ReportWire

Tag: I

  • Pakistan brings arrested nurse before cameras to answer questions about her alleged bombing attempt

    Pakistan brings arrested nurse before cameras to answer questions about her alleged bombing attempt

    QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistani authorities brought a nurse they said was arrested over the weekend before state-run media on Wednesday to answer questions about her alleged suicide bombing attempt. The government-organized interview in Balochistan province was broadcast on national and local television channels.

    The southwestern Balochistan province has for years been the scene of a long-running insurgency, with several separatist groups staging attacks that target mainly security forces in their quest for independence. The province also has an array of militant groups that are active there.

    Pakistan’s government has also long battled militants and insurgents of various groups across the entire country — fighting that has killed hundreds, both civilians and members of the security forces.

    Authorities are likely eager to show that they are gaining the upper hand in the fight.

    In Wednesday’s interview in Quetta, the provincial capital of Baluchistan, the nurse identified herself as Adeela Baloch and said she had worked at a government hospital in the district of Turbat before she was “misguided by terrorists” and recruited to carry out a suicide attack.

    She said she was arrested before she could carry out the attack.

    It was not clear if she spoke under duress. She did not name the group that had allegedly enlisted her or describe the target of the planned attack.

    The Associated Press could not independently confirm her identity or verify her claims. Officials contacted by the AP declined to provide details and only said she would not be prosecuted because she did not carry out the attack.

    Last month, the outlawed separatist Balochistan Liberation Army, said a woman was among a group of its fighters who had killed more than 50 people in the restive province.

    Earlier on Wednesday, a roadside bomb targeting police in Quetta wounded 12 people, according to local officials.

    Source link

  • Strike by more than 1,000 Samsung workers enters a third week in India

    Strike by more than 1,000 Samsung workers enters a third week in India

    NEW DELHI (AP) — A strike by more than 1,000 workers at a Samsung India Electronics plant has entered its third week, and management is at an impasse over their demands for recognition of the employees’ union and higher pay, a workers union spokesman said on Wednesday,

    The employees strike in the plant near Chennai, the capital of the southern state of Tamil Nadu, started on Sept. 9 with a key demand for a 25-30% pay hike in the average monthly salary of 30,000-35,000 rupees ($425), said K.C. Gopi Kumar, the spokesman for the Samsung India Electronics workers union.

    “Our foremost demand is recognition of the union and its rights by the management,” Kumar said.

    A Samsung official said that management was prepared to discuss the workers’ demands.

    The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to talk to reporters, said the company wanted to negotiate directly with the employees’ representatives rather than through the Center of Indian Trade Unions, or CITU.

    The CITU is an Indian trade union aligned with a communist party.

    Samsung said that it paid 1.8 times more in India than the average salary of similar workers employed at other regional companies.

    The workers’ union says that up to 70% of production has been disrupted at the Sriperumbudur facility in southern India, which produces televisions, refrigerators and washing machines.

    However, the Samsung official said that after an initial disruption of 50% production, the plant was running at near average capacity with nonstriking workers, apprentices and newly hired staff on the job.

    The electronics company appealed to striking workers to resume their jobs.

    In a communication with the workers, Samsung assured them that it wouldn’t take action against those employees who wished to resume work, but warned them of termination if they continued with their protest, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.

    Source link

  • Belgium’s appalling abuse legacy clouds pope’s trip as survivors pen letter seeking reparations

    Belgium’s appalling abuse legacy clouds pope’s trip as survivors pen letter seeking reparations

    VATICAN CITY (AP) — Fresh off a four-nation tour of Asia, where he saw record-setting crowds and vibrant church communities, Pope Francis travels to Belgium this week as the once-staunchly Catholic country again confronts its appalling legacy of clergy sex abuse and institutional cover-up.

    He will receive a sobering welcome: Abuse survivors have penned an open letter to Francis, asking him to launch a universal system of church reparations and assume responsibility for the wreckage that abuse has wrought on their lives.

    The open letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, will be hand delivered to Francis when he meets with 15 survivors during his four-day visit starting Thursday, according to the Rev. Rik Deville, who has been advocating on behalf of abuse survivors for over a quarter-century.

    Another unpleasant welcome has come from Belgium’s parliament, which spent the past year hearing victims recount harrowing stories of predator priests and this week announced a follow-on investigation. The scope? How Belgian judicial and law enforcement authorities bungled a massive 2010 criminal investigation into the church’s sex crimes.

    And in a cascade of events underscoring how easily the scandals still surface, one bishop first had to withdraw himself from attending the pope’s events because he had recently warmly eulogized a priest accused of involvement in an abuse case. And late Wednesday, the pope’s main Mass had to be changed because the final hymn was composed by an alleged abuser.

    None of this was foreseen when Belgian King Philippe and Queen Mathilde met with Francis in the Vatican Apostolic Palace on Sept. 14, 2023 and invited him to visit to commemorate the 600th anniversary of the founding of Belgium’s two Catholic universities.

    That anniversary is technically the reason for Francis’ trip, which also includes a stopover in Luxembourg on Thursday and a Mass on Sunday in Brussels to beatify a 17th century mystic nun.

    And in Belgium, Francis will speak about two of his pet priorities during visits to the French and Flemish campuses of the Leuven university: Immigration and climate, according to Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni.

    But Bruni acknowledged in a rare preview that Francis will certainly raise Belgium’s abuse record.

    “Clearly the pope is aware of the difficulty, and that for years there has been suffering in Belgium, and certainly we can expect a reference in this sense,” Bruni said.

    Revelations of Belgium’s horrific abuse scandal have dribbled out in bits over a quarter-century, punctuated by the bombshell year in 2010, when the country’s longest-serving bishop, Bruges Bishop Roger Vangheluwe, was allowed to resign without punishment, after admitting he had sexually abused his nephew for 13 years.

    Two months later, Belgian police staged what were then unprecedented raids on Belgian church offices, the home of the country’s recently retired Archbishop Godfried Danneels and even the crypt of a prelate — a violation the Vatican decried at the time as “deplorable.”

    Danneels, a longtime friend of Francis, was caught on tape trying to persuade Vangheluwe’s nephew to keep quiet until the bishop retired. And finally, in September 2010, the church released a 200-page report compiled by child psychiatrist Peter Adriaenssens who said 507 people had come forward with stories of being molested by priests, including when they were as young as two. He identified at least 13 suicides by victims and attempts by six more.

    And despite everything that was known and already in the public domain, the scandal reared its head in a shocking new way last year, when a four-episode Flemish documentary, “Godvergeten” (Godforsaken) aired on public broadcaster VRT in the weeks surrounding the royal visit to the Vatican.

    For the first time, Belgian victims told their stories on camera one after another, showing Flemish viewers in their living rooms the scope of the scandal in their community, the depravity of the crimes and their systematic cover-up by the Catholic hierarchy.

    “We brought nothing new. We just put it all together. We brought the voices together,” said Ingrid Schildermans, the researcher and filmmaker behind Godvergeten. “We put all the things that happened on a timeline, so that they couldn’t say ‘It’s one rotten apple.’”

    Amid the public outrage that ensued, both a Flanders parliamentary committee and Belgium’s federal parliament opened official inquests and heard months of testimony from victims, experts and the Catholic hierarchy.

    Their testimonies cast new attention on a scandal that had already been blamed for the steep decline in the Catholic Church over a generation in Belgium, where church authorities don’t even publish statistics of weekly Mass attendance because the monthly rate is already in the single digits.

    By March, with a papal visit already announced, Francis finally took action and defrocked Vangheluwe, 14 years after he admitted to molesting his nephew. The laicization was seen as a clear bid by the Vatican to tamp down the outrage and remove an obvious problem clouding Francis’ visit.

    All of which has left a rather bitter taste among the Belgian public ahead of Francis’ visit, not least because Francis remained tight with Danneels even after his cover-up was exposed, and again showed ignorance of Belgium’s problem when he named the retired bishop of Ghent a cardinal in 2022. The bishop declined the honor because of his poor record dealing with abuse.

    The visit has also in some cases retraumatized victims, some of whom had sought to meet with the pope only to be told by church authorities they didn’t make the cut, said Schildermans.

    It’s a far different atmosphere than the rapturous welcome Francis received in Asia less than two weeks ago and far removed from the excitement that surrounded St. John Paul II when he toured Belgium in 1985.

    Even De Standaard, one of Belgium’s main dailies which long was seen as the most Catholic, had a big weekend takeout under the headline “How revolutionary is Pope Francis really?” The dead giveaway: Not really.

