHTS GROUP SAYS

"We hope that the opposition groups have a similar conviction and desire for peace in South Sudan, which, when fully achieved, will bring everlasting stability and economic development in the region, not just South Sudan," he said.

The talks are between the government and rebel opposition groups that were not part of an 2018 agreement that ended a five-year civil war that left 400,000 people dead.

Ruto reiterated Thursday the need for inclusive and home-grown solutions to African issues.

"This initiative exemplifies the Pan-African policy of African solutions to African challenges, contributing to the ‘Silencing the Guns in Africa' initiative and fostering an environment for transformational development in South Sudan, our region, and the entire African continent," he said.

Malawi’s President Lazarus Chakwera, Zambia’s Hakainde Hichilema, Namibia’s Nangolo Mbumba, and Central African Republic’s Faustin-Archange Touadera also attended the launch that took place after an African Union agricultural summit earlier in the day.

U.S. Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa Mike Hammer welcomed the talks.

"The United States applauds Kenya’s commitment to regional stability and support for peace in South Sudan," the U.S. Embassy in Kenya wrote on X, after the launch.

The chief mediator in the South Sudan peace process, Lazarus Sumbeiywo, exuded confidence that the talks would resolve the outstanding issues.

"After this launch, we plan to engage in sustained and continuous mediation to ensure a speedy and comprehensive resolution of the issues, so long as the parties go along with the plan," he said.

South Sudan remains fragile despite the 2018 peace agreement, which is yet to be fully implemented. The country is expected to hold elections in December but key issues including a unified security force are yet to be resolved. The opposition has been calling for a speedy implementation of the agreement to pave the way for free and fair elections.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a video message on Thursday vowing that Israel "will stand alone" to defeat Hamas, if necessary, after President Biden threatened to withhold weapon shipments to the Jewish State should Netanyahu proceed with an invasion of Rafah. 

Netanyahu echoed the 1948 Israeli war of independence in his remarks, saying that despite a weapons embargo on Israel, Israelis had fought and defeated the Arab nations who attacked the nascent Jewish state, thanks to their bravery and unity.

"Today, we are much stronger," the prime minister said. "We are determined, and we are united in order to defeat our enemies and those who want to destroy us."

"If we need to stand alone, we will stand alone," Netanyahu continued.

MANY ISRAELIS FEEL ‘BETRAYED’ FOLLOWING BIDEN THREAT TO WITHHOLD ARMS TO DEFEAT HAMAS IN RAFAH

Netanyahu’s remarks come a day after Biden said that he wouldn’t supply Israel with weapons to attack Rafah, Hamas' last stronghold in Gaza, over concerns about more than one million civilians sheltering there.

"Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs and other ways in which they go after population centers," Biden told CNN’s Erin Burnett in an interview released Wednesday. 

"I made it clear that if they go into Rafah – they haven’t gone in Rafah yet – if they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities – that deal with that problem," Biden said.

Biden clarified that the U.S. will continue sending defensive weapons to Israel, such as supplies for Israel's Iron Dome.

BIDEN'S DECISION TO PULL ISRAEL WEAPONS SHIPMENT KEPT QUIET UNTIL AFTER HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE ADDRESS: REPORT

Israel has ordered the evacuation of 100,000 Palestinians from the city. Israeli forces have also carried out what it describes as "targeted strikes" on the eastern part of Rafah.

Biden was criticized for pausing a weapons shipment to Israel and purportedly keeping his decision quiet until after his Holocaust Remembrance Day address, in which he compared Hamas to the Nazis. Israeli critics argue he is now backpedaling from his ironclad commitment to the Jewish state by delaying deliveries of vital precision weapons to Jerusalem.

Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan said during an interview with Israeli Channel 12 TV news that he believed the move stemmed from political pressure on Biden from Congress, the U.S. campus protests and the upcoming election.

On Thursday, U.S. State Department spokesman Matt Miller addressed Biden's comments and said that the U.S. will "always be committed to Israel's security" and helping the Jewish State to defend against Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and threats from other terrorist groups.

"I'm not going to get ahead of what the president said last night. We are reviewing," Miller said. "We have paused one shipment. We are reviewing others. But as the president made clear, we will always be committed to Israel's defense. 

