World News

April 7 (Reuters) – ICE officers shot and wounded a man in California on Tuesday after the suspect tried to ram one of them with his vehicle, the acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said.

The man was taken to a hospital and the FBI was on the scene, ICE Director Todd Lyons said in a statement.

“As officers approached the car, the wanted gang member weaponized his vehicle in an attempt to run an officer over. Following their training, our officers fired defensive shots to protect themselves, their fellow agents, and the public,” Lyons said.

The suspected gang member from El Salvador was in the U.S. illegally and had been wanted for questioning in connection with a homicide, ICE said.

Reuters could not independently verify the ICE statement regarding the incident in Patterson, a farm town of 25,000 people in the San Joaquin Valley, about 90 miles (145 km) southeast of San Francisco. 

The Department of Homeland Security said in January that ICE officers experienced 66 vehicular attacks against them in the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term, up from two such incidents in the previous year.

(Reporting by Daniel Trotta in Carlsbad, California; Editing by Rod Nickel)

source

WASHINGTON, April 7 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump is aware of Pakistan’s proposal for a two-week extension to a deadline he imposed on Iran, and a response will come, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Tuesday.

“The President has been made aware of the proposal, and a response will come,” Leavitt said in a statement.

(Reporting by Steve Holland, Editing by Bhargav Acharya and David Ljunggren)

source

ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkish lawmakers kicked off a debate Tuesday on a draft law package that includes restricting access to social media platforms for children under 15, making Turkey the latest country to seek measures to protect young people from dangerous online activity.

If it becomes law, the bill would force social media platforms to install age‑verification systems, provide parental control tools and require companies to rapidly respond to content deemed harmful. It’s unclear how long the parliament debate will last.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ’s government says the proposal aims to mitigate the online risks to children’s safety and privacy.

“Protecting our children from all kinds of risks, threats and harmful content is our top priority,” Mahinur Ozdemir Goktas, Turkey’s minister for family and social services, said earlier this year.

The main opposition party — Republican People’s Party or CHP — has criticized the proposal, saying children should be protected “not with bans but with rights-based policies.”

Under the draft proposal, digital platforms — such as YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and others — would have to block children under 15 from opening accounts and introduce parental controls that would manage children’s access.

Online game companies will also be required to appoint a representative in Turkey to ensure they abide by the new regulations. Potential penalties include internet bandwidth reductions and fines imposed by Turkey’s communications watchdog.

The Turkish government has a recent record of restricting online platforms as they have grown as a means of expressing dissent. Online communications were widely restricted during last year’s protests in support of Istanbul’s jailed opposition mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu.

Restrictions on social media access for children under 16 first began in December in Australia, where social media companies revoked access to about 4.7 million accounts identified as belonging to children.

Last month, Indonesia began implementing a new government regulation banning children younger than 16 from access to digital platforms that could expose them to pornography, cyberbullying, online scams and addiction.

Some other countries — including Spain, France and the United Kingdom — are also taking or considering measures to restrict children’s access to social media amid growing concern that they are being harmed by exposure to unregulated social media content.

source

April 8 (Reuters) – Pakistan, a mediator between the U.S. and Iran, on Wednesday requested that U.S. President Donald Trump grant a two-week extension to a deadline he imposed on Iran to end its blockade of Gulf oil.

A senior Iranian official told Reuters that Tehran is positively reviewing Pakistan’s request for a two-week ceasefire. The White House said Trump is aware of Pakistan’s proposal, saying a response will come.

“To allow diplomacy to run its course, I earnestly request President Trump to extend the deadline for two weeks. Pakistan, in all sincerity, requests the Iranian brothers to open Strait of Hormuz for a corresponding period of two weeks as a goodwill gesture,” Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said in a post on X.

Sharif’s comments come after Trump, in a social media post that shocked world leaders, said that “a whole civilization will die tonight”

Trump has given Iran until 8 p.m. EDT (0000 GMT) in Washington – 3:30 a.m. on Wednesday in Tehran – to end its blockade of Gulf oil or see the U.S. destroy every bridge and power plant in Iran.

Sharif urged “all warring parties” to observe a ceasefire everywhere for two weeks “to allow diplomacy to achieve conclusive termination of war”.

He added that diplomatic efforts to settle the war peacefully were “progressing steadily, strongly and powerfully with the potential to lead to substantive results in near future”.

