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Thousands of people take to the streets of Hong Kong, demanding answers over China's alleged abduction of five booksellers in late 2015 and that Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying resign from office. | Thousands demand resignation of CY Leung who critics accuse of failing to confront China over bookseller scandal
Last modified on Tue 28 Nov 2017 18.44 GMT
Thousands of demonstrators have taken to the streets of Hong Kong to demand the resignation of its unpopular leader and answers over China’s alleged abduction of five local booksellers. The march comes a fortnight after a simmering row over China’s detention of the five boiled over again when, after being released, one of the men publicly accused Beijing of sending special forces to take him into secret custody. Lam Wing-kee, a 61-year-old bookshop manager who spent eight months in detention, had been expected to lead Friday’s march, which is held each year to mark the date of Hong Kong’s return to Chinese rule in 1997. However, just hours before the protest was scheduled to start organisers announced he had pulled out after receiving an unspecified “severe threat”. “I believe that serious threat is from the central [government],” Jimmy Shum, a leader of Hong Kong’s Civil Human Rights Front, which organises the march, told the South China Morning Post. “We believe that the central government really minded Mr Lam heading this rally.”
In a statement the group said: “We urge all parties to stop the suppression against Mr Lam.” After Lam’s damning and unexpected testimony, pro-democracy leaders accused Beijing of acting like a gangster state in order to silence critics.
Lam told the Guardian his interrogators had seemed particularly determined to discover the identity of the source for a recent book about the Chinese president, Xi Jinping. “It was very scary. Even now I get scared when I think about it,” he said. Alan Leong, a prominent pro-democracy leader who joined the march, said the protest signalled the former British colony’s anger at Beijing’s erosion of its freedoms. He said demonstrators were calling for the resignation of Hong Kong’s chief executive, CY Leung, who critics accuse of failing to properly confront China over the bookseller scandal. “The Chinese Communist party … seems to be thinking that by exerting pressure and by increasing the pressure on Hong Kong people, Hong Kong people will then resile to the fact that David is no longer a match for Goliath and [will] give up,” said Leong, a Civic party politician.
“One message that the march wants to convey is that we are not giving up – we are not giving in to the pressure.”
In Lam’s absence, the march was spearheaded by two other Hong Kong residents who have suffered at the hands of China’s security services: Ching Cheong, a Christian journalist who spent more than 1,000 days in prison in China after being detained on espionage charges; and Lau Shanching, a pro-democracy campaigner who was jailed for a decade in the 1980s after helping activists in the southern province of Guangdong. On the eve of Friday’s rally, Beijing expressed displeasure at plans for Lam, Ching and Lau to head the annual protest. Their presence showed Hong Kong’s opposition was “now openly challenging the mainland’s political and legal establishments”, the party-controlled China Daily newspaper argued in an editorial, adding: “This would be a dangerous development.”
Leong said the suspected abduction of the five booksellers – one of whom, Gui Minhai, remains in custody in an unknown location – had made Hong Kong citizens anxious. “If we cannot be entitled to be free from fear … that is very, very worrying.” Referring to the post-handover formula which guarantees Hong Kong legal autonomy and far greater political freedom than the authoritarian mainland, Leong said: “This strikes to the core of the ‘one country, two systems’ set-up … How can one of us, a Hong Kong permanent resident, be evaporated … for something that he did within Hong Kong which was perfectly lawful according to Hong Kong laws?”
Activists accuse Xi of instigating a severe crackdown on political opponents and civil rights since he took power in 2012.
One of the most notorious examples of this has been the disappearance of the booksellers. The men, who had specialised in tabloid-style books about the private lives of China’s leaders, vanished from Thailand, Hong Kong and southern China last year only to reappear in the custody of Chinese police. Beijing has accused them of involvement in “illegal activities”. On Friday morning, Xi gave a televised speech in which he called for moves to “comprehensively purify the political ecosystem” in China.
Speaking at the Great Hall of the People to commemorate the 95th anniversary of the Communist party’s foundation, Xi claimed Hong Kong’s “one country, two systems” model – which some activists now claim is in tatters – had proved successful and Beijing’s commitment to it was “unshakeable”. | Protest_Online Condemnation | July 2016 | ['(The Guardian)'] |
The U.S. State Department sanctions Sri Lankan Army Commander Shavendra Silva for alleged human rights violations during the final phase of the Sri Lankan Civil War. | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States barred Sri Lanka’s army chief, Lieutenant General Shavendra Silva, from entering the country over accusations of human rights violations including extrajudicial killings in 2009 during the country’s civil war, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Friday.
“The allegations of gross human rights violations against Shavendra Silva, documented by the United Nations and other organizations, are serious and credible,” Pompeo said in a statement.
U.S. sanctions imposed on Friday by Washington bar both Silva and his immediate family members from entering the United States.
Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Foreign Relations called on Washington to review its decision and said there were “no substantiated or proven allegations of human rights violations against him.”
“The Government of Sri Lanka takes strong objection to the imposition of travel restrictions on Lt. Gen. Silva and his immediate family members by the Government of the United States, based on independently unverified information,” the ministry said in a statement.
Silva’s appointment as army commander of the island nation in August drew sharp criticism from the United States and the United Nations, which later suspended the Sri Lankan army from its peacekeeping operations.
Silva led an army division against Tamil Tiger rebels in the final phases of Sri Lanka’s 26-year-long civil war, which ended in 2009.
His victory, however, was highly controversial. Thousands of civilians were killed in the last phases of the conflict, including in areas declared by the government to be a “no fire zone,” which came under sustained army shelling, including hospitals.
A U.N. panel has accused Silva’s division of suspected extrajudicial executions of unarmed rebels in the final week of the war and systematic torture of people in custody. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | February 2020 | ['(Reuters)'] |
SpaceX announces that it will take two space tourists on an orbit of the Moon in 2018. | SpaceX will launch a crewed mission beyond the moon for two private customers, according to an announcement made by the company Monday. This will be the first time in 45 years humans will return to deep space, said the company in a news release, and will go “faster and further” than any humans before them. SpaceX expects the mission to take place some time in late 2018, after it sends a crewed NASA Dragon 2 craft to the International Space Station.
“We have been approached by private individuals,” said SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, on a call with reporters on Monday. “This is a private mission with paying customers” who have placed “significant deposits,” Musk said, but added that they have so far not authorized the company to reveal their names.
Private space travel could with crewed missions could be “a significant driver of revenue,” Musk said. “There is likely a market for at least one or two of these per year,” and the missions could contribute “something on the order of 10-20 percent of revenues.”
Musk also suggested that he would defer to NASA if the agency expressed interest in taking its own astronauts on the flight.
“NASA always has first priority,” Musk said, “so if NASA decides to have the first mission of this nature be a NASA mission, then of course NASA would take priority.”
The mission will use one of SpaceX’s Dragon 2 capsules, which will be modified to allow communications in deep space. It will be carried by a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, which is scheduled to make its maiden launch in summer 2017.
Musk said it would be roughly the cost of a crewed mission to the International Space Station, and that other flight crews have already expressed interest in later flights.
The mission would “do a long loop around the moon” and would take about a week. Musk estimated the craft would travel about 300,000 to 400,000 miles.
“It would skim the surface of the moon, go quite a bit further out into deep space” and then return to Earth, Musk said.
“There is some risk here,” he said, and added that the hopeful passengers are not “naive” about the dangers. SpaceX will begin holding health and fitness tests later this year. “We will do everything we can to minimize this risk, but it is not zero. They are coming into this with their eyes open.”
The Dragon 2 is the craft SpaceX has designed to carry humans, whereas the Dragon craft it currently uses is meant only for cargo.
SpaceX plans to send one uncrewed Dragon 2 capsule to the ISS in the fourth quarter of 2017, followed by the crewed Dragon 2 flight to the ISS in Spring of 2018. The moon mission is expected to take place a few months after that.
“There will be quite a lot of experience with Falcon 9 and Dragon 2,” before the crewed moon mission, Musk said, adding that the Falcon Heavy is essentially a Falcon 9 with two extra boosters, and that the Falcon Heavy rockets are also scheduled for several launches over the next several months.
To complete the mission, the company will have to invest in deep space communication technology, which will also be important for the company’s planned trips to Mars.
The Dragon 2 will be capable of operating autonomously throughout the whole flight, but the passengers will be trained in emergency procedures. | New achievements in aerospace | February 2017 | ['(CNBC)'] |
In curling, Scotland wins the 2013 World Women's Curling Championship defeating Sweden 6–5 in the final. | Scotland beat Sweden by 6-5 in an exciting gold medal final on Sunday afternoon at the Titlis Glacier Mountain World Women's Curling Championship to take the world crown.
Sweden started with last stone advantage and used it to blank the first end before successfully taking two points in the second end when their fourth player Maria Prytz had a nose-hit.
The Scots opened their account in the third end when their skip, Eve Muirhead, tapped up one of her own stones just inside the Swedish stone that had been lying shot. The Scots then made a break-through in the fourth end when Prytz’s last stone touched a guard to leave two Scottish stones intact in the house for a steal of two points and a 4-3 lead.
