ACCRA, July 26 (Xinhua) -- Ghana's parliament late Tuesday voted to amend the country's criminal offenses act to abolish the death penalty.

After a third reading of the proposed bill, House Speaker Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin declared the Criminal Offences Amendment Act 2022 duly passed.

"The death penalty is too final and irreversible, and parliament has made Ghana proud by abolishing the death penalty. It is good for the country," Francis Xavier Sosu, a member of parliament, told the media.

25 July 2023; MEMO: The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has appealed for $23.8 million for its multi-sectoral emergency response, following the recent Israeli military attack on the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank.

TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s population declined in all of its 47 prefectures for the first time in a record drop, while its number of foreign residents hit a new high, reaching almost 3 million people, according to government data released Wednesday, highlighting the increasing role that non-Japanese people play in the shrinking and aging country.

PHNOM PENH, July 26 (Xinhua) -- Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen said on Wednesday that he would step down from Aug. 22 after serving the post for more than 38 years in the Southeast Asian nation, and would pass the reins of power to his eldest son Hun Manet.

"Hun Manet will become the prime minister in just more than three weeks," he said in a televised speech on the state-run National Television of Cambodia (TVK).

25 July 2023; MEMO: Vietnam and Israel signed a free trade agreement on Tuesday, predicting it would quickly boost annual bilateral trade by nearly 50 per cent, Reuters reports.

The agreement was signed in Israel between the two countries' trade ministers after seven years of negotiations, Vietnam's Ministry of Industry and Trade said in a statement.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A NASA power outage disrupted communication between Mission Control and the International Space Station on Tuesday.

Mission Control couldn’t send commands to the station and talk with the seven astronauts in orbit. The power outage hit as upgrade work was underway in the building at Houston’s Johnson Space Center.

DNIPRO, Ukraine (AP) — The horrors of war arrive through the night at a hospital in eastern Ukraine, a procession of stretchers bearing limp bodies whisked from the front line.

The soldiers come with bandaged limbs soaked in blood, faces blackened with shrapnel fragments and stunned eyes fixed on the ceiling, frozen in shock. Lately, they’ve been coming with ever-greater frequency.

“Pain!” shrieks a serviceman with a gaping thigh wound as medical workers move him to a surgical gurney.

TEHRAN, July 26 (Xinhua) -- Iranian Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi on Wednesday met with the new Turkish Ambassador to Iran Hicabi Kirlangic in Tehran to discuss expanding cross-border cooperation, the official news agency IRNA reported.

During the meeting, Vahidi called for setting up a working group to develop relations between Iranian and Turkish border provinces, said the report.

The Iranian minister also called for enhancing bilateral cooperation in managing foreign nationals' affairs, fighting organized crimes, and countering arms trafficking.

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — The U.S. Forest Service’s own prescribed burn started a sprawling 2022 wildfire that nearly reached Los Alamos, New Mexico, the agency acknowledged Monday in a report published after a lengthy investigation.

The Cerro Pelado fire burned in dry, windy conditions across more than 60 square miles (155 square kilometers) and crept within a few miles of the city of Los Alamos and its companion U.S. national security lab. As the fire approached, schools closed and evacuation bags were packed before the flames tapered off.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Samsung Electronics on Wednesday unveiled two foldable smartphones as it continues to bet on devices with bending screens, a budding market that has yet to fully take off because of high prices.

The clamshell-designed Galaxy Z Flip 5 and Galaxy Z Fold 5, a larger device that opens and folds like a book, will be available for pre-orders starting July 26 in certain markets including the United States and South Korea.

26 July 2023; MEMO: Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom has expressed his country's deep regret and categorical rejection of the repeated incidents when copies of the Holy Quran were burned by protesters, describing them as "despicable". According to the foreign ministry in Algiers, he made his comments during a phone call with his Algerian counterpart, Ahmed Ataf, after the Swedish charge d'affaires in the North African country was summoned to hear Algeria's protest about the incidents in Stockholm.

24 July 2023; MEMO: Two former US ambassadors to Israel have called for an end to Washington's aid to the occupation state. Speaking to New York Times columnist Nick Kristof, one of the more influential in liberal circles, former ambassadors Dan Kurtzer and Martin Indyk said that it is time to end the $3.8 billion given every year to Israel because it longer serves US interests.