ReportWire

Tag: World News

  • U.S. Agent, Suspected Smuggler Killed In Shootout Off Puerto Rico Coast

    U.S. Agent, Suspected Smuggler Killed In Shootout Off Puerto Rico Coast

    [ad_1]

    WASHINGTON (AP) — A U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent and a suspected smuggler died during a shootout Thursday off the Puerto Rico coast, authorities said. Two other U.S. officers were injured.

    CBP’s Air and Marine Operations unit was on routine patrol around 8 a.m. Thursday when the shots were fired about 12 miles (19 kilometers) off the coast from Cabo Rojo, a major drug smuggling corridor for cocaine coming out of South America known as the Mona Passage, the agency said. It lies between Puerto Rico’s western coastline and the Dominican Republic.

    Three CBP Marine Interdiction Agents exchanged gunfire with two people who were aboard the suspected smuggling ship, officials said. All three agents were shot and airlifted to local hospitals in Puerto Rico.

    One of the agents was later pronounced dead. The agent’s identity was not immediately released and the condition of the other two agents was not immediately clear.

    One of the people aboard the suspected smuggling ship was also killed, officials said. The second person on that vessel was arrested.

    After the shooting, another U.S. marine interdiction crew intercepted another boat nearby, finding firearms and other contraband onboard, Customs and Border Protection said. The two people on that ship were also arrested.

    The FBI is leading the investigation into the shooting.

    Federal agents wait for news of their injured colleagues outside the Rio Piedras Medical Center in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Thursday, Nov. 17, 2022, who were airlifted from the coast of Cabo Rojo, a major drug smuggling corridor for cocaine coming out of South America known as the Mona Passage. A U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent and a suspected smuggler died during a shootout Thursday off the Puerto Rican coast, authorities said. (Courtesy of Carlos Giusti/GFR MEDIA via AP)

    Speaking to reporters in Puerto Rico, CBP spokesman Jeffrey Quiñones said it was too early to know where the vessel originated from, the nationality of its two passengers and whether it was carrying narcotics or servicing another suspected drug vessel in the Caribbean.

    Typically, drug cartels recruit poor fishermen from Colombia and Venezuela to transport large amounts of cocaine northward to the Dominican Republic where it is broken down into smaller bales and transferred at sea to waiting vessels manned by better-paid, sometimes well-armed Puerto Rican drug runners.

    Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in testimony before a Senate committee that an Air and Marine Operations agent was killed and several other agents were “gravely wounded.”

    “These are brave members of our Air and Marine Operations within U.S. Customs and Border Protection,” Mayorkas said. “So the difficulty of this job cannot be compared to the difficulty that our frontline personnel face every day. Their bravery and selfless service should be recognized.”

    Air and Marine Operations employs about 1,650 people and is one of the smaller units of CBP, the largest law enforcement agency in the United States that also includes the Border Patrol. It works to stop the illegal movement of people, drugs and other goods.

    The unit detected 218 “conventional aircraft incursions” on U.S. soil in the 2021 fiscal year, seized 1.1 million pounds of narcotics, $73.1 million in illicit currency, made more than 122,000 arrests and rescued 518 people, according to CBP.

    Goodman reported from Miami. Associated Press writer Rebecca Santana in Washington contributed to this report.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Russia-Ukraine grain deal extended in win for food prices

    Russia-Ukraine grain deal extended in win for food prices

    [ad_1]

    ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — A wartime agreement that unblocked grain shipments from Ukraine and helped temper rising global food prices will be extended by four months, the United Nations and other parties to the deal said Thursday, preventing a price shock to some of the world’s most vulnerable countries where many are struggling with hunger.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the 120-day extension a “key decision in the global fight against the food crisis.” Struck during Russia’s war in Ukraine, the initiative established a safe shipping corridor in the Black Sea and inspection procedures to address concerns that cargo vessels might carry weapons or launch attacks.

    The deal that Ukraine and Russia signed in separate agreements with the U.N. and Turkey on July 22 was due to expire Saturday. Russia confirmed the extension but said it expected progress on removing obstacles to the export of Russian food and fertilizers.

    Ukraine and Russia are key global suppliers of wheat, barley, sunflower oil and other food to countries in Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia where millions of impoverished people lack enough to eat. Russia was also the world’s top exporter of fertilizer before the war. A loss of those supplies following Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine had pushed up global food prices and fueled concerns of a hunger crisis in poorer countries.

    While the extension prevents a price shock in developing nations that spend far more on food and energy than richer countries, threats persist from droughts in places like Somalia and the weakening of currencies around the world, which makes buying imported grain more expensive.

    “I was deeply moved to know that in Istanbul, Turkey, Ukraine, Russia and the U.N. had come to an agreement for the rollover of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, allowing for the free exports of Ukrainian grains,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said.

    The Turkish Defense Ministry said the decision to extend the deal came after two days of talks in Istanbul between delegations from Turkey, Russia, Ukraine and the U.N. that were held in a “positive and constructive” atmosphere.

    Russia had voiced dissatisfaction with the deal facilitating exports of Russian grain and fertilizer, hinting that it might not approve an extension and even briefly suspending its part of the deal late last month. It cited risks to its ships following what it alleged was a Ukrainian drone attack on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.

    Although Western sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine did not target food exports, many shipping and insurance companies were reluctant to deal with Moscow, either refusing to do so or greatly increasing the price.

    Guterres said the U.N. was “fully committed” to removing hurdles to shipping food and fertilizer from Russia.

    The United Nations has been working to overcome issues related to insurance, access to ports, financial transactions and shipping for Russian vessels, according to a U.N. official who was not authorize to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. The official said the insurance issue has mainly been resolved in recent days.

    Russia has offered to donate 260,000 metric tons of fertilizer stored in European ports to farmers in the developing world who have been priced out of the fertilizer market because of shortages, and the official said the first ship is slated to leave the Netherlands on Monday for Mozambique, where the fertilizer will go by land to Malawi. Further shipments are expected from Belgium and Estonia, the official said.

    The Russian Foreign Ministry said Moscow had allowed the extension to take effect “without any changes in terms and scope.” It said Russia noted the “intensification” of U.N. efforts to hasten Russian exports.

    “All these issues must be resolved within 120 days for which the ‘package deal’ is extended,” the ministry said.

    During talks on the extension, the sides discussed possible additional measures to “deliver more grain to those in real need,” the ministry added, apparently to address Russian complaints that most of the grain has ended up in richer nations.

    Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan suggested Thursday that wheat from Russia could be turned into flour in Turkey and shipped to African nations in need.

    U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said last month that 23% of the exports from Ukraine under the grain deal have gone to lower- or lower-middle-income countries and 49% of all wheat shipments have gone to such nations.

    Markets were pleasantly surprised by the extension, said Ian Mitchell, co-director of the Europe program at the Center for Global Development who specializes in agriculture and food security. Following the announcement, wheat futures prices dropped 2.6% in Chicago.

    “Ukraine and Russia are such important grain exporters that the rest of the market can’t fully substitute for the complete absence of Ukrainian grain,” he said. “So that deal is going to matter to food prices significantly, even if the volumes are not what they were before the invasion.”

    He said, however, that uncertainty is “unhelpful in this deal.” Toward the end of the four-month extension, markets will “price in the risk that it wasn’t extended, and prices will rise a little bit again.”

    Arnaud Petit, executive director of the International Grains Council, said the Black Sea region produces some of the world’s cheapest wheat and securing those supplies prevents a price shock to developing nations.

    There have been good harvests in the region, contributing to an expected 10 million more tons of wheat worldwide compared with last year, he said. The extension means that Ukrainian farmers can plan to plant.

    Petit called the extension a building block in “an unstable region where things can change on a daily basis.”

    However, when it comes to food prices, trade movement isn’t as important as currencies around the world weakening against a strong U.S. dollar, which commodities like wheat and other grain are priced in, Petit said.

    The council calculated that for Ghana, which mainly imports its wheat from Canada, the price of wheat in dollars from Canada has been largely stable for two years. But changing into local currency translated to a 70% price hike.

    Global food prices declined about 15% from their March peak after the grain initiative was adopted in July.

    “With the delivery of more than 11 million tons of grains and foodstuffs to those in need via approximately 500 ships over the past four months, the significance and benefits of this agreement for the food supply and security of the world have become evident,” Turkey’s Erdogan said.

    ___

    Bonnell reported from London. Associated Press writers Jamey Keaten in Geneva and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed.

    ___

    Follow AP’s coverage of the food crisis at https://apnews.com/hub/food-crisis and war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Iranian who inspired ‘The Terminal’ dies at Paris airport

    Iranian who inspired ‘The Terminal’ dies at Paris airport

    [ad_1]

    PARIS (AP) — An Iranian man who lived for 18 years in Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport and whose saga loosely inspired the Steven Spielberg film “The Terminal” died Saturday in the airport that he long called home, officials said.

    Mehran Karimi Nasseri died after a heart attack in the airport’s Terminal 2F around midday, according an official with the Paris airport authority. Police and a medical team treated him but were not able to save him, the official said. The official was not authorized to be publicly named.

