MANILA, Feb 10 (Reuters) - The Philippines' ambassador to Washington said on Tuesday that the country is seeing some signs that China is willing to work with Manila and "isolate" theSouth China Sea disputes which havehurt relations between the two nations.

Ambassador Jose Manuel Romualdez told reporters that the Philippines' relationship with China cannot be purely defined based on territorial disputes over the South China Sea.

(Reporting by Karen Lema; Editing by David Stanway)

By Nate Raymond

BOSTON, Feb 9 (Reuters) - An immigration judge has rejected the Trump administration's efforts to deport Tufts University PhD student Rumeysa Ozturk, who was arrested last year as part of its targeting of pro-Palestinian campus activists, her lawyers said on Monday.

Lawyers for the Turkish student detailed the immigration judge's decision in a filing with the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which had been reviewing a ruling that led to her release from immigration custody in May.

WASHINGTON, Feb 9 (Reuters) - A White House official on Monday reiterated U.S. President Donald Trump's opposition toward Israel annexing the West Bank.

"A stable West Bank keeps Israel secure and is in line with this administration’s goal to achieve peace in the region," the official said.

(Reporting by Costas Pitas)

By Renju Jose

SYDNEY, Feb 10 (Reuters) - Australian leaders on Tuesday urged calm and called on protests to remain peaceful after clashes between police and demonstrators opposing Israeli President Isaac Herzog's visit to Australia erupted in Sydney.

Police said 27 people were arrested, including 10 for allegedly assaulting officers, after violence broke out on Monday evening when people failed to leave a planned protest site in central Sydney and police moved to clear access for pedestrians.

By Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON, Feb 9 (Reuters) - A Palestinian woman, who lost dozens of family members in the Gaza war, has been hospitalized following a seizure in U.S. immigration detention, the Department of Homeland Security said on Monday.

On February 6, 2026, at about 8:45 p.m., "medical staff at the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, notified ICE that detainee Leqaa Kordia was admitted to Texas Health Huguley Hospital in Burleson, Texas, for further evaluation following a seizure," a DHS spokesperson said.

Rubble is all that remains of the building once home to Adnan Mardash's grocery shop in north Lebanon's Tripoli after it collapsed, killing 14 people and shining a spotlight on the impoverished city's neglect.

Mardash, 54, said he shut the small ground-floor store where he worked for more than three decades and went to his nearby home shortly before the disaster on Sunday afternoon.

"Our neighbours and loved ones died... people lost their livelihoods," said the father of four, who has no other income.

International outrage was growing on Monday at Israeli plans to tighten the country's grip over the occupied West Bank, with the United Nations chief saying he was "gravely concerned".

Earlier, Saudi Arabia and seven other Muslim-majority countries condemned the new Israeli measures, which pave the way for more settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory.

Feb 9 (Reuters) - The United States issued fresh guidance on Monday to commercial vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz, a key shipping lane for Middle East oil supplies, as tensions simmered between Washington and Tehran over Iran’s nuclear program.

Iran has in the past threatened to close down the Strait of Hormuz, a portion of which lies within its territorial waters, and has at times seized commercial ships and oil tankers moving through the area alleging smuggling.

By Terje Solsvik and Johan Ahlander

OSLO/STOCKHOLM, Feb 9 (Reuters) - Norwegian police are investigating two high-profile diplomats in a corruption probe announced on Monday, part of a widening scandal in the Nordic country and across Europe over prominent figures' ties to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Mona Juul, who resigned from her post as ambassador to Jordan and Iraq on Sunday, is suspected of gross corruption while her husband, former government minister Terje Roed-Larsen, is suspected of complicity in gross corruption, police said.

Feb 9, (Reuters) - Israel has taken steps to help settlers acquire land in the occupied West Bank and widen its powers in parts of the territory where Palestinians have some self-rule - measures they said aimed to undermine the two-state solution.

It marks the latest blow to the idea of establishing a Palestinian state co-existing peacefully alongside Israel in territory Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war. Long backed by world powers, this vision formed the bedrock of the U.S.-backed peace process ushered in by the 1993 Oslo Accords.