Poland calls on US to send nuclear arms

Poland calls on US to send nuclear arms

WARSAW, Poland -- Poland's President Andrzej Duda again called on the United States to deploy nuclear weapons to Poland as a deterrent to Russia, the latest indication that the frontline NATO nation is increasingly considering nuclear protection as fears of Russia grow.

Duda made his appeal in an interview with the Financial Times published on Thursday, repeating an appeal he made to the Biden administration in 2022.

Duda's adviser for international affairs, Wojciech Kolarski, followed up on Duda's appeal with an interview on Poland's RMF FM radio Thursday morning in which he argued that nuclear protection would improve security for Poland, a NATO member along the alliance's eastern flank that shares borders with Ukraine, Belarus and the Russian territory of Kaliningrad.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk, a political opponent of Duda's, said last week that Poland was in talks with France concerning President's Emmanuel Macron's proposal to use France's nuclear deterrent to protect the continent from Russian threats. Moscow called that idea "extremely confrontational."

Tusk made his comment to parliament after Macron said he has decided to open a "strategic debate" on using France's nuclear deterrent to protect European allies amid concerns over potential U.S. disengagement.

Zimbabwean dam fails; 5 children drown

HARARE, Zimbabwe -- Five children were killed after a dam collapsed in eastern Zimbabwe and rescuers were searching for two others who were reported missing, the country's disaster management agency said Thursday.

An influx of water following continuous rains in recent weeks breached the walls of the dam at a farm in Chipinge, a remote district in the east of the country, on Sunday. Authorities initially said a 4-year-old girl doing laundry with her mother and a 30-year-old man died. The girl's mother survived.

However, with some children unaccounted for in the area, a frantic search and rescue mission kicked off and resulted in the recovery of four more bodies of children this week.

The southern African nation's disaster management agency, the Civil Protection Unit, said the search is continuing for two more children, ages eight and four, who are still missing.

The agency said gushes of water flooded downstream villages, catching the children who were fishing or doing laundry on a nearby river by surprise and also destroying agricultural equipment and killing livestock.

Gangs launch attacks on Haitian capital

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- A powerful gang coalition has launched new attacks on Haiti's capital, driving dozens of families from homes as police vowed Wednesday to hold the gunmen back.

Authorities evacuated students at a Catholic school in western Port-au-Prince as heavy gunfire continued in the area near the renowned Oloffson Hotel, which once attracted international celebrities in the 1970s and '80s.

Meanwhile, cries for help emerged on social media for a group of priests trapped inside a church in the Carrefour-Feuilles neighborhood, which endured much of the attack by the Viv Ansanm gang coalition that began late Tuesday.

Lionel Lazarre, deputy spokesman for Haiti's National Police, said police have new plans to fight gangs that already control 85% of Haiti's capital, but declined to provide details, citing safety reasons.

Lazarre noted that police recently seized 10,000 bullets, weapons and drugs from a minibus in the town of Mirebalais, northeast of Port-au-Prince. He said two of the four people carrying the ammunition were lynched by a mob on Sunday, while the others escaped.

The latest attacks come days after William O'Neill, the U.N.'s human rights expert on Haiti, visited the troubled Caribbean country.

"The risk of the capital falling under gang control is palpable," O'Neill said Tuesday, even as Haitian police work with a U.N.-backed mission led by Kenyan police to help quell gang violence.

O'Neill and others have called for a reinforcement of the mission, which the U.S. has said lacks funding and personnel.

Last year, more than 5,600 people were reported killed across Haiti. Gang violence has left more than one million homeless in recent years.

8 killed when train hits minibus in Egypt

CAIRO -- A train slammed into a minibus that was crossing the tracks in an unauthorized location in northern Egypt on Thursday, killing at least eight people and leaving 12 injured, the government said.

The crash took place in the Suez Canal province of Ismailia, the health ministry said. More than a dozen ambulances were sent to the scene.

Egyptian Prime Minister Mustafa Madbouly ordered the payment of about $1,970 to the family of each victim killed in the crash, a local government media office said. It shared photographs from the scene of the crash, showing a crushed red minibus and scattered school notebooks and backpacks.

In recent years, the government has announced initiatives to improve its railways.