    Tuesday brought further evidence of how Belgium’s dreadful record of abuse, cover-up and insensitivity to victims had clouded Francis’ visit.

    Bishop Patrick Hoogmartens of northern Limburg announced he wouldn’t take part in celebratory papal events, after revelations that he had just warmly eulogized a priest who was known to have been involved in an abuse case.

    “I didn’t make the assessment that it would hurt an abuse victim from the 1970s,” he told TV Limburg.

    Late Wednesday, a spokesman for the church authorities, Geert De Kerpel, confirmed a story by VRT network that the choir will have to practice a new closing hymn, since otherwise the pope would have been listening to the melody of a composer-priest who was an alleged abuser.

    ___

    Casert reported from Brussels.

    ___

    Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

    Source link

  • Fortified bouillon cubes are seen as a way to curb malnutrition in Africa

    Fortified bouillon cubes are seen as a way to curb malnutrition in Africa

    IBADAN, Nigeria (AP) — In her cramped, dimly lit kitchen, Idowu Bello leans over a gas cooker while stirring a pot of eba, the thick starchy West African staple made from cassava root. Kidney problems and chronic exhaustion forced the 56-year-old Nigerian woman to retire from teaching, and she switches between cooking with gas or over a wood fire depending on the fuel she can afford.

    Financial constraints also limit the food Bello has on hand even though doctors have recommended a nutrient-rich diet both to improve her weakening health and to help her teenage daughter, Fatima, grow. Along with eba, on the menu today is melon soup with ponmo, an inexpensive condiment made from dried cowhide.

    “Fish, meat, eggs, fruits, vegetables and even milk are costly these days,” Bello, 56, said, her lean face etched with worry.

    If public health advocates and the Nigerian government have their way, malnourished households in the West African nation soon will have a simple ingredient available to improve their intake of key vitamins and minerals. Government regulators on Tuesday are launching a code of standards for adding iron, zinc, folic acid and vitamin B12 to bouillon cubes at minimum levels recommended by experts.

    While the standards will be voluntary for manufacturers for now, their adoption could help accelerate progress against diets deficient in essential micronutrients, or what is known in nutrition and public health circles as “hidden hunger.” Fortified bouillon cubes could avert up to 16.6 million cases of anemia and up to 11,000 deaths from neural tube defects in Nigeria, according to a new report from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

    “Regardless of economic situation or income level, everyone uses seasoning cubes,” Bello said as she unwrapped and dropped one in her melon soup.

    A growing and multipronged problem

    Making do with smaller portions and less nutritious foods is common among many Nigerian households, according to a recent government survey on dietary intake and micronutrients. The survey estimated that 79% of Nigerian households are food insecure.

    The climate crisis, which has seen extreme heat and unpredictable rainfall patterns hobble agriculture in Africa’s troubled Sahel region, will worsen the problem, with several million children expected to experience growth problems due to malnutrition between now and 2050, according to the Gates Foundation report released Tuesday.

    “Farmlands are destroyed, you have a shortage of food, the system is strained, leading to inflation making it difficult for the people to access foods, including animal-based proteins,” Augustine Okoruwa, a regional program manager at Helen Keller Intl, said, highlighting the link between malnutrition and climate change.

    Dietary deficiencies of the micronutrients the government wants added to bouillon cubes already have caused a public health crisis in Nigeria, including a high prevalence of anemia in women of child-bearing age, neural tube defects in newborn babies and stunted growth among children, according to Okoruwa.

    Helen Keller Intl, a New York-based nonprofit that works to address the causes of blindness and malnutrition, has partnered with the Gates Foundation and businesses and government agencies in Africa to promote food fortification.

    In Nigeria, recent economic policies such as the cancellation of gasoline subsidies are driving the country’s worst cost-of-living crisis in generations, further deepening food hardship for the low-income earners who form the majority of the country’s working population.

    Globally, nearly 3 billion people are unable to access healthy diets, 71% of them in developing countries, according to the World Health Organization.

    The large-scale production of fortified foods would unlock a new way to “increase micronutrients in the food staples of low-income countries to create resilience for vulnerable families,” the Gates Foundation said.

    Bouillon cubes as the vehicle

    Bouillon cubes — those small blocks of evaporated meat or vegetable extracts and seasonings that typically are used to flavor soups and stews — are widely consumed in many African countries, nearing 100% household penetration in countries like Nigeria, Senegal, Ivory Coast, and Cameroon, according to a study by Helen Keller Intl.

    That makes the cubes the “most cost-effective way” to add minerals and vitamins to the diets of millions of people, Okoruwa said.

    No Nigerian manufacturers already include the four micronutrients at the recommended levels, but there is industry interest.

    Sweet Nutrition, located in Ota, near Lagos in Nigeria’s southwest, started adding iron to some of its products in 2017. Marketing manager Roop Kumar told The Associated Press it was a “voluntary exercise” to contribute to public health.

    “But we are taking trials and looking at further fortification” with the launch of the new regulatory framework, Kumar said.

    Although NASCON Allied Industries, a Nigerian company that produces table salt and seasoning cubes, currently does not make products with any of the four micronutrients, quality control manager Josephine Afolayan said fortification is a priority.

    “If we’re successful, that would mean that the fortified bouillon seasoning cubes in so many Nigerian dishes would also contribute to improving the micronutrient content of the dishes in my country,” Ladidi Bako-Aiyegbusi, the director of nutrition at Nigeria’s Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, wrote in the Gates Foundation report.

    ___

    The Associated Press receives financial support for news coverage in Africa from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and for news coverage of women in the workforce and in statehouses from Melinda French Gates’ organization, Pivotal Ventures.

    ___

    Compliance and science

    Despite the promise of enriching a product that most people have in their pantries, some challenges need to be addressed. One is the “campaign of calumny” in a region where science-led interventions in the food sector have sometimes faced resistance from interest groups, Okoruwa said.

    Educating people about the benefits of fortified products may help counter any possible disinformation campaign, said Yunusa Mohammed, the head of the food group at the Standards Organization of Nigeria, the government regulator for consumer products.

    There is also the need to make fortified cubes affordable for struggling households like Bello’s, where a pile of firewood she uses to cook outdoors on an open flame is stacked against a wall.

    “What we can do is to influence the government and industry on rebates on the importation of raw materials as a public health intervention,” Mohammed said.

    Food fortification is not new in Nigeria. Most of the salt consumed in the country is iodized, and products such as wheat flour, cooking oil and sugar are fortified with vitamin A by law. But the requirement for adding the four vitamins and minerals to bouillon is the most comprehensive fortification regulation to date.

    Although Nigerian companies do not have to enrich their seasoning cubes yet, experts think setting standards that producers must follow if they choose to will make a difference.

    A working group involving representatives from companies, regulatory agencies, research groups and development organizations is in place to accelerate voluntary compliance.

    “Ultimately, we will make the bouillon fortification mandatory after seeing the acceptance of the voluntary regulations in the industry,” Mohammed said.

    ___

    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

    Source link

  • Dedicated artists are keeping Japan’s ancient craft of temari alive

    Dedicated artists are keeping Japan’s ancient craft of temari alive

    KAWARAMACHI, Japan (AP) — Time seems to stop here.

    Women sit in a small circle, quietly, painstakingly stitching patterns on balls the size of an orange, a stitch at a time.

    At the center of the circle is Eiko Araki, a master of the Sanuki Kagari Temari, a Japanese traditional craft passed down for more than 1,000 years on the southwestern island of Shikoku.

    Each ball, or “temari,” is a work of art, with colorful geometric patterns carrying poetic names like “firefly flowers” and “layered stars.” A temari ball takes weeks or months to finish. Some cost hundreds of dollars (tens of thousands of yen), although others are much cheaper.

    Staff work on the temari at Sanuki Kagari Temari in Kawaramachi, Kagawa prefecture, Japan, on Sept. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Ayaka McGill)

    These kaleidoscopic balls aren’t for throwing or kicking around. They’re destined to be heirlooms, carrying prayers for health and goodness. They might be treasured like a painting or piece of sculpture in a Western home.

    The concept behind temari is an elegant otherworldliness, an impractical beauty that is also very labor-intensive to create.

    “Out of nothing, something this beautiful is born, bringing joy,” says Araki. “I want it to be remembered there are beautiful things in this world that can only be made by hand.”

    Natural materials

    The region where temari originated was good for growing cotton, warm with little rainfall, and the spherical creations continue to be made out of the humble material.

