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Live updates | 1,500 bodies of Hamas militants found in Israel as it claims full control over border

Published Tue, 18 Feb 2025 20:24:26 GMT

The Israeli military said it had largely gained control in the south and “restored full control” over the border. Spokesperson Richard Hecht said 1,500 bodies of Hamas militants have been found in Israeli territory and no Hamas fighters have crossed into Israel since Monday night, although infiltrations could still be possible.Hecht said the military struck hundreds of Hamas targets overnight in Gaza’s City Rimal neighborhood, which is home to many of Hamas’ ministries and government buildings. He said residents were being notified over social media before the strikes to evacuate, but did not elaborate further. He suggested that Palestinians should try to leave through the Rafah crossing, though he did not specify where they would go or how they would use the crossing that is periodically closed.JAPAN PLEDGES TO PROTECT CITIZENS IN THE CONFLICT AREAJapan’s top government spokesperson pledged Tuesday to do the utmost to protect the safety of a small number of Japanese citizens in the...

GM workers hit the picket lines at three facilities in Ontario

Published Tue, 18 Feb 2025 20:24:26 GMT

Unifor workers have kicked off strike action at General Motors.In a message on the union’s website, Unifor National President, Lana Payne says the bargaining team announced the move, affecting all unionized GM members at the Oshawa Assembly Complex and CCA Stamped Products, the St. Catharines Powertrain Plant and the Woodstock Parts Distribution Centre.Her statement goes on to blame the strike on the company’s unwillingness to agree on the union’s pattern-bargaining demands on pensions and other supports for those retiring. She says there are also unresolved differences when it comes to making sure temporary part-time workers are given a clear path to permanent employment.The strike includes approximately 4,280 autoworkers from Locals 222, 199 and 636.Unifor Local 88 members at the CAMI Assembly Plant in Ingersoll, Ontario are covered by a separate collective agreement and will continue operations.Officials say its members will remain on strike until the union’s pattern agreem...

In Poland, church and state draw nearer, and some Catholic faithful rebel

Published Tue, 18 Feb 2025 20:24:26 GMT

CZESTOCHOWA, Poland (AP) — Dominika Gala grew up going to Mass with her grandmother and attending Catholic school in Warsaw. After her grandmother’s death in 2010, she began to drift away from the church.A decade later, when the Catholic leadership backed a near-total abortion ban in Poland, Gala made her fervent disagreement clear. She formally left the church in October 2020, just weeks after Poland’s top court closed a major loophole in the country’s abortion laws that were already among the strictest in Europe. She has since helped her mother and several friends leave, and now helps lead a civic initiative to limit religion’s role in public life.“There’s a strong link between the church and the bad things happening in Polish politics,” Gala, now an atheist, told The Associated Press. As Law and Justice seeks an unprecedented third-straight term in the Oct. 15 parliamentary election, the conservative, nationalist ruling party is trying to bolster its image as a defender of Christ...

Israel strikes downtown Gaza City and mobilizes 300,000 reservists as war enters fourth day

Published Tue, 18 Feb 2025 20:24:26 GMT

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli warplanes pounded downtown Gaza City, home to Hamas’ centers of government, with relentless bombardments into early Tuesday, after Israel’s prime minister vowed retaliation against the Islamic militant group that would “reverberate for generations.”The 4-day-old war has already claimed at least 1,600 lives, as Israel saw gun battles in the streets of its own towns for the first time in decades and neighborhoods in Gaza were reduced to rubble. Hamas also escalated the conflict, pledging to kill captured Israelis if strikes targeted civilians without warning. Israel said that Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza are holding more than 150 soldiers and civilians snatched from inside Israel after the attack caught its vaunted military and intelligence apparatus completely off guard.The Israeli military said it had largely gained control in the south and “restored full control” over the border. Spokesperson Richard Hecht said no Hamas fighters have crosse...

Auto workers begin strike at GM plants in Canada

Published Tue, 18 Feb 2025 20:24:26 GMT

TORONTO (AP) — Auto workers walked off the job at three General Motors facilities in Canada early Tuesday after failing to reach agreement with the automaker. Their union, Unifor, represents more than 4,200 workers at the plants. They had warned they would begin a strike if no agreement was struck with GM by midnight local time. The action came after Unifor workers ratified a new three-year labor contract with Ford. They are seeking a similar agreement with GM. “This strike is about General Motors stubbornly refusing to meet the pattern agreement. The company knows our members will never let GM break our pattern — not today — not ever,” Unifor President Lana Payne said in a statement. She said GM was not meeting the union’s demands for pensions, support for retired workers and steps to transition temporary workers to permanent, full-time jobs. General Motors Corp. said that while “very positive progress” had been made, the company was disappointed not to be able to strike an a...

