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Russia preparing 'provocations' at Baltic region's borders, Zelensky says

Russia is preparing "provocations" at the Baltic region's borders, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday during a visit to Stockholm, referring to recent hybrid warfare attacks denounced by several Baltic countries.

"It is also evident that Russia is preparing for provocations in the Baltic region against borders," Zelensky said, a week after Estonia said Russian border guards had removed buoys from the Narva River marking the border.

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Guilty: Trump becomes first former US president convicted of felony crimes

Donald Trump became the first former American president to be convicted of felony crimes Thursday as a New York jury found him guilty of all 34 charges in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through a hush money payment to a porn actor who said the two had sex.

Trump sat stone-faced while the verdict was read as cheering from the street below could be heard in the hallway on the courthouse's 15th floor where the decision was revealed after more than nine hours of deliberations.

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Ex Iranian speaker Ali Larijani registers as possible presidential candidate

A former speaker of Iran's parliament registered Friday as a possible candidate in the Islamic Republic's June 28 presidential election to replace the late Ebrahim Raisi, who was killed in a helicopter crash earlier this month with seven others.

Ali Larijani is the first high-profile candidate to register for the contest. He and other serious contenders against Raisi had been barred from running in the 2021 election.

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US, China to resume military-to-military dialogue in 'coming months'

U.S. and Chinese defense chiefs met for more than an hour on the sidelines of a major security forum in Singapore on Friday, where disputes over Taiwan and other flashpoint issues are expected to dominate the three-day event.

The rare direct talks between the United States' Lloyd Austin and China's Dong Jun finished shortly after 2:00 pm (0600 GMT), AFP reporters said, in the first substantive face-to-face meeting between the two countries' defence chiefs in 18 months.

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Biden lets Ukraine use US arms inside Russia

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg on Friday downplayed the threat of escalation from Moscow, after the United States authorised Kyiv to use American weapons to hit targets inside Russia.

"This is part of efforts by President (Vladimir) Putin and Moscow to prevent NATO allies from supporting Ukraine to defend themselves, and, again, Ukraine has the right for self defence and we have the right to help Ukraine," Stoltenberg told journalists at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers.

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Police dismantle pro-Palestinian camp at Wayne State University in Detroit

Police dismantled a pro-Palestinian encampment Thursday at Wayne State University in Detroit, two days after the school suspended in-person classes and encouraged staff to work remotely to avoid any problems with the protesters' encampment.

Television footage showed campus police and Detroit police officers in riot gear tearing down fencing before they removed the protesters and started breaking down tents erected last week on green space near Wayne State's undergraduate library.

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Spain's Parliament gives final approval to amnesty law for Catalonia's separatists

More than six years since Catalonia's separatist movement took Spain to the brink of rupture, the nation's Parliament gave its final approval Thursday to a controversial amnesty for hundreds of secessionists in hopes of putting a definitive end to the traumatic episode.

The legislation was backed by Spain's left-wing coalition government, two Catalan separatist parties and other smaller parties. It passed by a vote of 177-172 in the lower house with the conservative Popular Party and far-right Vox opposing it.

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UN says divisions among world's powerful nations undermining UN efforts to end crises

Deep divisions especially among the world's most powerful nations have significantly undermined what the United Nations can do to help nations move from conflict to peace, the U.N. peacekeeping chief said.

Jean-Pierre Lacroix told The Associated Press in an interview that these divisions – most notably between the U.S. and the West on one side and Russia and often China on the other -- don't only affect peacekeeping but everything the United Nations does in trying to promote peace and security.

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Early results in South Africa's election put ruling ANC below 50% and short of a majority

Very early counts in South Africa's national election put the long-ruling African National Congress at just over 42% of the vote, raising the possibility that it might lose its majority for the first time since it swept to power under Nelson Mandela at the end of apartheid in 1994.

With only just over 16% of votes counted and declared, it was only a partial picture after Wednesday's election. The final results of a vote that could bring the biggest political shift in South Africa's young democracy were expected to take days, with the independent electoral commission saying they would be delivered by Sunday.

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NYC hospital fires nurse after referring to Gaza 'genocide' in award speech

A nurse was fired by a New York City hospital after she referred to Israel's war in Gaza as a "genocide" during a speech accepting an award.

Labor and delivery nurse Hesen Jabr, who is Palestinian American, was being honored by NYU Langone Health for her compassion in caring for mothers who had lost babies when she drew a link between her work and the suffering of mothers in Gaza.

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