Author: afp

  • Canada on ‘high alert’ bracing for migrants fleeing US

    Canada on ‘high alert’ bracing for migrants fleeing US

    Canadian authorities said Friday they’re on “high alert” with all eyes on the US border as the country braces for a possible influx of migrants from the United States.

    US President-elect Donald Trump has promised the largest mass deportation in American history, accusing immigrants of “poisoning the blood of our country.”

    During his first presidential term from 2017 to 2021, tens of thousands of migrants, including Haitians stripped of US protections, fled north to Canada.

    “We’re on high alert,” a Royal Canadian Mounted Police spokesman, Sergeant Charles Poirier, told Agence France-Presse.

    “All of our eyes are looking at the border to see what’s going to happen… because we know that Trump’s stance on immigration might drive up illegal and irregular migration to Canada,” he said.

    In Ottawa, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland met Friday with a group of ministers tasked with handling thorny issues that might emerge between Canada and the incoming Trump administration.

    She sought to reassure that Canada was ready for a possible uptick in migrant arrivals.

    “We have a plan,” she told a news conference after the meeting without giving details. “Canadians need to know… our borders are safe and secure, and we control them.”

    Watching out for a possible influx comes as Canada is slashing its own immigration targets.

    Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government has said it wants to slow population growth while it bolsters key infrastructure and social services.

    Quebec Premier Francois Legault this week also expressed concerns about a large number of arrivals overwhelming his province’s already strained ability to house them.

    Immediately following Tuesday’s election, online searches in the United States about moving to Canada jumped tenfold.

    The legal status of the people making those queries is unclear, but some US citizens opposed to Trump’s return to power have reportedly been querying Canadian immigration and relocation services.

    Google Trends pointed to search terms such as “immigrate to Canada,” “Canada immigration process” and “how to move to Canada.”

    The government estimates the processing of permanent residency applications can take up to one year, while projected wait times for refugee claims is 44 months.

    Entering Canada between border checkpoints is illegal, and dangerous, especially in winter months, the RCMP’s Poirier noted.

    “We understand the misery and fear that drives people to try to cross into Canada (through forests or fields or across lakes and rivers), but there are real dangers,” he warned.

    “It’s starting to get cold. We’ve seen some tragedies in the past. People were severely frostbitten and had to have amputations. People also suffered severe hypothermia,” Poirier said.

    Some have died.

    Rule changes in 2023 have also made it harder for people coming from the United States to succeed in making asylum claims in Canada, and they would likely be returned to the United States.

    Poirier said “more boots on the ground” are expected to be deployed along the world’s longest non-militarized border in the coming days, as authorities expect migrants to start hitting the road soon, ahead of Trump’s inauguration in January.

    Additionally, cameras, sensors and drones have already been set up along this 8,891 kilometres (5,525 miles) stretch, and information is being shared between Canada and the United States in real-time, he added.

    Despite months of planning, Poirier warned that if thousands of migrants come all at once and cross at many border points, “it could become unmanageable.”

  • Delhi plans drone flights to combat smog crisis

    Delhi plans drone flights to combat smog crisis

    India’s capital unveiled plans Friday to fly special drones to clear pollution from its smog-choked skies — a plan derided by experts as another “band-aid” solution to a public health crisis.

    New Delhi and the surrounding metropolitan area, home to more than 30 million people, consistently tops world rankings for air pollution in winter.

    The smog is blamed for thousands of premature deaths each year and is an annual source of misery for the capital’s residents, with various piecemeal government initiatives failing to measurably address the problem.

    Friday marked the start of a trial for an aerial drone tasked with flying around the city’s pollution hotspots to spray water mist in an effort to clear dust and harmful particulate matter from the air.

    “We have been examining different technological solutions and best practices from across the world,” Delhi environment minister Gopal Rai said after launching the initiative.

    “This one drone is part of a pilot project by a company. We will study, and if it succeeds, we will take this forward.”

