BEIJING (AP) — The top U.N. human rights official said Saturday that she raised concerns with Chinese officials about the impact of the broad application of counterterrorism and deradicalization measures on the rights of Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim groups in China’s Xinjiang region. Michelle Bachelet, who visited the northwestern region as part of a […]
Russia takes small cities, aims to widen east Ukraine battle
KRAMATORSK, Ukraine (AP) — As Russia asserted progress in its goal of seizing the entirety of contested eastern Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin tried Saturday to shake European resolve to punish his country with sanctions and to keep supplying weapons that have supported Ukraine’s defense. The Russian Defense Ministry said Lyman, the second small city to […]
US: Turkey’s NATO issues with Sweden, Finland will be fixed
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday he’s confident Turkey’s objections to Finland and Sweden joining NATO can be overcome swiftly, possibly in time for a summit of alliance leaders at the end of next month. At a news conference in Washington with visiting Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto, Blinken said […]
Biggest aid convoy since cease-fire nears Ethiopia’s Tigray
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The biggest convoy of aid since Ethiopia’s government declared a unilateral “humanitarian cease-fire” in the country’s long-encircled Tigray region two months ago has departed for Tigray, a U.N. official told The Associated Press, as the conflict gripping Africa’s second most populous nation continued to ease. A convoy of 215 trucks of […]
Ex-rebel frontrunner in Colombian vote, could shake US ties
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Fabian Espinel last year helped organize roadblocks where young people protested against police violence and government plans to increase taxes on lower income Colombians. Now, as his country heads into its presidential election Sunday, he walks the streets of the capital’s working-class sectors handing out flyers and painting murals in support […]
Russia takes small cities, aims to widen east Ukraine battle
KRAMATORSK, Ukraine (AP) — Russia asserted Saturday that its troops and separatist fighters had captured a key railway junction in eastern Ukraine, the second small city to fall to Moscow’s forces this week as they fought to seize all of the country’s contested Donbas region. Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said the city of […]
Fleeing the Russians: Evacuations are slow, arduous, fraught
BAKHMUT, Ukraine (AP) — To a threatening soundtrack of air raid sirens and booming artillery, civilians are fleeing towns and cities in eastern Ukraine as Russian forces advance. Negotiating narrow apartment building staircases, volunteers carry the elderly and infirm in their arms, in stretchers or in wheelchairs to waiting minibuses, which then drive them to […]
WHO: Nearly 200 cases of monkeypox in more than 20 countries
LONDON (AP) — The World Health Organization says nearly 200 cases of monkeypox have been reported in more than 20 countries not usually known to have outbreaks of the unusual disease, but described the epidemic as “containable” and proposed creating a stockpile to equitably share the limited vaccines and drugs available worldwide. During a public […]
Shanghai lockdown: Residents demand release, and some get it
BEIJING (AP) — On a balmy Sunday night, residents of an upscale Shanghai compound took to the streets to decry lockdown restrictions imposed by their community. By the following morning, they were free to leave. The triumphant story quickly spread on chat groups across the Chinese city this week, sparking one question in the minds […]
Ukraine fears repeat of Mariupol horrors elsewhere in Donbas
KRAMATORSK, Ukraine (AP) — Moscow-backed separatists pounded eastern Ukraine’s industrial Donbas region Friday, claiming to capture a railway hub, as Ukrainian officials pleaded for the sophisticated Western weapons they say they need to stop the onslaught. The advance of Russian forces raised fears that cities in the region would undergo the same horrors inflicted on […]