BEIJING (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrapped up his just-concluded latest visit to China with a stop at a Beijing record store where he bought albums by Taylor Swift and Chinese rocker Dou Wei in a symbolic nod to cross-cultural exchanges and understanding he had been promoting for three days.

Music, he said at the Li-Pi shop on his way to the airport late Friday, “is the best connector, regardless of geography.”

Yet Swift’s “Midnights” and Dou Wei’s “Black Dream” could just as easily represent the seemingly intractable divisions in the deeply troubled relationship between the world’s two largest economies that both sides publicly and privately blame on the other.

Blinken and his Chinese interlocutors, including Chinese President Xi Jinping and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, all referred to these rifts even as they extolled the virtues of keeping communication channels open to manage these differences and avoid misunderstandings and miscalculations.

Blinken went out of his way to champion the importance of U.S.-China exchanges at all levels. In Shanghai, he ate at a famous soup dumpling restaurant, attended a Chinese basketball playoff game and visited with American and Chinese students at the New York University branch. In his official meetings with Chinese leaders in Beijing, he spoke repeatedly of improvements in ties over the past year.

But he also stressed that the U.S. has serious and growing concerns with China’s policies and practices on the local, regional and global stages. And, he said, the U.S. would not back down. “America will always defend our core interests and values,” he said.

On several occasions, he slammed Chinese overproduction of electric vehicles that threatened to have detrimental effects on U.S. and European automakers and complained that China was not doing enough to stop the production and export of synthetic opioid precursors.

At one point he warned bluntly that if China does not end support for Russia ’s defense industrial sector, something the Biden administration says has allowed Russia to step up its attacks on Ukraine and threaten European security, the U.S. would act to stop it. “I made clear that if China does not address this problem, we will,” Blinken told reporters after meeting with Xi.

Chinese officials were similarly direct, saying that while relations have generally improved since a low point last year over the shootdown of a Chinese surveillance balloon, they remained fraught.

“The two countries should help each other succeed rather than hurt each other, seek common ground and reserve differences rather than engage in vicious competition, and honor words with actions rather than say one thing but do the opposite,” Xi told Blinken in a not-so-veiled accusation of U.S. hypocrisy.

Wang, the foreign minister, said China is fed up with what it considers to be U.S. meddling in human rights, Taiwan and the South China Sea and efforts to restrict its trade and relations with other countries. “Negative factors in the relationship are still increasing and building and the relationship is facing all kinds of disruptions,” he said. He urged the U.S. “not to step on China’s red lines on China’s sovereignty, security, and development interests.”

Or, as Yang Tao, the director general of North American and Oceania affairs at the Foreign Ministry, put it, according to the official Xinhua News Agency: “If the United States always regards China as its main rival, China-US relations will continuously face troubles and many problems.”

Still, Blinken pressed engagement on all levels. He announced a new agreement to hold talks with China on the threats posed by artificial intelligence but lamented a dearth of American students studying in China – fewer than 900 now, compared to more than 290,000 Chinese in the U.S. He said both sides wanted to increase that number.

“We have an interest in this, because if our future leaders – whether it’s in government, whether it’s in business, civil society, climate, tech, and other fields – if they’re going to be able to collaborate, if they want to be able to solve big problems, if they’re going to be able to work through our differences, they’ll need to know and understand each other’s language, culture, history,” he said. But he added a caveat the Chinese were likely to see as a barb.

“What I told my PRC counterparts on this visit is if they want to attract more Americans here to China, particularly students, the best way to do that is to create the conditions that allow learning to flourish anywhere – a free and open discussion of ideas, access to a wide range of information, ease of travel, confidence in the safety, security, and privacy of the participants,” Blinken said.

Those are issues that neither Taylor Swift nor Dou Wei can overcome.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – A Russian court has ordered a journalist for the Russian edition of Forbes, Sergei Mingazov, to be placed under house arrest, Russia’s state-owned RIA news agency reported on Saturday.

Mingazov was detained on Friday on suspicion of spreading false information about the Russian army, his magazine said at the time.

(Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Andrew Osborn)

By Hyunsu Yim and Katya Golubkova

SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea said on Saturday it will consult with Naver, after media reported that the domestic internet company was under pressure from Japan to divest from a venture, adding that its companies should not face discrimination.

The South Korean foreign ministry was asked to respond to a Kyodo news agency report earlier this week that Japan’s SoftBank Group was in talks to buy shares of LY Corp from Naver after administrative guidance from Japan’s internal affairs and communications ministry over a data leak last year.

“The Korean government is firmly in the position that there should be no discriminatory measures against our companies. We will check Naver’s position on the case and communicate with Japan’s side if necessary,” the ministry said in a statement.

LY Corp is majority owned by A Holdings, a joint venture between SoftBank and Naver, and operates Line, a messaging app popular in Japan and elsewhere in Asia.

The media report prompted concerns in South Korea over possible political interference, with two incoming lawmakers from the Rebuilding Korea Party urging the South Korean government to take “strong action”.

Japan’s internal affairs and communications ministry and SoftBank Group did not immediately reply to Reuters’ requests for comment.

LY Corp said earlier this month it received another administrative guidance following one in March from the ministry which said to accelerate “discussions on essential review of security governance involving the entire group, including the parent company.”

In November last year, the company admitted unauthorised access of its systems by a third party via Naver Cloud’s system which led to information leakage of more than 300,000 records of personal data about Line users among others.

Naver is cooperating with LY Corp to strengthen security, a representative said.

(Reporting by Hyunsu Yim in Seoul and Katya Golubkova in Tokyo; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) – Israeli soldiers killed two Palestinian gunmen who opened fire at them from a vehicle in the occupied West Bank, the military said on Saturday.

The military released a photo of two automatic rifles that it said were used by several gunmen to shoot at the soldiers, at an outpost near the flashpoint Palestinian city of Jenin.

The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said security officials confirmed two deaths and the health ministry said two other men were wounded.

There was no other immediate comment from Palestinian officials in the West Bank, where violence has been on the rise as Israel presses its war against Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza.

Israel launched its offensive in Gaza after Hamas led an attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7 in which 1,200 people were killed and 253 taken hostage. More than 34,000 Palestinians have since been killed and most of the population displaced.

Violence in the West Bank, which had already been on the rise before the war, has since flared with stepped up Israeli raids and Palestinian street attacks.

The West Bank and Gaza, territories Israel captured in the 1967 war, are among the territories which the Palestinians seek for a state. U.S.-brokered peace talks collapsed a decade ago.

(Reporting by Ali Sawafta in Ramallah and Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem; Editing by Toby Chopra)

By Kirsty Needham

(Reuters) – The two major opposition parties in the Solomon Islands struck a coalition deal on Saturday as they vie with former Prime Minister Manesseh Sogavare’s party to form a government after an election delivered no clear winner.

Last week’s election was the first since Sogavare struck a security pact with China in 2022, inviting Chinese police into the Pacific Islands archipelago and drawing the nation closer to Beijing.

The election is being watched by China, the U.S. and neighbouring Australia because of the potential impact on regional security.

Election results on Wednesday showed Sogavare’s OUR party won 15 of the 50 seats in parliament, two more than the opposition CARE coalition. Independents and micro parties won 15 seats, and courting the independents will be the key to reaching the 26 seats needed to form a government.

On Saturday, the CARE coalition of Matthew Wales’ Solomon Islands Democratic Party, U4C and former Prime Pinister Rick Houenipwela’s Democratic Alliance Party struck an agreement with the second-largest opposition party, Peter Kenilorea Jr’s United, to form a coalition with 20 seats.

Houenipwela told Reuters the groups had not decided which party leader to nominate as the bloc’s candidate for prime minister.

“Our Group is responding to the cries and wishes of our people to take back Solomon Islands and to bring back confidence in the leadership and the governing of our country,” the coalition said in a statement.

Sogavare said last week his party had the support of two micro parties and would woo independents.