    Nasseri lived in the airport’s Terminal 1 from 1988 until 2006, first in legal limbo because he lacked residency papers and later by apparent choice.

    Year in and year out, he slept on a red plastic bench, making friends with airport workers, showering in staff facilities, writing in his diary, reading magazines and surveying passing travelers.

    Staff nicknamed him Lord Alfred, and he became a mini-celebrity among passengers.

    “Eventually, I will leave the airport,” he told The Associated Press in 1999, smoking a pipe on his bench, looking frail with long thin hair, sunken eyes and hollow cheeks. “But I am still waiting for a passport or transit visa.”

    Nasseri was born in 1945 in Soleiman, a part of Iran then under British jurisdiction, to an Iranian father and a British mother. He left Iran to study in England in 1974. When he returned, he said, he was imprisoned for protesting against the shah and expelled without a passport.

    He applied for political asylum in several countries in Europe. The UNHCR in Belgium gave him refugee credentials, but he said his briefcase containing the refugee certificate was stolen in a Paris train station.

    French police later arrested him, but couldn’t deport him anywhere because he had no official documents. He ended up at Charles de Gaulle in August 1988 and stayed.

    Further bureaucratic bungling and increasingly strict European immigration laws kept him in a legal no-man’s land for years.

    When he finally received refugee papers, he described his surprise, and his insecurity, about leaving the airport. He reportedly refused to sign them, and ended up staying there several more years until he was hospitalized in 2006, and later lived in a Paris shelter.

    Those who befriended him in the airport said the years of living in the windowless space took a toll on his mental state. The airport doctor in the 1990s worried about his physical and mental health, and described him as “fossilized here.” A ticket agent friend compared him to a prisoner incapable of “living on the outside.”

    In the weeks before his death, Nasseri had been again living at Charles de Gaulle, the airport official said.

    Nasseri’s mind-boggling tale loosely inspired 2004′s “The Terminal” starring Tom Hanks, as well as a French film, “Lost in Transit,” and an opera called “Flight.”

    In “The Terminal,” Hanks plays Viktor Navorski, a man who arrives at JFK airport in New York from the fictional Eastern European country of Krakozhia and discovers that an overnight political revolution has invalidated all his traveling papers. Viktor is dumped into the airport’s international lounge and told he must stay there until his status is sorted out, which drags on as unrest in Krakozhia continues.

    No information was immediately available about survivors.

    ___

    Angela Charlton in Paris contributed.

    ___

    This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Nasseri’s first name to Mehran, not Merhan.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • G-20 summit casts spotlight on Bali’s tourism revival

    G-20 summit casts spotlight on Bali’s tourism revival

    [ad_1]

    NUSA DUA, Indonesia (AP) — Bali wants the world to know it’s back.

    Dozens of world leaders and other dignitaries are traveling to the Indonesian island for the G-20 summit, drawing a welcome spotlight on the revival of the tropical destination’s vital tourism sector.

    Tourism is the main source of income on this idyllic “island of the gods,” which is renowned for its tropical beaches, terraced rice paddies, mystical temples and colorful spiritual offerings.

    The pandemic hit Bali harder than most places in Indonesia.

    Before the pandemic, 6.2 million foreigners arrived in Bali each year. Its lively tourism scene — fueled by hard-partying clubgoers, chilled surfers and spiritual bliss-seekers alike — faded after the first case of COVID-19 was found in Indonesia in March 2020. Restaurants and resorts shut and many workers returned to their villages to try to get by.

    Foreign tourist arrivals dropped to only 1 million in 2020, mostly in the first few months of the year, and then to a few dozen in 2021, according to government data. More than 92,000 people employed in tourism lost their jobs and the average occupancy rate of Bali hotels fell below 20%.

    The island’s economy contracted 9.3% in 2020 from the year before and shrank further in 2021.

    “The coronavirus outbreak has hammered the local economy horribly,” said Dewa Made Indra, regional secretary of Bali province. “Bali is the region with the most severe economic contraction.”

    The island is home to more than 4 million people, who are mainly Hindu in the mostly Muslim archipelago nation.

    After closing to all visitors early in the pandemic, Bali reopened to Indonesians from other parts of the country in mid-2020. That helped, but then a surge of cases in July 2021 again emptied the island’s normally bustling beaches and streets. Authorities restricted public activities, closed the airport and shuttered all shops, bars, sit-down restaurants, tourist attractions and many other places on the island.

    Monkeys deprived of their preferred food source — bananas, peanuts and other goodies given to them by tourists — took to raiding villagers’ homes in their search for something tasty.

    The island reopened to domestic travelers a month later, in August, but in all of 2021 only 51 foreign tourists visited.

    Things are looking much better now. Shops and restaurants in places like Nusa Dua, a resort area where the G-20 meeting is being held, and in other towns like Sanur and Kuta have reopened, though business is slow and many businesses and hotels are still closed or have scaled back operations.

    The reopening of Bali’s airport to international flights and now the thousands coming for the G-20 summit and other related events have raised hopes for a stronger turnaround, Dewa said.

    More than 1.5 million foreign tourists and 3.1 million domestic travelers had visited Bali as of October this year.

    Embracing a push toward more sustainable models of tourism, Bali has rolled out a digital nomad visa program, called the “second home visa” and due to take effect in December. It’s also among 20 destinations Airbnb recently announced it was partnering with for remote work, also including places in the Caribbean and the Canary Islands.

    The recovery will likely take time, even if COVID-19 is kept at bay.

    Gede Wirata, who had to lay off most of the 4,000 people working in his hotels, restaurants, clubs and a cruise ship during the worst of the pandemic, found that when it came time to rehire them many had found jobs overseas or in other travel businesses.

    The G-20 is a welcome boost. “This is an opportunity for us to rise again from the collapse,” he said.

    There’s a way to go.

    “The situation has not yet fully recovered, but whatever the case, life has to go on,” said Wayan Willy, who runs a tourist agency in Bali with some friends. Before the pandemic, most of their clients were from overseas. Now it’s mostly domestic tourists. But even those are few and far between.

    Bali has suffered greatly in the past. At times, the island’s majestic volcanos have rumbled to life, at times erupting or belching ash.

    The dark cloud of the suicide bombings in Bali’s beach town of Kuta that killed 202 mostly foreign tourists in 2002 lingered for years, devastating tourism on the island usually known for its peace and tranquility.

    Recent torrential rains brought floods and landslides in some areas, adding to the burdens for communities working to rebuild their tourism businesses.

    When the situation started to improve, Yuliani Djajanegara, who runs a business making traditional beauty items like massage oils, natural soaps and aromatherapy products under the brand name Bali Tangi, got back to work.

    She had closed her factory in 2020 when orders from hotels, spas and salons in the U.S., Europe, Russia and the Maldives dried up, taking orders for her products from more than 1,000 kilograms (1 ton) to almost nothing.

    So far, Djajanegara has rehired 15 of the 60 workers she had been obliged to lay off during the dark days of the pandemic.

    She’s hopeful, but cautious.

    “Tourism in Bali is like a sand castle,” Djajanegara said. “It is beautiful, but it can be washed away by the waves.”

    ___

    AP Business Writer Elaine Kurtenbach contributed to this report.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Amid the war ruins in Ukraine, Banksy seeds art

    Amid the war ruins in Ukraine, Banksy seeds art

    [ad_1]

    BORODYANKA, Ukraine (AP) — Amid the ruins of war, the flowerings of art.

    A delicate painting of a gymnast doing a handstand has popped up on the wall of a wrecked building outside of Kyiv and appears to be the work of the British graffiti artist known as Banksy.

    Banksy posted photos on his Instagram page of the artwork in Borodyanka, northwest of Ukraine’s capital.

    The town was the target of shelling and fighting in the early stages of the Russian invasion, which turned apartment buildings into charred, bombed-out hulks.

    The mural of the gymnast is in black and white and is painted so she looks like she is doing her handstand on the crumpled remains of concrete blocks that poke out of the blackened wall. Towering above her are the gutted, blown-apart innards of what were once apartments.

    Another mural in the town — of a small boy doing a judo throw on a man — also looked like it might be Banksy’s, although that wasn’t posted on his Instagram page.

    President Vladimir Putin of Russia is a judo practitioner.

    A Banksy-like painting, also in black and white and again not confirmed as his by Banksy himself, also appeared on the wall of a war-damaged building in the town of Irpin, on Kyiv’s northwestern outskirts.

    It shows a rhythmic gymnast doing a pirouette with a ribbon, over a gaping hole in the wall.

    ___

    Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Ethiopia, Tigray military leaders agree on peace roadmap

    Ethiopia, Tigray military leaders agree on peace roadmap

    [ad_1]

    NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Top military commanders from Ethiopia and its embattled Tigray region have agreed to allow unhindered humanitarian access to the region and form a joint disarmament committee following last week’s truce.

    The commanders, who since Monday have been meeting in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi, signed an agreement Saturday that they said calls for disengagement from all forms of military activities.