    At Araki’s studio, which also serves as head office for temari’s preservation society, there are 140 hues of cotton thread, including delicate pinks and blues, as well as more vivid colors and all the subtle gradations in between.

    The women dye them by hand, using plants, flowers and other natural ingredients, including cochineal, a bug living in cacti that produces a red dye. The deeper shade of indigo is dyed again and again to turn just about black. Yellow and blue are combined to form gorgeous greens. Soy juice is added to deepen the tints, a dash of organic protein.

    Outside the studio, loops of cotton thread, in various tones of yellow today, hang outside in the shade to dry.

    Image

    Cotton thread used for making the Japanese traditional craft “tamari” hang to dry at Sanuki Kagari Temari in Kawaramachi, Kagawa prefecture, Japan, on Sept. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Ayaka McGill)

    Image

    Various shades of cotton thread used for making the Japanese traditional craft of Sanuki Kagari Temari are stored in shelves in Kawaramachi, Kagawa prefecture, Japan, on Sept. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Yuri Kageyama)

    Creating and embroidering the balls

    The arduous process starts with making the basic ball mold on which the stitching is done. Rice husks that are cooked and then dried are placed in a piece of cotton, then wound with thread, over and over, until, almost magically, a ball appears in your hands.

    Then the stitching begins.

    The balls are surprisingly hard, so each stitch requires a concentrated, almost painful, push. The motifs must be precise and even.

    Each ball has lines to guide the stitching — one that goes around it like the equator, and others that zigzag to the top and bottom.

    Image

    A staff member works on the temari at Sanuki Kagari Temari in Kawaramachi, Kagawa prefecture, Japan, on Sept. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Ayaka McGill)

    Image

    Several completed Sanuki Kagari Temari balls are on display in Eiko Araki’s studio in Kawaramachi, Kagawa prefecture, Japan, on Sept. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Yuri Kageyama)

    Appealing to a new generation

    These days, temari is getting some new recognition, among Japanese and foreigners as well. Caroline Kennedy took lessons in the ball-making when she was United States ambassador to Japan a decade ago.

    Yoshie Nakamura, who promotes Japanese handcrafted art in her duty-free shop at Tokyo’s Haneda airport, says she features temari there because of its intricate and delicate designs.

    “Temari that might have been everyday in a faraway era is now being used for interior decoration,” she said.

    “I really feel each Sanuki Kagari Temari speaks of a special, one-and-only existence in the world.”

    Image

    Sanuki Kagari Temari balls are in a gift box in Eiko Araki’s studio in Kawaramachi, Kagawa prefecture, Japan, on Sept. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Yuri Kageyama)

    Araki has come up with some newer designs that feel both modern and historical. She is trying to make the balls more accessible to everyday life — for instance, as Christmas tree ornaments. A strap with a dangling miniature ball, though quite hard to make because of its size, is affordable at about 1,500 yen ($10) each.

    Another of Araki’s inventions is a cluster of pastel balls that opens and shuts with tiny magnets. Fill it with sweet-smelling herbs for a kind of aromatic diffuser.

    A tradition passed down through generations

    Araki, a graceful woman who talks very slowly, her head cocked to one side as though always in thought, often travels to Tokyo to teach. But mostly she works and gives lessons in her studio, an abandoned kindergarten with faded blue paint and big windows with tired wooden frames.

    She started out as a metalwork artist. Her husband’s parents were temari masters who worked hard to resurrect the artform when it was declining in the modern age, at risk of dying out.

    Image

    Eiko Araki, a master of the traditional Japanese craft of Sanuki Kagari Temari, talks to The Associated Press at her studio in Kawaramachi, Kagawa prefecture, Japan, on Sept. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Ayaka McGill)

    Image

    Eiko Araki, a master of the traditional Japanese craft of Sanuki Kagari Temari, shows several temari balls at her studio in Kawaramachi, Kagawa prefecture, Japan, on Sept. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Ayaka McGill)

    They were stoic people, rarely bestowing praise and instead always scolding her, she remembers. It’s a tough-love approach that’s common in the handing down of many Japanese traditional arts, from Kabuki acting to hogaku music, that demand lifetimes of selfless devotion.

    Today, only several dozen people, all women, can make the temari balls to traditional standards.

    “The most challenging aspect is nurturing successors. It typically takes over 10 years to train them, so you need people who are willing to continue the craft for a very long time,” Araki said.

    “When people start to feel joy along with the hardship that comes with making temari, they tend to keep going.”

    Image

    Two completed Sanuki Kagari Temari balls are on display in Eiko Araki’s studio in Kawaramachi, Kagawa prefecture, Japan, on Sept. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Yuri Kageyama)

    ___

    AP journalist Ayaka McGill contributed to this report.

    ___

    Yuri Kageyama is on X: https://x.com/yurikageyama

    Source link

  • Festival season starts in Nepal with devotees honoring a living goddess

    Festival season starts in Nepal with devotees honoring a living goddess

    KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) — Nepal’s monthslong festival season began on Tuesday with tens of thousands of devotees pulling a wooden chariot with a young girl revered as a living goddess.

    Families gathered for feasts and lit incense for the dead at shrines. Men and boys in colorful masks and gowns representing Hindu deities danced to traditional music and drums, drawing throngs of spectators to Kathmandu’s old streets.

    The Indra Jatra festival marks the end of the monsoon and rice farming season and signals the dawn of fall. It’s celebrated mostly by the Newar community, the native residents of Kathmandu. It is also known as the festival of deities and demons and especially honors Indra, the Hindu god of rain.

    The Lakhe, a demon adored for divine might, performs during Indra Jatra, a festival that marks the end of the rainy season in Kathmandu, Nepal, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)

    Image

    Devotees gather to watch the annual Indra Jatra festival that marks the end of the rainy season in Kathmandu, Nepal, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)

    Image

    Devotees perform a traditional elephant dance during Indra Jatra, a festival that marks the end of the rainy season in Kathmandu, Nepal, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)

    The masked dancers, one of the highlights of the ceremony, can be fearsome, entertaining and awe-inspiring, depending on the performers’ movements.

    Kumari, a young girl who is revered by both Hindus and Buddhists in Nepal as a living goddess, left her temple palace and was driven around the center of the capital in a wooden chariot pulled by devotees, who lined up to receive her blessing. Among the spectators were President Ram Chandra Poudel, officials and diplomats.

    The weeklong Indra Jatra precedes months of other festivals in the predominantly Hindu nation. They include Dasain, the main festival, and Tihar, or Diwali, the festival of lights, in November.

    Image

    Living goddess Kumari reacts as she is being carried during Indra Jatra, a festival that marks the end of the rainy season in Kathmandu, Nepal, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)

    Image

    Devotees use foam spray as they dance during Indra Jatra, a festival that marks the end of the rainy season in Kathmandu, Nepal, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)

    Image

    Masked dancers perform during Indra Jatra, a festival that marks the end of the rainy season in Kathmandu, Nepal, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)

    Image

    Devotees play traditional drums during Indra Jatra, a festival that marks the end of the rainy season in Kathmandu, Nepal, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)

    Image

    The Lakhe, a demon adored for divine might, performs during Indra Jatra, a festival that marks the end of the rainy season in Kathmandu, Nepal, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)

    Image

    Masked dancers perform during Indra Jatra, a festival that marks the end of the rainy season in Kathmandu, Nepal, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)

    Source link

  • Milan Fashion Week opens with light, ethereal yet grounded looks from Fendi, Ferretti and Marni

    Milan Fashion Week opens with light, ethereal yet grounded looks from Fendi, Ferretti and Marni

    MILAN (AP) — Just as the northern hemisphere starts the wardrobe transition from summer to fall, runway shows in the world’s fashion capitals seek to stir the imagination, and desire, for the next warm weather season.

    Milan designers have been ambiguous about seasons in recent fashion weeks, with summer collections not corresponding to the soaring temperatures. That was not the case during the first day of Milan Fashion Week previews on Tuesday, featuring diaphanous, dreamy summery dresses, alongside crisp cotton.

    Here are highlights from the first day of Milan Fashion Week of runway previews of mostly womenswear for Spring-Summer 2025:

    Fendi centenary

    Fendi honored its upcoming centenary with a Spring-Summer 2025 collection that paid elegant homage to the founding era, from art deco detailing to a flapper silhouette, light on the fringe.

    In snippets of conversation that punctuated the show’s soundtrack, Silvia Venturini Fendi emphasized the matriarchal lineage that has made her the third generation to play a key Fendi role. “My mother was the energy of the house,” Venturini Fendi recalled.