    Rai said that once the trial was over, the Delhi government would issue a tender to purchase two more drones.

    If implemented, the three drones would be responsible for mitigating air pollution across a city that stretches across 1,500 square kilometres (580 square miles) — around the same size as greater London.

    A technician at the site, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, said the drones carried a maximum 16 litres (4.2 gallons) of water and could only operate for a few minutes at a time before they needed to be refilled.

    “But these are not the solution to air pollution,” Sunil Dahiya of advocacy group Envirocatalysts told AFP. “These are band-aid solutions.”

    Prior government efforts to mitigate the smog, such as a public campaign encouraging drivers to turn off their engines at traffic lights, have failed to make an impact in the city.

    Delhi opened a “smog tower” — a 25-metre (82-foot) tower in the city centre containing fans that were touted as filtering 1,000 cubic metres of air per second — to much fanfare in 2021.

    The project was panned by experts when it was launched and is no longer operational.

    “Cutting emissions at the sources of the pollution is more important,” Anumita Roychowdhury, executive director of the Centre for Science and Environment in New Delhi, told AFP.

    “We have enough studies to show that vehicles, industry, and construction are the areas that need intervention to tackle the issue.”

    The level of PM2.5 particles — the smallest and most harmful, which can enter the bloodstream — registered above 300 micrograms per cubic metre in Delhi this week, according to monitoring firm IQAir.

    That is 20 times the daily maximum recommended by the World Health Organization.

  • One Direction star took cocaine, alcohol, antidepressant before death

    One Direction star took cocaine, alcohol, antidepressant before death

    One Direction star Liam Payne consumed cocaine, alcohol and a prescription antidepressant before falling to his death from a Buenos Aires hotel balcony last month, Argentine prosecutors said Thursday.

    The prosecutor’s office added that three people were charged with supplying him with drugs and one of them was also charged with abandoning a person in a vulnerable state.

    “The results of the toxicological studies, which have been communicated to his family, revealed that, in the moments prior to his death and over a period covering at least his last 72 hours, Payne had traces of polydrug use of alcohol, cocaine and a prescription antidepressant in his body,” the prosecutors said.

    Payne was found dead on October 16 after plunging from the balcony of his third-floor room at the CasaSur Hotel in the Argentine capital.

    An autopsy found he died after sustaining “multiple traumas” and “internal and external hemorrhaging” from the fall.

    One of the highest-grossing live acts in the world in the 2010s, One Direction went on indefinite hiatus in 2016.

    Payne went on to enjoy a degree of solo success but his career had languished recently.

    His death at age 31 prompted a global outpouring of grief and condolences from family, former bandmates, fans and others.

    – Three charged with drugs supply –

    Prosecutors said one of the three people charged in the case had accompanied him on a daily basis during his stay in Buenos Aires and was charged with abandoning a person who later died as well as supplying him with narcotics.

    The second suspect is a hotel employee accused of twice supplying Payne with cocaine while he was staying at the CasaSur. A third person is also accused of supplying him with the drug on October 14, two days before his death.

    The prosecution ruled out self-harm and the “physical intervention of third parties” as the cause of Payne’s death, saying that the injuries he sustained were compatible with those caused by a fall.

    “Payne was either not fully conscious or was in a state of markedly diminished or absent consciousness at the time of the fall,” the report said.

    He was found dead after hotel staff called emergency services to report “a guest who is overwhelmed by drugs and alcohol, and destroying his room.”

    – Body flown home –

    The toxicological report was published a day after the singer’s father Geoff Payne repatriated his body to Britain aboard a flight from Buenos Aires to London.

    Payne’s death has prompted a debate about whether the music industry has a duty of care for the mental health of stars who find fame at a young age.

    The singer from Wolverhampton in central England had spoken publicly about struggles with substance abuse and the pressures of teenage stardom.

    He first auditioned for the hugely popular television talent show “The X Factor” at the age of 14 but was unsuccessful.

