World News

By Tanvi Mehta

NEW DELHI, May 21 (Reuters) – India and the African Union (AU) have decided to postpone the India-Africa Forum Summit scheduled to be held next week in New Delhi, due to the “emerging public health situation” in Africa, India’s foreign ministry said on Thursday, in an apparent reference to the Ebola outbreak.

Here are some details.

• The fourth India–Africa Forum Summit was scheduled to take place in New Delhi from May 28 to May 31.

• The summit of ministers and leaders aimed to deepen cooperation on trade, investment, innovation, development, digital technology, sustainability and global governance.

• After discussing the “evolving health situation in parts of Africa”, India and the AU agreed that it would be “advisable” to hold the summit at a later date, the foreign ministry said in a statement. It did not elaborate on the health concerns.

• The Democratic Republic of Congo has been facing an outbreak of a rare Ebola strain for which there is no vaccine.

• The World Health Organization said on Wednesday that 600 suspected cases and 139 suspected deaths have been recorded so far in the outbreak that started two months ago.

• The Indian foreign ministry said new dates for the summit will be finalised in due course.

(Reporting by Tanvi Mehta; Editing by YP Rajesh)

source

By Mariam Sunny

May 21 (Reuters) – Confronted with Trump Administration threats to gender-affirming care for young transgender people, American families are weighing moves out of their states to gain access to needed healthcare, according to doctors, patients, policy experts and advocacy groups.

Upon taking office for the second time, President Donald Trump issued an executive order aimed at limiting access to gender-affirming care for patients under age 19, building on legislation or rules in 27 mostly Republican-led states that restrict such care. The order has been temporarily blocked by a judge but the administration continues to push new bans.

By the time the Justice Department began subpoenaing healthcare providers for patient records related to gender-affirming care last July – another action temporarily blocked by courts – Harleigh Walker, a 19-year-old transgender girl from Alabama, was considering a move.

“My family and I were discussing, after high school where I might go to college, and I’m from Auburn, Alabama, next to one of the best schools in that state,” Walker said. “But I could not stay in the state of Alabama because my parents, my doctors, and I were being criminalized.”

She now attends college in Maryland, a state that protects access to gender-affirming care. “There’s a level of safety here. This is a very accepting, pretty progressive state,” Walker said.

The family still talks daily about a move either to a friendly state or out of the country, her father, Jeff Walker, said.

Newly released data from a survey conducted from March 4 to October 15, 2025, by the non-profit Trevor Project, which provides free, specialized support to LGBTQ+ youth, found that Harleigh’s story is a common one. Nearly one-third of 16,000 LGBTQ respondents aged 13 to 24 said they or their families were considering moving to a different state for care.

Nearly 1.5 million people aged 13 to 24 identify as transgender in the U.S., a UCLA study based on health records found.

POLICY VS SCIENCE

The Trump Administration’s effort to end gender-affirming care includes threatening hospitals with cutting off access to lucrative Medicare payments. The program for people aged 65 and older or with disabilities serves 70 million people.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services declined to comment.

Gender-transition care can range from advice on adopting a preferred name or pronoun to puberty-blocking drugs and hormones or surgery. Medical care is often given to people diagnosed with gender dysphoria, or distress when a person’s gender identity doesn’t align with their sex assigned at birth.

Most medical groups, including the American Medical Association, the Endocrine Society, and the American Academy of Pediatrics, say such care can be life-saving.

In February, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons recommended delays in gender-related surgeries for young people.

Decisions by hospitals to reduce or pause these services are driven by legal and financial risk assessments, not changes in clinical evidence or patient need, said Alex Sheldon, executive director at LGBTQ health advocacy group GLMA.

The Trevor Project survey found about 75% of young people had experienced difficulties in accessing gender-affirming care.

FEWER OPTIONS

Since January 2025, more than 40 hospitals have restricted such care for young people, STAT News reported in February based on its own analysis.

But some hospitals, such as Children’s Minnesota, have begun offering care again following a federal court ruling that vacated the U.S. health agency’s restrictions. It had paused care on February 27.

University of Michigan Health stopped providing hormone therapies and puberty blockers as gender-care treatments for people under 18 last August, citing the July federal subpoena and “unprecedented legal and regulatory threats to our clinicians and our institution.”

Claire Cabrera, 43, is the mother of a teenager who traveled from a rural part of the state where they live to receive care there. The adolescent spent six years navigating their gender journey, from new pronouns and clothes in fourth grade to puberty blockers and testosterone.

After running out of a three-month supply of testosterone, they now rely on a telehealth service to prevent missing an injection, which can lead to hormonal shifts, menstrual cramps and anxiety.

“We will do whatever it takes to support our child, including looking at other options outside of the state and outside of the country,” Cabrera said.

