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South Korean Olympic chief defends move to send athletes to train at military camp

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:01:41 GMT

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s Olympic chief has defended a decision to send hundreds of athletes to a military camp next week as part of preparations for the 2024 Games in Paris, citing a need to instill mental toughness in competitors.About 400 athletes, including women, will arrive at a marine boot camp in the southeastern port city of Pohang on Monday for a three-day training aimed at building resilience and teamwork, the Korean Sport and Olympic Committee said.The program, pushed by the committee’s president, Lee Kee-Heung, has faced criticism from politicians and media who described the training camp as outdated and showing an unhealthy obsession with medals.Officials at the committee have played down concerns about the potential for injuries, saying the athletes will not be forced into the harsher types of military training. Morning jogs, rubber-boat riding and events aimed at building camaraderie will be on the program. Sports officials are still finalizing details ...

Taliban sending Afghan women to prison to protect them from gender-based violence, says UN report

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:01:41 GMT

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Taliban officials are sending Afghan women to prison to protect them from gender-based violence, according to a U.N. report published Thursday.Before the Taliban seized power in 2021, there were 23 state-sponsored women protection centers in Afghanistan where survivors of gender-based violence could seek refuge. Now there are none, the U.N. report said.Officials from the Taliban-led administration told the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan that there was no need for such shelters or that they were a Western concept. The Taliban sends women to prison if they have no male relatives to stay with or if the male relatives are considered unsafe, the report said. Authorities have also asked male relatives for commitments or sworn statements that they will not harm a female relative, inviting local elders to witness the guarantee, it added.Women are sent to prison for their protection “akin to how prisons have been used to accommodate drug addicts and homeless people i...

Israel vows to fight on in Gaza despite deadly ambush and rising international pressure

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:01:41 GMT

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel has vowed to keep fighting in Gaza until it crushes Hamas after one of the deadliest single battles of the war for its soldiers, even as it faces mounting international calls for a cease-fire and unease on the part of its closest ally, the United States.The ambush a fresh reminder that Hamas is still able to fight after six weeks of devastating warfare aimed at crushing its military capabilities. Israel has imposed a total siege and flattened much of northern Gaza with a massive air and ground campaign, driving hundreds of thousands of people from their homes.Hamas’ resilience has called into question whether Israel can defeat Hamas without wiping out Gaza. Support for Hamas has surged among Palestinians, in part because of the militant group’s stiff resistance to a far more powerful foe, while Israel’s most important ally, the U.S., has expressed growing discomfort over civilian deaths in what is already one of the 21st century’s most devastati...

China’s economy is forecast to slow sharply in 2024, the World Bank says, calling recovery ‘fragile’

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:01:41 GMT

BANGKOK (AP) — China’s economy will slow next year, with annual growth falling to 4.5% from 5.2% this year despite a recent recovery spurred by investments in factories and construction and in demand for services, the World Bank said in a report issued Thursday. The report said the recovery of the world’s second-largest economy from setbacks of the COVID-19 pandemic, among other shocks, remains “fragile,” dogged by weakness in the property sector and in global demand for China’s exports, high debt levels and wavering consumer confidence. The estimate that growth would be around 5% this year but then fall in coming months was in line with other forecasts. Growth is expected to slow further in 2025, to 4.3% from 4.5% next year, the World Bank said. The economy has yoyoed in the past few years, with growth ranging from 2.2% in 2020 to 8.4% in 2021 and 3% last year. Stringent limits on travel and other activities during the pandemic hit manufacturing and transport. Job losses due to tho...

The European Union is sorely tested to keep its promises to Ukraine intact

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:01:41 GMT

BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union leaders struggled at the start of a two-day summit Thursday to keep their two most elementary promises to Ukraine at war intact — to give it the money and wherewithal to stave off the Russian invasion and maintain its hope that one day it will be able to join the wealthy bloc.And stunningly, the threat to that commitment does not come from outside, but from within, from its increasingly recalcitrant member Hungary. The vision of its prime minister, Viktor Orban, heartily shaking hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin two months ago still hung heavy over the summit.Orban came into the summit vowing to both block the plans by his 26 fellow leaders to officially declare that membership negotiations with Ukraine can start, and more pressingly, deny Kyiv 50 billion euros ($54 billion) in financial aid that the country dearly needs to stay afloat.“The European Union is about to make a terrible mistake and they must be stopped — even if 26 of them want t...