    The collection by Fendi womenswear artistic director Kim Jones sought to spotlight “100 years of very chic Roman women,” combining ready-to-wear with artisanal detailing of couture. Diaphanous dresses with art-deco embroidery were grounded with boots. Slip dresses were turned upside down as skirts, worn with a sheer top embellished with crystals. Knitwear defined the silhouette, under sheers or hugging the body over diaphanous trousers.

    Bags by Venturini Fendi, artistic director of accessories, were soft and huggable, often carried in triplicate.

    Ferretti’s artisanal summer

    Alberta Ferretti showed her summery creations in the courtyard of a former cloister, now a science museum, with an elegant dome rising in the background, the juxtaposition emphasizing the artisanal heritage in her collection.

    Instead of embellishments, Ferretti focused on technique. Laser cut cotton created an almost lace effect. Individual cotton leaves were stitched together as dresses or accents on bodices. Pleating elevated dresses, while boxer shorts gave a casual flair.

    The day looks were in earthy tones of sand, ecru and black. For evening, chiffon dresses flowed in bright shades.

    “They are real summer clothes, because the world in the summer is very warm. I know a show is supposed to be a show but reality is important,’’ Ferretti said backstage.

    Marni’s essential beauty

    Marni maintained its zany heritage under creative director Francesco Risso, with a wardrobe of whimsically tailored everyday looks for him and for her.

    The female silhouette was swathed in form-fitting dresses and skirts, often with deep back slits, sometimes with a mermaid flair. Feathers, boas and crystal embellishments were pretty, and sometimes off-beat accents.

    For him, broad shouldered jackets contrasted with skinny trousers. An off-skew bow on a chiffony blouson was kept aloft through some sartorial trickery.

    Mixing art with fashion, models emerged in threes, and wandered through the showroom full of wooden chairs on conversational groups to a percussive piano trio.

    A sense of Marni whimsy permeated the collection, partly but not only through a series of hats with a yesteryear military flair made light with feathery accents. Risso appeared to confirm his Napoleonic intentions, taking a bow with his hand thrust inside his jacket.

    “We like things that are bold,” Risso said after the show.

    Source link

  • An ancient African tree is providing a new ‘superfood’ but local harvesters are barely surviving

    An ancient African tree is providing a new ‘superfood’ but local harvesters are barely surviving

    Since childhood, Loveness Bhitoni has collected fruit from the gigantic baobab trees surrounding her homestead in Zimbabwe to add variety to the family’s staple corn and millet diet. The 50-year-old Bhitoni never saw them as a source of cash, until now.

    Climate change-induced droughts have decimated her crops. Meanwhile, the world has a growing appetite for the fruit of the drought-resistant baobab as a natural health food.

    Bhitoni wakes before dawn to go foraging for baobab fruit, sometimes walking barefoot though hot, thorny landscapes with the risk of wildlife attacks. She gathers sacks of the hard-shelled fruit from the ancient trees and sells them on to industrial food processors or individual buyers from the city.

    The baobab trade, which took root in her area in 2018, would previously supplement things like children’s school fees and clothing for locals of the small town of Kotwa in northeastern Zimbabwe. Now, it’s a matter of survival following the latest devastating drought in southern Africa, worsened by the El Niño weather phenomenon.

    “We are only able to buy corn and salt,” Bhitoni said after a long day’s harvest. “Cooking oil is a luxury because the money is simply not enough. Sometimes I spend a month without buying a bar of soap. I can’t even talk of school fees or children’s clothes.”

    The global market for baobab products has spiked, turning rural African areas with an abundance of the trees into source markets. The trees, known for surviving even under severe conditions like drought or fire, need more than 20 years to start producing fruit and aren’t cultivated but foraged.

    Tens of thousands of rural people like Bhitoni have emerged to feed the need. The African Baobab Alliance, with members across the continent’s baobab producing countries, projects that more than 1 million rural African women could reap economic benefits from the fruit, which remains fresh for long periods because of its thick shell.

    The alliance’s members train locals on food safety. They also encourage people to collect the fruit, which can grow to 8 inches (20 centimeters) wide and 21 inches (53 centimeters) long, from the ground rather than the hazardous work of climbing the enormous, thick-trunked trees. Many, especially men, still do, however.

    Native to the African continent, the baobab is known as the “tree of life” for its resilience and is found from South Africa to Kenya to Sudan and Senegal. Zimbabwe has about 5 million of the trees, according to Zimtrade, a government export agency.

    But the baobab’s health benefits long went unnoticed elsewhere.

    Gus Le Breton, a pioneer of the industry, remembers the early days.

    “Baobab did not develop into a globally traded and known superfood by accident,” said Le Breton, recalling years of regulatory, safety and toxicology testing to convince authorities in the European Union and United States to approve it.

    “It was ridiculous because the baobab fruit has been consumed in Africa safely for thousands and thousands of years,” said Le Breton, an ethnobotanist specializing in African plants used for food and medicine.

    Studies have shown that the baobab fruit has several health benefits as an antioxidant, and a source of vitamin C and essential minerals such as zinc, potassium and magnesium.

    The U.S. legalized the import of baobab powder as a food and beverage ingredient in 2009, a year after the EU. But getting foreign taste buds to accept the sharp, tart-like taste took repeated trips to Western and Asian countries.

    “No one had ever heard of it, they didn’t know how to pronounce its name. It took us a long time,” Le Breton said. The tree is pronounced BAY-uh-bab.

    Together with China, the U.S. and Europe now account for baobab powder’s biggest markets. The Dutch government’s Center for the Promotion of Imports says the global market could reach $10 billion by 2027. Le Breton says his association projects a 200% growth in global demand between 2025 and 2030, and is also looking at increasing consumption among Africa’s increasingly health-conscious urbanites.

    Companies such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi have opened product lines promoting baobab ingredients. In Europe, the powder is hyped by some as having “real star qualities” and is used to flavor beverages, cereals, yogurt, snack bars and other items.

    A packet of a kilogram (2.2 pound) of baobab powder sells for around 27 euros (about $30) in Germany. In the United Kingdom, a 100-milliliter (3.38-ounce) bottle of baobab beauty oil can fetch 25 pounds (about $33).

    The growing industry is on display at a processing plant in Zimbabwe, where baobab pulp is bagged separately from the seeds. Each bag has a tag tracing it to the harvester who sold it. Outside the factory, the hard shells are turned into biochar, an ash given to farmers for free to make organic compost.

    Harvesters like Bhitoni say they can only dream of affording the commercial products the fruit becomes. She earns 17 cents for every kilogram of the fruit and she can spend up to eight hours a day walking through the sunbaked savanna. She has exhausted the trees nearby.

    “The fruit is in demand, but the trees did not produce much this year, so sometimes I return without filling up a single sack,” Bhitoni said. “I need five sacks to get enough money to buy a 10-kilogram (22-pound) packet of cornmeal.”

    Some individual buyers who feed a growing market for the powder in Zimbabwe’s urban areas prey on residents’ drought-induced hunger, offering cornmeal in exchange for seven 20-liter (around 4-gallon) buckets of cracked fruit, she said.

    “People have no choice because they have nothing,” said Kingstone Shero, the local councilor. “The buyers are imposing prices on us and we don’t have the capacity to resist because of hunger.”

    Le Breton sees better prices ahead as the market expands.

    “I think that the market has grown significantly, (but) I don’t think it has grown exponentially. It’s been fairly steady growth,” he said. “I believe at some point that it will increase in value as well. And at that point, then I think that the harvesters will really start to be earning some serious income from the harvesting and sale of this really truly remarkable fruit.”.

    Zimtrade, the government export agency, has lamented the low prices paid to baobab pickers and says it’s looking at partnering with rural women to set up processing plants.

    The difficult situation is likely to continue due to a lack of negotiating power by fruit pickers, some of them children, said Prosper Chitambara, a development economist based in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare.

    On a recent day, Bhitoni walked from one baobab tree to the next. She carefully examined each fruit before leaving the smaller ones for wild animals such as baboons and elephants to eat — an age-old tradition.

    “It is tough work, but the buyers don’t even understand this when we ask them to increase prices,” she said.

    ___

    For more news on Africa and development: https://apnews.com/hub/africa-pulse

    ___

    The Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Gates Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

    Source link

  • The Bank of England is widely expected to hold interest rates as inflation stays above target

    The Bank of England is widely expected to hold interest rates as inflation stays above target

    LONDON (AP) — The Bank of England is widely expected to keep interest rates unchanged on Thursday, a day after official figures showed inflation in the U.K. holding steady at an annual rate of 2.2% in August, with higher airfares offset by lower fuel costs and restaurant and hotel bills.

