Month: February 2024

By RODNEY MUHUMUZA Associated Press KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — Authorities in Rwanda have rejected U.S. calls for the withdrawal of troops and missile systems from eastern Congo, saying they are defending Rwandan territory as Congo carries out a “dramatic military build-up” near the border. Rwanda’s Foreign Ministry in a statement Monday spoke of threats to

By SUSIE BLANN Associated Press KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces have completed their takeover of Avdiivka by eliminating the last pocket of resistance at the eastern Ukraine city’s huge coke plant, the Russian military said Monday, after the sheer weight of its troop numbers and greater air and artillery firepower drove out Kyiv’s forces.

By NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican has been trying for years to debunk the idea that its vaunted secret archives are all that secret: It has opened up the files of controversial World War II-era Pope Pius XII to scholars and changed the official name to remove the word “Secret”

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The daughter of a long-detained human rights activist in Bahrain says she has been diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma and again called for his release. Maryam al-Khawaja urged Denmark, where both al-Khawajas have citizenship, to do more to free her father, Abdulhadi al-Khawaja. She also asked Denmark to end arms

By ISABELLA VOLMERT Associated Press INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — One woman was killed and five other people were wounded when an argument escalated to gunfire at a Waffle House restaurant in Indianapolis early Monday, police said. Officers responded to a report of a shooting at the restaurant around 12:30 a.m., the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department said

By JINTAMAS SAKSORNCHAI Associated Press BANGKOK (AP) — Thai prosecutors say that further investigation is needed to decide whether to bring former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra to trial for defaming the monarchy, just a day after he was freed from a prison sentence on other charges he was serving in a hospital. Thaksin was released

By JON GAMBRELL Associated Press DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A missile attack by Yemen’s Houthi rebels damaged a Belize-flagged ship traveling through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait that connects the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, forcing the crew to abandon the ship. The ship targeted in the Houthi attack on Sunday reported

By MIKE CORDER Associated Press THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Historic hearings are opening on Monday at the United Nations’ top court into the legality of Israel’s 57-year occupation of lands sought for a Palestinian state. Palestinian representatives will speak first as the International Court of Justice begins hearing legal arguments following a request submitted

CAGAYAN DE ORO, Philippines (AP) — Philippine troops have clashed with Muslim militants in a gunbattle that has left at least six soldiers and two rebels dead in a fog-shrouded hinterland in the south. Military chief Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr. said Monday that four other soldiers were wounded in the army offensive a day earlier

By ROD McGUIRK Associated Press MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — At least 26 combatants and an unconfirmed number of bystanders were killed in a gunbattle between warring tribes in Papua New Guinea, police said Monday. A tribe, their allies and mercenaries were on their way to attack a neighboring tribe when they were ambushed Sunday in

By JON GAMBRELL Associated Press DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A missile attack by Yemen’s Houthi rebels damaged a Belize-flagged ship traveling through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait connecting the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, forcing the crew to abandon the ship, authorities said Monday. The attack on the ship came as the

By MARI YAMAGUCHI Associated Press TOKYO (AP) — Japan is hosting a conference for Japanese and Ukrainian officials to discuss reconstruction of Ukraine just ahead of the two-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion, while the U.S. and other Western countries are still focusing on military aid for the battlefield. Hundreds of senior officials and executives are

By BRIAN P. D. HANNON Associated Press The funeral of a renowned transgender activist in a New York cathedral elicited a denunciation of the event by a senior church official, who called the mass a scandal within one of the preeminent houses of worship in U.S. Catholicism. The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York condemned

By JIWON SONG Associated Press SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Trainee doctors in South Korea have begun resigning en masse in protest of a government plan to increase the number of medical students. Their action Monday reportedly caused delays in surgeries and other treatments at hospitals, but no major disruption in the country’s medical service