World News

The International Monetary Fund, Argentina's biggest creditor, agreed Monday to release the next tranche of loans due under a bailout program, endorsing government austerity measures so severe they even surpass the terms of its $43 billion loan.

The IMF deal follows the completion of its review of Argentina's compliance record and confirms the next $792 million payment will become available to the government in June, reassuring markets and boosting confidence among bankers about Argentina’s prospects as it goes through its worst economic crisis in two decades.

IMF DEPLOYS REMAINING $1.1B IN PAKISTAN BAILOUT FUNDS

The decision by the fund's technical staff still requires final approval from the IMF’s executive board, which could take weeks.

Argentina’s annual inflation rate reached 287% in March, among the highest in the world, deepening poverty and spurring strikes and protests. But the IMF praised President Javier Milei's libertarian government for a number of economic successes — Argentina's first quarterly fiscal surplus in 16 years, falling monthly inflation and surging sovereign bond prices.

To overhaul the beleaguered economy, Milei has slashed public sector wages, eliminated thousands of state jobs, frozen public works projects and and cut subsidies. He has also devalued the nosediving peso currency by over 50%, helping it stabilize but causing the prices of basic goods to skyrocket.

Although brutal for Argentina's poor and middle classes, the market-friendly overhaul has "resulted in faster-than-anticipated progress in restoring macroeconomic stability and bringing the program firmly back on track," the IMF said, thanking Argentine authorities for "the decisive implementation of their stabilization plan."

The praise marks a dramatic turn-around from the past six decades during which Argentine politicians showed little interest in enacting reforms stipulated as part of borrowing agreements.

Previous left-leaning governments fell far short of IMF targets and relied on central bank money printing to finance treasury spending, pushing the country's IMF program — launched in 2018 and refinanced in 2022 — to a breaking point.

The international lender remains deeply unpopular in Argentina, where the public blames it for an economic implosion and debt default in late 2001. The IMF later acknowledged it made mistakes contributing to the collapse.

It's rare for a country to have the IMF as its biggest creditor. Argentina is in the strange position of relying on money lent by the fund to repay the fund itself.

The Eurovision Song Contest continued to spawn unprecedented controversy, days after the winner was crowned, with the 27-nation European Union lambasting organizers on Monday for their "incoherence" in banning its flag from the concert hall during the final.

In an unusually sharp letter, EU Commission Vice President Margaritis Schinas wrote to the Swiss-based European Broadcast Union, which organizes the contest, that its ban contributes to "discrediting a symbol that brings together all Europeans."

EDEN GOLAN, ISRAELI EUROVISION CONTESTANT, SURROUNDED BY BOOS, APPLAUSE AND TIGHT SECURITY AHEAD OF FINALS

In a contest already full of controversy, the European Commission said it plans "a very lively discussion" with the organizers over the ban. Even though the 27-nation EU did not compete as such, many of its member states did, and the star-spangled blue flag is often seen as a unifier for all involved.

Schinas wrote that "such actions have cast a shadow over what is meant to be a joyous occasion for peoples across Europe and the world to come together in celebration."

The flag is on show at countless events and across the EU nations and often flies alongside the national colors from tiny city halls to massive governmental buildings.

Schinas was especially bitter since the ban came only a month ahead of EU-wide parliamentary elections where the EU as an institution is an object of fierce debate and often attacked by extremist parties.

"The incoherence in the EBU's stance has left myself and many millions of your viewers wondering for what and for whom the Eurovision Song Contest stands," the letter said.

During the weeklong contest, organizers were already roiled by the protests linked to the war in Gaza and Israel's participation in the event on top of the controversial disqualification of the Dutch participant over an incident which was never fully explained.

Ahead of the final, a spokesperson for the European Broadcasting Union said ticket holders are only allowed to bring and display flags representing participating countries, as well as the rainbow-colored flag which is a symbol for LGBTQ+ communities.

Swiss singer Nemo won the 68th Eurovision Song Contest Saturday night with "The Code," an operatic pop-rap ode to the singer’s journey toward embracing a nongender identity.

The United Kingdom's law to deport asylum-seekers shouldn't apply in Northern Ireland, because parts of it violate human rights protections, a Belfast judge ruled Monday.

The Illegal Migration Act was incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights and undermines rights provided in the Good Friday peace agreement of 1998, High Court Justice Michael Humphreys said.

US CAN LEARN FROM CONTROVERSIAL UK POLICY AS FIRST MIGRANTS ROUNDED UP FOR DEPORTATION, EXPERT SAYS

U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said that the government would appeal the judgment.

The law is central to Sunak's contentious plan to deport some migrants to Rwanda, but it wasn't immediately clear what impact the ruling would have on that initiative.

While the prime minister’s office said the ruling wouldn’t derail or delay Rwanda deportations that the U.K. government says will begin in July, a lawyer whose client prevailed in bringing the case said the law wouldn't apply in Northern Ireland.

"This is a huge thorn in the government’s side," attorney Sinéad Marmion said. "There’s a huge obstacle in the way of them being able to actually implement that in Northern Ireland now."

The law was created to deter thousands of migrants who risk their lives crossing the English Channel to claim asylum in the U.K. by creating the prospect that they would be sent to the east African country. It allows those who have arrived illegally to be deported to a "safe" third country where their claims can be processed.

While the U.K. Supreme Court struck down flights to Rwanda, because it said that the nation was unsafe, a subsequent bill pronounced the country safe, and that makes it harder for migrants to challenge deportation. It also allows the U.K. government to ignore injunctions from the European Court of Human Rights that seek to block removals.

Humphreys found that parts of the law violated human rights protections of a post-Brexit deal signed between the U.K. and European Union last year. That agreement, known as the Windsor Framework, said that it must honor the peace accord that largely brought an end to the Troubles — 30 years of violence between British unionists and Irish nationalists.