    Central banks around the world dramatically increased borrowing costs from near zero during the coronavirus pandemic when prices started to shoot up, first as a result of supply chain issues built up and then because of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine which pushed up energy costs. As inflation rates have fallen from multi-decade highs recently, they started cutting interest rates.

    The latest reading from the Office of National Statistics on Wednesday was in line with market predictions and means that inflation remains just above the British central bank’s goal of 2% for the second month running, having fallen in June to the target for the first time in nearly three years.

    Last month, the central bank reduced its main interest rate by a quarter-point to 5%, the first cut since the onset of the pandemic. It was a close call though with four of the nine members voting for no change.

    Later Wednesday, the U.S. Federal Reserve is expected to cut rates for the first time in four years.

    Most economists think the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee will take a pause on Thursday as some panel members have voiced ongoing worries about price rises in the crucial services sector, which accounts for around 80% of the British economy. Wednesday’s data showed that services sector inflation jumped to 5.6% in August from 5.2% in July as a result of higher airfares across European routes.

    However, they think that the bank will most likely cut again in November, in the wake of the government’s budget on Oct. 30.

    The new Labour government has said that it needs to plug a 22 billion-pound ($29 billion) hole in the public finances and has indicated that it may have to raise taxes and lower spending, which would likely weigh on the near-term outlook for the British economy and put downward pressure on inflation.

    “An interest rate cut on Thursday is looking unlikely with the majority of the Monetary Policy Committee likely to want to assess the impact of next month’s budget before deciding when to loosen policy again,” said Suren Thiru, economics director at the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.

    —
    From AP Buyline: 8 money moves to make as interest rates remain high

    Source link

  • China announces sanctions on US companies selling arms to self-ruled Taiwan

    China announces sanctions on US companies selling arms to self-ruled Taiwan

    BEIJING (AP) — China on Wednesday announced sanctions on American companies selling arms to the self-ruled island of Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its own territory and threatens to annex by force.

    Chinese state media made the announcement, citing the Foreign Ministry, but gave no details on the companies involved. Taiwan is awaiting deliveries of F-16 fighter jets, Abrams tanks and a range of missiles from the U.S.

    China has been upping its threats to attack Taiwan, whose 23 million citizens overwhelmingly favor their current status of de-facto independence. Despite their lack of formal diplomatic ties, the U.S. has long been a key provider of armaments and is legally bound to ensure the island can defend itself.

    Along with buying weapons from the U.S., Taiwan has also been reviving its domestic arms industry. A fleet of submarines is underway, while mandatory military service for men has been extended to one year.

    China has previously demanded U.S companies end cooperation with Taiwan’s armed forces, with no apparent effect.

    Source link

  • Britain’s CEO of scandal-ridden Post Office will step down next year

    Britain’s CEO of scandal-ridden Post Office will step down next year

    LONDON (AP) — The chief executive of Britain’s scandal-ridden Post Office will step down next year, the company said Wednesday, as criticism mounts over the speed of compensation payments to branch managers wrongly convicted of theft or fraud because of a faulty computer system.

    Nick Read said it has been a “great privilege” to have been chief executive of the company during an “extraordinarily challenging time for the business and for postmasters.”

    Read, who took the helm in 2019, announced in July his intention to temporarily step back from the role to give his “entire attention” to the next stage of the ongoing inquiry into what is one of the country’s biggest miscarriages of justice that saw hundreds of branch managers wrongly convicted. The next stage of the inquiry is due to begin next week.

    “There remains much to be done for this great U.K. institution but the journey to reset the relationship with postmasters is well under way and our work to support justice and redress for postmasters will continue,” said Read, who was not at the company when the miscarriages of justice took place.

    Read succeeded Paula Vennells, who has given back her Commander of the Order of the British Empire title that she received in 2019, following criticism of her actions in the top job.

    The scandal around the Horizon IT scandal has been known for years but really became headline news at the start of this year when a four-part television docudrama aired.

    The ITV show, “Mr. Bates vs the Post Office,” told the story of branch manager Alan Bates, played by Toby Jones, who has spent nearly two decades trying to expose the scandal and exonerate his peers.

    Bates said that Read “hasn’t achieved anything for the victims” during his time as chief executive.

    “It’s funny that because when I knew he’d taken seven weeks’ leave — in theory to prepare for the inquiry — I thought he’d taken seven weeks off to find a new job,” he added.

    After the Post Office introduced the Horizon information technology system 25 years ago to automate sales accounting, local managers began finding unexplained losses that bosses said they were responsible for covering.

    The Post Office maintained that Horizon, which was made by the Japanese company Fujitsu, was reliable and accused branch managers of dishonesty. Vennells, who was chief executive from 2012 to 2019, a period that included the last few years of the scandal, had for years insisted that the system was “robust” despite the hundreds of workers who said they had done nothing wrong.

    Between 2000 and 2014, more than 900 postal employees were wrongly convicted of theft, fraud and false accounting, with some imprisoned and others forced into bankruptcy.

    The number of victims is not fully known but the British government introduced legislation to reverse the convictions, brought by the Post Office itself.

    The company, which is state-owned but operates as a private business, has had a unique function whereby it can prosecute its own staff without the need to contact police or state prosecutors. However, Read has said he couldn’t imagine using it again given what happened.

    Source link

  • Sri Lanka’s plantation workers live on the margins. But politicians still want their votes

    Sri Lanka’s plantation workers live on the margins. But politicians still want their votes

    SPRING VALLEY, Sri Lanka (AP) — Whoever Sri Lanka’s next president is, Muthuthevarkittan Manohari isn’t expecting much to change in her daily struggle to feed the four children and elderly mother with whom she lives in a dilapidated room in a tea plantation.

    Both leading candidates in Saturday’s presidential election are promising to give land to the country’s hundreds of thousands of plantation workers, but Manohari says she’s heard it all before. Sri Lanka’s plantation workers are a long-marginalized group who frequently live in dire poverty, but they can swing elections by voting as a bloc.

    Mahohari and her family are descended from Indian indentured laborers who were brought in by the British during colonial rule to work on plantations that grew first coffee, and later tea and rubber. Those crops are still Sri Lanka’s leading foreign exchange earners.

    Muthuthewarkittan Manohari, a tea plantation worker, gets ready to go to work in a tea factory in Spring Valley Estate in Badulla, Sri Lanka, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)

    Image

    Muthuthewarkittan Manohari, a tea plantation worker, right, bathes her younger daughter Madubhashini, as her elder daughter Shalani, center, stands at the doorway of their small house in Spring Valley Estate in Badulla, Sri Lanka, Monday, Sept. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)

    For 200 years, the community has lived on the margins of Sri Lankan society. Soon after the country became independent in 1948, the new government stripped them of citizenship and voting rights. Around 400,000 people were deported to India under an agreement with Delhi, separating many families.

    The community fought for its rights, winning in stages until achieving full recognition as citizens in 2003.

    Over 50 countries go to the polls in 2024

    There are around 1.5 million descendants of plantation workers living in Sri Lanka today, including about 3.5% of the electorate, and some 470,000 people still live on plantations. The plantation community has the highest levels of poverty, malnutrition, anaemia among women and alcoholism in the country, and some of the lowest levels of education.

    Image

    In this combo photograph, women tea plantation workers, clockwise from top left, Kanakambige Velayudan, Kaariman Thangamma, Tharmaraj Kaladevi, Dharmawathi, Kumaralingum Kamala, and Nadaraja Chitramani pose for a photograph during a break in their work at a tea plantation in Badulla, Sri Lanka, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)

    They’re an important voting bloc, turned out by unions that double as political parties that ally with the country’s major parties.

    Despite speaking the Tamil language, they’re treated as a distinct group from the island’s indigenous Tamils, who live mostly in the north and east. Still, they suffered during the 26-year civil war between government forces and Tamil Tiger separatists. Plantation workers and their descendants faced mob violence, arrests and imprisonment because of their ethnicity.

    Most plantation workers live in crowded dwellings called “line houses,” owned by plantation companies. Tomoya Obokata, a U.N. special rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, said after a visit in 2022 that five to ten people often share a single 10-by-12-foot (3.05-by-3.6 meter) room, often without windows, a proper kitchen, running water or electricity. Several families frequently share a single basic latrine.

    There are no proper medical facilities in the plantations, and the sick are attended to by so-called estate medical assistants who do not have medical degrees.

