World News

NEW DELHI, May 12 (Reuters) – Dozens of members of the student wing of India’s opposition Congress party protested in New Delhi on Tuesday against the cancellation of a key undergraduate college entrance test after authorities discovered its questions had been leaked. 

Here are some details. 

• About 2.3 million students across India took the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) on May 3 for admission to undergraduate medical programmes.

• The federal National Testing Agency scrapped the test on Tuesday, saying the process could not be allowed to stand and a new date would be set.

• Visuals from news agency ANI showed dozens of protesters from the National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) chanting slogans, with some also trying to jump police barricades.

• NSUI President Vinod Jakhar demanded “strictest possible action” against those involved in leaking the questions, and the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, saying protesters had no faith in the government.

• NEET questions had been similarly leaked in some parts of India in 2024, but the test was not re-run.

(Reporting by Sakshi Dayal; Editing by YP Rajesh and Kevin Liffey)

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THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Venezuela ’s acting President Delcy Rodríguez told journalists Monday that her country had no plans to become the 51st U.S. state after President Donald Trump said he was “seriously considering” the move.

Rodríguez was speaking at the International Court of Justice in The Hague on the final day of hearings in a dispute between her country and neighboring Guyana over the massive mineral- and oil-rich Essequibo region.

“We will continue to defend our integrity, our sovereignty, our independence, our history,” said Rodríguez, who assumed power in January following a U.S. military operation that ousted then-President Nicolás Maduro. Venezuela is “not a colony, but a free country,” she added.

Speaking to Fox News earlier on Monday, Trump said he was “seriously considering making Venezuela the 51st US state,” according to a post by Fox News’ co-anchor John Roberts on social media. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the matter.

Trump has made similar comments about Canada.

White House spokesperson Anna Kelly later declined to comment on Trump’s plans in an interview of her own with Roberts on Fox News. Kelly said the president is “famous for never accepting the status quo,” and praised Rodríguez for “working incredibly cooperatively” with the U.S.

Rodríguez went on to say that Venezuelan and U.S. officials have been in touch and are working on “cooperation and understanding.”

Before addressing Trump’s comments, Rodríguez defended her country’s claim to Essequibo at the United Nations’ highest court, telling judges that political negotiations — not a judicial ruling — will resolve the century-old territorial dispute.

The 62,000-square-mile territory, which makes up two-thirds of Guyana, is rich in gold, diamonds, timber and other natural resources. It also sits near massive offshore oil deposits currently producing an average 900,000 barrels a day.

That output is close to Venezuela’s daily production of about 1 million barrels a day and has transformed one of the smallest countries in South America into a significant energy producer.

Venezuela has considered Essequibo its own since the Spanish colonial period, when the jungle region fell within its boundaries. But an 1899 decision by arbitrators from Britain, Russia and the United States drew the border along the Essequibo River largely in favor of Guyana.

Venezuela has argued that a 1966 agreement sealed in Geneva to resolve the dispute effectively nullified the 19th-century arbitration. In 2018, however, three years after ExxonMobil announced a significant oil discovery off the Essequibo coast, Guyana’s government went to the International Court of Justice and asked judges to uphold the 1899 ruling.

Tensions between the countries further flared in 2023, when Rodríguez’s predecessor, Maduro, threatened to annex the region by force after holding a referendum asking voters if Essequibo should be turned into a Venezuelan state. Maduro was captured Jan. 3 during a U.S. military operation in Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, and taken to New York to face drug trafficking charges. He has pleaded not guilty.

Rodríguez did not address the referendum in her remarks, but she told the court that the 1966 agreement is designed to allow negotiations between Venezuela and Guyana to resolve the territorial dispute. And she accused Guyana’s government of undermining the agreement with the “opportunistic” decision to ask the court to address the dispute.

“At a time when the mechanisms established in the Geneva agreement were still fully in force, Guyana unilaterally chose to shift the dispute from the negotiating arena to a judicial resolution,” she said. “This change was not accidental; it coincided with the discovery in 2015 of the oil field that would become world-renowned.”

When hearings opened last week, Guyana’s foreign minister, Hugh Hilton Todd, told the panel of international judges that the dispute “has been a blight on our existence as a sovereign state from the very beginning.” He said that 70% of Guyana’s territory is at stake.

The court is likely to take months to issue a final and legally binding ruling in the case.