    Both parties have agreed to protect civilians and facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid to the region of more than 5 million people, according to a copy of the agreement seen by The Associated Press.

    The agreement states that disarmament will be “done concurrently with the withdrawal of foreign and non-(Ethiopian military) forces” from Tigray.

    The lead negotiator for Ethiopia, Redwan Hussein, told the AP that Saturday’s signing event created a conductive environment for ongoing peace efforts, noting that the next meeting of military leaders will “most likely” be held in Tigray in mid-December before a final meeting in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, in January.

    In a separate statement late Saturday, Ethiopia’s federal authorities said that “efforts are being made to deliver humanitarian assistance to most of the Tigray region which is under (Ethiopian military) command.”

    That statement noted that representatives of Ethiopian and Tigrayan militaries meeting in Kenya discussed “detailed plans for disarmament” of Tigray forces, including an agreement on the entry of Ethiopian forces into the Tigrayan capital of Mekele.

    The African Union-led talks in Nairobi followed the cessation of hostilities agreement signed by Ethiopia and Tigray leaders in South Africa last week.

    Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, who is helping to facilitate the talks, said Saturday that “humanitarian aid should have resumed like yesterday.” Former Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta, who is also involved in the talks, thanked the commanders for their commitment to peace.

    The Tigray conflict began in November 2020, less than a year after Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for making peace with Eritrea, which borders the Tigray region and whose fighters have been fighting alongside Ethiopian federal troops in Tigray.

    Eritrea is not explicitly mentioned in the peace papers, and a diplomat who attended the talks in Nairobi said the issue of Eritrea was a sticking point this week.

    The brutal fighting in Tigray, which spilled into Amhara and Afar regions as Tigrayan forces tried to break the military blockade of their region, reignited in August after months of lull that allowed thousands of trucks carrying humanitarian aid into Tigray.

    The war in Africa’s second-most populous country, which marked two years on Nov. 4, has seen abuses documented on both sides, with millions of people displaced and many near famine.

    Phone and internet connections to Tigray are still down, and foreign journalists and human rights researchers remain barred, complicating efforts to verify reports of ongoing violence in the region.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Brazil will be climate leader, says ex-minister Marina Silva

    Brazil will be climate leader, says ex-minister Marina Silva

    [ad_1]

    SHARM el-SHEIKH, Egypt (AP) — Marina Silva, a former environmental minister and potential candidate for the job again, on Saturday brought a message to the U.N. climate summit: Brazil is back when it comes to protecting the Amazon rainforest, the largest in the world and crucial to limiting global warming.

    The recent election of leftist President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva represents a potentially huge shift in how Brazil manages the forest compared to current President Jair Bolsonaro. Da Silva was expected next week to attend the conference known as COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.

    Silva said the fact that da Silva was coming to the summit, months before he assumes power Jan. 1, was an indication of the commitment of his administration to protect forests and take a leadership role on combating climate change. Da Silva was expected to meet with several heads of delegations.

    “Brazil will return to the protagonist role it previously had when it comes to climate, to biodiversity,” said Silva, who spoke with reporters at the Brazilian Climate Hub.

    Bolsonaro, who was elected in 2018, pushed development of the Amazon, both in his actions and rhetoric. Environmental agencies were weakened and he appointed forest managers from the agribusiness sector. The sector opposes the creation of protected areas such as Indigenous territories and pushes for the legalization of land robbing. The deforested area in Brazil’s Amazon reached a 15-year high from August 2020 to July 2021, according to official figures. Satellite monitoring shows the trend this year is on track to surpass last year.

    Upon winning the October elections, da Silva, president between 2003 and 2010, promised to overhaul Bolsonaro’s policies and move toward completely stopping deforestation, referred to as “Deforestation Zero.”

    That will be a huge task. While much of the world celebrates policies that protect the rainforest in Brazil and other countries in South America, there are myriad forces pushing for development, including among many Amazon dwellers. And Da Silva, while much more focused on environmental protection compared to Bolsonaro, had a mixed record as president. Deforestation dropped dramatically during the decade after Da Silva took power, with Marina Silva as environment minister. But in his second term, Da Silva began catering to agribusiness interests, and in 2008 Marina Silva resigned.

    In recent weeks, news reports in Brazil have focused on a possible alliance between Brazil, the Congo and Indonesia, home to the largest tropical forests in the world. Given the moniker “OPEC of the Forests,” in reference to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and the way they regulate oil production, the general idea would be for these three countries to coordinate their negotiating positions and practices on forest management and biodiversity protection. The proposal was initially floated during last year’s climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, according to the reports.

    When asked for details on any alliance, including whether it might be announced during the second week of the summit, Silva demurred, making clear that any such announcement wasn’t hers to make.

    “We don’t want to be isolated in our protection of forests,” she said more generally, adding that Brazil wanted forest management to be coordinated among “mega forest countries” but wouldn’t try to impose its will.

    Silva won a seat in Congress in October’s elections. A former childhood rubber-tapper who worked closely with murdered environmentalist Chico Mendes, she has moral authority when it comes to environmental issues and is one of a handful of people talked about as a possible minister in da Silva’s government.

    While making clear she was not speaking for the president-elect, Silva shared details of what she thought would be part of the next administration. She said Brazil would not take the position that it “had to be paid” to protect its forests, a position that Bolsonaro’s administration has taken.

    Brazil would not focus on the kinds of large energy projects that it did during da Silva’s first terms, like a major hydropower dam, but instead would focus on a shift to renewable energies like solar. Along the same lines, she said there would be a push to transition state oil company Petrobras from a focus on oil to a focus on renewable energies.

    “We need to use those (oil) resources, which are still needed, to do a transition to other forms of energy and not perpetuate the model” of a company focus on oil, she said.

    Silva said Brazil would participate in carbon offsets markets, but that they needed to have “rigorous” oversight, something that arguably isn’t the case currently. Such carbon credits allow companies and countries to offset some of their carbon emissions by paying for activities that capture carbon, like planting trees.

    Silva also said she had proposed a government body to focus on climate change, which presumably would be in addition to the environmental ministry. She said the idea would be to have close regulation of climatic changes so things could be addressed in real time, such as greenhouse gas leaks, or weaknesses in climate policy. She made a comparison to the way that governments always keep a close watch on inflation.

    “The idea is to avoid climate inflation,” she said.

    ____

    Associated Press writer Diane Jeantet contributed to this story from Rio de Janeiro.

    ____

    Peter Prengaman, the AP’s climate and environment news director, was Brazil news director between 2016 and 2019. Follow him on Twitter: twitter.com/peterprengaman

    ____

    Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Iranian who inspired ‘The Terminal’ dies at Paris airport

    Iranian who inspired ‘The Terminal’ dies at Paris airport

    [ad_1]

    PARIS (AP) — An Iranian man who lived for 18 years in Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport and whose saga loosely inspired the Steven Spielberg film “The Terminal” died Saturday in the airport that he long called home, officials said.

    Mehran Karimi Nasseri died after a heart attack in the airport’s Terminal 2F around midday, according an official with the Paris airport authority. Police and a medical team treated him but were not able to save him, the official said. The official was not authorized to be publicly named.

    Nasseri lived in the airport’s Terminal 1 from 1988 until 2006, first in legal limbo because he lacked residency papers and later by apparent choice.

    Year in and year out, he slept on a red plastic bench, making friends with airport workers, showering in staff facilities, writing in his diary, reading magazines and surveying passing travelers.

    Staff nicknamed him Lord Alfred, and he became a mini-celebrity among passengers.

    “Eventually, I will leave the airport,” he told The Associated Press in 1999, smoking a pipe on his bench, looking frail with long thin hair, sunken eyes and hollow cheeks. “But I am still waiting for a passport or transit visa.”

    Nasseri was born in 1945 in Soleiman, a part of Iran then under British jurisdiction, to an Iranian father and a British mother. He left Iran to study in England in 1974. When he returned, he said, he was imprisoned for protesting against the shah and expelled without a passport.

    He applied for political asylum in several countries in Europe. The UNHCR in Belgium gave him refugee credentials, but he said his briefcase containing the refugee certificate was stolen in a Paris train station.

    French police later arrested him, but couldn’t deport him anywhere because he had no official documents. He ended up at Charles de Gaulle in August 1988 and stayed.

    Further bureaucratic bungling and increasingly strict European immigration laws kept him in a legal no-man’s land for years.

    When he finally received refugee papers, he described his surprise, and his insecurity, about leaving the airport. He reportedly refused to sign them, and ended up staying there several more years until he was hospitalized in 2006, and later lived in a Paris shelter.

    Those who befriended him in the airport said the years of living in the windowless space took a toll on his mental state. The airport doctor in the 1990s worried about his physical and mental health, and described him as “fossilized here.” A ticket agent friend compared him to a prisoner incapable of “living on the outside.”

    In the weeks before his death, Nasseri had been again living at Charles de Gaulle, the airport official said.

    Nasseri’s mind-boggling tale loosely inspired 2004′s “The Terminal” starring Tom Hanks, as well as a French film, “Lost in Transit,” and an opera called “Flight.”

