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Pakistan mounts efforts to rescue 6 children and 2 men trapped in a chairlift

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:16:31 GMT

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistani emergency workers launched a rescue operation to try and save six children and two men trapped in a chairlift after one of its cables snapped off on Tuesday, leaving it dangling high above ground in the country’s northwest. The chairlift was installed across a river canyon, connecting villages in Battagram district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. It was used by local villagers to cross the river and shorten the distance to nearby schools, government offices and other businesses. Taimoor Khan, a spokesman for the disaster management authority, said the chairlift had been dangling 350 meters (1,150 feet) above ground for six hours before a helicopter was dispatched to the site to try and pluck the eight out of the chairlift. Pakistan’s caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar ordered the helicopter rescue, Khan said. Many villagers in Pakistan’s mountainous regions use such chairlifts to shorten distances and travel and an unspecifie...

Ex-Prime Minister Thaksin enters prison in Thailand, as his allies attempt to form a government

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:16:31 GMT

BANGKOK (AP) — Thailand’s Parliament on Tuesday began voting in a second attempt to choose a prime minister, hours after ex-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra returned to Thailand after years of self-imposed exile and entered prison to begin serving an eight-year sentence.The Thaksin-linked Pheu Thai Party proposed former property developer Srettha Thavisin as the head of an 11-party coalition that includes two parties allied with its former military adversaries, holding 314 seats in the 500-member House of Representatives.Srettha also needs support from the non-elected Senate, appointed by a previous military government. Both houses of Parliament vote together for prime minister under a military-implemented constitution, and senators, like the army, see themselves as guardians of traditional conservative royalist values. Srettha is not a member of parliament and does not appear to be present for the vote.Pheu Thai is the latest in a string of parties formed by Thaksin or his allies,...

Russia’s Putin stays away over arrest warrant as leaders of emerging economies meet in South Africa

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:16:31 GMT

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin will be notably absent when Chinese President Xi Jinping and other leaders from the BRICS group of emerging economie s start a three-day summit in South Africa on Tuesday.The bloc, consisting of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, is holding its first in-person meeting since before the COVID-19 pandemic, but Putin will participate via video call after his travel to South Africa was complicated by an International Criminal Court arrest warrant issued for him in March over the abduction of children from Ukraine.Xi, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa will attend in person as the bloc — home to 40% of the world’s population and responsible for more than 30% of global economic output — mulls a possible expansion.That will top the agenda at Wednesday’s main summit meeting in Johannesburg’s financial distri...

Danish defense minister swaps places with economy minister days after donation of F-16s to Ukraine

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:16:31 GMT

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — The defense and economy ministers in Denmark’s centrist government swapped places Tuesday, a day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked Danish lawmakers for providing Kyiv with F-16 warplanes.Jakob Ellemann-Jensen who is also deputy prime minister in Denmark’s three-party coalition and head of the Liberal Party, became economy minister. Troels Lund Poulsen who acted as defense minister while Ellemann-Jensen was on a five-month leave of absence for health reasons, now takes over full-time at the defense ministry.Ellemann-Jensen told a news conference that he took the decision to swap places after returning to office Aug. 1 but only announced it Tuesday following the Zelenskyy visit.Lund Poulsen was considered the architect behind the donation of the F-16 to Ukraine and was at helm in May, when Denmark announced it will invest some 143 billion kroner ($21 billion) in the country’s defense over the next decade.The Netherlands and Denmark ...

In the news today: Federal cabinet retreat to hear from housing experts today

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:16:31 GMT

Here is a roundup of stories from The Canadian Press designed to bring you up to speed on what you need to know today…Cabinet set to hear from housing experts as Charlottetown retreat continuesThe federal cabinet today is expected to discuss whether to revisit the existing national housing strategy and possibly hold a national housing summit with other levels of government and the private sector in a bid to solve the growing housing crisis across the country.The discussions underway at the cabinet retreat in Charlottetown come as the Liberals look ahead to the fall sitting of Parliament where they plan to make housing the central focus of their efforts.Two housing experts who helped co-author a recent report on the federal government’s role in solving the housing crisis are set to present their findings to the cabinet later today.The report delivered a week ago warns that “Canada’s housing crisis is worsening dramatically” in large part because of an &#...