    Image

    Tea plantation worker Muthuthewarkittan Manohari, far right, bathes her younger daughter Madubhashini outside their small living quarters in Spring Valley estate in Badulla, Sri Lanka, Monday, Sep. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)

    Image

    A tea plantation worker carries a sack of tea leaves as another plucks tea leaves at Spring Valley Estate in Badulla, Sri Lanka, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)

    Image

    Tea plantation workers weigh plucked tea leaves at Spring Valley Estate in Badulla, Sri Lanka, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)

    Image

    A tea plantation worker carries a bundle of tea leaves on her head at Spring Valley Estate in Badulla, Sri Lanka, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)

    “These substandard living conditions, combined with the harsh working conditions, represent clear indicators of forced labour and may also amount to serfdom in some instances,” Obokata wrote in a report to the U.N. high commissioner for human rights.

    The government has made some efforts to improve conditions for the planation workers, but years of fiscal crisis and the resistance of powerful plantation companies have blunted progress. Access to education has improved, and a small group of entrepreneurs, professionals and academics descended from planation workers has emerged.

    This year, the government negotiated a raise in the minimum daily wage for a plantation worker to 1,350 rupees ($4.50) per day, plus an additional dollar if a worker picks more than 22 kilos in a day. Workers say this target is almost impossible to achieve, in part because tea bushes are often neglected and grow sparsely.

    The government has built better houses for some families and the Indian government is helping to build more, said Periyasamy Muthulingam, executive director of Sri Lanka’s Institute of Social Development, which works on plantation worker rights.

    But many promises have gone unfulfilled. “All political parties have promised to build better houses during elections but they don’t implement it when they are in power,” Muthulingam said.

    Muthulingam says more than 90% of the planation community is landless because they have been left out of the government’s land distribution programs.

    Image

    Tea plantation workers at Spring Valley Estate walk past an election poster with a portrait of the Sri Lankan president Ranil Wickremesinghe, ahead of the country’s presidential election, in Badulla, Sri Lanka, Monday, Sept. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)

    Image

    Tea plantation workers cheer for their political leaders during a presidential election rally in Thalawakele, Sri Lanka, Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)

    Image

    Tea plantation workers attend a presidential election rally in Thalawakele, Sri Lanka, Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)

    In this election, sitting President Ranil Wickremesinghe standing as an independent candidate has promised to give the line houses and the land they stand on to the people who live in them, and help develop them into villages. The main opposition candidate, Sajith Premadasa, has promised to break up the plantations and distribute the land to the workers as small holdings.

    Both proposals will face resistance from the plantation companies.

    Manohari says she’s not holding out hope. She’s more concerned with what’s going to happen to her 16-year-old son after he was forced to drop out of school due to lack of funds.

    “The union leaders come every time promising us houses and land and I would like to have them,” she said. “But they never happen as promised.”

    ___

    Francis reported from Colombo, Sri Lanka.

    ___

    Find more of AP’s Asia-Pacific coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/asia-pacific

    Source link

  • Former prominent BBC news anchor gets suspended sentence for indecent images of children on phone

    Former prominent BBC news anchor gets suspended sentence for indecent images of children on phone

    LONDON (AP) — Former BBC news anchor Huw Edwards, once one of the most prominent media figures in Britain, was given a suspended prison sentence Monday for images of child sexual abuse on his phone.

    Edwards, 63, pleaded guilty in Westminster Magistrates’ Court in July to three counts of making indecent images of children, a charge related to photos sent to him on the WhatsApp messaging service by a man convicted of distributing images of child sex abuse.

    Chief Magistrate Paul Goldspring sentenced Edwards to a six-month prison term suspended for two years. He will be listed on a sex offenders register for seven years.

    “It is not an exaggeration to say your long-earned reputation is in tatters,” Goldspring said.

    Edwards’ fall from grace over the past year has caused turmoil for the BBC after it was revealed the publicly funded broadcaster paid him about 200,000 pounds ($263,000) for five months of his salary after he had been arrested in November while on leave. The BBC has asked him to pay it back.

    “We are appalled by his crimes,” the BBC said in a statement after the sentencing. “He has betrayed not just the BBC, but audiences who put their trust in him.”

    Image

    Edwards had been one of the BBC’s top earners when he was suspended in July 2023 over separate claims made last year involving a teenager he allegedly paid for sexually explicit photos. Police investigated and decided not to bring charges.

    Although Edwards was not publicly named at the time those allegations surfaced, his wife later revealed he was the news presenter investigated and said he was hospitalized for serious mental health issues.

    He never returned to the air but the BBC kept him on the payroll until he resigned in April for health reasons.

    Edwards began his BBC career in Wales four decades ago. He went on to become lead anchor on the nighttime news for two decades and led the coverage of the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022 as well as election coverage.

    The BBC said at the time of his guilty plea that it was shocked to hear the details of the charges against him.

    More than 375 sexual images were sent to him on WhatsApp between December 2020 and August 2021. More than 40 were indecent images of children, including seven classified as “category A” — the most indecent — with children estimated to be between 13 and 15. One child was aged between 7 and 9.

    In chats with Alex Williams, who was later convicted of distributing child sex abuse images, Edwards was asked if he wanted sexual images of a person whose “age could be discerned as being between 14 and 16,” and Edwards replied, “yes xxx,” prosecutor Ian Hope said.

    “From that chat in December 2020, Alex Williams said that he had ‘a file of vids and pics for you of someone special,’” Hope said.

    Edwards asked who the subject and was then sent three images that appeared to be the same person who appeared to be aged 14 to 16, Hope said.

    Williams later sent Edwards a video in February 2021 that involved two children, one possibly as young as seven and the other no older than 13, involving penetration, Hope said.

    Edwards did not respond, but when asked by Williams if the material was too young, he said, “don’t send underage.” He also said he didn’t want him to send anything illegal.

    Defense lawyer Philip Evans said Edwards was “truly sorry” for the offenses and the damage he had done to his family.

    “He apologizes sincerely and he makes it clear that he has the utmost regret and he recognizes that he has betrayed the priceless trust and faith of so many people,” Evans said.

    Evans said Williams had reached out to Edwards on Instagram at a time when he was mentally vulnerable and began sending him images. He said Edwards never received gratification from the images and hadn’t saved them or sent them to anyone.

    Hope said Edwards paid Williams “not insignificant sums of money,” as gifts that Williams used while studying at a university.

    At one point, Williams asked for a “Christmas gift after all the hot videos” he had sent. Edwards remarked that some of the images were “amazing,” Hope said.

    Williams, 25, was given a suspended 1-year sentence in March for possessing and distributing indecent images as well as possessing prohibited images of children.

    Source link

  • Leading Lebanese novelist Elias Khoury dies at 76

    Leading Lebanese novelist Elias Khoury dies at 76

    BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanese novelist Elias Khoury who dedicated much of his writings to the Palestinian cause and taught at universities around the world, making him one of Lebanon’s most prominent intellectuals, has died. He was 76.

    Khoury, a leading voice of Arab literature, had been ill for months and admitted and discharged from hospital several times over the past year until his death early Sunday, Al-Quds Al-Arabi daily that he worked for said.

    The Lebanese writer, born and raised in Beirut, was outspoken in defense of freedom of speech and harsh criticism of dictatorships in the Middle East.

    In addition to his novels, Khoury wrote articles in different Arab media outlets over the past five decades making him well known throughout the Arab world.

    Two days after the Israel-Hamas war broke out on Oct. 7, Khoury wrote an article in Al-Quds A-Arab daily titled “It’s Palestine.” Khoury wrote then that “the biggest open-air prison, the besieged Ghetto of Gaza, has launched a war against Israel, occupied settlements and forced settlers to flee.”

    Born in Beirut on July 12, 1948, Khoury had been known for his political stances from his support of Palestinians to his harsh criticism of Israel and what he called its “brutal” settling policy in Palestinian territories. He studied at the Lebanese University and later at the University of Paris, where he received a PhD in social history.

    “The Catastrophe began in 1948 and it is still going on,” he once wrote referring to Israel’s settlement policies in occupied Palestinian territories. The “nakba,” or “catastrophe” is a term used by many Arabs to describe the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians when Israel was created in 1948.

    Khoury was an outspoken supporter of Arab uprisings that broke out in the region starting in 2011 and toppled several governments.

    “The question is not why the Arab revolts broke out,” Khoury wrote after uprisings that toppled long-serving leaders such as Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and Tunisia’s Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. “The question is not how people tore down the wall of fear but how fear built Arab kingdoms of silence for five decades.”