Fox News’ Joseph A. Wulfsohn, Benjamin Weinthal and Nicholas Kalman, along with the Associated Press, contributed to this report.

Scores of musicians, hundreds of journalists and thousands of music fans have gathered in the Swedish city of Malmo, where the Eurovision Song Contest is building towards Saturday's exuberant, glitter-drenched final.

But even Eurovision can’t escape the world’s divisions. Thousands of anti-Israel protesters are also expected in the city for demonstrations urging a cease-fire in the Gaza war and criticizing Israel’s participation in the contest.

Here’s a guide to what Eurovision means, how it works and what to watch for:

UKRAINIAN DUO HEADS TO THE EUROVISION SONG CONTEST WITH A MESSAGE: WE'RE STILL HERE

The short answer: Eurovision is a music competition, in which performers from countries across Europe, and a few beyond it, compete under their national flags with the aim of being crowned continental champion. Think of it as the Olympics of pop music.

The longer answer is that Eurovision is an extravaganza that melds pop, partying and politics — a cross between a music festival, an awards show and a meeting of the United Nations Security Council. It’s an event full of silly fun, a celebration of music’s unifying power, but also a place where politics and regional rivalries play out.

Thirty-seven countries are entered in the contest, which this year is taking place over several days in the Swedish port city of Malmo. The country is hosting after Swedish singer Loreen won last year’s competition in Liverpool, England.

Through two semifinals, 37 acts are narrowed to the 26 who will compete in Saturday’s final in front of thousands of spectators in the Malmo Arena and a global television audience estimated at 180 million.

Nations can enter a solo act or a band. They can perform in any genre and language, but the rules state they must sing live and songs must be no more than three minutes long. Staging has grown ever more elaborate, incorporating flashy pyrotechnics and elaborate choreography. This year is particularly strong on topless male dancers.

Once all the acts have performed, the winner is chosen by a famously complex mix of phone and online voters from around the world and rankings by music-industry juries in each of the Eurovision countries. As the results are announced, countries slide up and down the rankings and tensions build. Ending up with "nul points," or zero, ranks as a national humiliation.

The musical style of Eurovision has diversified dramatically since the contest was founded in 1956. The early years of crooners and ballads gave way to perky pop – epitomized by perhaps the greatest Eurovision song of all time, ABBA’s "Waterloo," which won the contest 50 years ago.

Nowadays, Euro-techno and power ballads remain popular, but viewers have also shown a taste for rock, folk-rap and eccentric, unclassifiable songs.

According to bookmakers, a leading contender is Swiss singer Nemo, who is performing a melodic, operatic song titled "The Code." Nemo would be the first performer who identifies as nonbinary to win the contest, which has a huge LGBTQ+ following. The contest had its first transgender winner, Dana International, a quarter century ago.

Another nonbinary performer generating huge buzz is Ireland’s Bambie Thug, whose song "Doomsday Blue" is Gothic, intense, over the top and a real crowd-pleaser. They’re the only contestant known to have brought a "scream coach" to Malmo. Ireland has won Eurovision seven times – a total equaled only by Sweden – but has fared poorly in recent years.

Other acts tipped to do well include operatic Slovenian singer Raiven, Ukrainian rap-pop duo Alyona Alyona and Jerry Heil and Spain's Nebulosa, whose song "Zorra" caused a stir because its title can be translated as an anti-female slur.

So far, the act with the most momentum is Croatian singer Baby Lasagna. His song "Rim Tim Tagi Dim" is quintessential Eurovision: exuberant, silly, a little emotional and incredibly catchy. It’s already a huge fan favorite.

Eurovision’s motto is "united by music," and its organizer, the European Broadcasting Union, strives to keep politics out of the contest. But it often intrudes.

Belarus was expelled from Eurovision in 2021 over its government’s clampdown on dissent, and Russia was kicked out in 2022 after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

This year, there have been calls for Israel to be excluded because of its conduct in its war against Hamas.

Israel is competing, but was told to change the title of its song, originally called "October Rain" in apparent reference to Hamas’ Oct. 7 cross-border attack. It’s now called "Hurricane" and will be performed by 20-year-old singer Eden Golan at Thursday's semifinal.