New Mexico State preaches anti-hazing message as student-athletes return for fall season

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:16:31 GMT

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Top administrators at New Mexico State University wanted to find just the right wording to announce that they were pulling the plug on the men’s basketball season following reports of alleged hazing involving team members. It was a busy afternoon in February — Super Bowl Sunday, in fact — as university officials traded emails and made suggestions before dropping the bombshell that the season was finished. They wanted the message to address the safety of students as well as the integrity of the university. And time was of the essence.“We don’t want our student athletes to hear this via media,” wrote Ann Goodman, the dean of students.A review of hundreds of emails obtained by The Associated Press through a public records request provides insight into the damage control undertaken by New Mexico State University after news broke about the hazing allegations. It capped an already difficult season that had been marred by a deadly shooting on a rival campus a...

Windows are shattered in a Moscow suburb as Russia says it thwarts latest Ukraine drone attack

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:16:31 GMT

Russian air defense systems thwarted four nighttime Ukrainian drone attacks, Russia’s Ministry of Defense said Tuesday, with the falling wreckage of one drone shattering an apartment building’s windows and damaging vehicles in Moscow’s western suburbs.There were no reports of injuries in the latest drone attacks that Russia blamed on Kyiv, as the war approaches its 18-month milestone.Though the drone attacks on Russian soil have occurred almost daily in recent weeks, they have caused little damage. Even so, they have unnerved some Russians and are in line with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s pledge to take the war into the heart of Russia.Flights at several Moscow airports were temporarily suspended Tuesday as a security precaution amid the attacks, authorities said.Two other drones were jammed and crashed in the western Bryansk region bordering Ukraine, the defense ministry said.Ukraine hasn’t acknowledged responsibility for the attempted drone strikes, nor have senior Russ...

Ex-BBC reporter passionate about local news informing N.W.T. and beyond about fires

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:16:31 GMT

A former BBC sports reporter in the Northwest Territories has become central to the world’s understanding of the wildfires threatening the territory and its capital, Yellowknife.Ollie Williams is the editor and co-founder of Cabin Radio, a news outlet in Yellowknife that has become a cherished source of immediate local information about the fires threatening the city and forcing mass evacuations.Williams and his small team have been filing daily, hourly and even minute-by-minute updates on what’s happening, sometimes from inside vehicles as they, too, flee the city.He’s also been doing interviews with national and international media to explain just how these wildfires are affecting the vast, sparsely populated territory and its residents.Cabin Radio’s ascent to international notice is similar to that of the Port-aux-Basques, N.L., paper Wreckhouse Weekly, whose photo of a house dangling over an ocean cliff during post-tropical Fiona was published across the ...

Cabinet set to hear from housing experts as Charlottetown retreat continues

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:16:31 GMT

CHARLOTTETOWN — The federal cabinet today is expected to discuss whether to revisit the existing national housing strategy and possibly hold a national housing summit with other levels of government and the private sector in a bid to solve the growing housing crisis across the country.The discussions underway at the cabinet retreat in Charlottetown come as the Liberals look ahead to the fall sitting of Parliament where they plan to make housing the central focus of their efforts.Two housing experts who helped co-author a recent report on the federal government’s role in solving the housing crisis are set to present their findings to the cabinet later today.The report delivered a week ago warns that “Canada’s housing crisis is worsening dramatically” in large part because of an “extreme” lack of accessible and affordable rentals.The authors say a new industrial housing strategy is required that brings together governments, private sector and non-pr...

Checkpoints will block attempts to return, N.W.T. official warns wildfire evacuees

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:16:31 GMT

YELLOWKNIFE — A spokeswoman for the Northwest Territories’ emergency management organization says there have been reports of people returning to Fort Smith, or planning to return there, despite the wildfire risk.Jennifer Young says residents need to know they will be stopped at established checkpoints and asked to verify they are an essential worker of an evacuated community before being let through.Flames are about four kilometres away from Fort Smith, a community of 2,500 along the Alberta boundary that has been evacuated for over a week.Fire information officer Mike Westwick says the area hasn’t received rain like the small amount Yellowknife got over the last few days, and the fire is burning deep into the ground.The fire near Yellowknife, whose 20,000 people were evacuated by road and air, remained about 15 kilometres from the city yesterday and Westwick says crews have been switching from a defensive mode to an attack mode against the flames.The legislative assembl...