World

SEOUL (Reuters) -North Korea has said its botched military satellite launch last month was the "gravest failure" at the ruling party's latest key meeting, state media KCNA reported on Monday. The enlarged plenary meeting was held between Friday and Sunday, ordering workers and researchers to analyze the failed military satellite launch and prepare for another in the near future. Those in charge of the satellite launch were "heavily criticized," the report said. The North Korean rocket plunged into the sea "after losing thrust due to the abnormal starting of the second-stage engine," Pyongyang ...

(Reuters) - The death toll from flooding following the destruction of the Kakhovka dam has risen to 16 in Ukraine, Kyiv officials said, while Russian officials said 29 people have died in territories that Moscow controls. The breaching of the Kakhovka Dam on June 6 unleashed floodwaters across a large swath of land in southern Ukraine and in Russia-occupied parts of Ukraine, destroying farmland and cutting off supplies to civilians. More than 3,600 people have been evacuated from the flooded areas in the Kherson and Mykolaiv regions, while 31 people were still missing and some 1,300 houses rem...

By Dan Williams JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday he would pursue "active steps" on a contested judicial overhaul this week after what he described as months of wasteful compromise talks with the political opposition. Netanyahu's televised remarks to his cabinet were spare on detail and come after opposition leaders last week suspended negotiations pending the formation of a key panel for selecting judges. Unveiled soon after Netanyahu's religious-nationalist coalition took power in late December, the sweeping reforms would roll back some Supreme Cou...

(Reuters) - Evidence suggests this month's destruction of the huge Kakhovka dam in a Russian-controlled area of Ukraine resulted from an inside explosion set off by Russia, the New York Times said. Citing engineers and explosive experts, the newspaper said on Friday that itsinvestigation found evidence suggesting an explosive charge in a passageway running through the dam's concrete base detonated, destroying the structure on June 6. "The evidence clearly suggests the dam was crippled by an explosion set off by the side that controls it: Russia," the Times said. Separately, a team of internat...

By Michael Holden LONDON (Reuters) -Senior British minister Michael Gove on Sunday described a video showing a party at the ruling Conservative Party's headquarters during a lockdown in 2020 as "terrible", as COVID rule-breaking gatherings continue to hang over the government. The video was published by the Mirror newspaper just days after a parliamentary committee ruled that former Prime Minister Boris Johnson had wilfully misled lawmakers about rule-breaking lockdown parties at his office. The 45-second clip shows revellers partying in December 2020 when the British public in London were ban...

NICOSIA (Reuters) - Separated by politics but united in pride, members of LGBTQ+ communities came together in celebration late on Saturday in the no-man's-land that splits Cyprus in two. Setting off from opposing sides of Nicosia, Cyprus's divided capital city, activists converged in a United Nations controlled buffer zone, turning it into a sea of rainbow flags where people cheered, embraced and kissed. Cyprus was split by ethnic violence which culminated in a Turkish invasion in 1974 triggered by a brief Greek inspired coup. The Turkish Cypriot community live in its north, and Greek Cypriots...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — For over 40 years, a landmark agreement between the United States and China has yielded cooperation across a range of scientific and technical fields, a powerful sign that the rivals could set aside their disputes and work together. Now with bilateral relations in their worst state in decades, a debate is underway within the U.S. government about whether to let the U.S.-China Science and Technology Agreement (STA) expire later this year, three officials familiar with the discussions said.

SEOUL (Reuters) -An estimated 400,000 people gathered in South Korea's capital Seoul on Saturday as fans from around the globe commemorated the 10th anniversary of the debut of K-Pop boy band juggernaut BTS. The band is on temporary break as a group with two of its seven members currently doing mandatory military service, but that did not stop a host of celebratory events this week catering to a loyal fanbase known as "ARMY". At the "BTS 10th Anniversary FESTA" at Han River Park in Seoul on Saturday, tens of thousands of fans wandered among various exhibits including a BTS history wall, stage ...