HONG KONG (AP) — China’s exports and imports both fell in August from a year earlier, reflecting tepid global demand that is adding to pressures on its slowing economy.

Customs data released Thursday showed exports for August slumped 8.8% to $284.87 billion in the fourth straight month of decline. Imports slid 7.3% to $216.51 billion.

The total trade surplus fell to $68.36 billion from $80.6 billion in July.

BEIJING, Sept 7 (Reuters) - Proposed changes to a Chinese public security law to criminalise comments, clothing or symbols that "undermine the spirit" or "harm the feelings" of the country have triggered the concern of legal experts, who say the amendments could be used arbitrarily.

The changes were first made public last week as part of a mandatory "soliciting opinion" process, as concerns mount about the increasingly authoritarian and nationalistic rule of President Xi Jinping.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A Russian missile tore through an outdoor market in eastern Ukraine on Wednesday, killing 17 people and wounding dozens, as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken returned to the country with more than $1 billion in new American funding for Ukraine, including military and humanitarian aid.

BRUSSELS, Sept 7 (Reuters) - Ukraine is making progress with a counter offensive started in June to reclaim territory seized by Russia, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Thursday, even though it was slow going due to Russian fortifications and minefields.

"The Ukrainians are gradually gaining ground...They have been able to breach the defensive lines of the Russian forces, and they are moving forward," Stoltenberg told lawmakers in remarks at the European Parliament.

TOKYO, Sept 7 (Reuters) - Japan launched its lunar exploration spacecraft on Thursday aboard a homegrown H-IIA rocket, clearing a path to become the world's fifth country to land on the moon early next year.

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said the rocket took off from Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan as planned and successfully released the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM). Unfavourable weather led to three postponements in a week last month.

MANILA, Sept. 7 (Xinhua) -- Philippine troops killed at least six suspected rebels in a series of clashes in the central Philippines on Thursday morning, a military commander said.

Army Major General Marion Sison said the initial fighting broke out at around 7:35 a.m. local time, followed by five other clashes in three hours as the military pursued the New People's Army (NPA) insurgents in Bohol province.

Sison said troops swooped into the area after residents tipped off the presence of the insurgents.

HOUSTON, Sept. 6 (Xinhua) -- A U.S. federal judge on Wednesday ruled that Republican-led Texas must remove floating barriers it set up to deter migrants from crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in heavily trafficked areas of the Rio Grande.

"Unfortunately for Texas, permission is exactly what federal law requires before installing obstructions in the nation's navigable waters," Federal District Judge David A. Ezra wrote in his order, issuing a preliminary injunction to remove these barriers and stop building further obstructions in the river.

SYDNEY, Sept 7 (Reuters) - Australia said a strip-search of women at Qatar's main airport in 2020 played a part in its decision this year to stop Qatar Airways from selling more flights to Australia, denying it was acting due to pressure from rival Qantas Airways.

The claim brings a new element to a controversy surrounding the Australian Labor government's relationship with Qantas (QAN.AX) which had lobbied against a Qatar Airways request to increase its flights.

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Prosecutors have asked a federal judge to revoke the bond for the mother of a Virginia boy who shot and wounded his first-grade teacher after she allegedly failed multiple drug tests while awaiting sentencing on two felony charges.

CAIRO (AP) — The United States imposed sanctions Wednesday on Sudanese paramilitary commander Abdel-Rahim Hamdan Dagalo for acts of violence and human rights abuses committed by his troops in their monthslong conflict with Sudan’s army.

The U.S. Treasury said in a statement that it had sanctioned Abdel-Rahim — a senior military commander and brother of Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, who is the head of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces — accusing him of leading a group of soldiers responsible for “the massacre of civilians, ethnic killings, and use of sexual violence.”

BRUSSELS, Sept 7 (Reuters) - NATO has no indication that drone debris found on Romanian territory was caused by a deliberate Russian attack on Romania, its chief said on Thursday.

Ukraine had said on Monday that drones detonated in Romania during an overnight Russian air strike on a Ukrainian port across the Danube River. Attacks have increased on the site since July when Moscow abandoned a deal that lifted a de facto Russian blockade of Ukraine's Black Sea ports.

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Film director Agnieszka Holland demanded an apology from Poland’s justice minister after he compared her latest film, which explores the migration crisis at the Poland-Belarus border, to Nazi propaganda.

Holland said Wednesday that she planned to bring defamation charges against Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro unless she receives an apology within seven days. She also demanded that he make a charitable donation of 50,000 Polish zlotys ($11,600) to an association that helps Holocaust survivors.