India seeks a greater voice for the developing world at G20, but Ukraine war may overshadow talks
NEW DELHI (AP) — It’s never been easy for the leaders of the world’s largest economies to find common ground, but Russia’s war on Ukraine has made it even harder for the Group of 20 meeting to reach meaningful agreements this year.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, this year’s host, has pledged Ukraine won’t overshadow his focus on the needs developing nations in the so-called Global South, but the war has proved hard to ignore.
“New Delhi will not want to distract from the main agenda, which is to address issues of concern for the Global South,” said Nazia Hussain, an associate research fellow at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.
“So while there will be discussions on the emerging issues as a fallout of the war — supply chain security and decoupling, energy security, and food supply — the focus must remain on how to mitigate the fallout rather than debate the geopolitical/security aspects of the war.”
As leaders began arriving Friday, Indian diplomats were still trying to find compromise language for a joint communique.
Special grand jury report that aided Georgia probe leading to Trump’s indictment is set for release
ATLANTA (AP) — A judge on Friday is expected to release the full report compiled by a special grand jury that helped an investigation by the Georgia prosecutor who ultimately indicted former President Donald Trump and 18 others.
The special grand jury spent seven months hearing from some 75 witnesses before completing a report in December with recommendations for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis on charges related to attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Willis had said she needed the panel’s subpoena power to compel the testimony of witnesses who might otherwise not have been willing to appear.
While most of the intrigue in the inner workings of the case has diminished with the filing of charges, the special grand jury report will still provide the public with insight into how closely the indictment tracks with the panel’s recommendations on who should be indicted. It should reveal whether the panel envisioned the wide-ranging conspiracy that prosecutors ultimately alleged.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney ordered the partial release of the report in February but declined to immediately release the panel’s recommendations on who should or should not be prosecuted. The judge said at the time that he wanted to protect people’s due process rights.
McBurney said in a new order filed Aug. 28 that the due process concerns were moot since a regular grand jury has indicted Trump and 18 other people under the state’s anti-racketeering law. All have pleaded not guilty.
North Korea says its latest submarine can launch nuclear weapons, but there are doubts
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea said Friday its new submarine has nuclear attack capabilities after years of development. Leader Kim Jong Un described the milestone as crucial in his efforts to build a nuclear-armed navy to counter the United States and its Asian allies.
The North’s official Korean Central News Agency said the vessel, named “Hero Kim Kun Ok,” is designed to launch tactical nuclear weapons from underwater but did not specify the number of missiles it could carry and fire.
South Korean officials were skeptical that the submarine would work as North Korea described and said it likely wasn’t ready for operational duty. Still, the vessel’s development underscored how the North continues to potentially extend the range of its nuclear arsenal with systems that are harder to detect in advance.
Based on Kim Jong Un’s comments and photos by North Korean state media, it’s likely the submarine is the same one Kim inspected in 2019 while it was under construction. At the time, experts assessed it as an effort to convert an existing Romeo-class submarine.
The submarine appears to have at least 10 launch tubes — four of them apparently larger than the other six — that are possibly designed for missiles.
Al-Qaida-linked insurgents in Mali kill 49 civilians and 15 soldiers in attacks, military says
BAMAKO, Mali (AP) — Two attacks by al-Qaida linked insurgents in the restive north of Mali on Thursday killed 49 civilians and 15 government soldiers, the country’s military junta said.
A passenger boat near the city of Timbuktu on the Niger River and a Malian military position in Bamba further downstream in the Gao region were targeted, according to a statement from the military junta read on state television. It said the attacks have been claimed by JNIM, an umbrella coalition of armed groups aligned with al-Qaida.
The Malian government killed about 50 assailants while responding to the attacks, the announcement said. It said also declared three days of national mourning from Friday to honor the civilians and soldiers killed in the attacks.
Al-Qaida affiliated and Islamic State-linked groups have almost doubled the territory they control in Mali in less than a year, the United Nations said in a report last month, as they take advantage of a weak government and of armed groups that signed a 2015 peace agreement.
The stalled implementation of the peace deal and sustained attacks on communities have offered the IS group and al-Qaida affiliates a chance “to re-enact the 2012 scenario,” they said.
Latin America women’s rights groups say their abortion win in Mexico may hold the key to US struggle
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Women’s rights activists in Latin America have long looked to the United States as a model in their decades-long struggle to chip away at abortion restrictions in their highly religious countries.
But after a historic Mexican Supreme Court ruling decriminalizing abortion on the federal level, some think U.S. activists should now turn to their counterparts south of the border as they navigate a post-Roe v. Wade reality.
“In Mexico we have a lot of experience,” said Rebeca Ramos, a lawyer and director of GIRE, the organization behind the Mexican court case. “And given the current situation in the United States, it’s something we can share with them.”
Latin America is in the midst of what’s come to be known as a “green wave,” as countries like Mexico, Colombia and Argentina have knocked down major abortion restrictions in recent years.
For decades, green has been emblematic of Latin America’s abortion-rights movement, which took hold in the 1980s in Argentina, a country that until recently had some of the region’s strictest prohibitions. Argentine women’s activist Susana Chiarotti said she originally proposed adopting the color for the cause in 2003 as a way of changing the narrative around the issue.