The teams then traded singles all the way through the rest of the game. In the fifth end, Prytz had to draw to the four foot ring to score one point and in the sixth end Muirhead was forced to draw for one point. Sweden were denied a score of two points in the seventh end by the umpire's measure and, in the eighth end, when she was trying to draw in to score two points, Muirhead's last stone touched a guard and she had to settle for just one point again.
In the ninth end, Scotland once again prevented Sweden from building anything and again Prytz had to settle for a draw for a single point. In the tenthend, Muirhead was able to pick out the Swedish stone that lay counting leaving her own near it to count for the one point that handed her the title with a 6-5 win.
This result means that Eve Muirhead and her squad - third Anna Sloan, second Vicki Adams, lead Claire Hamilton, supported by alternate Lauren Gray and coach David Hay - become only the second Scottish female team to be crowned world champions, following the 2002 success by Jackie Lockhart's team.
Afterwards, a delighted Muirhead said: "It's still not sunk in. The girls played great out there today. To come out on the top is an unbelievable feeling, especially for myself, getting that silver medal in 2010 and silver at the Europeans this year. To top our season off by becoming world champions just feels great." About the game itself, Muirhead said: "We knew it was going to be a close game and we knew it could well come down to last end, last stone. We were ready for that. We played a great last end there, Anna played that great double-rip that locked it up for us and left me a pretty simple shot."
Margaretha Sigfridsson, who skips and plays lead stones for Sweden, along with fourth player Maria Prytz, third Christina Bertrup, second Maria Wennerström and supported by alternate Agnes Knochenhauer, picked up the silver medals.
Afterwards, the Swedish skip was completely gracious in defeat. She said: "Of course it's sad. We've had a really good week but unfortunately we weren't sharp enough today. We played a very good game but Eve was a little bit better than us today. Eve had a really good week too."
During the closing ceremony, Germany's lead Corinna Scholz was declared the winner of the Frances Brodie Award for the player, voted for by all competitors, who best exemplified the spirit of curling throughout the Championship.
With this event now complete, eight of the ten nations that will be able to send women’s team to take part in next year's Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, Russia have been decided. Russia will be there as hosts and other qualification was based on points gathered in the 2012 and 2013 World Women’s Curling Championships.
With that process complete, the seven countries who have qualified are: Sweden (12 points in 2012; 12 points in 2013: total 24)Switzerland (14*plus*8: 22)Scotland (whose points are allocated to Great Britain for Olympic purposes) (7 14: 21) Canada (10 10: 20)USA (8 9: 17)Denmark (5 5: 10)Korea (9 0: 9)
The nations that are now eligible to take part in the new World Curling Federation Olympic Qualification event in December are: Germany, Japan, China, Italy, Latvia, Czech Republic and Norway.
The new WCF Olympic Qualifying Event will be staged between 11-15 December 2013, at a location yet to be announced. Two nations will qualify from the event in both men’s and women’s disciplines to complete the Olympic fields of 10 teams. National Olympic Committees are required to endorse team entry for this event by the end of May 2013. On confirmation of the number of competing teams, the competition format will be made public by the WCF at the start of June 2013.
For more information about Olympic Qualification, visit: http://www.worldcurling.org/olympic-qualification Titlis Glacier Mountain World Women’s Curling Championship 2013 Final Standings:1. Scotland (Gold)2. Sweden (Silver)3. Canada (Bronze)4. USA 5. Switzerland6. Russia7. Japan8. Denmark9. China10. Italy11. Germany12. Latvia
Curling fans around the world will be able to watch selected highlights of the event via the World Curling Federation’s YouTube Channel www.youtube.com/WorldCurlingTV Event Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/WorldWomensCurlingChampionshipEvent Twitter Hashtags: #wwcc2013 #curling
The Ford World Women’s Curling Championship 2014 will take place in St John, New Brunswick, Canada from 15-23 March in the Harbour Station – the same Venue as the 1999 World Championships. | Sports Competition | March 2013 | ['(BBC)', '(WWCC2013)'] |
Professional footballer Gavin Grant is found guilty of murder. | A footballer cleared of murder three years ago was facing a life sentence today after being convicted of another gun killing.
Former Millwall striker Gavin Grant was involved in a series of "tit-for-tat" shootings in and around a "lawless" council estate, the Old Bailey was told.
Grant, 26, who also played for Wycombe Wanderers before joining Bradford City as a non-contract player until the end of last season, was found guilty of gunning down Leon Labastide, 21.
Stephen Batten QC, prosecuting, said many of the people involved in the case had been linked to shootings and drug dealing on the Stonebridge Park Estate, in Harlesden, north west London.
He told the jury: "Attitudes and standards are different. It is more the law of the jungle than the law of civilised England.
"You will hear about and see people whose behaviour will probably disgust you and make you wonder if there is any hope for the human race."
Former associates had preferred to seek vengeance with weapons rather than get help from the police.
In August 2007, Grant was found not guilty of shooting Jahmall Moore, 22, who died in a hail of 16 bullets fired by three gunmen in January 2005.
But today, he was found guilty of Mr Labastide's murder in January 2004 after trials last December and this month.
The court was told it was Mr Labastide's killing which led to the second murder and a spate of shootings on the estate.
Grant denied involvement and said Mr Labastide, who was known as Playboy, was a friend.
Operation Trident gun-crime detectives believe there were up to 30 connected shooting incidents in the area arising out of the fall-out.
Following the arrests of Grant and others, officers said shootings fell by almost 50% in the area.
Stonebridge Park, although still notorious for drugs and crime, has seen improvements with a £250 million regeneration.
Detective Inspector Steve Horsley said: "Gavin Grant thought he had got away with murder.
"He carried on his footballing career while, all along, he had blood on his hands."
Gareth Downie, 25, was also found guilty of murdering Mr Labastide.
Damian Williams, 32, was found guilty of conspiring with them to murder Mr Labastide.
All the verdicts were by 10-2 majorities. They were all remanded in custody for sentencing on Monday.
Roberto Parchment, 24, originally convicted of Mr Moore's murder, was found guilty again following a retrial in December brought about by supergrass Darren Mathurin's involvement.
He was jailed for life again and ordered to serve the remainder of his 28-year sentence.
Romain Whyte, 25, was cleared of that murder by a 10-2 majority verdict.
The jury heard that trouble started with a burglary at the home of Whyte when three women were terrorised and it was suspected that £20,000 in drug money was taken.
A 16-year-old girl, who had been in the house, gave evidence under an assumed name in the trial.
It was rumoured that Mr Labastide was behind the burglary, and Williams arranged for Grant and Downie to shoot him, it was alleged.
In the spate of shooting incidents which followed, Mr Moore was gunned down by Parchment in mistake for Sean Cephanis following a hate campaign he was suspected of starting.
Grant told the court he was not involved in the shooting and said he had been set up.
Grant, from Kenton, north London, Williams, of Southwark, south London, and Downie of Markby Road, Birmingham, all face life sentences.
Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Sentence | July 2010 | ['(BBC)', '(The Independent)'] |
Palestinian teenager Ahed Tamimi is released from an Israeli prison. | Follow NBC News JERUSALEM — A Palestinian teenager who became an international protest icon after being filmed slapping Israeli soldiers was welcomed home by a crowd of supporters Sunday after she was released from Israeli jail.
Ahed Tamimi, 17, was met by banners, cheers and Palestinian flags as she entered her occupied West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, after spending eight months in Israeli prison for obstructing the work of and attacking Israeli soldiers.
Tamimi wiped tears from her eyes as she and her parents, Bassem and Nariman Tamimi, were surrounded by journalists and supporters.
"It means a lot for me to see the world reaction," she said in an interview with NBC News. "It raised my spirits. It showed me that being in jail wasn’t for nothing. I wish [to] continue doing things to help prisoners until they [are] released."
Tamimi was arrested with her mother in December confronting two Israeli soldiers outside her home, slapping and kicking them as she told them to leave. Nariman filmed the incident and posted it online where it swiftly went viral and turned her daughter into a symbol of resistance to Israeli occupation.
With her unruly blonde mane, Tamimi bucked the longstanding stereotype of Palestinian activists as hardened warriors and rock-throwing young men, revitalizing a population disheartened by years of Israeli occupation.
But in Israel, she is seen by many as either a provocateur, an irritation or a threat to the military’s deterrence policy.
"Israel acts too mercifully with these types of terrorists," Israel's minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Uri Ariel said on Sunday. Israel should "treat harshly" those who strike its soldiers, he added.
In January, Israeli Deputy Minister Michael Oren sparked outrage after admitting that the Tamimis had been the subject of a classified investigation into whether they actually were "light-skinned" actors and not a real family.
Dozens of Palestinians waited for Tamimi’s release at the Jbara checkpoint in the West Bank just after 9:00 a.m. (2 a.m. ET). A short while later in Nabi Saleh, supporters welcomed her home with Palestinian flags planted on the roof of her home.
“I am very happy, but my happiness will be complete when all prisoners released,” Tamimi told the crowds.
Before returning to her village, Tamimi met with Palestinian officials and visited the tomb of late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
The teenager was 16 when she was arrested and turned 17 in custody. Her case trained a spotlight on the detention of Palestinian minors by Israel, a practice that has been criticized by international rights groups.
“Israel’s jailing of a child for 8 months — for calling for protests and slapping a soldier — reflects endemic discrimination, absence of due process and ill-treatment of kids,” tweeted Omar Shakir, the Israel and Palestine director of New York-based Human Rights Watch.
