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Southeast Asian nations move ahead with plan for navy drills near disputed area of South China Sea

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:01:37 GMT

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — The Association of Southeast Asian Nations is moving ahead with plans for joint naval exercises in September, the first held by countries in the bloc on their own, at a time when several are responding more strongly to increasing Chinese assertiveness in the area.The Indonesian military said Tuesday that ASEAN member countries held an initial planning conference for the joint exercises, to be held Sept. 18-25 near a disputed area of the South China Sea, despite skepticism from Cambodia.China says the vast majority of the South China Sea lies within its “nine-dash line,” which it uses to demarcate what it considers its maritime border. That has brought it into tense standoffs with the ASEAN nations of Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines, with Chinese fishing boats and military vessels becoming more aggressive in the disputed waters.Indonesia’s military chief, Adm. Yudo Margono, initially said the exercises would take place in an ar...

Police in P.E.I issue Amber Alert issued for 9-year-old autistic girl

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:01:37 GMT

EGLINGTON, P.E.I. — Prince Edward Island RCMP officials say a missing nine-year-old girl has triggered an Amber Alert.Kings County RCMP say Jazlyn Blaisdell, who is autistic, is believed to have been abducted by a man considered to armed and dangerous.They say she was last seen at 1:30 a.m. in Eglington, P.E.I.Police describe Jazlyn as being four-feet-eight-inches tall, with long brown hair and brown eyes, wearing a green tank top and green camouflage shorts.An RCMP notice on Facebook also says she is believed to be in a blue Mitsubishi SUV with Andrew Blaisdell, who is considered armed and dangerous. The suspect is described as five-foot-eight, with a slim build, 120 pounds, brown hair, brown eyes, multiple tattoos, wearing a white ball cap, black jacket, blue jeans, and red shoes.The police say if spotted, do not try to apprehend the suspect and call 9-1-1 instead.This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 20,2023.The Canadian Press

Ukraine downs Russian drones but some get through due to gaps in air protection

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:01:37 GMT

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian air defenses downed 32 of 35 Shahed exploding drones launched by Russia early Tuesday, most of them in the Kyiv region, officials said, in a bombardment that exposed gaps in the country’s air protection after almost 16 months of war.Russian forces mostly targeted the region around the Ukrainian capital in a nighttime drone attack lasting around three hours, officials said, but Ukrainian air defenses in the area shot down about two dozen of them.The attack was part of a wider bombardment of Ukrainian regions that extended as far as the Lviv region in the west of the country, near Poland.The Shahed drones made it all the way to Lviv because of the inability of air defense assets to cover such a broad area, Ukrainian air force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat said.Air defense systems are mostly dedicated to protecting major cities, key infrastructure facilities, including nuclear power plants, and the front line, he said.“There is a general lack of air defense asset...

Ukrainian refugees helped push German population up 1.3% last year

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:01:37 GMT

BERLIN (AP) — Large numbers of refugees from Ukraine fleeing Russia’s war fueled a 1.3% rise in Germany’s population last year, helping push up the number of inhabitants in the European Union’s most populous country to more than 84.4 million, official statistics showed Tuesday.Germany’s population expanded by 1.12 million in 2022, the Federal Statistical Office said. That compared with an increase of just 0.1%, or 82,000 people, the previous year.All of Germany’s 16 states saw their populations increase. The largest proportional increases were in the country’s two biggest cities, Berlin and Hamburg, which both saw rises of 2.1%.At the end of last year, Germany was home to 12.3 million people with only foreign citizenship, the statistics office said. Of those, 1.34 million Turkish citizens — a substantial minority in the country for decades — made up the biggest single group.There were also 1.05 million Ukrainians, an increase of 915,000 compared w...

Germany’s intelligence agency says there’s been a rise in far-right extremism in 2022

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:01:37 GMT

BERLIN (AP) — Germany’s domestic intelligence agency said Tuesday that it has recorded a new high in crimes by political extremists in 2022, with the far right posing the biggest security threat to the country.Figures published by the BfV agency show that there were almost 2,000 more instances of cases linked to extremists of all political shades — 35,452 in 2022, compared to 33,476 in 2021. Meanwhile, the number of crimes classified as violent crimes dipped by just over 140 — to 2,847 last year, from 2,994 the year before. The agency also counted 38,800 far-right extremists in the country last year — an increase of almost 5,000 in the overall number from 2021. The agency said it believes 14,000 of those individuals could potentially resort to violence. Interior Minister Nancy Faeser expressed particular concern at a rise in attacks on refugees and migrants and said the country should not underestimate the danger posed “by right-wing extremism and right-wing terrorism.”Faeser ...