SCRAMBLING FOR ALTERNATIVES

Canada and European countries have become more attractive options as U.S. care access dwindles, said Kellan Baker, a health-policy adviser at Movement Advancement Project, a transgender rights advocacy think tank.

In California, prominent healthcare provider Children’s Hospital Los Angeles shut its gender clinic in 2025 after 30 years, describing external pressure and “no viable path forward.”

Maria Do, an organizer with the Los Angeles LGBT Center, said families were scrambling for alternatives since the closure, stockpiling medicines and seeking treatment abroad.

Dr. Beth Cronin, an obstetrician-gynecologist from Rhode Island, said she has patients coming from Texas and Florida, looking for ‘blue state’ stability for treatment.

Opposing court rulings on whether a Rhode Island hospital must comply with handing over medical records of trans youth are currently being appealed.

One patient with family in Canada was considering a move there, while another young father said such a move was too expensive, Cronin said.

“I don’t think it’s a realistic option for most patients in general,” Cronin said.

(Reporting by Mariam Sunny in Bengaluru; Editing by Caroline Humer, Mrinalika Roy and Bill Berkrot)

source

By Lisa Richwine

LOS ANGELES, May 21 (Reuters) – “The Mandalorian and Grogu,” the first “Star Wars” movie in seven years, heads to theaters this weekend as Walt Disney bets on the charm of Baby Yoda to re-energize the film franchise.

Disney put the “Star Wars” movies on hiatus following 2019’s “The Rise of Skywalker” after executives concluded they had released too many films in a short period. That same year, the “Star Wars” TV show “The Mandalorian” became a hit on the Disney+ streaming service.

The series introduced a small green creature with oversized eyes, initially dubbed Baby Yoda and later revealed to be named Grogu, that became a pop culture sensation. 

Grogu’s big-screen adventure, however, may open with the smallest domestic box office result for any “Star Wars” movie since Disney bought the franchise from creator George Lucas in 2012. Analysts predict “The Mandalorian and Grogu” will take in roughly $75 million to $100 million over the Memorial Day weekend at U.S. and Canadian theaters. 

Disney’s lowest-grossing “Star Wars” film, “Solo: A Star Wars Story,” brought in $103 million over Memorial Day weekend in 2018 and was considered a flop.

“What Disney is trying to figure out is, theatrically speaking, is Star Wars still essential? Do people still feel like they need to go see it in the theaters?” said Jeff Bock, senior box office analyst at Exhibitor Relations Co. 

Bock said he expected “Mandalorian and Grogu” to bring in roughly $85 million domestically through Monday. That would be a success, Bock said, given the film cost about $165 million to make compared with $300 million-plus production budgets for other “Star Wars” movies. It also would spark more sales of Baby Yoda toys and t-shirts, he said.

CRITICS SO FAR ARE SPLIT 

The movie stars Pedro Pascal as a helmeted Mandalorian bounty hunter who works with Grogu to free a prisoner in the galaxy far, far away.

At a fan event in London, Pascal pitched the movie as “a big-screen experience” like the ones he watched as a child. The franchise debuted in 1977 and has taken in more than $10 billion at theaters worldwide. 

“People lost their minds over ‘Star Wars,’ which is why it exists as it does today and why it needs to be on a big screen again,” he said.

Critics so far are split on the movie, which as of Wednesday had a 60% positive rating on the Rotten Tomatoes website.

Daily Beast entertainment critic Nick Schager called the film “a swashbuckling space Western that deftly marries combative spectacle and kid-friendly cuteness.” Bilge Ebiri, Vulture and New York film critic, found the movie “drab and stone-faced to a fault.” 

Disney’s next movie, “Star Wars: Starfighter” featuring Ryan Gosling, is scheduled to hit cinemas in May 2027.

(Reporting by Lisa Richwine; Additional reporting by Elizabeth Evans in London; editing by David Gaffen)

source

CANNES, France, May 20 (Reuters) – Oscar-winning Spanish director Pedro Almodovar urged artists to speak out about the crises facing society on Wednesday, describing it as their moral duty against “monsters” like U.S. President Donald Trump.

“The creator, from their small platform, each from their own, must speak without mincing words,” said Almodovar at the Cannes Film Festival after the premiere of his tragicomedy “Bitter Christmas.”

“Silence and fear – because it is clearly an expression of fear – are a very bad sign; they are a sign of the erosion of democracy,” said the director considered a defining figure of contemporary European cinema.

“We are obliged to become a kind of shield against these monsters like Trump, Netanyahu or the Russian,” he said, referring to Israel’s prime minister and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“Trump must know that there is a limit to all his delusions and madness, and that Europe will never bow down to Trump’s policies,” he added.

