BERLIN, Aug 16 (Reuters) - The German government has retreated from a plan to legally commit itself to meeting NATO's 2% military spending target on an annual basis, a government source told Reuters on Wednesday.

A corresponding clause in a draft of the budget financing law passed by the cabinet of Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Wednesday was deleted at short notice, the source said.

The change means that Germany will be able to stick to its current pledge of meeting the 2% target on average over a five-year period.

JAKARTA, Aug. 16 (Xinhua) -- Two people were killed and two others critically injured after a passenger train hit a car in the Indonesian city of Tebing Tinggi in North Sumatra province on Wednesday, the city police said.

The city's traffic police chief Dhoria Simanjuntak told local media the accident occurred when the car carrying the four people was allegedly trespassing at a railroad crossing without a bar gate and a signal in Rambutan subdistrict.

MOSCOW, August 16. /TASS/: Global sports organizations are degrading due to their politicization and commercialization, therefore, an emergence of parallel structures in the sphere of international sports is inevitable, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday.

"As a result of the politicization of international sports structures and further commercialization of the international Olympic Movement we unfortunately witness a certain degradation evolving there," the Russian president said.

GOHEUNG, South Korea, Aug. 16 (Xinhua) -- Over 1,000 South Korean fishermen in the southern coastal county of Goheung gathered on Wednesday as part of the recent rallies among domestic fishermen to oppose Japan's planned discharge of radioactive wastewater into the ocean.

The participants shouted slogan of "Dead against dumping Fukushima nuclear-contaminated wastewater into ocean," holding placards that read "The ocean belongs to all humankind" and "Nuclear-contaminated wastewater dumping is an irresponsible nuclear attack."

ADEN, Aug 16 (NNN-SABA) – Unidentified gunmen opened fire and killed a senior officer of Yemen’s government forces, in the country’s south-western province of Taiz yesterday, a government official said.

The official, who asked to remain anonymous, said that, Adnan Al-Muhya, an officer of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), was gunned down by masked assailants, in the Al-Jamhouri residential neighbourhood.

16 August 2023; MEMO: Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, said Tuesday that there has been no change to the US’s approach to Iran after the nations struck a tentative prisoner swap deal last week, Anadolu Agency reports.

“The agreement that we’re pursuing to bring home those who are wrongfully detained in Iran is an entirely separate matter that we want to bring to a successful conclusion,” Blinken told reporters at the State Department.

WASHINGTON, Aug 16 (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden will travel to Hawaii on Monday to survey damage from the deadly wildfires that ravaged the resort town of Lahaina, the White House said.

Biden will meet with first responders and survivors, as well as federal, state and local officials, the White House said in a statement.

BERLIN (AP) — Germany’s Cabinet on Wednesday approved a plan to liberalize rules on cannabis, setting the scene for the European Union’s most populous member to decriminalize possession of limited amounts and allow members of “cannabis clubs” to buy the substance for recreational purposes.

The legislation is billed as the first step in a two-part plan and still needs approval by parliament. But the government’s approval is a stride forward for a prominent reform project of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s socially liberal coalition, though significantly short of its original ambitions.

ISTANBUL, Aug 16 (Reuters) - Russia's raid on a ship just off Turkey's coast brings the fallout from the Ukraine war to another NATO frontier and raises the stakes as Ankara seeks to coax Moscow back to a grain-export deal that would restore some calm to the Black Sea.

Armed marines raided the Turkish-based vessel via helicopter on Sunday some 60 km (37 miles) off Turkey's northwest coast, in international waters but near Istanbul, in what Moscow called an inspection before it sailed on to Ukraine.

GENEVA, August 16. /TASS/: Switzerland sided with the eleventh package of anti-Russian sanctions adopted by the European Union, the Federal Council - the Swiss government said.

"On 16 August, the Federal Council decided to enact further sanctions against Russia. This aligns Switzerland with the EU, which adopted these latest measures as part of its eleventh package of sanctions," the government said. New measures will become effective since August 16 of this year, it added.

15 August 2023; MEMO: The Palestinian Hamas group, on Tuesday, said that it has seized an Israeli drone in Gaza, Anadolu Agency reports.

This was announced in a brief statement by the Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Movement.

The statement said that the Qassam Brigades seized a K1 Orbiter drone on Monday while it was on “a hostile reconnaissance mission in the airspace of eastern Gaza.”

HONOLULU, the United States, Aug. 16 (Xinhua) -- As rescue workers continue looking for those missing in the deadly wildfires on the Hawaiian island of Maui, real estate investors, mostly from the American mainland, have seen an opportunity to cash in on the disaster for land development, triggering anger among local Native Hawaiians.

The wildfires that broke out last Tuesday and razed Maui have left 106 people dead and more than 1,000 people missing as of Tuesday, becoming the deadliest in the United States in over a century.