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ASEAN eyes Canada as anchor of peace in Indo-Pacific region

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:26:34 GMT

JAKARTA — Some southeast Asian leaders see Canada as an anchor for peace in the Indo-Pacific region, as they launch a new strategic partnership at a time when tensions continue to mount over territorial claims in the South China Sea. “As a strategic partner, I hope Canada can become an anchor for peace and stability in the region that respects international law, and that encourages co-operation that are more concrete and inclusive, in particular in the Indo-Pacific region,” said Indonesian President Joko Widodo as he welcomed Canada into a new strategic partnership on Wednesday.The partnership with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations is considered a symbolic gesture that reflects Canada’s expanded presence in the Indo-Pacific region. Trudeau, in a speech to ASEAN leaders Wednesday, said it shows the progress being made on a free-trade agreement between Canada and the 10-nation bloc.“We share clear commitments to peace and stability, openness and transp...

Blinken is expected to announce $1 billion in new U.S. funding for Ukraine during his visit to Kyiv

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:26:34 GMT

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken visited Ukraine’s capital Wednesday where he was expected to announce more than $1 billion in new American funding in a display of Washington’s unflagging support for Kyiv’s fight.Blinken also aimed to assess Ukraine’s 3-month-old counteroffensive and signal continued U.S. backing as some Western allies express worries about Kyiv’s slow progress in driving out Russian forces after 18 months of war, according to U.S. officials.“We want to make sure that Ukraine has what it needs, not only to succeed in the counteroffensive but has what it needs for the long-term, to make sure that it has a strong deterrent,” Blinken said during the visit. “We’re also determined to continue to work with our partners as they build and rebuild a strong economy, strong democracy.”Blinken was set to pledge more than $1 billion in new U.S. funding, a senior State Department official said, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to discuss the...

BTS’ Jung Kook to join Global Citizen Festival lineup to make one of his first US solo appearances

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:26:34 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Jung Kook of BTS will join the Global Citizen Festival lineup, making one of his first live solo appearances at the Sept. 23 concert in New York’s Central Park.The record-setting K-Pop singer, whose debut solo single “Seven” hit No. 1 in the United States and around the world this summer, will join Red Hot Chili Peppers, Ms. Lauryn Hill, Anitta and Megan Thee Stallion as headliners of the event designed to encourage supporters, especially those in Gen Z, to take action on extreme poverty, gender inequality, climate change and other issues.“The festival sheds light on important causes and drives action and I’m happy to take part in it,” Jung Kook said in a statement. “I can’t wait to perform in front of many people at the Great Lawn in Central Park.”The Global Citizen Festival — which will also include performances from K-pop sensation Stray Kids, singer-songwriter Conan Gray, rapper-DJ D-Nice, and actor-singer Sofia Carson — provides free tickets to the event in exch...

Stock market today: Wall Street poised to open with losses; Roku rises on layoffs announcement

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:26:34 GMT

Wall Street is on track for a modestly lower open Wednesday in a holiday-shortened week with so far little in the way of market-moving news.Futures for the S&P 500 and the Dow industrials were both off 0.2% before the bell.Coming off the Labor Day holiday in the U.S., investors have few major economic reports to look forward to this week, while the latest round of corporate earnings is essentially finished.The Institute for Supply Management releases its latest report on the U.S. services sector later Wednesday. The service sector employs most Americans and is a big component of the economy. Its health could provide more insight into how inflation is affecting consumer spending, which has been stronger than expected under the weight of extended inflation.Roku shares tumbled 13% in off-hours trading after the streaming company said it is cutting about 10% of its employees, or 360 people, as it looks to lower expenses. Major airlines are down after several predicted rising costs f...

A former Mossad chief says Israel is enforcing an apartheid system in the West Bank

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:26:34 GMT

HERZLIYA, Israel (AP) — A former head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency told The Associated Press on Wednesday that Israel is enforcing an apartheid system in the West Bank, joining a tiny but growing list of retired officials to endorse an idea that remains largely on the fringes of Israeli discourse and international diplomacy.Tamir Pardo becomes the latest former senior official to have concluded that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank amounts to apartheid, a reference to the system of racial separation in South Africa that ended in 1994.Leading rights groups in Israel and abroad and Palestinians have accused Israel and its 56-year occupation of the West Bank of morphing into an apartheid system that they say gives Palestinians second-class status and is designed to maintain Jewish hegemony from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.A handful of former Israeli leaders, diplomats and security men have warned that Israel risks becoming an apartheid state, ...

