Saudi Arabia prepares for the annual Muslim hajj pilgrimage
MECCA, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Saudi Arabia is preparing to host the annual hajj pilgrimage beginning Sunday, as over 2 million Muslim faithful are ready to take part in the ultraconservative kingdom.
The pilgrimage represents one of the five pillars of Islam and is required of all able-bodied Muslims once in their life. In recent weeks, the faithful have arrived in Mecca from across the world, all chanting “Labayk Allahuma Labayk,” or “Here I am, God, answering your call. Here I am.”
The hajj offers pilgrims an opportunity to feel closer to God amid the Muslim world’s many challenges, including the threat of extremists in the Mideast after the Islamic State group was beaten back in Iraq and Syria and the plight of Myanmar’s Muslim Rohingya minority.
“My feeling is indescribable to perform the hajj,” said Imad Abdel-Raheem, an Egyptian pilgrim. “I also want to pray for all Muslim countries, for them to live free in all places, in Palestine and in Burma, in all places, in Afghanistan and in India.”
Maj. Gen. Mansour al-Turki, the spokesman of the Saudi Interior Ministry, told journalists Saturday that over 2 million Muslims from abroad and inside the kingdom would be taking part in this year’s hajj.
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Q&A: The hajj pilgrimage and its significance in Islam
Over 2 million Muslims from around the world are beginning the five-day hajj pilgrimage on Sunday. They will circle Islam’s most sacred site, the cube-shaped Kaaba in the Saudi Arabian city of Mecca, and take part in a series of rituals intended to bring about greater humility and unity among Muslims.
Here’s a look at the pilgrimage and what it means for Muslims:
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WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THE HAJJ?
The hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam, and all able-bodied Muslims are required to perform it once in their lifetime. The hajj is seen as a chance to wipe clean past sins and start fresh. Many seek to deepen their faith on the hajj, with some women taking on the Islamic hair covering known as “hijab” upon returning.
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‘Dream or reality?’ Koreans to meet after decades apart
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Lee Soo-nam was 8 the last time he saw his older brother. Sixty-eight years ago this month the boy watched, bewildered, as his 18-year-old brother left their home in Seoul to escape invading North Korean soldiers who were conscripting young men just weeks after invading South Korea to start the Korean War.
An hour later his brother, Ri Jong Song, was snatched up by North Korean soldiers near a bridge across Seoul’s Han River. Lee always assumed Ri died during the three-year war that killed and injured millions before a cease-fire in 1953, but his mother prayed daily for her lost son’s return, only giving up a few years before her death in 1975.
But Ri survived the war, living in North Korea. The brothers, now 76 and 86, will be among hundreds of Koreans who will participate, starting Monday, in a week of temporary reunions of divided families. Many have had no contact with each other since the war cemented the division of the peninsula into the North and South.
The elderly relatives gathering at North Korea’s scenic Diamond Mountain resort know that, given the fickle nature of ties between the rival Koreas, this could be the last time they see each other before they die.
“I’m nervous. I’m still unsure whether this is a dream or reality. I just want to thank him for staying alive all these years,” Lee said in an interview in his home in Seoul, not far from where he last saw his brother.
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Annan’s legacy of fighting for equality and rights lives on
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Kofi Annan left the United Nations far more committed than it had been to combating poverty, promoting equality and fighting for human rights — and until his death Saturday he was speaking out strongly for nations working together to solve problems and worried about the rise of nationalism.
As secretary-general of the United Nations from 1997 to 2006, Annan saw as his greatest achievements the programs and policies he put in place to reduce inequality within and between countries, to combat infectious diseases and to promote human rights and protect civilians from war crimes including genocide.
He launched the U.N. Millennium Development Goals at a summit of world leaders in 2000 to cut extreme poverty by half, promote equality for women, ensure every child has a primary school education, reduce maternal and child mortality, and halt the spread of AIDS — all by 2015.
Those goals — only a few of which were fully achieved — were succeeded by an expanded list of U.N. Sustainable Development Goals for 2030 that adds issues such as climate action, affordable and clean energy, and promoting peace and justice. The updated list is a major focus of the U.N.’s current agenda.
As U.N. peacekeeping chief just before becoming secretary-general, Annan shared blame for the failure of U.N. troops he deployed to prevent the genocides in Rwanda in 1994 and in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica in July 1995.
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Renewable resort: Greek island to run on wind, solar power
TILOS, Greece (AP) — When the blades of its 800-kilowatt wind turbine start turning, the small Greek island of Tilos will become the first in the Mediterranean to run exclusively on wind and solar power.
The sea horse-shaped Greek island between Rhodes and Kos has a winter population of 400. But that swells to as many as 3,000 people in the summer, putting an impossible strain on its dilapidated power supply.
This summer, technicians are conducting the final tests on a renewable replacement system that will be fully rolled out later this year. It will allow Tilos to run exclusively on high-tech batteries recharged by a wind turbine and a solar park.