Venezuela has warned that its participation in the hearings does not mean either consent to, or recognition of, the court’s jurisdiction.

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Garcia Cano reported from Mexico City.

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By Sergio Queiroz, Fernando Cardoso and Isabel Teles

SAO PAULO, May 11 (Reuters) – A fire set off by a potential gas explosion killed one person in Brazil’s biggest city Sao Paulo on Monday, while also damaging around 10 homes and leaving three people injured, the local fire department said.

Images from local media showed destroyed rooftops and smoke in the Jaguare neighborhood, about 16 km (10 miles) from Sao Paulo’s city center.

The Sao Paulo state fire department said in a post on X that it had deployed 12 fire engines to fight the fire, adding that a liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) blast likely caused the incident.

A spokeswoman for the fire department told local media that officials had found a fatal male victim under the rubble. Two men and a woman were rescued with minor injuries, she added.

“Several buildings were hit. We don’t have the exact number, but we believe that around 10 were directly hit,” she said.

Firefighters at the scene were looking for any other victims.

“I couldn’t find my dog,” one resident said. “I was thrown out. It was me, my son, and my dog. My house exploded.”

(Reporting by Sergio Queiroz, Isabel Teles and Fernando Cardoso, additional reporting by Rodrigo Viga Gaier; Editing by Daina Beth Solomon and Rosalba O’Brien)

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By Harold Isaac

PORT-AU-PRINCE, May 11 (Reuters) – Hospitals in Haiti’s Cite Soleil evacuated their patients and aid group MSF suspended its activities there on Monday as fighting between armed groups operating in the area that began a fortnight ago deteriorated over the weekend.

MSF, or Doctors Without Borders, said hundreds of residents sought refuge in its hospital in the neighborhood – an impoverished part of the capital Port-au-Prince – where one of its security guards was shot by a stray bullet while inside the compound.

Another hospital in the area, Hopital Fontaine, told Reuters it evacuated newborns from its intensive care unit. MSF said it treated some patients who transferred from Fontaine, including pregnant women who gave birth overnight.

“Currently, not a single hospital is open in the area where the fighting is taking place,” it said in a statement, adding that while local medical needs were growing exponentially it could not protect its staff or patients in the midst of gunfire. 

MSF said it had taken in more than 800 people who sought refuge, but as the situation worsened, it decided to suspend operations at the hospital until further notice.

“The gunfire has not stopped” since Sunday morning, it said.

Local business leaders had warned earlier that fighting in the area, near the capital’s port and just a few miles from its international airport, broke out between the Chen Mechen gang and its partners and other gangs that were until recently allies.

The groups had all been part of a broad alliance of hundreds of armed gangs across the capital known as Viv Ansanm.

MASS DISPLACEMENTS

At the end of April, the U.N. estimated that fresh attacks by armed gangs had forced around 5,000 people to flee their homes in just two weeks around Cite Soleil and the Croix-des-Bouquets neighborhood to the north.

The U.N. also reported that some 4,400 were forced to leave their homes in Haiti’s breadbasket, the Artibonite region, during the first few days of May.

Its last nationwide report estimated 1.45 million Haitians were internally displaced at the end of last year – many in makeshift camps or in the homes of friends or family. That represents about 12% of the Caribbean nation’s population.

The renewed violence comes after the last members of a Kenyan-led mission in Haiti left the country as part of a restructuring of a U.N.-backed force mandated to help restore security, one beset by delays, lack of funds and lack of personnel. The mission also faced sexual abuse accusations.

The new plan aims to deploy some 5,500 new troops in Haiti by the end of summer, but it is unclear where those troops will come from or who will fund their operations. Haiti’s government has meanwhile hired a U.S. private military company.

In an interview on Monday, Haiti’s Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aime said it was clear Haiti’s insecurity would not allow for elections in August as planned. Haiti’s last president was murdered in 2021 and it has not held elections since 2016.

(Reporting by Harold Isaac; Writing by Sarah Morland; Editing by Brendan O’Boyle and Deepa Babington)

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May 11 (Reuters) – The United Arab Emirates has carried out military strikes on Iran, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The strikes, which the UAE has not publicly acknowledged, included an attack on a refinery on Iran’s Lavan Island in the Persian Gulf, WSJ said, adding that the attack took place in early April.

Reuters could not immediately verify the report.

