ZURICH (Reuters) -Switzerland has again rejected an appeal from Germany to allow it to re-export Swiss-made ammunition to Ukraine, the government said on Thursday, saying such a move would violate Swiss neutrality. German Defence Minister Christine Lambrecht had written to the government in Bern last month asking for permission to supply 12,400 rounds of Swiss-made ammunition for Gepard anti-aircraft tanks that Berlin has already supplied to Ukraine to help in its war with Russia. But Swiss Economy Minister Guy Parmelin gave the same response the Swiss government had given in June when it rejected an earlier request.

 

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OTTAWA (Reuters) - Some 55,000 education workers went on strike on Friday in Canada’s most populous province of Ontario after failing to reach an agreement with the provincial government for better pay and more frontline staff in schools. The workers, which include educational assistants, secretaries and library workers, served a notice of strike on Sunday saying they had been unsuccessful in negotiating a new contract with the Doug Ford-led Ontario government. In anticipation of the strike, school boards in Toronto and Ottawa notified parents that schools would be shut for in-person learning on Friday, and that students would need to work independently at home.

 

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 LONDON (Reuters) - The UK government will not call fresh elections in Northern Ireland before the end of the year and will announce how it intends to proceed beyond that next week, the British minister for the region said on Friday. Northern Ireland has been without a functioning devolved government since February when the pro-British Democratic Unionist Party began a boycott of the regional assembly in protest at post-Brexit trading arrangements. The deadline passed last week for forming a power-sharing government following elections in May and Britain’s minister for Northern Ireland Chris Heaton-Harris said he remained obliged under “current legislation” to call new elections within 12 weeks. After Northern Ireland’s main political parties said they did not expect a new vote to break the stalemate, Heaton-Harris said he had listened to the “sincere concerns” across the region about the impact and cost of an election at this time.

 

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 BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — President Jair Bolsonaro met briefly on Thursday with the envoy coordinating the transfer of power to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, four days after Bolsonaro’s tight election loss that sparked protests by his supporters amid his refusal to publicly concede. The meeting between Brazil’s far-right outgoing president and Vice President-Elect Geraldo Alckmin took place at the presidential palace, according to Alckmin, who heads da Silva’s transition team. The team had earlier arrived in the capital of Brasilia, launching the process that will culminate with da Silva’s Jan. 1 inauguration.

 

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NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Hundreds of animals, including elephants and endangered Grevy’s zebras, have died in Kenyan widlife preserves during East Africa’s worst drought in decades, according to a report released Friday. The Kenya Wildlife Service and other bodies counted the deaths of 205 elephants, 512 wildebeests, 381 common zebras, 51 buffalos, 49 Grevy’s zebras and 12 giraffes in the past nine months, the report states. Parts of Kenya have experienced four consecutive seasons with inadequate rain in the past two years, with dire effects for people and animals, including livestock.