WASHINGTON (AFP) -- Jessica Cathcart, a 24-year-old from California, says university professor Christine Blasey Ford inspired her to speak up about her own sexual assault, which took place when she was in high school.Angela Trzepkowski, 55, from Delaware, says she would be devastated if Brett Kavanaugh, accused by Blasey Ford of attempted rape, is confirmed to the Supreme Court of the United States.Both were among a sea of women who descended on Washington Thursday urging lawmakers not to confir

ACCRA (AFP) - The US First Lady on Tuesday pulled faces at babies and handed out teddy bears as she kicked off her maiden solo trip to Africa, offering a softer side to the Trump administration after another turbulent week in Washington.Melania Trump left the sanctuary of the East Wing of the White House for a continent her husband once reportedly said contained "shithole" countries, making her visit as much about mending fences as carving her own diplomatic path.The contrast with last week's hi

In just three years, electronic cigarette maker JUUL has come to dominate the American market with its vaping devices that look like thumb drives, a business success that has brought a public health dilemma for authorities in the US, and elsewhere.On the one hand, e-cigarettes expose users to significantly lower levels of potentially toxic substances, except for nicotine, the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine said this year.Converting conventional cigarette smokers to v

Two immunologists, James Allison of the US and Tasuku Honjo of Japan, won the 2018 Nobel Medicine Prize for research that has revolutionised the treatment of cancer, the jury said on Monday. The pair were honoured "for their discovery of cancer therapy by inhibition of negative immune regulation," the Nobel Assembly said.Immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy targets proteins made by some immune system cells, as well as some cancer cells. The proteins can stop the body's natural defences from killi

MONTREAL (AFP) - US and Canadian negotiators were holding eleventh-hour talks on Sunday aimed at revamping the North American Free Trade Agreement ahead of a Washington-imposed deadline.The talks were being held over the phone, unlike in previous rounds where Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland had traveled to Washington. (AFP)"Lots of progress, but we're not there yet," David MacNaughton, Canada's ambassador to the United States, said in Ottawa before heading back to Washington on Sunda

Okinawans headed to the polls Sunday to choose a governor in an election that many see hinging on how voters feel about the American military presence on the southwestern Japanese islands.The race among four candidates is close between two: an outspoken critic of the US military presence and a ruling party-backed candidate pushing the status quo.  The winner succeeds Takeshi Onaga, who died in August of pancreatic cancer. He wanted the bases off Okinawa. Denny Tamaki, a legislator, is pledging t

Phone numbers and other personal details of senior ministers from Britain's Conservative party were made public by an app security flaw on Saturday, including those of top Brexiteers Michael Gove and Boris Johnson.Several top MPs reportedly received nuisance calls after their profiles were accessed on the official mobile application for the annual party conference, which kicks off this weekend.The security breach saw members of the public able to enter the politicians' profiles using just their

Elon Musk has reached a deal over fraud charges that will see him step down as electric automaker Tesla's chairman of the board and pay a $20 million fine but stay on as CEO, US securities regulators said Saturday.The agreement eases pressure on Tesla's embattled CEO, who faced potentially being barred from serving as an officer or board member of a publicly traded company as a result of the charges, which stemmed from a tweet by Musk about taking the company private.In this Sept. 17, 2018, file

PALU, Indonesia (AFP) - Nearly 400 people were killed when a powerful quake sent a tsunami barrelling into the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, officials said Saturday, as hospitals struggled to cope with hundreds of injured and rescuers scrambled to reach the stricken region.The national disaster agency put the official death toll so far at 384, all of them in the tsunami-struck city of Palu, but warned the toll was likely to rise. A woman cries as people look at the damages after an earthquake a

KAGOSHIMA, Japan - A powerful typhoon pummelled Japan's southern island of Okinawa Saturday, injuring at least nine, as weather officials warned the storm would rip through the Japanese archipelago over the weekend.Typhoon Trami, packing maximum gusts of 216 kilometres (134 miles) per hour near its centre, was forecast to hit the mainland early Sunday and cause extreme weather across the country into Monday.Television footage showed branches ripped from trees by strong winds blocking a main stre

