By Kanishka Singh
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A dual Haitian-Chilean citizen was sentenced to life in prison on Friday after pleading guilty in a U.S. court in March to three charges involving his role in the 2021 assassination of then-Haitian President Jovenel Moise, prosecutors said.
By Aleksandra Michalska and Michael Martina
NEW YORK (Reuters) -The hope for a "free China" lives on in a new Manhattan museum dedicated to China's 1989 suppression of pro-democracy demonstrations around Tiananmen Square, exhibit organizers said on Thursday ahead of the 34th anniversary of the crackdown.
The June 4th Memorial Museum in New York will be the only such permanent exhibition in the world, following the 2021 closure of a similar museum in Hong Kong under pressure from authorities.
Tanks rolled into the Beijing square before dawn on June 4, 1989, to end weeks of student and worker protests. Decades after Chinese leaders ordered the military assault, rights activists say the demonstrators' original goals - including a free press and freedom of speech - are further away than ever.
The small New York museum – situated in a cramped office space on the fourth floor of a Sixth Avenue office building – holds items from the Tiananmen events, including banners, letters, and a blood-stained shirt, as well as photos and detailed news articles from the time.
Zhou Fengsuo, 55, an exiled former Tiananmen student leader who helped plan the museum, told a press conference that it was a place where the "hope for a free China" lives.
"Because there is a hope. No matter what kind of defeat there was, and how much struggle we had to go through, this dream lives here," Zhou said.
Organizers are set to hold an opening ceremony on Friday.
China's Embassy in Washington did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
China has never provided a death toll of the 1989 violence, but rights groups and witnesses say it could run into the thousands.
Marking June 4 in mainland China is taboo, and the government has ramped up censorship in recent years.
Public memorials of the crackdown were once allowed in Hong Kong, but Hong Kong police have barred a vigil there since 2020, citing COVID-19 concerns. It is unclear if authorities in the former British colony will allow public memorials this year.
Overseas activists are helping to organize events in cities including Taipei, London, Berlin and Washington.
Wang Dan, another former Tiananmen student leader who helped establish the museum, said he felt it was his obligation to show his respect for the protesters who died.
"Don't give up," Wang told Reuters. "That's my message to fellow Chinese people."
(Reporting by Aleksandra Michalska, Michael Martina, James Pomfret and Jessie PangEditing by Don Durfee and Rosalba O'Brien)
By Tim Kelly, Nobuhiro Kubo, Yukiko Toyoda and Kaori Kaneko
TOKYO (Reuters) - The United States is seeking to secure supplies of TNT in Japan for 155mm artillery shells, as Washington rushes weapons and ammunition to Ukraine for a counteroffensive against Russian forces, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters.
For war-renouncing Japan, any procurement would test its willingness to court controversy to help Kyiv because export rules ban Japanese companies from selling lethal items overseas, such as the howitzer shells that Ukraine fires daily at Russian units occupying its southeastern regions.
Nonetheless, the allies appear to have found a workaround to enable the TNT sale amid global shortages of munitions.
"There is a way for the United States to buy explosives from Japan," one of the people with knowledge of discussions on the matter in Japan told Reuters on the condition of anonymity, citing the issue's sensitivity.
Export restrictions for dual-use products or equipment sold commercially are less stringent than for items with a purely military purpose, which is why the U.S. can buy Panasonic Toughbook laptops for its military.
Tokyo, which hosted U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin this week, has told the U.S. government it will allow the sale of industrial TNT because the explosive is not a military-use-only product, the other source said.
The U.S. wants to plug a Japanese company into a TNT supply chain to deliver explosives to U.S. army-owned munitions plants that would pack them into 155mm shell cases, the person added.
Japan's Ministry of Trade, Industry and Economy declined to say whether any Japanese company had approached it about exporting TNT. It added in an email that items not subject to military restrictions would be assessed under regular export rules that consider the buyer's intent, including whether their use would impede international security.
The Japanese defence ministry's Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Agency declined to comment.
The U.S. State Department did not directly address questions from Reuters about whether the U.S. planned to buy TNT in Japan but said Washington was working with allies and partners "to provide Ukraine with the support it needs" to defend itself. Japan, it added, "has demonstrated leadership in supporting Ukraine's defense".
EAGER TO HELP
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida wants to help Ukraine because his administration fears a Russian victory would embolden China to attack Taiwan and embroil his country in a regional war. Last year, he warned that Ukraine may be "East Asia tomorrow", and his administration announced Japan's biggest military build-up since World War Two.
That retreat from the state pacifism that has dominated Japan's foreign policy for decades has not so far extended to lethal military aid, limiting Tokyo's offerings to Kyiv to kit such as flak jackets, helmets and food rations.
Following Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's visit to Japan during the Hiroshima G7 leaders summit last month, Kishida agreed to donate jeeps and trucks.
There appears to be growing acceptance in Japan about providing military aid to Ukraine, but the degree of lethality is contentious, said Tsuneo Watanabe, a senior fellow at the Sasakawa Peace Foundation.
"The fact that Japan has decided to give trucks to Ukraine shows that things are changing. However, there doesn't yet appear to be any political consensus around the issue of sending lethal aid," he said.
