World News

ANKARA, June 24 (Reuters) – Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday that work was underway on a legal framework that would speed up the disbandment of the militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and that it would be put on parliament’s agenda without much delay.

The move signals a potential breakthrough after a peace process between the Turkish state and the PKK came to a near standstill in recent months due to the Iran war and the concerns it triggered about further regional instability.

The PKK, which waged a decades-long separatist insurgency against the Turkish state and is designated a terrorist group by Ankara and its Western allies, decided in May 2025 to disarm and disband, after an appeal from its jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan.

Turkey announced last November its plans for establishing a new legal framework but the country’s Kurdish politicians had accused the government of moving too slowly.

“At the point we have reached, we are working on a legal framework that will speed up the disbandment of the group. Once the necessary deliberations have been made, we will present the legislation in question to parliament without too much delay,” Erdogan told lawmakers from his ruling AK Party in parliament, without elaborating.

“I believe we have the capacity to solve the issue without compromising on our state’s qualities, our people’s values,” he added, saying that the integration of Syrian Kurdish militants into Syria’s state apparatus, a key element of the process, was also moving along.

The PKK launched its insurgency in 1984. It initially sought an independent Kurdish state in southeast Turkey but later changed its goals to autonomy and Kurdish political rights.

(Reporting by Huseyin Hayatsever; Writing by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by Daren Butler and Gareth Jones)

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WASHINGTON, June 24 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that Iran has told the United States that no tolls were being sought from ships traveling through the Strait of Hormuz.

The two countries, which ended ‌a first round of negotiations in Switzerland on Monday, have offered conflicting accounts about financial incentives for Iran, control of the Strait of Hormuz and Israel’s parallel war in Lebanon – all major aspects of their framework deal signed last week aiming to end the war.

Trump has faced criticism over the deal domestically, including from hardliners in his Republican Party.

“Iran has informed the U.S. that, despite troublemaking Fake News reporting to the contrary, there are ‘NO TOLLS, NO INSURANCE COSTS, & NO OTHER CHARGES OF ANY KIND BEING SOUGHT OR RECEIVED BY IRAN ON SHIPS TRAVELING THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ’ Trump wrote in a social media post.

“If this is false information, negotiations would end, immediately!”

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Philippa Fletcher)

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TOKYO (AP) — China has detained two Japanese citizens suspected of smuggling items prohibited from import or export, a Japanese official said Wednesday, in a case reportedly linked to rare earths, critical materials that are largely controlled by Beijing.

Japans’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara told reporters in Tokyo that Japanese consular offices in Shenyang and Dalian were notified by the Chinese customs authorities that the two Japanese nationals were detained, one on May 18 and another one a week later, “in the same alleged case.”

Kihara said the two were in good health, but refused to give further details about them or the case, on grounds of their privacy and the ongoing investigation.

In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun confirmed the detention of two Japanese citizens for violating Chinese laws, but did not give any details of the case.

“What we would like to emphasize is that the Japanese side should educate and remind Japanese citizens and enterprises in China to abide by Chinese laws and regulations,” Guo told a daily briefing.

Kyodo News agency reported that the two Japanese nationals are employees of a major Japanese machinery maker, and one of them works at its Chinese subsidiary. Their alleged attempt to take materials related to rare earths might have been considered illegal, Kyodo said.

The detention comes five months after Beijing banned exports to Japan of dual-use goods that can have military applications. China says the export control does not affect commercial goods, but trade data show exports of rare earths magnets from China have declined since.

Ties between the two major Asian economies have been strained for months.

Bilateral relations deteriorated when Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s suggested late last year that Chinese action against Taiwan, a self-governed island state Beijing considers its own territory, could justify Japanese military action. Previous Japanese leaders had maintained strategic ambiguity on the matter of Taiwan.

In another case that caused strains, a Japanese man who had been detained since March 2023 was sentenced last year to three and a half years in prison in China on espionage charges.

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Associated Press writer Ken Moritsugu in Beijing contributed to this report.

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By Manuela Andreoni and Andre Romani

SAO PAULO, June 24(Reuters) – Ricardo de Lima Filho, a 34-year-old video game translator, has voted for left-wing presidential candidates in every election he can remember, including President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of the Workers Party in the 2022 runoff. 

This year, however, he will go to the polls in October hoping to elect a right-wing president. 

“I’ve lived most of my adult life under Workers Party governments,” he said. But with the economy stuck in a lower gear, public safety backsliding, and corruption scandals in the news, he said, “I couldn’t feel the improvement that I expected.” 