Sources told Reuters on Tuesday that talks between the U.S. and Iran were at risk of being derailed following Tehran’s attacks on Saudi Arabian industrial facilities.

Pakistan has been the main go-between for proposals shared by Iran and the United States, but there has been no sign of a compromise.

(Reporting by Gursimran Kaur in Bengaluru; Editing by Franklin Paul, Cynthia Osterman and Alistair Bell)

source

WASHINGTON, April 7 (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department said on Tuesday it carried out a court-authorized disruption of a DNS hijacking network controlled by a Russian military intelligence unit.

The network was operated by Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff (GRU) Military Unit 26165, the department said in a statement.

It added that the GRU used routers to facilitate hijacking operations against worldwide targets, including individuals in military, government and critical infrastructure sectors.

“GRU actors compromised routers in the US and around the world, hijacking them to conduct espionage. Given the scale of this threat, sounding the alarm wasn’t enough,” said Brett Leatherman, the assistant director of the FBI’s Cyber Division.

(Reporting by Jasper Ward in Washington; Editing by Daphne Psaledakis)

source

By Joey Roulette

HOUSTON, April 7 (Reuters) – The voyage of four astronauts to the far side of the moon has given the world a glimpse of America at its best, offering a respite from global despair and displeasure over U.S-led conflict, tariffs, and crumbling global institutions.

Through a carefully curated flow of high-quality photos, GoPro videos and other footage from NASA, the three American and one Canadian astronauts have provided real-time documentation of NASA’s 10-day Artemis II mission full of historic firsts.

The multibillion-dollar series of missions under the Artemis program aims to return astronauts to the moon’s surface by 2028 before China, and establish a long-term U.S. presence there over the next decade, building a moon base for potential future missions to Mars.

From a cruise ship in the Bahamas, to schools in Canada, viewers gathered to watch the historic lift-off. In Britain, children discussed the mission in school. It dominated Google search traffic for the last week, and mission videos ratcheted up millions of views.

Astronaut Victor Glover captured the rare moment of worldly harmony when he told Earthbound viewers in a transmission from space, “You look beautiful. And from up here you also look like one thing; Homo sapiens is all of us. No matter where you’re from or what you look like — we’re all one people.”

‘WELCOME DISTRACTION’

The mission, a key test before the planned future moon landings, showed the world that the U.S. still has something positive to offer at a time when its government is facing criticism for its strikes with Israel on Iran, which have killed thousands, driven up energy prices, and risked regional escalation.

Trump on Tuesday threatened that “a whole civilization will die tonight”, with Iran showing no sign of accepting his ultimatum to open the Strait of Hormuz by Tuesday evening.

“At a time when hell is basically being unleashed here on planet Earth, it’s a welcome distraction to look up in the heavens – at a time of contemplation at Easter – and understand that perhaps humans are still capable of doing great things,” said Ben English, editor of Sydney’s Daily Telegraph, in a post on Instagram.

“The news story of Artemis 2 is breaking through,” said former NASA administrator Bill Nelson, noting “this is something that the world can come together and unite (around).” 

News outlets including Qatar’s Al Jazeera, the BBC, Spain’s El Pais and Canada’s Globe and Mail ran photos of the April 1 launch on the front page of their websites, while the Toronto-based newspaper also ran an analysis headlined: “Artemis II and Iran: Two strikingly different missions define the U.S.”

Students gathered at the University of Toronto to watch the launch, with cheers breaking out as the rocket lifted off. Jeremy Hansen, a 50-year-old Royal Canadian Air Force colonel, is the first Canadian — and the first non-U.S. citizen — to fly on a lunar mission.

The mission coincides with tense trade relations between the two countries after President Donald Trump raised tariffs on Canadian goods and in the wake of him repeatedly suggesting that Canada consider becoming the 51st state.

Speaking to the astronauts through mission control communications on Monday night, Trump lauded Hansen and said he had spoken to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and Canadian ice hockey star Wayne Gretzky, saying “They are so proud of you, and you have a lot of courage.”

SOCIAL MEDIA PLAYS ITS PART

The world watched, commented and hit the “like” button as the astronauts traveled the furthest distance ever from Earth in the Orion spacecraft, a capsule only slightly larger than an SUV. Now on their journey back home, the crew is set to splash down in the Pacific Ocean on Friday.