“Ahed Tamimi is free, but 100s of Palestinian children remain locked up with little attention on their cases,” he added.
Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and eastern Jerusalem in the 1967 war with Syria, Jordan and Egypt. Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip ten years ago but along with Egypt is blockading the territory, which is now run by militant group Hamas.
Palestinians are increasingly disillusioned about efforts to establish a state in those territories, after more than two decades of failed negotiations with Israel.
"We have to solve the problem from its roots," Tamimi said. "Occupation has to go away, then this settlement will go away — even the wall and the checkpoints will go away. The main problem is occupation not this settlement."
It is commonly felt by Arabs in eastern Jerusalem and the West Bank that Israel is deliberately driving Palestinians from their homes. From 1967 to 2016, some 200 Jewish settlements housing around 600,000 people were built on occupied land, according to the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Release | July 2018 | ['(NBC News)'] |
Turtle conservationist Jairo Mora Sandoval is murdered by poachers on a Costa Rican beach. | Jairo Mora Sandoval was a conservationist who protected baby turtles on Playa Moín. In the early morning of May 31, he was kidnapped and seemingly beaten to death.
At around 6 a.m. on Friday, the body of 26-year-old Jairo Mora Sandoval, a young Costa Rican conservationist who monitored and protected turtle nests, was found on Moín Beach, on the northern Caribbean coast.
According to the Judicial Investigation Police (OIJ), Mora had been badly beaten and shot in the head, and his hands were tied behind his back. The OIJ released conflicting statements saying that Mora’s body was found both next to and inside the Jeep he used to monitor the beach.
Mora had worked as a beach monitor for the Wider Caribbean Sea Turtle Conservation Network (WIDECAST) at Moín, said WIDECAST’s Costa Rica Coordinator Didiher Chacón. The program has seen an increase in poachers, Chacón said, and a recent story in a national daily quoted Mora linking the poaching to drug traffickers.
“With everything we know about what happened, it seems like it was an act of revenge,” Chacón said. “Jairo didn’t drink. He didn’t smoke. He wasn’t involved in those kinds of things. We think it must have had to do with his work.”
On April 23, Mora posted a call for help to authorities on his Facebook page after a night of poaching raids.
“Send messages to the police so they come to Moín beach.. tell them not to be afraid but to come armed… 60 turtles lost and there wasn’t even a single nest… we need help and fast,” Mora wrote.
According to a press release from the OIJ, Mora was on patrol Thursday night along with four foreign volunteers – three women from the U.S. and one from Spain. At approximately 11:30 p.m., Mora stepped out of the car to move a tree trunk from the road and was grabbed by at least five masked men with guns.
The men then drove the car to a nearby abandoned house where they left the four women guarded by two of the assailants, while Mora and the three other men drove off in the car. Once the women realized that their guards had left, they walked to a butterfly farm where Mora had worked and called the police.
Mora’s body was found less than a kilometer away from the abandoned house, and an autopsy is pending. The OIJ and local police say that they have not yet determined a motive for the case or a possible link to drug trafficking.
Limón police and the Coast Guard began patrolling Moín Beach on May 6 after a number of nests were sacked by poachers. According to Erick Calderón, the Limón chief of police, there were five police officers on duty that night, and they had been in radio contact with Mora an hour before the incident.
“The goal of the police patrols was less about protecting volunteers and more about increasing the number of eyes and ears on the beach,” Calderón said. “It’s a large area of 18 km and it’s completely dark. There is no way to monitor every part of it at all times.”
The U.S. Embassy in San José called the killing "senseless" in a Facebook posting shortly after the murder Friday.
WIDECAST has closed the program following the incident, and has said that they will no longer send staff or volunteers to monitor the beach.
“We can’t risk human lives for this project,” Chacón said. “But this is probably the exact result that the killers were hoping for.”
This is a developing story, and was last updated at 5:27 p.m. on June 1. Follow www.ticotimes.net for additional updates.
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Mike McGinnis opened Surf Shack to appeal to the wholesome traveler set
Will Smith and Jaden Smith’s latest premiers in the U.S. May 31 and comes to Costa Rican in June
Why Ellen Zoe Golden just can’t stay away from Costa Rica’s Best Western Tamarindo Vista Villas. | Famous Person - Death | June 2013 | ['(Tico Times)'] |
Hurricane Julia becomes the fifth hurricane of the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season. | MIAMI, Sept 14 (Reuters) - Tropical Storm Julia grew to hurricane strength over the far eastern Atlantic Ocean on Tuesday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.
Julia, the fifth hurricane of the Atlantic hurricane season, reached hurricane status with maximum sustained winds of 75 mph (120 kph) located some 330 miles (535 km) west of the Cape Verde Islands, the center said.
| Hurricanes_Tornado_Storm_Blizzard | September 2010 | ['(Reuters)'] |
Thousands of protestors march in Edinburgh, Scotland, against the upcoming departure of the United Kingdom from the European Union. The crowd is addressed by Members of the UK Parliament, and Members of the Scottish Parliament. Amongst the attendees is MSP Joanna Cherry QC, who is taking legal action against UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson's recent prorogation of the UK Parliament. Cherry's action succeeded at Scotland's Court of Session, and is currently being reviewed by the UK Supreme Court. | Thousands of people have taken part in a march in support of the UK remaining in the European Union.
They initially gathered on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh and walked in the sunshine to the Scottish Parliament.
The Edinburgh4Europe event concluded with a rally addressed by speakers including the SNP's Joanna Cherry QC and Labour MP Ian Murray.
Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP and Scottish Greens co-leader Lorna Slater also addressed the crowd.
Ms Cherry, who has helped to lead legal action against Boris Johnson's suspension of Parliament, said that the prime minister had behaved like a "dictator".
She said: "In order for us to give people a chance of another say on Brexit, we need to get Parliament up and running again.
"Of course, Boris Johnson has behaved like a dictator as the prime minister of a minority government suspending Parliament because it's basically getting in his way.
"But I'm cautiously optimistic that the United Kingdom's Supreme Court will, like Scotland's supreme court, find that the prorogation was unlawful and that Parliament will be returning to work soon.
"Then in order to get a second vote, a People's Vote, we have to work cross-party in order to get that."
Scottish Labour MP Ian Murray called the UK government's stance on Brexit "completely wrong".
He said: "It's the second rally in two days in Edinburgh where thousands of people have turned up to make their voices heard.
"This is democratic change in action. "What we're trying to say to the UK Government is that their stance on Brexit's completely wrong and that what we demand is that for these people that are marching today and for everyone across the United Kingdom, to get a final say referendum so that they can have their view on whether or not to remain in the European Union or back the prime minister's deal.
"That's why we're all here, we're all championing that and we're all fighting for it both on the streets and in Parliament."
Scottish Liberal Democrat MSP Alex Cole-Hamilton said that his party would revoke Article 50 in the event of winning a majority at a general election.
He said: "I've been marching in these demos now for three years and that just shows how far this movement's come.
"We thought we'd be crashing out of the European Union in March and that didn't happen, and the extensions have come and they've gone and we're still in the European Union.
"It gives me such hope that we are on the cusp of reversing Brexit and all the calamity that it represents."
| Protest_Online Condemnation | September 2019 | ['(BBC)'] |
Ohio Governor Mike DeWine signs a bill that restricts abortion after a detectable heartbeat. The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio said it was preparing a constitutional challenge to the law. | COLUMBUS, Ohio -- A bill imposing one of the most stringent abortion restrictions in the nation was signed into law in Ohio on Thursday, banning abortions after a detectable heartbeat in a long-sought victory for abortion opponents that drew an immediate constitutional challenge.
In signing the heartbeat bill, Republican Gov. Mike DeWine broke with his predecessor, Republican John Kasich, who had vetoed the measure twice on grounds that it was unconstitutional.
But DeWine defended Ohio Republicans' decision to push the boundaries of the law, because "it is the right thing to do."
"Taking this action really is a kind of a time-honored tradition, the constitutional tradition of making a good faith argument for modification or reversal of existing legal precedents," he said. "So that is what this is."
He said it's the government's job to protect the vulnerable. The bill outlaws abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected, which doctors say can be as early as five weeks into pregnancy, before many women know they are pregnant.
Ohio's closely divided politics had slowed the progress of the bill as it has caught momentum elsewhere , forcing years of debate in the state where the movement originated. Of five previous states that have passed heartbeat bills, three have seen their laws struck down or blocked by the courts, another faces a legal injunction and the fifth is awaiting governor's action.
DeWine's action came a day after the latest version of the bill cleared the Republican-controlled Legislature.
Even before the bill was signed, the ACLU of Ohio said it was preparing a constitutional challenge to the law on behalf of Pre-Term Cleveland and three other Ohio abortion clinics.
The legal challenge is what the bill's backers have always wanted. They hope to provoke a legal challenge with the potential to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion up until viability, usually at 22 to 24 weeks.
"The heartbeat bill is the next incremental step in our strategy to overturn Roe v. Wade," said Ohio Right to Life President Mike Gonidakis. "While other states embrace radical legislation to legalize abortion on demand through the ninth month of pregnancy, Ohio has drawn a line and continues to advance protections for unborn babies."
