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Talban say there’s no obstacles for UN work in Afghanistan

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:48:28 GMT

ISLAMABAD (AP) — The Taliban’s chief spokesman said Wednesday there are no obstacles for the U.N. to function in Afghanistan, after they barred Afghan women from working at the global body.Last week, the country’s Taliban rulers took a step further in the restrictive measures they have imposed on women and said that female Afghan staffers employed with the U.N. mission can no longer report for work. The ban is being actively enforced by the country’s intelligence agency, which reports to the Taliban’s leadership in Kandahar. The U.N. says it cannot accept the decision, calling it unlawful and an unparalleled violation of women’s rights. It says women are crucial for the delivery of life-saving aid to millions of Afghans, and has instructed its national staff, male and female, to stay at home. Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban-led government’s chief spokesman and part of the supreme leader’s inner circle, denied authorities were to blame for Afghanis...

China warns as US, Philippines stage combat drills

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:48:28 GMT

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — China warned on Wednesday that a deepening security alliance between the United States and the Philippines should not harm its security and territorial interests and interfere in long-simmering territorial disputes in the South China Sea.When asked to comment on the combat exercises between American and Filipino forces that started on Tuesday in the Philippines, the Chinese Embassy in Manila on Wednesday issued a statement by Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin, who said that such drills “should not target any third party and should be conducive to regional peace and stability.”Wang did not say how China would respond if it concludes that the U.S.-Philippine security cooperation was hurting Beijing’s core interests.In Washington, the U.S. and Philippine defense and foreign secretaries met on Tuesday to discuss the development of nine Philippine military camps, where American forces have been allowed to stay indefinitely under the 2014 E...

Shooting in Indian army station kills 4 soldiers

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:48:28 GMT

NEW DELHI (AP) — A firing incident inside a military station in northern India killed at least four soldiers early Wednesday, an army statement said.The statement didn’t give details, saying only that quick reaction teams were activated, and the area cordoned off and sealed. Indian media reports quoted state police officers as saying that the incident in the army camp in Bhatinda in Punjab state bordering Pakistan did not appear to be a terror attack.The shooting took place as the state was on a high security alert a day ahead of Baisakhi, a major Sikh and Hindu festival marking the start of the harvesting season.Punjab had suffered a bloody insurgency in 1980s that led to the assassination of Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards at her official residence in New Delhi in 1984. It triggered deadly violence against Sikhs in northern India by her Hindu supporters. India accuses neighboring Pakistan of supporting the insurgency in Indian-controlled Kashmir an...

IMF slashes cash-strapped Pakistan’s growth outlook to 0.5%

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:48:28 GMT

ISLAMABAD (AP) — The International Monetary Fund has slashed the growth outlook for cash-strapped Pakistan, forecasting the South Asian country’s fragile economy will grow just 0.5% this year, down from 6% in 2022.The latest data on Pakistan’s ailing economy was released by the IMF on Tuesday, when it unveiled its World Economic Outlook report in Washington. The IMF also forecast 27% inflation in the impoverished Islamic nation for 2023.The global lender warned that unemployment will continue to rise in Pakistan. The country is struggling to avoid a default as it recovers from destruction caused by last summer’s floods, which killed 1,739 people and caused $30 billion in damages.The coalition government of Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif is in talks with the IMF to receive a key tranche of a $6 billion bailout package signed in 2019 by Sharif’s predecessor Imran Khan. Sharif’s government in recent weeks slashed subsidies and raised taxes ...

In The News for April 12: Do Canadians feel safer today, in a post-pandemic world?

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:48:28 GMT

In The News is a roundup of stories from The Canadian Press designed to kickstart your day. Here is what’s on the radar of our editors for the morning of Wednesday, April 12, 2023 …What we are watching in Canada …A new poll suggests most Canadians feel they’re less safe now than they were before the COVID-19 pandemic, and most think the provincial and federal governments are doing a poor job of addressing crime and public safety.In an online survey, Leger and the Association for Canadian Studies asked how the level of crime and violence in a respondent’s home community today compares to how it was before the pandemic began in early 2020.Nearly two-thirds of those who took the survey said they feel things are worse — with 32 per cent saying crime and violence has gotten “much worse” and 32 per cent saying it is “a little worse.”A quarter of respondents said the situation hasn’t changed, and eight per cent said they don’...