(Reporting by Carlos Méndez in Mexico City; Editing by Nia Williams)

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Hundreds of climbers are attempting to scale Mount Everest, the world’s highest peak, despite an unstable ice block dangerously hanging over the key trail, high travel costs and increased permit fees.

Around 492 climbers and an equal number of Nepali climbing guides are gearing up for the ascent to the nearly 8,850-meter (around 29,000-foot) high peak this month during the much anticipated window of good weather on the mountain.

Climbers began gathering in April at the base camp, which is at an altitude of 5,300 meters (17,340 feet.) But for more than two weeks a massive and unstable block of ice, or serac, stalled them from moving further up the peak.

The serac is part of the Khumbu Icefall, a constantly shifting glacier with deep crevasses and huge pieces of overhanging ice that can be as big as a 10-story building. The section is considered one of the most difficult and trickiest to climb.

Ang Tshering Sherpa, a mountaineering expert in Nepal, said there are a good number of climbers on Mount Everest this season despite the Iran war and increased travel costs. The number of climbers from the U.S. and European countries has decreased, but there has been a rise in the number of Asian climbers.

Mount Everest straddles the Nepal-China border, although China has closed its route this year, leaving climbers to make their attempts from Nepal on the south side.

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ANKARA, May 11 (Reuters) – Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan will visit Qatar on Tuesday for talks on the Iran war, its impact on the Gulf and efforts to ensure navigational safety in the Strait of Hormuz, a Turkish diplomatic source said on Monday.

NATO member Turkey, which neighbours Iran, has been in close contact with the United States, Iran and mediator Pakistan since the start of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran. It has called for an end to the conflict, while condemning attacks on Iran and criticising Tehran’s strikes on Gulf states as unacceptable.

Fidan, who last visited Doha in March and held two separate calls with Iran’s foreign minister at the weekend, will repeat Turkey’s support for its ally Qatar against attacks from Iran, the source said.

He will voice Ankara’s expectation for navigational safety to be ensured on the Strait of Hormuz and point to the critical need of doing so for regional security and economic stability, the source said.

Fidan is expected to “state that permanently resolving the conflict in the Gulf is the most urgent priority and exchange views on diplomatic initiatives to achieve this,” the source added.

Ankara and Doha have strong ties and cooperate on a wide range of issues, from energy to defence. Turkey has a military base in Qatar and has been in negotiations with Doha about the procurement of Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jets, as part of an agreement with Britain.

(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by Daren Butler and Timothy Heritage)

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MANILA, Philippines (AP) — An overwhelming majority of the Philippine House of Representatives voted to impeach Vice President Sara Duterte on Monday over alleged unexplained wealth, misuse of state funds and threats to have the president assassinated.

The House, which is dominated by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s allies, voted 255-26 with nine abstentions. The two impeachment complaints against Duterte now move to the Senate, which will convene into a tribunal for her trial.

The vice president, daughter of former President Rodrigo Duterte, has generally denied any wrongdoing without answering the criminal allegations against her in detail.

Last year, she was also impeached by the House but survived the attempt and was not tried on orders of the Supreme Court due to a constitutional technicality.

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NAIROI, Kenya (AP) — France is pitching what it says is a new model of partnership with African countries at a summit that begins Monday in Kenya as it completes a military withdrawal from West African countries that has been widely seen as marking declining influence on the continent.

But Paris is expected to use the two-day Africa Forward Summit, which it is co-hosting, to push a new Africa policy that focuses more on English-speaking countries and offers what it calls a “partnership of equals.” Its new defense agreement with Kenya marks the direction it hopes to go.

France has long maintained a policy of economic, political and military sway over its former colonies dubbed Françafrique, which included keeping thousands of troops in the region. But after years of criticism from leaders and opposition parties in those countries over what they described as a demeaning and heavy-handed approach, France has been forced to withdraw most of those troops.

The summit — France’s first in an English-speaking African country — will be attended by more than 30 heads of state and government, including from Francophone countries. On his arrival Sunday, French President Emmanuel Macron said France may disagree with West African governments but “never disagrees with the people.”

Kenya’s newly ratified defense agreement with France has been criticized by civil society groups for granting too much immunity local law to French troops, a sensitive issue in a country where a similar agreement with the United Kingdom has left a trail of hard-to-prosecute crimes against locals.

At a time when many African nations, particularly in the Sahel region, are reducing or expelling foreign military presences in what they say is a quest to reclaim their sovereignty, Kenya is hosting a growing international military presence.