(Reporting by Kirsty Needham in Sydney; Editing by William Mallard)

By Rishika Sadam and Aditya Kalra

HYDERABAD (Reuters) -The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is gathering information on products of Indian spice makers MDH and Everest after Hong Kong halted sales of some of their products for allegedly containing high levels of a cancer-causing pesticide.

“The FDA is aware of the reports and is gathering additional information about the situation,” an FDA spokesperson told Reuters on Friday.

Hong Kong this month suspended sales of three MDH spice blends and an Everest spice mix for fish curries. Singapore ordered a recall of the Everest spice mix as well, saying it contains high levels of ethylene oxide, which is unfit for human consumption and a cancer risk with long exposure.

Reuters is the first to report the U.S. FDA’s review of alleged contamination of Indian spice products.

MDH and Everest did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment on this matter.

Everest has previously said its spices are safe for consumption. MDH has not responded to queries about its products so far.

MDH and Everest spices are among the most popular in India and are also sold in Europe, Asia and North America. India’s food regulator, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), is now checking the quality standards of the two companies, following the moves in Hong Kong and Singapore.

India’s Spices Board, the government’s regulator for spice exports, said on Wednesday it had sought data on MDH and Everest exports from authorities in Hong Kong and Singapore, and was working with the companies to find the “root cause” of the quality issues as inspections started at their plants.

In 2019, a few batches of MDH’s products were recalled in the U.S. for salmonella contamination.

(Reporting by Rishika Sadam; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Tom Hogue)

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — South Africans celebrate their “Freedom Day” every April 27, when they remember their country’s pivotal first democratic election in 1994 that announced the official end of the racial segregation and oppression of apartheid.

Saturday is the 30th anniversary of that momentous vote, when millions of Black South Africans, young and old, decided their own futures for the first time, a fundamental right they had been denied by a white minority government.

The first all-race election saw the previously banned African National Congress party win overwhelmingly and made its leader, Nelson Mandela, the country’s first Black president four years after he was released from prison.

Here’s what you need to know about that iconic moment and a South Africa that’s changing again 30 years on:

The 1994 election was the culmination of a process that began four years earlier when F.W. de Klerk, the last apartheid-era president, shocked the world and his country by announcing that the ANC and other anti-apartheid parties would be unbanned.

Mandela, the face of the anti-apartheid movement, was released from prison nine days later, setting him on the road to becoming South Africa’s first Black leader.

South Africa needed years to prepare and was still on a knife-edge in the months and weeks before the election because of ongoing political violence, but the vote — held over four days between April 26 and April 29 to accommodate the large numbers who turned out — went ahead successfully.

A country that had been shunned and sanctioned by the international community for decades because of apartheid emerged as a fully-fledged democracy.

Nearly 20 million South Africans of all races voted, compared with just 3 million white people in the last general election under apartheid in 1989.

Associated Press photographer Denis Farrell’s iconic aerial photograph of people waiting patiently for hours in long, snaking queues in fields next to a school in the famed Johannesburg township of Soweto captured the determination of millions of Black South Africans to finally be counted. It was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

“South Africa’s heroes are legend across the generations,” Mandela said as he proclaimed victory. “But it is you, the people, who are our true heroes.”

The ANC’s election victory ensured that apartheid was finally dismantled and a new Constitution was drawn up and became South Africa’s highest law, guaranteeing equality for everyone no matter their race, religion or sexuality.

Apartheid, which began in 1948 and lasted for nearly half-a-century, had oppressed Black and other non-white people through a series of race-based laws. Not only did the laws deny them a vote, they controlled where Black people lived, where they were allowed to go on any given day, what jobs they were allowed to hold and who they were allowed to marry.

Current South African President Cyril Ramaphosa — a protege of Mandela — will lead Saturday’s 30th anniversary Freedom Day celebrations at the Union Buildings in Pretoria, the seat of government.

The ANC has been in government ever since 1994 and while it is still recognized for its central role in freeing South Africans, it is no longer celebrated in the same way as it was in the hope-filled aftermath of that election.