The leader of the Democratic Unionist Party said that the U.K. government had been repeatedly warned that its immigration policy wouldn’t apply in Northern Ireland, because it was incompatible with the post-Brexit agreement with the E.U.

"Whilst today’s judgment does not come as a surprise, it does blow the government’s irrational claims that the Rwanda scheme could extend equally to Northern Ireland completely out of the water," DUP Leader Gavin Robinson said.

Sunak said that the Good Friday agreement wasn't intended to be "expanded to cover issues like illegal migration."

The law was challenged by the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission and a 16-year-old Iranian boy who crossed the English Channel last year without any parents and claimed asylum in the U.K. The boy, who is living in Northern Ireland, said he would be imprisoned or killed if he's sent back to Iran.

The judge placed a temporary stay on the ruling until later this month.

Reports that soldiers of Burma’s military government last week carried out a massacre of more than 30 civilians in a village in central Burma were supported Monday in interviews with a local administrator and a man who says he survived the killings.

The bloodshed on Saturday morning in Let Htoke Taw village in Sagaing region’s Myinmu township, reported by independent media, was the latest of three mass killings in the past few days in Burma’s brutal civil war.

REBEL GROUP CLAIMS IT CAPTURED BURMESE COMMAND POST, IMPRISONED HUNDREDS OF GOVERNMENT SOLDIERS

The Associated Press couldn’t independently verify details of what happened, and the military government didn’t immediately respond to an emailed request for comment. It has denied past accusations of attacks on civilians and in some cases placed the blame on resistance forces.

Burma has been mired in violence since the military’s February 2021 seizure of power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi prompted nationwide peaceful protests that security forces suppressed with deadly force. The violent repression triggered widespread armed resistance, which has since reached the intensity of a civil war.

The other two recent mass killings involved at least 15 people from a resistance group, along with civilians, who were killed in an airstrike while holding a meeting at a monastery in central Magway region on Thursday, and 32 people killed that same day in disputed circumstances in fighting in Mandalay region, also in the central part of the country.

Thirty-three people, including three 17-year-old boys, two older people and three carpenters from a nearby village, were killed Saturday in an army raid on Let Htoke Taw, said a local administrator loyal to the opposition National Unity Government who managed to escape from the village.

The National Unity Government, the country’s main opposition group, operates as a shadow government and stakes a claim to greater legitimacy than the ruling military.

The administrator, who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because he feared for his personal safety, said that at least 11 other villagers were wounded when 100-200 soldiers and armed men believed to be members of an army-affiliated militia entered the village in an apparent search for resistance fighters of the Peoples Defense Force, the loosely organized armed wing of the National Unity Government.

A Let Htoke Taw villager told the AP on Monday that panicked residents sought to flee when the soldiers, firing their weapons, attacked shortly after 5 a.m., and those who couldn't escape the village sought safety in the main building of the local Buddhist monastery.

The 32-year-old villager, also insisting on anonymity for safety’s sake, said that he, his wife and two children and other family members ended up at the monastery, but were held captive in the main building there by the soldiers along with about 100 other villagers.

He said that he and more than 30 other men were brought outside by the soldiers and forced to sit in rows on the ground while they were interrogated with questions about who the local resistance leaders were and where they could be found.

Despite beatings, the men in the front row denied knowing such information, and then the soldiers began shooting them, initially one by one, and then en masse, the villager said.

The villager said that he slumped onto the ground after a man sitting beside him who was shot multiple times fell on top of him. He said he could hear the firing continue from several weapons, and a captain ordering his men to shoot their victims until they were dead. There were 24 dead at the scene, and nine people killed elsewhere in the village, he said. Photos provided to the AP show about that number of corpses, several with wounds visible, laid out in two-and-a-half rows.

The survivor, who was wounded in the left armpit, said that he played dead for a half-hour until the soldiers left the monastery compound around 7 a.m., after burning the bodies of five dead men and taking hostage 17 villagers including his wife and children. The hostages were released outside the village, he said.

Both he and the administrator said that soldiers burned down between 170 and 200 homes in the village, a tactic it has been accused of repeatedly employing. They also said the soldiers destroyed the village's water pumps.

Sagaing has been a stronghold of armed resistance to the army, which has responded with major offensives using ground troops supported by artillery and airstrikes, burning down villages and driving hundreds of thousands of people from their homes.

Let Htoke Taw village, which is located about 70 kilometers (45 miles) west of Mandalay, the country’s second-largest city, has been previously targeted by soldiers fighting the resistance, and about 545 houses there were set on fire in May last year.

The vast coin collection of a Danish butter magnate is set to finally go on sale a century after his death, and could fetch up to $72 million.

Lars Emil Bruun, also known as L.E. Bruun, stipulated in his will that his 20,000-piece collection be safeguarded for 100 years before being sold. Deeply moved by the devastation of World War I, he wanted the collection to be a reserve for Denmark, fearing another war.

DENMARK'S NEW MONARCHS VISIT SWEDEN ON FIRST OFFICIAL TRIP ABROAD

Now, over a century since Bruun’s death at the age of 71 in 1923, New York-based Stack’s Bowers, a rare coin auction house, will begin auctioning the collection this fall, with several sales planned over the coming years.

On its website the auction house calls it the "most valuable collection of world coins to ever come to market." The collection's existence has been known of in Denmark but not widely, and it has has never been seen by the public before.

"When I first heard about the collection, I was in disbelief," said Vicken Yegparian, vice president of numismatics at Stack’s Bowers Galleries.

"We’ve had collections that have been off the market for 100 years plus," he said. "But they’re extremely well known internationally. This one has been the best open secret ever."

Born in 1852, Bruun began to collect coins as a boy in the 1850s and '60s, years before he began to amass vast riches in the packing and wholesaling of butter.

His wealth allowed him to pursue his hobby, attending auctions and building a large collection that came to include 20,000 coins, medals, tokens and banknotes from Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

Following the devastation of World War I and fearing another war, Bruun left strict instructions in his will for the collection.