The latest film from the director known for dark humour and melodrama stars Leonardo Sbaraglia as Raul, a filmmaker who starts borrowing details from the people in his life to write his new screenplay.

The story draws deeply from Almodovar’s own creative journey as a director, he told journalists.

Almodovar, who is competing for the festival’s Palme d’Or top prize for the sixth time, said that he would miss coming to Cannes once the day comes when he stops making films.

“But for now, I think I’m going to make one more film; I hope that I’ll continue to find the inspiration for more,” he said, adding that there will be more humour in the next one.

(Reporting by Hanna Rantala and Miranda MurrayEditing by Nick Zieminski)

source

By Francois Murphy

VIENNA, May 20 (Reuters) – An Austrian court found former intelligence officer Egisto Ott guilty of spying on Wednesday, for helping Russia hunt down opponents and selling it state laptops and phones at the behest of suspected Moscow agent Jan Marsalek.

Ott’s is the biggest spying case in Austria since a retired army colonel was convicted in 2020 of having spied for Moscow for decades.

In addition to spying to the detriment of Austria, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison, Ott was found guilty of offences including misuse of office, bribery and breach of trust. 

Ott, 63, pleaded not guilty and has maintained his innocence since the trial opened in January. He was sentenced to four years and one month in prison. 

Ott, wearing a dark suit and black shirt, did not react as the ruling was delivered. He felt “calm”, his lawyer Anna Mair told reporters afterwards, adding that he planned to appeal.

ALLEGED MOSCOW AGENT ON THE RUN

The proceedings offered a glimpse of Russian intelligence-gathering in Europe, and of Marsalek’s alleged operations across the continent, after a London court convicted three Bulgarians last year of being part of a Russian spy ring run by him.

Marsalek, the former chief operating officer of Wirecard, the collapsed German payments firm, is on the run and believed to be in Russia. As such, he could not be reached for comment.

Ott was found to have made unauthorised searches in police and other databases in an attempt to locate people Moscow wanted to hunt down, such as Dmitry Senin, a former Russian intelligence agent who has now claimed asylum in Montenegro.

Ott acknowledged saving the results in his private Gmail account or in unrelated case files of the agency he worked for, the now-defunct Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Counterterrorism.

Ott said he had been operating under the orders of a superior who had been contacted by an allied Western intelligence agency that had hoped to recruit Senin, but did not say which agency or which country it was from.

Another target was Bulgarian journalist Christo Grozev, who worked for investigative outlet Bellingcat and led its reporting on the 2018 poisoning in Britain of Russian double agent Sergei Skripal, which Britain blames on Russia.

Moscow denies involvement in that case and has regularly accused Western powers of trying to inflame anti-Russian hysteria.

Prosecutors said Ott provided Grozev’s address in Vienna to Marsalek, who then arranged a break-in at the apartment. Grozev later moved away from Austria for security reasons when he learned he was a target.

Ott was found to have provided an accomplice of Marsalek’s with a SINA-S laptop, which includes hardware used by European Union governments for secure communications, in exchange for €20,000 ($23,200).

He also provided Marsalek’s network with three work phones belonging to members of the then-interior minister’s private office that were recovered after a boating accident in 2017, the court found.

(Reporting by Francois Murphy; Editing by Alex Richardson, Rod Nickel)

source

SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed two decrees on Wednesday that add to the pressure on big tech companies by increasing their liability for illegal content shared by its users and paving the way for investigations by a government body into their responses to such cases.

The moves toughen the environment in Brazil for giants like Google, Meta and TikTok, who have long tried to dissociate themselves with crimes online committed by users.

The first decree makes key adaptations to government regulations to align them with a decision by Brazil’s Supreme Court making big tech companies liable if they refuse to remove content by judicial order. It also enables the country’s national agency of data protection to investigate those cases. The second decree establishes guidelines for the protection of women in the digital environment.

Brazil’s government said in a statement that from now on platforms must analyze any complaints, and if the content is deemed criminal, remove it immediately, while communicating the decision to the person responsible. Possible penalties for non-compliance include warnings, fines and temporary suspension.

Big tech companies have not commented on the decision by Brazil’s government.

Patricia Peck, a council member of Brazil’s Data Protection Authority and author of 46 books on law and technology, said the country’s executive and judicial branches have pushed for big techs to be proactive against crimes online despite evident stagnation of the debate in congress.

“We don’t have specific legislation to hold these platforms responsible, we are taking a side road,” Peck told The Associated Press. “Those who develop these technologies must think about it with perspective of ethics, privacy, and security as a standard.”

Since the Brazilian Supreme Court ruling last year, these companies have had to actively monitor content that involves hate speech, racism and incitation to violence and act to remove it.

Lula’s move also expands the current law’s capacity to address the growth of digital fraud, online scams and new forms of online violence.

