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Nagorno-Karabakh early Wednesday, a day after Azerbaijani forces used heavy artillery fire on Armenian positions in the separatist region that local officials said killed or wounded scores of people. Azerbaijan has called the artillery fire an «anti-terrorist operation» and said it will continue until the separatist government of Nagorno-Karabakh dismantles itself and «illegal Armenian military formations» surrender. It said it is only targeting military sites, but significant damage was visible on the streets of the regional capital, Stepanakert, with shop windows blown out and vehicles punctured apparently by shrapnel. The blasts reverberated around Stepanakert every few minutes on Wednesday morning, with some explosions in the distance and others closer to the city. The artillery fire raised concerns that a full-scale war in the region could resume between Azerbaijan and Armenia, which for more than three decades have been locked in a struggle over the mountainous territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.

the deadliest sexually transmitted sickness of all time. The struggle involves not only dazzling science but also old-fashioned insights into human behaviour, rational and irrational. Many people who do not have HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, know they are at risk.

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) — Sweden's government promised tax cuts and more money for welfare, defence and the criminal justice system in its 2024 budget on Wednesday, but said spending had to be limited by the need to keep a lid on inflation.

Crypto influencer Ben Armstrong, who was recently ousted from the company he created, claimed he has been receiving death threats from Hit Network.

The Federal Reserve is set to leave its key interest rate unchanged Wednesday as it seeks to guide the U.S. economy toward a “soft landing” of cooling inflation without triggering a deep recession

Reuters. 7. The most sensitive issue is the status of the 120,000 ethnic Armenians in Karabakh, whose rights and security Armenia says must be guaranteed.

The Clinton Global Initiative added gender equity as a pillar of the nonprofit’s work to sound the alarm about the increasing challenges women and girls currently face, Clinton Foundation Vice Chair Chelsea Clinton told The Associated Press in an inter...

Lloyd Austin urged allied defense leaders Tuesday to «dig deep» and provide more air defense systems for Ukraine to help it block increasing barrages of Russian missiles, even as debate grows in Congress over aid to Kyiv. But while the allies said they will discuss how they can best help Ukraine's counteroffensive in the coming winter months, they appeared no closer to commitments on the longer-range missiles that Kyiv's leaders insist they need as they struggle to retake land gained by Russia earlier in the conflict. «Air defense is saving lives,» Austin said. «I urged allies and partners to dig deep and donate whatever air defense munitions they can as Ukraine heads into another winter of war.» Speaking at the close of the meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, Austin said allies have done a «credible job» of getting some air defenses to the war, «but there's much more work to be done.

China's economic slowdown has rippled through Asia. Tourists aren't flocking to Thai beaches or Singaporean malls in the numbers anticipated. Factories are struggling, and there are questions about whether Beijing can bankroll public works in the manner to which the neighborhood has become accustomed. One glaring omission from the list of spillovers: interest-rate cuts. Despite the country's heft, China's travails aren't translating into easing in its backyard.

But investors are likely to focus less on what policymakers do Wednesday — and more on what they say about the future. Wall Street will closely watch whether Fed policymakers expect to make another interest rate increase before the end of the year or whether they are edging closer to the next phase in their fight against rapid inflation. Central bankers have already raised interest rates to a range of 5.25%-5.5%, the highest level in 22 years.

Federal Reserve kicks off a two-day policy meeting on Tuesday with officials widely expected to keep interest rates on hold for now, but also flagging in new economic projections whether they feel rates still need to rise further before the end of the year. A new policy statement and interest rate decision will be released at 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT) on Wednesday, with Fed Chair Jerome Powell scheduled to hold a press conference at 2:30 p.m.

yield rose to the highest level since 2007 after hotter-than-anticipated inflation data in Canada and rising oil prices added to global concerns about resurgent price pressures. The five-year Treasury yield rose as much as 5.5 basis points to 4.5044%, exceeding its 2022 high and climbing to the highest since August 2007. Other Treasury tenors approached their 2023 highs, with the 10-year coming within a basis point of its Aug.

California officials may vote Tuesday to slash how much water a major bottling company can pull from a watershed in the San Bernardino National Forest

Speaker Kevin McCarthy is trying to accomplish what at times seems impossible

Ukraine is filing a complaint at the World Trade Organization against Hungary, Poland and Slovakia after they banned grain and other food products coming from the war-torn country

Federal Reserve kicks off a two-day policy meeting on Tuesday with officials widely expected to keep interest rates on hold for now, but also flagging in new economic projections whether they feel rates still need to rise further before the end of the year. A new policy statement and interest rate decision will be released at 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT) on Wednesday, with Fed Chair Jerome Powell scheduled to hold a press conference at 2:30 p.m. to elaborate. Investors in contracts tied to the federal funds rate consider it a near certainty the U.S. central bank will leave the benchmark federal funds rate at the current range of between 5.25% and 5.5%, a step consistent with the Fed's shift to a slower and more considered pace of rate increases. From March 2022 through May 2023 the Fed raised rates at 10 successive meetings — by anywhere from a quarter to three quarters of a point — as it fought the worst rise of inflation since the early 1980s. In June the Fed paused, but the quarterly economic projections accompanying that decision showed 12 of 18 policymakers still anticipated two more quarter-point rate increases by the end of the year.

Danaher Corporation on Tuesday said it will be reducing the price of its Cepheid's Xpert MTB/RIF Ultra diagnostic test cartridges for tuberculosis by 20% in high-TB-burden countries, from $9.98 to $7.97 per test. Danaher will provide each test cartridge to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria (the Global Fund) and to less-developed countries eligible for Cepheid's Global Access Program to support greater access to high-quality TB testing.

G20 leaders in India, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday underscored that it is time for a «global compromise» as he told Heads of State and Government here that the world needs statesmanship and not gamesmanship to deal with current challenges. «Divides are widening within countries. Democracy is under threat. Authoritarianism is on the march.

Biden appealed to world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday to stand with Ukraine against Russian invaders, hoping Republicans in Congress will also take notice. «Russia believes that the world will grow weary and allow it to brutalize Ukraine without consequence,» Biden said in his speech to UNGA.

By Steve Holland

NEW YORK—Senior Chinese officials were told that an internal Communist Party investigation found ex-Foreign Minister Qin Gang to have engaged in an extramarital affair that lasted throughout his tenure as Beijing’s top envoy to Washington, according to people familiar with the matter. Qin, once considered a trusted aide to leader Xi Jinping, was stripped of his foreign minister title in July—without explanation—after he disappeared from public view a month earlier. At one point leading up to his ouster, the Foreign Ministry said the absence of 57-year-old Qin was due to health reasons.