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Obrador vows to end transparency agency
MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Mexico's president has returned to his morning press briefings after recovering from COVID-19, and he came out swinging. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, 69, said he had tested negative after his third bout of the coronavirus. His return came the same day that opposition legislators continued to hold protests in the Senate, after senators from López Obrador's Morena party refused yet again to approve appointments to the national information-access agency. The transparency agency has been unable to function for more than a month because of a lack of committee members. López Obrador came out Friday and said the agency should be dissolved to save money.
Heavy clashes rock Sudan's capital
CAIRO (AP) -- Sudanese residents say heavy explosions and gunfire have rocked parts of Sudan's capital, Khartoum, and its twin city of Omdurman, despite the extension of a fragile truce between the county's rival top generals. The military and the Rapid Support Forces traded accusations of violating the cease-fire on Friday. Turkey also said one of its evacuation aircrafts was hit by gunfire outside Khartoum, with no casualties. The escalation comes hours after both sides accepted a 72- hour extension of the truce, apparently to allow foreign governments to complete the evacuation of their citizens from the chaos-stricken African nation. Multiple short truces have not stopped the fighting.
In Lebanon, Iran FM visits Israel border
BEIRUT (AP) -- Iran's top diplomat has visited Lebanon's border with Israel, expressing support for the Lebanese militant Hezbollah group in its struggle against their common enemy: Israel. Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian has been in Lebanon since Wednesday, meeting top officials and expressing Tehran's readiness to help build power stations in an effort to try to end the Mediterranean country's prevailing electricity crisis. He visited the border village of Maroun al-Ras on Friday. Earlier this month, Israel launched rare strikes into southern Lebanon, hours after militants fired nearly three dozen rockets from there at Israel, wounding two people and causing some property damage. Iran is a main Hezbollah backer and has supplied it over the past decades with weapons and funds.
Russia cracks down on more rights groups
TALLINN, Estonia (AP) -- Russian authorities have cracked down on more human rights groups, ordering one to shut down and raiding the homes of advocates from another. Police on Friday searched the homes of three lawyers with the rights group Team Against Torture. On Thursday, a court in Moscow ordered to liquidate the Sova Center, a prominent non-governmental organization that monitors racism and xenophobia in Russia, as well as implementation of anti-extremism laws. Those are the latest steps in a clampdown that has intensified to unprecedented levels since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine and has elicited relentless criticism in the West. Also, President Vladimir Putin signed into law amendments Friday raising to life imprisonment -- from 20 years -- the punishment for treason.