Anti-Israel groups are planning large protests on Thursday and Saturday, and Swedish police are mounting a major security operation, with officers from across the country bolstered by reinforcements from Denmark and Norway.

Palestinian flags hang from some apartment balconies in Malmo but have been banned from the televised event, along with all flags apart from those of competing nations. At the first semifinal's opening act, one performer managed to sneak in a political statement, singing with a Palestinian keffiyeh scarf tied around his wrist.

The European Broadcasting Union, which organizes Eurovision, said it regretted Swedish singer Eric Saade's decision to "compromise the non-political nature of the event."

Anzhelika Sharonova and her 86-year-old mother held out in their battered eastern Ukrainian town for as long as they could before finally fleeing this week with just a few bags between them.

Russian forces are steadily advancing north and south of Toretsk as they press on multiple parts of the eastern front, threatening to eventually envelop the former coal-mining town and others around it.

"There's not a single window left on the fifth floor," said Sharonova, 57, huddled inside a minivan driven by members of East SOS, a relief group helping evacuate civilians.

UKRAINIAN-AMERICAN PASTOR JOINS FAITH LEADERS COUNSELING, REINVIGORATING CHAPLAINS ON THE FRONTLINES

"Bombs are falling near our building."

Toretsk has been on the front line of the war with Moscow-backed separatists since 2014, but the recent surge in fighting and a lack of basic services have made life virtually unlivable for Sharonova and her mother Valentyna, the two women said.

They had mostly depended on deliveries of humanitarian aid to the hollowed-out town, where few stores remained open, and the nearest hospital was at least 20 km away.

Buildings on their street were pockmarked and metal cables lay splayed near their entrance. Elsewhere, dogs roamed the streets under the rumble of artillery and a long line of residents snaked from an ATM machine.

In one nearby village, said Valentyna, there had been a "missile (attack) on every house". A day before the two were evacuated, a Russian airstrike had hit a local police station, authorities said.

Less than 12,000 people remain in the greater Toretsk area out of a pre-invasion population of at least 66,000, regional police said.

"With each day, it's more dangerous for people to remain in place, in their homes," said Vladyslav Arseniy, an East SOS rescuer.

Sharonova and her mother are among the two dozen or so people evacuated each week by East SOS, which roves the war-scarred Donetsk region on a near-daily basis responding to calls.

Reuters accompanied the group on a recent mission as it collected elderly and infirm residents from their homes and local hospitals, mostly from cities like Kostiantynivka which are further from the front line.

Two bed-ridden women were laid out across the back of the minivan, and the others packed into the back seat.

Those left in Toretsk, where fields outside the city are marked by both fresh and decade-old trenches, are determined to stay until their homes are completely destroyed, Arseniy said.

Sharonova and her mother, who had endured two wartime winters in their apartment, said they were headed for a larger city in central Ukraine and do not expect to return.

East SOS member Oleksandr Stasenko, speaking outside the train onto which he helped load the several residents the team evacuated that day, said it was difficult seeing frightened people.

"Emotions break through sometimes and you tear up," he said. "But you pull yourself together and help people."

Two men who were instrumental in the "craziest idea anyone ever had" of creating a global seed vault designed to safeguard the world's agricultural diversity will be honored as the 2024 World Food Prize laureates, officials announced Thursday in Washington.

Cary Fowler, the U.S. special envoy for Global Food Security, and Geoffrey Hawtin, an agricultural scientist from the United Kingdom and executive board member at the Global Crop Diversity Trust, will be awarded the annual prize this fall in Des Moines, Iowa, where the food prize foundation is based. They will split a $500,000 award.

The winners of the prize were named at the State Department, where Secretary of State Antony Blinken lauded the men for their "critical work to advance global crop biodiversity and conserve over 6,000 varieties of crops and culturally important plants, which has had a direct impact in addressing hunger around the world."

SECOND ARCTIC 'DOOMSDAY' VAULT WILL STORE THE WORLD'S DATA

Fowler and Hawtin were leaders in an effort starting in 2004 to build a back-up vault of the world's crop seeds at a spot where it could be safe from political upheaval and environmental changes. A location was chosen on a Norwegian island in the Arctic Circle where temperatures could ensure seeds could be kept safe in a facility built into the side of a mountain.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault opened in 2008 and now holds 1.25 million seed samples from nearly every country in the world.