Lula counted on young voters, between the ages of 16 and 34, to win the 2022 election against far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro. But this time around, polls show the former union leader is struggling. 

Overall, Lula remains popular and is widening his lead over his rivals. However, a June poll by Quaest, a Brazilian polling firm, showed that young adults were the only age group in which disapproval of Lula’s government exceeded approval. 

LEADING THE REGION

Young Brazilians are among the most right-wing in their cohort in Latin America, with 38% identifying as such in a 2024 survey done by a foundation linked to Germany’s Social Democratic Party. And a December poll by AtlasIntel showed older generations were more likely to identify as left or center-left.

The conservative tilt is stronger among men, who were two percentage points more likely to identify on the right in that survey and have skewed toward conservative candidates in presidential polling.

The rise of the young male conservative is part of a global trend, with parallels in Europe, the United States and South Korea, for example. 

But in Brazil, where Lula and his former chief of staff won five of the last six presidential races, the shift also reflects a generation that came of age associating the left with a string of economic disappointments over the past dozen years.

Right-wing presidential hopeful Renan Santos, 42, has capitalized on the frustration, drawing early support from disaffected young voters, although he resists calling them “conservative.”

“They are anti-left. It’s different,” he said in an interview at the Sao Paulo studio where he shoots his daily posts on social media. “The left is the establishment.”  

‘ASHAMED TO SAY’

At a May meeting in another corner of the city, young Workers Party and other progressive leaders met for some soul searching over how they had lost ground with so many young voters. 

Participants ran through explanations, from possible bias of tech platforms to the combative language of social media. They workshopped policy ideas, such as shortening the workweek or how to adapt housing programs to young people’s needs to connect with the zeitgeist.

“Are people ashamed of saying they are left-wing?” one young man asked the group.

Digging into the Quaest polling data, the firm’s director, Felipe Nunes, told Reuters that the surveys of young Brazilians do not reflect more conservative ideology per se. For example, they largely support the expansion of public services such as expanded access to higher education.

Yet polls show a widespread frustration with the economic stagnation linked to recent leftist governments that struggled to keep up with rising expectations.

While the number of Brazilians with a university degree almost doubled in the last decade, according to government data, graduates’ earnings did not grow as expected.  

Inflation-adjusted income for university grads is still lower than in 2014. They still earn more than those with only high school education, but the gap has shrunk. 

“Young people went to university … and when they returned to the job market, they didn’t see real economic result,” Nunes said.  

The search for answers has pushed many young voters toward the more market-oriented platforms of candidates on the right and center of the political spectrum, he added.

RENEWING RANKS 

At an April demonstration on Sao Paulo’s Avenida Paulista, 28-year-old journalism student John Vitor Lima and dozens of his peers gathered to protest a vast banking fraud scandal putting public pension funds at risk.

Most of the protesters were young men demanding an end to corruption and harsher penalties for criminals. 

Organizing the demonstration was the right-wing party Missao, led by the presidential contender Santos. It was the second that Lima attended. 

Santos has proposed making it easier to arrest suspected gang members and tying the use of federal funds allocated to political parties to the performance of their mayors.

“Our generation is not in positions of power,” he said, reflecting on the appeal of the young conservative candidate. “Santos brings hope … In general, people in positions of power are older.” 

In a May poll conducted by AtlasIntel, Santos captured a striking 36% of voters aged 16 to 24, outpacing both Lula and his main rival, Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, the son of former right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro.

Despite his popularity with some young voters, Santos is still polling in single digits across the electorate. Still, his campaign is part of a years-long renewal among right-wing parties that has included some of the youngest federal lawmakers in Brasilia.  

The top candidates in Brazil’s presidential race reflect the same dynamic. Flavio Bolsonaro, drawing the most votes on the right, is 45 years old. Lula, 80, is Brazil’s oldest president.

Earlier this year, a Workers Party representative said it was still reaching out to young voters, engaging them on issues like climate change, an issue that they warn the youth will feel the most, while reminding voters of Jair Bolsonaro’s harmful legacy on the environment.

Lula has also empathized with youth frustration, saying in April he knows there is a perception of corruption, but he urged young voters to participate politically. “Even when you think no politician is good enough, don’t give up on politics, get involved in politics.”

Flavio Bolsonaro, meanwhile, has been posting videos urging young people to vote, making an appeal in one video to those “doing everything right, yet going nowhere.”

