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Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan resume negotiations over a disputed dam

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:12:43 GMT

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan resumed their years-long negotiations Sunday over the controversial dam Ethiopia is building on the Nile River’s main tributary, officials said.The resumption of talks came after President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi and Ethiopia Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said last month that they aim to reach within four months an agreement on the operation of the $4.6 billion Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile. The Blue Nile meets the White Nile in Sudan’s capital of Khartoum, before winding northward through Egypt to the Mediterranean Sea.Egypt fears a devastating impact if the dam is operated without taking its needs into account. It called it an existential threat. The Arab world’s most populous country relies almost entirely on the Nile to supply water for agriculture and its more than 100 million people. About 85% of the river’s flow originates from Ethiopia.The Egyptian Irrigation Ministry announced the new round of talks in Cairo. Irrigation Mi...

Trump’s drumbeat of lies about the 2020 election keeps getting louder. Here are the facts

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:12:43 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — With Donald Trump facing felony charges over his attempts to overturn the 2020 election, the former president is flooding the airwaves and his social media platform with distortions, misinformation and unfounded conspiracy theories about his defeat.It’s part of a multiyear effort to undermine public confidence in the American electoral process as he seeks to chart a return to the White House in 2024. There is evidence that his lies are resonating: New polling from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows that 57% of Republicans believe Democrat Joe Biden was not legitimately elected as president.Here are the facts about Trump’s loss in the last presidential election:REVIEWS AND RECOUNTS CONFIRM BIDEN’S VICTORYBiden’s victory over Trump in 2020 was not particularly close. He won the Electoral College with 306 votes to Trump’s 232, and the popular vote by more than 7 million ballots.Because the Electoral College ultimately ...

Pope Francis says he’ll meet with Mongolia’s ‘noble, wise’ people in first visit there by a pontiff

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:12:43 GMT

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis on Sunday described his visit later this week to Mongolia, the first-ever pilgrimage by a pontiff to the east Asian country, as a much-desired occasion to encounter a “noble, wise” people. Speaking to the public in St. Peter’s Square, Francis said the trip would also be an opportunity to embrace the Catholic community there, describing the church in Mongolia as “small in numbers but lively in faith and great in charity.” The pilgrimage is also an opportunity “to meet up close with a noble, wise people,” he said. Francis departs on Thursday, returning to Rome four days later. There are fewer than 1,500 Catholics in Mongolia, where some 3.2 million people live in one of the world’s least densely populated countries. The pope said Mongolia has a great religious tradition that “I will have the honor to know,” especially in the context of an inter-religious event during the trip on Sept. 3. The largest percentage of Mongolia’s people are...

Russia says it confirmed Wagner leader Prigozhin died in a plane crash

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:12:43 GMT

Russia’s Investigative Committee said Sunday that it has confirmed that Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the mercenary group Wagner, was killed in a plane crash.Committee spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko said in a statement that forensic testing identified all 10 bodies recovered at the site of Wednesday’s crash and the findings “conform to the manifest” of the plane. The statement didn’t offer any details as to what might have caused the crash.Russia’s civil aviation authority earlier this week said Prigozhin, along with some of his top lieutenants, were on the list of the passengers and crew members on board the plane.Prigozhin made his name as the profane and brutal mercenary boss who in June mounted an armed rebellion that was the most severe and shocking challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s rule. The 62-year-old’s extraordinary journey took him from prisoner and hot dog vendor to elegant St. Petersburg restaurateur, and then ...

The Taliban say security forces will stop women from visiting Afghan national park

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:12:43 GMT

ISLAMABAD (AP) — The Taliban will use security forces to stop women from visiting one of Afghanistan’s most popular national parks, according to information shared by a spokesman for the Vice and Virtue Ministry. The ministry alleges that women have not been observing the proper way to wear the hijab, or Islamic headscarf, when going to Band-e-Amir in the central Bamiyan province.This comes a week after the minister, Mohammad Khalid Hanafi, visited the province and told officials and religious clerics that women haven’t been adhering to the correct way of wearing the hijab, asking security personnel to stop women from visiting the tourist hotspot.“Going sightseeing is not a must for women,” Hanafi said at the time. Ministry spokesman Molvi Mohammad Sadiq Akif shared a report of Hanafi’s remarks late Saturday night, including the use of security forces, clerics and elders to carry out Hanafi’s order. A recording of the minister’s speech in Bamiyan, aligning with Akif’s re...

