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Russia hits critical port facilities in Odesa after Kremlin halts grain deal

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:27:44 GMT

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia unleashed intense drone and missile attacks overnight Wednesday, damaging critical port infrastructure in southern Ukraine, including grain and oil terminals, and wounding at least 12 people, officials said. The bombardment targeted the port city of Odesa, days after President Vladimir Putin blamed Ukraine for an attack on the crucial Kerch Bridge linking Russia with the Crimean Peninsula, which the Kremlin illegally annexed from Kyiv in 2014. Putin also pulled Moscow out of its participation in the Black Sea Grain Initiative, a wartime deal that enabled Ukraine’s exports to reach many countries facing the threat of hunger. Russian emergency officials in Crimea, meanwhile, said more than 2,200 people were evacuated from four villages because of a fire at a military facility.The blaze forced the closure of an important highway, according to Sergey Aksyonov, the Moscow-appointed head of the peninsula. He didn’t specify a cause for the fire at th...

Taliban use tasers, fire hoses and gun fire to break up Afghan women protesting beauty salon ban

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:27:44 GMT

Dozens of Afghan women protested a beauty salon ban Wednesday after the Taliban ordered their closure nationwide. Security forces used fire hoses, tasers and shot their guns into the air to break up the protest.The Taliban said earlier this month they were giving all salons in Afghanistan one month to wind down their businesses and close shop, drawing concern from international officials worried about the impact on female entrepreneurs. The Taliban say they are outlawing salons allegedly because they offer services forbidden by Islam and cause economic hardship for grooms’ families during wedding festivities.The ruling came from the Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada. It’s the latest curb on the rights and freedoms of Afghan women and girls, following edicts barring them from education, public spaces and most forms of employment.In a rare sign of public opposition to Taliban orders, dozens of beauticians and makeup artists gathered in the capital Kabul to protest the ban.“We...

Ex-Venezuelan spy chief Carvajal extradited from Spain to U.S. on drug trafficking charges

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:27:44 GMT

MADRID (AP) — The former Venezuelan spy chief, retired Maj. Gen. Hugo Carvajal, wanted on charges of drug trafficking by the United States, is on his way from Spain to the New York on extradition orders, an official with knowledge of the case and his lawyer said Wednesday.A person at Spain’s National Court with knowledge of the extradition confirmed to The Associated Press that Carvajal had left the country. The person spoke anonymously because she was not authorized to speak publicly about the case.According to his U.S. lawyer, Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma, Carvajal is expected to land in New York later on Wednesday.For more than a decade, Carvajal advised the late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez before breaking with his successor Nicolás Maduro. He had been fighting extradition to the U.S. since he was arrested in Spain in April 2019.Prosecutors in New York allege that Carvajal used his high office to coordinate the smuggling of approximately 5,600 kilograms (12,300 pounds) of coca...

At least 5 injured in Kenya anti-government protests over rising cost of living

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:27:44 GMT

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — At least five protesters were injured in Kenya Wednesday as police clashed with demonstrators who are calling for the government to lower the cost of living.The opposition has called for three days of countrywide protests starting Wednesday in a new wave of demonstrations aimed at forcing the president to repeal a finance law imposing new taxes.President William Ruto had vowed that no protests would take place in the country, saying he would take on opposition leader Raila Odinga “head-on.”Four protesters were injured in the capital, Nairobi’s Mathare area, according to a police officer who wished to remain anonymous as he was not authorized to speak to the media. The Associated Press team covered a man who was injured in Kibera slums.Businesses in Nairobi remained closed on Wednesday as police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse protesters.Demonstrations were reported in several other parts of the country including the western counties of Kisumu, Migor...

Thai Parliament blocks leader of party that won election from being renominated for prime minister

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:27:44 GMT

BANGKOK (AP) — The bitter battle to name Thailand’s next prime minister took a major turn Wednesday as Parliament voted to deny Pita Limjaroenrat, whose progressive Move Forward Party won a surprise victory in May’s election, a second chance to be confirmed for the post.Pita had assembled a coalition of parties holding a majority in the House of Representatives. But his nomination for prime minister was defeated in a joint vote of the House and Senate last week, with conservative military-appointed senators mostly refusing their support.A joint session debated Wednesday whether Pita could be nominated for a second time, and House Speaker Wan Muhamad Noor Matha then put the question to a vote. A motion to deny him a second chance was passed by a vote of 395 to 312 with eight abstentions. The meeting of Parliament was then adjourned with no immediate indication of when it would vote again on a new prime minister.It was the second blow suffered by Pita on Wednesday, after the Constitut...

