TOKYO, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- Japan's largest labor union said on Thursday that it will seek a pay hike of at least 5 percent in annual wage negotiations next spring, strengthening its stance from this year to cope with persistent inflation.

In its basic policy for 2024 wage negotiations, the Japanese Trade Union Confederation, also known as Rengo, decided to demand a pay hike of 5 percent or more, including a base-pay rise of 3 percent or more.

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 19 (NNN-XINHUA) – China was shocked and disappointed at the Security Council’s failure to adopt a resolution, that would have called for humanitarian pauses in Gaza, said Zhang Jun, China’s permanent representative to the United Nations, yesterday.

MOSCOW, Oct 19 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Russia on Thursday sent 27 tonnes of humanitarian aid for civilians in the Gaza Strip to be transported from Egypt, Moscow’s emergency situations ministry said.

“A special plane has taken off from the airport at Ramenskoye near Moscow for El-Arish in Egypt. The Russian humanitarian aid will be handed over to the Egyptian Red Crescent to be sent to the Gaza Strip,” deputy minister Ilya Denisov said in a statement.

Denisov said the aid comprised “wheat, sugar, rice (and) pasta”.

KYIV, Oct 19 (Reuters) - Vira Levko, a judge in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, typically handles dozens of administrative cases and several criminal hearings every day. And she says there are others who are far busier than her.

When Levko tells colleagues abroad about her workload, they find it hard to believe.

"They don't understand how a judge can hold so much information in their head," she told Reuters at the Dniprovskyi district court.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. announced sanctions on Wednesday against a group of 10 Hamas members and the Palestinian militant organization’s financial network across Gaza, Sudan, Turkey, Algeria and Qatar as it responds to the surprise attack on Israel that left more than 1,000 people dead or kidnapped.

NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump returned Tuesday to the civil fraud trial that imperils his real estate empire, watching and deploring the case as an employee and an outside appraiser testified that his company essentially put a thumb on the scale when sizing up his properties’ value.

ANKARA, Oct 18 (Reuters) - Turkish protesters clashed with police overnight in angry demonstrations following a blast that killed large numbers of Palestinians at a Gaza hospital, and further rallies were expected on Wednesday.

Palestinian officials said the blast at Al-Ahli al-Arabi hospital was caused by an Israeli air strike. Israel blamed the blast on a failed rocket launch by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group, which denied responsibility.

President Tayyip Erdogan called the blast "the latest example of Israeli attacks devoid of the most basic human values".

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate is moving quickly to confirm Jacob Lew as ambassador to Israel, holding a hearing on his nomination Wednesday as President Joe Biden visits the region to reinforce U.S. support for Israel and try to ease tensions in its new war with Hamas.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Having lost the first vote to become House speaker, Rep. Jim Jordan will try again on a decisive second ballot that will test whether the hard-edged ally of Donald Trump can win over the holdouts or if his bid for the gavel is collapsing, denied by detractors.

Ahead of Wednesday morning’s voting, Jordan made an unexpected plea for party unity, the combative Judiciary Committee chairman telling his colleagues on social media, “we must stop attacking each other and come together.”

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — President Joe Biden vowed to show the world that the U.S. stands in solidarity with Israelis during his visit there Wednesday, and offered an assessment that the deadly explosion at a Gaza Strip hospital apparently was not carried out by the Israeli military.

“Based on what I’ve seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you,” Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a meeting. But he said there were “a lot of people out there” who weren’t sure what caused the blast, which sparked protests throughout the Middle East.

STANFORD, California, Oct 17 (Reuters) - The Five Eyes countries' intelligence chiefs came together on Tuesday to accuse China of intellectual property theft and using artificial intelligence for hacking and spying against the nations, in a rare joint statement by the allies.

The officials from the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand - known as the Five Eyes intelligence sharing network - made the comments following meetings with private companies in the U.S. innovation hub Silicon Valley.

OTTAWA Oct 17 (Reuters) - Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Tuesday cited a marked rise in antisemitism in Canada following Palestinian Islamist group Hamas' attack on Israel and Israel's subsequent deadly air strikes in Gaza.

"Since this conflict broke out, there has been a very scary rise of antisemitism here at home," Trudeau said at a conference on fighting antisemitism. Even prior to the ongoing conflict, he said, there had been a "steady rise" in antisemitism.