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June 5 (UPI) — A federal judge on Friday canceled a batch of President Donald Trump‘s immigration policies, forcing the administration to begin processing immigration and asylum applications.

The decision from a judge in Rhode Island said Trump’s immigration policies enacted last fall had left immigrants in the United States in “indeterminate legal limbo” because of “anti-immigrant sentiments that it is forbidden from letting influence its decision-making.”

The 135-page decision from Judge John J. McConnell Jr. said the decision to stop processing immigration applications from people from 39 countries “placed the lives of countless individuals on hold — solely by virtue of their countries of birth.”

The policies in question include a global pause on asylum applications filed with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, a pause on decisions on immigration applications of people from the 39 countries in a travel ban, which prevented them from getting permanent residency status, citizenship and more.

The administration announced the changes after an Afghan man allegedly shot two National Guard members in Washington, D.C., in November. Rahmanullah Lakanwal pleaded not guilty.

“USCIS’s hold on adjudications cannot be attributed to anything that these individuals did wrong; rather, it arises solely by the happenstance of their birth,” McConnell wrote.

“The court is reminded of a line often repeated in discussions around immigration policy: If people wish to immigrate to the United States, they ought to ‘follow the law’ and ‘do things the right way,'” he wrote. “This case serves as a perfect example of immigrants doing just that.”

Democracy Forward, a legal nonprofit that helped represent the immigration groups and unions behind the lawsuit, told The New York Times that it celebrates the ruling.

“This ruling reaffirms a basic principle: The federal government cannot shut down lawful immigration pathways or discriminate against people based on where they come from,” organization President Skye Perryman said. “These unlawful policies caused enormous harm to families, workers, asylum seekers and communities across the country.”

Shawn VanDiver, president of #AfghanEvac, also celebrated the ruling.

“For months, we have heard from Afghan allies whose citizenship ceremonies were canceled, work permits expired while waiting for decisions, green card applications stopped moving and families were left in uncertainty despite doing everything the right way,” The Hill reported VanDiver said in a statement.

“Today’s ruling is a significant victory for the rule of law and for thousands of Afghan allies and other immigrants who followed every requirement asked of them, only to see their cases frozen indefinitely.”

BUENOS AIRES, June 5 (UPI) — Argentine retirees have become one of the groups hardest hit by President Javier Milei’s fiscal austerity measures, which have pushed a growing number of older adults back into the workforce to supplement incomes that no longer cover the cost of living.

Over the past two years, the number of employed Argentines age 65 and older increased 12.7%, sociologist Candelaria Rueda, a researcher at the Argentina Grande Institute, told UPI.

The trend has had a particularly strong impact on women. Labor force participation among people older than 65 increased 14.5% for women, nearly four percentage points higher than the 10.8% increase recorded among men, according to a report by the think tank based on official data from the National Institute of Statistics and Census, known as INDEC.

One of those women is Patricia Guscione, 63. She worked as a teacher for decades and retired in 2021 at age 60, the legal retirement age for women in Argentina.

But rising living costs gradually eroded the value of her pension, leaving her unable to cover household expenses. When a call for retired teachers was issued in 2024, she applied. Today, she is back teaching in public schools.

“I lived on my pension for three years, but the reality is that it lost so much value that there came a point when I could no longer make it to the end of the month. I still have two teenage children who depend on me,” she told UPI.

Rueda said inflation remains a defining factor in Argentina’s economy and “causes incomes to lose value at an unusually rapid pace.”

“In addition, there has been a clear political decision to deregulate prices, which has led private health insurance premiums to rise 400% over the past two years,” she said.

At the center of the issue is Argentina’s minimum pension, the basic benefit received by more than half of the country’s retirees. It currently totals 450,300 Argentine pesos per month, or about $320. That includes a government assistance bonus that has remained frozen since early 2024.

Because the supplement has not been adjusted, the purchasing power of the minimum pension has fallen by nearly 10% compared with late 2023.

At the same time, food prices have continued to rise sharply, further reducing retirees’ spending power. Economic pressures have also intensified following cuts to free prescription drug coverage provided through the Comprehensive Medical Care Program, known as PAMI, Argentina’s main public healthcare system for retirees and pensioners.

Mario Perelli, 70, spent most of his career as an accountant, but now drives for ride-shareing platforms to supplement his income.

“I had never seen an economic situation like the one we are living through now. It keeps getting harder. I thought I had completed my working years and that retirement would allow me to enjoy life, travel and rest. Instead, I ended up driving for an app because I need to help support my household,” he said.

Juan Gómez, 76, faces a similar reality. After years working at an accounting firm, he now work for Uber and drives a taxi.

“I lived through different economic periods, and there were difficult moments under other governments, but this is terrible. I see it in retail stores, butcher shops, auto parts stores and oil-change businesses. There are hardly any customers. I hope things can be resolved and that we can move forward,” he said.

Gala Díaz Langou, executive director of the International Panel on Social Progress, linked the crisis to public spending cuts implemented by the current administration.

“In 2024, which was the year of the deepest adjustment, 19% of fiscal spending cuts were applied to the pension system,” she told UPI.

She also pointed to the continued freeze on the bonus supplement for lower pensions and the end of a program that allowed workers who had not completed the legally required 30 years of contributions to qualify for retirement benefits.

The trend of older adults extending their working lives is not limited to Argentina. It has become a regional phenomenon as Latin America faces a rapid demographic transition, lower levels of economic development and weaker social protection systems.

According to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, employment among older adults is increasing across much of the region because pensions are insufficient to cover basic living expenses.

“As a result, employment among retirees functions as a refuge from the shortcomings of the system rather than a choice. When someone who contributed for decades ends up cleaning houses at age 82 or selling goods on the street, what that reflects is a protection system that failed to sustain the old age it helped create,” the commission said.

Carlos Román, executive director of SeniorLab UC, an aging innovation laboratory at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, told UPI that 1 in 4 older adults in Latin America was part of the labor force in 2024.

He said the trend is particularly visible in Chile among older age groups, where a significant share of people who have already reached retirement age continue working.

For Román, the phenomenon raises two key questions: Under what conditions do older adults work and what drives them to remain economically active?

Regarding working conditions, he warned that labor informality rises sharply with age.

“Labor informality does not decline over time. It accelerates, rising from 27.7% among people ages 60 to 64 to nearly 48% in the next age group and exceeding 60% among those older than 70,” he said.

He added that the impact is uneven across social groups.

“Among the poorest women ages 65 to 69, nearly 9 out of 10 work without a contract or pension coverage. About half of older adults working informally are self-employed workers without access to social protection,” he said.

While some older adults continue working because they are living longer and want to remain active, Román said “the evidence shows that, in most cases, the primary reason is economic necessity.”

He contended that the trend reflects a deeper structural problem that goes beyond national circumstances.

“Aging arrived in Latin America before the region built the economic model and social protection system capable of supporting it,” he said. “Economists often summarize this reality with a phrase that has become common in regional discussions: We will grow old before we grow rich.”