A leader of Taiwan’s Nationalist Party visits China as the island’s presidential election looms

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:01:41 GMT

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — A leader of Taiwan’s main opposition Nationalist Party is visiting rival China less than one month before the self-governing island republic holds elections for president and the legislature under intense pressure from Beijing. In a news release Thursday, the party — also known as the Kuomintang or KMT — said vice chair Andrew Hsia and his delegation departed for China on Wednesday at the invitation of Taiwanese businesspeople. It called the trip a mission to maintain contacts and contribute to “peace, stability and prosperity between the two sides.” Though the party said the invitation was accepted in October, the visit comes at a sensitive time as the Nationalists seek to regain the presidency and legislature from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, which has been shunned by China for its insistence that Taiwan is an independent country. China claims Taiwan is part of its territory, to be brought under its control by military force if necessary. The Nati...

Anti-money laundering: Council and Parliament agree to create new authority

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:01:41 GMT

The Council and the Parliament have reached a provisional agreement on creating a new European authority for countering money laundering and financing of terrorism (AMLA) - the centrepiece of the anti-money laundering package, which aims to protect EU citizens and the EU's financial system against money laundering and terrorist financing.AMLA will have direct and indirect supervisory powers over high-risk obliged entities in the financial sector. This agreement leaves out a decision on the location of the agency’s seat, a matter that continues to be discussed on a separate track.Given the cross-border nature of financial crime, the new authority will boost the efficiency of the anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) framework, by creating an integrated mechanism with national supervisors to ensure obliged entities comply with AML/CFT-related obligations in the financial sector. AMLA will also have a supporting role with respect to non-fin...

Rishi Sunak faces fresh by-election after MP caught in lobbying sting

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:01:41 GMT

LONDON — Rishi Sunak faces another by-election headache after a damning report recommended a 35-day suspension for one of his MPs caught in a lobbying sting.In a report Thursday, the standards committee recommended the hefty sanction for Scott Benton after concluding he had “committed a very serious breach” of House of Commons rules.Benton had the Conservative whip suspended in April this year after he was filmed by undercover reporters for the Times appearing to lobby ministers on behalf of a fictitious gambling company and leak confidential documents. During the sting, he was recorded agreeing a fee of up to £4,000 for two days’ work on behalf of the firm.If approved by MPs, the sanction could trigger a recall petition in his marginal Blackpool South seat, the next step to triggering a tricky by-election for Sunak’s Conservatives, who are trailing in the polls.In its report, the Committee on Standards said Thursday that Benton had “repeatedly” i...

Rishi Sunak says he’s not tetchy, honest

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:01:41 GMT

LONDON — Rishi Sunak has denied being “tetchy” — insisting he just gets “frustrated” when things don’t work out as he hopes.The British PM has been accused by both critics and allies of being bad-tempered in recent weeks.“I don’t understand that … There’s nothing tetchy,” the prime minister told the Spectator magazine. “But I am passionate.” The “tetchy” charge accelerated after Sunak’s diplomatic spat with the Greek PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis. Sunak abruptly canceled a meeting with Mitsotakis in November, claiming his Greek counterpart reneged on a promise not to speak publicly about the disputed Parthenon Sculptures during his U.K. trip. But speaking this week in his Spectator interview, Sunak pointed to his ill-fated first leadership campaign — where he faced daily scrutiny on the way to a widely-expected defeat at the hands of Liz Truss — as an example of his ability to keep his temper. “...

Danish police arrest several people suspected of planning terror attacks

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:01:41 GMT

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Danish police made several arrests Thursday, saying they carried out the operation “on suspicion of preparation for a terrorist attack.”The arrests were made in “a coordinated action” in several locations in Denmark early Thursday.No other details were given. The Copenhagen police and Denmark’s domestic intelligence service were to give a press conference later.The terror threat level in Denmark current is at level four, the second highest.Earlier this month, the European Union’s home affairs commissioner, Ylva Johansson, warned that Europe faces a “huge risk of terrorist attacks” over the Christmas holiday period due to the fallout from the war between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.In July 2022, a gunman at a shopping mall in Copenhagen killed three people and injured seven. The man, who believed the victims were zombies, was sentenced in July to detention in a secure medical facility. He had been charged with murder and attempted murder...