NASA’s social media team played its part, employing an informal tone as it sought to appeal to a wide audience.

“New photos from space dropping NOW,” the space agency wrote with enthusiasm unusual for a staid government entity, as it issued close-ups of the moon and images of astronauts exercising and batting a ball back and forth.

The internet reacted to toilet problems in the space capsule with a flurry of memes, including a mock-up of Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a spacesuit, plunger in hand.

When asked about people’s fixation on the toilet woes — since fixed — Artemis II mission management chair John Honeycutt said, “Everybody knows how important that is to us here on Earth, and it’s harder to manage in space.”

(Reporting by Joey Roulette and Chris Sanders; additional reporting by Kyaw Soe Oo in Toronto, Dawn Chmielewski in Los Angeles and William James in London; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)

source

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Vietnam unanimously elected Communist Party General Secretary To Lam as president for a five-year term, consolidating his control over both the party and the state.

The move departs from Vietnam’s tradition of shared leadership, in which the jobs have typically been held by different people, and echoes power structures in China under Xi Jinping and neighboring Laos.

It has been widely expected since Lam’s reelection as Communist Party head in January, when observers noted that his consolidation of party authority positioned him to assume the presidency as well.

After being sworn in, the 69-year-old told the National Assembly that his top priority was to maintain peace and stability, which were the foundation for fast and sustainable growth. “We aim to improve people’s livelihoods so all can share the benefits of development,” he said.

This is To Lam’s second time holding both jobs, after briefly doing so in 2024 when his predecessor as party chief, Nguyen Phu Trong, died.

The concentration of power was significant since it meant that Lam had a “stronger mandate and far more political room to push through his agenda than any leaders” since the 1980s, when Hanoi launched reforms to shed a state-run economy in favor of a market-oriented one open to foreigners, said Nguyen Khac Giang, of Singapore’s ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute research center.

“The opportunity is obvious. Faster decision-making, greater policy coherence, and a better chance of pushing difficult reforms at a pivotal moment. But the risk is that concentration of power can move faster than institutional reform,” he said.

Lam’s rise to the top caps the ascent of a career policeman who advanced from Vietnam’s security services to the top of the political system. This was aided by a sweeping anti-corruption campaign launched by his predecessor, which he oversaw as head of the Ministry of Public Security.

As party chief, Lam has led Vietnam’s biggest bureaucratic overhaul since the 1980s, cutting jobs, merging ministries, redrawing provincial boundaries and advancing major infrastructure projects.

He has focused on economic performance and private-sector growth, aiming to move Vietnam beyond the labor- and export-driven model that has helped lift millions from poverty and build a manufacturing-based middle class. The country is targeting 10% or higher annual economic growth over each of the next five years.

But challenges remain, especially the immediate task of turning this ambitious vision into reality with the world economy upended by the energy shock from the war in Iran. Vietnam’s economy expanded at an annualized rate of 7.8% in the first three months of the year, up from 7.1% last year but below the 9.1% target and slower than in late 2025.

Giang said that Lam also faces political hurdles for reform buy-in and the challenge of maintaining Vietnam’s pragmatic approach to foreign policy.

Vietnam is facing U.S. pressure over its trade surplus but also has to balance ties with China, its largest trading partner and rival claimant in the South China Sea.

“It has benefited from a careful balancing strategy in foreign policy, but maintaining that position will become harder in a more turbulent world,” he said.

___

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

source

LONDON (AP) — A senior member of the British government said Tuesday that Ye should “absolutely not” play the Wireless Festival, as the rapper formerly known as Kanye West offered to meet members of the U.K.’s Jewish community and show he has changed since provoking outrage with antisemitic statements.

Ye, who changed his name in 2021, is booked to perform in front of around 150,000 revelers over three nights, July 10-12, at the open-air festival in London’s Finsbury Park.

Organizers are under mounting pressure from sponsors and politicians to cancel the gigs by the rapper, who has drawn widespread condemnation for making antisemitic remarks and voicing admiration for Adolf Hitler.

Last year, he released a song called “Heil Hitler” and advertised a swastika T-shirt for sale on his website. The 48-year-old apologized in January with a letter, published as a full-page advertisement in the Wall Street Journal. He said his bipolar disorder led him to fall into “a four-month long, manic episode of psychotic, paranoid and impulsive behavior that destroyed my life.”