He said the region’s long-term challenge is to ensure that longer life expectancy does not translate into more years of economic insecurity and precarious living conditions.

June 5 (UPI) — NASA briefly moved five of the seven crew members aboard the International Space Station to the docked SpaceX Crew Dragon “Freedom” while Russian cosmonauts planned to repair leaks in a transfer tunnel in the Russian module.

The Russian crew members decided to only perform measurements Friday, so Mission Control told the crew members it was OK to exit the safe haven configuration.

“Roscosmos has paused Friday’s structural repair efforts … as more measurements and data is assessed. Given this development, NASA has instructed the crew members inside the Dragon spacecraft to end the safe haven procedures and return to planned operations aboard the International Space Station. We look forward to working with Roscosmos on a collaborative approach to address the leaks,” NASA Spokesperson Bethany Stevens posted on X.

The cracks have created a small air leak on and off for about six years and is a safety risk.

“The Zvezda service module transfer tunnel, known as PrK, has suffered from cracks and leaks for some time, and has been mitigated by Roscosmos as much as possible to date. The cracks have always been a concern that NASA watches very closely. NASA and Roscosmos have been working to determine the root cause of the cracks, and Roscosmos manages the issue through operational mitigation measures and periodic partial-repair efforts,” Steven wrote in another post.

The NASA Crew-12 members on the ISS include: Jessica Meir, Jack Hathaway, Sophie Adenot and Andrew Fedyaev. Astronaut Chris Williams went to the Dragon spacecraft, Stevens said.

Roscosmos noticed a slow pressure drop in the tunnel last month after a Russian cargo ship arrived, CBS News reported. NASA and Roscosmos have been working on “operational mitigation measures and periodic partial-repair efforts.”

June 5 (UPI) — Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly Prince Andrew, was taking in undisclosed rental income by subletting cottages on royal property, the National Audit Office reported Friday.

Mountbatten-Windsor sublet three cottages on the Royal Lodge estate while the king paid rent for royal palaces for him and his daughters. The report by the National Audit Office, a public spending oversight organization, is the first on royal residences in 20 years.

Mountbatten-Windsor did not pay rent at the Royal Lodge because he paid $10 million, or about $8.67 million, for repairs in 2005. He also paid about $1.35 million when he took over the least in 2003.

The report said Mountbatten-Windsor was allowed to sublet property at the Royal Lodge due to a provision in the lease. Other royal properties allow sublets to generate income with the permission of the Crown Estate.

His daughters, Princesses Eugenie and Beatrice, have properties in Kensington Palace and St. James’s Palace, respectively. Neither pays rent for their properties, as it is paid by the king’s “privy purse,” the monarchy’s personal money. Their palaces are maintained with public money.

Mountbatten-Windsor’s home at Royal Lodge spanned 30 rooms. He lived there until February when he was stripped of his title and removed over his connection with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

“In the case of the Royal Lodge, three cottages on the estate were sublet with income generated payable to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor,” the National Audit Office report said. “We do not know what rent was charged.”

Mispriced tickets were sold through the official World Cup site ahead of next week’s showpiece event for FIFA.

FIFA has cancelled World Cup tickets issued to about 60 fans who mistakenly got them for free because of a website error.

The tickets were “allocated at no charge (0 USD) due to a prior payment issue during the checkout process,” FIFA said in a statement on Thursday.

“FIFA regrets the error and any inconvenience caused,” football’s ruling body said. “The tickets requested by these fans remain reserved, and the affected fans have been invited to complete payment of the correct amount.”

It is the latest glitch in an often controversial World Cup ticketing programme that the attorneys general of New York and New Jersey are investigating for possible violations of consumer protection laws.

The mispriced tickets were sold through the official World Cup site on May 21, FIFA said in an email message to buyers.

That date was more than three months after FIFA president Gianni Infantino said all 104 World Cup games had sold out.

Tickets are still being sold by FIFA for games at the World Cup, which opens next Thursday in Mexico City. It is unclear if seats for games in less demand will drop in price under FIFA’s surge pricing model, which has been controversial for fans.

FIFA is also operating its own resale platform — and taking 15 percent commission from both buyers and sellers — in order to cut out ticket dealers from the market. However, sales platforms such as SeatGeek were offering widespread availability on Friday for many games.

Tickets for the 2026 World Cup are wildly more expensive than any previous edition, which FIFA has justified as helping earn billions of dollars it will give to member federations for developing the game globally.

FIFA took control of pricing and selling tickets as part of bringing World Cup operations in-house. The longtime model at previous editions was working with host nations’ local organising committees.

When the football federations of the United States, Canada and Mexico won hosting rights in 2018, they promised to sell hundreds of thousands of tickets at $21 each for group-stage games. FIFA was selling official front-row tickets for the final for $32,970.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned that the maritime drone was a ‘direct consequence’ of the Russia-Ukraine war. 

A maritime drone has exploded in Romania’s Constanta port, with several other drones discovered nearby.

The Romanian Ministry of National Defence said on Friday that the drone had self-detonated at 10:30am local time (07:30 GMT). The incident is just the latest incursion along NATO’s eastern flank, raising concern over the increasing spillover from Russia’s war on Ukraine to neighbouring states that are part of the Western military alliance.

The drone exploded near an oil terminal, without causing injuries. Interior Minister Raed Arafat said the port was evacuated after the detonation, and residents along the Black Sea coast were warned to take cover as helicopters surveyed the area for other vessels.

Kyiv later said it had informed Bucharest that Friday’s incident involved a Ukrainian maritime drone that was knocked off course by Russian electronic interference.

“While carrying out missions in the Black Sea operational area, one of the Ukrainian Navy’s unmanned surface vessels came under the influence of the enemy’s electronic warfare systems, lost control, and ended up near the coast of Romania,” the Ukrainian navy said.

Romanian President Nicusor Dan noted on Facebook that this was the “second security incident this week on the Romanian seaside”.

Earlier this week, Romania’s navy detonated a Russian YaRM-type anti-landing mine that had drifted to its Black Sea shore.

Last week, a Russian drone crashed into an apartment building in Romania, increasing fears that the war started by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 increasingly risks spilling over to the region.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned on Friday that the maritime drone was a “direct consequence” of the Russia-Ukraine war.

“It is increasingly becoming a direct threat to countries on our Eastern border. Our solidarity with every Member State exposed to these threats is absolute,” von der Leyen wrote.

“And our response must match the urgency. Europe is investing massively in anti-drone capabilities, air defence and early warning systems,” she added.

Romania, which shares a 650km (400-mile) land border with Ukraine, has reported dozens of airspace breaches amid the four-year war, generally blaming Russia, and has asked NATO to help it bolster air defences.

The spillover of the war is also affecting non-NATO countries.

Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported on Friday that five of its citizens were killed and three injured after attacks on two cargo vessels, which did not belong to Baku, in the Sea of Azov.

Kyiv said earlier that its drones had hit five ships in the ports of Mariupol and Berdyansk – which sits between Russia and the Russian-occupied eastern regions of Ukraine.