The European Commission says Tilos will be the first autonomous renewable green island in the Mediterranean. It plans to use the project as a blueprint for other small islands across the European Union that have limited grid connection to the mainland. The EU has largely funded the project, providing 11 million euros ($12.5 million) of the total 13.7 million-euro ($15.7 million) cost.
“The innovation of this program and its funding lies in the batteries — the energy storage — that’s what’s innovative,” project manager Spyros Aliferis said. “The energy produced by the wind turbines and the photovoltaics will be stored in batteries, so that this energy can be used for the grid when there is demand.”
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AP Interview: Photographer documented 1968 Soviet invasion
PRAGUE (AP) — It’s been 50 years, but powerful images of the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia taken by photographer Josef Koudelka still resonate among Czechs and elsewhere in the world — they’ve even been admired in Russia.
As the armies of the five Warsaw Pact countries invaded his country an hour before midnight on Aug. 20, 1968, Koudelka was ready. Risking his life, he took thousands of photos in the week that followed, capturing the shocking experience for his nation — and the defiance of its people.
After the negatives were smuggled out of the country, the photos that were published in the West became one of the most famed documentary series of the 20th century.
Looking back at 1968 in an interview with The Associated Press, Koudelka said he seized the once-in-a-career opportunity.
“The opportunity to take so many photos made it possible for me to do something I never thought I would be able to do,” Koudelka said. “And I think that a majority of people in Czechoslovakia who knew me as a photographer didn’t even think I could do anything like that.”
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800,000 displaced in flooding in southern Indian state
CHENGANNUR, India (AP) — Some 800,000 people have been displaced and over 350 have died in the worst flooding in a century in southern India’s Kerala state, as authorities rushed to bring drinking water to the most affected areas, officials said Sunday.
At least two trains carrying about 1.5 million liters (400,000 gallons) of water were moving to the flooded areas from the neighboring states of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, Indian railway official Milind Deouskar said, according to the Press Trust of India news agency.
One train arrived on Sunday, said P.H. Kurian, a top disaster management official in Kerala. However, he said the officials had largely restored the state’s water supply systems.
“What we need right now is bottled water, which is easy to transport to remote and isolated places, where some people are still stranded,” Kurian said.
Officials have called it the worst flooding in Kerala in a century, with rainfall in some areas well over double that of a typical monsoon season.
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Cyprus extradites Egyptian hijacker who dropped legal fight
NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — An Egyptian man who hijacked a domestic EgyptAir flight in 2016 and ordered it to land in Cyprus has been extradited to his homeland after giving up a drawn-out legal fight, authorities said Sunday.
Seif Eddin Mustafa was transferred to Egyptian custody and flown back to Egypt late Saturday, where prosecutors are investigating the incident. Cyprus Justice Minister Ionas Nicolaou told The Associated Press that Mustafa’s extradition went ahead after he dropped a three-year court battle to avoid extradition.
Mustafa had challenged extradition on the grounds that he could face torture or an unfair trial in Egypt.
Mustafa hijacked the EgyptAir flight in March 2016 using a fake suicide belt and diverted it to the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. A six-hour standoff with Cypriot authorities on the tarmac of Cyprus’ Larnaca airport ended peacefully after all 72 passengers and crew were released and Mustafa was arrested.
Mustafa told a Cypriot court that he meant no harm to anyone. He said he was trying to expose what he called the “fascist regime” of Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi and to help secure the release of 63 female dissidents being held in Egyptian prisons.
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Migrant spouse of pregnant woman detained on way to hospital
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A California woman said Saturday that she had to drive herself to the hospital and give birth without her husband after he was detained by immigration agents.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said the man was detained because he was wanted on an outstanding arrest warrant in a homicide case in Mexico.
Maria del Carmen Venegas said she and her husband, Joel Arrona Lara, were driving to the hospital Wednesday when they stopped for gas in San Bernardino, just east of Los Angeles.
Surveillance footage shows two vehicles immediately flank the couple’s van after they pulled into the gas station. Agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement questioned the couple and asked for identification, Venegas said.
Venegas, 32, said she provided hers but that Arrona had left his at home in their rush to the hospital. The surveillance footage shows the agents handcuffing the 35-year-old Arrona and taking him away, leaving a sobbing Venegas alone at the gas station.
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Movement encourages Argentines to quit Catholic church
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Hundreds of people gathered in Buenos Aires on Saturday to oppose the influence of religion on Argentine politics and encourage people to quit the Roman Catholic Church in the wake of a Senate vote not to legalize some abortions.
The event, called “Collective Apostasy,” centered on a signature drive for Argentines wanting to renounce their affiliation to the church through a form that will later be given to the Episcopal Conference in the homeland of Pope Francis.
People formed long lines in Buenos Aires and other Argentine cities, and organizers hoped thousands would officially register their desire that the church not interfere in Argentine politics and that their names be eliminated from its registries.
“We are receiving the apostasies of all the people who want to renounce their ties to the Catholic Church,” said one of the organizers, Maria Jose Albaya.
The movement is led by the Argentine Coalition for a Secular State and its backers often wear orange scarves.