    In “The Terminal,” Hanks plays Viktor Navorski, a man who arrives at JFK airport in New York from the fictional Eastern European country of Krakozhia and discovers that an overnight political revolution has invalidated all his traveling papers. Viktor is dumped into the airport’s international lounge and told he must stay there until his status is sorted out, which drags on as unrest in Krakozhia continues.

    No information was immediately available about survivors.

    ___

    Angela Charlton in Paris contributed.

    ___

    This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Nasseri’s first name to Mehran, not Merhan.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Climate protests criticized; but Germany missing 2030 goal

    Climate protests criticized; but Germany missing 2030 goal

    [ad_1]

    BERLIN (AP) — German officials urged environmental activists to engage in “constructive” protests and avoid endangering lives Friday as government-appointed experts warned that the key European Union country risks missing its climate targets for 2030.

    A heated debate has broken out over activists’ methods after road blockades caused by a Monday protest delayed a specialist rescue crew from reaching a cyclist fatally injured in a traffic accident in Berlin. Some German media declared the protesters “shared the blame” for the woman’s death.

    Climate activists also were criticized for gluing themselves to a dinosaur exhibit, throwing food over valuable paintings and spraying political party offices with paint.

    German Chancellor Olaf Scholz “supports all democratic engagement, and we have repeatedly stressed that in connection with the climate protests,” Wolfgang Buechner, the chancellor’s spokesperson, told reporters. “But the form of protest that we are seeing now, this week in particular, is not effective or constructive.”

    Buechner noted Scholz had stressed Monday that protests must not lead to endangering other people.

    “People’s lives must not be endangered, and so we do not accept this form of protest,” Buechner said, urging instead protests that unite society to work for faster climate change.

    The chancellor’s spokesman insisted that protecting the climate was “the central concern” of the German government and said it was already working hard on “ambitious” policy aims.

    “Our aim is very clear: We, as the whole German government, want to implement effective climate policy, and we are making that clear with our determination to act,” he said.

    Europe’s biggest economy wants to slash greenhouse gas emissions by at least 65% from 1990 levels by 2030 and has plans in place to sharply boost renewable energy production while phasing out fossil fuels.

    But the government’s own advisers cast doubt Friday on Germany’s ability to meet that target, saying the country needs to reduce its emissions twice as fast as the yearly average from over the past decade. In some sectors, such as industry and transportation, the cuts would need to be 10 times higher or more, the five-member panel said.

    Its chair, Hans-Martin Henning of the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems, said Germany’s efforts to improve energy efficiency were being undone by higher consumption, such as from larger homes and increased mobility.

    The panel’s findings are a blow to Germany’s green credentials ahead of this year’s U.N. climate talks in Egypt, which start next week.

    Facing an energy crunch as a result of Russia’s war on Ukraine, the German government announced plans to reactivate old oil and coal-fired power stations, import more liquefied natural gas and extract more coal from its own mines, angering climate activists.

    The government insists the measures are temporary and the overall shift to clean energy will be accelerated. On Thursday, Germany inked a preliminary deal to buy more natural gas from Egypt and to help the North African nation develop production facilities for hydrogen.

    Germany has also tried to make up for its own high historical emissions by helping countries that are now bearing the brunt of global warming’s impacts. The government said Friday that it would provide Peru with about 352 million euros ($345 million) to help the Latin American nation improve its public transit system and to combat deforestation in the Amazon.

    Activists from the group Uprising of the Last Generation, which staged the museum protests and road blockades, expressed sadness at the cyclists’s death Friday, but said they would continue to protest until the German government does enough to tackle the climate crisis.

    The Germany daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung on Friday cited a confidential report by the emergency doctor at the scene of the crash stating that the delayed arrival of the specialist crew made no difference to the victim’s medical treatment.

    ___

    Follow AP’s coverage of climate issues at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Twitter users can soon get blue check for $7.99 monthly fee

    Twitter users can soon get blue check for $7.99 monthly fee

    [ad_1]

    SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Twitter has announced a subscription service for $7.99 a month that includes a blue check now given only to verified accounts as new owner Elon Musk works to overhaul the platform’s verification system just ahead of U.S. midterm elections.

    In an update to Apple iOS devices available in the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the U.K., Twitter said users who “sign up now” for the new “Twitter Blue with verification” can receive the blue check next to their names “just like the celebrities, companies and politicians you already follow.”

    But Twitter employee Esther Crawford tweeted Saturday that the “new Blue isn’t live yet — the sprint to our launch continues but some folks may see us making updates because we are testing and pushing changes in real-time.” Verified accounts did not appear to be losing their checks so far.

    It was not immediately clear when the subscription would go live. Crawford told The Associated Press in a Twitter message that it is coming “soon but it hasn’t launched yet.” Twitter did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

    Anyone being able to get the blue check could lead to confusion and the rise of disinformation ahead of Tuesday’s elections, but Musk tweeted Saturday in response to a question about the risk of impostors impersonating verified profiles — such as politicians and election officials — that “Twitter will suspend the account attempting impersonation and keep the money!”

    “So if scammers want to do this a million times, that’s just a whole bunch of free money,” he said.

    But many fear widespread layoffs that began Friday could gut the guardrails of content moderation and verification on the social platform that public agencies, election boards, police departments and news outlets use to keep people reliably informed.

    The change will end Twitter’s current verification system, which was launched in 2009 to prevent impersonations of high-profile accounts such as celebrities and politicians. Twitter now has about 423,000 verified accounts, many of them rank-and-file journalists from around the globe that the company verified regardless of how many followers they had.

    Experts have raised grave concerns about upending the platform’s verification system that, while not perfect, has helped Twitter’s 238 million daily users determine whether accounts they get information from are authentic. Current verified accounts include celebrities, athletes and influencers, along with government agencies and politicians worldwide, journalists and news outlets, activists, businesses and brands, and Musk himself.

    “He knows the blue check has value, and he’s trying to exploit it quickly,” said Jennifer Grygiel, a social media expert and associate professor of communications at Syracuse University. “He needs to earn the trust of the people before he can sell them anything. Why would you buy a car from a salesman that you know has essentially proved to be chaotic?”

    The update Twitter made to the iOS version of its app does not mention verification as part of the new blue check system. So far, the update is not available on Android devices.

    Musk, who had earlier said he wants to “verify all humans” on Twitter, has floated that public figures would be identified in ways other than the blue check. Currently, for instance, government officials are identified with text under names stating they are posting from an official government account.

    President Joe Biden’s @POTUS account, for example, says in gray letters it belongs to a “United States government official.”

    Seven-time Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton, who has 7.8 million Twitter followers, told the AP, “I could actually just delete my Twitter account, I never use it. I find it really healthy to delete social media from my phone for periods of time.”

    “But it’s also a really powerful tool to connect with people, so I appreciate that and I try to use it as that and not as something that’s veering me off course of the journey that I’m on in life,” he said.

    The announcement comes a day after Twitter began laying off workers to cut costs and as more companies are pausing advertising on the platform as a cautious corporate world waits to see how the platform will operate under its new owner.

    About half of the company’s staff of 7,500 was let go, tweeted Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of safety and integrity.

    He said the company’s front-line content moderation staff was the group the least affected by the job cuts and that “efforts on election integrity — including harmful misinformation that can suppress the vote and combatting state-backed information operations — remain a top priority.”

    Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey took blame for the job losses.

    “I own the responsibility for why everyone is in this situation: I grew the company size too quickly,” he tweeted Saturday. “I apologize for that.”

    Musk tweeted late Friday that there was no choice but to cut jobs “when the company is losing over $4M/day.” He did not provide details on the daily losses at Twitter and said employees who lost their jobs were offered three months’ pay as severance.

    He also said Twitter has already seen “a massive drop in revenue” as advertisers face pressure from activists to get off the platform, which heavily relies on advertising to make money.

    United Airlines on Saturday became the latest major brand to pause advertising on Twitter, joining companies including General Motors, REI, General Mills and Audi.

    Musk tried to reassure advertisers last week, saying Twitter would not become a “free-for-all hellscape” because of what he calls his commitment to free speech.

    But concerns remain about whether a lighter touch on content moderation at Twitter will result in users sending out more offensive tweets. That could hurt companies’ brands if their advertisements appear next to them.

    U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk on Saturday urged Musk to “ensure human rights are central to the management of Twitter.” In an open letter, Türk said reports that the company’s whole human rights team and much of the ethical AI team were laid off was not “an encouraging start.”

    “Like all companies, Twitter needs to understand the harms associated with its platform and take steps to address them,” Türk said. “Respect for our shared human rights should set the guardrails for the platform’s use and evolution.”

    Meanwhile, Twitter cannot simply cut costs to grow profits, and Musk needs to find ways to raise more revenue, said Dan Ives, an analyst with Wedbush. But that may be easier said than done with the new subscription program for blue checks.

    “Users have gotten this for free,” Ives said. “There may be massive pushback.”

    He expects 20% to 25% of Twitter’s verified users to sign up initially. The stakes are high for Musk and Twitter to get this right early and for signups to work smoothly, he added.

