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Singer Zahara, South Africa’s Afro-soul sensation and beloved ‘Country Girl,’ dies aged 36

Published Thu, 26 Dec 2024 20:54:41 GMT

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — South African singer Zahara, who rose from an impoverished rural background to find rapid fame with multi-platinum selling albums and delivered her unique version of wistful Afro-soul in her country’s isiXhosa language and in English, has died, her family said Tuesday. She was 36.Zahara, whose real name was Bulelwa Mkutukana, died Monday, her family said in a statement posted on her official page on X, formerly Twitter. It gave no cause of death. The family said last month that Zahara had been admitted to a hospital with an undisclosed issue and had asked for privacy.“She was a pure light, and an even purer heart, in this world,” her family said in Tuesday’s statement.Zahara’s debut 2011 album “Loliwe” — meaning “The Train” — was certified double platinum and became South Africa’s second-fastest selling album after the 1997 record “Memeza” by Brenda Fassie, an icon of South African music.Just 23 when “Loliwe” was rel...

As more Rohingya arrive by boat, Indonesia asks the international community to share its burden

Published Thu, 26 Dec 2024 20:54:41 GMT

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesia said Tuesday it is appealing to the international community for help after more than 1,500 Rohingya refugees have arrived on its shores by boat since November.Indonesia once tolerated such landings while Thailand and Malaysia pushed them away. But the growing hostility of some Indonesians toward the Rohingya, who come from refugee camps in Bangladesh, has put pressure on President Joko Widodo’s government to take action.“We see that the handling of the refugee problem, especially the resettlement issue, has been very slow so far,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Muhammad Iqbal told a news conference in the capital, Jakarta. He urged the international community to “show more responsibility in efforts to resolve the Rohingya refugee problem.”Indonesia, like Thailand and Malaysia, is not a signatory to the U.N.’s 1951 Refugee Convention outlining their legal protections, so is not obligated to accept them. In the past, all have provided at lea...

MI6 chief thanks Russian state television for its ‘help’ in encouraging Russians to spy for the UK

Published Thu, 26 Dec 2024 20:54:41 GMT

LONDON (AP) — The head of Britain’s foreign intelligence agency has thanked Russian state television for its “help” encouraging Russians to spy for the U.K. after it translated and broadcast part of a speech he gave earlier this year in which he called on Russians to “join hands with us.”Anchor Maria Butina — herself a former Russian spy — included the clip at the top of a program about Richard Moore, the head of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, also known as MI6. Moore gave the speech in July at the British Embassy in Prague where he openly encouraged Russians faced with “the venality, infighting and sheer callous incompetence of their leaders” to spy for Britain.On Monday, Moore tweeted that the British foreign intelligence agency had been “puzzling over how to get my message to our target audience in Russia — we never thought Russian state TV would step in to help.”“Thanks folks,” he added.Butina introduced the clip at the start of an hourlong program in Septemb...

Chinese leaders consider next steps for economy as debt and deflation cloud outlook for coming year

Published Thu, 26 Dec 2024 20:54:41 GMT

BANGKOK (AP) — Chinese leaders have wrapped up a two-day annual meeting to set economic priorities for the coming year, the official Xinhua News Agency said in a report Tuesday that cited a litany of problems but also said the world’s second-largest economy had “achieved a recovery.”The report gave no details of specific policy changes but laid out broad goals that are in line with what the ruling Communist Party has been doing as it endeavors to steer the world’s second-largest economy toward more sustainable, stable growth as China recovers from the setbacks of the COVID-19 pandemic. The property industry is in crisis. Prices have been falling for months, suggesting weak overall demand both inside China and in global markets. Youth unemployment is precariously high and local government debts are adding to pressures on the financial system.The Xinhua report said China was contending with slack demand, excess industrial capacity, weak consumer confidence and “certain risks and...

A Moldovan court annuls a ban on an alleged pro-Russia party that removed it from local elections

Published Thu, 26 Dec 2024 20:54:41 GMT

CHISINAU, Moldova (AP) — An appeals court in Moldova’s capital on Tuesday annulled a decision that banned hundreds of candidates from an alleged pro-Russia political party from participating in an electoral race days ahead of a nationwide ballot.The Chisinau Court of Appeal overturned the ban on the Chance Party that had been enforced by Moldova’s Commission for Exceptional Situations on Nov. 3 — two days before the Nov. 5 local elections. The ban removed about 600 candidates from the ballot in the country of about 2.5 million people. The party had legally challenged the ban. Alexei Lungu, the Chance Party’s leader, reacted to the appeal court’s decision on Tuesday by claiming that Moldova’s state authorities had “acted illegally” and said the ban had “violated fundamental human rights and the right to free elections.”Moldova’s government spokesperson, Daniel Voda, said after the court’s decision that it will challenge it at both the Court of Appeal and the Supreme...