Kellie Copeland, director of NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio, said lawmakers and the governor have plunged the state into "a dystopian nightmare where people are forced to continue pregnancies regardless of the harm that may come to them or their family."
The law makes no exceptions for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest.
EMILY's List, a national group that supports candidates who favor abortion rights, also decried the Ohio bill, as did the Democratic National Committee.
DNC CEO Seema Nanda called it "the latest example of how the Trump administration's extremist, anti-women policies have emboldened legislators across the country to attack women's access to health care."
DeWine said his administration is committed to supporting pregnant women.
"I just want to make it very, very clear, our concern is not just for the unborn, our concern is for all individuals who need protection," he said. "It is our duty, I believe, and an essential function of government, to protect those who cannot protect themselves." | Government Policy Changes | April 2019 | ['(ABC News)'] |
Voters in Zambia go to the polls for a general election, with a close presidential race expected between incumbent Rupiah Banda and opposition leader Michael Sata. | Zambians are heading to the polls on Tuesday in what is expected to be a close presidential election rematch between incumbent Rupiah Banda and opposition leader Michael Sata.
President Banda hopes to ride a wave of recent economic success to defeat Mr. Sata, a passionate nationalist leader – nicknamed “King Cobra” – who heads Zambia's main opposition Patriotic Front.
President Banda says his policies promote economic growth, while Mr. Sata accuses the president of allowing corruption and of granting too much power to foreign investors, mainly China, a major operator of Zambian copper mines. Mr. Banda and his Movement for Multiparty Democracy narrowly defeated Mr. Sata in a 2008 run-off election to replace the late President Levy Mwanawasa, who had died of a stroke. Mr. Sata disputed the results, and his supporters rioted for days afterwards.
Mr. Sata recently urged his supporters to “defend” their votes by remaining at polling stations after casting their ballots. He has accused the electoral commission of planning to rig the presidential poll using pre-marked ballot papers. The commission has dismissed the allegations.
The semi-official Times of Zambia says election officials have demanded that those who place their votes must immediately leave the polling centers. Zambian officials have stepped up security around voting centers, banning street vendors from selling liquor and tools such as axes or shovels that could be used as weapons. Officials have warned that any violence will be met with the “full force of the law.” More than 5.1 million Zambians are registered to vote in the presidential, parliamentary and local elections. Multiple international election monitoring agencies are on hand to observe the election process. | Government Job change - Election | September 2011 | ['(Voice of America)'] |
The China National Space Administration successfully launches Tianwen–1, China's first independent interplanetary mission to Mars, from Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site in Wenchang, Hainan. The mission includes an orbiter, lander and rover, which will search for evidence of both current and past life on the planet. | Follow NBC News BEIJING — China launched its most ambitious Mars mission yet on Thursday in a bold attempt to join the United States in successfully landing a spacecraft on the red planet.
Engines blazing orange, a Long March-5 carrier rocket took off under clear skies around 12:40 p.m. from Hainan Island, south of China’s mainland. Hundreds of space enthusiasts cried out excitedly on a beach across the bay from the launch site.
“This is a kind of hope, a kind of strength,” said Li Dapeng, co-founder of the China branch of the Mars Society, an international enthusiast group. He wore a Mars Society T shirt, and was there with his wife, 11-year-old son and 2,000 others on the beach to watch the launch.
Launch commander Zhang Xueyu announced to cheers in the control room that the rocket was flying normally about 45 minutes later. “The Mars rover has accurately entered the scheduled orbit,” he said in brief remarks shown live on state broadcaster CCTV.
China’s space agency said that the rocket carried the probe for 36 minutes before successfully placing it on the looping path that will take it beyond Earth’s orbit and eventually into Mars’ more distant orbit around the sun.
Liu Tongjie, spokesman for the mission, said in a press briefing that the launch was a “key step of China marching towards farther deep space.” He said that China’s aim wasn’t to compete with other countries, but to peacefully explore the universe.
It marked the second flight to Mars this week, after a United Arab Emirates orbiter blasted off on a rocket from Japan on Monday. And the U.S. is aiming to launch Perseverance, its most sophisticated Mars rover ever, from Cape Canaveral, Florida, next week.
“It’s amazing that another nation has launched the case for Mars,” said Dr. Katarina Miljkovic, a planetary scientist at Curtin University in Australia, adding that the world was no longer in a space race. “It’s more like this marathon of space that we all want to be running.”
China’s tandem spacecraft — with both an orbiter and a rover — will take seven months to reach Mars, like the others. If all goes well, Tianwen-1, or “quest for heavenly truth,” will look for underground water, if it’s present, as well as evidence of possible ancient life.
This isn’t China’s first attempt at Mars. In 2011, a Chinese orbiter accompanying a Russian mission was lost when the spacecraft failed to get out of Earth’s orbit after launching from Kazakhstan, eventually burning up in the atmosphere.
This time, China is going at it alone. It also is fast-tracking, launching an orbiter and rover on the same mission instead of stringing them out.
China’s secretive space program has developed rapidly in recent decades. Yang Liwei became the first Chinese astronaut in 2003, and last year, Chang’e-4 became the first spacecraft from any country to land on the far side of the moon.
Conquering Mars would put China in an elite club.
“There is a whole lot of prestige riding on this,” said Dean Cheng, an expert on Chinese aerospace programs at the Heritage Foundation in Washington.
The launch was “gutsy,” said Dr. Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. The next challenge is for the probe to be “still working when it gets to Mars and survives entry and landing.”
Landing on Mars is notoriously difficult. Only the U.S. has successfully landed a spacecraft on Martian soil, doing it eight times since 1976. NASA’s InSight and Curiosity rovers still operate today. Six other spacecraft are exploring Mars from orbit: three American, two European and one from India.
Unlike the two other Mars missions launching this month, China has tightly controlled information about the program — even withholding any name for its rover. National security concerns led the U.S. to curb cooperation between NASA and China’s space program.
In an article published earlier this month in Nature Astronomy, mission chief engineer Wan Weixing said Tianwen-1 would slip into orbit around Mars in February and look for a landing site on Utopia Planitia — a plain where NASA has detected possible evidence of underground ice. Wan died in May from cancer.
The landing would then be attempted in April or May, according to the article. If all goes well, the 240-kilogram (530-pound) golf cart-sized, solar-powered rover is expected to operate for about three months, and the orbiter for two years.
There is uncertainty even after the rover lands on Mars, said Liu Tongjie. “For instance, if there is a sand storm, it needs to modify its mode of work to prevent sands falling on solar panel, which will affect its ability to get energy,” he said.
Though small compared to America’s hulking, car-sized 1,025-kilogram (2,260-pound) Perseverance, it’s almost twice as big as the two rovers China has sent to the moon in 2013 and 2019. Perseverance is expected to operate for at least two years.
This Mars-launching season — which occurs every 26 months when Earth and Mars are at their closest — is especially busy.
The UAE spacecraft Amal, or Hope, which will orbit Mars but not land, is the Arab world’s first interplanetary mission. NASA’s Perseverance rover is up next.
“At no other time in our history have we seen anything like what is unfolding with these three unique missions to Mars. Each of them is a science and engineering marvel,” the Space Foundation’s chief executive officer Thomas Zelibor said in an online panel discussion earlier this week.
China’s road to Mars hit a few bumps: A Long March-5 rocket, nicknamed “Fat 5” because of its bulky shape, failed to launch earlier this year. The coronavirus pandemic forced scientists to work from home. In March, when instruments needed to be transported from Beijing to Shanghai, three team members drove 12 hours to deliver them.
While China is joining the U.S., Russia and Europe in creating a satellite-based global navigation system, experts say it isn’t trying to overtake the U.S. lead in space exploration.
Instead, Cheng of the Heritage Foundation said China is in a “slow race” with Japan and India to establish itself as Asia’s space power. | New achievements in aerospace | July 2020 | ['(NBC News)'] |
China jails a Tibetan environmentalist on charges of 'splitting the nation'. | BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese court sentenced a Tibetan environmentalist who organized villagers to pick up litter and plant trees to five years in jail for inciting to split the nation on Saturday, his lawyer said.
Rinchen Samdrup, the third brother in his family to be jailed, ran an environmental NGO in mountainous Gonjo county, in the Tibet Autonomous Region near Sichuan Province.
The NGO mobilized about 1,700 local villagers to reforest the area and report poaching, and ran a small magazine. It worked with international conservation groups and was praised by Chinese media.
The Chamdo prefecture court found Samdrup guilty of incitement to split the country, lawyer Xia Jun told Reuters.
The Tibetan environmentalist had pleaded not guilty but was convicted and deprived of its political rights for three years.
He was accused of posting a pro-Dalai Lama article on his website, the lawyer said.
He has 10 days to appeal the sentence.
Exile Tibetan groups say he ran afoul of powerful local interests after accusing a local police officer of poaching.
In June his brother Karma Samdrup, a wealthy collector of antique black-and-white Tibetan amulet beads, was sentenced to 15 years in jail by a court in neighboring Xinjiang for excavating and robbing ancient tombs, a charge originally brought and dropped in 1998.
Karma Samdrup had tried to defend his brothers.
Late last year, the youngest brother, Jigme Namgyal, was sentenced to 21 months of re-education through labor for endangering state security for assisting Rinchen Samdrup in running his NGO.
