Researchers have found hundreds of years' worth of critical rare-earth metals beneath Japanese waters — enough to supply to the world on a "semi-infinite basis," according to a study published on Tuesday. The materials sit in a roughly 965-square-mile Pacific Ocean seabed near Minamitorishima Island, which is located 1,150 miles southeast of Tokyo, according to the study published in Nature Publishing Group's Scientific Reports.

North Korea has promised the US it is ready to discuss the future of its nuclear arsenal when the two nations’ leaders meet, US officials say. Preparations for the summit have included secret, direct talks with North Korea, unnamed Trump administration sources said. US and North Korean intelligence officials are said to have spoken many times, and met in a third country.

At least 30 people, most of them children, have died after a school bus fell into a gorge in a mountainous region of India, officials say.

Most of the passengers were below the age of 10, police said. The bus driver and two teachers were also killed in the accident on Monday evening.

The incident occurred in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh.

The Kremlin said on Wednesday it hoped all sides involved in Syria would avoid doing anything that could destabilize an already fragile situation in the Middle East and made clear it was strongly opposed to a possible U.S. strike on its ally. The United States and its allies are considering whether to hit Syria over a suspected poison gas attack that medical relief organizations say killed dozens of people in the rebel-held town of Douma near Damascus on Saturday.

Japan signed a grant and loan agreement with Cambodia on Sunday totalling over $90 million, despite concerns from the international community over Prime Minister Hun Sen’s crackdown on government critics ahead of a July general election. Japan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Taro Kono and Cambodia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Prak Sokhonn signed the $4.6 million grant and $86 million loan, for economic and electricity transmission projects, in Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh.

Syria and its Russian ally accused Israel on Monday of carrying out a deadly dawn bombing raid on a military airbase, as global outrage mounted over an alleged poison gas attack outside Damascus. US President Donald Trump and French counterpart Emmanuel Macron had vowed a strong response to the suspected chemical attack on the rebel-held town of Douma and the UN Security Council was expected to discuss the crisis later on Monday.