Fowler, who first proposed establishing the seed vault in Norway, said his idea initially was met by puzzlement by the leaders of seed banks in some countries.

"To a lot of people today, it sounds like a perfectly reasonable thing to do. It's a valuable natural resource and you want to offer robust protection for it," he said in an interview from Saudi Arabia. "Fifteen years ago, shipping a lot of seeds to the closest place to the North Pole that you can fly into, putting them inside a mountain — that's the craziest idea anybody ever had."

Hundreds of smaller seed banks have existed in other countries for many decades, but Fowler said he was motivated by a concern that climate change would throw agriculture into turmoil, making a plentiful seed supply even more essential.

Hawtin said that there were plenty of existing crop threats, such as insects, diseases and land degradation, but that climate change heightened the need for a secure, backup seed vault. In part, that's because climate change has the potential of making those earlier problems even worse.

"You end up with an entirely new spectrum of pests and diseases under different climate regimes," Hawtin said in an interview from southwest England. "Climate change is putting a whole lot of extra problems on what has always been significant ones."

Fowler and Hawtin said they hope their selection as World Food Prize laureates will enable them push for hundreds of millions of dollars in additional funding of seed bank endowments around the world. Maintaining those operations is relatively cheap, especially when considering how essential they are to ensuring a plentiful food supply, but the funding needs continue forever.

"This is really a chance to get that message out and say, look, this relatively small amount of money is our insurance policy, our insurance policy that we're going to be able to feed the world in 50 years," Hawtin said.

The World Food Prize was founded by Norman Borlaug, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for his part in the Green Revolution, which dramatically increased crop yields and reduced the threat of starvation in many countries. The food prize will be awarded at the annual Norman E. Borlaug International Dialogue, held Oct. 29-31 in Des Moines.

The head of a center-right 22-party coalition that emerged victorious in North Macedonia’s parliamentary election has fallen just short of gaining a parliamentary majority, leaving it reliant on entering a partnership with another party to form a government.

The "Your Macedonia" coalition, led by the head of the VMRO-DPMNE party, Hristijan Mickoski, won just over 43% of the votes in Wednesday’s election, giving it 58 of the country’s 120 parliamentary seats, three fewer than an outright majority, official results showed. Mickoski was expected to begin seeking a governing partner as early as Thursday.

"Tonight we have a reason to celebrate, but starting from tomorrow, we have a job to do," Mickoski, 46, said late Wednesday. "I’ll hold the first meeting in the morning where we will determine the principles for the composition of a government from which we will not deviate."

17 MACEDONIAN POLICE OFFICERS CHARGED WITH HELPING PRISONERS ESCAPE

The parliamentary vote was held simultaneously with a runoff for the country’s presidential election, which saw the victory of North Macedonia’s first female president in a double win for the center-right backed opposition. Law professor Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova, 70, was declared the winner after receiving nearly 65% support with more than two-thirds of the vote counted, trouncing incumbent Stevo Pendarovski, backed by the Social Democrats, who conceded after garnering just over 29%.

In the parliamentary election, the Social Democrat-led coalition that has been in power for the last seven years struggled to hold on to second place with just 15.3% of the vote, giving it 18 seats in parliament -– one less than a group of parties led by ethnic Albanian minority party DUI, which won 19 seats.

Another opposition ethnic Albanian coalition, led by the VLEN, or Worth party, earned 13 seats, while the smaller Levitsa, or Left, and the movement For our Macedonia, known by its acronym ZNAM, each won six seats.

The conservatives made sweeping gains on popular discontent over issues of corruption, the country’s slow path toward European Union membership and its flat economic growth. During his campaign, Mickoski accused the outgoing government of ineptitude and of making humiliating compromises in trying to settle disputes with North Macedonia’s neighbors.

In his victory speech, Mickoski told supporters his government would make fighting corruption its priority.

"Every last person who committed a crime and committed corruption will be held accountable," he said. "The people have taught the government its most important lesson and saved their country. ... We have regained hope and tonight we have reason to celebrate."

