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OTTAWA -- Almaas Elman will be laid to rest Friday after being killed this week in the country's capital of Mogadishu, the second Somali-Canadian who lost her life this year in pursuit of efforts to rebuild a country wracked by war. Source

Hong Kong is holding its breath ahead of elections on Sunday, which carry added significance after brutal attacks on candidates and months of unrest by protesters seeking the freedom to choose their own leader. Police appealed on Friday to protesters in the China-ruled city not to disrupt the lowest-tier, district council elections, held every four years, pointing to nearly six months of protests and street clashes that officials say have brought the city to the "brink of total breakdown. Source

NEW YORK -- A woman who says she suffered lasting damage from sexual abuse by Jeffrey Epstein when she was 17 years old sued his estate on Thursday, joining other women who are speaking publicly about pain they have long confronted largely alone. Source

Preliminary investigations show a young Somali Canadian peace activist was killed by a stray bullet earlier this week in Mogadishu, the peacekeeping mission in Somalia said Friday, while her family prepared her memorial. The statement by the African Union mission said Almaas Elman was hit while travelling in a car Wednesday inside a heavily defended base near the international airport where many diplomats and aid workers have offices. Source

SAM PHRAN, Thailand -- Pope Francis tended to the needs of Thailand's tiny Catholic hierarchy Friday, urging priests and nuns to find ways to communicate the faith with "a Thai face and flesh" in an overwhelmingly Buddhist country. Source

SEOUL, Korea, Republic Of -- The parents of a former U.S. hostage who died after being released from North Korea in a coma in 2017 say they are committed to finding and shutting down illicit North Korean business assets around the world in efforts to hold its government accountable for widespread human rights abuses. Source

HONG KONG -- Police will be out in force at polling stations in Hong Kong this weekend as keenly contested local elections take place amid ongoing anti-government protests. Hong Kong's new police commissioner, Tang Ping-keung, told reporters Friday that officers would deal with any outbreak of violence immediately without hesitation. Source

HONOLULU -- Agrochemicals company Monsanto on Thursday pleaded guilty to spraying a banned pesticide on research crops on the Hawaii island of Maui in 2014, prosecutors said. Monsanto, now owned by the pharmaceutical company Bayer of Germany, has also agreed to pay $10 million for charges it unlawfully stored the pesticide, which was classified an acute hazardous waste. Source

When the world learned last winter about the existence of a watery prison holding dozens of whales in Russia's Far East, environmentalists such as Oganes Targulyan feared the creatures were doomed. Targulyan, a longtime campaigner for Greenpeace based in Moscow, says the likelihood of the whales surviving a prolonged stay in iced-over pens seemed remote. Source

A Guatemalan mother and her six children who face deportation in January are pleading with authorities to stay in Canada. The Roblero-Morales family, who live in Waterloo, Ont., came to Canada in 2017. Sandra Morales and her husband Daniel Roblero fled violence and persecution in Guatemala in the 1990s and lived illegally in the U.S. Source