The court found he had helped compile three audio-visual disks on the ecology of the region, possessed materials regarding exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, incited locals to interfere with government work and tried to register the NGO with the government.
Several Tibetan artists and intellectuals have been detained or have disappeared in recent months in what activists say amounts to the broadest suppression of Tibetan culture and expression for years.
Tibetans across the region rose up in March 2008, following bloody riots in Lhasa on March 14 of that year. China accuses the Dalai Lama and exile Tibetan followers of instigating the unrest. He denies the charge. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Arrest | July 2010 | ['(BBC)', '(Reuters)'] |
Kyle Dake of Cornell University defeats David Taylor of Penn State in the final of the 165–pound weight class at the NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships in Des Moines, Iowa, becoming the first wrestler to win four individual NCAA titles in four different weight classes. | DES MOINES, Iowa -- Cornell senior Kyle Dake became the first wrestler in NCAA history to win four national titles at four weights Saturday night, and Penn State won the national team title for the third year in a row.
The 165-pound Dake beat defending champion David Taylor of Penn State 5-4, joining Cael Sanderson and Pat Smith as four-time NCAA champions.
"It feels amazing," Dake said. "I'm just really glad that I was able to accomplish my goals."
Penn State's Ed Ruth and Quentin Wright won titles in back-to-back matches to seal the fourth national crown for the Nittany Lions and their third under Sanderson.
Penn State had 123.5 points. Oklahoma State was second with 119.5, and Minnesota third with 103 points.
But the team race took a rare backseat.
Wrestling fans had been salivating over the idea of a Dake-Taylor final since the day Dake announced his move to 165 pounds.
Dake had won titles at 141, 149 and 157 pounds. He boldly jumped up a class even though Taylor, the 2012 Hodge Trophy winner as the nation's best wrestler, stood in his way.
The NCAA shifted its schedule to make the 165-pound matchup the finale, presumably to maximize a probable Dake-Taylor meeting.
It didn't disappoint.
Taylor took down Dake in 18 seconds for a quick 2-0 lead, but Dake answered with a takedown and an escape to jump ahead 4-2 after two periods.
Dake was called for a late stall, tying the match at 4-all, but Dake used his advantage in riding time to close Taylor out.
"He made me a better wrestler. He really pushed me," Dake said. "I owe him a lot."
Even though Taylor fell short, his teammates did not.
Penn State wrapped up the team crown earlier in the evening, as Wright upset top-seeded Dustin Kilgore of Kent State 8-6 at 197 pounds to give the Nittany Lions an insurmountable lead over Oklahoma State.
Wright sealed the victory with a pair of impressive late takedowns of Kilgore, an NCAA champion in 2011 who had won 62 straight matches.
"I knew one of us had to take it upon our shoulders to get it and I thought, 'Why not me? Let's go out there. Let's win this,' " Wright said.
Penn State began the day with a virtual lock on the title -- and the Cowboys nearly stole the crown away.
Penn State held a 20.5-point lead over Oklahoma State to start Saturday's competition. The Nittany Lions also had five wrestlers in the finals, three more than Oklahoma State.
But Penn State didn't have anyone who earned spots in Saturday morning's wrestleback session. That's where the Cowboys made up 17.5 points to cut the deficit to 114.5-111.5.
Chris Perry then gave Oklahoma State a 1-point lead with a win over Penn State's Matt Brown in the first title match, the 174-pound finals.
The Cowboys only held the lead for about 15 minutes, though.
They never got it back.
Ruth won his second straight national title with a 12-4 win over Robert Hamlin of Lehigh. Ruth finished with a takedown to clinch a major decision, giving the Nittany Lions a crucial extra team point.
"I looked over at the coaches and (they) were just saying, 'Cut him. Cut him.' I was like, 'Oh wow, he must be going for a major then," Ruth said.
Jesse Delgado became the first 125-pound champion for Illinois, while Ohio State Logan Stieber won his second NCAA title at 133 pounds. Oklahoma's Kendrick Maple finished an unbeaten season with his first national crown at 141 pounds.
Oklahoma State's Jordan Oliver scored a takedown in the final 12 seconds to beat Boise State's Jason Chamberlain 3-2 at 149 pounds. Iowa's Derek St. John gave the Hawkeyes their lone national champion at 157 pounds.
Minnesota heavyweight Tony Nelson repeated as the national champion.
This was the first NCAA meet since the International Olympic Committee's recommendation that wrestling not be included in the 2020 Games.
There's since been a lot of talk about modernizing a sport rooted in antiquity -- and upgraded wrestler introductions for the finals were a big hit to the sellout crowd.
The athletes burst through puffs of smoke amid dimmed lights and blaring heavy-metal music, their names displayed with colorful lighting. The end of every finals match was marked by four plumes of smoke emanating from each corner of the stage.
The final bursts of white smoke blew for Dake, who finished a brilliant career with an unprecedented title. | Sports Competition | March 2013 | ['(75 kg)', '(AP via ESPN)'] |
Michel Aoun is elected President of Lebanon following 29 months of parliamentary deadlock to fill the position. | Former army chief Michel Aoun voted in as president, ending more than two years of deadlock surrounding the vacancy.
Michel Aoun, the former Lebanese army chief, has been elected president of Lebanon, ending more than two years of deadlock surrounding the vacancy.
Aoun, 81, secured the presidency by winning the support of 83 MPs, well above the absolute majority of 65 needed to win, according to a tally of votes read out in a televised broadcast from parliament on Monday.
Fireworks echoed across Beirut as the tally showed Aoun the winner.
Aoun, an MP, was shown smiling in his seat. The Lebanese presidency is reserved for a Maronite Christian in the country’s sectarian power-sharing system.
READ MORE: What will a new president mean for Lebanon? Lebanon had been without a head of state for 29 months after Michel Suleiman stepped down as president at the end of his term in May 2014.
Since then, 45 sessions to elect a new leader have failed due to political infighting that led to of a lack of quorum.
Around noon on Monday, more than 100 of the 128-member legislature arrived at the parliament building guaranteeing the needed quorum for the session to start.
The situation turned in Aoun’s favour earlier this month when Saad Hariri, the former prime minister who heads the largest bloc in parliament, said he would support Aoun for president.
Hariri’s decision to endorse Aoun marked a major political concession, which was seen by some analysts as reflection of a diminished role of Saudi Arabia in Lebanon, and decisive influence wielded by the Tehran-backed Hezbollah.
Saudi Arabia had backed Hariri and his allies through years of political struggle with Hezbollah and its allies.
Hariri’s own financial misfortunes are said to have played a big part in bringing about the breakthrough. His political network in Lebanon was hit by a cash crunch caused by financial troubles at his Saudi-based construction firm, Saudi Oger.
Analysts say the position of prime minister, which he previously held from 2009 to 2011, should help him shore up his support ahead of parliamentary elections that are due to be held next year.
Aoun is due to meet MPs later this week on their preferences for prime minister. He is obliged to designate the candidate with the greatest support among MPs, expected to be Hariri.
Lebanese forces tightened security in downtown Beirut in the lead-up to the parliament vote. Army helicopters flew over the city and cars were banned from entering most of central Beirut.
Metal detectors were set up in the streets around the parliament building.
Elsewhere in Lebanon, thousands of Aoun’s party supporters gathered in major squares and streets of Christian areas for celebrations.
Aoun will be Lebanon’s 13th president since the country gained independence from France in 1943.
He will return to the presidential palace in the southeastern Beirut suburb of Baabda, exactly 26 years after he was forced out of it as army commander and interim premier by Syrian forces and Lebanese troops loyal to a rival commander.
Two arch-rivals have resolved their differences, raising hopes that Lebanon will finally be able to select a president.
Samir Geagea declares his support for Michel Aoun in rare show of unity in country without a president since May 2014. | Government Job change - Appoint_Inauguration | October 2016 | ['(Al Jazeera)'] |
Dennis Kimetto sets a new world record at the Berlin Marathon. | By Associated Press Published: 10:14 BST, 28 September 2014 | Updated: 10:14 BST, 28 September 2014 BERLIN (AP) — Dennis Kimetto set a world record by winning the 41st Berlin Marathon in 2 hours, 2 minutes, 57 seconds on Sunday.
The 30-year-old Kenyan knocked 26 seconds off the record of 2:03:23 set by compatriot Wilson Kipsang in Berlin last year.
Another Kenyan, Emmanuel Mutai, was also faster than the previous best, finishing second in 2:03:13.
Abera Kuma of Ethiopia was third in 2:05:56.
All times were as yet unofficial.
Some 40,004 runners from 130 nations were accepted for the race, which was run in perfect clear conditions. | Break historical records | September 2014 | ['(Daily Mail)'] |
A Twitter human resources official advises that Twitter employees work at home to prevent exposure to Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. He adds that telecommuting will be mandatory for employees based in the Twitter offices in Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea. |
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - Twitter employees around the world are advised to work from home to avoid any exposure to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), a company human resources official said in a statement.
Telecommuting will be mandatory for employees based in the Twitter offices in Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea, it added.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has registered more than 1,500 new cases of the novel coronavirus disease outside of China in the past 24 hours.