    Khoury, who belonged to a Greek Orthodox Christian family, took part in Lebanon’s 1975-90 civil war and was wounded in one of the battles.

    From 1992 until 2009, Khoury was the editor of the cultural section of Lebanon’s leading An-Nahar newspaper. Until his death, he was the editor-in-chief of the Palestine Studies magazine, a bulletin issued by the Beirut-based Institute for Palestine Studies.

    His first novel was published in 1975, but his second, Little Mountain, which he released in 1977 and was about Lebanon’s devastating civil war was very successful.

    Bab al-Shams, or Gate of the Sun, released in 2000, was about Palestinian refugees in Lebanon since 1948. A movie about the novel was made in Egypt.

    His novels were translated to several languages including Hebrew.

    Khoury also taught at different universities including New York University, Columbia, Princeton and Houston, as well as the University of London.

    Source link

  • Workers call off protest that grounded flights at Kenya’s main airport

    Workers call off protest that grounded flights at Kenya’s main airport

    NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Kenya’s airport workers’ union has called off a strike that grounded flights in the country’s main airport on Wednesday over awarding the contract for its modernization and operations to an Indian firm.

    The decision came after a day-long talks between the union leaders and the government.

    The workers were protesting a build-and-operate agreement between the Kenyan government and India’s Adani Group that would see the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport modernized, and an additional runway and terminal constructed, in exchange for the group running the airport for 30 years.

    The union wrote on X that a return to work agreement had been signed and the union’s secretary general Moss Ndiema told journalists and workers that the union would be involved in every discussion moving forward.

    “We have not accepted Adani,” he said.

    Transport Minister Davis Chirchir told journalists that the government would protect the interests of Kenyan citizens during the quest to upgrade and modernize the main airport.

    Hundreds of workers at Kenya’s main international airport demonstrated on Wednesday as planes remained grounded, with hundreds of passengers stranded at the airport.

    Kenya Airport Workers Union, in announcing the strike, had said that the deal would lead to job losses and “inferior terms and conditions of service” for those who will remain.

    Kenya Airways on Wednesday announced there would be flight delays and possible cancellations because of the ongoing strike at the airport, which serves Nairobi.

    The strike affected local flights coming from the port city of Mombasa and the lake city of Kisumu, where delays have been reported by local media.

    At the main airport, police officers had taken up security check-in roles with long lines seen outside the departure terminals and worried passengers unable to confirm if their flights would depart as scheduled.

    The Kenya Airports Authority said in a statement that it was “engaging relevant parties to normalize operations” and urged passengers to contact their respective airlines to confirm flight status.

    The Central Organization of Trade Unions’ secretary-general, Francis Atwoli, told journalists at the airport that the strike would have been averted had the government listened to the workers.

    “This was a very simple matter where the assurance to workers in writing that our members will not lose jobs and their jobs will remain protected by the government and as is required by law and that assurance alone, we wouldn’t have been here,” he said.

    Last week, airport workers had threatened to go on strike, but the plans were called off pending discussions with the government.

    The spotting of unknown people moving around with airport officials taking notes and photographs raised concerns that the Indian firm officials were readying for the deal, local media outlets reported last week.

    The High Court on Monday temporarily halted the implementation of the deal until a case filed by the Law Society and the Kenya Human Rights Commission is heard.

    Source link

  • AP PHOTOS: Partial reopening of the Rubens House in Antwerp gives glimpse of painter’s life

    AP PHOTOS: Partial reopening of the Rubens House in Antwerp gives glimpse of painter’s life

    ANTWERP, Belgium (AP) — The city palace of Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens is partly reopening this weekend, allowing Antwerp to show off the life and work of perhaps its most famous citizen.

    The Rubens House may not have as many paintings as Madrid’s Prado museum or the canvas surface spread around the port city’s Cathedral of Our Lady. But if there is any place that Rubens himself felt more at home, it was his own house in Antwerp looking out over his garden.

    While the core of the house remains closed until at least 2030 for ongoing renovations, the dazzling new welcome center and the redesigned garden will open doors on Friday.

    What it lacks in actual paintings — a self-portrait is the only major piece on view during the renovations — it hopes to make up in atmosphere, exuding the spirit of the master who bought the house in 1610 and made it his studio and workshop, which gave birth to many of his masterpieces.

    The garden provides an outdoor space between the reception center and the main house — a route for the visitor to move between past and present and to contemplate the world of Rubens. It features nearly 17,500 plants and in a nod to Belgian fashion, Antwerp-based fashion designer Dries van Noten was consulted on the colour scheme.

    Recreating the original Rubens garden was a difficult undertaking for garden conservator Klara Alen because the original plans did not survive. One source of inspiration could be the 1640 painting by Rubens and his workshop titled “The Walk in the Garden,” which portrays him walking with his family near the garden pavilion.

    Some of his letters mention orange and lime trees and figs, said Alen. “We also poured through historical documents to see what was planted in that time, but also wanted to uncover new information and that’s where we came upon tulips.”

    “In this garden the best is yet to come,” she added. “We’ve planted more that 1,000 historical tulip bulbs that we will see in the spring.”

    The garden provides visitors with a new palette of colours for each season: the bright tulips of spring, the greens of summer and the golds of autumn. The current garden includes marigolds, roses, magnolias, figs, black oaks and a multitude of citrus trees.

    Source link

  • Police say 2 people who were attacked during London’s Notting Hill Carnival have died

    Police say 2 people who were attacked during London’s Notting Hill Carnival have died

    LONDON (AP) — Two people who were critically injured in attacks while attending London’s Notting Hill Carnival earlier this week have died, police said Saturday.

    The Metropolitan Police force said 32-year-old Cher Maximen died early Saturday after being stabbed in the street on Aug. 25. She had been visiting the carnival, billed as Europe’s biggest street party, with her child, who was not hurt.

    A 20-year-old local man was arrested and charged with attempted murder, and is now likely to face a murder charge.

    Police also announced the death of Mussie Imnetu, 41, who was found unconscious in a west London street with a head injury on Monday night. The chef had been visiting Britain from his home in Dubai.

    A 31-year-old London man has been charged with causing grievous bodily harm, and police said the charge would be reviewed after Imnetu’s death.

    More than 1 million people each year attend the carnival, a two-day celebration of Afro-Caribbean culture that takes place on the streets of the Notting Hill neighborhood in west London.

    The event draws revelers from around the world for its flamboyant dancers, colorful costumes, rousing steel bands and booming outdoor sound systems, but is sometimes marred by violence on the sidelines. Police said eight people were stabbed at the event this year and more than 300 people were arrested, most for possessing an offensive weapon or drug offenses.

    “Carnival is about bringing people together in a positive celebration. That it has ended with the tragic loss of life, among other incidents of serious violence, will sadden everyone involved,” said Commander Charmain Brenyah, the police spokesperson for Carnival.

    Source link

  • Passengers bought berths on a 3-year cruise. Months on, the ship is still stuck in Belfast

    Passengers bought berths on a 3-year cruise. Months on, the ship is still stuck in Belfast

    BELFAST, Northern Ireland (AP) — Lanette Canen and Johan Bodin gave up life on land to become seaborne nomads on a years-long cruise.

    Months later, the couple has yet to spend a night at sea. Their ship, the Odyssey, is stuck in Belfast undergoing repair work that has postponed its scheduled May departure for a 3 ½-year round-the-world voyage.

    Bodin said Friday that they have enjoyed their pit stop in the Northern Ireland capital, but “when we’d visited every pub and tried and every fish and chips place and listened to all the places that have Irish music, then we were ready to go elsewhere.”

    “We’re ready to set sail, for sure,” added Canen.

    Villa Vie Residences’ Odyssey is the latest venture in the tempest-tossed world of continuous cruising.

    It offers travelers the chance to buy a cabin and live at sea on a ship circumnavigating the globe. On its maiden voyage, it is scheduled to visit 425 ports in 147 countries on seven continents. Cabins – billed as “villas” — start at $99,999, plus a monthly fee, for the operational life of the vessel, at least 15 years. Passengers can also sign up for segments of the voyage lasting weeks or months.

    Marketing material, aimed at adventurous retirees and restless digital nomads, touts “the incredible opportunity to own a home on a floating paradise,” complete with a gym, spa, putting green, entertainment facilities, a business center and an “experiential culinary center.”

    But first, the Odyssey has to get out of the dock.

    It’s now at Belfast’s Harland & Wolff shipyard, where the doomed RMS Titanic was built more than a century ago.

