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After killings, calls to protect S. Africa’s whistleblowers

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:36:40 GMT

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — An accountant working on a high-profile corruption case was killed along with his son by unknown gunmen while traveling on one of South Africa’s main highways. A government health department employee who warned of illegal dealings worth nearly $50 million was shot 12 times in the driveway of her home. The slayings and other cases have anti-corruption groups urging South African authorities to provide far better protection for whistleblowers. They also have fueled outrage over widespread graft linked to government contracts, which has plagued Africa’s most developed economy for years but appears to continue unabated.The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime counted a total of 1,971 assassination cases in South Africa between 2000 and 2021, with whistleblowers accounting for many of the targeted individuals.The specialist accountant and liquidator, 57-year-old Cloete Murray, was working on the financial accounts of a company that was h...

US ex-security adviser calls for closer ties with Taiwan

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:36:40 GMT

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — A former U.S. national security adviser called for deeper interaction between his country and Taiwan during a visit Saturday to the self-ruled island, which has seen increasing military threats from China.John Bolton, a potential Republican presidential candidate in 2024, said at a pro-Taiwan independence event in Taipei that national security teams from both sides must develop contingency plans on how to respond to actions Beijing might take, warning it would be too late once an attack occurs.“And we have to tell China and Russia what the consequences are if they take actions against Taiwan. Not just in the immediate response, but over the longer term, to basically excommunicate China from the international economic system if it did take military actions against Taiwan or attempt to throw a blockade around it,” Bolton said.Bolton, former President Donald Trump’s hawkish national security adviser, started his week-long trip to Taiwan on Wednesday. T...

Royal Drama: King’s fractious family on stage at coronation

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:36:40 GMT

LONDON (AP) — King Charles III lives in a palace, travels in a chauffeur-driven Bentley and is one of Britain’s richest men, but he’s similar to many of his subjects in one very basic way: His family life is complicated — very complicated.There’s a second wife, an embarrassing brother, and an angry son and daughter-in-law, all with allies who aren’t shy about whispering family secrets in the ears of friendly reporters.The new king will hope to keep a lid on those tensions when his royally blended family joins as many as 2,800 guests for Charles’ coronation on May 6 at Westminster Abbey. All except Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, are attending.How Charles manages his family drama over the coming weeks and years is crucial to the king’s efforts to preserve and protect the 1,000-year-old hereditary monarchy he now embodies. Without the respect of the public, the House of Windsor risks being lumped together with pop stars, social media influencers and reality TV contestants a...

Russian official: Drone causes fire at Crimea oil reservoir

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:36:40 GMT

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A massive fire erupted at an oil reservoir in Crimea after it was hit by a drone, a Russia-appointed official there reported Saturday. Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Moscow-installed governor of the Black Sea peninsula’s port city of Sevastopol, posted videos and photos of the blaze on his Telegram channel. Razvozhayev said the fire was assigned the highest ranking in terms of how complicated it will be to extinguish. He did not say whether the drone he cited as causing the fire was Ukrainian. Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, a move that most of the world considered illegal. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said his country is seeking to reclaim the peninsula during Russia’s current full-scale invasion. The incident comes a day after Russia fired more than 20 cruise missiles and two drones at Ukraine, killing at least 23 people. Almost all of the victims died when two missiles slammed into an apartment building. Three children were am...

A veto and a switch: Kansas to see no big tax cuts this year

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:36:40 GMT

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — No big tax cuts are coming for Kansas residents even though the state treasury is bulging with surplus cash and the Democratic governor and top Republican lawmakers both said over and over that families need relief from inflation.Republican leaders went into the final days of the GOP-controlled Legislature’s annual session hoping to override Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto of a bill cutting taxes nearly $1.4 billion over the next three years. Instead, a Republican senator helped kill the GOP bill after voting for it the day before — and promptly lost his committee chairmanship.Legislators adjourned Friday night without overturning Kelly’s veto or passing another bill. The state now expects to have a surplus of nearly $2.6 billion at the end of June 2024, on top of $1.6 billion socked away in a separate rainy day fund, when annual tax collections are roughly $10 billion. “Everybody’s going to be frustrated — business owners, families, households,” ...