According to the WHO, the number of confirmed cases in China stands at 80,174, while the death count has reached 2,915. Currently,?the global death toll?exceeds 3,100 people, with nearly 91,000 infected.
| Disease Outbreaks | March 2020 | ['(Sputnik)'] |
Indian police arrest a freelance journalist for alleged involvement in a bombing incident last month in New Delhi targeting an Israeli diplomat's wife. | Police in India say they have arrested a Delhi-based journalist in connection with last month's bomb targeting an Israeli diplomat's wife in the city.
A freelance Indian journalist has been arrested and is being questioned, police spokesman Rajan Bhagat said.
A motorcyclist placed a device on the embassy car in Delhi at a traffic light on 13 February. The blast injured four people, one seriously.
Israel blamed Iran for the attack but Tehran has denied the charge.
Indian officials have refused to point the finger while the investigations continue.
Syed Mohammed Kazmi was arrested on Tuesday after investigations showed he had been in touch with a suspect police believed might have stuck a magnetic bomb to the diplomat's car, the Associated Press news agency quoted Mr Bhagat as saying.
Police said they had searched Mr Kazmi's house over the past two days to gather evidence, but gave no details of what they found.
Reports said Mr Kazmi, 50, was an Indian citizen who worked as a journalist for an Iranian publication.
In the attack in February, the wife of an Israeli defence ministry official was seriously wounded. She underwent spinal surgery in the city before she was flown to Israel.
David Goldfarb, the spokesman for Israel's Delhi embassy, said the diplomat's car was close to the building on Aurangzeb Road when the explosion went off.
On the same day, a bomb underneath a diplomat's car in the Georgian capital Tbilisi was defused. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Arrest | March 2012 | ['(BBC)'] |
A ferry carrying about 200 passengers capsizes on the Padma River in Bangladesh's Munshiganj District. | The bodies of two people have been recovered from the River Padma where the boat went down in Munshiganj district, 30km (20 miles) from Dhaka.
Emergency teams have rescued 100 people from the vessel, the Pinak-6.
Accidents are common on Bangladesh's river network and scores of people are killed every year, with overcrowding and poor boat quality often to blame.
Boats are the main form of travel in some rural parts of the country.
It was not immediately clear what caused Monday's accident.
"We have heard that the ferry was overloaded with passengers and the river was rough," local police chief Tofazzal Hossain told AFP news agency.
| Shipwreck | August 2014 | ['(BBC)'] |
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter enters orbit around Mars. | News of its success followed a tense period of radio silence while the spacecraft passed behind Mars.
Over the next six months, the probe will steadily reduce the size of its orbit until it reaches an optimal position to start scientific studies. MRO will examine the Martian surface and atmosphere in unprecedented detail.
At 2124 GMT (1324 PST), as the spacecraft approached the south-side of the planet, its engines fired, slowing its speed and allowing it to be captured by Mars' gravity.
About 20 minutes later, MRO switched from solar to battery power as it passed behind the planet and entered into a period of radio silence.
'Picture perfect'
The re-establishment of contact half an hour later was met with jubilation from the mission team at the US space agency's (Nasa) Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), in Pasadena, California.
It was picture perfect
Jim Graf , MRO project manager "I am very relieved," MRO project manager Jim Graf said. "It was picture perfect."
Mr Graf earlier described Mars as "unpredictable" - with two of the last four orbiters Nasa sent to the planet not surviving the final approach.
The probe has joined three other satellites around the Red Planet: Nasa's Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey, and the European Space Agency's Mars Express.
MRO is now in a 35-hour elliptical trajectory around Mars, where at its furthest point it will swing out to about 44,000km (27,000 miles) above the planet's surface.
The next phase for the mission will be to slowly shrink the spacecraft's path around the world until it achieves a tight, circular, two-hour orbit.
Animated guide: Mars orbiter This process will take six months, and employs a technique known as aerobraking, whereby the spacecraft slows itself down by using the friction created each time it brushes past the Martian atmosphere.
The orbiter will have to perform this technique more than 500 times and each manoeuvre is perilous, as Professor Colin Pillinger, who led the UK's failed Beagle 2 mission to Mars in 2003, observed:
"If it goes in [the planet's atmosphere] too far it heats up and crashes and burns. If it hits the atmosphere at the wrong speed, it bounces off and goes off into deep space."
Detailed photos
In November 2006, once the orbiter is in the optimal position, the two-year science phase of the mission will commence.
The spacecraft carries a pay-load of six scientific instruments and is equipped with cameras capable of taking close-up images of the planet's surface.
"Previous orbiters could see something the size of a double-decker bus on the surface of Mars - this can see a dinner table," said Dr Matthew Genge, of Imperial College, London.
"So that means we can see things like a small spring of hot water coming out of the ground, if such a thing exists." The Nasa mission team says that MRO will return 10-times more data than all of the previous Mars missions put together.
It will build up a detailed picture of how Mars has changed over the millennia: whether there were once rivers or oceans and what its climate was like during the geological past.
"The missions currently at Mars have each advanced what we know about the presence and history of water on Mars, and one of the main goals for Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is to decipher when water was on the surface and where it is now," said JPL's Dr Richard Zurek, project scientist for the mission. "Water is essential for life, so that will help focus future studies of whether Mars has ever supported life."
The spacecraft will also locate landing sites for future Martian missions. The most read story in North America is: Town lines 'make road dangerous' | New achievements in aerospace | March 2006 | ['(BBC)'] |
Russia says that it will withdraw from the Treaty on Open Skies, following the U.S. withdrawal from the treaty last year. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs says that the U.S. withdrawal has "significantly upended the balance of interests of signatory states". | MOSCOW (AP) — Russia said on Friday that it will withdraw from an international treaty allowing surveillance flights over military facilities after the U.S. exit from the pact, compounding the challenges faced by the incoming administration of president-elect Joe Biden.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the U.S. withdrawal from the Open Skies Treaty last year “significantly upended the balance of interests of signatory states,” adding that Moscow’s proposals to keep the treaty alive after the U.S. exit have been cold-shouldered by Washington’s allies.
The ministry said that Russia is now launching the relevant procedures to withdraw from the pact “due to the lack of progress in removing the obstacles for the treaty’s functioning in the new conditions.” The Russian parliament, which ratified the treaty in 2001, will now have to vote to leave it.
The treaty was intended to build trust between Russia and the West by allowing the accord’s more than three dozen signatories to conduct reconnaissance flights over each other’s territories to collect information about military forces and activities. More than 1,500 flights have been conducted under the treaty, aimed at fostering transparency about military activity and helping monitor arms control and other agreements. U.S. President Donald Trump pulled out of the Open Skies Treaty, arguing that Russian violations made it untenable for the United States to remain a party. The U.S. completed its withdrawal from the pact in November.
Russia denied breaching the treaty, which came into force in 2002. The European Union has urged the U.S. to reconsider and called on Russia to stay in the pact and lift flight restrictions, notably over its westernmost Kaliningrad region, which lies between NATO allies Lithuania and Poland. Russia has argued that the limits on flights over Kaliningrad, which hosts sizable military forces, are permissible under the treaty’s terms, noting that the U.S. has imposed more sweeping restrictions on observation flights over Alaska.
As a condition for staying in the pact after the U.S. pullout, Moscow unsuccessfully sought guarantees from NATO allies that they wouldn’t transfer the data collected during their observation flights over Russia to the U.S.
Leonid Slutsky, head of the foreign affairs committee in the lower house of the Russian parliament, said in televised remarks Friday that Russia could review its decision to withdraw if the U.S. decides to return to the pact, but acknowledged that the prospect looks “utopian.”
Moscow has warned that the U.S. withdrawal will erode global security by making it more difficult for governments to interpret the intentions of other nations, particularly amid Russia-West tensions after the Russian annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea in 2014.
The demise of the Open Skies Treaty follows the U.S. and Russian withdrawal in 2019 from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. The INF Treaty, which was signed in 1987 by U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, banned land-based cruise and ballistic missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometers (310 to 3,410 miles), weapons seen as particularly destabilizing because of the shorter time they take to reach targets compared with intercontinental ballistic missiles.
The only U.S.-Russian arms control pact still standing is the New START treaty that expires in three weeks. Moscow and Washington have discussed the possibility of its extension, but have so far failed to overcome their differences.
Biden has spoken for the preservation of the New START treaty and Russia has said it’s open for its quick and unconditional extension. But negotiating the deal before the pact expires on Feb. 5 appears extremely challenging.
New START was signed in 2010 by U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. It limits each country to no more than 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads and 700 deployed missiles and bombers, and envisages sweeping on-site inspections to verify compliance.
Arms control advocates have warned that its expiration would remove any checks on U.S. and Russian nuclear forces, striking a blow to global stability. | Tear Up Agreement | January 2021 | ['(AP)'] |
At least two people are killed in a blaze at a shopping centre in the southwest Russian city of Ufa. | UFA, Russia, Jan. 22 (UPI) -- A fire in a shopping center in southwestern Russia killed at least two people, local emergency officials say.
Firefighters found the bodies of a man and woman in the ruins of the Europa Center, a five-story mall in Ufa, RIA Novosti reported. At least five people were injured, although only one was still hospitalized several hours after the fire.
Ufa is the capital of Bashkortostan, a Russian republic on the west side of the Ural Mountains.
Witnesses told RIA Novosti that two cars blew up in the parking lot just before the fire broke out, but officials said the cause of the blaze had not been determined. Some local officials suggested the fire was linked to construction work on the fourth floor.