Commander of the Ukrainian drone forces, Robert Brovdi, asserted that the vessels were involved in “stealing” Ukrainian grain and transferring military cargo.

June 5 (UPI) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky challenged Russian President Vladimir Putin to meet him face-to-face to try to bring the four-year-long war between their two countries to an end.

In an open letter to Putin late Thursday, Zelensky said Ukraine wanted to end the conflict through “direct engagement,” adding that it was incumbent on the sides to act, rather than waiting for Washington to take the lead — but other agreed participants such as the United States and European nations “could join the bilateral track” once it was established.

“We see that the United States is fully focused on the issue of Iran, and it would be wrong to simply wait until the war in Europe returns to the center of its attention. Ukraine proposes ending this war through direct engagement between us — and you. This must be done honestly, with dignity, and with guarantees that the war will not be reignited. I am proposing a meeting,” wrote Zelensky.

Russia was on the back foot, on the front and from daily Ukrainian drone and missile strikes, and Putin was running out of time and resources while fuel shortages and constantly rising prices from his endless war were testing the patience of the Russian people, Zelensky said.

“Life without war is infinitely better. And we want to achieve that. I am convinced that the majority of Russians would respond positively to this as well — and you know it. Do not be afraid to take the path out of this war,” he added.

Zelensky rejected suggestions made by Russian officials that he was welcome in Moscow any time, saying any meeting should be held in a country with a track record of mediating in conflicts such as Switzerland, Turkey or nations in the Arab world.

In a wind-ranging 1,800-word missive, the bulk of which was a critique of Putin’s 26-year rule, Zelensky said he wanted to set a clear date for the meeting and that there should be a cease-fire for the duration of the negotiations.

Putin, responding before he had seen the letter, said he was “certainly prepared and willing to reach an agreement with Ukraine,” provided there were compromises, but rejected the idea of a cease-fire.

That was in line with his long-standing position that Russia would only sign up to a fully-formed peace agreement and that it would not stop the fighting until such time as it came into force.

At the same time, Putin reiterated doubts regarding Zelensky’s legitimacy, due to the fact he remains in office two years after his presidential term expired in May 2024.

Elections cannot be held in Ukraine due to martial law, which was declared on the day Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday, U.S. President Donald Trump endorsed the possibility of a Zelensky-Putin summit but didn’t address Zelensky’s claim he was too busy with Iran.

“I’m glad they’re maybe talking about meeting. I think we had a lot to do with it. I think it would be great if they met. They should get it done,” said Trump.

SEOUL, June 5 (UPI) — Chinese President Xi Jinping will visit North Korea next week, state media in both countries reported Friday, marking his first trip to the isolated state since 2019.

Xi will make the visit on June 8-9 at the invitation of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported. North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency also reported the upcoming trip, but neither outlet provided further details.

The trip will be Xi’s second to North Korea. He last made a two-day state visit in June 2019.

It comes amid a stretch of renewed high-level engagement between the longtime allies. Kim traveled to Beijing in September for a military parade marking the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, where he held summit talks with Xi.

China has long been North Korea’s largest trading partner, and international observers say it continues to help Pyongyang skirt punishing economic sanctions. Ties had appeared to cool in recent years, however, as North Korea deepened military cooperation with Russia following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

In exchange for providing troops and munitions to Russia, North Korea is believed to be receiving economic support and advanced military technology for its weapons programs, reducing its dependence on China and giving Kim greater leverage in dealings with Beijing.

The announcement of Xi’s visit comes one day after North Korea unveiled a new uranium enrichment facility used to produce fissile material for nuclear weapons, with Kim calling for an “exponential” increase in the country’s nuclear arsenal.

The visit also comes amid growing uncertainty over Beijing’s approach to North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.

After Xi met with U.S. President Donald Trump last month, the White House said the two leaders had reaffirmed their shared commitment to the denuclearization of North Korea. China’s Foreign Ministry, however, said only that the leaders had “exchanged views” on the Korean Peninsula.

Some analysts have suggested that China increasingly views North Korea’s nuclear capabilities as a “geopolitical asset” that helps constrain Washington as competition between the two powers intensifies.

The visit will be closely watched in Seoul, where President Lee Jae Myung has sought to ease tensions with Pyongyang since taking office last year.

Unification Minister Chung Dong-young on Thursday proposed a four-way dialogue involving the two Koreas, the United States and China aimed at establishing a peace regime on the peninsula.

South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said Friday that it hopes Xi’s visit will “play a constructive role in addressing issues related to the Korean Peninsula,” according to Yonhap News Agency.

When Iran qualified for the FIFA World Cup last March, the men’s national team didn’t expect their participation to hinge on visas being granted by hosts, the United States, only at the last moment – if at all.

Nor did Iranian fans eager to support Team Melli expect to be banned from entry by the US. President Donald Trump signed an executive order last June halting visa issuance to a handful of countries, including Iran, which the US designated a “state sponsor of terrorism”.

Perhaps most unanticipated for Iranians was that the host nation of the largest sporting event in the world would launch a war on their country just months before the tournament began.

For Amir Ghalenoei’s side, the joint US-Israel war was more than a wrench thrown into World Cup preparation plans; it was tangible and personal, as thousands across the country were killed by missile attacks.

It was the US bombing Azadi Stadium, home to several local matches and where the national team trained. It was the men’s team holding tiny backpacks in remembrance of the students massacred in a US strike on a school in Minab the day the war began.

After months of politically charged rigmarole between the US and Iran – which led to them switching basecamps to Mexico instead – the men’s national football team will find themselves playing in the shadow of war. That too, if the US grants them visas in time.

For Iranian football fans, travelling to the US was “almost impossible” even without the visa challenges or the war. There are no direct means of transport between the countries, which do not have formal diplomatic relations.

“Aside from the visa issue, you have to take two- or three-way routes from Tehran to get to the US,” said Ali, a fan who did not want to share his full name for safety reasons.

“Returning from the US to Iran is a big challenge in itself, with the possibility of being arrested by the [Iranian] government,” he added. The war has increased scrutiny of antinational sentiment within Iran, resulting in executions of people arrested on accusations of spying for Israel or the US.

Political repercussions extend to the sport sphere, too. Iran’s top footballer Sardar Azmoun was expelled from the national team in March for a perceived act of disloyalty to the government, when he posted a picture on social media of a ⁠meeting with Dubai ruler Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. Relations between the UAE and Iran have been tense during the war, with Iran hitting the Emirates repeatedly and accusing it of allowing the US to use its territory for attacks on Iran.

The US war on Iran, now nearing its 100th day, has also deterred fans globally from attending the World Cup.

“Football is called the Beautiful Game for a reason, for its ability to unite people,” South African football fan Byron Pillay told Al Jazeera.

“But it’s hard to believe in that magic with the politics and war rhetoric off the field of play, specially when one of the tournament hosts is central to that.”