Hopes are high that the country’s new leadership will oversee North Macedonia’s long-anticipated entry into the EU. The small Balkan country has orbited the 27-nation bloc for nearly two decades with little to show for its efforts.

Although both opposing political sides support EU integration, they have differed on how to deal with neighboring Bulgaria’s demands that North Macedonia enshrine in its constitution the recognition of a Bulgarian ethnic minority.

While Social Democrats and ethnic Albanian parties agree to the constitutional changes, VMRO-DPMNE says it will not accept what it calls "Bulgaria’s diktat," hinting it might seek to renegotiate the conditions on membership talks and seek guaranties from the EU that it will be Bulgaria's last demand for lifting its veto on North Macedonia joining the EU.

Outgoing President Kovachevski warned that the country’s path toward the EU must not be deviated from.

"If we miss that chance, we could lose another decade, maybe even another generation," he said, adding that could lead to falling living standards and increased ethnic tensions, and could "expose us to a security risk that none of us can understand how big it could be."

Once the State Electoral Commission announces the final official results, the new president will be inaugurated by May 12, when the mandate for the current president officially ends. Siljanovska Davkova will make a statement before the lawmakers of the old parliament, and the new parliament must be constituted within 20 days.

It is the president who must give the formal mandate to the winner of the parliamentary election to form a government. This step takes place within 10 days of the new parliament being constituted, but negotiations between party leaders usually begin informally days earlier, right after the election.

The senior U.S. official for North Korea discussed the country with her Chinese counterpart in Tokyo on Thursday, and expressed concerns about the forcible repatriation of North Koreans from China, the U.S. State Department said.

The discussions between Jung Pak and China's Special Representative on Korean Peninsula Affairs Liu Xiaoming followed a visit to Beijing last month by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the department said in a statement

Pak noted North Korea's "provocative and irresponsible rhetoric toward its neighbors," and stressed concern about its deepening military cooperation with Russia. She said Russia’s veto of a mandate extension for a U.N. panel that monitored North Korea sanctions would hamper efforts to implement U.N. Security Council resolutions, the statement said.

NORTH KOREA ISSUES NUCLEAR 'WARNING SIGNAL' TO US, SOUTH KOREA

"She also expressed continued U.S. concerns regarding the forcible repatriation of North Koreans, including asylum seekers, to the DPRK and called on Beijing to uphold its non-refoulement obligations," the statement, said, referring to North Korea by the initials of its official name.

The U.N. principle of non-refoulement is supposed to guarantee that "no one should be returned to a country where they would face torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and other irreparable harm."

A South Korea-based human rights group reported in December that up to 600 North Koreans had "vanished" after being forcibly deported by China and warned they may face imprisonment, torture, sexual violence and execution in North Korea.

That report by the Transitional Justice Working Group came about two months after South Korea lodged a protest with China over the suspected repatriation of a large number of North Koreans who were trying to flee to South Korea.

Beijing's foreign ministry said in October there were no North Korean "defectors" in China but North Koreans had illegally entered for economic reasons and that China always handled the issue according to the law.

Pak last spoke to Liu in February following a previous Feb. 16 meeting between Blinken and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in which the U.S. side said the two "affirmed the importance of continued communication on (North Korea) issues at all levels."

Sino-U.S. relations have shown signs of improvement in recent months with steps to re-establish communication channels after ties sank to their lowest levels in decades, but many points of friction remain, including China's close relations with Russia.

In Tokyo, Pak also discussed North Korea with South Korean and Japanese counterparts and underscored the importance of maintaining close trilateral cooperation in addressing the threat it posed, a separate U.S. statement said.

A leading rights group said on Thursday that attacks by Sudanese paramilitary forces and their allied militias, which killed thousands in the western region of Darfur last year, constituted a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the area’s non-Arab population.

The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, which has been fighting Sudan's military for over a year, allied with armed militias to carry out attacks against the ethnic Masalit and other non-Arab groups in El Geneina, the capital city of West Darfur state, Human Rights Watch said in a new report.

Sudan has been rocked by violence since mid-April 2023, when tensions between the military and the rival paramilitary erupted into open fighting. Clashes quickly spread to other parts of the country, and Darfur was engulfed in brutal attacks on African civilians, especially the Masalit tribe.

