Month: June 2023

By SUZAN FRASER Associated Press ANKARA (AP) — The Turkish defense ministry announced Saturday it will be sending a commando battalion to northern Kosovo in response to a NATO request for troops to help quell violent unrest. The request came from NATO’s Joint Force Command Naples, the ministry said in a press statement posted on

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis is traveling to Mongolia at the end of the summer. The visit will be a first for a pontiff and one rich in geopolitical significance given Mongolia’s position sandwiched between Russia and China. The Vatican on Saturday confirmed the Aug. 31-Sept. 4 trip. The visit comes as Francis is

JERUSALEM (AP) — A gunbattle along Israel’s southern border with Egypt left three Israeli soldiers and an Egyptian officer dead. That’s according to both the Israeli and Egyptian militaries Saturday. It was a rare instance of deadly violence along the frontier. The Israeli army said the officer was in Israeli territory when he killed two

By NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis warned the Vatican’s missionary fundraisers on Saturday not to allow financial corruption to creep into their work, insisting that spirituality and spreading the Gospel must drive their operations, not mere entrepreneurship. Francis made the comments in a speech to the national directors of the

By ANGELA CHARLTON and JENNIFER MCDERMOTT Associated Press PARIS (AP) — Global negotiators have agreed to craft a draft treaty to end plastic pollution, a preliminary but crucial step toward tackling one of the most lasting sources of human waste. Environmental advocates cautiously welcomed the outcome of five days of U.N. talks in Paris on

By SUZAN FRASER and CINAR KIPER Associated Press ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was sworn into his third presidential term, has reappointed an internationally respected former banker as finance minister in a sign that his new government might pursue more conventional economic policies. Erdogan on Saturday announced Mehmet Simsek would return

By JOANNA KOZLOWSKA and DASHA LITVINOVA Associated Press LONDON (AP) — In a span of a decade, Alexei Navalny has gone from the Kremlin’s biggest foe to Russia’s most prominent political prisoner. Already serving two convictions that have landed him in prison for at least nine years, he faces a new trial that could keep

By EVELYNE MUSAMBI and BRIAN INGANGA Associated Press NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Pretty Peter flicked through frantic messages from friends at home in Uganda. The transgender woman is relatively safe in neighboring Kenya. Her friends feel threatened by the latest anti-gay legislation in Uganda prescribing the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality.” Frightened Ugandans are searching

By DASHA LITVINOVA Associated Press TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — When Alexei Navalny turns 47 on Sunday, he’ll wake up in a bare concrete cell with hardly any natural light. He won’t be able to see or talk to any of his loved ones. Phone calls and visits are banned for those in “punishment isolation” cells,

By FRANK JORDANS Associated Press BERLIN (AP) — A senior United Arab Emirates official says the Gulf nation wants the U.N. climate summit it’s hosting later this year to deliver “game-changing results” for international efforts to curb global warming, but doing so will require having the fossil fuel industry at the table. Environmental campaigners have

By MEG KINNARD and MICHELLE L. PRICE Associated Press GREENVILLE, S.C. (AP) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is wrapping up his first tour of early voting states as a presidential candidate, showcasing his personal side in South Carolina with a lighthearted sit-down with his wife and an emotional moment with a military spouse. DeSantis, whose

By LINDSAY WHITEHURST Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Two Florida men who stormed the U.S. Capitol with other members of the far-right Oath Keepers group were sentenced Friday to three years in prison for seditious conspiracy and other charges — the latest in a historic string of sentences in the Jan. 6. 2021 attack. David

By RAFIQ MAQBOOL, ASHOK SHARMA and KRUTIKA PATHI Associated Press BALASORE, India (AP) — Rescuers found no more survivors in the overturned and mangled wreckage of two passenger trains that derailed in eastern India, killing more than 280 people and injuring hundreds in one of the country’s deadliest rail crashes in decades, officials said Saturday.

By JUAN ZAMORANO and CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN Associated Press NICANOR, Panama (AP) — Panama unveiled a new effort to control illegal migration through the treacherous Darien Gap that spans its eastern border with Colombia on Friday. Hundreds of thousands of migrants have risked the dangerous trek through the jungle in recent years and the flow this

By EDITH M. LEDERER Associated Press UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Donors at a pledging conference provided just $107 million in new funds for the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees. That’s despite a dire warning from the U.N. chief that it “is on the verge of financial collapse.” The pledged funds are significantly less than