Compatriot Riaz Hamed echoed those reservations. “With the stance of America in particular, regarding the treatment of fans and immigrants in the country, I don’t believe it to be entirely safe to attend.”

Fears have been stoked by reports from organisations such as Human Rights Watch, which said an asylum seeker who attended the Club World Cup final last year in New Jersey with his children was arrested by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) department and deported to his country of origin.

Khayran Noor, an international sports lawyer based in Kenya, emphasised that sport cannot be separated from wider geopolitical dimensions.

“If participation can be shaped by geopolitical realities outside the game itself, does that ultimately undermine the inclusive ideals these tournaments claim to represent?” Noor said in an interview with Al Jazeera.

“Football is global, but global mobility is not; the World Cup sits directly at the intersection of that contradiction.”

Mounting visa rejections have also spooked fans from attempting to attend the World Cup.

The US has launched a FIFA Priority Appointment Scheduling System (PASS), which expedites visa interviews for fans who have bought tickets through FIFA. But it does not guarantee a visa.

Last month, a group of nearly 150 Ghana football fans saw their visa applications rejected.

Godwin Nii Armah, 32, scrapped his travel plans for the World Cup for personal reasons, but knew he might have shared the same fate as those compatriots. He also admitted that travelling to Toronto, Boston and Philadelphia to support the Black Stars would have been a costly logistical headache in addition to international flights and visa fees.

Ghana nationals have to pay a $185 fee with their US visa application and 100 Canadian dollars ($71) for the Canadian visa. Add the two, and the amount is comparable to the monthly per capita income in Ghana.

Noor questioned whether future FIFA host agreements should include obligations relating to accessibility and mobility before hosting rights are awarded.

“If teams and fans from particular parts of the world face structural barriers before they can even attend, then the broader spirit of inclusion that these tournaments seek to embody risks being undermined.”

She acknowledged that while states understandably retain sovereign responsibilities regarding border control and national security, global sporting events often require exceptional frameworks.

Fans from 27 of the 48 nations headed to the World Cup need a US visa to apply, costing anywhere between $185 to $435 – amounts that represent wages that an average person in many countries in the Global South would earn over several months.

Canada is marginally more visa-friendly, while Mexico remains the most accessible World Cup host nation.

That was why South Africa chose to send a small supporters group to Pachuca, Mexico, where South Africa have set up basecamp and play two group stage matches.

Sahil Ebrahim is among the “lucky few” in that delegation. After decades of supporting Bafana Bafana from a TV screen in Cape Town, Ebrahim attended the Qatar 2022 World Cup.

Now the 40-year-old is on his way to his second World Cup, where he will witness the tournament opener live in Mexico City, when South Africa play the hosts on June 11.

Contrary to the South African football team, who faced a 24-hour delay in their departure over a visa bungle by the federation, Ebrahim said the Department of Sport did an “excellent job” expediting their visas with the Mexican embassy.

The process, however, paled in comparison with the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, where Hayya cards centrally aligned all visa, ticket and transport details for each fan, Ebrahim acknowledged.

While South Africa’s friendly against Jamaica on Friday, June 5, is closed to the public, Ebrahim and the supporters’ group will watch an exhibition game on Sunday where the Bafana legends of 2010 will take on their Mexican counterparts. South Africa had hosted the World Cup in 2010, a first for an African nation.

“Ultimately, major sporting events succeed not only because people watch them, but because people participate in them,” Noor said.

“The question is not who can watch the World Cup – the question is who can truly participate in it.”

Nvidia Corp. Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Jensen Huang said Friday that he views robotics as the next major growth sector in South Korea, adding that the domestic market is well-positioned for growth.

Huang, a central figure in the global artificial intelligence (AI) boom, made the remarks after arriving at Gimpo International Airport in western Seoul aboard his private jet for a four-day visit.

“(South) Korea has many sectors to invest in. Robotics is going to be the next major sector,” Huang told reporters, adding that the Korean “market is doing very well.”

Asked whether he had brought any gifts for South Korea, Huang responded with a smile.

“Did I bring any gifts for Korea? I brought a lot of business for Korea,” he said. “I have some surprises.”

The trip comes less than a year after Huang’s previous trip to South Korea in October, which coincided with the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit in the southeastern city of Gyeongju.

During that visit, Huang drew widespread attention when he joined Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong and Hyundai Motor Group Executive Chair Euisun Chung for a late-night meal of Korean fried chicken and beer, commonly known as “chimaek.”

One of the most anticipated events during Huang’s visit is an informal dinner with SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, LG Group Chairman Koo Kwang-mo and Naver Chairman Lee Hae-jin. Hyundai Motor Group’s chief who had earlier been expected to join the group has since confirmed he will be unable to attend.

Together, the companies represented at the gathering span nearly every layer of the AI value chain, including semiconductors, data centers, AI models, software and robotics.

Huang is also set to hold talks with executives from the gaming industry, AI and robotics startups, university researchers and students, according to industry sources.

“Because Korea is a manufacturing center of the world, we can apply the robotics technology, the physical AI technology that we invent here for the industry,” he said.

He further said Nvidia will partner with domestic manufacturing firms in robotics and AI.

“The manufacturing of semiconductors will become increasingly robotics and increasingly AI driven in the future, and so we have a great opportunity to partner with the semiconductor companies here as well,” he added.

Later in the day, Huang visited an internet cafe in Seoul and met with esports players, including gaming superstar Faker.

“This is the birthplace of esports,” Huang said, emphasizing that Korean gamers have long been among the world’s most competitive players who are using Nvidia’s graphics processing units (GPUs).

Nvidia’s GeForce graphics cards are designed to deliver the high frame rates demanded by professional gamers.

Huang is also expected to meet Krafton Executive Director Chang Byung-gyu and other senior executives from the gaming company, though the exact schedule has yet to be confirmed.

The two companies are expected to discuss potential cooperation involving Nvidia’s RTX Spark platform for premium Windows laptops, as well as physical AI technologies.

Earlier this year, Krafton established a robotics subsidiary called Ludo Robotics.

During his stay, Huang is also expected to meet Science Minister Bae Kyung-hoon to discuss cooperation in AI, including the supply of GPUs.

Details regarding the timing, venue and agenda of the meeting are still being finalized.

Copyright (c) Yonhap News Agency prohibits its content from being redistributed or reprinted without consent, and forbids the content from being learned and used by artificial intelligence systems.

Police on Friday secured remaining ballot boxes at a polling station in southern Seoul, two days after protesters gathered to prevent election officials from removing them in protest of a shortage of ballots during the June 3 local elections.

Police officials broke through a crowd of protesters to remove the two ballot boxes at the polling station in Jamsil, Songpa Ward, after deploying around 1,000 officers to the scene earlier in the day to break up the rally.

The boxes, said to contain around 2,000 ballots, were transported to a ballot counting center at nearby Olympic Park.

Authorities said multiple people suffered minor injuries at the polling station and the vote counting center, where protesters also gathered to demand election officials to stop the count.

The polling station was one of over a dozen locations in Seoul that experienced ballot shortages Wednesday, prompting the temporary suspension of voting at the affected stations.