Ukraine seeks medical, war recovery assistance from India

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:48:28 GMT

NEW DELHI (AP) — Ukraine has asked India to supply medicines and medical equipment and help it rebuild war-damaged infrastructure, India’s External Affairs Ministry said on Wednesday.The request was conveyed by Emine Dzhaparova, the deputy minister of foreign affairs and Ukraine’s most senior official to visit India since Russia’s invasion began a year ago. During her visit this week, she highlighted Ukraine’s desire to build a stronger and closer relationship with India, the ministry said in a statement.She also handed a letter by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Details of the letter were not immediately known.Modi and Zelenskyy have spoken over the phone in the past year, but India has refrained from condemning Russia’s invasion and has abstained several times from voting on U.N. resolutions against Moscow. India has maintained high-level contacts with Russia and is one of Moscow’s key trade partners in the defense and oil industr...

‘It was hell:’ Ukrainian family safe in Quebec after surviving Russian airstrikes

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:48:28 GMT

MONTREAL — Aurika Olkhova says she still can’t believe that she and her two daughters made it out of Ukraine alive after enduring weeks of bombing by the Russian army in the city of Mariupol — including at the maternity hospital. Now safe in Quebec, working at a veterinary clinic, and her daughters learning French at school, Olkhova is telling her story. The psychological scars still give her nightmares and loud noises trigger memories of the bombings, but “the girls are happy.” And thanks to a team of doctors at Montreal Children’s Hospital, her youngest daughter is no longer limping.The traumatic journey started when 10-year-old Vladyslava was struck in the leg by a piece of shrapnel in March 2022 when a Russian bomb fell on the home of family friends they were staying with in Mariupol, in southern Ukraine. Olkhova remembers ripping off a zipper from her jacket to use as a tourniquet to stop the heavy bleeding and the panic she felt calling ambulances, begg...

Pharmacists fear more drugs may fall into loophole that saw B.C. Ozempic sent to U.S.

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:48:28 GMT

VANCOUVER — Canada’s pharmacists worry a lack of data about prescription management could see a repeat of the situation with diabetes and weight-loss drug Ozempic, in which thousands of doses have been mailed over the border to Americans.Canadian Pharmacists Association vice-president of public affairs Joelle Walker said Americans buying cheaper Canadian drugs is nothing new.But she said the case of Dr. David Davison, a Nova-Scotia-licensed physician based in Texas who is said by regulators to have prescribed large quantities of Ozempic to US-based customers via BC pharmacies, highlights the urgent need for a “national conversation” on how Canada can protect its prescription drug supply against such mass orders.The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Nova Scotia said last week it issued an interim suspension of Davison’s licence after learning of his alleged practices from the B.C. College of Pharmacists.One of the main challenges, Walker said, is that ther...

Prime Minister Trudeau visiting Manitoba today to promote his government’s budget

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:48:28 GMT

WINNIPEG — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is visiting Manitoba today to promote his government’s new budget.Trudeau is to meet with students in Winnipeg to highlight measures from the budget and to make an announcement on measures to help build a clean economy.The Prime Minister is also scheduled to celebrate Passover with members of the Jewish community and meet with trade workers and apprentices.The Liberals currently have three sitting MPs from Manitoba and a byelection must be called by June 11 for the Winnipeg South Centre riding after the death in December of Liberal MP Jim Carr.Trudeau must also call a byelection by Aug. 27 in the southern Manitoba riding of Portage-Lisgar previously held by Conservative MP Candice Bergen, who resigned on Feb. 28.This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 12, 2023The Canadian Press

Grocery’s power imbalance has politicians, shoppers questioning rising prices

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:48:28 GMT

Whether you’re catching a flight, opening a new bank account or picking up groceries, a small group of big names takes up most of the market share. Competition Ltd. is a Canadian Press series that explores what this means for products — and prices — in the country.———The flyer for the Victory Meat & Produce Market, a small grocer in New Brunswick, recently featured fresh local turkey for $3.99 a pound, two bags of carrots or onions for $4 and a bunch of celery for $2.29 — prices that rival its national competitors. For 81 years, the independent store has offered quality products at affordable prices, earning it a loyal customer base despite the increasing dominance of national grocery chains. “We have long-term relationships with suppliers and local growers, and staff that have been here for 20 years,” said Alex Scholten, co-owner of the Fredericton store. “Our customers are like family and I think those relationships are what has sustained us for so long...