"For a period of 100 years after my death, the collection shall serve as a reserve for the Royal Coin and Medal Collection," it stipulated.

"However, should the next century pass with the national collection intact, it shall be sold at public auction and the proceeds shall accrue to the persons who are my direct descendants."

That stipulation didn’t stop some descendants from trying to break the will and cash in, but they were not successful. "I think the will and testament were pretty ironclad. There was no loophole," Yegparian said.

Yegparian estimates some pieces may sell for just $50, but others could go for over $1 million. He said potential buyers were already requesting a catalogue before the auction was announced.

The collection first found refuge at former Danish royal residence Frederiksborg Castle, then later made its way to Denmark’s National Bank.

Denmark’s National Museum had the right of first refusal on part of the collection and purchased seven rare coins from Bruun’s vast hoard before they went to auction.

The seven coins — six gold, one silver — were all minted between the 15th and 17th centuries by Danish or Norwegian monarchs. The cost of over $1.1 million was covered by a supporting association.

"We chose coins that were unique. They are described in literature as the only existing specimen of this kind," said senior researcher Helle Horsnaes, a coin expert at the national museum.

"The pure fact that this collection has been closed for a hundred years makes it a legend," Horsnaes said. "It’s like a fairytale."

When he heard that devastating floods hit his village in northern Afghanistan last week, farmer Abdul Ghani rushed home from neighboring Kunduz province where he was visiting relatives. When he got home, he found out that his wife and three children had perished in the deluge.

Two of his sons survived but another son, who is 11, is still missing. "I couldn’t even find the road to my village," he said, describing how he turned back and went another way to reach his district of Nahrin in Baghlan province.

TALIBAN REPORTS AT LEAST 50 DEAD AS FLASH FLOODS WREAK HAVOC IN NORTHERN AFGHANISTAN

Across Baghlan, others like Ghani and survivors of the disaster were still searching for their missing loved ones and burying their dead on Monday.

"Roads, villages and lands were all washed away," Ghani said. His wife, his 7-year-old and 9-year-old daughters and a 4-year-old son died.

"My life has turned into a disaster," he said, speaking to The Associated Press over the phone.

The U.N. food agency estimates that the unusually heavy seasonal rains in Afghanistan left more than 300 people dead and thousands of houses destroyed, most of them in Baghlan, which bore the brunt of floodings on Friday.

Survivors have been left with no home, no land, and no source of livelihood, the World Food Organization said. Most of Baghlan is "inaccessible by trucks," said WFP, adding that it is resorting to every alternative it can think of to get food to the survivors.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has expressed condolences to the victims, said a statement on Sunday, adding that the world body and aid agencies are working with the Taliban-run government to help.

"The United Nations and its partners in Afghanistan are coordinating with the de facto authorities to swiftly assess needs and provide emergency assistance," according to the statement.

The dead include 51 children, according to UNICEF, one of several international aid groups that are sending relief teams, medicines, blankets and other supplies. The World Health Organization said it delivered 7 tons of medicines and emergency kits to the stricken areas.

Meanwhile, the U.N. migration agency has been distributing aid packages that include temporary shelters, essential non-food items, solar modules, clothing, and tools for repairs to their damaged shelters.

The latest disaster came on the heels of a previous one, when at least 70 people died in April from heavy rains and flash floods in the country. The waters also destroyed about 2,000 homes, three mosques and four schools in western Farah and Herat, and southern Zabul and Kandahar provinces.

Rescuers recovered more bodies Monday after monsoon rains triggered flash floods on Indonesia's Sumatra Island over the weekend, bringing down torrents of cold lava and mud that left at least 44 people dead and another 15 missing.

The heavy rains, along with a landslide of mud and cold lava from Mount Marapi, caused a river to breach its banks. The deluge tore through mountainside villages along four districts in West Sumatra province just before midnight Saturday.

The floods swept away people and submerged hundreds of houses and buildings, while forcing more than 3,100 to flee to temporary government shelters in Agam and Tanah Datar districts, said National Disaster Management Agency spokesperson Abdul Muhari.

INDONESIA'S MOUNT IBU VOLCANO ERUPTS, AUTHORITIES PREPARE TO EVACUATE THOUSANDS

Cold lava, also known as lahar, is a mixture of volcanic material and pebbles swept by rainwater down a volcano’s slopes.

Additional bodies were recovered Monday, bringing the death toll to 44, Muhari said in a news conference. At least 19 others were injured in the flash floods and rescuers were searching for 15 villagers, he said.

Television reports showed relatives wailing as they watched rescuers pull a mud-caked body from a devastated hamlet. It was placed in an orange and black bag and taken away for burial.

Authorities struggled to get tractors and other heavy equipment to the area over washed-out roads after flash floods covered the hilly hamlets with mud and rocks, said Abdul Malik, who heads the search and rescue office in Padang, the provincial capital.

Hundreds of police, soldiers and residents dug through the debris with their hands, shovels and hoes as rain, damaged roads and thick mud hampered their progress.

"The devastated area is so vast and complicated, we badly need more excavators and mud pumps," Malik said.

Videos released by the National Search and Rescue Agency showed roads that were transformed into murky brown rivers and villages covered by thick mud, rocks, and uprooted trees.

Muhari said the search and rescue operation was halted late Monday due to darkness and rains that made the devastated areas along the rivers unstable. The operation will resume early Tuesday.

Heavy rains cause frequent landslides and flash floods in Indonesia, an archipelago nation of more than 17,000 islands where millions of people live in mountainous areas or near floodplains.

The weekend disaster came just two months after heavy rains triggered flash floods and a landslide in West Sumatra, killing at least 26 people and leaving 11 others missing.

A surprise eruption of Mount Marapi late last year killed 23 climbers. The mountain's sudden eruptions are difficult to predict because the source is shallow and near the peak, according to Indonesia’s Center for Volcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation.