Angry protesters gathered at the Jamsil polling station, accusing the election watchdog of having committed election fraud and blocking election officials from removing the ballot boxes.

The standoff had prevented the National Election Commission from completing vote counting and officially declaring election winners in the affected areas.

A group of protesters attempted to block the police from entering the polling station, resulting in physical clashes as officers dragged them out. Some protesters claimed the police used excessive force.

Fire authorities said they had treated six people for minor injuries at the polling station and the vote counting center since Thursday night.

Three of them, including a woman in her 40s who complained of a headache, were sent to the hospital.

Copyright (c) Yonhap News Agency prohibits its content from being redistributed or reprinted without consent, and forbids the content from being learned and used by artificial intelligence systems.

Karachi, Pakistan – Over a few breezy winter weeks in Karachi, boxing coach Younus Qambrani sent a steady stream of WhatsApp messages from his neighbourhood of Lyari – videos, photos, old newspaper clippings that together formed an extensive archive of how he teaches girls to throw a punch.

In one of the videos, the bearded and skullcap-clad Qambrani, 60, uses the palms of his hands and ducks as his young students practice throwing their punches. The thuds of the colliding boxing gloves and the scuff of the sneakers against the concrete floor of Qambrani’s Pak-Shaheen boxing club mask the din on the street.

Outside, motorcycles speed and sputter on narrow, labyrinthine roads, past omelettes sizzling on outdoor skillets in the many kebab bun stalls that pepper the neighbourhood of nearly 950,000 people: that is the population of Amsterdam packed into about three percent of the Dutch city’s land area.

To millions of followers of Bollywood, the Indian film industry across the border, Lyari is synonymous with brutal gang warfare waged against a perpetually grey background. It is where Bollywood’s highest grossing film of all time, Dhurandhar and its recently released sequel, Dhurandhar The Revenge are set.

The films — about a fictionalised covert mission conducted by India’s Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) on Pakistani soil — have each earned more than $100m. In the first film, an Indian spy infiltrates Lyari’s criminal underworld and neutralises threats to India’s national security. In the sequel, the same agent continues his deep-cover operation inside Pakistan’s crime networks, again moving through Lyari’s streets.

But to Lyari locals, the neighbourhood is much more than the backdrop to blood and gore: It is a melting pot of cultures and tradition, rooted in history far deeper than Bollywood has dared to explore. It has an emerging rap and hip-hop scene, launching acts such as hip hop group, Lyari Underground, and masked rapper, Eva B, onto the national stage. The neighbourhood has also earned the nickname of Mini Brazil for being Pakistan’s mecca of football.

To be sure, Lyari has had a past rife with gang violence and unrest. Armed groups held significant influence from the mid‑2000s into the early 2010s, when battles between rival syndicates were at their peak. Gangs led by figures such as Rehman Dakait and, later, Uzair Baloch – both depicted in the Dhurandhar film and its sequel – turned parts of the neighbourhood into a militarised conflict zone. At the height of the violence, human rights groups reported about 800 people killed in Karachi in a single year, many of them in and around Lyari.

In 2012, the government launched what became known as Operation Lyari, a major crackdown in which police, backed by the Sindh Rangers paramilitary force, moved against armed groups in the area. The operation, and subsequent security campaigns, dismantled the main gang hierarchies and largely ended the era of open, large‑scale gang warfare in Lyari, even if other forms of crime persisted.

But Lyari, said social anthropologist Adeem Suhail, has always been about much more than that period of violence.

“Think of Naples or Sicily in Italy, which are among the major cultural hubs of the country (food, literature, music, etc) despite having long been associated with Mafia violence,” Suhail, an assistant professor at Pennsylvania-based Franklin and Marshall College, told Al Jazeera.

‘Preparing for war’ — of a different kind

Qambrani has been boxing alongside his brothers for as long as he can remember. He began when he was five years old, and was introduced to the sport by his father, uncles and brothers — all boxers. Throughout his childhood, Qambrani says he was a sick and frail child. But he was determined to build muscle and throw punches like the men who had inspired him as he was growing up.

Boxing is so popular in Lyari that in 1989 boxing legend Muhammad Ali visited the neighbourhood, when he was a special guest at the Asian Games in the capital, Islamabad.

Qambrani’s high school, Haji Abdullah Haroon Government College, opened its own boxing club while he was there. He joined, but the club shut down in a few years. So he found another club a little further away and began cycling there to train.

After honing his skills there, Qambrani founded Pak Shaheen Boxing Club in 1992. “I wanted to open a club in my own area,” Qambrani said. At Pak Shaheen, he started out by teaching young boys, aged seven to 16, how to box.

A sports enthusiast, Qambrani built friendships with coaches across the city, often visiting their training centres. At a friend’s karate classes at the YMCA (Young Men’s Christian Association) in central Karachi, he noticed young girls practicing kicks and elbow strikes shoulder-to-shoulder with boys. “If girls can do karate, why not boxing?” he wondered.

Soon he began voicing this question to his peers in the local boxing community, saying he wanted to start training young girls. One of them told him that “little girls have weak brains” — a remark that left Qambrani silent.

Then he went home and began looking through news reports featuring stories of girls and women boxing internationally. He would cut out the news clippings and paste them into a notebook. “My eyes were on the whole world,” he recalled. “Girls are boxing in the outside world, why not here?” he would wonder.

So he started at home: when his daughter Anum turned three, he began playfully sparring with her. She would gaze at the many photos of her father and uncles at boxing championships, slip on his medals, and traipse into the living room, mimicking the victorious poses he struck in those pictures. “She couldn’t even run properly, but she would box,” Qambrani said.

Then, in 2013, he opened the doors of his club to young girls. Anum was 16 at the time, and became its first female member.

In 2015, several of Qambrani’s students participated in the South Asian Games, the biennial multi-sport event where athletes from Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka compete against each other.

A year later, Anum won a district level championship called the Jinnah First Ever Karachi Women Boxing Championship held at a Lyari stadium. In the same year, she attended a training camp for women organised by the Sindh Boxing Association. Local media reports described this camp as the country’s first government-supported boxing event held for women.

It was Qambrani’s club where Aliya Soomro, Pakistan’s first woman to win a world boxing title, began her training. Last year, Soomro took a mere 45 seconds to knock out her opponent from Thailand to win the WBA (World Boxing Association) Asia 105-pound category.

For Qambrani, though, boxing is about more than medals and trophies. To him, it’s a vital defensive skill.

“Whoever is prepared for war is prepared for peace,” he told Al Jazeera, adding that the defenceless are the ones most likely to be attacked.

With its legion of young boxers, Lyari’s not defenceless. As its reputation and image are mangled by Bollywood, those who know the neighbourhood also turn to its history for support.

Lyari’s colonial history

It is not just the Dhurandhar films and Bollywood that Suhail, the social anthropologist, blames for what he describes as “terrible and exploitative” representations of Lyari. Journalistic and scholarly literature have been guilty too, he said.