Wireless sponsors Pepsi, Rockstar Energy and Diageo have pulled out of the festival since Ye was announced as the headliner, and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer called the booking “deeply concerning.”

In a statement Tuesday, Ye said he “would be grateful for the opportunity to meet with members of the Jewish community in the U.K. in person, to listen.

“I know words aren’t enough — I’ll have to show change through my actions,” he said. “If you’re open, I’m here.”

Organizer Festival Republic stood by Ye. In a statement issued Monday, managing director Melvin Benn urged people to offer the performer “forgiveness and hope.”

“We are not giving him a platform to extol opinion of whatever nature, only to perform the songs that are currently played on the radio stations in our country and the streaming platforms in our country and listened to and enjoyed by millions,” the statement said.

U.K. Health Secretary Wes Streeting dismissed the organizers’ statement as “absurd” and said Ye should “absolutely not” perform at Wireless. He said Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is considering whether to ban the rapper from entering the U.K.

Benn acknowledged that Mahmood had the power to revoke Ye’s visa to come to Britain.

“If she does, she does, and then the issue is over,” he told the BBC on Tuesday.

A representative for Ye didn’t reply to a request for comment.

source

By Khanh Vu, Phuong Nguyen and Francesco Guarascio

HANOI, April 7 (Reuters) – Vietnam’s lawmakers on Tuesday unanimously elected Communist Party Secretary General To Lam as the country’s state president for the next five years, making him the most powerful Vietnamese leader in decades.

The widely anticipated move marks a break from Vietnam’s traditional collective leadership system, consolidating authority in one figure in ways analysts say could tilt the one‑party state toward greater authoritarianism, while also enabling faster decision making, similar to its neighbour China.

The parliament said on its website that all 495 deputies present at Tuesday’s National Assembly session endorsed the Communist Party’s nomination, while five lawmakers were absent. Officials have said the nominations for top state leadership posts were finalised in a meeting in late March.

The former head of public security now has a double mandate to rule the country for the next five years, after he secured a second term as general secretary in January. 

In another largely expected move later on Tuesday, the parliament also unanimously elected Le Minh Hung as the country’s new prime minister.   

LAM PLEDGES NEW GROWTH MODEL  

After the vote, Lam told deputies in a televised address that it was an honour to hold both posts and pledged “a new growth model with science, technology, innovation, and digital transformation as the primary driving forces”.

He said his top priorities were to maintain stability, promote rapid and sustainable national development and improve “all aspects of people’s lives”.

“Concentrating greater power in To Lam’s hands could pose risks to Vietnam’s political system, such as increased authoritarianism,” said Le Hong Hiep, senior fellow at the ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore.

However, such consolidation “could enable Vietnam to formulate and implement policies more quickly and effectively,” supporting growth, he said.

The combination of the two roles “will shift Vietnam’s domestic politics to a new normal where most of the old assumptions about Vietnam’s politics, including those about collective leadership, are no longer valid,” said Alexander Vuving of the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in the United States.

Lam held both posts for a period of a few months following the death in 2024 of the late party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong.

Even after relinquishing the state presidency in favour of army general Luong Cuong, Lam often acted as if he had retained the role, travelling extensively and representing the country in meetings with foreign leaders. 

REFORMIST, BACKS NATIONAL CHAMPIONS

In his first stint as party chief, 68-year-old Lam launched sweeping economic reforms designed to make Vietnam more competitive, which drew both praise and criticism. 

Lam wants to pursue double-digit growth through a new development model that is less reliant on low-cost manufacturing, long the backbone of Vietnam’s export-driven boom led by foreign multinationals.

His moves have at times unsettled the administration and businesses, but he has shown a pragmatic flexibility in executing them. 

He has supported the expansion of private conglomerates, but before his reappointment, also issued a directive emphasising the leading role of state-owned enterprises in a bid to reassure party traditionalists.

Foreign investors have often praised political stability and see Lam as a pro‑business leader. However, his backing of national champions and push for breakneck growth have raised concerns among some about favouritism, corruption risks, asset bubbles and waste.

In foreign policy, Lam has maintained Vietnam’s “Bamboo Diplomacy” and sought to balance relations with major powers while expanding international partnerships.