    Two years later he hit gold on the program, which teamed him up with Niall Horan, Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson and Zayn Malik to form One Direction.

    Over the next six years, the group enjoyed global fame and legions of screaming fans, selling more than 70 million copies of their five albums. They went on four world tours and won nearly 200 awards.

    Payne is survived by a seven-year-old boy, Bear, with Girls Aloud star Cheryl Tweedy.

  • ‘Game of Thrones’ movie in early development

    ‘Game of Thrones’ movie in early development

    Could the dragons of Westeros finally be coming to the big screen?

    At least one “Game of Thrones” movie is in very early stages of development, trade outlets The Hollywood Reporter and Deadline reported Thursday.

    The original HBO “Game of Thrones” television show became a global cultural phenomenon during its eight-season run from 2011-2019, garnering huge audiences and a record 59 Emmys.

    Based on George R.R. Martin’s fantasy novel series “A Song of Ice and Fire,” the hit show about violent, feuding noble families has already spawned TV spinoff “House of the Dragon,” with more small-screen adaptations confirmed to be in the works.

    But while Martin and “Thrones” showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss have discussed potential movies based on the universe in the past, parent company Warner Bros Discovery has been opposed to bringing the franchise to theaters.

    The Hollywood Reporter suggested Thursday that recent leadership changes at the studio, and the success of franchises that have hopped between big and small screens such as “The Batman,” “Dune” and the upcoming “Harry Potter” TV series, may have finally prompted a change.

    Warner Bros “has been quietly developing at least one film” set in the “Thrones” universe, it reported.

    Deadline said there have been only “preliminary discussions,” and no stars are yet attached to the proposed movie.

    “We have no comment on this,” a Warner spokeswoman told AFP.

    amz/nro

  • Hezbollah appoints Naim Qassem as successor to Hassan Nasrallah

    Hezbollah appoints Naim Qassem as successor to Hassan Nasrallah

    Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement announced Tuesday it has chosen deputy head Naim Qassem to succeed Hasan Nasrallah as leader after his death in an Israeli strike on south Beirut last month.

    “Hezbollah’s (governing) Shura Council agreed to elect… Sheikh Naim Qassem as secretary general of Hezbollah,” the group said in a statement, more than a month after Nasrallah’s killing.

    Hezbollah pledged to keep “the flame of resistance burning” until victory is achieved against Israel after an all-out war erupted on September 23.

    Qassem was elected by the five-member Shura Council, the group’s main decision-making body, two days before Tuesday’s announcement, a source close to Hezbollah said.

    The source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorised to speak to the press, said a new Shura Council would be elected after the end of the war.

    The council may then opt to elect a new leader or keep Qassem in the top post, the source said.

    Qassem had long operated in the shadows of Nasrallah, a towering leader who was one of the most enigmatic and influential figures in the Middle East.

    Hashem Safieddine, the head of Hezbollah’s executive council, was initially tipped to succeed Nasrallah.

    But he, too, was killed in an Israeli strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs shortly after Nasrallah’s assassination.

    Hezbollah’s Palestinian ally Hamas, whose October 7, 2023 attack on Israel triggered the Gaza war, welcomed Qassem’s election.

    “We consider this election evidence of the party’s recovery from the targeting” of its leaders, Hamas said in a statement, pledging “support for the new leadership”.

    Qassem, 71, was one of Hezbollah’s founders in 1982 and had been the party’s deputy secretary general since 1991, the year before Nasrallah took the helm.

    He was born in Beirut in 1953 to a family from the village of Kfar Fila on the border with Israel.

    He was the most senior Hezbollah official to continue making public appearances after Nasrallah largely went into hiding following the group’s 2006 war with Israel.

    Since Nasrallah’s death in a huge Israeli air strike on September 27, Qassem has made three televised addresses, speaking in more formal Arabic than the colloquial Lebanese favoured by Nasrallah.