"Some witnesses heard a bang, and then the fire started," Oleg Zugeyev, an official with the emergency ministry, told ITAR-Tass. | Fire | January 2011 | ['(RIA Novosti)', '(UPI)'] |
Nepalese police open fire on groups, who were protesting the new constitution proposals by blockading a highway. Two protesters were killed and at least 28 were hurt, including 15 police officers. A third protester was killed in Rajbiraj, the headquarters of the Saptari District. | KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) — Police in southern Nepal opened fire on ethnic protesters blocking the nation’s main highway, killing two in fresh violence that threatened to escalate political tensions, officials said Sunday.
Police were trying to stop the protesters from blocking the main East-West highway when they were attacked with petrol bombs, spears and bricks around midnight, police official Bhim Dhakal said. He said that 25 policemen and several protesters were injured in two separate attacks.
The two protesters were killed in the Bhardaha and Rupani areas, about 160 kilometers (100 miles) southeast of the capital, Kathmandu, Dhakal said.
A curfew was imposed to stop further violence.
The clashes are expected to escalate the tensions, just as monthslong protests by the Madeshi ethnic group over Nepal’s new constitution had eased over the past few weeks during a series of festivals in the Himalayan nation.
The Madeshi say the new constitution unfairly divides Nepal into seven states with borders that cut through their ancestral homeland. The Madhesis and other small ethnic groups also want the states to be larger and to be given more autonomy over local matters.
The protesters have imposed a general strike in southern Nepal since September and blocked the main border crossings with India, resulting in severe fuel shortages across Nepal.
At least 48 people have been killed in the protests since August. There is no official count of the injured.
India, which has close cultural ties with the Madhesi community, has expressed concern over the new violence.
Indian External Affairs Ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup twitted that his government was “distressed at (a) loss of lives in police firing,” and that a political solution was required.
Nepalese authorities have been rationing gasoline for taxis and public buses, but there’s been no fuel for private cars.
Police have been escorting trucks through south Nepal at night to bring both passengers and cargo to cities in the north, including Kathmandu.
Talks between the protesting groups and government have made little progress, but both sides have said they would continue.
Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Oli called a meeting of the main political parties later Sunday to discuss the Madhesi demands.
| Protest_Online Condemnation | November 2015 | ['(AP via WTOP)', '(Singapore Today Online)'] |
In Brooklyn New York, 2 brothers were stabbed, 1 fatally in a dispute after a school soccer match. | A knife fight erupted after a midnight soccer match in Brooklyn, killing a 31-year-old man and critically wounding his brother early Sunday, a police source said.
Paramedics found Delvin Martinez with severe stab wounds to his torso and neck around 12:30 a.m. outside the Beginning with Children Charter School 2 on Heyward St. in Williamsburg, cops said.
They took him to Woodhull Hospital, where he died from his injuries two hours later.
The assailant also attacked Martinez's 29-year-old brother Oscar, stabbing him in the torso, neck and face across the street from the Williamsburg Armory.
He remains in critical but stable condition, officials said.
Police believe a dispute over the soccer game spurred the deadly incident. They have not made any arrests and the investigation is ongoing. | Famous Person - Sick | December 2016 | ['(New York Daily News)'] |
At least 11 people are killed in the Somalian capital Mogadishu after a bomb explodes in a carpark. | Mogadishu (AFP) - At least four people including a government official were killed Friday in an Islamist militant car bomb attack outside a top hotel in Somalia's capital Mogadishu, officials said.
Police and security forces immediately sealed off the area after the huge blast outside the Maka al Mukarama hotel, popular with officials and businessmen. A police officer earlier put the toll at 11 dead.
A Somali government official said the evening attack bore all the hallmarks of the Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab.
"Four people were killed and 15 others injured," said government spokesman Ridwan Haji Abdiwali.
A police official at the scene said there were 11 dead, while a doctor at Mogadishu's Madina Hospital said 22 people had been admitted for treatment.
"Three of the injured people died at the emergency room and 19 people had injuries," Mohamed Yusuf said. It was not clear if these three dead were included in the government's toll.
The Somali president's spokesman said one of the country's top diplomats -- Abdulkadir Ali Dhuub, a former acting ambassador to London -- was among the dead.
The government's spokesman also said a man caught wearing a suicide bomb vest was arrested after the blast.
"Investigations are under way as the arrested man is being interrogated," Abdiwali said.
Mogadishu is frequently targetted with suicide and car bombings carried out by the Shebab, which has been pushed out of Mogadishu but still controls large parts of the rural south.
The powerful blast, which was heard across the city, occurred at the gates of the hotel, one of the most expensive in Mogadishu and run by Somalis from the diaspora.
The hotel has a restaurant and a coffee shop known to be popular with the local elite, notably government officials and businessmen.
Somalia's Prime Minister Abdi Farah Shirdon blamed "enemies of peace" for the attack.
"I condemn this attack in the strongest terms and send my condolences to the families and friends of all the innocent victims who were killed and wounded. Once again the enemies of peace show their true colours to the world," he said in a statement.
"These cowardly acts of terrorism will not derail the progress made in Mogadishu and across Somalia. These terrorists will not defeat us but make us stronger."
A Somali government official, who asked not to be named, told AFP that the attack "certainly looks like the work of Shebab."
He said he understood that between four and 12 people had died, among them "several policemen or security guards".
Police official Anshur Nur said he could see "several burning cars, dead and injured people on the ground" in the wake of the attack.
"There were lots of cars parked outside and some government officials were inside when the blast went off," said another eyewitness, Abdirahman Ali.
The attack comes as the African Union force in Somalia (AMISOM) is asking the UN Security Council to green-light a boost in its numbers by over a quarter to 22,000 as part of efforts to step up offensive operations against the Shebab.
The militants have frequently struck the heart of Mogadishu, including the area around the hotel, and in September claimed responsibility for a massacre at an upmarket shopping centre in the Kenyan capital Nairobi that left at least 67 dead.
Shebab said it carried out the attack on the Westgate mall in retaliation for Kenya's military intervention in Somalia.
Friday's attack comes after a US army drone strike on a Shebab convoy that officials said killed the rebels' top suicide bomb-maker.
In early October US Navy SEALS also struck the Shebab-held southern port of Barawe, but failed to kill or capture the top militant being targetted. | Armed Conflict | November 2013 | ['(AFP via Yahoo News Australia)'] |
The President of Uganda Yoweri Museveni is declared the winner of the Presidential election with 60% of the vote. European Union observers state that the election was held in an "intimidating atmosphere". | Longtime Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni had won another 5-year term with more than 60 percent of the votes, Uganda's electoral commission says, following an election that observers say fell short of democratic.
Museveni, a former guerilla leader, came to power 30 years ago when he toppled brutal dictator Idi Amin. This is the fourth election where Musevani has faced multiple candidates.
Elections observers from the European Union say this vote took place in an "intimidating atmosphere for both voters and candidates." The observers say they "received reports of intimidation and harassment of opposition parties by security agencies as well as arrests of supporters and voters from more than 20 districts."
The most prominent opposition candidate, Kizza Besigye, "was detained by police who burst into his election headquarters in the capital, Kampala, just as he was about to start a press conference to dispute the election process," as we reported.
Now, Besigye is under house arrest, according to a statement he posted Saturday on Facebook.
"The regime is baring its bloodied fangs and claws for all to see," Besigye says. "This has not been an electoral process. This is a creeping military coup."
He accused the government of fraud and called for the international community to reject the election results.
The EU observed "markedly late delivery" of ballots to areas like the capital Kampala where opposition figures were likely to do well.
As NPR's Gregory Warner tells our Newscast unit, "Young urbanites are more likely to be opposed to Museveni's rule — [which is] seen as deeply corrupt." But "rural voters still hail him for bringing peace and security to Uganda."
NPR's Kevin Beesley says Musevani has been "has been praised for helping Uganda achieve economic growth and for leading a successful campaign against HIV/AIDS, but has been criticized over alleged human rights abuses by his security forces." | Government Job change - Election | February 2016 | ['(NPR)'] |
A magnitude 6.0 earthquake strikes the western Iranian province of Kermanshah, killing at least two people and injuring more than 200 others. | A magnitude 6.0 earthquake in the western Iranian province of Kermanshah has killed at least two people and injured more than 300 others. There were reports that the quake was felt as far away as Baghdad.
A shallow earthquake struck early Sunday about 26 kilometers (16 miles) southwest of the city of Javanrud in Iran's Kermanshah province, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said. Local media reported that at least two people were killed and 310 were injured.
The mountainous area near the border with Iraq was also the site of a powerful tremor that killed more than 600 people last November.
Hundreds of people died in a devastating quake that hit Kermanshah province in November 2017
What we know so far
Read more: Natural disasters drive millions into poverty
The most powerful earthquake ever recorded hit Chile's coast in May 1960. The quake, 9.5 on the Richter scale, lasted almost 10 minutes, resulting in massive infrastructure damage. Around 5,700 people were killed in Chile while the resulting tsunami left 130 people dead in Japan and another 61 in Hawaii. This picture shows the remains of Corral harbor in Chile's Valdivia province.
