PARIS, March 26 (Xinhua) -- China and France have pledged to jointly safeguard multilateralism and improve global governance, according to a joint statement issued Tuesday during Chinese President Xi Jinping's state visit to the European country.

The two countries believe that in the current situation, upholding multilateralism is the best way to advance international cooperation in tackling growing common risks and challenges as well as in safeguarding world peace and prosperity, the joint statement said.

26 Mar 2019; DW: Chicago prosecutors on Friday dropped all criminal charges against Jussie Smollett, a US actor whom police accused of fabricating a racist and homophobic hate crime.

The prosecutor's office cited Smollett's "volunteer service in the community and agreement to forfeit his bond to the City of Chicago" for the surprise move, but said it had not exonerated him.

26 Mar 2019; DW: The military presence "is regulated by an agreement" between Moscow and Caracas, said the foreign ministry. Opposition leader Juan Guaido has rejected the deployment, saying it violates the constitution.

Russia on Tuesday defended its decision to deploy military personnel to Venezuela last week in a move that drew criticism from the US-backed opposition.

HANOI, March 27 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam has banned the import of glyphosate-containing herbicides after a U.S. court ruled that a weed killer, produced and sold by U.S. agrochemical giant Monsanto, could cause cancer, local media reported on Wednesday.

Vietnam's Plant Protection Department has urged businesses to stop signing new import contracts for glyphosate-based herbicides, but products already in circulation in the country are not affected by this decision, online newspaper VnExpress reported.

BATON ROUGE, the United States, March 26 (Xinhua) -- Deep into St. James Parish, U.S. state of Louisiana, hundreds of construction workers are busy working on framed structures and installing giant equipment.

The 1,300-acre site on the west side of the Mississippi River will be home to a mega methanol production facility.

Yuhuang Chemical Industries Inc. (YCI), a subsidiary of China's Shandong Yuhuang Chemical, is constructing a 1.85-billion-dollar methanol plant here.

MEXICO CITY, March 26 (Xinhua) -- Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Tuesday said job creation, not the use of force, is the way to combat today's phenomenon of mass migration.

Speaking to reporters at his daily news briefing, Lopez Obrador said: "I favor attending to the migration phenomenon with development, with employment, with wellbeing."

"I don't think the use of force or other measures are an option," he added.

TOKYO, March 27 (Xinhua) -- Japan's Diet on Wednesday enacted a record 101.46-trillion-yen (920 billion U.S. dollars) budget for fiscal 2019 to address the nation's ballooning social security costs, stimulate the economy and provide a buffer against the likely fallout from a consumption tax hike this year.

The budged passed the more powerful lower house of parliament at the beginning of March and was approved in the upper caucus by the ruling coalition led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).

SANTIAGO, March 26 (Xinhua) -- Chile is "very interested" in China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), president Sebastian Pinera said on Tuesday.

During a meeting with foreign correspondents in Santiago, Pinera confirmed he will attend the second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation to be held in Beijing in April, saying "I will participate in everything that is beneficial for Chile."

BEIJING (AP) — China said Wednesday that it has expelled former Interpol President Meng Hongwei from public office and the ruling Communist Party as he awaits trial on corruption charges.

Meng was elected Interpol president in 2016, but his four-year mandate was cut short when he was detained without notice by Chinese authorities last October during a visit to China from Interpol headquarters in France.

At the time, Meng was also one of China’s vice ministers of public security.

WASHINGTON, March 26 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. House of Representatives failed on Tuesday to override President Donald Trump's veto of a congressional resolution blocking his declaration of a national emergency at the nation's southern border with Mexico.

The lower chamber, controlled by Democrats, voted 248-181, short of the two-thirds majority needed for an override.

27 Mar 2019; DW: The European Union's mission "Sophia" to curtail migrant smugglers in the Mediterranean will no longer deploy naval ships, in a decision aimed at resolving a dispute with Italy over where rescued asylum-seekers disembark.

Negotiations in Brussels on Tuesday resulted in the operation being granted another six-month mission without the two remaining navy ships in service but with strengthened air surveillance instead, according to news agencies citing unnamed EU sources.

27 Mar 2019; DW: The leader of a North Korean dissident group raided the North Korean Embassy in Madrid last month and offered stolen materials to the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), a Spanish court has said.

Mexican citizen Adrian Hong Chang contacted "the FBI in New York five days after the assault to facilitate information related to the incident in the embassy," Spain's National Court said Tuesday.