The Kenya-France Defense Cooperation Agreement was signed on Oct. 29, 2025, by Kenya’s Defense Minister Soipan Tuya and French Ambassador to Kenya Arnaud Suquet and ratified by parliament on April 8. The same month, it also ratified defense agreements with countries including the Czech Republic, China and Italy.

While defending the defense agreements, parliament defense committee chair Nelson Koech said Kenya’s treaties with advanced militaries provide training and intelligence-sharing opportunities that will make its defense stronger.

Koech said the agreements were not a “surrender of sovereignty,” adding that newer agreements guarantee that foreign troops will be tried in Kenya in the event of serious crimes such as murder.

A month ahead of the summit, a contingent of around 800 French troops arrived in Kenya aboard a navy ship.

The agreement grants visiting French forces primary jurisdiction over their personnel for on-duty offenses, echoing broad legal protections in past UK pacts that shielded British soldiers from Kenyan courts amid scandals like the 2012 murder of a young woman named Agnes Wanjiru and the deadly 2021 Lolldaiga ranch fire.

A British soldier is due to be extradited after Kenyan courts found him answerable for the 2012 death of Wanjiru, who was last seen alive in his company near the British troops’ training grounds in Nanyuki, central Kenya.

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LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is fighting for his job after devastating local election results for his Labour Party spurred dozens of lawmakers to call for his resignation.

Starmer plans to use a speech on Monday to argue that he can change tack and revive his government’s fortunes. But his position is fragile as rivals weigh their options. One lawmaker, Catherine West, said she will try to trigger a leadership contest if she doesn’t like what she hears in the speech.

Former Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, often seen as a potential challenger, said the party “needs to change,” though she did not explicitly call for Starmer to go.

She said “the prime minister must now meet the moment and set out the change our country needs.”

Starmer is trying to regain momentum after heavy losses for his center-left party in local elections across England and legislative votes in Scotland and Wales. Last week’s elections were widely seen as an unofficial referendum on Starmer, whose popularity has plummeted since he swept to power in a landslide less than two years ago.

His government has struggled to deliver promised economic growth, repair tattered public services and ease the cost of living, and been hamstrung by repeated missteps and policy U-turns on issues including welfare reform. He has been further hurt by his disastrous decision to appoint Peter Mandelson, a scandal-tarnished friend of Jeffrey Epstein, as Britain’s ambassador to Washington.

Last week’s elections saw Labour squeezed from both right and left, losing votes to both the anti-immigration Reform UK and the “eco-populist” Green Party. It reflects the increasing fragmentation of British politics, long dominated by Labour and the Conservatives.

Still, Starmer told The Observer newspaper on Sunday that he wants to remain in office for a decade. He’s pinning his hopes on Monday’s speech and an ambitious set of legislative plans to be set out in a speech Wednesday by King Charles III at the State Opening of Parliament.

A key policy is closer ties with the European Union, which the United Kingdom left in 2020, four years after the “leave” side narrowly won a membership referendum. Starmer’s government has already moved to ease some of the trade restrictions that have burdened British businesses since Brexit, and he says he will secure a youth mobility deal so young people can spend a few years working across the continent.

“Brexit has held back our young people,” Starmer told The Observer, adding that “we have to be closer to Europe.”

Labour campaigned to stay in the EU during the 2016 referendum campaign, but has been reluctant to reopen a debate that bitterly divided the country. Starmer has ruled out seeking to reenter the EU, or to rejoin the EU’s customs union or single market, two things that would make a big difference to U.K. businesses.

None of the high-profile Labour politicians considered potential challengers to Starmer — including Rayner, Health Secretary Wes Streeting and Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham — has called for him to resign.

But a growing number of Labour lawmakers urged the prime minister to set a timetable for his departure. British politics allows parties to change leader midterm without the need for a new election.

Josh Simons, a formerly loyal Labour lawmaker, wrote in the Times of London that Starmer “has lost the country” and “should take control of the situation by overseeing an orderly transition to a new prime minister.”

West, a former junior minister, is trying to hurry the process along, vowing to try to trigger a leadership contest unless Starmer delivers a barnstorming speech on Monday. West acknowledged she does not have the support of 81 colleagues, needed to force a contest, and her move appeared to be an attempt to force more high-profile contenders to make a move.

“Working people sent us a message,” West said. “We have to listen to that, and we have to change and we have to do it quickly.”

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