*U.S. Top Diplomat👔 Pompeo's Meeting🤝 With North Koreans📜 Postponed*

A meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and North Korean officials set for Thursday in New York has been postponed and will be rescheduled “when our respective schedules permit,” the U.S. State Department said on Wednesday.

In a statement, it added, “Ongoing conversations continue to take place,” but did not elaborate.

“The United States remains focused on fulfilling the commitments agreed to by President Trump and Chairman Kim at the Singapore summit in June,” it said.

Pompeo had been due to hold talks with senior North Korean official Kim Yong Chol, which were hoped to have opened the way for a second summit of the two countries’ leaders and make progress on denuclearization.

The meeting agenda had been to “discuss making progress on all four pillars of the Singapore Summit joint statement, including achieving the final, fully verified denuclearization” of North Korea.

*'Halt ✋ Rushed Rohingya Repatriation,' UN Urges Myanmar, Bangladesh 💪*

Bangladesh and Myanmar should drop plans to start repatriating hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees to Rakhine State as they face a "high risk of persecution", a top United Nations' human rights investigator has warned.

More than 700,000 Rohingya refugees crossed into Bangladesh from western Myanmar after a sweeping military crackdown in August 2017.

On October 30, Bangladesh and Myanmar agreed to begin the return of the refugees in mid-November but the UN refugee agency, the UNHCR, said conditions in Rakhine State were "not yet conducive for returns".

"I urge the governments of Bangladesh and Myanmar to halt these rushed plans for repatriation," Yanghee Lee, UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, said on Tuesday, calling on the country to grant the Rohingya their long-sought right to citizenship, freedom of movement and access to public services.  
WATCH Rohingya crisis: UN warns of ongoing genocide (1:54)

Myanmar does not consider the Rohingya a native ethnic group. Many in the Buddhist-majority country call the Rohingya "Bengalis", suggesting they belong in Bangladesh

*Sri Lanka🇱🇰 Has Suffered a 'Coup🚫 Without Guns' -🔊 Parliament Speaker*

Sri Lanka’s parliamentary speaker has called the president’s sacking of the prime minister to bring a former leader back to power a non-violent coup d’etat.

Speaker Karu Jayasuriya is a key figure in the political standoff that started on Oct. 26, when President Maithripala Sirisena fired Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and replaced him with former president Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Wickremesinghe is refusing to vacate his prime ministerial residence and insists he remains in office until voted out by parliament. The president had suspended parliament, a move Rajapaksa’s opponents say is aimed at preventing it from rejecting his return to power.

At least eight lawmakers have deserted Wickremesinghe and accepted ministerial posts under Rajapaksa, while one deputy minister resigned and joined Wickremesinghe.

*Battle 💪 for Hodeidah 'Threatens Lives' ⚠ of 59 Children 👧 in Hospital*

The battle for the rebel-held city of Hodeidah in western Yemen has placed dozens of children in a hospital "at imminent risk of death", according to the United Nations' children's agency (UNICEF).

The urgent warning on Tuesday came amid reports of fierce clashes between pro-government forces, which are backed by a Saudi-UAE-led military coalition, and Houthi rebels near the strategic Red Sea port, where hundreds of thousands of civilians could be trapped as war closes in.

"Intense fighting in the Yemeni port city of Hodeidah is now dangerously close to al-Thawra hospital - putting the lives of 59 children, including 25 in the intensive care unit, at imminent risk of death," UNICEF said in a statement.

The agency said that medical staff and patients in the hospital in southern Hodeidah city, just 500 metres from the port, heard heavy bombing and gunfire.

"Access to and from the hospital, the only functioning one in the area, is now imperilled," it said.

*Egypt 🇪🇬: Artifacts Discovered 🔍 in Cairo Could be 4,000 Years Old❗*

Archaeologists working at a dig in Cairo have found several fragments of stone slabs with inscriptions that could be 4,000 years old, Egypt's Ministry of Antiquities said.

Some of the limestones date to the 12th (founded in 1991 BCE) and 20th dynasties, of the Middle and New Kingdoms, the ministry said on Tuesday.

German Egyptologist Dietrich Raue, the head of the mission, said one inscription referred to Atum, an important and frequently mentioned god, as being responsible for the flooding of the Nile River in the Late Period between 664 and 332 BCE.

Matariya, in eastern Cairo, was once part of the ancient city of Heliopolis, or the city of the sun.

*New York Port Authority 💥 Attack: Bomber Found Guilty⚖*

A Bangladeshi immigrant who let off a makeshift pipe bomb close to a busy bus terminal in New York City has been convicted of terrorism charges.

Akayed Ullah, 28, set off the bomb during morning rush hour last December, causing himself serious burns but only lightly injuring five others.

Prosecutors said he told investigators he had done it on behalf of the militant Islamic State group (IS).

It was described in court as a "lone wolf" terrorist attack.

Ullah targeted an underground passageway near the Port Authority bus terminal in Manhattan - the busiest in the world - on 11 December 2017.

His defence team argued that he had only wanted to kill himself in the attack. Ullah denied the charges in January.

"This case is not about a foreign terrorist organisation planting an operative in our midst," his lawyer, Julia Gatto told jurors.

Her client was "a deeply troubled, isolated young man who wanted to take his own life".

Prosecutors rejected that claim, reminding the court that he had strapped a bomb to his body designed to harm others and citing propaganda found on his computer showing he was a follower of IS.