Marapi has been active since an eruption in January 2024 that caused no casualties. It is among more than 120 active volcanoes in Indonesia. The country is prone to seismic upheaval because of its location on the Pacific "Ring of Fire," an arc of volcanoes and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.

Old foes Turkey and Greece will test a five-month-old friendship initiative Monday when Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis visits Ankara.

The two NATO members, which share decades of mutual animosity, a tense border and disputed waters, agreed to sideline disputes last December. Instead, they’re focusing on trade and energy, repairing cultural ties and a long list of other items placed on the so-called positive agenda.

Here’s a look at what the two sides hope to achieve and the disputes that have plagued ties in the past:

NEW YORK MUSEUM CURATOR DETAINED IN TURKEY FOR ALLEGED SPIDER SMUGGLING CLAIMS TO HAVE GOVERNMENT PERMITS

Mitsotakis is to meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara on Monday as part of efforts to improve ties following the solidarity Athens showed Ankara after a devastating earthquake hit southern Turkey last year.

The two leaders have sharp differences over the Israeli-Hamas war, but are keen to hold back further instability in the eastern Mediterranean as conflict also continues to rage in Ukraine.

"We always approach our discussions with Turkey with confidence and with no illusions that Turkish positions will not change from one moment to the next," Mitsotakis said last week, commenting on the visit. "Nevertheless, I think it’s imperative that when we disagree, the channels of communication should always be open."

"We should disagree without tension and without this always causing an escalation on the ground," he added.

Ioannis Grigoriadis, a professor of political science at Ankara’s Bilkent University, said the two leaders would look for ways "to expand the positive agenda and look for topics where the two sides can seek win-win solutions," such as in trade, tourism and migration.

Erdogan visited Athens in early December, and the two countries have since maintained regular high-level contacts to promote a variety of fence-mending initiatives, including educational exchanges and tourism.

Turkish citizens this summer are able to visit 10 Greek islands using on-the-spot visas, skipping a more cumbersome procedure needed to enter Europe’s common travel area zone, known as the Schengen area.

"This generates a great opportunity for improving the economic relations between the two sides, but also to bring the two stable societies closer — for Greeks and Turks to realize that they have more things in common than they think," Grigoriadis said.

Disagreements have brought Athens and Ankara close to war on several occasions over the past five decades, mostly over maritime borders and the rights to explore for resources in the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean seas.

The two countries are also locked in a dispute over Cyprus, which was divided in 1974 when Turkey invaded following a coup by supporters of union with Greece. Only Turkey recognizes a Turkish Cypriot declaration of independence in the island’s northern third.

The dispute over the exploration of energy resources resulted in a naval standoff in 2020 and a vow by Erdogan to halt talks with the Mitsotakis government. But the two men met three times last year following a thaw in relations and a broader effort by Erdogan to re-engage with Western countries.

The foreign ministers of the two countries, Hakan Fidan of Turkey and George Gerapetritis of Greece, are set to join the talks Monday and hold a separate meeting.

Just weeks before Mitsotakis’ visit, Erdogan announced the opening of a former Byzantine-era church in Istanbul as a mosque, drawing criticism from Greece and the Greek Orthodox church. Like Istanbul’s landmark Hagia Sophia, the Chora had operated as a museum for decades before it was converted into a mosque.

Turkey, meanwhile, has criticized recently announced plans by Greece to declare areas in the Ionian and Aegean seas as "marine parks" to conserve aquatic life. Turkey objects to the one-sided declaration in the Aegean, where some areas remain under dispute, and has labelled the move as "a step that sabotages the normalization process."

Grigoriadis said Turkey and Greece could focus on restoring derelict Ottoman monuments in Greece and Greek Orthodox monuments in Turkey. "That would be an opportunity" for improved ties, he said.

Barbara Nabulo was one of three girls in her family. But when a sister died, her mother wailed at the funeral that she was left with just one and a half daughters.

The half was the ailing Nabulo, who at age 12 grasped her mother’s meaning.

"I hated myself so much," Nabulo said recently, recalling the words that preceded a period of sickness that left her hospitalized and feeding through a tube.

‘REMARKABLE’ GENE-EDITING TREATMENT FOR SICKLE CELL DISEASE IS APPROVED BY FDA

The scene underscores the lifelong challenges for some people with sickle cell disease in rural Uganda, where it remains poorly understood. Even Nabulo, despite her knowledge of how the disease weakens the body, spoke repeatedly of "the germ I was born with."

Sickle cell disease is a group of inherited disorders in which red blood cells — normally round — become hard, sticky and crescent shaped. The misshapen cells clog the flow of blood, which can lead to infections, excruciating pain, organ damage and other complications.

The disease, which can stunt physical growth, is more common in malaria-prone regions, notably Africa and India, because carrying the sickle cell trait helps protect against severe malaria. Global estimates of how many people have the disease vary, but some researchers put the number between 6 million and 8 million, with more than 5 million living in sub-Saharan Africa.

The only cure for the pain sickle cell disease can cause is a bone marrow transplant or gene therapies like the one commercially approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in December. A 12-year-old boy last week became the first person to begin the therapy.

EX-NFL STAR TEVIN COLEMAN'S DAUGHTER 'COULDN'T BREATHE ON HER OWN,' PUT ON VENTILATOR AMID SICKLE CELL FIGHT

Those options are beyond the reach of most patients in this East African nation where sickle cell disease is not a public health priority despite the burden it places on communities. There isn’t a national database of sickle cell patients. Funding for treatment often comes from donor organizations.

In a hilly part of eastern Uganda that’s a sickle cell hot spot, the main referral hospital looks after hundreds of patients arriving from nearby villages to collect medication. Many receive doses of hydroxyurea, a drug that can reduce periods of severe pain and other complications, and researchers there are studying its effectiveness in Ugandan children.

Nabulo, now 37, is one of the hospital's patients. But she approaches others like her as a caregiver, too.