South Africa in 2024 has deep socio-economic problems, none more jarring than the widespread and severe poverty that still overwhelmingly affects the Black majority. The official unemployment rate is 32%, the highest in the world, while it’s more than 60% for young people aged 15-24.

Millions of Black South Africans still live in neglected, impoverished townships and informal settlements on the fringes of cities in what many see as a betrayal of the heroes Mandela referred to. South Africa is still rated as one of the most unequal countries in the world.

The ANC is now largely being blamed for the lack of progress in improving the lives of so many South Africans, even if the damage of decades of apartheid wasn’t going to be easy to undo.

The 30th anniversary of 1994 falls with another possibly pivotal election as a backdrop. South Africa will hold its seventh national vote since the end of apartheid on May 29, with all the opinion polls and analysts predicting that the ANC will lose its parliamentary majority in a new landmark.

The ANC is still expected to be the largest party and will likely have to enter into complicated coalitions with smaller parties to remain part of the government, but the overriding picture that is expected is that more South Africans will vote for other parties in a national election for the first time in their democracy.

South Africans still cherish the memory of Mandela and the elusive freedom and prosperity he spoke about in 1994. But the majority of them now appear ready to look beyond the ANC to attain it.

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AP Africa news: https://apnews.com/hub/africa

HAVANA (AP) — Alejandro Fonseca stood in line for several hours outside a bank in Havana hoping to withdraw Cuban pesos from an ATM, but when it was almost his turn, the cash ran out. He angrily hopped on his electric tricycle and traveled several kilometers to another branch where he finally managed to withdraw some money after wasting the entire morning.

“It shouldn’t be so difficult to get the money you earn by working,” the 23-year-old told The Associated Press in a recent interview.

Fonseca is one of an increasing number of frustrated Cubans who have to grapple with yet another hurdle while navigating the island’s already complicated monetary system — a shortage of cash.

Long queues outside banks and ATM’s in the capital, Havana, and beyond start forming early in the day as people seek cash for routine transactions like buying food and other essentials.

Experts say there are several reasons behind the shortage, all somehow related to Cuba’s deep economic crisis, one of the worst in decades.

Omar Everleny Pérez, a Cuban economist and university professor, says the main culprits are the government’s growing fiscal deficit, the nonexistence of banknotes with a denomination greater than 1,000 Cuban pesos (about $3 in the parallel market), stubbornly high inflation and the non-return of cash to banks.

“There is money, yes, but not in the banks,” said Pérez, adding that most of the cash is being held not by salaried workers, but by entrepreneurs and owners of small- and medium-size business who are more likely to collect cash from commercial transactions but are reluctant to return the money to the banks.

This, Pérez says, is either because they don’t trust the local banks or simply because they need the Cuban pesos to convert into foreign currency.

Most entrepreneurs and small business owners in Cuba have to import almost everything they sell or pay in foreign currency for the supplies needed to run their businesses. As a consequence, many end up hoarding Cuban pesos to later change into foreign currency on the informal market.

Converting those Cuban pesos to other currencies poses yet another challenge, as there are several, highly fluctuating exchange rates in the island.

For example, the official rate used by government industries and agencies is 24 pesos to the U.S. dollar, while for individuals, the rate is 120 pesos to the dollar. However, the dollar can fetch up to 350 Cuban pesos on the informal market.

Pérez notes that in 2018, 50% of the cash in circulation was in the hands of the Cuban population and the other half in Cuban banks. But in 2022, the latest year for which information is available, 70% of cash was in the wallets of individuals.

Cuban monetary authorities did not immediately respond to AP’s emailed request for comment.

The shortage of cash comes as Cubans grapple with a complex monetary system in which several currencies circulate, including a virtual currency, MLC, created in 2019.

Then, in 2023 the government announced several measures aimed at promoting a “cashless society,” making the use of credit cards mandatory to pay for some transactions — including purchases of food, fuel and other basic goods — but many businesses simply refuse to accept them.

