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Flights grounded at a Moscow airport after drone attack

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:35:11 GMT

Russia blamed Ukraine for a drone attack on the outskirts of Moscow on Tuesday morning, which grounded flights at an airport.“An attempt by the Kiev regime to carry out a terrorist attack by five unmanned aerial vehicles against facilities in Moscow region and New Moscow was foiled this morning,” Russia’s defense ministry claimed in a statement.Four drones were destroyed over the Russian capital, and another was taken down over the city of Odintsovo, in the Moscow region, the statement said. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said no one was injured.Flights from Moscow’s international Vnukovo Airport were “temporarily rerouted” for “security reasons” on Tuesday morning, Sobyanin said, adding that all restrictions had been lifted as of 8 a.m. local time (7 a.m. CET).Ukraine doesn’t usually confirm or deny its responsibility for such attacks.“As we are always saying in these cases, all such things happening in Russia are the conseq...

Israel presses on with hunt for West Bank militants. The death toll rises to 10 and civilians flee

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:35:11 GMT

JENIN, West Bank (AP) — Israeli troops pressed ahead with their hunt for Palestinian militants and weapons in a West Bank refugee camp Tuesday, after military bulldozers tore through alleys and thousands of residents fled to safety. The two-day Palestinian death toll rose to 10.The large-scale raid of the Jenin camp, which began Monday, is one of the most intense military operation in the occupied West Bank in nearly two decades. It bore hallmarks of Israeli military tactics during the second Palestinian uprising in the early 2000s and came as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces growing pressure from his ultranationalist political allies for a tough response to recent attacks on Israeli settlers, including a shooting last month that killed four people.On Tuesday morning, rubble littered the streets of Jenin and there were reports of damage to shops. Columns of black smoke periodically punctuated the skyline over the camp in the northern West Bank city, long a Palestinian militan...

A man who attacked 2 girls with a knife in Germany and killed 1 is sentenced to life in prison

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:35:11 GMT

BERLIN (AP) — A man who attacked two girls and killed one of them in Germany last year was sentenced to life in prison on Tuesday, German news agency dpa reported.The 27-year-old Eritrean, who came to Germany as an asylum seeker, was found guilty of murder and attempted murder with dangerous bodily injury, a regional court in the Bavarian city of Ulm ruled.The man attacked with a knife the two girls on their way to school last December in the southwestern town of Illerkirchberg. A 14-year-old girl died and her 13-year-old friend was able to escape.The morning attack on the girls as they were walking to catch a school bus caused widespread shock and anger in Germany.The court also determined the man’s “special gravity of the guilt,” meaning that his early release from prison after 15 years, which is often the case in Germany when people are sentenced to life in prison, is almost impossible. The Associated Press

Masked assailants attack journalist and lawyer in Russia’s Chechnya province

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:35:11 GMT

MOSCOW (AP) — Unidentified masked assailants in the Russian province of Chechnya attacked and beat a journalist and a lawyer on Tuesday, a violent incident that continued a pattern of rampant human rights abuses in the region.Novaya Gazeta journalist Elena Milashina and lawyer Alexander Nemov had just arrived in Chechnya to attend the trial of Zarema Musayeva, the mother of two local activists who have challenged Chechen authorities.Just outside the airport, their vehicle was blocked by several cars and they were beaten by several masked assailants, who put guns to their heads and broke their equipment.Novaya Gazeta said that Milashina sustained a brain injury and had several fingers broken and Nemov had a deep cut on his leg. They were taken to a hospital in Chechnya’s main city, Grozny, where Milashina repeatedly lost consciousness, according to her newspaper.Milashina has long exposed human rights violations in Chechnya and has faced threats, intimidation and attacks. In 20...

Modi uses speech to Russia-China-led group to swipe at Pakistan, avoids mentioning Ukraine

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:35:11 GMT

NEW DELHI (AP) — India’s prime minister on Tuesday took a veiled swipe at rival neighbor Pakistan and avoided mentioning the war in Ukraine while addressing a group of Asian countries led by China and Russia.In his opening speech to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the group should not hesitate to criticize countries that are “using terrorism as an instrument of its state policy.”“Terrorism poses a threat to regional peace and we need to take up a joint fight,” Modi said without naming Pakistan. India regularly accuses Pakistan of training and arming insurgent groups, a charge Islamabad denies.Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Pakistan Prime Minister Shebaz Sharif are scheduled to address the day-long virtual summit.Modi also warned of global challenges to food, fuel and fertilizer supplies. Trade in all three has been disrupted by Russia’s 14-month-long war in Ukraine, but SCO members h...