After dropping out in primary school, she has emerged in recent years as a counselor to fellow patients, speaking to them about her survival. Encouraged by hospital authorities, she makes weekly visits to the ward that has many children watched over by exhausted-looking parents.

Nabulo tells them she was diagnosed with sickle cell disease at two weeks old, but now she is the mother of three children, including twins.

Such a message gives hope to those who feel discouraged or worry that sickle cell disease is a death sentence, said Dr. Julian Abeso, head of pediatrics at Mbale Regional Referral Hospital.

Some men have been known to divorce their wives — or neglect them in search of new partners — when they learn that their children have sickle cell disease. Frequent community deaths from disease complications reinforce perceptions of it as a scourge.

BONE MARROW TRANSPLANTS CAN REVERSE ADULT SICKLE CELL DISEASE

Nabulo and health workers urge openness and the testing of children for sickle cell as early as possible.

Abeso and Nabulo grew close after Nabulo lost her first baby hours after childbirth in 2015. She cried in the doctor's office as she spoke of her wish "to have a relative I can call mine, a descendant who can help me," Abeso recalled.

"At that time, people here were so negative about patients with sickle cell disease having children because the complications would be so many," the doctor said.

Nabulo’s second attempt to have a child was difficult, with some time in intensive care. But her baby is now a 7-year-old boy who sometimes accompanies her to the hospital. The twin girls came last year.

Speaking outside the one-room home she shares with her husband and children, Nabulo said many people appreciate her work despite the countless indignities she faces, including unwanted stares from people in the streets who point to the woman with "a big head," one manifestation in her of the disease. Her brothers often behave as if they are ashamed of her, she said.

Once, she heard of a girl in her neighborhood whose grandmother was making frequent trips to the clinic over an undiagnosed illness in the child. The grandmother was hesitant to have the girl tested for sickle cell when Nabulo first asked her. But tests later revealed the disease, and now the girl receives treatment.

"I go to Nabulo for help because I can’t manage the illness affecting my grandchild," Kelemesiya Musuya said. "She can feel pain, and she starts crying, saying, ‘It is here and it is rising and it is paining here and here.'"

Musuya sometimes seeks reassurance. "She would be asking me, ‘Even you, when you are sick, does it hurt in the legs, in the chest, in the head?’ I tell her that, yes, it’s painful like that," Nabulo said.

Nabulo said she was glad that the girl, who is 11, still goes to school.

The lack of formal education is hurtful for Nabulo, who struggles to write her name, and a source of shame for her parents, who repeatedly apologize for letting her drop out while her siblings studied. One brother is now a medical worker who operates a clinic in a town not far away from Nabulo's home

"I am very happy to see her," said her mother, Agatha Nambuya.

She recalled Nabulo’s swelling head and limbs as a baby, and how "these children used to die so soon."

But now she knows of others with sickle cell disease who grew to become doctors or whatever they wanted to be. She expressed pride in Nabulo’s work as a counselor and said her grandchildren make her feel happy.

"At that time," she said, recalling Nabulo as a child, "we didn’t know."

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba made a surprise visit to Russia-friendly Serbia on Monday, together with Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, in a sign of warming relations between the two states.

On his first visit to Serbia since the start of the Russian aggression on Ukraine in 2022, Kuleba met Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and new Serbian Prime Minister Milos Vucevic, whose government includes several pro-Russian ministers, including two who have been under U.S. sanctions.

A statement issued by the prime minister's office after the talks said that "Serbia is committed to respecting international law and the territorial integrity of every member state of the United Nations, including Ukraine."

UKRAINE'S KHARKIV RESIDENTS REMAIN DEFIANT AS RUSSIA LAUNCHES NEW OFFENSIVE

Although Serbia has condemned the Russian aggression on Ukraine, it has refused to join international sanctions against Moscow and has instead maintained warm and friendly relations with its traditional Slavic ally.

Serbia has proclaimed neutrality regarding the war in Ukraine, and its authorities repeat that Serbia does not supply weapons to any parties. However, there are reports that Serbia has delivered weapons to Ukraine through intermediary countries.

The visit by Kuleba and Zelenska, who toured the Serbian capital with Serbian first lady Tamara Vucic on Sunday, was met with criticism in Moscow. Comments by readers in the Russian state-run media such as "shameful" were published by RIA Novosti.

In what appears to be damage control, soon after his talks with Kuleba on Monday, Vucevic was to meet the Russian ambassador to Belgrade and the two were to tour a big storage facility for Russian gas that is being imported to Serbia.

Pro-Russian President Vucic has informally met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy three times on the sidelines of international conferences. Serbia has supplied Ukraine with humanitarian and financial aid.

Vucic has for years claimed to follow a "neutral" policy, balancing ties among Moscow, Beijing, Brussels and Washington. Although he has repeatedly said that Serbia is firm on its proclaimed goal of seeking European Union membership, under his authoritarian rule the Balkan country appears to be shifting closer to Russia and especially China.

During a high-stakes visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping to Belgrade last week, China and Serbia signed an agreement to build "ironclad" relations and a "shared joint future."

A billboard has collapsed and killed three people and injured 59 in India's financial capital, Mumbai, in thunderstorms and heavy rain, the Press Trust of India reported Monday.

Scores of people were thought to be trapped after the collapse in the suburb of Ghatkopar, Mumbai police said on social media platform X.

At least 47 people had been rescued and were receiving hospital treatment, said Devendra Fadnavis, deputy chief minister of Maharashtra state.

TALIBAN REPORTS AT LEAST 50 DEAD AS FLASH FLOODS WREAK HAVOC IN NORTHERN AFGHANISTAN

He said an investigation had been ordered into the accident. Rescue operations continued.

India has heavy rain and severe floods during monsoon season between June and September, which brings most of South Asia’s annual rainfall. The rains are crucial for rain-fed crops planted during the season but often cause extensive damage.

India’s weather department said lightning, rain and winds were likely to occur in parts of Mumbai in the coming hours, local media reported.

