TACOMA, Wash. (AP) — A jury cleared three Washington state police officers of all criminal charges Thursday in the 2020 death of Manuel Ellis, a Black man who was shocked, beaten and restrained face-down on a Tacoma sidewalk as he pleaded for breath.

TOKYO, Dec. 22 (Xinhua) -- The Japanese government on Friday lifted its ban on exports of arms and ammunition manufactured under license from foreign companies to their countries, and conditionally to third countries.

The controversial change was brought up under the revised Three Principles on Transfer of Defense Equipment and Technology and the Implementation Guidelines.

Under the amended document, the government allows weapons made in Japan under foreign license, including completed products and components, to be shipped to the country that the licenser is based.

BEIJING (AP) — China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi says the country will maintain military pressure on the Philippines amid a dispute over sovereignty in the South China Sea that could involve U.S. forces defending their treaty partner.

VIENNA, Dec 22 (Reuters) - A new reactor at North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear complex appears to be operating for the first time, the U.N. nuclear watchdog and independent experts said on Thursday, which would mean an additional potential source of plutonium for nuclear weapons.

North Korea has for years used spent fuel from a 5-megawatt nuclear reactor at Yongbyon to produce plutonium for its nuclear arsenal but a telltale discharge of warm water from a larger light-water reactor suggests it is coming online, too, the International Atomic Energy Agency said.

ISTANBUL, Dec. 22 (Xinhua) -- Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said Turkish police on Friday arrested 304 people over their suspected links to the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group in an operation that targeted 32 cities.

In a post on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, Yerlikaya said 86 out of the 304 suspects were detained in Istanbul and 20 in the western city of Izmir in the operation codenamed HEROES-34.

JAKARTA, Dec 22 (NNN-ANTARA) – Three people died and eight others were injured, in a vehicle accident in Indonesia’s West Java yesterday.

“A truck was speeding down a downhill road, out of control, then beat some motorbikes and stopped after hitting a house and a shop,” head of the Cianjur Police Traffic Unit, Commissioner Adjutant, Adhi Prasidya, explained.

Those who died were the truck driver, a motorcyclist, and a homeowner.

The injured have been taken to the nearby hospital for medical treatment.

KINSHASA, Dec 22 (Reuters) - Voters in Democratic Republic of Congo were waiting on Friday for the first results from general elections after an unscheduled day-long ballot extension that prompted some opposition candidates to cry foul and call for a rerun.

The vote will determine whether President Felix Tshisekedi serves a second term after a first five years in office marked by economic hardship and spiralling insecurity in Congo's rebel-plagued east.

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican’s chief prosecutor has appealed a court verdict that largely dismantled his theory of a grand conspiracy to defraud the Holy See of millions of euros but found a cardinal guilty of embezzlement.

Prosecutor Alessandro Diddi filed his appeal earlier this week, days after the three-judge tribunal issued its verdict in a complicated financial trial that aired the Vatican’s dirty laundry and tested the peculiar legal system in an absolute monarchy in the center of Europe.

DAMASCUS, Dec 22 (NNN-SANA) – A 44-tanker convoy, carrying oil, stolen from Syrian oil fields, departed Syria’s north-eastern al-Hasakah province, for U.S. bases in neighbouring Iraq, yesterday.

According to local sources, the convoy exited the Yarubiya countryside, on the Iraqi-Syrian border, through the unauthorised Mahmoudiya crossing,

The incident came, days after the U.S. forces took 95 tankers of oil and a truckload of grains, from north-eastern Syria on Dec 17.

CHENNAI, Dec 22 (Reuters) - At least 31 people were killed in floods and heavy rain in India's southern state of Tamil Nadu this week, a top federal minister said on Friday, as rescuers struggled to reach scores still stranded in high waters.

Heavy rains have paralysed several districts of the state, inundating entire neighbourhoods, roads and railway tracks, days after a cyclone hit India's south-eastern coast, causing widespread damage.

WASHINGTON, December 22. /TASS/: Russia is capable of continuing the special operation in Ukraine for a long time, while Western countries and Ukraine have overestimated their forces in the conflict, Finnish Defense Minister Antti Hakkanen told Politico.

"Russia has the capability and the ability to go on with this [special military operation] for years," he said. "Many are overestimating that the West is winning this, that Ukraine is winning."

CANBERRA, Dec 22 (NNN-AAP) – The Australian government has announced that, it will not send a warship to the Red Sea, but will deploy additional troops to the region.

Richard Marles, the minister for defence, yesterday said, the Australian government had denied a request from the United States for military hardware to help protect shipping lanes in the Red Sea, following attacks from Yemen’s Houthi militia on commercial vessels in the area.