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Morocco’s historic Women’s World Cup debut inspires girls even if some in the Arab world ignore it

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 15:55:29 GMT

RABAT, Morocco (AP) — The game was sparsely attended; it was midweek and the outcome wasn’t much in doubt: the Association Sportive des Forces Armees Royales, a powerhouse in women’s soccer here, ended up crushing its Moroccan women’s national professional league opponent 7-0.Regardless, one young fan in the stands was excited from the get-go.Wearing her hair in half-up pigtails and dressed in a jersey reading “Morocco” in Arabic, 5-year-old Aliae Benazzouza descended to the pitch to meet the players. A favorite of hers, Fatima Tagnaout, who plays for Morocco’s national women’s team and for the armed forces team known as ASFAR, embraced Aliae and held her hand as they posed for photos. Aliae waved at another player, calling her name. During the game, she would make her way to the front of the stands, pressing against a rail, for a better view.“I was very happy,” Aliae said. Her mom, Souad El Khorchef, a teacher, said her daughter peppered her with kisses afterward in thanks for taki...

Man with knife kills 6 people at kindergarten in China before being arrested, police and reports say

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 15:55:29 GMT

BEIJING (AP) — A man with a knife killed six people and wounded one more Monday at a kindergarten in southeastern China, police and a news report said Monday.A 25-year-old man was arrested following the 7:40 a.m. attack in Lianjiang, a city in Guangdong province, a police statement said. Employees who answered at the Lianjiang police headquarters declined to give more details.A news outlet, Dafeng News, cited an unidentified witness as saying the attacker’s child had been struck earlier by the car of one of the people who was killed at the school. It said one of the people killed was a teacher at the kindergarten.Dafeng News on its website cited video posted online that it said showed a man carrying a knife walking past the kindergarten playground. It said other video showed at least four people in a pool of blood outside the school.News reports on other websites were deleted and replaced with the brief police statement.The Associated Press

How many Russians have died in Ukraine? Data shows what Moscow hides

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 15:55:29 GMT

BRUSSELS (AP) — Nearly 50,000 Russian men have died in the war in Ukraine, according to the first independent statistical analysis of Russia’s war dead.Two independent Russian media outlets, Mediazona and Meduza, working with a data scientist from Germany’s Tübingen University, used Russian government data to shed light on one of Moscow’s closest-held secrets — the true human cost of its invasion of Ukraine.To do so, they relied on a statistical concept popularized during the COVID-19 pandemic called excess mortality. Drawing on inheritance records and official mortality data, they estimated how many more men under age 50 died between February 2022 and May 2023 than normal.Neither Moscow nor Kyiv gives timely data on military losses, and each is at pains to amplify the other side’s casualties. Russia has publicly acknowledged the deaths of just over 6,000 soldiers. Reports about military losses have been repressed in Russian media, activists and independent journalists say. Document...

NATO will boost defense spending to help back Ukraine but the math is tricky. Just ask Luxembourg

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 15:55:29 GMT

BRUSSELS (AP) — When it comes to criticizing the NATO members who fail to spend enough on defense, tiny Luxembourg is an easy target.One of NATO’s richest countries, and routinely ranked at the top of Europe’s economic growth tables, the Grand Duchy currently spends 0.72% of gross domestic product on its armed forces, according to the organization’s estimates for this year.That puts it at the foot of the 31-nation military alliance’s charts. Still, the numbers are deceiving, and that goes for other members too, like Germany.Under a pledge made in 2014, after Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, NATO allies agreed to halt the spending cuts they made in calmer times after the Cold War ended, boost their national military budgets and move toward spending 2% of GDP on defense by 2024.With that target date closing in, and the biggest land war in Europe in decades ravaging Ukraine, U.S. President Joe Biden and his NATO counterparts will commit to a new spending goal at their ...

Russia to increase influence in Africa's poorest countries

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 15:55:29 GMT

Russia is trying to increase its influence in the poorer countries of Africa to actually open a "second front" there to confront the West. Moscow believes it can create a "coup belt" that will ensure Russian influence and force the West out of Africa. Russia seeks to control strategic mineral deposits, which would prevent African countries from developing high-tech economies. Through its PMCs, the Russian Federation appropriates Africa's economic resources, Dispatches, IFBG.Russia's Wagner mercenaries have already shown its ability to resort to such strategic solutions as disinformation campaigns, resource concessions, arms sales and security contracting.For a long time, Yevgeny Prigozhin, owner of the Wagner PMC, pretended to have nothing to do with the PMC, which is supposedly an autonomous organization. However, during the mutiny of the "Wagnerians", he admitted that he acted in Africa, following the instructions of the Russian leadership.Last week, Russian Preside...