    With less charisma and fewer oratorical skills than Nasrallah, Qassem said the group will soon replace its assassinated leader.

    He claimed Hezbollah’s military capabilities were intact and backed efforts by parliament speaker Nabih Berri to broker a ceasefire.

    In his last speech on October 15, Qassem said a ceasefire was the only way Israel could guarantee the return of its residents to the north.

    The Israel-Hezbollah war erupted last month after nearly a year of cross-border fire.

    On September 23, Israel ramped up strikes on Hezbollah strongholds and sent in ground forces while killing one member of the group’s top leadership after another.

    The onslaught has killed more than 1,700 people in Lebanon since September 23, according to an AFP tally of health ministry figures, though the real number is likely higher due to gaps in the data.

    The Israeli military says it has lost 37 soldiers in its Lebanon campaign since it launched ground operations on September 30.

  • ‘Amazing’ AI de-ages Tom Hanks in new film ‘Here’

    ‘Amazing’ AI de-ages Tom Hanks in new film ‘Here’

    Tom Hanks has praised the “amazing” use of artificial intelligence to de-age him “in real time” on the set of new movie “Here,” even as he accepted that the technology is causing huge concern in Hollywood.

    “Here,” out in theaters Friday, stars Hanks and Robin Wright as a couple striving to keep their family together through births, marriages, divorces and deaths, across multiple decades and even generations.

    Hanks portrays his character from an idealistic teen, through various stages of youth and middle age, to a frail, elderly man.

    But rather than just relying on makeup, filmmakers teamed up with AI studio Metaphysic on a tool called Metaphysic Live, to rejuvenate and “age up” the actors.

    The technology worked so fast that Hanks was able to immediately watch his “deep-faked” performance after each scene.

    “The thing that is amazing about it is it happened in real time,” said Hanks.

    “We did not have to wait for eight months of post-production. There were two monitors on the set. One was the actual feed from the lens, and the other was just a nanosecond slower, of us ‘deep-faked.’

    “So we could see ourselves in real time, right then and there.”

    The rapidly increasing use of AI in films including “Here” has triggered vast concern in Hollywood, where actors last year went on strike over, among other things, the threat they believe the technology poses to their jobs and industry.

    Hanks acknowledged those fears during a panel discussion with director Robert Zemeckis at last weekend’s AFI Fest in Hollywood, saying a “lot of people” were worried about how it will be used.

    “They took 8 million images of us from the web. They scraped the web for photos of us in every era that we’ve ever been — every event we’ve filmed, every movie still, every family photo that might have existed anywhere,” Hanks explained.

    “And they put that into the box — what is it, ‘deepfake technology,’ whatever you want to call it.”

    – ‘Cinematic’ –

    The use of AI is not the only unusual technological feat in “Here.”

    The film is entirely shot from one static camera, positioned for the most part in the corner of a suburban US home’s living room.

    Viewers occasionally see glimpses of the same geographic space before the house was built, as the action hops back and forth to colonial and pre-colonial times — or even earlier.

    “Here” is based on a graphic novel by Richard McGuire, which uses the same concept.

    “It had to be true to the style of the book, and that’s why it looks the way it does,” Zemeckis told AFP.

    “It worked in levels that I didn’t expect. It’s got a real powerful intimacy to it, and in a wonderful way, it’s very cinematic.”

    But the film’s use of AI has drawn the most attention.

    – ‘Very serious subject’ –

    AI was also at the heart of a very different film at AFI Fest — “Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl,” the latest film for the beloved British stop-motion characters.

    When Wallace constructs a “smart gnome” to take care of chores, his faithful pooch Gromit immediately sniffs danger.

    Once Feathers McGraw — the nefarious penguin introduced to audiences in 1993 short film “The Wrong Trousers” — gets involved, the technology takes a sinister turn.

    AI becomes “the wedge between Wallace and Gromit,” explained co-director Merlin Crossingham.

    “It is a very light touch, although it’s a very serious subject,” he said.