Tourist who saw US soldier sprint to North Korea initially thought it was a stunt

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:27:44 GMT

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Sarah Leslie thought she was witnessing a stunt when she saw an American soldier start sprinting toward North Korea.Leslie and her father, tourists from New Zealand, were part of a group that left Tuesday morning from Seoul to visit the Demilitarized Zone that divides South and North Korea.Private 2nd Class Travis King was among the group of 43 tourists, Leslie told The Associated Press, although he was casually dressed in jeans and a T-shirt and she had no idea at the time that he was a soldier, or in legal trouble.King, 23, was a cavalry scout with the 1st Armored Division who had served nearly two months in a South Korean prison for assault. He was released on July 10 and was supposed to travel home Monday to Fort Bliss, Texas, where he could have faced additional military discipline and discharge from the service.Leslie said her tour group went a step further than many by visiting the Joint Security Area in the village of Panmunjom, allowing touris...

Afghan players watch Morocco’s team practice for Women’s World Cup, hoping to get their chance

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:27:44 GMT

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Over the next month, 32 national soccer teams will compete across Australia and New Zealand in the Women’s World Cup. A 33rd team — unofficial, by FIFA’s standards — will also be in Australia, but in the stands.Members of the Afghanistan national women’s soccer team, which was evacuated to Australia when the Taliban took over Afghanistan in 2021, paid a visit to Morocco’s public training session Wednesday. The eight players attended with a small crowd of enthusiastic Morocco supporters who were bearing red and green flags and scarves.Morocco, making its Women’s World Cup debut, is the first Arab nation to qualify for the tournament. Like Afghanistan, the North African nation has a large Muslim population. The exiled Afghan players, now based in Melbourne, hope that the Atlas Lionesses’ participation in the tournament will help further build the case that Muslim women belong in the sport.“This is a huge chance for the Moroccan team to show the world that M...

South Africa says Putin will skip a summit next month because of his ICC arrest warrant

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:27:44 GMT

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin will not attend the BRICS economic summit in Johannesburg next month, the office of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said in a statement Wednesday.The decision means South Africa will not face the dilemma of whether it should carry out an International Criminal Court arrest warrant against the Russian leader.South Africa is a signatory to the treaty that created the ICC and would have been obliged under that to arrest Putin, although the country had given strong hints that it would have likely not executed the arrest warrant.But Wednesday’s announcement allows South Africa to avoid the problem and comes after Ramaphosa spoke with Putin by telephone in recent days.The decision for Putin not to attend was by “mutual agreement,” Ramaphosa’s office said. Russia will instead be represented at the Aug 22-24 summit by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.The BRICS economic bloc is made up of Brazil, Russia, ...

Israeli president says his speech to Congress highlights an ‘unbreakable bond’ despite US unease

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:27:44 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Israel’s president speaks to Congress on Wednesday in an appearance aimed at demonstrating what he calls the “unbreakable bond” between Israel and the United States, despite U.S. concerns over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul and settlement construction in the occupied West Bank.Isaac Herzog becomes the second Israeli president, after his father, Chaim Herzog, to address Congress. His speech will mark modern Israel’s celebration of its 75th year. But the visit by Israel’s figurehead president also is exposing the difficulties that Democrats face in balancing longstanding U.S. support for ally Israel with disapproval of some actions by Netanyahu’s government, a coalition of ultranationalist and ultra-Orthodox parties.The House on Tuesday passed a Republican-led resolution reaffirming its support for Israel with strong bipartisan approval — an implicit rebuke of a leading Democrat who over the weekend called the country a “racist stat...

Demolition of a historic minaret in southern Iraq’s Basra for ‘a better-designed one’ sparks outcry

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:27:44 GMT

BASRA, Iraq (AP) — For three centuries, the al-Siraji Mosque, with its minaret fashioned from weathered bricks and its pinnacle inlaid with blue ceramic tiles, was a distinctive feature of the city of Basra in southern Iraq. In recent years, it was one of the few tourist attractions in the oil-rich but neglected city, although locals complained that the minaret jutted out into the street, snarling traffic.In the early hours Friday morning, the 11-meter-high (33-foot-high) minaret was razed to the ground, with the governor of Basra attending the demolition, igniting a wave of social media backlash among advocates for the preservation of Iraq’s cultural heritage.Heritage sites in Iraq, home to multiple civilizations going back more than six millennia, have been hard hit by looting and damage over the decades of conflict before and after the U.S. invasion of 2003. Most notoriously, the militant Islamic State group demolished numerous ancient sites in northern Iraq, including Islamic sh...