Zimbabwe’s opposition alleges ‘gigantic fraud’ in vote that extends the ZANU-PF party’s 43-year rule

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:12:43 GMT

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Zimbabwe ‘s main opposition leader alleged Sunday there had been “blatant and gigantic fraud” after President Emmerson Mnangagwa was declared the winner of another troubled election , with international observers reporting an atmosphere of intimidation against voters.The results were announced Saturday night, two days earlier than expected. Opposition leader Nelson Chamisa promised to address the country soon as his Citizens Coalition for Change party said it would reject the results as “hastily assembled without proper verification.”“They stole your voice and vote but never your hope,” Chamisa wrote in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, in his first public reaction to the results. “It’s a blatant and gigantic fraud.”People in the country of 15 million are bound to view the results with suspicion.International election observers have noted problems with the election, held Wednesday and Thursday, citing an atmosphere of intimidation against Chamisa&...

Influx of asylum claimants flooding shelters, social services in Ottawa

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:12:43 GMT

OTTAWA — Femi Biobaku came to Canada more than a year ago fleeing persecution from the Nigerian authorities, forcing him to leave his wife, two children, community and job as an accountant back home. He landed in Ottawa in July 2022 and stayed with a host family for nearly a month before moving into a dorm at the Ottawa Mission homeless shelter, where things took a turn for the worse. “It was horrible. When I was there, I was being attacked,” said Biobaku. After leaving Nigeria, the newcomer said, living at the shelter for about a month re-traumatized him, leading him to consider suicide. He credits a referral to Ottawa’s Matthew House — a non-profit organization that provides transitional housing to refugees — for saving his life. “The first day I landed at Matthew House … that night, it was like I was in my home back in Nigeria,” said Biobaku. He said Matthew House, along with providing food and shelter, helped him get his life in Canada on track with...

‘I remember the fear’: Canadians recounted horror of Bernardo case following transfer

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:12:43 GMT

The haunting effect of Paul Bernardo’s crimes lingered for Canadians nearly 30 years later, detailed in the hundreds of messages that poured into Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s office after the serial killer was transferred to a medium-security prison.“I have a personal friend who was on that jury and she remains traumatized nearly 30 years later,” one person wrote in correspondence obtained by The Canadian Press through a freedom-of-information request.“She tells me that several of the jury members meet regularly for psychological support even to this day.”Bernardo was transferred in late May from the Millhaven Institution, a maximum-security penitentiary in southern Ontario, to La Macaza Institution, a medium-security prison about 190 kilometres northwest of Montreal that offers treatment for sex offenders. News of the move led to a swift and emotional backlash from Canadians.Critics including Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre urged people t...

Nisga’a memorial pole about to start journey home to B.C. from Scottish museum

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:12:43 GMT

A memorial totem pole belonging to members of the Nisga’a Nation in northwestern British Columbia is about to begin its journey home from the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, where it has been on display for nearly a century.Amy Parent, a member of the nation and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous education and governance, said she expects to feel a deep sense of peace when the pole that’s alive with the spirit of a relative returns to the Nass Valley.The pole is set to make its journey in the belly of a Canadian military aircraft as a result of what Parent described as an unexpected moment of reconciliation. While the Scottish museum initially planned to transport the 11-metre pole by ship, Parent said she felt moving it by plane would reduce the risk of damage.“I’m so grateful that we have some strong negotiators who happened to be in Ottawa,” she told The Canadian Press on Thursday as she prepared to leave for Scotland the next day as part ...

White shooter kills 3 Black people in Florida hate crime

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:12:43 GMT

A masked white man carrying at least one weapon bearing a swastika fatally shot three Black people inside a Florida store Saturday in an attack with a clear motive of racial hatred, officials said.The shooting in a Dollar General store in a predominately Black neighborhood left two men and one woman dead and was “racially motivated,” Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters said.In addition to carrying a firearm with a painted symbol of the genocidal Nazi regime of Germany of the 1930s and 1940s, the shooter issued racist statements before the shooting. He killed himself at the scene.“He hated Black people,” the sheriff said.The shooting came on the same day thousands visited Washington, D.C., to attend the Rev. Al Sharpton’s 60th anniversary commemoration of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I Have A Dream” speech.Rudolph McKissick, a national board member of Sharpton̵...