British Columbia port strike enters day four

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:35:11 GMT

VANCOUVER — The strike at British Columbia ports enters its fourth day after talks between the two sides stalled on Monday.More than 7,000 workers who load and unload cargo at more than 30 B.C. ports have been on strike since Saturday morning.Representative for the BC Maritime Employers Association and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Canada negotiated over the long weekend before the association issued a statement Monday saying it says it didn’t think more bargaining is going to produce a deal.It said the union’s demands were “outside any reasonable framework for settlement.”The union, meanwhile, has accused the association of changing its position on a key issue at the last minute to “muddy the waters” and News of a strike at the ports, including Canada’s largest, the Port of Vancouver, led many business groups to raise red flags, suggesting it would have far-reaching implications for Canada’s economy. This report by T...

Russia says it foiled Ukrainian drone attack on Moscow as Kyiv’s counteroffensive grinds on

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:35:11 GMT

Russian air defenses on Tuesday foiled a Ukrainian drone attack on Moscow that prompted authorities to briefly close one of the city’s international airports, officials said, as a Western analysis said Russia has managed to slow Kyiv’s recently launched counteroffensive. The drone attack, which follows previous similar raids on the Russian capital, was the first known assault on the Russian capital since an abortive mutiny launched 11 days ago by mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin. His Wagner troops marched on Moscow in the biggest — though short-lived — challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin in more than two decades of his rule.Authorities in Ukraine, which generally avoid commenting on attacks on Russian soil, didn’t say whether it launched the drone raid.The Russian Defense Ministry said four of the five drones were downed by air defenses on the outskirts of Moscow and the fifth was jammed by electronic warfare means and forced down.Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin ...

In the news today: B.C. port strike enters its fourth day

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:35:11 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…B.C. port strike still unresolvedThe strike at more than 30 British Columbia ports enters its fourth day this morning.Talks between the B.C. Maritime Employers Association and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Canada stalled yesterday.The employers say the union’s demands were “outside any reasonable framework for settlement,” and the union claims the employers have “sabotaged the process.”A key issue for the 7,400 striking port workers appears to concern the definition and scope of maintenance work.Former AFN chief seeking reinstatementThe former national chief of the Assembly of First Nations wants her job back — and she’s calling on supporters to tell their chiefs and councils to make it happen. RoseAnne Archibald posted a five-minute video to Facebook on Monday from her car in a parking lot on B.C.R...

Lac-Mégantic mayor, residents fear ‘monster trains’ will bring another rail disaster

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:35:11 GMT

LAC-MÉGANTIC, Que. — Ten years after a runaway train derailed and killed 47 people in Lac-Mégantic, Que., residents are still waiting for a promised railway bypass, and they fear the increasing number of railcars carrying hazardous materials through their town will lead to another disaster.Mayor Julie Morin says the trains transporting such things as propane, diesel and sulphuric acid have got longer, threatening to turn the city’s downtown area once again into a mess of charred ruins and twisted metal.“We see it with our own eyes,” she said about the growing length of the trains travelling through the area, where on July 6, 2013, a train carrying 72 tank cars filled with crude oil derailed and exploded, killing 47 people and destroying entire city blocks.If a derailment occurs, first responders have access through a mobile application to a detailed description of the materials inside the railcars and the associated risks. But Morin says city council wants advance ...

Corrections head questioned how Mendicino was kept in dark over Bernardo transfer

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:35:11 GMT

OTTAWA — Days after Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino shared his outrage on social media over the transfer of notorious serial killer Paul Bernardo to a medium-security prison, the head of Canada’s federal prison system asked the department whether the politician had been told of the move.Anne Kelly, the commissioner of the Correctional Service of Canada, also reached out to Mendicino directly to let him know that she had seen the tweet in which he voiced his concern over the move and offered to arrange a meeting. The back-and-forth emails between federal officials and Mendicino himself in the days leading up to and after Canadians learned of the transfer were released to The Canadian Press through the Access to Information Act.The public safety minister and his staff have been under heavy scrutiny over the past month as more details have emerged about the timeline of the prison transfer. Questions have also swirled around who knew what when, with the Opposition Conservat...