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Yellen appeals to China to revive talks and not let technology tensions disrupt ties

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:29:44 GMT

By JOE McDONALD (AP Business Writer)BEIJING (AP) — Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen appealed to China’s No. 2 leader not to let frustration over U.S. curbs on access to processor chips and other technology disrupt economic cooperation during a visit Friday aimed at improving strained relations.Meeting with Premier Li Qiang, Yellen said Washington and Beijing have a duty to cooperate on issues that affect the world. She appealed for “regular channels of communication” at a time when relations are at their lowest in decades due to disputes over technology, security and other irritants.Yellen is one of several senior U.S. officials due to visit Beijing to encourage Chinese leaders to revive interactions between governments of the two largest economies. Treasury officials said earlier she wouldn’t meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and no breakthroughs were expected.Yellen defended “targeted actions,” a reference to curbs on Chinese access to ad...

Blast at a Russian explosives plant kills 6 and injures 2

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:29:44 GMT

MOSCOW (AP) — A blast at a Russian explosives plant on Friday killed six people and injured two more, emergency officials said. The explosion occurred as workers were dismantling equipment at one of the workshops of the Promsintez plant in Russia’s Samara region, some 800 kilometers (500 miles) southeast of Moscow, Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported, citing emergency officials. The blast didn’t start a fire, the report said. Promsintez is one of the main producers of industrial explosives in Russia. It is located in the town of Chapayevsk in the Samara region. The Associated Press

Israeli forces kill 2 Palestinian militants in shootout in the occupied West Bank

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:29:44 GMT

NABLUS, West Bank (AP) — Israeli forces killed two Palestinian militants in a flashpoint city in the occupied West Bank Friday, days after Israel concluded a major two-day offensive meant to crack down on militants.The persistent violence raised questions about the effectiveness of the raid earlier this week in the Jenin refugee camp, which saw Israel launch rare airstrikes on militant targets, deploy hundreds of troops and cause widespread damage to roads, homes and businesses. As a result of the raid, 12 Palestinians and one Israeli soldier were killed.The Israeli domestic security agency Shin Bet said Friday the two men, who it said were behind a shooting attack this week on a police vehicle, were killed in a gun battle with Israeli forces in the heart of the city of Nablus, the West Bank’s commercial capital.The Palestinian Health Ministry said two men were killed by Israeli fire, identifying them as Khayri Mohammed Sari Shaheen, 34, and Hamza Moayed Mohammed Maqbool, 32. ...

NHL great Hašek demands Russians openly condemn war against Ukraine or be banned from Paris Olympics

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:29:44 GMT

PRAGUE (AP) — Russian and Belarusian athletes must state loud and clear they condemn Russia for the war in Ukraine or be banned from next year’s Paris Olympics, hockey gold medalist Dominik Hašek told The Associated Press.Hašek, who won gold with the Czech Republic team at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, said he is certain their presence at the Paris Games would otherwise result in “a huge promotion of the Russian war.”The NHL great has been a prominent and vocal critic of the International Olympic Committee’s recommendation that Russians and Belarusians compete in international competitions as neutral athletes.“Everybody knows where those athletes are from,” Hašek told the AP in an interview. ”They would represent the aggressive, imperialistic war and the crimes and killings linked to it.”He said it would be like supplying Russia with tanks, aircraft and ammunition.The IOC and president Thomas Bach have shaped the definition of neutrality — not publicly supporting the war...

Amsterdam court gives green light to plan to reduce flights at busy Schiphol Airport

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:29:44 GMT

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Appeals court judges in Amsterdam ruled Friday that the Dutch government can order Schiphol Airport, one of Europe’s busiest aviation hubs, to reduce the number of flights from 500,000 per year to 460,000.The Amsterdam Court of Appeal overturned a lower court that concluded in April the government of the Netherlands did not follow the correct procedure when it told Schiphol last year to cut flights.The airport, civil aviation organizations and airlines that included Dutch flag carrier KLM challenged the government’s order. Friday’s decision can be appealed to the Dutch Supreme Court.The Amsterdam appeals court said in a statement Friday that it “attaches considerable weight to the interests of local residents” in the densely populated region where people have complained for years about noise pollution from the airport.In a written response, Schiphol said it accepted the ruling and hopes for a new aviation traffic order from Dutch autho...

