Month: January 2022

By JOE McDONALD AP Business Writer BEIJING (AP) — Global stocks and Wall Street futures have advanced after Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell said U.S. interest rates might be raised earlier than planned. London and Frankfurt opened higher. Shanghai and Tokyo also advanced. Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 index rose 0.9% after Powell said policy

MOSCOW (AP) — Kazakh authorities say they detained 1,678 more people in the past 24 hours over their alleged participation in the unrest that rocked the former Soviet nation last week. It was the worst violence since Kazakhstan gained independence three decades ago. The additional detentions announced Wednesday brought the total number of arrests to

By FRANK JORDANS Associated Press BERLIN (AP) — Victims of torture in Syria and human rights activists say they hope the upcoming verdict in a landmark trial will be a first step toward justice for countless Syrians who suffered abuse in the country’s long-running conflict. A court in the German city of Koblenz is scheduled

By LORNE COOK Associated Press BRUSSELS (AP) — U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman says that any European country should have the right to join NATO if it wants to, despite Russia’s insistence that the military organization stop inviting new members in, particularly Ukraine. Sherman says she told NATO partners and Russia Wednesday that

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s fragile governing coalition is facing a crisis over tree-planting on disputed land in the Negev desert. Bedouin residents on Tuesday protested the planting by a quasi-governmental organization. Some protesters hurled stones at vehicles on a highway near Beersheba, blocked the railway line and torched a vehicle. Police said two officers were

By ASHOK SHARMA Associated Press NEW DELHI (AP) — India’s top court says it will take up a petition seeking prosecution of several saffron-robed Hindu religious leaders for allegedly making highly provocative speeches against Muslims at a closed-door meeting last month. Three Supreme Court judges issued a notice to the Uttarakhand state government that they

By KRISTEN GELINEAU Associated Press SYDNEY (AP) — The omicron variant of the coronavirus has swept across Australia despite its high vaccination rate and strict border policies that kept the country largely sealed off from the world for almost two years. Those measures turned Australia into a virtually COVID-19-free utopia at the start of the

By FARAI MUTSAKA Associated Press MUREHWA, Zimbabwe (AP) — The number of pregnancies among girls and teenagers in Zimbabwe rose dramatically during the pandemic. Zimbabwe has long struggled with such pregnancies and child marriages because of lax enforcement of laws, poverty, and cultural and religious practices. But COVID-19 intensified the situation. The country of 15