Ukraine tops NATO summit agenda along with defense plans, Sweden’s membership and Belarus fears

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 15:55:29 GMT

VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — Russia’s war in Ukraine will top the agenda when U.S. President Joe Biden and his NATO counterparts hold a summit in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius over two days starting on Tuesday.The emphasis is on ensuring that Ukraine has support as long as the conflict continues, how to bring the country even closer to NATO without actually joining, and security guarantees Kyiv might need to ensure that Russia doesn’t invade again after the war is over.The leaders are set to endorse new defense plans should Russian President Vladimir Putin try to broaden Moscow’s war beyond Ukraine and westward into allied territory. They will also weigh defense spending, and how to boost their budgets as aid to Ukraine eats into their military coffers.Sweden’s accession is up for discussion too, as Turkey delays the Scandinavian country’s entry into the world’s biggest security organization.NATO hopes that Lithuania’s big neighbor, and Russia’s main backer, Belarus will play no...

Joe Biden and Charles III to bond over tea and eco-activism at Windsor Castle

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 15:55:29 GMT

LONDON — What does a British king have in common with the son of a car salesman from Scranton, Pennsylvania? Quite a lot, it turns out.When U.S. President Joe Biden arrives at Windsor Castle on Monday he will renew an acquaintance with King Charles III which stretches back decades.Biden has made a point of stopping off in Britain on his way to this week’s NATO summit in Lithuania to fulfill a first bilateral reception with Charles since he ascended the throne, alongside talks with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in Downing Street. The president missed the king’s coronation in May, where the U.S. was represented by First Lady Jill Biden, and chose not to visit Great Britain during his trip to Ireland and Northern Ireland in April.Biden and Charles come from wildly different backgrounds but are of a similar generation — the king is six years Biden’s junior — and share a strong commitment to tackling climate change, as well as a deeply-held love of Ireland and Irish culture. Les...

Russian air strike on Ukraine aid distribution at school branded a war crime

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 15:55:29 GMT

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A Russian airstrike on a school in southern Ukraine killed four adults as people gathered to receive humanitarian aid, the governor of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region said Monday, branding the incident “a war crime.” Three women and a man, all in their 40s, died in Sunday’s attack in the town of Orikhiv, Gov. Yuriy Malashko said. A guided aerial bomb caused an explosion at the school, Malashko said, without providing evidence. Eleven other people were wounded in the attack, he said.Overall, Russia fired on 10 settlements in the province over the course of a day, he said.Moscow denies it targets civilian locations. Russia has been accused numerous times of doing so and committing other war crimes since its full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine in February 2022.In March, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for war crimes, accusing him of personal responsibility for the abductions of ch...

Survivors of New Zealand’s deadly volcano eruption will testify at a trial of tourism operators

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 15:55:29 GMT

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — A U.S. honeymoon couple who survived severe burns when New Zealand’s White Island volcano erupted in 2019 are listed as the first witnesses to testify in a trial of tourism industry operators over the disaster that claimed 22 lives.Prosecutors open their case in the Auckland District Court on Tuesday on health and safety charges against six companies and directors in the Dec. 9, 2019, volcanic eruption at the popular tourist attraction.Matt Urey and his wife, Lauren Barham, from Richmond, Virginia, were listed on Monday as the first witnesses to testify.British helicopter pilot Brian de Pauw and Australian tourist Annie Lu are also high on the witness list.The American couple were among 47 people on White Island, the tip of an undersea volcano also known by its Indigenous Maori name Whakaari, when superheated steam erupted, leaving most of the 25 survivors with severe burns.Many people question why tourists were allowed to visit the island after expert...

New Delhi schools close after monsoon floods kill at least 15, Pakistan on alert for more flooding

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 15:55:29 GMT

NEW DELHI (AP) — Schools in New Delhi were closed on Monday after heavy monsoon rains battered the Indian capital and caused landslides and flash floods in the country’s north, killing at least 15 people over the last three days.The torrential rain over the weekend left parts of New Delhi overflowing with water that submerged roads and stranded residents. The northern hill states were the worst affected, with 10 people killed in flash floods and landslides in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand states, according to the Press Trust of India news agency. One person died in New Delhi and four were killed in the Indian-controlled section of Kashmir. Landslides triggered by the rains disrupted traffic on key highways in Uttarakhand, a tourist hill state in the Himalayas, prompting warnings for residents not to venture out of their homes unless necessary. Authorities used helicopters to rescue people while bridges and houses were swept away in neighboring Himachal Pradesh.India’s weath...