(Reporting by Manuela Andreoni and Andre Romani; Additional reporting by Lisandra Paraguassu in Brasilia; Editing by Brad Haynes and Aurora Ellis)

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By Steve Gorman

June 23 (Reuters) – National television host Savannah Guthrie took time on her morning news show on Tuesday to appeal to the public once more for answers to the fate of her mother, missing since a presumed abduction over four months ago in Arizona.

“I wanted to take the opportunity to ask people, to beg people, to come forward. Somebody knows something,” NBC’s “Today” co-host tearfully told viewers from her seat at the anchor desk, flanked by her colleagues on the show.

Her on-air plea came a day after NBC News reported previously undisclosed details from the second of two purported ransom notes that surfaced in the case in early February, less than a week after 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie vanished from her Tucson home.

NBC, citing three unnamed sources familiar with the matter, said on Monday that the note in question referred to the elder Guthrie as having died but included no apology or request for payment for the release of her body.

According to NBC, the home broadcast network of “Today,” investigators regarded both notes, the first of which demanded a payment in cryptocurrency for Nancy Guthrie’s release, to be credible.

Appearing on the “Today” show on Tuesday following the latest headlines about the second note, the 54-year-old co-anchor said, “I don’t have any comment on this story, and I’m not involved in our coverage.”

She went on to describe the anguish that continues to grip her family since Nancy Guthrie, who had been in frail health with limited mobility, was last seen alive on January 31, after spending an evening with her older daughter, Annie Guthrie, and son-in-law.

“We are in agony. We cannot be at peace. No matter how much I try to come out here every day and smile and find that joy,” said Savannah Guthrie, who returned to the show in April from an extended leave following her mother’s disappearance.

Reminding the audience that a $1 million reward for information leading to her mother’s recovery remains in effect, Savannah Guthrie pleaded, “Please do the right thing for us, for our family, for our children.”

“We love our mom and we’ll never stop looking for her, never,” she concluded.

Media attention on the case has ebbed considerably since mid-February, when Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos and the FBI released surveillance footage of an armed prowler in a ski mask shown tampering with Nancy Guthrie’s doorbell camera shortly before she was abducted.

Days later, the FBI said a DNA sample was obtained from a glove found near her home and resembling the pair the masked prowler was seen wearing. But the specimen failed to produce a match in a search of known genetic profiles in a national database, dashing hopes that the tests would lead investigators to a suspect.

In a video recorded afterward, Savannah Guthrie said then that her family was still “blowing on the embers of hope” that Nancy Guthrie was alive, while also acknowledging that “she may already be gone.”

(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

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GODOLLO, Hungary (AP) — The leaders of four Central European countries signaled the revival of their regional alliance on Tuesday as they met in Hungary to repair relations that had fractured over the pro-Russian stance of former Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán.

The prime ministers of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia were meeting for the first summit of the Visegrád Four regional group in more than two years after Orbán’s approach to the war in Ukraine caused fault lines among the informal bloc’s other members, particularly Poland.

Hosting Tuesday’s summit at the Grassalkovich Castle in Gödöllő, a suburb of Budapest, was Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar, who since succeeding Orbán in May has spoken repeatedly about the importance of breathing new life into the group.

Magyar said at a news conference following a one-hour meeting with his counterparts that he had proposed developing a high-speed rail line linking the four countries’ capitals, and that the prime ministers had also discussed finding common ground on energy security, agricultural policy and illegal immigration.

“The V4 is back,” Magyar said. “The heart of Europe is beating in Central Europe today.”

Magyar, whose center-right Tisza party gained a two-thirds majority in parliament in Hungary’s April 12 election, has pledged to bring an end to his predecessor’s obstructionist approach in the European Union, and to base his foreign policy on constructive mutual cooperation while defending Hungary’s interests.

On Tuesday, he emphasized that he’d like to expand V4 cooperation to include other countries, and to make “a Visegrád Four that is strong and which has a credible voice in European decision-making.”

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk echoed Magyar’s sentiment that the V4 countries should coordinate before meetings of the European Council to bring common positions to the table, saying the group can be a “beacon of hope” that forms a united front to help dictate policies at the EU level.

Magyar’s election marked a shift in Hungary’s Ukraine policy. Within weeks of taking office, his government had reached an agreement with Kyiv on restoring a raft of rights for a Hungarian ethnic minority in western Ukraine, and in turn lifted Hungary’s veto in the EU for starting the embattled country’s membership process.