“Lam’s double-hat would not signal any changes in Vietnam’s foreign policy, even if there are concerns that Vietnam is concentrating more power in a single individual,” said Khang Vu, a visiting scholar at Boston College.

FORMER CENTRAL BANK HEAD BECOMES PM

Newly-elected prime minister Hung, 55, served as central bank governor from 2016 to 2020, becoming the youngest person to hold the post.

He replaces Pham Minh Chinh, 67, who presided over a fast-expanding economy during his five-year term, and was one of Vietnam’s most visible leaders, both at home and abroad, thanks to frequent overseas trips and participation in international summits. 

Hung has kept a low profile in his roles at the party and the central bank.

Though not formally trained as an economist, Hung’s nomination is seen by some officials as an attempt to inject economic expertise into the top layers of the administration, which has been dominated by politicians with security backgrounds.

In his post-election address to lawmakers, Hung pledged to pursue sustainable growth and do his best to meet the party’s ambitious annual economic growth goal of at least 10% through to 2030.

He has no personal background in security, but his family is closely linked to the ministry Lam once led: Hung’s father was public security minister, and two brothers are generals of security forces.

(Reporting by Khanh Vu, Phuong Nguyen and Francesco Guarascio; Editing by David Stanway)

source

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australia’s most decorated living veteran, Ben Roberts-Smith, faces war crime charges on allegations that he killed five unarmed Afghans while serving in Afghanistan from 2009 and 2012, police and media reported on Tuesday.

Police have not confirmed the name of the 47-year-old former soldier who was arrested Tuesday. But he has been widely reported in the media to be Roberts-Smith, a former Special Air Service Regiment corporal who was awarded both the Victoria Cross and Medal of Gallantry for his service in Afghanistan.

Police charged him Tuesday with five counts of war crime murder. He will remain in custody overnight and make his first court appearance on Wednesday, a police statement said.

He will potentially apply for release on bail Wednesday.

Roberts-Smith is only the second Australian veteran of the Afghanistan campaign to be charged with a war crime.

Former SAS soldier Oliver Schulz, 44, has pleaded not guilty to a charge of war crime murder. He is accused of shooting Afghan man Dad Mohammad three times in the head in an Uruzgan province wheat field in May 2012.

War crime murder carries a potential sentence of life in prison. It’s a federal crime in Australia, defined as the intentional killing in the context of armed conflict of a person who is not taking an active part in hostilities, such as civilians, prisoners of war or wounded soldiers.

Police arrested Roberts-Smith at Sydney Airport on Tuesday after he arrived on a flight from Brisbane, Australian Federal Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett said.

“It will be alleged that the victims were not taking part in hostilities at the time of their alleged murder in Afghanistan. It will be alleged the victims were detained, unarmed and were under the control of ADF members when they were killed,” Barrett told reporters, referring to the Australian Defense Force.

“It will be alleged the victims were shot by the accused or shot by subordinate members of the ADF in the presence of and acting on the orders of the accused,” Barrett added.

A civil court has already found similar allegations against Roberts-Smith credible in a defamation suit he brought after several newspapers published articles in 2018 accusing him of a range of war crimes. In 2023, a federal judge rejected Roberts-Smith’s claims and ruled that he likely killed four noncombatants unlawfully in 2009 and 2012. But while the civil court found the war crimes allegations were mostly proved on a balance of probabilities, the new charges would have to be proved in a criminal court to a higher standard of beyond reasonable doubt. In September, Australia’s High Court said it would not hear an appeal, ending his chances of overturning the ruling.

The charges follow a military report released in 2020 that found evidence that elite Australian SAS and commando regiment troops unlawfully killed 39 Afghan prisoners, farmers and other noncombatants.

Barrett said few soldiers were involved in the new allegations.

“The alleged conduct related to these charges is confined to a very small section of our trusted and respected ADF which helps keep this country safe,” Barrett said.

“The overwhelming majority of our ADF do our country proud. Today’s charges are not reflective of the majority of members who serve under our Australian flag with honor, with distinction and with the values of a democratic nation,” she added.

The Office of the Special Investigator was established to work with police on the war crime allegations. The office’s director of investigations Ross Barnett said allegations of 53 war crimes had been investigated and 39 of those investigations had concluded without charges. Around 40,000 Australian military personnel served in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2021, of whom 41 were killed.

source