Protesters arrested in Kenya as the opposition rallies against new taxes

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:29:44 GMT

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — More than 20 anti-government protesters were arrested in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, on Friday as other parts of the country also witnessed demonstrations called by the opposition against newly imposed taxes.Hundreds of protesters turned up in Nairobi, as well as in the coastal city of Mombasa and the lakeside city of Kisumu where the opposition enjoys huge support, but were dispersed by police who fired tear gas canisters at them. The protesters had lit bonfires and barricaded some major roads.Nairobi police commander Adamson Bungei told The Associated Press on Friday that “more than 20 people had been arrested by midday” but did not disclose what charges they will face.The opposition had called for the demonstrations to protest the newly imposed taxes on petroleum products, salaried workers and businesses.Opposition leader Raila Odinga last week announced “civil disobedience” asking his followers not to pay the new taxes.The implementation of the newly signed l...

Countries agree to slash shipping emissions but not enough to stay within warming limits

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:29:44 GMT

Maritime nations agreed Friday to slash emissions from the shipping industry to net zero by about 2050 in a deal that some experts and nations say falls short of what’s needed to curb warming to agreed temperature limits. Negotiators at the meeting of the United Nations’ International Maritime Organization in London, seen as key to curb global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times, rubber-stamped a deal for shipping emissions to reach net zero “by or around” 2050.The plan also calls for shipping emissions to be slashed by at least 20% but aiming for 30% by 2030 and at least 70% but working toward 80% by 2040 despite a push from Pacific nations for more ambitious targets. Experts calculate the industry must cut its emissions by 45% by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050 to keep on track with 1.5 C temperature goal.Environmentalists and some nations pushing for more ambitious targets are unhappy with the deal, which doesn’t se...

Man who served 13 years for murder is acquitted at a retrial in Germany

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:29:44 GMT

BERLIN (AP) — A man who spent 13 years in prison in Germany for the death of an elderly woman was acquitted in a retrial on Friday by a court that determined that the supposed murder victim had died in an accident.Manfred Genditzki, 63, was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison in 2010 by a Munich court. Judges ruled then that he had hit an 87-year-old woman on the head in October 2008 after an argument at her apartment in the upscale Bavarian lakeside town of Rottach-Egern and then drowned her in a bathtub.Genditzki, who worked as a caretaker at the complex where the woman lived, always insisted that he was innocent and appealed unsuccessfully against the original verdict. He fought for years to get a retrial, which he secured last August.Announcing the verdict at the Munich state court on Friday, presiding Judge Elisabeth Ehrl told Genditzki, “You have heard the words you spent nearly 14 years waiting for.” She said he will have to be compensated for the time he wron...

Muslims across Pakistan hold anti-Sweden rallies to denounce burning of Islam’s holy book

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:29:44 GMT

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Muslims in Pakistan were holding rallies on Friday to observe a “Day of the Sanctity of Quran” after the South Asian Islamic nation’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif issued a call for anti-Sweden protests over last week’s burning of the Islamic holy book in Stockholm.The biggest anti-Sweden rallies were expected in the eastern city of Lahore and in Karachi, the largest city in the country. In the capital, Islamabad, lawyers holding copies of the Quran protested in front of the Supreme Court, while worshippers outside mosques held small rallies, demanding the severing of diplomatic ties with Sweden.A group of minority Christians in the northwest also held a rally to denounce the burning of the Quran.Supporters of Pakistan’s main radical Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan party are holding rallies in the country’s all major cities, including Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar, and Quetta to denounce the burning of the Quran.Anger has grown in Muslim countries si...

Earth sets unofficial heat record for 3rd time this week

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:29:44 GMT

Earth's average temperature set a new unofficial record high on Thursday, the third such milestone in a week that already rated as the hottest on record.The planetary average hit 63 degrees Fahrenheit (17.23 degrees Celsius), surpassing the 62.9-degree mark (17.18-degree mark) set Tuesday and equaled Wednesday, according to data from the University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer, a tool that uses satellite data and computer simulations to measure the world’s condition.That average includes places that are sweltering under dangerous heat — like Jingxing, China, which checked in almost 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43.3 degrees Celsius) — and the merely unusually warm, like Antarctica, where temperatures across much of the continent were as much as 8 degrees Fahrenheit (4.5 degrees Celsius) above normal this week.The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Thursday issued a note of caution about the Maine tool's findings, saying it could not confirm data that results in part ...