    “You don’t have a second chance to make a first impression,” Ives said. “It’s been a train-wreck first week for Musk owning the Twitter platform. Now you’ve cut 50% (of the workforce). There are questions about just the stability of the platform, and advertisers are watching this with a keen eye.”

    ___

    AP Business Writer Stan Choe in New York and Associated Press Writer Jenna Fryer in Charlotte, N.C., contributed to this story.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • EXPLAINER: Qatar’s vast wealth helps it host FIFA World Cup

    EXPLAINER: Qatar’s vast wealth helps it host FIFA World Cup

    [ad_1]

    DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Qatar is home to some 2.9 million people, but only a small fraction — around one in 10 — are Qatari citizens. They enjoy massive wealth and benefits fueled by Qatar’s shared control of one of the world’s largest reserves of natural gas.

    The tiny country on the eastern tip of the Arabian Peninsula juts out into the Persian Gulf. There lies the North Field, the world’s largest underwater gas field, which Qatar shares with Iran. The gas field holds approximately 10% of the world’s known natural gas reserves.​

    Oil and gas have made the 50-year-old country fantastically wealthy and influential. In a matter of decades, Qatar’s roughly 300,000 citizens have been pulled from the hard livelihood of fishing and pearl diving.

    The country is now an international transit hub with a profitable national airline, a force behind the influential Al Jazeera news network and is paying for the expansion of the largest U.S. military base in the Mideast.

    Here’s a look at Qatar’s economy and how this tiny country was able to spend so much to host the FIFA World Cup:

    QATAR’S ECONOMIC STRENGTH

    For most of its existence, the tribes of Qatar relied on pearl diving and fishing for survival. Like other parts of the Gulf, it was a harsh and bare existence. The discovery of oil and gas in the mid-20th century changed life in the Arabian Peninsula forever.

    While much of the world grapples with recession and inflation, Qatar and other Gulf Arab energy producers are reaping the benefits of high energy prices. The International Monetary Fund expects Qatar’s economy to grow by about 3.4% this year.

    Despite a massive spending spree to prepare for the World Cup, the country still earned more than it spent last year, giving it a cushy surplus that is continuing into 2022. Qatar’s riches are likely to grow as it expands capacity to be able to export more natural gas by 2025.

    Its sovereign wealth fund, the Qatar Investment Authority, manages and invests the country’s financial reserves.

    QATAR’S WORLD CUP SPENDING

    Qatar has spent some $200 billion on infrastructure and other development projects since winning the bid to host the five-week long World Cup, according to official statements and a report from Deloitte.

    Around $6.5 billion of that was spent on building eight stadiums for the tournament, including the Al Janoub stadium designed by the late acclaimed architect Zaha Hadid.

    Billions were also spent to build a metro line, new airport, roads and other infrastructure ahead of the matches.

    The London-based research firm Capital Economics said ticket sales suggest that around 1.5 million tourists will visit Qatar for the World Cup. If each visitor stayed for 10 days and spent $500 a day, spending per visitor would amount to $5,000, the research firm said. That could amount to a $7.5 billion boost to Qatar’s economy this year. However, some fans may fly in just for the matches while staying in nearby Dubai and elsewhere.

    QATAR’S LAVISH BENEFITS

    Like other rich petro-states in the Gulf, Qatar is not a democracy. Decisions are made by the ruling Al Thani family and its chose advisors. Citizens have little say in their country’s major policy decisions.

    The government, however, provides citizens with vast perks that have helped to ensure continued loyalty and support. Qatari citizens enjoy tax-free incomes, high-paying government jobs, free health care, free higher education, financial support for newlyweds, housing support, generous subsidies that cover utility bills and plush retirement benefits.

    The country’s citizens rely on laborers from other countries to fill jobs in the service sector, such as drivers and nannies, and to do the tough construction work that built modern-day Qatar.

    QATAR’S MIGRANT LABOR FORCE

    The country has faced intense scrutiny for its labor laws and treatment of hundreds of thousands of migrant workers, mostly from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal and other South Asian countries. These men live in shared rooms on labor camps and work throughout the long summer months, with just a few hours of midday respite. They often go years without seeing their families back home.

    The work is often dangerous, with Amnesty International saying dozens may have died from apparent heat stroke.

    Rights groups have credited Qatar with improving its labor laws, such as by adopting a minimum monthly wage of around $275 in 2020, and for dismantling the “kafala” system that had prevented workers from changing jobs or leaving the country without the consent of their employers.

    Human Rights Watch, however has urged Qatar to improve compensation for migrant workers who suffered injury, death and wage theft while working on World Cup-related projects.

    ___

    Follow Aya Batrawy on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ayaelb.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • England’s coach encourages gay soccer players to come out

    England’s coach encourages gay soccer players to come out

    [ad_1]

    ROME (AP) — England coach Gareth Southgate hopes that gay soccer players “come out soon” because “it would have an enormous impact on society,” he said in an interview with an Italian newspaper published on Saturday.

    “The teams and players wouldn’t have any problem with it,” Southgate told La Repubblica ahead of this month’s World Cup in Qatar. “They would accept and embrace their teammates after a coming out. But footballers are afraid of the reactions outside and from the fans.

    “I experienced it with Thomas Hitzlsperger at Aston Villa: I didn’t think he was gay and when he announced it, it was something completely normal,” he said of the former Germany international, who came out as gay after he retired from playing.

    Southgate and Hitzlsperger were teammates at Villa in the early 2000s.

    “European teams have never been as tolerant, multicultural and multi-religious as they are today,” Southgate said in comments that were published in Italian. “Of course there will always be homophobes on the outside. But I hope gay players come out soon because it would have an enormous impact on society.”

    Gay rights have become an issue for the World Cup since same-sex relations are criminalized in the conservative Gulf nation.

    England will wear the “OneLove” anti-discrimination captain’s armband at the World Cup.

    At least 10 European nations committed to promote inclusion and campaign against discrimination this season and eight of them have qualified for Qatar.

    Southgate was asked if the armband initiative will be enough to raise awareness about human rights issues in Qatar, with the treatment of migrant workers who built venues for the World Cup a decade-long controversy.

    “We need to be realists about the goals we want to achieve,” the coach said. “I’ve been to Qatar three times and all the workers have told me clearly that they want the World Cup because it’s a vehicle for change.

    “We need to respect a country with a different culture, religion and traditions. But at the same time we have the responsibility and the possibility to shed light on aspects that can be improved. That could make a big difference.”

    England plays Iran in its opening match in Qatar on Nov. 21 before also facing the United States and Wales in Group B.

    ___

    AP World Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/world-cup and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • 100-Year-Old Community Forced To Move As Caribbean Island Sinks Amid Climate Change

    100-Year-Old Community Forced To Move As Caribbean Island Sinks Amid Climate Change

    [ad_1]

    The 1,200 indigenous Guna people on the island of Gardi Sugdub in Panama can’t hang on much longer. They’re moving next year to the mainland because their land is being inundated by the rising Caribbean amid climate change.

    They’ll become the first residents of Latin America to be moved by the government because their island — home to a community for 100 years — is fated to disappear beneath the rising sea, The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.

    “When the tide goes up, the water enters some houses and the people have to move their belongings to higher ground,” said local grade school computer science teacher Pragnaben Mohan. Teachers and students have to wear rubber boots to wade through water to classrooms, he said.

    The move to modern homes in the new community of La Barriada late next year has been planned for more than a decade, according to the Journal.

    Gardi Sugdub is one of 365 islands, most of them uninhabited, in the San Blas archipelago. Some 39 of the islands were settled more than a century-and-half ago by 30,000 Guna, who came from the Colombian and Panamanian mainland.

    Serious problems for the other islands are on the horizon. Many of them will likely be under water by 2050, experts say.

    “Based on current sea-level rise predictions, it is almost certain that within the next 20 years the Guna will have to start leaving these islands, and by the end of the century, most will probably have to be abandoned,” Steven Paton, the director of the physical monitoring program at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, told the Journal.

    “Little by little, all of the Guna will have to move,” said Ligia Castro, who’s in charge of climate-change policy at Panama’s environmental ministry. “At least we have time from now to 2050 to move them slowly to the mainland.”

    Check out the full Wall Street Journal story here.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Christian monastery possibly pre-dating Islam found in UAE

    Christian monastery possibly pre-dating Islam found in UAE

    [ad_1]

    SINIYAH ISLAND, United Arab Emirates (AP) — An ancient Christian monastery possibly dating as far back as the years before Islam spread across the Arabian Peninsula has been discovered on an island off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, officials announced Thursday.

    The monastery on Siniyah Island, part of the sand-dune sheikhdom of Umm al-Quwain, sheds new light on the history of early Christianity along the shores of the Persian Gulf. It marks the second such monastery found in the Emirates, dating back as many as 1,400 years — long before its desert expanses gave birth to a thriving oil industry that led to a unified nation home to the high-rise towers of Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

    The two monasteries became lost to history in the sands of time as scholars believe Christians slowly converted to Islam as that faith grew more prevalent in the region.

