Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro apologized Tuesday after his visit to a group of teenagers he implied were sex workers drew accusations of "pedophilia" from opponents.. After Bolsonaro's apology, at least two other videos in which the president had told the same anecdote about the girls were shared online.
Hong Kong's new leader unveiled plans to resuscitate the business hub's fortunes on Wednesday, hoping to lure international expertise back to a city that has suffered an exodus of talent and is mired in a deep downturn.. But Hong Kong's pace of reopening still lags behind regional rivals like Singapore -- which has gone on a charm offensive to lure international talent and has bounced back as a global transport hub.
Beaten and raped by police officers as a child, Mira was among the many victims of sexual violence during Nepal's civil war -- and is now one of the few to recount her ordeal.. The government must admit this, and address this," Devi Khadka, coordinator of the National Organisation of Conflict Rape Victims, told AFP. The civil war had just begun in 1997 when Khadka, then a teenager, was herself raped by security forces in custody, she said.
After losing four relatives to respiratory illness, Zeina Matar fled her hometown north of Lebanon's capital where she says a decaying power plant generates little electricity but very deadly pollution.. The environmental group's 2018 study singled out the Zouk plant, built in the 1940s, as well as cars on a busy motorway and privately owned electricity generators as the main causes of pollution.
Cholera cases are rising in Haiti, according to Health Ministry figures obtained by AFP on Tuesday, fueling fears of a new disaster in a country already deep in a humanitarian and security crisis. . The new assessment came a day after a meeting at the United Nations where the Security Council discussed deploying a special international force to Haiti to deal with the humanitarian and security crisis.
"Bolsonarismo," the Brazilian far-right movement built around President Jair Bolsonaro, shares much in common with ultra-conservatives in power in Europe -- Hungary, Poland and soon Italy -- but is closer to Donald Trump and the US alt-right.. Whereas conservative Catholics are the core of the European far-right, in Brazil, it is the powerful, fast-growing Evangelical movement.
Just a year into her marriage, Manal became one of the tens of thousands of Iraqis every year who divorce in a deeply conservative nation where break-up rates have risen.. Her reasoning echoes that of tens of thousands of Iraqis, according to data published by the country's Supreme Judicial Council.
President Joe Biden will announce Wednesday he's putting the final 15 million barrels on the market from a record release of US strategic oil reserves, with more releases possible if energy prices spike, a senior US official said.. The new tranche of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve will be "completing the 180 million barrel release authorized in the spring," in response to price hikes linked to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a senior US official said Tuesday.
More than a year after Bitcoin became legal tender in El Salvador, a new poll Tuesday showed most people in the country consider the controversial move by President Nayib Bukele as a "failure.". According to the poll by the University of Central America (UCA), 75.6 percent of respondents said they never used cryptocurrency in 2022, and 77 percent consider its adoption 14 months ago as legal tender, alongside the dollar, "to have been a failure."
Russia will likely need two to four years to rebuild its military to the strength before the Ukraine war, Estonia's defense minister said Tuesday, urging continued pressure to keep Moscow in check.. On a visit to Washington, Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur predicted a long war and urged the West to stand with Ukrainians until they achieve victory for "the free world."