    If “we can trigger some more intellectual conversation from our silly adventure with Wallace and Gromit, then that can’t be a bad thing.”

    The film itself did not use AI.

    “We don’t and we wouldn’t,” said Crossingham, earning hearty applause from the Hollywood crowd.

    “Vengeance Most Fowl” will be broadcast on Christmas Day in the United Kingdom and Ireland, before airing globally on Netflix from January 3.

  • Argentine police raid hotel where Liam Payne fell to death

    Argentine police raid hotel where Liam Payne fell to death

    Argentine police raided on Wednesday the Buenos Aires hotel where former One Direction star Liam Payne died after falling from his third-floor balcony, a police source told AFP.

    Police officers from the special investigations and technology divisions were sent to the Casa Sur Hotel by the prosecutor’s office “to seize elements of interest for the investigation,” said a police source who asked not to be identified.

    Television images showed a handful of agents working on computers at the lobby counter.

    The 31-year-old British pop singer was found dead after staff called emergency services twice to report a guest “overwhelmed by drugs and alcohol” was “destroying” a hotel room.

    He had spoken publicly about struggles with substance abuse and coping with fame from an early age.

    Wednesday’s raid came a day after the Argentine prosecutor’s office met with the musician’s father, Geoff Payne, and assured him that his son’s toxicology studies had not been released by that institution.

    US media reported on Monday that Payne had a cocktail of drugs in his system when he died.

    ABC and TMZ said “pink cocaine” — containing methamphetamine, ketamine and MDMA — had been found during a partial autopsy, citing anonymous sources familiar with the preliminary tests.

    The prosecutor’s office said it had not “disclosed any specific technical report outside the exclusive framework of the investigation and the judicial process corresponding to the case.”

    Although there is no stipulated deadline for the results of the toxicological analyses, an official from the Public Prosecutor’s Office told AFP that they could be concluded this week.

    Investigators were examining cell phones, computers, photographs and videos from security cameras, and have taken “numerous witness statements to reconstruct the victim’s final hours and the scene of the events,” the public prosecutor’s office said.

    Post-mortem results indicated that the 31-year-old was alone at the time of the fall and “was going through an episode of substance abuse,” prosecutors have said.

    One of the highest-grossing live acts in the world, One Direction went on indefinite hiatus in 2016. Payne went on to enjoy solo success.

  • Pakistani among seven beheaded in Saudi Arabia

    Pakistani among seven beheaded in Saudi Arabia

    Saudi Arabia executed seven people on Wednesday, including five for drug trafficking, the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) said.

    The deaths brought the total number of executions carried out this year in the Gulf kingdom to 236, according to an AFP tally based on official statements.

    Yahya Lutfullah, Ali Azib, Ahmed Ali and Salem Nahari were executed in the southern province of Asir for “smuggling hashish” into the country, the interior ministry said in a statement published by SPA.

    The report said all four were Yemeni citizens.

    Also on Wednesday, the same source announced the execution of a Pakistani man for drug trafficking, bringing the number of people executed in the kingdom for that crime this year to 71.

    Saudi Arabia has become a major market for captagon, an addictive amphetamine drug flooding in from war-torn Syria and Lebanon.

    Saudi authorities launched a high-profile anti-drug campaign last year, leading to a spate of raids and arrests.

    Executions of drug traffickers have been increasing since a moratorium on the death penalty for drug cases ended two years ago.

    The interior ministry also announced the execution of two Saudis for murder on Wednesday.

    Saudi Arabia executed the third highest number of prisoners in the world after China and Iran in 2023, according to Amnesty International, which began recording the annual figures in 1990.

    Riyadh’s use of the death penalty has been criticised numerous times, with rights groups saying it is excessive and out of step with the kingdom’s efforts to present a more modern image on the world stage.

    Riyadh has previously said that the death penalty is necessary to “maintain public order” and sentences are only carried out if “the defendants have exhausted all levels of litigation”.