    Today, Christians remain a minority across the wider Middle East, though Pope Francis arrived in nearby Bahrain on Thursday to promote interfaith dialogue with Muslim leaders.

    For Timothy Power, an associate professor of archaeology at the United Arab Emirates University who helped investigate the newly discovered monastery, the UAE today is a “melting pot of nations.”

    “The fact that something similar was happening here a 1,000 years ago is really remarkable and this is a story that deserves to be told,” he said.

    The monastery sits on Siniyah Island, which shields the Khor al-Beida marshlands in Umm al-Quwain, an emirate some 50 kilometers (30 miles) northeast of Dubai along the coast of the Persian Gulf. The island, whose name means “flashing lights” likely due to the effect of the white-hot sun overhead, has a series of sandbars coming off of it like crooked fingers. On one, to the island’s northeast, archaeologists discovered the monastery.

    Carbon dating of samples found in the monastery’s foundation date between 534 and 656. Islam’s Prophet Muhammad was born around 570 and died in 632 after conquering Mecca in present-day Saudi Arabia.

    Viewed from above, the monastery on Siniyah Island’s floor plan suggests early Christian worshippers prayed within a single-aisle church at the monastery. Rooms within appear to hold a baptismal font, as well as an oven for baking bread or wafers for communion rites. A nave also likely held an altar and an installation for communion wine.

    Next to the monastery sits a second building with four rooms, likely around a courtyard — possibly the home of an abbot or even a bishop in the early church.

    On Thursday, the site saw a visit from Noura bint Mohammed al-Kaabi, the country’s culture and youth minister, as well as Sheikh Majid bin Saud Al Mualla, the chairman of the Umm al-Quwain’s Tourism and Archaeology Department and a son of the emirate’s ruler.

    The island remains part of the ruling family’s holdings, protecting the land for years to allow the historical sites to be found as much of the UAE has rapidly developed.

    The UAE’s Culture Ministry has sponsored the dig in part, which continues at the site. Just hundreds of meters (yards) away from the church, a collection of buildings that archaeologists believe belongs to a pre-Islamic village sit.

    Elsewhere on the island, piles of tossed-aside clams from pearl hunting make for massive, industrial-sized hills. Nearby also sits a village that the British blew up in 1820 before the region became part of what was known as the Trucial States, the precursor of the UAE. That village’s destructions brought about the creation of the modern-day settlement of Umm al-Quwain on the mainland.

    Historians say early churches and monasteries spread along the Persian Gulf to the coasts of present-day Oman and all the way to India. Archaeologist have found other similar churches and monasteries in Bahrain, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

    In the early 1990s, archaeologists discovered the first Christian monastery in the UAE, on Sir Bani Yas Island, today a nature preserve and site of luxury hotels off the coast of Abu Dhabi, near the Saudi border. It similarly dates back to the same period as the new find in Umm al-Quwain.

    However, evidence of early life along the Khor al-Beida marshlands in Umm al-Quwain dates as far back as the Neolithic period — suggesting continuous human inhabitance in the area for at least 10,000 years, Power said.

    Today, the area near the marshland is more known for the low-cost liquor store at the emirate’s Barracuda Beach Resort. In recent months, authorities have demolished a hulking, Soviet-era cargo plane linked to a Russian gunrunner known as the “Merchant of Death” as it builds a bridge to Siniyah Island for a $675 million real estate development.

    Power said that development spurred the archaeological work that discovered the monastery. That site and others will be fenced off and protected, he said, though it remains unclear what other secrets of the past remain hidden just under a thin layer of sand on the island.

    “It’s a really fascinating discovery because in some ways it’s hidden history — it’s not something that’s widely known,” Power said.

    ___

    Follow Jon Gambrell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Hundreds of elephants, zebras die as Kenya weathers drought

    Hundreds of elephants, zebras die as Kenya weathers drought

    [ad_1]

    NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Hundreds of animals, including elephants and endangered Grevy’s zebras, have died in Kenyan wildlife preserves during East Africa’s worst drought in decades, according to a report released Friday.

    The Kenya Wildlife Service and other bodies counted the deaths of 205 elephants, 512 wildebeests, 381 common zebras, 51 buffalos, 49 Grevy’s zebras and 12 giraffes in the past nine months, the report states.

    Parts of Kenya have experienced four consecutive seasons with inadequate rain in the past two years, with dire effects for people and animals, including livestock.

    The worst-affected ecosystems are home to some of Kenya’s most-visited national parks, reserves and conservancies, including the Amboseli, Tsavo and Laikipia-Samburu areas, according to the report’s authors.

    They called for an urgent aerial census of wildlife in Amboseli to get a broader view of the drought’s impact on wild animals there.

    Other experts have recommended the immediate provision of water and salt licks in impacted regions. Elephants, for example, drink 240 liters (63.40 gallons) of water per day, according to Jim Justus Nyamu, executive director of the Elephant Neighbors Center.

    For Grevy’s zebras, experts urge enhancing provisions of hay.

    ___

    Follow AP’s coverage of the climate and environment: https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Iran Marks 1979 US Embassy Takeover Amid Nationwide Protests

    Iran Marks 1979 US Embassy Takeover Amid Nationwide Protests

    [ad_1]

    DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran on Friday marked the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran as its theocracy faces nationwide protests after the September death of a 22-year-old woman who was arrested by the country’s morality police. Meanwhile, activists in southeast Iran claimed security forces killed at least 16 people in protests there.

    Iranian state-run television aired live feeds of various commemorations around the country, with some in Tehran waving placards of the triangle-shaped Iranian drones Russia now uses to strike targets in its war on Ukraine. But while crowds in Tehran looked large with chador-wearing women waving the Islamic Republic’s flag, other commemorations in the country appeared smaller, with only a few dozen people taking part.

    Iran’s hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi, speaking to people gathered in front of the former U.S. Embassy building, criticized those protesting the theocracy.

    “Anyone taking the smallest step in the direction of breaching security and riots, must know that they are stepping in the direction of enemies of the Islamic Revolution,” he said. “Americans think they can execute the plan they carried out in some countries like Syria and Libya here. What a false dream!”

    Those at the commemoration also waved effigies of French President Emmanuel Macron and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Signs and chants from the crowd called out: “Death to America! Death to Israel!”

    The demonstrations that have convulsed Iran for seven weeks after the death of Mahsa Amini mark one of the biggest challenges to the country’s clerical rulers since they seized power in the 1979 Islamic Revolution. At least 314 protesters have been killed and 14,170 arrested since the unrest began, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran, a group that’s been monitoring the crackdown on demonstrators.

    Iran’s government has not offered an overall death toll, with one state newspaper even making the counterfactual claim that no one had been killed by security forces over the 49 days of protests.

    Later on Friday, protests began in Iran’s southeastern Sistan and Baluchestan province, which has seen weeks of unrest. Online videos purported to show people marching in the streets and some throwing stones, with the crackle of gunfire in the background and clouds of tear gas rising. Some protesters appeared bloodied, while later footage purportedly showed dead bodies at morgues.

    Advocacy group HalVash claimed security forces killed at least 16 people Friday, identifying nine of them by name.

    Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency later reported that protesters set fire to a police stand in Khash, a city in Sistan and Baluchestan, and attacked the local governor’s office.

    On Thursday, a Shiite cleric reportedly was shot and killed in Sistan and Baluchestan, a long restive province that’s predominantly Sunni.

    Hard-liners within Iran long have bussed government workers and others into such Nov. 4 demonstrations, which have a carnival-like feel for the students and others taking part on Taleqani Street in downtown Tehran.

    This year, however, it remained clear Iran’s theocracy hopes to energize its hard-line base. Some signs read “We Are Obedient To The Leader,” referring to 83-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has final say over all matters of state in the country. The weekslong demonstrations have included cries calling for Khamenei’s death and the overthrow of the government.

    The annual commemoration marks when student demonstrators climbed over the fence at the embassy on Nov. 4, 1979, angered by then-President Jimmy Carter allowing the fatally ill Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to receive cancer treatment in the United States.

    The students soon took over the entire, leafy compound. A few staffers fled and hid in the home of the Canadian ambassador to Iran before escaping the country with the help of the CIA, a story dramatized in the 2012 film “Argo.”

    The 444-day crisis transfixed America, as nightly images of blindfolded hostages played on television sets across the nation. Iran finally let all the captives go the day Carter left office on Ronald Reagan’s inauguration day in 1981.

    Marking the anniversary, State Department spokesperson Ned Price said that officials “are grateful for the selfless sacrifice of our diplomats who served in Tehran” and called for the release of Americans held by Iran.

    “The Iranian regime has a long history of unjustly imprisoning foreign nationals for use as political leverage,” Price said.

    That enmity between Iran and the U.S. has ebbed and surged over the decades since. The U.S. and world powers reached a nuclear deal with Iran in 2015 that drastically curtailed its program in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions. However, then-President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the deal in 2018, sparking years of tensions since.

    Late Thursday in California at a rally before the U.S. midterm elections, President Joe Biden also stopped his speech to address a crowd that held up cellphones displaying the message “FREE IRAN.”

