Abortion rights at hub of Poland rallies
WARSAW, Poland -- Protesters marched in Warsaw and other Polish cities Saturday against an attempt to restrict abortion rights and the police violence that occurred in response to other recent protests over reproductive rights.
In Warsaw, protesters "renamed" a downtown square to Women's Rights Roundabout. An activist climbed onto a ladder on a van to hang a new street sign over the official one reading Roman Dmowski Roundabout.
Women's rights activists have been calling on city authorities in Poland's capital to approve a formal name change. They say it would honor a movement for equality rather than Dmowski, a statesman who had a key role in helping Poland regain national independence in 1918, but who also was an anti-Semite.
The protests in Krakow, Gdansk and other cities Saturday were planned to coincide with Polish women gaining the right to vote 102 years ago. They were organized under the slogan, "In the name of mother, daughter, sister."
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"Our great-grandmothers did not let themselves be intimidated. We will not give up either," organizers in the southern city of Bielsko-Biala said in their appeal for people to join the protest.
Police declared through megaphones that the gathering was illegal, and large cordons sought to block the protesters' paths, but many were able to bypass officers by moving through courtyards and side streets.
Britain, EU resume Brexit trade talks
LONDON -- Teams from Britain and the European Union resumed face-to-face talks on a post-Brexit trade deal Saturday, with both sides sounding gloomy about striking an agreement in the little time that remains.
EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier returned to London to meet his U.K. counterpart, David Frost.
Negotiations remain snagged over key issues, including fishing rights and fair-competition rules. Barnier said Friday that remote talks had made little progress and that the "same significant divergences persist."
The United Kingdom left the EU early this year, but remained part of the bloc's economic embrace during an 11-month transition as the sides tried to negotiate a new trade deal to take effect Jan. 1. Talks have already slipped past the mid-November date long seen as a deadline to secure a deal in time for it to be approved and ratified by lawmakers in Britain and the EU.
If there is no deal, New Year's Day will bring huge disruption, with the overnight imposition of tariffs and other barriers to U.K.-EU trade. That will hurt both sides, but the burden will fall most heavily on Britain, which does almost half of its trade with the EU.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Friday that he remained committed "to reaching a deal that respects the sovereignty of the U.K.," his office said.
Protesters, cleric backers clash in Iraq
BAGHDAD -- Supporters of a firebrand Iraqi cleric shot and killed five people Saturday, according to medical officials, in overnight clashes with anti-government protesters in southern Iraq.
The anti-government demonstrators attempted to bloc the path of a rally supporting Shiite Muslim leader Moqtada al-Sadr. Followers of the populist cleric also wounded 40 others in the clashes, according to two medical officials.
The protesters were camped out at a main square in the city of Nasiriya, which has been an epicenter of the youth-led movement that has sought to sweep aside Iraq's ruling sectarian elite.
After the clashes beginning Friday, al-Sadr's supporters stormed Haboubi square and torched tents pitched there.
Dozens of people returned to the anti-government sit-in's site Saturday in support of the protesters killed overnight.
2 presidents discuss security, Nile use
JUBA, South Sudan -- In the first visit by an Egyptian president to South Sudan, President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi said he and President Salva Kiir discussed regional security and the usage of Nile waters, but he didn't mention the country currently at the heart of both issues, Ethiopia.
The statement after Saturday's meeting made no mention of the deadly conflict in neighboring Ethiopia, which is also in a dispute with Egypt over a dam that Addis Ababa is nearing completion on the Blue Nile.
El-Sissi said he and Kiir discussed maximizing the usage of Nile waters, which he said should be a source of hope and national development. His government has described Ethiopia's dam project as an existential threat to Egypt, which relies on the Nile for most of its water supply. Ethiopia says the dam is needed for development and poverty alleviation.
Egypt's president also said he's asking the international community to lift sanctions on South Sudan, which is slowly recovering from five years of civil war that killed nearly 400,000 people. The implementation of a peace deal is behind schedule.
South Sudan's president said he stressed the importance of dialogue in dealing with issues affecting regional security and the "responsibility of Africans to seek African solutions to African problems."
-- Compiled by Democrat-Gazette staff from wire reports