    Villa Vie Residences’ marketing manager Sebastian Stokkendal said the company had been “humbled by the scale of what it takes to reactivate a 30-year-old vessel from a four-year layup.”

    He said that after work on the rudder shafts, steel work and engine overhauls, the ship is almost ready to depart.

    “We expect a very anticipated successful launch next week where we will head to Bremerhaven, Amsterdam, Lisbon, then across the Atlantic for our Caribbean segment,” he said in an email to The Associated Press.

    In the meantime, the company has been paying living expenses for about 200 passengers. They are allowed onto the ship during the day and provided with meals and entertainment, but can’t stay overnight. The cruise line has paid for hotels in Belfast and in other European cities for those who want to explore more of Europe while they wait.

    Passenger Holly Hennessey from Florida told the BBC she can’t leave Northern Ireland because of her shipmate – her cat, Captain.

    She said that at first “I thought I’d go home, or the ship sent some people to the Canary Islands. And then I found out that because I have my cat with me, I can’t even leave.”

    “I want to thank Belfast for being so welcoming to all of us,” she said.

    Bodin and Canen – a Swede and an American who met when both lived in Hawaii — have used the time to travel to Italy, Croatia and Bodin’s hometown in Sweden, where they are awaiting news of the Odyssey.

    Canen plans to run her Arizona-based auto-glass business from the ship. Bodin, a carpenter, is running a YouTube channel documenting the couple’s temporarily stalled journey.

    Built in 1993 and operated under different names by several cruise lines over the years before being becalmed by the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, the Odyssey was bought by Villa Vie Residences in 2023.

    The residential cruising business has proved a troubled one. MS The World, launched in 2002, is currently the only vessel of the type in operation. Another venture, Life at Sea, canceled its planned 3-year voyage late last year after failing to secure a ship.

    Canen and Bodin put down a deposit on Life at Sea – they got their money back – and also gambled on Victoria Cruises, another stalled venture from which they are still seeking a refund.

    But they are undeterred.

    “We might be crazy, stupid, naive or resilient,” Bodin said. “I don’t know, you can put any label on it that you want.”

    ___

    Lawless reported from London.

    Source link

  • A wish at Rome’s Trevi Fountain could soon cost more than the coin you toss

    A wish at Rome’s Trevi Fountain could soon cost more than the coin you toss

    ROME (AP) — Seemingly every tourist in Rome knows the key to returning to the Eternal City is to toss a coin into the Trevi Fountain and make a wish. The result: Hoards of visitors packing the Baroque monument any given day, taking selfies and betting on a return trip.

    Officials are now considering a plan to manage tourism to one of Rome’s most-visited sites: A 2-euro ($2.25) ticket to access an open-air fountain that has always been free of charge.

    The proposal by city’s top tourism official, Alessandro Onorato, comes after the Italian lagoon city of Venice tested a controversial 5-euro daytripper access fee to the city this summer. It must be deliberated by the City Council before it takes effect, but the city’s mayor, Roberto Gualtieri, has already voiced support.

    “Two euros is more or less the same amount that people toss into the fountain to make a wish,’’ Onorato told The Associated Press Friday.

    Cities across the globe are grappling with how to manage the ever-growing number of tourists, who fuel the economy but can create inconveniences to residents by converging on the same top sites.

    “We have to avoid, especially in a fragile art city like Rome, that too many tourists damage the tourist experience, and damage the city,’’ Onorato said. “We need to safeguard two things, that tourists don’t experience chaos and that citizens can continue to live in the center.”

    Onorato said he hopes to test the entrance fee, which would be managed through a reservation system and a QR code, in time for the 2025 Jubilee Holy Year, and have the system operational by spring.

    Passersby in the piazza overlooking the fountain will not have to pay. The fee would be charged only to those entering the nine stone steps leading up to the fountain’s edge. It would be free to Romans.

    Onorato said the system would also help discourage people from eating on the steps overlooking the fountain and feeding pigeons or, worse, from reenacting Anita Ekberg’s plunge into the fountain in Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita,” a frequently repeated offense that carries a fine.

    “It would happen less, or maybe it wouldn’t happen at all, because whoever would enter, we would know their names and where they live. It becomes more complicated,’’ he said.

    Source link

  • Faked video targeting France and UAE likely Russian despite Moscow’s links to Gulf Arab states

    Faked video targeting France and UAE likely Russian despite Moscow’s links to Gulf Arab states

    DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A fake video that ricocheted across the internet claiming tensions between France and the United Arab Emirates after Telegram CEO Pavel Durov’s detention in Paris likely came from Russia, an analysis by The Associated Press shows, despite Moscow’s efforts to maintain crucial ties to the UAE.

    It remains unclear why Russian operatives would choose to publish such a video falsely claiming the Emirates halted a French arms sale, which appears to be the first noticeable effort by Moscow to target the UAE with a disinformation campaign. The Emirates remains one of the few locations to still have direct flights to Moscow, while Russian money has flooded into Dubai’s booming real estate market since President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

    France, however, remains one of the key backers of Ukraine and its President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as the war grinds on. Meanwhile, Russia likely remains highly interested in what happens to Telegram, an app believed to be used widely by its military in the war and one that’s also been used by activists in the past. And the move comes amid concerns in the United States over Russia, Iran and China interfering in the upcoming U.S. presidential election.

    Russia’s Embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.

    The fake video began circulating online Aug. 27, bearing the logos of the Qatar-based satellite news network Al Jazeera and attempting to copy the channel’s style. It falsely claimed the Emirati government had halted a previously announced purchase of 80 Rafale fighter jets from France worth 16 billion euros ($18 billion) at the time, the largest-ever French weapons contract for export. It also sought to link Dubai’s ruler and his crown prince son to the decision, as Durov holds an Emirati passport and has lived in Dubai.

    Such a decision, however, was never made. The UAE and France maintain close relations, with the French military operating a naval base in the country. French warplanes and personnel also are stationed in a major facility outside the Emirati capital, Abu Dhabi.

    Reached for comment, Al Jazeera told the AP that the footage was “fake and we refute this attribution to the media network.” The network never aired any such claim when reporting on Durov’s detention as well, according to an AP check. On the social platform X, a note later appended by the company to some posts with the video identified it as “manipulated media.”

    The video also appeared to seek to exploit the low-level suspicion still gripping the Gulf Arab states following the yearslong Qatar diplomatic crisis by falsely attributing it to the news network. State-funded Al Jazeera has drawn criticism in the past from Gulf nations over its coverage of the 2011 Arab Spring, from the United States for airing videos from al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and most recently in Israel, where authorities closed its operation over its coverage of the war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

    The social media account that first spread the video did not respond to questions from the AP and later deleted its post. That account linked to another on the Telegram message app that repeatedly shared graphic images of dead Ukrainian soldiers and pro-Russian messages.

    Such accounts have proliferated since the war began and bear the hallmark of past Russian disinformation campaigns.

    In Ukraine, the Center for Countering Disinformation in Kyiv, a government project there focused on countering such Russian campaigns, told the AP that the account engaged in “systematic cross-quoting and reposting of content” associated with Russian state media and its government.

    That indicates the account “is aimed at an international audience for the purpose of informational influence,” the center said. It “probably belongs to the Russian network of subversive information activities abroad.”

    Other experts assessed the video to be likely Russian disinformation.

    The Emirati government declined to comment. The French Embassy in Abu Dhabi did not respond to AP’s request to comment.

    Durov is now free on 5 million euros bail after being questioned by French authorities and preliminarily charged for allegedly allowing Telegram to be used for criminal activity. He has disputed the charges and promised to step up efforts to fight criminality on the messaging app.

    Despite the video being flagged as fake online, captions and versions of the video continue to circulate, showing the challenge of trying to refute such messages. Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov just attended a meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council in Saudi Arabia attended by the UAE. Both Saudi Arabia and the UAE have mediated prisoner exchanges amid the war.

    Given those close ties, the UAE likely will or has reached out quietly to Moscow over the video, said Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, a research fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute who has long studied the region.

    “It may be that this is a part of the Russian playbook which is to seek to create wedges between political and security partners, in a bid to create divisions and sow uncertainty,” Ulrichsen said.

    “The importance of the UAE to Russia post-2022 does make it unusual, but it may be that the campaign is aimed primarily at France and that any impact on the UAE’s image and reputation is a secondary issue as far as those behind the video are concerned.”

    ___

    Associated Press writer Volodymr Yurchuk in Kyiv, Ukraine, contributed to this report.

    Source link