    “Don’t worry, we’re gonna free Iran,” Biden said in an aside during a campaign rally for Democratic Rep. Mike Levin. He added, “They’re gonna free themselves pretty soon.”

    In his speech Friday, Raisi referenced Biden’s comments.

    “Maybe he said this because of a lack of concentration. … He said we aim to liberate Iran,” Raisi said. “Mr. President! Iran was liberated 43 years ago, and it’s determined not to become your captive again. We will never become a milking cow.”

    National Security Council spokesman John Kirby on Friday described Biden’s comments as expressing “solidarity with the protesters, as he’s been doing from the very outset.”

    “It’s going to be up to the people of Iran to determine their future. And that hasn’t changed,” Kirby said.

    Biden had said he was willing to have the U.S. rejoin the nuclear deal, but talks have broken down. Since the protests began in mid-September, the American position appears to have hardened with officials saying restoring the deal isn’t a priority amid the demonstrations.

    On Friday, some protesters waved giant placards of atoms as a reminder that Iran now enriches uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels. Nonproliferation experts warn Iran now has enough enriched uranium to make at least one nuclear weapon if it chose, though Tehran insists its program is peaceful.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • With Bolsonaro tamed in defeat, Brazil steps back from brink

    With Bolsonaro tamed in defeat, Brazil steps back from brink

    [ad_1]

    RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — In the run-up to Brazil’s presidential election, many feared a narrow result would be contested and spell the death knell for Latin America’s largest democracy.

    So far, however, the worst fears have been averted, despite a nail-biting victory for former leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva over far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro, and ongoing protests by some of Bolsonaro’s supporters across the country.

    The conservative leader’s allies quickly recognized da Silva’s victory, the military stayed in the barracks and vigilant world leaders swooped in to offer support for da Silva and nip in the bud even the thought of anything resembling the Jan. 6 insurrection that overtook the U.S. Capitol.

    “All of Bolsonaro’s escape valves were shut off,” said Brian Winter, a longtime Brazil expert and vice president of the New York-based Council of the Americas. “He was prevailed upon from all sides not to contest the results and burn down the house on his way out.”

    Although Bolsonaro has refused to congratulate da Silva, Brazil’s institutions generally seem to have held up.

    Bolsonaro gave a video statement Wednesday calling for an end to the protests by his supporters. “I know you’re upset. I’m just as sad and upset as you are. But we have to keep our heads straight,” he said. “Closing roads in Brazil jeopardizes people’s right to come and go.”

    That leaves a more vexing challenge: how the 77-year-old da Silva, universally known as Lula, unites a deeply divided country, rights a wobbly economy and delivers on the outsize expectations spurred by his return to power.

    One thing is clear, if anyone can do it, it’s the charismatic da Silva — whose political skills are admired even by his detractors.

    “That’s what we need, someone not only who can address inequality but also inspire our emotions and ideas,” said Marcelo Neri, director of the Getulio Vargas Foundation’s social policy center and a former Strategic Affairs Minister for da Silva’s handpicked successor, Dilma Rousseff.

    In many ways, the conservative movement Bolsonaro helped ignite — if not the politician himself — has emerged stronger from the vote, Winter said. His allies were elected as governors in several key states and his Liberal Party has become the largest in Congress, curtailing da Silva’s ability to advance his own agenda after a decadelong malaise that has left millions of Brazilians hungrier than when da Silva last held office in 2010.

    What’s more, Brazil’s demographics seem to favor Bolsonaro’s aggressive brand of identity politics — including an anti-LGBTQ agenda and hostility to environmentalists — that have earned him the moniker the “Trump of the Tropics.”

    The country’s own statistics institute forecasts that the number of Brazilians identifying as evangelical Christians — who preelection polls show overwhelmingly favored Bolsonaro and skew right — will overtake Roman Catholics within a decade.

    Thousands of Bolsonaro’s supporters thronged a regional army headquarters in Rio on Wednesday, demanding that the military step in and keep him in power. Others showed up at military installations in Sao Paulo, Santa Catarina and the capital of Brasilia. Meanwhile, truckers maintained about 150 roadblocks across the country to protest Bolsonaro’s loss, despite the Supreme Court’s orders to law enforcement to dismantle them.

    At one of the road blockades held by truck drivers in the interior of Sao Paulo state, a car drove into the crowd and injured several, including children and members of the police.

    Since the return of democracy in the 1980s, all Brazilian leaders have been guided to varying degrees by a common belief in strong state-led enterprises, high taxes and aggressive wealth redistribution policies.

    Bolsonaro initially attempted to run a more austere, business-friendly government, that is, until the social devastation wreaked by COVID-19 and his own sinking electoral prospects ultimately led him to loosen spending controls and emulate the policies he once attacked.

    How da Silva will govern is less clear. He squeaked out a narrow victory of barely 2 million votes after building a broad coalition united by little more than a desire to defeat Bolsonaro. And with promises to maintain a generous welfare program in place through 2023, he will have limited fiscal space to spend on other priorities.

    His running mate from another party, former Sao Paulo Governor Geraldo Alckim, was a nod to centrist, fiscally conservative policies that made da Silva the darling of Wall Street during his early years in power. This week, da Silva tapped Alckim to lead his transition team.

    Also standing alongside him on the victory stage Sunday night, however, were several stalwarts of the left who have been implicated in numerous corruption scandals that have plagued his Workers’ Party and paved the way for Bolsonaro’s rise.

    Although da Silva’s supporters have downplayed the concerns about corruption — the Supreme Court annulled the convictions that kept him imprisoned for nearly two years — for many Brazilians he is a symbol of the culture of graft that has long permeated politics. As a result, he’s likely to be held to a higher ethical standard in a country where almost every government has been accused of vote buying in Congress.

    “This wasn’t just a fever dream by his opponents,” Winter said of the corruption allegations that have long dogged da Silva’s party.

    Da Silva’s victory coincides with a string of recent victories by the left in South America, including in Chile and Colombia, whose leaders revere the former union boss. During his first stint in power, da Silva led a so-called pink wave that promoted regional integration, rivaled U.S. dominance and put the rights of overlooked minorities and Indigenous groups at the center of the political agenda.

    Under Bolsonaro, Brazil largely retreated from that leadership role, even if the sheer size of its economy alone means a return to leadership is never far off.

    Scott Hamilton, a former U.S. diplomat, said that da Silva will have to make a tough choice on whether to use Brazil’s considerable leverage to pursue an ambitious foreign policy to tackle entrenched problems or simply use his star power on the world stage to shore up support at home.

    “Basking in not being Bolsonaro will get him lots of positive attention in itself,” said Hamilton, whose last post, until April, was as consul general in Rio. “The more ambitious path would involve trying to help resolve some of the toughest political issues where democratic governments in the region are in trouble or extinguished.”

    ___

    Goodman reported from Miami.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Italy’s far-right leader visits EU: “We are not Martians”

    Italy’s far-right leader visits EU: “We are not Martians”

    [ad_1]

    BRUSSELS (AP) — New far-right Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni used her first visit to European Union headquarters in Brussels Thursday to declare that Italy will be a force to reckon with in EU affairs, leaving it unclear whether that was a promise or a threat from one of the bloc’s powerful founding members.

    Her first foreign trip after brokering Italy’s only far-right-led government since World War II was not the ordinary kind of visit by a new leader of a major EU nation seeking to renew unshakable bonds with the 27-nation bloc.

    For some, it brought the far right into the walls of the EU just as the bloc faces crises on many fronts.

    Meloni emerged energized from the meetings with the EU’s most powerful officials: European Parliament President Roberta Metsola, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel, the European Council president who chairs all EU summits.

    Meloni said she had found her counterparts receptive and described the talks as “frank and very positive.”

    “I am happy with the climate I found here in Brussels. Probably to be able to see and speak with people can help dismantle a narrative about yours truly,” Meloni told reporters. “We are not Martians. We are people in flesh and bone who explain our positions.”

    She said they discussed the war in Ukraine, the resulting soaring prices for energy and raw materials as well as the heavy migration that Italy shoulders at the EU’s southern border.

    Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party has neo-fascist roots and she has governed since Oct. 22 along with anti-migrant League party leader Matteo Salvini and former Conservative Premier Silvio Berlusconi, who only recently vaunted his connections to his friend Russian President Vladimir Putin.

    It’s enough to send shivers down the spine of many EU legislators and officials, who fear the rule of law and revered principles of Western liberal democracy could be hollowed out from within as yet another EU nation turns sharply to the right.

    Metsola sidestepped the political differences and centered on the common challenges ahead.

    “I am aware that member states have different realities, but we must find the courage and political will to act as we did during the pandemic, by joining forces,” said Metsola after the meeting.

    Many, though, are wary of working too closely with Meloni and her far-right-led ruling coalition.

    On the eve of her visit, her government had to defend a decree banning rave parties against criticism it could be used to clamp down on protests, while it took no action against a neo-fascist march to the crypt of Italy’s late dictator Benito Mussolini.