Fires resulting from the fighting in Sudan destroyed or damaged 72 villages and settlements last month, a U.K.-based rights group said Monday, highlighting the use of fire as a weapon of war in the conflict in the African country.

Investigators from Sudan Witness, an open-source project run by the nonprofit Center for Information Resilience, say that more blazes broke out than in any other month since the war started in mid-April 2023. The number also brings to 201 the total number of fires in Sudan since fighting broke out between Sudan's military and the rival paramilitary force.

The analysis didn't provide any casualty figures from the fires.

SOUTH SUDAN MEDIATION TALKS LAUNCHED IN KENYA WITH A HOPE OF ENDING CONFLICT

In the war in Sudan, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces have often used fire, setting entire villages ablaze, especially in Sudan's western Darfur region.

The Center for Information Resilience said the number of fires surged particularly in the north and west of el-Fasher, the capital city of North Darfur state that faces an imminent attack.

El-Fasher saw intense fighting on Friday between the Sudanese military and the paramilitary RSF and their allies. At least 27 people were killed and dozens injured, said the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA. More than 800 were displaced.

Sudan's military launched an airstrike the next day that hit close to a pediatric hospital in el-Fasher, killing two children and a caregiver, according to Doctors Without Borders.

In its analysis, the Center for Information Resilience estimated that 31 settlements — villages and towns — were affected by fires in April, with an over 50% destruction rate.

"We’ve documented the patterns of numerous fires and the continuing devastation to settlements around western Sudan, large and small," Anouk Theunissen, Sudan Witness project director, said in a news release.

"When we see reports of fighting or airstrikes coinciding with clusters of fires it indicates that fire is being used indiscriminately as a weapon of war. The trend is worsening and continues to lead to the mass displacement of Sudanese people," Theunissen said.

Sudan's conflict started when tensions between the Sudanese military and the RSF broke out into intense fighting in Khartoum, the country's capital in April last year. Clashes quickly spread to other parts of Sudan, including Darfur, which has been witnessing brutal attacks.

The Sudan Witness analysis also said that in the Sudan war, blazes have hit at least 51 settlements for displaced people more than once.

Investigators with the project examined the patterns of fires across the war-torn country by using social media, satellite imagery and NASA's public fire monitoring data.

Indonesian police raided what they said was a major drug lab hidden in a villa on the resort island of Bali, and arrested four people, authorities said Monday.

Police raided the house in the upscale resort area of Canggu early this month, said Wahyu Widada, head of the National Police’s Criminal Investigation Department, finding two drug labs in its basement.

He said one of the villa's labs was designed to produce the ingredients for ecstasy, and the other contained a hydroponic farm marijuana. Police were tipped off to the facility after an earlier raid on a Jakarta lab linked to Indonesia's most wanted drug lord.

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Police arrested an Indonesian man identified by his initial as LM, two Ukrainian men identified as IV and MV, and a Russian man identified as KK, during the raids.

The four men could face execution. Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation, has strict laws against consumption of marijuana and other drugs, even for medical treatment.

Most of the more than 150 people on Indonesia’s death row were convicted of drug crimes, about one-third of whom are foreigners. The country’s last executions were in 2016, when one Indonesian and three foreigners were shot by a firing squad.

Widada said police were tipped off to the "clandestine" labs after interrogating a suspected drug trafficker arrested in an April raids in the capital, Jakarta, on a similar lab that police say was owned by drug lord Freddy Pratama.

Widada said one of the men arrested this month, LM, was Pratama’s accountant, and was involved in operating a drug lab in Jakarta before moving to Bali to avoid arrest. He was arrested at a rented house near Kuta, a popular tourist spot, with 13.2 pounds of crystal methamphetamine.

Widada said that IV and MV arrested as investors and drug makers at the Bali labs, while KK was accused of selling drugs for them, adding that police are searching for two more dealers, Ukrainian men identified as RN and OK.

Wearing orange detainee uniforms, the suspects were paraded with their hands tied at a news conference in Denpasar, the capital of Bali province.

Police seized hundreds of pounds of precursor chemicals for ecstasy and equipment for growing marijuana, including ultraviolet lighting and an automatic watering system.

Last year, Indonesia’s Constitutional Court rejected a judicial review of the country’s narcotics law that would have paved the way for legalizing marijuana for medicinal use.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime says Indonesia is a major smuggling hub despite having some of the strictest drug laws in the world, in part because international drug syndicates target its young population.

Kazakhstan's Supreme Court on Monday convicted a former government official of torturing and murdering his wife and sentenced him to 24 years in prison in a case that has gripped the Central Asian nation.

During the trial of Kuandyk Bishimbayev, Kazakhstan’s former economy minister, over the death of his wife, Saltanat Nukenova, thousands of people urged the authorities to adopt harsher penalties for domestic violence. Authorities adopted a bill toughening spousal abuse laws.

Kazakhstan largely remains a patriarchal society, and progress has been slow on issues such as domestic violence, sexual harassment and disparities in employment.

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Bishimbayev’s trial was the first in the country of over 19 million people to be streamed online, and debates about it dominated social media.

Nukenova, 31, was found dead in November in a restaurant owned by one of her husband’s relatives. The 44-year-old Bishimbayev maintained his innocence before admitting in court last month that he had beaten her and "unintentionally" caused her death. His lawyers initially disputed medical evidence indicating Nukenova died from blows to the head.

Bishimbayev's relative, Bakhytzhan Baizhanov, was sentenced to four years in prison for helping Bishimbayev cover up the murder.

Days after Nukenova’s death, her relatives launched an online petition urging authorities to pass "Saltanat’s Law" to bolster protection for those at risk of domestic violence. It quickly got over 150,000 signatures. As the trial began, more than 5,000 Kazakhs wrote senators urging tougher laws on abuse, Kazakh media said.

Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has repeatedly spoken about strengthening protections for women. In January, he intervened after the Justice Ministry refused to consider the petition by Nukenova’s family.