Lyari is Karachi’s oldest recorded settlement — the earliest inhabitants of the neighbourhood came in 1728. The neighbourhood has survived British colonialism, the partition of the subcontinent, and nearly eight decades in independent Pakistan.

Suhail said Lyari had been a diverse working-class cultural hub since before the 1947 partition of British India.

Some of those working class communities were Baloch and Sindhi, because Karachi is at the tip of the southern Sindh province, which neighbours Balochistan province. Others were Marathi, Gujarati, Afghan and Siraiki migrants from labouring and artisan classes.

“This was because the British required labourers and artisans to develop Karachi into a burgeoning Indian Ocean port city.”

Suhail said that most of these labourers settled on the unplanned sides of the Lyari river, a small 50km-long seasonal river originating in the hills of Sindh, which flows through Lyari before emptying into the Arabian Sea.

“These cosmopolitan working class populations brought with them culinary traditions, dances, religious practices (multi-religious, multi-caste), songs, sports and more,” Suhail said.

He added that Lyari has a “strong cultural memory of East Africa and the Arabian Gulf, which adds to its uniqueness.” The neighbourhood is home to both Baloch and Afro-Baloch communities—people of African ancestry living in Balochistan.

Suhail explained that Lyari’s long history as a cultural hub of Karachi is often forgotten “because, after partition, the city’s demographics shifted drastically and Karachi became an Urdu-speaking Muhajir-majority city.” Muhajirs are Urdu‑speaking Muslims who migrated to Pakistan from India during and after the 1947 partition.

Sarwat Viqar, a professor of humanities at John Abbott College in Montreal, Canada, echoed Suhail’s views.

“Because Lyari has been represented one-dimensionally in the media as only a hotbed of criminality, drugs and the gang wars, what has been overlooked are the rich cultural practices that have always been part of life here,” Viqar told Al Jazeera.

Suhail added that Lyari had also consistently been at the heart of labour movements, and a base of support for reformers, anti-colonial activists and later campaigns for the rights of Pakistan’s various ethnic groups, including the Baloch, Sindhi and Pashtun communities.

“Lyari — because it was the first, most diverse, and most vibrant working-class zone as Karachi was becoming a city — also became the hub of working-class politics,” he told Al Jazeera.

But the neighbourhood’s own fortunes have also oscillated over the years.

“The degree of ‘development’ in Lyari has always been a function of how strong the working-class movement in Karachi was,” Suhail said. “When it was strong—such as in the 1930s and again in the 1970s—Lyari saw development. When ruling elites were strong, it did not.”

What Dhurandhar gets wrong

In the film, Lyari first comes into focus when a long-haired Ranveer Singh, playing undercover Indian RAW [Research and Analysis Wing] agent Jaskirat Singh Rangi, eyes the “Welcome to Lyari town” gate.

The gate looks very similar to the real one in Karachi. Other elements on screen ring familiar too: juice shop owners chanting idiosyncrasies to cajole customers; quick and garbled salams; and the somewhat unkempt colonial era architecture of old Karachi.

But then, the three-hour film’s dusty colour grading seems to wash out Lyari’s cultural depth and its vibrant subcultures.

“We can see how the obscene fetishisation of Lyari and the Baloch with violence and criminality is evident” in the film, Suhail said.

Describing Dhurandhar as “mediocre”, he said it lacks the depth of other Indian gangster films.

For example, in Ram Gopal Varma’s Satya 1998 and Anurag Kashyap’s Gangs of Wasseypur 2012, we see “culturally dense but non-apologetic depictions of Mumbaikar or Bihari gangs that understand the political economy of colonial and post-colonial state formation and how it crystallises in the gangsters portrayed,” Suhail opined.

Satya unpacks the criminal underworld of India’s metropolis Mumbai, following the titular character who arrives in Mumbai seeking a job but is falsely imprisoned and subsequently introduced to the underworld. Gangs of Wasseypur is set in a time before India’s independence in 1947 and follows power struggles, mafias and generational cycles of revenge in India’s eastern state of Jharkand.

In contrast to these films, Dhurandhar, has “heavy-handed homophobic, Islamophobic, hyper-masculine jingoism” and “the characters themselves appear to have no history at all,” Suhail added.

Unlike Lyari

Back at Qambrani’s club, 10 girls aged eight to 16 gather for an hour of sparring every day except Sunday, training for city tournaments that they compete in every two months.

Qambrani is looking to buy a folding, portable boxing ring to take school to school. His dream: to make boxing accessible to as many girls in the neighbourhood as possible. His challenge: he is struggling to find a portable ring in Pakistan and needs funding.

Dhurandhar and Bollywood do not matter at his Lyari club. Qambrani has a new generation of girl boxers to train.

June 4 (Asia Today) — South Korean Unification Minister Chung Dong-young on Thursday proposed resuming four-way talks among South Korea, North Korea, the United States and China to help establish peace in Northeast Asia.

Chung, who is visiting Mongolia, also called for expanding the framework to include Mongolia, Japan, Russia and other regional countries. He made the proposal during a special address at the 11th Ulaanbaatar Dialogue in Mongolia.

Chung said Northeast Asia needs to build a new “peace identity” by restoring trust between South and North Korea and rebuilding peace on the Korean Peninsula.

It was the first visit to Mongolia by a South Korean unification minister. The trip was made at the invitation of the Mongolian government.

The Ulaanbaatar Dialogue is a regular international forum that covers security issues in Northeast Asia. It began in 2014 as a private academic conference and was upgraded in 2017 to a Track 1.5 forum involving government and nongovernment participants. North Korea has not attended the forum since 2019.

On the Korean Peninsula peace process, Chung said, “A four-party dialogue among the Republic of Korea, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the United States and China is possible.”

“We should expand this framework so that other Northeast Asian countries, including Mongolia, Japan and Russia, can also join,” he said.

Chung also referred to the Sept. 19 Joint Statement adopted during the six-party talks in 2005. He said the six parties had agreed to promote lasting peace and security in Northeast Asia.

“It is time to apply that experience to today’s reality and rekindle the flame of dialogue,” Chung said.

Chung also proposed strengthening cooperation under the Greater Tumen Initiative, a multilateral platform for development and economic cooperation in Northeast Asia.

He called for connecting regional railway networks, including the Trans-Siberian Railway, Trans-China Railway, Trans-Mongolian Railway and a proposed Seoul-Beijing high-speed rail link, with the Arctic shipping route.

“By connecting transportation networks with regional markets and trade flows, we can build an innovative logistics network across Eurasia,” Chung said.

“To turn these ideas into reality, I urge the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to rejoin the Greater Tumen Initiative as a full member,” he said. “They would be the biggest beneficiary of this vision.”

North Korea was an early member of the Greater Tumen Initiative but withdrew in 2009.

Chung said three goals must move forward together: rebuilding trust between the two Koreas, institutionalizing a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula and advancing multilateral dialogue in Northeast Asia.

“If these three pillars move forward together, we can build a new peace order across Northeast Asia,” he said.