Car rams into Chinese Consulate in San Francisco and police fatally shoot driver, officers say

Published Tue, 18 Feb 2025 20:24:26 GMT

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A car rammed into the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco on Monday, coming to a stop in the lobby and creating a chaotic scene that ended with police shooting the driver, who later died at the hospital, officials said.Police descended on the consulate building just after 3 p.m. following a report of a vehicle crashing into the building and officials urged people to avoid the area. Officers entered the lobby of the consulate’s visa office and shot the suspect, police Sgt. Kathryn Winters said during a short news conference. Winters didn’t say what prompted police to open fire or how many officers fired weapons. Despite “life-saving efforts” the suspect died at the hospital, police said.Television cameras showed a Honda sedan crashed into the visa office and the doors in front of the building were cordoned off. Winters said they didn’t know why the vehicle crashed into the building or how many people were inside at the time but said they didn’t have reports ...

Facing Beijing’s threats, Taiwan president says peace ‘only option’ to resolve political differences

Published Tue, 18 Feb 2025 20:24:26 GMT

Peace between Taiwan and China is the “only option,” Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen said Tuesday, while strongly asserting the self-governing island’s defenses against Beijing’s threats to invade. Tsai said in a National Day address that the international community views stability in the Taiwan Strait as an “indispensable component of global security and prosperity.”China claims Taiwan as its own territory and has been increasingly sending ships and warplanes across the Taiwan Strait in an effort to intimidate the population of 23 million, who strongly favor the status-quo of de-facto independence. Tsai’s Democratic Progressive Party will seek to maintain power in elections next year against the Nationalists, who officially support unification between the sides that divided amid civil war in 1949.“Let me reiterate that peace is the only option across the Taiwan Strait,” said Tsai, who will step down after two terms in office. “Maintaining the status quo, as the l...

Hamas’ attack on Israel prompts South Korea to consider pausing military agreement with North Korea

Published Tue, 18 Feb 2025 20:24:26 GMT

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s defense minister said Tuesday he would push to suspend a 2018 inter-Korean military agreement in order to resume frontline surveillance on rival North Korea, as the surprise attack on Israel by Hamas militants raised concerns in South Korea about similar assaults by the North.The agreement, reached during a brief period of diplomacy between South Korea’s former liberal President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, created buffer zones along land and sea boundaries and no-fly zones above the border to prevent clashes.Talking with reporters in Seoul, South Korean Defense Minister Shin Won-shik cited the violence in Israel and Gaza to stress the need to strengthen monitoring on the North. Shin was appointed by President Yoon Suk Yeol on Saturday. Shin was particularly critical of the inter-Korean agreement’s no-fly zones, which he said prevents South Korea from fully utilizing its air surveillance assets at a time when North Korean n...

Kazakhstan and EU start streamlining Schengen Visa Process

Published Tue, 18 Feb 2025 20:24:26 GMT

Photo credit: schengenvisainfo.comKazakh Minister of Internal Affairs Yerzhan Sadenov met with the Deputy Director General of the European Commission for Migration and Home Affairs, Johannes Luchner, to discuss the harmonization and simplification of visa requirements for citizens of Kazakhstan during his working visit to Brussels on 4 October, according to Kazinform, Staff Report in International.According to the Kazakh Embassy in Belgium, Sadenov met with the leadership and experts of the European Commission Directorate General for Migration and Home Affairs, which is responsible for regulating the visa policy of the Schengen countries for the first time. Minister Sadenov provided detailed information on socio-political reforms that are taking place in Kazakhstan and about the improvement of all aspects of migration policy based on the standards of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).He also reported on the positive migration statistics of Kazakh citi...

Family searches for missing loved one after deadly Israel music festival

Published Tue, 18 Feb 2025 20:24:26 GMT

A local family, frantic with worry and desperate for answers, fears for the safety of a relative believed to be among those kidnapped by Hamas while attending a music festival in Southern Israel. Families around the world are in a state of panic waiting for news of loved ones missing in the war-torn region.  Thousands rally for Israel in Beverly Hills Keren Cohen, who lived in Israel most of her life before moving to California still has family in Israel and is anxiously waiting for any news about her cousin, Itzik Dahan, who didn’t come home from the deadly music festival Friday night. “Itzik is missing. And I said what? What do you mean?" Cohen said. "He’s missing. He’s been in the festival of music in the southern part of Israel and they don’t know where he is.”Dahan, Cohen’s cousin, is a 47-year-old father of a seven year old son and a successful landscape architect in Israel who loved music and was with friends at the Supernova music festival in Sukkot. “If you...