French investigators search the offices of Paris Olympic organizers in suspected corruption probe

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:01:37 GMT

PARIS (AP) — French investigators are searching the headquarters of the Paris Olympic organizers in a probe into suspected corruption, according to the national financial prosecutor’s office.The Paris organizing committee said in a statement that a search is under way at their headquarters in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis, and that “Paris 2024 is cooperating with the investigators to facilitate their investigations.” It would not comment further.An official with the financial prosecutor’s office said the searches are linked to two investigations based on information provided by an anti-corruption agency. The official was not authorized to be publicly named according to prosecutor’s office policy.___AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games and https://twitter.com/AP_SportsThe Associated Press

Australian senator invites International Criminal Court to probe officers in war crime allegations

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:01:37 GMT

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A senator invited the International Criminal Court to investigate what Australian military commanders knew about war crime allegations in Afghanistan in a bid to pressure Australia into launching its own review.Sen. Jacqui Lambie, an influential independent legislator, sent an Article 15 Communication to the Hague-based court Tuesday because she argues military commanders have not been held accountable for their soldiers’ alleged war crimes.“The government is, no doubt, hoping this will all just go away. They’re hoping that Australians will forget that when alleged war crimes in Afghanistan were investigated, our senior commanders got a free pass, while our Diggers were thrown under the bus,” Lambie told Senate. “Digger” is a colloquialism for Australian soldier.“There is a culture of cover-up at the highest levels of the Australian Defense Force. It is the ultimate boys club,” added Lambie, a former army corporal.The ICC has an obligation to prosecute war...

Tribal activists reject the Nevada mine Biden hails as a key to clean energy

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:01:37 GMT

OROVADA, Nevada (AP) — Just 45 miles (72 kilometers) from the Fort McDermitt Indian Reservation where Daranda Hinkey and her family corral horses and cows, a centerpiece of President Joe Biden’s clean energy plan is taking shape: construction of one of the largest lithium mines in the world.As heavy trucks dig up the earth in this remote, windswept region of Nevada to extract the silvery-white metal used in electric-vehicle batteries, the $2.2 billion project is fueling a backlash. “No Lithium. No mine!″ proclaims a large hand-painted sign in Hinkey’s front yard.The Biden administration says the project will help mitigate climate change by speeding the shift away from fossil fuels. But Hinkey and other opponents say it is not worth the costs to the local environment and people. Similar disputes are taking place around the world as governments and companies advancing renewable energy find themselves battling communities opposed to projects that threaten wildlife, groundwater an...

CP NewsAlert: Amber Alert issued for nine-year-old autistic girl in P.E.I.

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:01:37 GMT

EGLINGTON, P.E.I. — Police in Prince Edward Island have issued an Amber Alert for a nine-year-old girl believed to be with a man considered armed and dangerous.RCMP say Jazlyn Blaisdell is autistic and that she is believed to have been abducted.She was last seen at 1:30 a.m. in Eglington, P.E.I.Police say in a tweet that she is described as being four feet eight inches tall with long brown hair and brown eyes, wearing a green tank top and green camouflage shorts.The RCMP tweet also says Jazlyn is believed to be in a blue Mitsubishi SUV with Andrew Blaisdell, who is considered armed and dangerous.More coming.The Canadian Press

What we know about the missing Titanic-bound submersible

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:01:37 GMT

A search is underway for a deep-sea vessel that went missing with five people aboard after it dived toward the deteriorating wreck site of the Titanic ocean liner.The U.S. Coast Guard is leading the search for the small craft, named Titan, in the North Atlantic Ocean. The remote area is where the Titanic struck an iceberg and sank in 1912, killing all but about 700 of the roughly 2,200 passengers and crew.This was OceanGate Expeditions' third annual voyage to chronicle the deterioration of Titanic since 2021. The sunken ship is about 2.4 miles (3.8 kilometers) below the surface.This undated photo provided by OceanGate Expeditions in June 2021 shows the company's Titan submersible. On Monday, June 19, 2023, a rescue operation was underway deep in the Atlantic Ocean in search of the technologically advanced submersible vessel carrying five people to document the wreckage of the Titanic, the iconic ocean liner that sank more than a century earlier. (OceanGate Expeditions via AP, F...