México se rinde ante Rosalía en concierto masivo; la española agradece el apoyo

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:36:40 GMT

CIUDAD DE MÉXICO – Rosalía se mostró eufórica y agradecida este viernes en la Ciudad de México ante una plaza del Zócalo llena, donde tocó sin cobrar pese la polémica electoral que envolvió al concierto.“Esta ciudad es preciosa, estoy feliz de cantaros, de estar aquí. ‌Me siento realmente muy agradecida”, dijo la artista española entre canciones y encima del enorme escenario en el que fue uno de sus conciertos más multitudinario.Rosalía, conocida también como “Motomami” por el título de su más reciente disco, también recordó que México es uno de los países donde tiene seguidores más fieles desde los inicios de su carrera.“México, quiero que sepas que estoy muy agradecida del cariño que me habéis dado desde el inicio de mi carrera. Y que sepáis que hay mucha inspiración desde hace muchos años, estudié canciones como “La llorona”. A ver si cojo el tono…”, dijo la cantante de temas como “Con Altura” o “Bizcoc...

Bendicen la mampara que dará privacidad a Carlos III cuando sea ungido

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:36:40 GMT

LONDRES – La mampara de tela bordada con ángeles y un árbol dedicado a los países de la Commonwealth, tras la cual será ungido Carlos III antes de ser coronado, fue bendecida en la Capilla Real del Palacio de St James, anunció este viernes el Palacio de Buckingham.La bendición se produjo después de que Carlos y su esposa Camila, que también será coronada en la abadía de Westminster el 6 de mayo, visitaran la Real Escuela de Costura en Londres, que se ha ocupado de coser los adornos, señala en un comunicado.La pantalla de 2.6 por 2.2 metros (8.5 por 7.2 pies), montada sobre un marco de madera con postes coronados con águilas de bronce acabadas con pan de oro, pretende ofrecer privacidad al nuevo monarca cuando es ungido con aceite consagrado en las manos, pecho y frente por el arzobispo de Canterbury, primado de la Iglesia Anglicana.Posteriormente, Carlos III y Camila serán coronados ante los más de 2,000 invitados al servicio religioso en el templo londinense, antes de salir e...

Philippe Falardeau confronts rail industry with docuseries on Lac-Mégantic tragedy

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:36:40 GMT

TORONTO — Quebec filmmaker Philippe Falardeau says that through the four-year process of making his new docuseries about the Lac-Mégantic trail derailment disaster he had to be talked down from abandoning the project more than once. “I often thought about quitting if I’m being honest, because maybe I’m a sponge…if someone is hurt I’m suffering,” said Falardeau. “It took a toll on me, but the people from Lac-Mégantic told me not to quit and my co-writers told me not to quit, and they were right.”Drawing on the harrowing first hand-accounts of victims as well as interviews with railway and town officials, “Lac-Mégantic — This Is Not an Accident” traces how the small town in eastern Quebec became the site of one of Canada’s worst rail disaster on July 6, 2013. The series is screening Saturday at Hot Docs festival in Toronto and will premiere Tuesday on Videotron’s French-language video-on-demand service Vrai.Members of the Lac-Mégantic community detail the decisions and con...

‘Phenomenal’ logjam in the Canadian Arctic stores millions of tonnes of carbon: study

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:36:40 GMT

YELLOWKNIFE — Researchers say they have mapped the world’s largest known cumulative logjam in the Canadian Arctic and it holds millions of tonnes of carbon, representing an important but understudied part of the carbon cycle. A study published in Geophysical Research Letters earlier this month describes how the scientists mapped almost 415,000 individual deposits of wood in the Mackenzie River Delta in the Northwest Territories, with the pileup stretching nearly 52 square kilometres. The authors calculated the logs collectively store more than three million tonnes of carbon, equivalent to emissions from 2.5 million cars a year.The single largest deposit covers 112,600 square metres, or around 20 American football fields in area, and stores nearly 6,700 tonnes of carbon. “That’s the minimum,” said lead author Alicia Sendrowski, a research engineer with Michigan Technology University who led the study while working at Colorado State University. “(That) do...

TikTokers making six-figure incomes via app worried about potential ban

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:36:40 GMT

VANCOUVER — Ssonia Ong had no idea that a 25-second video she posted miming to music the story of her college love, her wedding, then her four children would go viral on TikTok. Three years later, with 9.2 million followers, Ong isn’t sure what she would do without it. She is one of several Canadian “influencers” on the video-hosting service who depend on the app who are voicing their concerns about a growing call worldwide to ban TikTok over the possibility its Chinese owner may allow sensitive user data to be handed over to China’s government. Lawmakers from Canada, the United States, Europe, India, New Zealand and others have banned the app from government devices, despite assurances from the short-form video app’s owner, ByteDance, that the information would not be used by the Chinese government or promote pro-Beijing propaganda.Ong, who lives in Vancouver, said in an interview she understands that data security and safety concerns are important, bu...