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Plane crash believed to have killed Russian mercenary chief is seen as Kremlin’s revenge

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:07 GMT

Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin and top officers of his private Wagner military company were presumed dead in a plane crash that was widely seen as an assassination, two months after they staged a mutiny that dented Russian President Vladimir Putin’s authority.Russia’s civil aviation agency said that Prigozhin and six top lieutenants were on a business jet that crashed Wednesday, soon after taking off from Moscow, with a crew of three. Rescuers quickly found all 10 bodies, and Russian media cited sources in Prigozhin’s Wagner company who confirmed his death.U.S. and other Western officials long expected Putin to go after Prigozhin, despite promising to drop charges in a deal that ended the June 23-24 mutiny.“I don’t know for a fact what happened but I’m not surprised,” U.S. President Joe Biden said. “There’s not much that happens in Russia that Putin’s not behind.”Prigozhin supporters claimed on pro-Wagner messaging app channels that the plane was deliberately ...

Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt are among 6 nations set to join the BRICS economic bloc

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:07 GMT

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Iran and Saudi Arabia are among six countries that will join the BRICS bloc of developing economies as new members from 2024, South Africa’s president said Thursday. United Arab Emirates, Argentina, Egypt and Ethiopia are also set to join the bloc that is currently made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, whose country presently chairs BRICS, made the announcement at a bloc summit in Johannesburg. The five current members agreed at this week’s summit to expand the bloc after two days of talks, although Ramaphosa said the idea of expansion had been worked on for over a year.It’s the second time that BRICS has decided to expand. The bloc was formed in 2009 by Brazil, Russia, India and China. South Africa was added in 2010. The BRICS bloc currently represents around 40% of the world’s population and contributes more than a quarter of global GDP.Three of the group’s other leaders, ...

Stock market today: Global shares mostly rise after Wall Street rally

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:07 GMT

TOKYO (AP) — Global markets mostly rose Thursday after Wall Street rallied to its best day since June as pressures from the bond market relaxed a bit. France’s CAC 40 added 0.9% in early trading to 7,314.49. Germany’s DAX gained 0.8% to 15,859.15. Britain’s FTSE 100 rose 0.4% to 7,349.46. U.S. shares were set to trade mixed with Dow futures slipping less than 0.1% to 34,510.00, while S&P 500 futures gained 0.6% to 4,475.25. Oil prices fell. Asian benchmarks rose. Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 gained 0.9% to finish at 32,287.21. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 added 0.5% to 7,182.10. South Korea’s Kospi jumped 1.3% to 2,537.68. The Bank of Korea’s Monetary Policy Board left the base rate unchanged at 3.50%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng surged 2.1% to 18,212.17, while the Shanghai Composite rose 0.1% to 3,082.24. A major event of the week for markets is a speech later in the day by U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. He is speaking at a Ja...

Republican candidates fight each other, and mostly line up behind Trump, at the first debate

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:07 GMT

MILWAUKEE (AP) — The Republican presidential candidates vying to be the leading alternative to front-runner Donald Trump fought — sometimes bitterly — over abortion rights, U.S. support for Ukraine and the type of experience needed to manage an expansive federal government during the first debate of the 2024 campaign. But when it came to arguably the most consequential choice facing the party, virtually everyone on the debate stage in Milwaukee on Wednesday night lined up behind Trump, who declined to participate, citing his commanding lead. Most said they would support Trump as their nominee even if he is convicted in a series of cases that range from his handling of classified documents to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his role in making hush money payments to a porn actress and other women.“Let’s just speak the truth,” said tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. “President Trump, I believe, was the best president of the 21st century. It’s a fact.”In the face of ...

UK political watchdog says Prime Minister Rishi Sunak ‘inadvertently’ broke ethics rules

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:07 GMT

LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was chided by Parliament’s standards guardian on Thursday for failing to declare his wife’s financial interest in a childcare firm that stood to benefit from government policy.Standards Commissioner Daniel Greenberg said Sunak broke the code of conduct for government ministers, but said the mistake was “inadvertent” and that the prime minister should not be sanctioned for the error.Greenberg opened an investigation in April over Sunak’s failure to declare when questioned by a committee of lawmakers that his wife. Akshata Murthy, held shares in the company Koru Kids, which had been selected to receive government support for childcare firms.Greenberg said Murthy’s shareholding “was a relevant interest that should have been declared.” But he said the failure stemmed from confusion about the rules rather than an intent to deceive.“I confirm that the matter is now closed,” he said.Sunak apologized for the mistake.The finding follows a stri...