Making things worse is stubbornly high inflation, meaning more and more physical bills are needed to buy products.

According to official figures, inflation stood at 77% in 2021, then dropped to 31% in 2023. But for the average Cuban, the official figures barely reflect the reality of their lives, since market inflation can reach up to three digits on the informal market. For example, a carton of eggs, which sold for 300 Cuban pesos in 2019, these days sells for about 3,100 pesos.

All while the monthly salary for Cuban state workers ranges between 5,000 and 7,000 Cuban pesos (between $14 and $20 in the parallel market).

“To live in an economy that, in addition to having several currencies, has several exchange rates and a three-digit inflation is quite complicated,” said Pavel Vidal, a Cuba expert and professor at Colombia’s Javeriana University of Cali.

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Andrea Rodríguez on X: www.twitter.com/ARodriguezAP

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Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

(Reuters) – Iran’s foreign minister said the crew of a seized Portuguese-flagged ship linked to Israel have been granted consular access and are expected to be freed, Iranian media reported on Saturday.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards seized the container vessel MSC Aries with a crew of 25 in the Strait of Hormuz on April 13, days after Tehran vowed to retaliate for a suspected Israeli strike on its consulate in Damascus. Iran had said it could close the crucial shipping route.

Recent attacks on merchant shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden by Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis, claiming solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza during Israel’s war with Hamas, have affected global shipping.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian told his Portuguese counterpart Paulo Rangel in a telephone call that the “humanitarian issue of the release of the ship’s crew is of serious concern to us”, Iranian media said.

He was quoted as saying the crew would be turned over to their ambassadors in Tehran. The reports did not say when this would occur.

Iran’s foreign ministry has said the Aries was seized for “violating maritime laws” and that there was no doubt it was linked to Israel.

MSC leases the Aries from Gortal Shipping, an affiliate of Zodiac Maritime, which is partly owned by Israeli businessman Eyal Ofer.

(dubai.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com; Editing by William Mallard)

By Olena Harmash

KYIV (Reuters) -Russia launched a barrage of missiles at Ukrainian power facilities on Saturday, hitting locations in the centre and west of the country, damaging equipment and injuring at least one energy worker, officials said.

Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko said on the Telegram messaging app that the Russian strikes targeted the Dnipropetrovsk region in central Ukraine and the western regions of Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk.

DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy company, said its four thermal power stations were hit.

“The enemy again massively shelled the Ukrainian energy facilities,” DTEK said in a statement. “The company’s equipment was seriously damaged. At this very moment, energy workers are trying to eliminate the consequences of the attack.”

Galushchenko said one energy worker had been injured. DTEK also said there were casualties but provided no other details.

The commander of the Ukrainian air force said Russia had launched combined overnight strikes using a total of 34 cruise and ballistic missiles of which Ukrainian air defence shot down 21.

Since March 22, Russian forces have ramped up their bombardments of the Ukrainian power sector, attacking thermal and hydropower stations and other energy infrastructure almost daily.

Ukraine has lost about 80% of its thermal generation and about 35% of its hydropower capacity, officials aid. Its energy system was already weakened by a Russian air campaign in the first winter of the war that Russia launched in February 2022.

Despite mild spring weather in recent weeks, Ukraine has faced an electricity deficit and the government had to introduce scheduled blackouts in several regions and turn to emergency electricity imports.

In the Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukrainian air defence shot down 13 Russian missiles, said Governor Serhiy Lysak.

“Unfortunately, we could not avoid the consequences. Energy facilities in Dnipropetrovsk and Kryvyi Rih regions were damaged, fires broke out.”

Lysak said the water supply was disrupted in the city of Kryvyi Rih.

In the western regions of Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk, firefighters were also extinguishing massive fires at several energy facilities, regional officials said.

“It is difficult for the energy system to maintain the production and consumption balance. We have to help,” said Maksym Kozytskyi, Lviv regional governor, urging residents to save electricity, especially during the peak evening hours.

(Reporting by Olena Harmash; Editing by Hugh Lawson)