UN CALLS FOR REVERSAL OF NEW SOUTH SUDAN TAXES THAT JEOPARDIZE FOOD DROPS

According to the New York-based watchdog, the paramilitary forces and their allied militiamen targeted predominantly Masalit neighborhoods in El Geneina from April to June 2023, with attacks intensifying also last November.

At least thousands of people were killed and hundreds of thousands were displaced during the attacks, according to the report, entitled "The Massalit Will Not Come Home: Ethnic Cleansing and Crimes Against Humanity in El Geneina, West Darfur, Sudan."

Masalit who were captured were tortured, women and girls were raped and entire neighborhoods were looted and destroyed, the report says. HRW said it interviewed more than 220 people who fled Darfur into neighboring countries and analyzed photos, videos and satellite imagery connected to the attacks.

United Nations experts have estimated that at least 10,000 people were killed in the city of El Geneina in 2023. More than 570,000 people, mostly Masalit, were displaced and sought refuge in neighboring Chad.

Human Rights Watch said the campaign of attacks on the non-Arab people in Darfur, including the Masalit, with the "apparent objective" of pushing them out, "constitutes ethnic cleansing."

"Governments, the African Union, and the United Nations need to act now to protect civilians," Tirana Hassan, HRW's executive director, said Thursday.

"The global inaction in the face of atrocities of this magnitude is inexcusable," Hassan said. "Government should ensure those responsible are held to account."

The group called for the United Nations, African Union and states from the International Criminal Court to investigate whether the atrocities documented in the report reveal a specific intent by the RSF paramilitary and armed allies "to commit genocide" by destroying the Masalit and other non-Arab groups in West Darfur.

The media office of the Rapid Support Forces did not immediately respond to a request for comment by The Associated Press.

In late January, the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor, Karim Khan, said there are grounds to believe both the RSF and the Sudanese military may be committing war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide in Darfur.

Two decades ago, Darfur became synonymous with genocide and war crimes, particularly by the notorious Janjaweed Arab militias, against populations that identify as Central or East African.

The Rapid Support Forces were formed from Janjaweed fighters by former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who ruled the country for three decades before being overthrown during a popular uprising in 2019. He is wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of genocide and other crimes during the conflict in Darfur in the 2000s.

A disciplinary court in Poland on Thursday lifted the immunity of a judge who fled the country to neighboring Belarus, an autocratic ally of Russia, paving the way for an international arrest warrant for him on espionage allegations.

Poland's prosecutors and special services launched an investigation this week after Belarus media reported that the judge, Tomasz Szmydt, arrived in the country and asked for protection. Politicians in Poland, which is a NATO and European Union country, vowed to take immediate steps to strip Szmydt of his immunity as a judge, remove him from his post and take actions to bring him to justice.

Szmydt was notorious in Poland for having engaged in a 2019 online smear campaign against other judges that was sponsored by the Justice Ministry under the previous right-wing government.

NOTORIOUS POLISH JUDGE FLEES TO BELARUS, TRIGGERING INVESTIGATION

Justice Minister Adam Bodnar said stripping him of immunity allows for posting an international arrest warrant for Szmydt through Interpol. Even if Belarus ignores it, the warrant would restrict Szmydt's ability to travel.

According to Belarus state media, Szmydt told reporters in Minsk, the Belarusian capital, that he was forced to leave Poland because he did not agree with the new, pro-Western government.

Deputy justice minister in the new government, Arkadiusz Myrcha, said in parliament on Thursday that answers are needed about Szmydt's swift rise under the previous government and why he had access to sensitive information.

Speaking later in parliament, Prime Minister Donald Tusk accused the previously ruling populist Law and Justice party of ties to the intelligence services of Russia and Belarus, and said the scope of the alleged ties will be probed by a special parliamentary commission. Tusk said Szmydt's story was only a small part of those alleged ties.

Szmydt's defection came as a shock in Poland, which supports Ukraine in its war against Russia’s aggression and which has a history of distrust with Russia.

Tusk on Tuesday called for a special meeting of the secret services to discuss alleged Russian and Belarusian infiltration after Szmydt’s defection. He later said the defection was "treason" and vowed swift legal action in response.