The prime ministers of the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Andrej Babis and Robert Fico, are both Orbán allies and, following the former prime minister’s lead, have reduced or cut weapons and financial aid to Ukraine for its defense against Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Yet Babis on Tuesday took an optimistic tone toward renewed V4 cooperation, saying the group is “once again fully operational.”

“These four countries are the future of Europe,” Babis said.

Hungary currently holds the rotating presidency of the V4 but will hand over the role to Slovakia at the end of the month.

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SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — A private company that oversees the transmission and distribution of power in Puerto Rico countersued the U.S. territory’s government on Tuesday.

Luma Energy accused the government of acting “in bad faith and with intentional malice to the detriment of the public interest.”

It also accused the government of using its power “to illegally try to fulfill a campaign promise.”

The countersuit comes six months after the government sued Luma in its first step to try and cancel its multimillion-dollar contract with the company, something Gov. Jenniffer González has repeatedly promised to do.

At the time, González said that Puerto Rico’s electrical system had not improved with the speed, consistency or effectiveness promised.

The lawsuit is the latest wrinkle to hit an island struggling with chronic outages and a crumbling power grid that was razed by Hurricane Maria in September 2017. Meanwhile, Puerto Rico’s Electric Power Authority remains mired in bankruptcy, unable to restructure more than $9 billion in public debt.

Luma asserted it would be owed billions of dollars if its contract is terminated, including at least $4.5 billion in damages.

A spokesperson for Puerto Rico’s Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Luma is a consortium made up of Calgary, Alberta-based Atco and Quanta Services Inc. of Houston. It took over the transmission and distribution of power in Puerto Rico in June 2021, inheriting infrastructure that was crumbling after decades of neglect and mismanagement under Puerto Rico’s power company.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican senators who have been at odds with President Donald Trump in recent weeks will have a chance to confront him face-to-face when he attends a party luncheon in the Capitol on Wednesday.

Senators said Tuesday that they hope the closed-door meeting will focus on unity, not disagreement. Yet it comes at a time when Mr. Trump appears to have lost interest in much of their agenda ahead of the midterm elections, pushing his proof-of-citizenship voting bill instead even though it doesn’t have the votes to pass.

Meantime, President Donald Trump visited a Mack Trucks facility in battleground Pennsylvania on Tuesday, attempting to shift attention to the U.S. economy in his first major public event outside the nation’s capital since he signed an interim agreement to end the Iran war.

The trip to Macungie, in the Allentown suburbs, came as Mr. Trump works to put the conflict — and the higher gasoline prices it caused — in the rearview mirror as the November midterm elections draw closer.

The President had a private tour of the facility. His speech often felt like a reelection rally from two years ago as well as an effort to promote his second-term accomplishments.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/videos/president-trump-delivers-remarks-jun-23-2026/

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By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON, June 23 (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate backed legislation on Tuesday directing President Donald Trump to halt U.S. military action against Iran, the latest rebuke of the Republican president from an increasingly restive Congress.

The Senate voted 50-48 in favor of the war powers resolution, which passed the House of Representatives early this month, reflecting growing concern even among some of Trump’s Republicans about the unpopular conflict that began on February 28.

It was the first time both chambers of Congress had passed a resolution directing a president to remove U.S. armed forces from hostilities since the War Powers Resolution,  more commonly known as the War Powers Act, was enacted in 1973. 

While likely to remain largely symbolic, the vote was a setback for Trump, who until recently had enjoyed near-unanimous support from Republican members of Congress.

It also comes as the administration is expected to ask Congress to authorize tens of billions of dollars to pay for the war.

Trump’s Republicans hold slim majorities in both the Senate and House, but a few have broken with the president on a handful of issues ahead of mid-term elections in November, which will determine whether the party will retain control of Congress.

Some Republicans recently balked at Trump’s $1.8 billion “antiweaponization” fund to compensate political allies he says have been targeted by federal authorities and stalled a $70 billion bill to fund his immigration crackdown.

Reuters/Ipsos poll results released on Tuesday showed that just one in four Americans believe the war with Iran was worth its costs, and a majority worry that a truce with Tehran is unlikely to last.

The Senate vote was largely along party lines, with four Republicans joining all but one Democrat in favor. Two Republican senators did not vote.

CONSTITUTIONAL UNCERTAINTY

Trump’s administration is working to negotiate a peace agreement with Iran. Support for the resolution in Congress is likely to put pressure on the president not to resume hostilities, something he has suggested he might do if negotiations falter. 