The US Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday charged Tesla CEO Elon Musk with securities fraud, alleging he misled investors last month in tweets about taking the company private.Musk tweeted August 7 that he had "secured" funding to privatize the electric automaker at $420 a share, causing a brief spike in Tesla's share price.The SEC said Musk's statements on Twitter were "false and misleading" and that he had never discussed the plans with company officials or potential funders. Tesla

TOKYO (AFP) --  Tokyo police said Tuesday they had arrested a 49-year-old woman suspected of dumping a stillborn baby‘s body in a coin locker, amid reports she had moved the corpse around for as many as five years.　“The suspect... left and abandoned the body of an infant inside the locker,” near Uguisudani Station, a Tokyo police spokeswoman told AFP, with the latest incident occuring around September 13. People walk in the streets of Shinjuku district of Tokyo (Yonhap)　According to local media,

BEIJING (AFP) -- China said on Tuesday it was impossible to hold trade talks with the United States while Washington is imposing tariffs that are like “holding a knife to someone‘s throat”.　Speaking a day after Washington activated tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods, vice commerce minister Wang Shouwen said China is open to negotiations but that the two sides must treat each other “equally and with respect”.　“Now that the US has adopted this type of large-scale trade restrictions, they’re

SAN FRANCISCO, (AFP) -- Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger are leaving the smartphone photo-sharing service bought by Facebook six years ago for a billion dollars, the New York Times reported late Monday citing unnamed sources.　Systrom and Krieger have resigned from their posts as chief executive and chief technology officer respectively, not giving reasons and saying they planned to take time off, according to the Times.　Facebook did not respond to a request for comment. FILE

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) -- One year after mobilizing the international community against North Korea, Donald Trump is trying to force another arch enemy to the negotiating table by targeting Iran with a similar campaign of “maximum pressure.”　But if North Korea‘s leader Kim Jong Un has seen his standing with the US president transformed in the 12 months since Trump’s United Nations debut, theprospects of Hassan Rouhani undergoing a similar transformation appear far from clear.　In his debut speech b

The European Union said Monday it would set up a legal entity to preserve oil and other business with Iran, in a bid to evade US sanctions after President Donald Trump withdrew from a nuclear agreement.　(Yonhap)The European Union and Iran, along with Russia and China, said they were determined to “protect the freedom of their economic operators to pursue legitimate business with Iran” in a statement issued after high-level talks at the United Nations. (AFP)

NEW YORK - A second woman has come forward with allegations of sexual misconduct against Brett Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump's embattled nominee for the Supreme Court, The New Yorker said Sunday.Senate Democrats are investigating the bombshell claim by Deborah Ramirez, 53, who says Kavanaugh exposed himself to her during a college party at Yale University in the 1980s, thrust his genitals in her face and caused her to touch them without her consent while pushing them away.Kavanaugh denied th

UNITED NATIONS, United States (AFP) - North Korea and Iran will dominate this week's gathering of world leaders at the United Nations, where President Donald Trump will be firmly in the spotlight as he continues to upend global diplomacy.After warming up to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and ditching the Iran nuclear deal, the unpredictable Trump takes the podium on Tuesday to face foes and increasingly uneasy allies at the UN General Assembly.On Wednesday, he will for the first time chair a Se

GENEVA (AFP) -- A World Trade Organization arbitrator will review Friday a Chinese request to impose more than $7 billion (nearly 6 billion euros) in annual sanctions on the United States over anti-dumping practices, a Geneva trade official said. (AFP)The decision to appoint an arbitrator was reached during a special meeting of the WTO Dispute Settlement Body convened to discuss developments in a five-year-old trade dispute between the world's top two economies.Beijing had already warned earlier

Thousands of demonstrators marched Sunday through Nicaragua's capital Managua to demand the resignation of President Daniel Ortega and the liberation of hundreds detained during months of deadly government repression.Whole families -- including young children and the elderly --took part in the so-called "Rescuing the Homeland" march, many sounding noisy vuvuzelas, waving Nicaraguan flags and shouting slogans as they made their way through the streets. (AFP)Months of turmoil in the Central Americ