Female pedestrian seriously hurt when struck by vehicle in Mississauga

Published Thu, 26 Dec 2024 20:54:41 GMT

A pedestrian is in the hospital with serious injuries after being struck by a vehicle in Mississauga.Emergency crews were called to Eglinton Avenue West and The Chase, just west of Mississauga Road, around 7 a.m. for reports of a crash.Paramedics say a female pedestrian was rushed to hospital with serious, possibly critical injuries. There is no word on the age of the victim.The vehicle involved remained at the scene of the crash, according to police.Westbound Eglinton is closed at The Chase as police investigate.More to come.

At least $2.1 billion in new funds pledged at COP28, as foundations focus on health and agriculture

Published Thu, 26 Dec 2024 20:54:41 GMT

With the United Nations climate talks wrapping up in Dubai, foundations and other funders pledged at least $2.1 billion in new financing to reduce climate impacts, especially from agriculture, and increasing help for vulnerable communities.The Conference of Parties to the UNFCCC, or COP28 summit, featured numerous firsts, including forums on health, food production and philanthropy. The estimated pledges, which do not represent a complete account of philanthropic commitments at COP28, came from a mix of foundations and private companies with some made in partnership with governments. They will be delivered over a range of timelines. For the first time, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria sent a delegation to the conference, pledging to spend 70% of its budget, about $9 billion, in the 50 most climate vulnerable countries over the next three years. “The honest answer is that the global health community, including us, was so focused on COVID-19, that we proba...

Court overturns conviction of former Pakistani premier Nawaz Sharif ahead of parliamentary election

Published Thu, 26 Dec 2024 20:54:41 GMT

ISLAMABAD (AP) — A Pakistani court overturned Tuesday the 2018 conviction of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in a graft case, clearing his path to run in the parliamentary election set to be held in February.The Islamabad High Court announced its verdict after Sharif filed his appeal in October. Courts in Pakistan usually take much longer to issue such rulings. The same court acquitted Sharif in another graft case on Nov. 29.Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League party welcomed the verdict, saying the country’s three-time former premier was exonerated and could run in the coming election.Marriyum Aurangzeb, Sharif’s spokesperson, hailed the court ruling, saying: “Today, the reality of these fake and false cases has come to light in front of the public.”In 2018, an anti-graft tribunal sentenced Sharif to seven years and 10 years in prison in two cases filed against him, after he stepped down as prime minister. He returned to Pakistan in October, after four years o...

How to tell fact from fiction in reports from Gaza

Published Thu, 26 Dec 2024 20:54:41 GMT

In today’s Big Story Podcast, if you’ve been fooled by a viral photo or video out of Gaza in the past two months, you’re far from alone. In fact you’re in the company of journalists and media outlets as well, that’s how rife with misinformation and disinformation this conflict has become. And because the debunking of the information didn’t travel nearly as far and wide as the initial report, you may not even know you were fooled.Dr. Valerie Wirtschafter is a fellow at the Brookings Institution in Foreign Policy, and the Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technology Initiative. She says the situation in Gaza is ripe for exploitation by bad actors.“The supply of credible information is low, the demand for it is extremely high, so in that space misinformation — potentially disinformation — can circulate quite a bit,” says Wirtschafter.Why is Israel’s invasion of Gaza more difficult to parse than even the recent invasion of Ukraine by Russia? ...

In Florida farmland, Guadalupe feast celebrates, sustains 60-year-old mission to migrant workers

Published Thu, 26 Dec 2024 20:54:41 GMT

NARANJA, Fla. (AP) — Martin Monjaraz takes special pride in helping to organize the Guadalupe festival on the grounds of St. Ann Mission, where he first embraced the Catholic faith as a teen after moving from Mexico to work in the surrounding farmland decades ago.“Here there’s a way to welcome that it’s always like we’ve known one another forever,” Monjaraz said by the large tent where hundreds of people had been streaming in since well before dawn Sunday to bring roses, poinsettias, candles and prayers to a statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe.The feast draws millions of pilgrims to the main basilica in Mexico City and to churches big and small across the Americas around Dec. 12, which marks the anniversary of one of several apparitions of the Virgin Mary witnessed by an Indigenous Mexican man named Juan Diego in 1531. For St. Ann mission church, where Miami’s urban sprawl fades into farmland and the Everglades’ swampy wilderness, it’s the most important event of the year — both c...