Russia holds elections in occupied Ukrainian regions in an effort to tighten its grip there
TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Russian authorities are holding local elections this weekend in occupied parts of Ukraine in an effort to tighten their grip on territories Moscow illegally annexed a year ago and still does not fully control.
The voting for Russian-installed legislatures in the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions has already begun and concludes Sunday. It has been denounced by Kyiv and the West.
“It constitutes a flagrant violation of international law, which Russia continues to disregard,” the Council of Europe, the continent’s foremost human rights body, said this week.
Kyiv echoed that sentiment, with the parliament saying in a statement that the balloting in areas where Russia “conducts active hostilities” poses a threat to Ukrainian lives. Lawmakers urged other countries not to recognize the results of the vote.
For Russia — which launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine 18 months ago — it is important to go on with the voting to maintain the illusion of normalcy, despite the fact that the Kremlin does not have full control over the annexed regions, political analyst Abbas Gallyamov said.
2 dead in Hong Kong amid extreme rain and flash floods that also struck southern China
HONG KONG (AP) — Heavy rain in Hong Kong and southern China overnight flooded city streets and some subway stations, with hundreds evacuated and two deaths reported in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong authorities said during a joint news conference Friday that the extreme weather was expected to last until at least midnight, with widespread flooding and heavy disruptions to public transport in multiple districts.
An official from the Hong Kong observatory said the city had recorded over 600mm of rain so far — a quarter of the city’s average annual rainfall. The Hong Kong Observatory said it recorded 158.1 millimeters (6.2 inches) of rain in the hour between 11 p.m. Thursday and midnight, the highest recording for a single hour since records began in 1884.
Hong Kong police said that two bodies were found floating in waters in different parts of the city. The city’s fire services department said it had evacuated 110 people and assisted 20 injured people.
The city’s response to the rain and floods has drawn criticism from residents online, who questioned the authorities’ preparedness for such an emergency.
Body cam shows prolific federal drug prosecutor offering cops business card in DUI crash arrest
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — When police arrived at his house to investigate a hit-and-run, Joseph Ruddy, one of the nation’s most prolific federal narcotics prosecutors, looked so drunk he could barely stand up straight, leaning on the tailgate of his pickup to keep his balance.
But he apparently was under control enough to be waiting with his U.S. Justice Department business card in hand.
“What are you trying to hand me?” an officer asked. “You realize when they pull my body-worn camera footage and they see this, this is going to go really bad.”
That footage obtained by The Associated Press showed Ruddy apparently attempting to leverage his position to blunt the fallout from a Fourth of July crash in which he is accused of drunkenly striking another vehicle and leaving the scene.
But despite being charged, the 59-year-old Ruddy remained on the job for two months, representing the United States in court as recently as last week to notch another win for the sprawling task force he helped create two decades ago targeting cocaine smuggling at sea.
As more children die from fentanyl, some prosecutors are charging their parents with murder
SANTA ROSA, Calif. (AP) — Madison Bernard climbed into bed before dawn with her toddler, Charlotte, who was asleep next to a nightstand strewn with straws, burned tinfoil and a white powder.
Hours later, the mother woke and found her daughter struggling to breathe, according to investigators who described the scene in court documents.
After being rushed in an ambulance to a hospital, the 15-month-old girl died from a fentanyl overdose. Her mother and father, whom authorities said brought the drugs into their California home, were charged with murder and are awaiting trial.
The couple has pleaded not guilty but are part of a growing number of parents across the U.S. being charged amid an escalating opioid crisis that has claimed an increasing number of children as collateral victims.
Some 20 states have so-called “drug-induced homicide” laws, which allow prosecutors to press murder or manslaughter charges against anyone who supplies or exposes a person to drugs causing a fatal overdose. The laws are intended to target drug dealers.
Climate protester glues feet to floor at US Open, interrupts Coco Gauff’s semifinal win over Muchova
NEW YORK (AP) — Coco Gauff’s U.S. Open semifinal victory over Karolina Muchova was delayed by 50 minutes because of a disruption by four environmental activists in the Arthur Ashe Stadium stands Thursday night. One protester glued his bare feet to the concrete floor.
Gauff was leading 1-0 in the second set when play was halted. She would go on to win 6-4, 7-5.
“I always speak about preaching about what you feel and what you believe in. It was done in a peaceful way, so I can’t get too mad at it. Obviously I don’t want it to happen when I’m winning up 6-4, 1-0, and I wanted the momentum to keep going,” said Gauff, a 19-year-old from Florida. “But hey, if that’s what they felt they needed to do to get their voices heard, I can’t really get upset at it.”
Security guards and, later, more than a half-dozen police officers went over to confront the protesters, who were wearing shirts that read, “End Fossil Fuels.” The U.S. Tennis Association said three of the protesters were escorted out of the stadium without further incident, but it took longer to remove the person who stuck his feet to the ground.
The USTA added that NYPD and medical personnel were needed in order to safely remove that person. All four activists were taken into police custody.
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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