According to a 2018 study backed by UN Women, about 400 women die from domestic violence each year in Kazakhstan, although many cases go unreported.

In 2017, Kazakhstan decriminalized beatings and other acts causing "minor" physical damage, making them punishable only by fines or short jail terms. Kazakhstan has since reversed its law, increasing penalties for assailants and introducing new criminal offenses, including harassment of minors.

Senate Speaker Maulen Ashimbayev said that properly implementing the new law adopted in the wake of the trial will require "a great deal of work," including educational campaigns in schools and the media as well as vigilance from civil society groups.

A curator at the American Museum of Natural History was detained in Istanbul on Monday while allegedly attempting to smuggle spider and scorpion samples, Turkish media reported. The curator said he had permits from the government to conduct his research.

Lorenzo Prendini, an expert on arachnids at the New York-based museum, was held by police at Istanbul Airport while allegedly trying to take about 1,500 samples out of the country, news outlets reported.

The state-run Anadolu news agency reported that Prendini was detained for allegedly attempting to smuggle species found in Turkey.

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Video published by the Demiroren News Agency showed officers searching hand luggage and removing plastic bags that appeared to be packed with dead spiders and scorpions.

In emailed comments to The Associated Press, Prendini said the police had disregarded permits from the Turkish government to conduct his research in collaboration with Turkish scientists.

"The police completely ignored this and relied on the testimony of an ‘expert’ who has a conflict of interest with my collaborators … and whose scientific research is highly questionable," he said.

"The police have completely violated due process, and it appears they would like to find me guilty in the court of public opinion."

The museum’s website lists Prendini as the curator of its spider, scorpion, centipede and millipede collections. It says his research into spiders and scorpions has taken him to more than 30 countries.

Residents of Ukraine's second-biggest city, Kharkiv, remained defiant despite fierce fighting raging in the region after Russian forces launched an armored incursion on a new front that may presage a broader push into the area.

As battles raged in the north and east of the Kharkiv region, the city itself enjoyed a rare moment of calm on Sunday, May 12.

Residents took to the streets and parks of the city, walking, shopping, taking children to playgrounds. Many attended Sunday church services.

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The mood was upbeat, with most people saying Russia's incursion on the new front will not scare them to flee the city.

Many said they trusted Ukrainian forces to push Russians away. Others said that despite months of relentless rocket, drone and artillery attacks on the city, they were determined to stay in their homes and hoped their children would grow up in the city.

Kharkiv's governor Oleh Syniehubov said on Saturday there was no imminent danger to the city of Kharkiv and no need to begin evacuating its roughly 1.3 million inhabitants. Kyiv officials have repeatedly said they do not believe Russia has the forces available to capture the city.

Only a few hundred residents remain in the embattled town of Vovchansk in northeast Ukraine, where Kyiv's troops are locked in intense battles with the Russian army, according to local officials on Monday.

The town, whose pre-war population of 17,000 had dwindled to just 2,500 before Russia renewed its ground assault last week, has emerged as focus point as pitched battles engulf the Kharkiv and Donetsk regions.

Ukrainian local officials said they feared Vovchansk's fate may mirror that of Bakhmut and Avdiivka, Ukrainian cities where fierce fighting and scorched earth tactics forced Ukrainian withdrawals. Only 200-300 people remain in the town, Kharkiv regional governor Oleh Suniehubov said, as Moscow’s troops advance in an effort to surround it from three directions.

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Poorly built fortifications and enduring ammunition shortages enabled Russia’s sweeping advance in the area last week, local officials and soldiers said.

In the span of two days, Moscow has captured some 40 square miles at least seven villages, most of them already depopulated, according to the open source monitoring project DeepState. It is a significant advance that could pin Ukrainian forces in the northeast while heavy fighting continues in the Donetsk region.

On Monday, Ukrainian troops were still locked in pitched battles in both regions, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. Fighting is taking place near the border in eastern and northeastern Ukraine as outgunned and outnumbered Ukrainian soldiers try to hold back a significant Russian ground offensive.

"Defensive battles are ongoing, fierce battles, on a large part of our border area," Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address Sunday.

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The Kremlin’s forces are aiming to exploit Ukrainian weaknesses before a big batch of new military aid for Kyiv from the U.S. and European partners arrives on the battlefield in the coming weeks and months, analysts say. That makes this period a window of opportunity for Moscow and one of the most dangerous for Kyiv in the two-year war, they say. It is unclear what of the promised aid has arrived to Ukraine.

The new Russian push in the northeastern Kharkiv region, along with the ongoing drive into the eastern Donetsk region, come after months when the roughly 620-mile front line barely budged. In the meantime, both sides have used long-range strikes to pursue what became largely a war of attrition.

Ukraine’s general staff said late Sunday that Russian forces had conducted at least 22 attacks over the previous 24 hours in two parts of the Kharkiv region and had "tactical success." The statement did not elaborate.

The Kharkiv incursion serves likely three purposes for Russia. First, the northeast operation will pin Ukrainian forces in the region and potentially draw in precious reserves away from heavy battles in the Avdiivka and Chasiv Yar areas of the Donetsk region, where Russia’s advance has been far more significant and strategically important.

Zelenskyy said fighting in the Donetsk area is "no less intense" than in Kharkiv. He said the Kremlin aimed to "spread our forces thin" by opening a second active front in Kharkiv.

Zelenskyy described the area around Pokrovsk region, just inside the Ukrainian border in Donetsk, as "the most difficult."

Pokrovsk was a town of around 60,000 people before the war and was until recently a two-hour drive from the front line. Now it is less than half that.

The capture of the Donetsk city of Avdiivka in February opened a door for the Kremlin’s troops to push westward, deeper into Donetsk. Russia illegally annexed Donetsk and three other regions in 2022 shortly after it invaded Ukraine, and taking control of all of Donetsk is one of the Kremlin’s main war goals.

Second, if Ukraine isn’t able to halt Moscow’s advance, it could create future conditions for a possible attack on Kharkiv City, Ukraine’s second largest.