  • Taliban government welcomes Muhammad Ali’s ex-wife

    Taliban government welcomes Muhammad Ali’s ex-wife

    A former wife of legendary US boxer Muhammad Ali arrived in the Afghan capital, a Taliban government official said Friday, to reportedly open a stadium in a country where women are barred from sports.

    The head of the Taliban government’s sports directorate, Ahmadullah Wasiq, told AFP that Khalilah Camacho-Ali, who was married to the boxer for a decade from 1967, had arrived in Kabul.

    State media cited the directorate as saying she was in the city “to build a sports stadium to be named ‘Pirozi’ (victory in Dari) and a sports association named after Muhammad Ali”.

    Born Belinda Boyd in 1950 in the United States, Camacho-Ali, like her world champion boxer ex-husband, converted to Islam after they married.

    Muhammad Ali himself visited Kabul in 2002, a year after the US forces overthrew the first Taliban government, visiting a girls’ school in his role as a United Nations peace ambassador.

    Since the Taliban government came to power in Afghanistan in 2021, they have imposed a strict interpretation of Islamic law, with women bearing the brunt of restrictions the United Nations have called “gender apartheid”, including blocking women from participating in sports.

    During the Taliban’s first rule from 1996 to 2001, public executions in sports stadiums were common.

    Public corporal punishment has continued since their return to power and at least two public executions have been held in a sports stadium.

    The authorities have recently set restrictions on combat sports as well, saying free fighting such as in Mixed Martial Arts was un-Islamic.

    Camacho-Ali is a martial artist, as well as an actress and author, according to her website.

    Ali was born Cassius Clay in the southeastern state of Kentucky and is known as both a sporting great and for his role in fighting for civil rights for African Americans. He died in 2016.

  • Ariana Grande concert attack survivors win UK harassment case

    Ariana Grande concert attack survivors win UK harassment case

    Two survivors of a deadly 2017 suicide attack on an Ariana Grande concert in northern England in 2017 won a harassment claim on Wednesday against a former television producer who claims the attack was a hoax.

    Martin Hibbert and his daughter Eve sued Richard Hall for harassment and data protection breaches over his assertions in several videos and a book that the attack at the Manchester Arena, which killed 22 people, was staged.

    The pair suffered life-changing injuries in the attack, carried out by an Islamist extremist in May 2017, which also left some 100 others injured.

    Martin Hibbert was paralysed from the waist down while his daughter Eve, who was aged 14 at the time, suffered a traumatic brain injury.

    Hall has claimed his actions — which have included an incident of filming Eve Hibbert outside her home — were in the public interest and that “millions of people have bought a lie” about the attack.

    Described as an independent journalist and broadcaster, the High Court in London noted he had claimed “elements within the state and involving ordinary citizens (including the claimants)” participated in the “deception”.

    He has maintained they performed as “crisis actors” and that “no one was injured or died”, the court said.

    In a 63-page judgment, judge Karen Steyn ruled Hall had harassed the Hibberts with his “false narrative” but opted not to decide the data protection claim at this stage.

    Steyn said Hall had “abused media freedom” to make his claims for “commercial gain… sufficient to enable him to continue his work”.

    “Over a period of years, he has repeatedly published false allegations, based on the flimsiest of analytical techniques, and dismissing the obvious, tragic reality to which so many ordinary people have attested,” the judge wrote.

    “All of this conduct has a natural tendency to cause serious distress, especially when those targeted are vulnerable.”

    She will invite lawyers from both sides to make “further submissions” before deciding on appropriate “relief”, as well as on the data protection claim.

    The suicide attack, as concert-goers were leaving the show at the Manchester Arena in northwest England, was carried out by 22-year-old Salman Abedi, who was from Manchester but of Libyan descent.

    Inspired by the Islamic State group, he used a homemade shrapnel bomb to target crowds of mostly young people who had been attending the concert by the US pop star, as well as parents who had come to pick up their children.