News in Brief

Date: 12 May 2023 - 23:34

News ID: ۱۱۴۹۶۴

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — South Africa’s foreign ministry summoned the U.S. Ambassador to a meeting Friday over allegations he made a day earlier that the country had provided arms and ammunition to Russia for its war in Ukraine. Amid the diplomatic fallout over the allegations by the United States, South Africa’s Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor will also speak with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation (effectively the foreign ministry), said in a statement posted by spokesman Clayson Monyela on Twitter.

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DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Authorities in Bangladesh and Myanmar prepared to evacuate hundreds of thousands of people Friday, warning them to stay away from coastal areas as a severe cyclone churned in the Bay of Bengal. Cyclone Mocha is expected to hit land on Sunday with wind speeds of up to 160 kilometers (100 miles) per hour and gusts up to 175 kph (110 mph) between Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh and Kyaukpyu in Myanmar, India’s Meteorological Department said.

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LISBON (Reuters) — Portugal’s government has presented legislation to extend a ban on smoking to outdoor areas including covered terraces and to restrict tobacco sales, as it hopes to raise a tobacco-free generation by 2040. “With this amendment, we will start today to protect the adults of tomorrow,” Health Minister Manuel Pizarro told a press conference, dismissing criticism from some business groups who say the measures are too harsh and discriminatory. If approved by parliament, where the ruling Socialists have a majority, smoking next to public buildings such as schools, universities, hospitals or sports venues, outside restaurants, bars and coffee shops will be banned from Oct 23.

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BELGRADE (CNBC) - Serbian citizens have handed over nearly 6,000 unregistered weapons in the first three days of a month-long amnesty period that is part of an anti-gun crackdown following two mass shootings last week, police said. Police also have received nearly 300,000 rounds of ammunition and about 470 explosive devices during the same period, the Serbian Interior Ministry said on Instagram. The effort to rid Serbia of excessive guns was launched after 17 people were killed in two mass shootings last week and 21 were wounded, many of them children. One of the shootings took place in a school for the first time ever in Serbia.

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PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - More than 115,600 children in Haiti are expected to suffer severe wasting from malnutrition this year, the United Nations children’s agency UNICEF said, as an escalation of armed violence worsens food insecurity and a cholera outbreak. That number is more than 30 percent higher than the 87,500 children UNICEF registered as suffering from the condition last year. It warned of a severe funding gap that “could put the lives of more than 100,000 children at risk of immediate death.” Heavily armed gangs have taken control of large swathes of the Caribbean island nation, with much of the violence centered in the capital Port-au-Prince, where the UN estimates more than 600 people were killed in April alone.