Japan is one of dozens of friends and allies that Washington is asking to help arm Ukraine as it wrestles with stretched military supply chains.
South Korea, which also uses 155mm shells, is among those the U.S. has approached. A South Korean defence official told Reuters that Seoul's stance against providing lethal aid to Kyiv had not changed.
Asked in Tokyo this week about the possibility of a shift in Japanese policy on lethal aid, Austin said at a press briefing that any change would be a matter for Japan but "any bit of support" for Ukraine was "always welcome".
The sources who spoke to Reuters declined to identify the Japanese company that would supply explosives to the U.S. government and did not say how much TNT Washington wanted to buy.
Reuters contacted 22 explosives makers listed on the Japan Explosives Industry Association's website. The only one that said it made industrial TNT was Chugoku Kayaku, an Hiroshima-based firm that supplies Japan's military.
"We have not received any direct inquiry from the U.S. government or U.S. military," the company said in an email.
Asked if it was discussing any TNT sales through an intermediary, the firm, which lists an industrial TNT product on its website, said it did not disclose the identity of customers or potential buyers.
JAPAN'S NEXT MOVE
Supplying commercial TNT to the U.S. may only be a stop-gap measure because many lawmakers of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) want to ease or eliminate the export restrictions.
In December, when Kishida announced Japan's five-year military build-up, he pledged to revise the export rules, opening up the possibility that Japan could supply lethal weapons not only to Ukraine, but to other nations that Tokyo and Washington see as potential allies against Russia and China.
Akihisa Nagashima, a former deputy defence minister and a ranking LDP member of the parliamentary committee on national security, said the military build-up would take Japan four-fifths of the way to becoming a "normal country" unencumbered by the legacy of its World War Two defeat.
"Tackling the export restrictions is the remaining 20%," he said.
(Reporting by Tim Kelly, Nobuhiro Kubo, Yukiko Toyoda and Kaori Kaneko in Tokyo; additional reporting by Idrees Ali in Washington and Ju-min Park in Seoul; editing by David Crawshaw)
Jordan celebrated its biggest royal wedding in decades on Thursday, as Crown Prince Hussein bin Abdullah and his Saudi fiancée Rajwa al-Seif got married.
The Islamic marriage ceremony took place in the garden of Zahran palace in Amman, which had also seen the wedding of Hussein’s parents, King Abdullah and Queen Rania, 30 years ago.
Rajwa wore a long-sleeved white dress, with a tiara and long train, while Hussein wore a ceremonial military uniform, similar to the one his father wore in his own wedding.
Shortly afterwards, a royal decree was issued to bestow on the bride the title of Her Royal Highness Princess Rajwa al-Hussein.
Royals and dignitaries from all over the world attended the ceremony, including Britain's Prince William and his wife, Princess of Wales Kate Middleton, US First Lady Jill Biden, Malaysia's King Abdullah, Dutch King Willem-Alexander and Belgium’s King Philippe.
Jordanians took to the streets to enjoy the public celebrations held across the kingdom. The government declared Thursday a public holiday.
Many gathered in different areas enjoying music and dancing while carrying Jordanian flags. Others carried Saudi flags.
Others have lined the streets in Amman to catch a glimpse of the royal procession of red vehicles, which took the newly-weds to another palace for the dinner reception.
The highly anticipated ceremony comes as a sign of stability for Jordan and a chance to rally people around the future king, after a 2021 palace feud described as the most serious political crisis in Jordan since Abdullah took power.
The king’s half-brother and former crown prince Hamzah was accused of being involved in an alleged coup attempt. Two prominent Jordanians were jailed for their role in the alleged plot, however, Hamzah, never faced trial.
Jordan blamed "foreign parties" for involvement in the plot, but reports suggested Saudi involvement as the two men jailed had links to Saudi Arabia.
Therefore, the marriage is seen as a step to solidify relations between the two countries and their rulers.
Hussein, born on June 28, 1994, is a captain in the Jordanian army. He was named crown prince in 2009, five years after Abdullah stripped his half-brother Hamzah of the title.
Riyadh-born Rajwa, 29, has a degree in architecture and likes horse riding. Her father, Khaled, is a businessman.
She has royal links through her mother Azza al-Sudairi, who comes from the same maternal family of Saudi King Salman.
"I met Rajwa through a friend from school," Hussein said at a recent conference in Jordan.
"I consider myself lucky because you do not meet someone like Rajwa every day," he added, while she was sitting among the audience.
Social media users have highlighted a resemblance between the bride and Queen Rania.
At a dinner henna party last week, Rania said Rajwa was "the perfect answer to all [her] prayers."
The engagement took place in August with a family gathering at Rajwa’s home in Saudi Arabia.
Since 2017, Hussein has been appearing more intensely on the international stage and accompanied his father on the majority of his official engagements. He is named after his grandfather, who died in 1999, but remains popular and respected in the Hashemite Kingdom.
Hussein is the oldest of Abdullah and Rania's four children. His sister, Iman, got married in March.
Jordan is a mostly desert-covered US ally that has maintained relative calm while surrounded by several conflicts for decades.These have led to an influx of refugees which in turn has put pressure on the country's economy. The kingdom is largely dependent on foreign aid.