After his special address, Chung met separately with Mongolian Foreign Minister Battsetseg Batmunkh and President Ukhnaa Khurelsukh. Chung left South Korea on Wednesday to attend the forum and is scheduled to return Friday.

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.

Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260605010001616

June 4 (Asia Today) — The biggest upset of Wednesday’s local elections came in Seoul, where People Power Party candidate Oh Se-hoon overcame early expectations of defeat and won a dramatic late comeback victory in the mayoral race.

Oh’s win allowed the conservative bloc to hold South Korea’s capital despite a strong nationwide showing by the Democratic Party. The result immediately raised Oh’s standing as a potential conservative contender in the next presidential race.

Oh narrowly defeated Democratic Party candidate Jung Won-oh after an extremely close vote count that continued into early Thursday morning, becoming the first person to win a fifth term as Seoul mayor.

“Citizens have once again upheld the democratic principle of checks and balances,” Oh said at a press conference Thursday. “They have left Seoul as the last safeguard of democracy so that South Korea does not tilt completely to one side.”

Political observers said Oh’s victory significantly changes his political status. Holding the capital while the People Power Party struggled nationwide could become a major asset for a future presidential bid.

Oh’s campaign strategy also drew attention because he kept some distance from the party leadership under Jang Dong-hyeok and focused on his own record as incumbent mayor. Analysts said that approach may allow Oh to emerge as an independent center of gravity in any future conservative realignment.

A People Power Party official said Oh had now fully risen as a national political figure representing the conservative camp.

“This Seoul victory is virtually close to a ticket toward the presidency,” the official said.

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.

Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260605010001627

June 4 (UPI) — The pilots of a United Airlines flight that flew low enough to shear off a light pole on the New Jersey Turnpike as it landed in May knew they were flying too low but were unable to compensate in time, a preliminary report stated Thursday.

The first officer of United Airlines Flight 169 from Venice, Italy, to Newark Liberty International Airport called out, “Hey you are slow,” just before the Boeing B767-424ER clipped a light pole along the turnpike while approaching Newark’s runway 29, according to the National Transportation Safety Board’s initial report of the May 3 accident.

The incident resulted in debris from the light pole impacting a tractor-trailer traveling southbound on the turnpike.

The aircraft was just 19 feet above the busy highway when it connected with the 15-foot-high light post.

Following the impact, the airplane landed and taxied to the gate without further incident, after which the three flight crew members, eight cabin crew members and 220 passengers deplaned at the gate without any injury.

The driver of the tractor-trailer sustained minor injuries, the NTSB said, while the damage to the aircraft was called “substantial.”

The safety agency’s report found that moments after the first officer voiced an initial alarm about the plane being too low, he followed it by saying, “You are still slow and a little low.”

The pilot said at that point he looked outside and recalled, “I thought we were low,” but since they were about to touch down, it was too late to order a “go-around” and abort the landing.

The captain stated that just before touchdown “he heard a thump,” the report said, while the first officer recalled feeling a “mild jolt” as they neared the runway.

After the flight landed, the purser reported that the aft flight attendants heard “a loud bang” just prior to landing.

June 4 (UPI) — Acting Director of National Intelligence Bill Pulte, whose new assignment has drawn bipartisan criticism, won’t be the “permanent” choice for the job, President Donald Trump said Thursday.

Trump, speaking to reporters Thursday the White House, said Pulte’s role as acting director of DNI to replace Tulsi Gabbard, which began Tuesday, would not be “permanent.”

Rather, the president said Pulte will be “very good” as he takes the job on for a “little while,” while also asserting he will be able to “figure it out quickly.”

Gabbard announced her resignation in May, saying she will step down June 30, and Trump’s pick of Pulte to replace her two days ago ignited a backlash among lawmakers of both parties.

A former housing developer and currently director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Pulte — a staunch Trump loyalist — has no experience in foreign intelligence work, a fact that has sparked criticism from both sides of the political aisle.

Sen. Thom Tillis., R-N.C., on Wednesday blasted Pulte as an “incendiary attack dog” for Trump who likely wouldn’t pass Senate muster for confirmation.

“I don’t think he has a prayer” of becoming the permanent DNI, Tillis told CNBC, adding that Pulte’s presence could hurt the GOP congressional majority’s efforts to reauthorize the part of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act governing warrantless surveillance.

Similarly, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., a long-serving member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, decried the choice of Pulte for DNI director, saying Trump is “appointing his top political henchman to one of the most important positions for protecting the safety of Americans and preventing terrorist attacks like September 11th.”

Pulte, he said, “appears to be unscathed by intelligence or any semblance of ethics,” noting he has already used his post at a housing agency “to persecute Trump’s political opponents, including Senator Adam Schiff, New York Attorney General Leticia James and Federal Reserve Board member Lisa Cook.”

Pulte has alleged fraud against several of Trump’s foes in their mortgage applications, including Cook for claiming two different homes as her primary residence. She has appealed her firing by Trump to the U.S. Supreme Court.

June 4 (UPI) — The United States on Thursday leveled sanctions against Cuban Miguel Díaz-Canel, members of former President Raul Castro‘s family, the Cuban military and other organizations as it continued a crackdown on the country’s communist government.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the measures against Diaz-Canel the others in a statement, asserting they are being targeted because they “fund the [Cuban] regime and its efforts to mobilize its radical revolutionary movements in the United States and around the world.”

The Cuban president, Rubio said, poses a threat to U.S. national security, while the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Cuba, with its “many majority holdings and subsidiaries,” is also now “considered blocked.”

Other organizations newly added to the sanctions list are the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples, or ICAP, Amistur Cuba S.A., Committees for the Defense of the Revolution and Minera La Victoria S.A.

The individuals sanctioned include Alejandro Castro Espin, the former head of the Cuban intelligence services and the son of Raul Castro, and Raul Alejandro Castro Calis, Castro Espin’s son.

“For decades, Cuba has been the world capital for radical left-wing terrorism,” Rubio asserted. “The regime in Havana has recruited, trained and backed violent Marxist and ‘third-worldist’ movements across our hemisphere and beyond.

“Today, we are targeting the network that enables and funds Cuba’s subversive and radical operations.”

In a stated response, Diaz-Canel said the latest sanctions are “illegitimate” and are “aimed at reinforcing the blockade measures and the scenario of conflict between Cuba and the United States.

“This political blindness is added to the coercive measures applied in recent weeks against our country, designed to harm the Cuban people,” he added. “The aggressiveness and perversity of the Yankee government will clash with our determination to confront the worst scenarios and resist the imperialist onslaught.”

The newly issued sanctions are the latest in a series of moves designed to ratchet up pressure on the Cuban government.

The Trump administration has set a Friday deadline for foreign companies to sever ties with GAESA, the business conglomerate run by Cuba’s Armed Forces, sparking a mass exodus of tourism-related businesses from the island nation.

Meanwhile, Cuba is struggling with the effects of a January 2026 executive order issued by U.S. President Donald Trump imposing a fuel blockade against the nation on national security grounds.