Under the 1973 War Powers Act, the concurrent resolution – passed by both the House and Senate – does not go to the White House for Trump’s signature. In the 1973 law, Congress intended such resolutions as a mechanism for ending military operations. 

But legal experts said the issue remains unsettled.  No war powers resolution had previously passed both chambers of Congress and a 1983 Supreme Court ruling said such a measure must be submitted for a president’s signature or veto to have legal effect.

The White House has insisted the War Powers Act is not constitutional and thus not binding.

On Tuesday, a White House official said the Senate vote has no significance because the resolutions do not go to the president and have no force of law and the measure passed only because two Republicans were absent.

The official also said the resolution directs Trump to remove U.S. forces from hostilities, which the White House says were terminated with a ceasefire on April 7.

Experts say the constitutionality of the War Powers Act likely will be settled in the courts.

“The executive branch will likely ignore it on constitutional grounds, and it’s not clear who might have standing to sue to enforce it,” said Scott Anderson, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and senior editor of the online legal publication Lawfare.

Representative Gregory Meeks of New York, who sponsored the resolution in the House, said he viewed the resolution as binding and would pursue all legal avenues to ensure that the administration complies.

Democrats also noted that the U.S. Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the right to take the country to war. “Congress has to own this responsibility,” Democratic Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia said in a speech urging support for the measure. 

SLIM, BUT SIGNIFICANT, SUPPORT

The resolution had also passed the House with slim Republican support. The tally there was 215-208 with four Republicans and every Democrat voting in favor.

The four Republican senators who voted for the measure were Susan Collins of Maine, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. Democratic Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania voted against it.

Republicans Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and David McCormick of Pennsylvania missed the vote.

Democratic lawmakers have promised additional votes on war powers measures, saying they want to force Republicans to go on the record about the war.

Additionally, Congress has the right to review and vote on any peace agreement with Tehran if it affects Iran’s nuclear program, under a 2015 law passed as then-President Barack Obama negotiated a nuclear agreement with Iran and other world powers.

Senate Republican Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota said on Tuesday he expected Congress would review and vote on an eventual Iran peace deal.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; additional reporting by Richard Cowan and Trevor Hunnicutt; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani and Don Durfee)

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LIMA, Peru (AP) — Presidential candidate Roberto Sánchez said Tuesday that he’ll refuse to recognize results of Peru’s June 7 presidential runoff if officials count ballots cast by Peruvians overseas that he alleges were processed improperly.

With 99.72% of votes counted, Sánchez trails conservative candidate Keiko Fujimori by just 40,000 votes and is expected to lose the election, once authorities finish processing tally sheets. More than 18 million Peruvians participated in the runoff.

Sánchez, a former commerce minister who is popular in rural areas and among Peru’s Indigenous population, would win the election if votes cast by Peruvians living abroad are discarded, according to data published by election authorities.

Sánchez’s campaign has filed a petition to reject overseas ballots, arguing that Peruvian consulates abroad did not use a government-provided app to scan tally sheets as required by law.

Peru’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said in a statement that, in late May, it had obtained authorization from electoral officials to conduct voting at consulates without scanning tally sheets, but by sending them directly to the capital, Lima, to be processed after voting ended.

The ministry said the change was made because of problems with the scanning app during the first round. Sánchez’s campaign argues that the procedural change created opportunities for fraud, an allegation denied by both Peru’s national elections agency, ONPE, and the Foreign Affairs Ministry.

“Under these conditions of transgression of the rules, we will not recognize the government of Miss (Keiko) Fujimori,” Sánchez said Tuesday.

More than 307,000 Peruvians living abroad voted in the June 7 runoff between Sánchez and Fujimori, with 65% of them supporting Fujimori, according to ONPE.

Fujimori has not commented on Sánchez’s request to annul the overseas votes.

The conservative candidate, who campaigned on a tough on crime platform, won an overwhelming majority of votes cast by Peruvians living in the United States, Argentina and Japan, where her paternal grandparents were born.

Sánchez, an ally of imprisoned former President Pedro Castillo, has promised to make reforms to the nation’s mining sector that would give community groups a stake in copper and gold mines. His campaign easily defeated Fujimori in mountainous areas of southern Peru that have long suffered from economic exclusion, but fell behind Fujimori in Lima, where about a third of Peru’s voters are based.

Peru has had eight presidents in the past decade, only two of whom were elected by popular vote. The others replaced presidents who resigned or were removed by Peru’s Congress amid corruption allegations.

Despite the political instability Peru has maintained stable economic policies that have enabled the country to be one of the fastest-growing economies in South America.

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Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

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