A watchdog group is sounding the alarm, saying Gazans are reporting that employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) are allegedly stealing and selling off humanitarian aid materials. 

UN Watch, a non-governmental organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, on Wednesday cited numerous reports published by Palestinians in an UNRWA-related chatroom claiming that UNRWA staff are stealing aid and selling it for profit, while those who report it face reprisals. Israeli and some U.S. officials have accused UNRWA of masquerading as a relief organization while supporting Hamas' attacks on Israel. 

Amid the "rampant theft," the watchdog further claimed that UNRWA Commissioner-General Philipe Lazzarini "turns a blind eye" to serious problems within the management of aid distribution by the agency. Lazzarini, meanwhile, recently called for countries to increase direct cash assistance to Gazans because, although "there is more food available… it still does not mean that the food is accessible."

The chatroom – which the watchdog group notes is also riddled with antisemitic slurs and posts celebrating Iran's attack on Israel – is run by a former UNRWA employee, Haitham al-Sayyed, according to UN Watch. The watchdog group noted that Al-Sayyed was removed from UNRWA in 2016 after he publicly called out the agency for hiding a UNRWA map that denied the existence of Israel while U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon was holding a press conference at a school funded by the agency. 

UN AGENCY ACCUSED OF BEING PART OF HAMAS AFTER ISRAEL STRIKES TERRORIST HQ

"While Haitham al-Sayyed was supposedly fired from UNRWA, he is still considered by many in the chat rooms as an important figure in the organization who holds sway with the senior administration," UN Watch said. The watchdog group said some UNRWA staff, "frustrated by inaction and even complicity of senior staff in these thefts," have confided in al-Sayyed "in the hope that he can get UNRWA’s top officials to listen."

On Jan. 6, al-Sayyed posted a message sent to him by a UNRWA employee working in an emergency shelter set up at a school in Gaza, complaining in Arabic that "the displaced people in the external shelter do not get their right to food and non-food aid, but rather it is distributed at night and sold in front of our eyes." The employee said about 150 bags of diapers were distributed at night to those inside the school. 

The employee also said the school remained without electricity for over a month after someone stole diesel fuel from the shelter, but later "the thief was exposed, and the principal was informed, but to this day he is still working with us." The message also said a "young engineer with great morals" had previously been in charge of the school, but when he prevented "night administration" from stealing from the store after dark, "he was arbitrarily transferred on charges of embezzlement." 

The UNRWA worker reported that a female teacher put in charge of the morning administration "did not take any steps to stop these crimes until we became suspicious that she is complicit with them, and unfortunately, this evening, [the] manager had a hand and support in the operations, so it was very easy for him to transfer whoever he wants on charges of embezzlement." 

LAWMAKERS INTRODUCE LEGISLATION HOLDING UNRWA ACCOUNTABLE FOR JOINING, ASSISTING HAMAS TERROR ATTACK IN ISRAEL

According to a screenshot of a Telegram message published by UN Watch, a member of the chatroom group, Dr. Izzat Shatat, wrote that a "director of a school warehouse came now with 50 cartons of food that were distributed in UNRWA schools and sold them to a merchant for 350 shekels per carton, equivalent to $100." 

"How did he take out this amount of cartons? Where is the administration about this?" Shatat asked.

Another UNRWA employee, Mohammed Musa al-Sawalhi, recounted in the chatroom on Feb. 20 how he witnessed some UNRWA employees stealing aid and heard that others were hoarding aid in their houses. He claimed, "80% of employees in the shelters have no morals or dignity," and said family members of one director were caught on video stealing aid. 

"When will the directors of UNRWA centers in schools, especially Rafah Preparatory Girls School B, stop stealing the food and needs of the displaced?" another group member wrote on March 1. 

UN Watch detailed how, on March 22, "a heated debate erupted in the chat room where some UNRWA employees accused other employees of not giving them access to a medicine cabinet." 

One member commented, "From the past wars, I knew some employees personally, and I trusted them to be good people, but the soul is evil. Some of them were stealing on a daily basis as if it were a prize. This war revealed a lot and some of it was documented with photos, videos, and audio."