The move has resulted in shortages of electricity, fuel, medicine and medical supplies across Cuba, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the World Health Organization, which says emergency care, blood banks, laboratories, immunization programs and maternal and child health services have all been “severely disrupted.”

Ivory Coast defeats France 2-1 in friendly ahead of the 2026 World Cup, as Manchester United’s Amad Diallo seals win.

France has brushed aside ‌concerns over their World Cup readiness after suffering a surprise 2-1 defeat by Ivory Coast in a ⁠tournament warm-up match, insisting the setback will serve as a useful reminder rather than a cause for alarm.

Didier Deschamps’s side ⁠led through a superb first-half goal from Rayan Cherki on Thursday, but they were overrun after the break as Guela Doue and Amad Diallo turned the game around for the ⁠Elephants in Nantes.

With France opening their World Cup campaign against Senegal in New York on June 16, midfielder Aurelien Tchouameni said the result should be viewed in the context of preparations.

“It’s a pity to lose, but we’re in a ‌preparation phase; we stay confident,” Tchouameni said.

“There is no conclusion to draw from this game, even if we had won it. We will be ready.”

France fielded an experimental side, with several Paris Saint-Germain players rested after last weekend’s Champions League final triumph, and made numerous changes after halftime.

Defender Lucas Hernandez also played down the significance of the defeat.

“We always want to win, but we’re in ⁠a phase of preparation, and there were a lot of ⁠substitutions,” Hernandez said.

“We’re in good spirits.”

Deschamps, however, admitted that his side had lost control of the contest after an encouraging opening 45 minutes and warned that France would face opponents with similar qualities to Ivory Coast in the ⁠United States.

“A defeat is never pleasant, even if we did some good things in the first half,” Deschamps said.

“In the second ⁠half we made a lot of changes, but that’s ⁠no excuse. We were not as good after the break, and they brought a lot of pace.

“We will face the same type of team on June 16.”

The France coach said the result could prove useful ‌if it prevented his players from becoming complacent before the tournament.

“It’s a reminder, if we needed one, not to think we’re better than we are,” he said.

‌Cherki ‌added: “It’s a little warning, and I can tell you we’re not going to the World Cup thinking we’re favourites, but we’re going to crush everyone.”

June 4 (Asia Today) — South Korea’s National Election Commission has failed to clearly explain an unprecedented ballot paper shortage in the June 3 local elections, leaving two Seoul ballot boxes uncounted and delaying the formal confirmation of the Seoul mayoral winner.

The commission said Thursday it would establish a fact-finding committee to investigate the ballot paper shortage that occurred during voting. The committee will be composed mainly of outside experts and will examine the cause of the problem, identify responsibility and recommend measures to prevent a recurrence, the commission said.

The controversy has continued because the commission has not provided a detailed explanation of how the shortage occurred or how many voters were affected.

More than a day after voting ended, the Seoul mayoral race had still not been formally completed. People Power Party candidate Oh Se-hoon’s victory was effectively confirmed around 9:30 a.m. Thursday, but the vote count remained stalled at 99% for hours because two ballot boxes from Jamsil 7-dong’s second polling station in Songpa district had not been moved to the counting center amid protests by residents.

Under Article 191 of the Public Official Election Act, the winner of a local government chief election is the candidate who receives the largest number of valid votes. The law does not clearly state how to handle a case in which vote counting has not been completed because ballot boxes remain uncounted.

The Seoul Election Commission said no decision had been made on formal confirmation of the winner. Winners in other Seoul races, except for the Seoul mayoral race and Songpa district, had already been confirmed.

Critics said the commission’s poor management and lack of clear public explanation deepened public distrust and prolonged the standoff at the polling station.

The National Election Commission held an emergency public apology briefing at 9 p.m. Wednesday. At the briefing, it said voter turnout at some polling stations had exceeded expectations, leading to the shortage of ballot papers. But it did not provide detailed figures on the affected polling stations, the number of additional ballots delivered, delays in voting or the number of voters affected.

The commission repeated that it would disclose more information after confirming the facts.

Calls are also growing for National Election Commission Chairman Noh Tae-ak to take responsibility. Noh did not appear at the public apology briefing. Huh Chul-hoon, secretary-general of the commission, said he was the proper official to apologize because the chairman is a non-standing member and the secretary-general oversees election administration.

The commission was also found to have prepared ballot papers for the affected Songpa polling stations equal to only 50% of registered voters, reportedly because it had taken early voting turnout into account.

Some legal experts said the case exposes structural problems in the election commission, which has long been treated as an institution with limited democratic oversight.

Ji Sung-woo, a professor at Sungkyunkwan University Law School, said the facts should be confirmed first but added that the election commission faces weak oversight.

“The biggest problem with the National Election Commission is that it is the only institution with weak parliamentary control,” Ji said. “Because lawmakers are themselves candidates, parliamentary control is structurally weak.”

“No institution should be free from oversight,” he said. “Control by other institutions, such as the Board of Audit and Inspection or civic groups, needs to be strengthened.”

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.

Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260604010001582

Colombia’s far-right, pro-Trump candidate, Abelardo de la Espriella, is in the lead after Colombia’s first round of elections. If he wins the June 21 runoff against left-wing Senator Ivan Cepeda, progressive policies could be reversed. Al Jazeera’s Hala Al Shami explains why US officials are invested in de la Espriella’s success and walks us through the stakes.

Al Jazeera’s Obaida Hitto brings you the latest from southern Lebanon where a new diplomatic push has done little to quell the violence.

June 4 (UPI) — The Kennedy Center ordered its staff Thursday to remove President Donald Trump‘s name from the center by June 12.

A memo was sent out from the center’s general counsel that said they must remove all references from signs, brochures, websites, furniture and more, and that they must update email signatures and letterhead immediately.

On Friday, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled that the center’s board had overstepped its authority when it voted to add Trump’s name to the center. The memo was the first sign that the center plans to comply with the order.

“Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it,” Cooper said.

Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, filed a lawsuit on Dec. 23 against Trump and others alleging that the move was illegal.

Trump claimed that naming the center after him was a surprise, but the name was added to the sign the next day.

Justice Department lawyers representing Trump later said the speed of the move showed it had been “prepared and/or purchased prior to the Board’s vote the day before,” The Washington Post reported.

Thursday’s memo also said officials were “considering their options and will provide further guidance shortly” on whether the center will close after July 5. The center was scheduled for two years of closure for a $257 million renovation.

In his decision, Cooper said the renovations are “sorely needed,” and his ruling doesn’t bar the board from closing “should it come to this decision anew after independently balancing its multiple obligations to the Center in a prudent fashion,” CBS News reported.

“By way of this opinion, the Court does not purport to dictate how the Center should be run, nor does it prescribe any particular plan for the institution — construction, closure or otherwise — moving forward,” he wrote. “It simply holds the Kennedy Center Board to certain minimum requirements imposed by law. Beyond that, the Court will let the parties play on.”