Tennis ball wasteland? Game grapples with a fuzzy yellow recycling problem

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:26:34 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Tennis has a fuzzy yellow problem most players don’t think about when they open can after can of fresh balls, or when umpires at U.S. Open matches make their frequent requests for “new balls please.”Because tennis balls are extremely hard to recycle and the industry has yet to develop a ball to make that easier, nearly all of the 330 million balls made worldwide each year eventually get chucked in the garbage, with most ending up in landfills, where they can take more than 400 years to decompose. It’s a situation highlighted by Grand Slam events like Flushing Meadows, which will go through nearly 100,000 balls over the course of the tournament.That harsh reality in an age of heightened environmental awareness has sent ball makers, recyclers and the game’s worldwide governing body scrambling for solutions, and spurred sustainability activists to sound the alarm in online posts that pose the question: Are tennis balls a disaster for the planet?“Tennis balls, like a lot...

Use this plastic, not that plastic: The fight for truly sustainable packaging

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:26:34 GMT

In today’s Big Story Podcast, you may have noticed a lack of plastic bags at some of your favourite stores, as many places in Canada phase out single-use plastics. In their place you may have been offered ‘reusable’ shopping bags, which are also often made of plastic. You may have used sustainable containers or cups — but unless you were also told how to properly dispose of them, it probably didn’t make a difference.Natalia Lumby is a professor at Toronto Metropolitan University. She researches sustainability in packaging, particularly in the food and beverage industry.“At the end of the day it’s legislators working together with the people who provide products into the market and packages into the market,” says Lumby.Moving towards less and more sustainable packaging is necessary. The question is all in how we do it, and how we communicate that to people who are just trying to get through their shopping, or takeout, or coffee run. So, what actually makes pac...

African Climate Summit issues unanimous call for world leaders to support global tax on fossil fuels

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:26:34 GMT

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The first African Climate Summit ended with a call Wednesday for world leaders to rally behind a global carbon tax on fossil fuels, aviation and maritime transport, and it seeks reform of the world financial system that forces African nations to pay more to borrow money.The declaration backed by the leaders of the continent of 1.3 billion people — a population set to double by 2050 — calls on the world’s biggest emitters of planet-warming greenhouse gases and its richest countries to keep their promises. It notes especially the unfulfilled pledge of $100 billion annually to developing nations in climate finance, made 14 years ago.“No country should ever have to choose between development aspirations and climate action,” the declaration says.Adopted unanimously, the statement also calls for Africa’s vast mineral wealth to be processed on the continent, noting that “decarbonizing the global economy is also an opportunity to contribute to equality and shared prosp...

The AP Interview: Harris says Trump shouldn’t be an exception for Jan. 6 accountability

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:26:34 GMT

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris said Wednesday that those responsible for the effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and the ensuing violence at the U.S Capitol must be held accountable — even if that means Donald Trump. “Let the evidence, the facts, take it where it may,” Harris said in an interview with The Associated Press in Jakarta, Indonesia, where she was attending a regional summit. Federal prosecutors have indicted Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, for his efforts to cling to power in 2020. The former president also has been charged in Georgia in a scheme to subvert the will of voters who elected Democrat Joe Biden instead of giving Trump a second term. “I spent the majority of my career as a prosecutor,” said Harris, who served as California’s attorney general before moving to Washington as a U.S. senator. “I believe that people should be held accountable under the law. And ...

South Africa didn’t know a US-sanctioned Russian ship carried its military purchases, inquiry finds

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:26:34 GMT

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South African officials did not know a sanctioned Russian ship was assigned to deliver military equipment to the country until the vessel was nearing national waters, according to an inquiry into an incident that caused diplomatic tensions between South Africa and the U.S.U.S. Ambassador Reuben Brigety accused South Africa in May of having weapons intended for Russia loaded on to the Lady R when the container ship docked near Cape Town in December. The ship is under U.S. sanctions for ties to a company that transported arms for Russia’s war on Ukraine. South Africa denied there was a government-approved deal to ship weapons to Russia from the country, which officially has taken a non-aligned stance on the Ukraine war. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa appointed a three-person panel led by a retired judge to oversee an inquiry into the matter. An executive summary of the panel’s report released Tuesday night stated that the ship offloaded military equi...