    Meloni has been dogged by critics who say she hasn’t unambiguously condemned fascism. The Brothers of Italy, which she co-founded in 2012, has its roots in a far-right party founded by nostalgists for Mussolini. She has retorted that she has “never felt sympathy or closeness for any non-democratic regime, including fascism.”

    When it comes to the EU, Meloni is expected to criticize the bloc as being overly meddling in national affairs on anything from LGBTQ rights to local economies and too lax on migration.

    Similar criticism has been heard in Poland and Hungary. For years, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a proponent of “illiberalism,” has increasingly run an obstructionist course in an EU where many major decisions have to be made unanimously.

    Meloni has stressed, though, that she doesn’t want to torpedo the bloc, whose founding treaty was signed in Rome in 1957.

    Italy isn’t in a strong position to break ranks with the EU or the shared euro currency. Its overall debt exceeds 150% of gross domestic product and it’s in line to get around 200 billion euros in aid to deal with the economic crisis caused by the pandemic. This offers the EU institutions extensive political leverage.

    On EU foreign policy, which has become a much more trans-Atlantic endeavor with the United States since Russia invaded Ukraine, Meloni has had to overcome suspicions that her coalition could be leaning too far towards Putin.

    When Berlusconi boasted to his Forza Italia lawmakers last month of having reestablished contact with Putin and exchanged birthday gifts, Meloni immediately put her foot down.

    “Italy will never be the weak link of the West with us in government,” Meloni said.

    Meloni has firmly backed Ukraine in its struggle against Russia’s invasion.

    ___

    Barry reported from Milan.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Tanzania says Mount Kilimanjaro fire largely contained

    Tanzania says Mount Kilimanjaro fire largely contained

    [ad_1]

    NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The fire burning on Mount Kilimanjaro for almost two weeks has been largely contained after hundreds of military personnel were deployed to help, Tanzania’s prime minister said Thursday.

    The blaze destroyed 33 square kilometers (nearly 13 square miles) on Africa’s tallest and most famous mountain, Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa said.

    The fire started on Oct. 21 near the Karanga camp, which is popular among the thousands of hikers who attempt the climb of the mountain every year.

    The cause of the fire has yet to be established and investigations are ongoing, the prime minister said, adding that strong winds complicated the response.

    On Tuesday, personnel from the Tanzania People’s Defense Force were deployed to help extinguish the flames. The prime minister said 878 soldiers and two helicopters were sent.

    He said multiple fires had started on other parts of Mount Kilimanjaro but had been contained, and main tourist sites there remain safe.

    Mount Kilimanjaro, at 19,443 feet (5,926 meters), is a major tourist attraction in Tanzania. It wasn’t clear how the fire has affected tourist visits and the local economy.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • French TV star scrutinized in book about sex abuse, #MeToo

    French TV star scrutinized in book about sex abuse, #MeToo

    [ad_1]

    PARIS (AP) — “At a certain level of fame, no French man has ever been convicted for sexual abuse.”

    These words are from the book “Impunity,” by Hélène Devynck, who says she was raped by France’s most famous TV presenter.

    Devynck is among dozens of women who have spoken out recently to accuse Patrick Poivre d’Arvor of rape, sexual abuse or harassment from 1981 to 2018. Her book, published last month, investigates accusations against Poivre d’Arvor, denounces France’s historically lax attitude toward sexual abuse allegations and questions why the #MeToo movement in her country has had such limited impact.

    Poivre d’Arvor, who hosted France’s most popular news program for more than two decades and remains a revered personality, denies sexual wrongdoing and insists relations with his accusers were consensual.

    Now 75 and retired, Poivre d’Arvor has sued 16 of his accusers — including Devynck — and a French newspaper that reported on the allegations.

    Most accusations are now too old to prosecute, but French magistrates opened an investigation that examines alleged abuses by Poivre d’Arvor. French media report that over 20 women have filed legal complaints, although no charges have been brought.

    In the United States, several high-profile sexual assault trials are unfolding across the country: movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, actor Danny Masterson and filmmaker Paul Haggis all face accusations linked to #MeToo. All deny wrongdoing.

    France, meanwhile, has not seen any major figure prosecuted in the #MeToo era, and has had a more fraught relationship with the movement. Even as more and more people in France are standing up against sexual misconduct, debate continues about where seduction ends and sexual harassment and abuse begins, especially in a context where the myth of the “French lover” remains popular and positively perceived.

    The book by Devynck, 55, comes after multiple recent accounts of women accusing Poivre d’Arvor in French media outlets.

    Devynck said she was raped in 1993 by Poivre d’Arvor when she was working as an assistant to him at TF1, a leading European broadcaster. At the time, Poivre d’Arvor drew in up to 10 million viewers every night.

    Poivre d’Arvor’s accusers told Devynck that his fame and power made it seem futile to speak out when he abused them because they felt nobody would believe them and it would ruin their careers.

    In an interview with The Associated Press, Devynck said the point of her book “is to show how that impunity was built, forged, maintained. And since we have spoken out… impunity continues.”

    Accusations poured in after author Florence Porcel, now 39, first filed a complaint in February 2021 against Poivre d’Arvor, accusing him of raping her in 2004 and 2009.

    The AP generally does not identify those who say they have been sexually assaulted, except when they publicly identify themselves.

    Devynck said she spoke with about 60 women accusing Poivre d’Arvor of sexual misconduct while writing the book. Since its publication, she said about 30 more women have come forward with allegations against him. Not all have spoken to police, she said, because some prefer to remain anonymous and avoid a long, difficult judicial process.

    A few of the women knew each other through work, though most did not.

    Poivre d’Arvor was the star presenter of TF1′s evening newscast “20 Heures” between 1987 and 2008 and one of the most famous people in France, where he is widely known as just “PPDA.” An author, he also used to anchor a prestigious TV literary program.

    A couple of weeks after Porcel’s complaint, in his only interview about the allegations to date, Poivre d’Arvor acknowledged “small kisses in the neck, sometimes small compliments or sometimes some charm or seduction” — things that he said are not accepted anymore by younger generations.

    “Never in my life, ever, have I accepted a relation that would not be consensual,” he added, speaking on TMC, a channel that belongs to the TF1 group.

    Devynck said she noticed strong similarities between the accounts of the women she spoke to.

    “We all tell the same story, he was using the same words. He was starting with, ‘Are you in a relationship? Are you faithful?’ And then, he was doing the same gestures and he had a very well-oiled process,” she told the AP.

    Poivre d’Arvor used to offer women to watch “20 Heures” in the television studio, then invite them into his office, Devynck said. “Not all were raped. Some were abused, others harassed. But every time, all those who speak out say he tried (sexually-oriented acts),” she said.

    That, she described in her book, is exactly what happened to her.

    “I remained silent. I did not speak while I was working at TF1. If I had spoken, it was the end of my professional life and I had absolutely no chance to make my voice heard,” she told the AP.

    Devynck decided to make her story public 28 years later. She filed a complaint to police last year after seeing Poivre d’Arvor’s interview on French television, following Porcel’s complaint.

    “The image shown by that man compared to what I knew, me, about him, was so wrong that the next day, I called investigators to give my testimony,” she recalled in her interview with the AP.

    “I spoke to defend other women,” she added.

    She argued in her book that the image of Poivre d’Arvor, often described as a charmer, helped protect him. Because he was known to try to seduce lots of women, people assumed that all relations were consensual, Devynck said.

    Poivre d’Arvor’s lawyer, Jacqueline Laffont, declined to speak to the AP about the case. She referred to previous comments she made last year after Porcel’s case was initially closed following the preliminary investigation.

    Closing the case without pressing charges was “the only possible decision” after a “thorough investigation,” Laffont said at the time. She said that Poivre d’Arvor had been able to bring “evidence” for his defense showing that Porcel “was lying.”

    Porcel then filed another complaint, leading a magistrate to reopen a judicial investigation. The Nanterre prosecutors’ office said several other accusations made more recently were combined with that investigation.

    Only 12% of alleged victims of rape or attempted rape file a complaint — and only a small proportion of those cases lead to a trial, according to French government statistics.

    The French Interior ministry said, however, that there was a 33% increase in 2021 in the number of sexual abuse complaints reported to police, a trend it partly attributes to the #MeToo movement prompting women to go public with incidents from their past.

    “Before #MeToo, women were even more afraid of saying what happened to them,” said Violaine de Filippis, a lawyer and activist who specializes in women’s rights.

    “So now, to say ‘No, it’s not meant to be, it’s not normal, it’s illegal and it’s serious,’ that’s very important,” she said.

    She did not specifically refer to Poivre d’Arvor’s case.

    France’s justice minister Eric Dupont-Moretti sent a note last year to prosecutors encouraging them to investigate sexual abuse allegations even if they appear too old to prosecute. One goal, he said, is to find other potential victims; another is for magistrates to be able to hear from the people accused.

    Devynck said she would like to see Poivre d’Arvor in a courtroom.

    “I hope there will be a trial one day, but that I don’t know,” she said.

    ___

    Follow AP’s coverage of the #MeToo movement: https://apnews.com/hub/metoo

    [ad_2]

    Source link