Finally, it could create a "buffer zone" to protect Belgorod, where frequent Ukrainian attacks have embarrassed the Kremlin. In March, Russia announced plans to evacuate about 9,000 children from the Belgorod region because it was being shelled continuously.

Russian emergency services on Monday finished clearing the rubble in the region’s capital city of Belgorod, where a section of a residential building collapsed following what authorities said was Ukrainian shelling.

Fifteen bodies were pulled from the rubble, Belgorod regional Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said, and 27 other people were wounded.

Another three people in the city of Belgorod were killed by shelling late Sunday, he said.

Yevgeny Poddubny, a usually well-connected military correspondent for Russia’s state TV corporation VGTRK, said in a recent Telegram post that the Kharkiv assault marked the beginning of "a new phase."

"We’re pushing the enemy back from the border, destroying the enemy in order to deprive the Kyiv regime of the opportunity to use relatively cheap rockets to attack Belgorod," he said.

Mount Ibu, a volcano in Indonesia's North Maluku province, erupted on Monday, spewing thick gray ash and dark clouds 16,400 feet into the sky for five minutes, officials said.

"The volcanic earthquakes are still intense so there is a potential for a future eruption," Hendra Gunawan, chief of the Center for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation said.

After an eruption on Friday, the center raised the alert level for the volcano from 2 to 3, the second-highest level, which widens the radius of the area which should be vacated. Local authorities have prepared evacuation tents, but no evacuation order has been reported yet.

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Officials advised residents and tourists not to conduct any activities within 3 miles of Mount Ibu's crater. More than 13,000 people live within a 3-mile radius of the northern side of the crater, Gunawan said.

The 4,347-foot volcano is on the northwest coast of the remote island of Halmahera.

Indonesia, an archipelago of 270 million people, has 120 active volcanoes. It is prone to volcanic activity because it sits along the "Ring of Fire," a horseshoe-shaped series of seismic fault lines around the Pacific Ocean.

A British climber and a Nepali guide have broken their own records for most climbs of Mount Everest, the world's highest mountain, hiking officials said on Sunday.

Rakesh Gurung, director of Nepal's Department of Tourism, said Britain's Kenton Cool, 50, and Nepali guide Kami Rita Sherpa, 54, climbed the 29,032-foot peak for the 18th and 29th time, respectively.

They were on separate expeditions guiding their clients.

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"He just keeps going and going... amazing guy!" Garrett Madison of the U.S.-based expedition organizing company Madison Mountaineering said of the Nepali climber. Madison had teamed up with Kami Rita to climb the summits of Everest, Lhotse, and K2 in 2014.

K2, located in Pakistan, is the world's second-highest mountain and Lhotse in Nepal is the fourth-tallest.

Lukas Furtenbach of the Austrian expedition operator Furtenbach Adventures called Cool's feat remarkable.

"He is a fundamental part of the Everest guiding industry. Kenton Cool is an institution," Furtenbach, who is leading an expedition from the Chinese side of Everest, told Reuters.

Both climbers used the Southeast Ridge route to the summit.

Pioneered by the first summiteers, New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay in 1953, the route remains the most popular path to the Everest summit.

Kami Rita first climbed Everest in 1994 and has done so almost every year since, except for three years when authorities closed the mountain for various reasons.

He climbed the mountain twice last year.

Mountain climbing is a major tourism activity and a source of income as well as employment for Nepal, home to eight of the world's 14 tallest peaks, including Everest.

Nepal has issued 414 permits, each costing $11,000 to climbers for the climbing season that ends this month.

Forty-nine employees of the Vatican Museums have filed a class-action complaint with the Vatican administration demanding better seniority, leave and overtime benefits in an unusual, public challenge to Pope Francis’ governance.

The complaint, dated April 23 and made public this weekend in Italian newspapers, also alleged that staff faced health and security risks due to cost-saving and apparent profit-generating initiatives at the museum, including overcrowding and reduced security guards to keep tourists at bay.

Neither the Vatican spokesman nor Cardinal Fernando Vérgez Alzaga, the president of the Vatican City State administration which controls the museums, responded to an email seeking comment.

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The complaint is the latest legal challenge to underscore how the Vatican’s laws, regulations and practices are often incompatible with Italian and European norms. Recently, civil and criminal cases have exposed how Vatican employees, especially lay Italian citizens, have little or no legal recourse beyond the peculiar justice system of the city state, an absolute monarchy where Francis wields supreme executive, legislative and judicial power.

In the class-action complaint, written and signed by veteran Vatican attorney Laura Sgro on behalf of the 49 employees, museum staffers cited the social teaching of the Catholic Church and Francis’ own appeals for employers to respect the dignity of workers in demanding better treatment.

Among other things, they demanded better transparency about how employees are able to advance, a restoration of seniority bonuses and insisted the Vatican follow Italian norms on sick days. Employees currently have to stay home all day, rather than a few hours, to await a potential visit to check that they aren’t merely taking the day off, the complaint said.

Under the Vatican's labor regulations, Verzaga has 30 days to respond to the complaint. If no talks begin, Sgro can take the claims to the Vatican's labor office to attempt a negotiated reconciliation, which could end up in the tribunal. However, the office can refuse to hear the case and, according to lawyers, often does, leaving the employees with no further recourse.

In recent cases before the Vatican tribunal, lawyers have signaled they may try to bring employees' complaints about the system to the European Court of Human Rights. The Holy See isn't a member of the court or a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights. But some lawyers say the Vatican nevertheless committed to upholding European human rights norms when it signed onto the European Union monetary convention in 2009.

The Vatican Museums are one of the primary sources of revenue for the Vatican, subsidizing the Holy See bureaucracy, which acts as the central government for the Catholic Church. The museums, which suffered a big financial hit from COVID-19 closures and restrictions, increased the cost of a full-price ticket at the start of the year to $21.50.