Niger junta’s 3-year transition plan is a ‘provocation,’ says West African regional bloc

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:07 GMT

NIAMEY, Niger (AP) — The West African bloc ECOWAS rejected the proposal by Niger’s mutinous soldiers for a three-year transition to democratic rule, with a commissioner describing the slow timeline as a provocation.The door for diplomacy with Niger’s junta remained open but the bloc is not going to engage in drawn-out talks that lead nowhere, Abdel-Fatau Musah, the ECOWAS commissioner for peace and security, told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday. “It is the belief among the ECOWAS heads of state and also the commission that the coup in Niger is one coup too many for the region and if we allow it then we are going to have a domino effect in the region and we are determined to stop it,” Musah said. While direct talks and backchannel negotiations are ongoing, he said the door to diplomacy wasn’t open indefinitely.“We are not going to engage in long, drawn out haggling with these military officers … We went down that route in Mali, in Burkina Faso and elsewhere, and ...

In the news today: NWT officials turning residents back as wildfire threat remains

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:07 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…N.W.T. officials want evacuees to stay out for nowNorthwest Territories officials are using roadblocks to turn back Yellowknife residents who are attempting to return home despite the city still being under a state of emergency.All but about 1,600 of Yellowknife’s 20,000 residents have left the community due to the continued threat of wildfires that have caused the evacuation of a number of northern communities.The government of the N.W.T clarified its evacuation order Wednesday, telling the non-essential personnel who remain that they need to leave and those who think the danger is over to stay away. The fact that the fires haven’t progressed over the past few days has prompted some to believe the threat is over.Heavy rain aids in tempering B.C. wildfiresFirefighters in British Columbia’s southern Interior continue to battle a number of major...

Rockslide near Dead Sea in Israel injures several people

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:07 GMT

JERUSALEM (AP) — An avalanche of rock tumbled down a hillside in Israel near the Dead Sea on Thursday, Israeli medics said, injuring several people. Israel’s rescue service did not give the exact number of injured but said the casualties included a 4-year-old girl and a seriously injured man. It was not immediately clear what caused the rockslide, which typically occurs when torrential rains or earthquakes create fissures in a rocky hillside.The Israel-based volunteer emergency medical service United Hatzalah said that “numerous others” were still trapped under the rubble and that rescue teams were trying to reach them.The rockslide took place in the Ein Gedi Nature Reserve, on the western shore of the Dead Sea, a popular tourist site in the country. The Associated Press

Heavy rain aids in tempering B.C. wildfires in Shuswap, Okanagan regions

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:07 GMT

Firefighters in British Columbia’s southern Interior continue to battle a number of major blazes, having been aided by ample rainfall that fell Wednesday over the Okanagan and Shuswap regions.BC Wildfire Service information officer Forrest Tower says one weather station near the eastern edge of the Bush Creek East wildfire near Chase received about 20 millimetres of rain in the last day.Tower says varying amounts of rainfall were also recorded on the wildfire’s western edge, which reached more than 15 millimetres, leading to a widespread diminishing of fire behaviour.Environment Canada had issued a severe thunderstorm watch late Tuesday for the Shuswap region — one of the hardest-hit fire zones — with Salmon Arm recording 12 millimetres of rain on that day, the biggest single-day total all year.Firefighters fighting the McDougall Creek wildfire near Kelowna report similar trends of heavy rain helping crews control the blazes, which have forced more than 25,000 people to ...

Fire burns North Austin complex; no one hurt

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:07 GMT

AUSTIN (KXAN) – Austin Fire crews are fighting a fire at a complex in North Austin Thursday morning. According to an Austin Fire Department social media post at 3:20 a.m., 3 units were on fire in the 8200 block of Sam Rayburn Drive. That is just north of Powell Lane which is northeast of U.S. 183 and northwest of Interstate 35.AFD said no one was hurt.