Mattheus Puppe, an expert on Brazil’s digital law, says the decrees seek to stop platforms from profiting from illegal publications and reinforce the country’s Supreme Court’s decision. But he has doubts on whether the government’s initiatives will indeed hinder online crime.

“It is not clear how well this will work because the agency that was chosen to investigate cases can barely do its job now,” Puppe said. “But it is true that it shouldn’t be up to companies to know what is lawful and what is not.”

Brazil’s approach to big techs is increasingly similar to that of the European Union, which has sought to rein in the power of social media companies and other digital platforms.

But it has unsettled the relationship between the South American nation and the U.S. government. Critics expressed concern that the move could threaten free speech if platforms preemptively remove content that could be problematic.

Earlier this year, a law that seeks to shield minors from addictive, violent, and pornographic online content took effect. The legislation requires minors under 16 to link their social media accounts to a legal guardian to ensure supervision and prohibits platforms from using addictive features such as infinite scroll and the automatic play of videos.

___

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

source

source

BRUSSELS, May 20 (Reuters) – The European Commission found the treatment of the Gaza flotilla activists shown in a video released by Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir is “completely unacceptable”, a spokesperson said on Wednesday.

“Every detained person must be treated with safety, dignity and according to international law,” spokesperson Anouar El Anouni said in a post on X. “We call on the Israeli government to ensure the protection and dignified treatment of these activists, including several EU citizens,” he added.

Israeli police forced activists who were aboard a Gaza-bound aid flotilla to kneel on the ground in rows with their hands tied behind their backs while Ben-Gvir looked on, drawing criticism from foreign leaders and even from inside Israel’s own government.

The activists were detained after their flotilla was intercepted by Israeli forces in international waters on Tuesday and later taken to an Israeli port.

(Reporting by Inti Landauro, Editing by Franklin Paul)

source

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone (AP) — Nine migrants deported from the United States landed in Sierra Leone on Wednesday, the West African country said, in the latest example of the Trump administration’s widely criticized deals with African and Latin American nations to take third-country deportees.

Five migrants are from Ghana, two from Guinea, one from Senegal and one from Nigeria, the ministry of information said. The deals have raised questions about respect for the migrants’ rights.

The ministry’s statement said the new arrivals “have been checked into their hosting facilities, are comfortable and receiving the necessary support.” It said 24 deportees were initially expected but didn’t provide details.

Alma David, an immigration lawyer with the U.S.-based Novo Legal Group who has helped deportees, said the lower number might be explained by the fact that several deportations were halted shortly before the flight left the United States.

According to court documents seen by The Associated Press, a U.S. federal judge halted a woman’s deportation to Sierra Leone after the government failed to let her seek protection under the Convention Against Torture, as required by law.

Sierra Leone’s foreign minister, Timothy Kabba, told local media Wednesday the government has agreed to temporarily receive migrants deported by the Trump administration, saying it only accepts West African nationals and the agreement is supported by a $1.5 million grant from the U.S. government.

The ministry of information said in a Facebook post Monday that Kenvah Solutions, ⁠a private contractor, was hired to handle the deportees housing, food and healthcare.

It said deportees are expected to be sent home or transferred within 14 days, or up to 30 days in exceptional cases.

The program is capped at 25 deportees per month and 300 per year, according to the ministry. It did not specify the duration of the arrangement.

The U.S. has struck third-country deportation deals with at least eight other African nations, many among countries hit hardest by the Trump administration’s policies restricting trade, aid and migration. The other African nations known to sign deals are Congo, Equatorial Guinea, South Sudan, Rwanda, Uganda, Eswatini, Ghana and Cameroon.

Several have notoriously repressive governments and poor human rights records including Eswatini, South Sudan and Equatorial Guinea.

Some of the countries have received millions of dollars in return, according to documents released by the State Department. Details of most agreements have not been made public.

Lawyers and activists have raised questions over the nature of the deals with countries in Africa and elsewhere. Some countries in Latin America, including Costa Rica,Dominican Republic and Honduras, have signed similar agreements to accept third-country deportees.

Last week, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to bring a Colombian woman back to the U.S. from Congo after she was deported there even though it had refused to accept her because it could not care for her medical needs.

——

Banchereau reported from Dakar, Senegal.

source

SEOUL, May 20 (Reuters) – South Korean President Lee Jae Myung on Wednesday said Israel had arrested South Korean nationals in international waters, calling the action “way out of line”.

In a cabinet meeting, Lee said the South Korean citizens had been detained for reasons not valid under international law, questioning whether such actions could be allowed to pass without protest.

Lee said he believed many European countries were willing to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu under International Criminal Court warrants but that Seoul must make its own judgment on the matter.

(Reporting by Kyu-seok Shim; Editing by Tom Hogue)

source