The 1964 Alaskan earthquake, also known as the Great Alaskan earthquake and Good Friday earthquake, remains the strongest earthquake to hit the US to date. It occured on Good Friday, March 27, across south-central Alaska. The quake and the following tsunamis caused about 139 deaths. The picture above is from a small fishing village on Kodiak Island and it shows debris from houses and boats.
A team member from Japan's Rescue Dog Association and his dog search for victims. Northeastern Japan was struck by a devastating earthquake, measuring 9.1 on the moment magnitude scale, followed by a massive tsunami. The natural disasters claimed almost 18,500 lives, and crippled the Fukushima nuclear power plant, in what is considered the world's worst nuclear power disaster since Chernobyl.
The undersea megathrust earthquake, magnitude 9.1, triggered a series of devastating tsunamis, killing some 280,000 people in 14 different countries and inundating coastal communities with waves up to a 100 feet. It was one of the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history.
A megathrust earthquake occurred off the coast of Kamchatka Peninsula in eastern Russia on November 4, 1952. The 9.0 magnitude quake caused a tsunami leading to widespread destruction and loss of life around the Kamchatka peninsula and the Kuril Islands. More than 2,300 people were killed.
An 8.8 magnitude earthquake occurred off the coast of central Chile in February 2010. It triggered a tsunami which devastated several coastal towns in south-central Chile and damaged the port at Talcahuano. The quake and the following tsunami resulted in the deaths of around 450 people, while damage to the local fisheries' business was estimated at 66.7 million US dollars.
An abandoned railway coach in Tangshan, China after an earthquake devastated the industrial town on July 28, 1976. The quake, measured at 7.4, struck near the industrial city in northeastern Hebei province. The official death toll is given as 242,000 but is believed to be significantly higher. Some estimates put the deathtoll at around 500,000.
The earthquake, measured at 8.3, occurred in the Haiyuan county of the northern province of Ningxia and caused aftershocks for almost three years. As a result, up to 235,000 people died immediately. Many more, who were living in camps due to the continuing aftershocks, perished later due to severe winter conditions.
A man walks amid the rubble of a destroyed building in Port-au-Prince following the devastating earthquake that rocked Haiti on January 12, 2010. With a magnitude of 7.0, the quake destroyed thousands of buildings and left at least 200,000 people dead.
Author: Aasim Saleem Quake-prone area: The Iraq-Iran border region sees frequent seismic activity due to the 1,500 kilometer fault line between the Arabian and Eurasian tectonic plates. Much of the area affected by Sunday's quake is rugged mountain terrain populated by farmers and hillside villages of earthen brick buildings. Iran has suffered a number of devastating jolts in recent years. In November 2017, a 7.3 magnitude quake killed at least 620 people and injured thousands. In 2003, some 31,000 people were killed by a catastrophic tremor that struck the southeastern city of Bam.
Read more: Fracking makes the earth shake
Seven tectonic plates make up our earth's surface. Where they meet, chances for an earthquake are the highest. In Nepal, the tectonic collision of the Indian plate with the Eurasian plate caused a dramatic quake on April 25, 2015. It's one of the seven places on earth most prone to earthquakes.
In the valley of Kathmandu, seven cultural World Heritage sites draw Nepalese and international visitors alike. Here, people are celebrating the Gaijatra Festival at the historic square in Bhaktapur in August 2014.
Volunteer workers try to rescue people from beneath the ruins of collapsed temples - they have nothing but their bare hands to dig with. The 2015 Nepalese earthquake killed nearly 9,000 people. Japan is known as an earthquake specialist, building its skyscrapers on moving foundations that can absorb the earth's shocks during a quake. It's also known for its nuclear power plants. In 2010, the Takahama power plant (pictured above, on the other side of the island from Fukushima) was one of 55, producing a third of the country's energy needs.
Japan is more than 5,000 kilometers (3,107 miles) from Nepal. But in March 2011, it suffered a similarly disastrous earthquake, causing one of the worst tsunamis Japan has ever seen. More than 18,000 people were declared dead, and meltdowns of nuclear reactors in Fukushima leaked radioactive material into the surrounding area - more than was released in the Chernobyl catastrophe.
The Andaman Islands, which are part of India, are close to the intersection of the Indian and Eurasian continental plates. Due to the high tectonic tensions, earthquakes are common here.
The worst of these earthquakes in recent history hit on December 26, 2004. It was the third-strongest quake ever measured. Tsunamis following the quake killed 230,000 people along the coast.
The Chinese province of Yunnan is known for its breathtaking landscape, its rice terraces - and its earthquake risk. As Yunnan is located on the border between the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates, tectonic plate tensions can cause severe earthquakes.
In August 2014, more than 400 people were killed and about 100,000 left homeless by a 6.5-magnitude quake. Strong earthquakes are common in China. In 2008, 70,000 people died after a quake hit in the province of Sichuan.
Although Europe is not really known for earthquakes, they are more common than one might think. In Italy, the African plate comes up against the European continent, and the whole country is situated up against the plate boundary.
In 2009, a quake killed 300 people and left more than 10,000 homeless in the Italian town of L'Aquila. When seven scientists were convicted of manslaughter for failing to advise of earthquake threats, this raised international critique: Despite the most modern scientific methods, earthquakes cannot be predicted.
The Golden Gate Bridge is San Francisco's most prominent landmark. But it is under threat: Scientists say that soon, the worst earthquake in more than 100 years could hit the city, threatening its inhabitants. Culprit here is the San Andreas fault, where the North American plate meets the Pacific plate, just off the Californian coast.
In 1906, San Francisco was destroyed by an earthquake and resulting urban fires. To date, the San Francisco quake is said to be one of the deadliest natural disasters in US history - 3,000 to 6,000 people were killed.
Today, nothing in idyllic south-Chilean Valdivia reminds visitors of the earthquake danger. That doesn't make it less real: Just off the Chilean coast, the South American plate hits the Nazca plate. When tensions rise, the earth shakes. As a consequence, tsunamis form.
At a magnitude of 9.5, it was the strongest earthquake ever measured: In 1960, the quake destroyed large parts of southern Chile's infrastructure. At least 1,700 people died, while millions were made homeless. The next "big bang" is likely to take place in Chile's northern region. The earth there, scientists say, has been suspiciously quiet for years. | Earthquakes | August 2018 | ['(Deutsche Welle)'] |
A woman is killed and 12 other people injured in a series of hit and run incidents in Cardiff, south Wales. A 31yearold van driver is arrested by police. | A woman was killed and 11 other people, including seven children, were injured in a series of hit-and-run accidents through busy suburban streets in Cardiff yesterday.
Police arrested a man on suspicion of murder and seized a white van following half an hour of chaos at school pick-up time on Friday.
Witnesses described how mothers and children were knocked over and others leapt to safety. One woman was said to have been dragged underneath the van. The ambulance service described injuries suffered by some survivors as "serious".
Superintendent Julian Williams, of South Wales police, said a 31-year-old man was being held on suspicion of murder. Williams said: "Whether the actions were deliberate or reckless is a matter for the inquiry and the person will obviously be spoken to."
Police were not naming the 32-year-old woman who died, but she was identified locally as mother-of-three Karina Menzies. She is believed to have been walking with her children when she was hit.
Williams said it was too early to say what part the police pursuit of the vehicle played and could not confirm whether pedestrians had been deliberately targeted. "It is a complicated series of incidents which we are trying to piece together. It is a tragic event," Williams said.
The incident is believed to have begun at about 3.30pm near the City of Cardiff Stadium in Leckwith, to the west of the city centre. Witnesses claimed there was a violent row and a white van drove off at speed, hitting a woman as it left the scene. It is believed the van headed further west towards the suburb of Ely.
Police confirmed the fatal collision happened at Cowbridge Road West, outside the fire station. Witnesses said the driver appeared to veer towards the building.
Firefighters on duty dashed out to help the woman and others who had been hit. The fire station forecourt was sealed off and forensic experts were working at the scene on Friday night.
The 31-year-old man was arrested near the Merrie Harrier pub in Llandough, to the south west of the city centre, and was being held at Cardiff Bay police station. Officers were examining a white Iveco van.
Witnesses described their shock at the chain of events. Shopkeeper Phil Jones said: "It was absolutely incredible right outside my shop the van aimed straight at a mother and two children walking on the pavement and mowed them down. He then drove straight across the road and smashed into a man and woman with their baby in a pushchair. He just smashed into them before heading away.
"In about 100 yards, he veered off the road and hit another two boys and a mother and a boy on a bike. People were rushing out of houses trying to help the injured and covering them with blankets until the ambulances arrived. The baby was covered in blood; people were lying on pavements moaning."
Natalie Howell, 28, said people tried to block the van to stop it driving off after one accident. "But he went up on the pavement and sped off," she said.
Tony McGuinness, 48, said: "We saw a young woman being resuscitated at the roadside it didn't look too good for her. There were police everywhere, a helicopter up above and ambulances were going past every minute."
Harbhajan Dhaliwal, 42, who runs a convenience store,said: "People are very upset and panicked by what has happened. I had one woman come in who said her niece has been injured. She is really upset and worried and was going to go to the hospital."
Among the victims were Annie Lewis, 22, her two-year-old daughter Amelia-May, who was in a pram, and her partner Adam Lewis. Amelia-May was left covered in blood from facial injuries and Annie, a student, suffered a broken leg.
Adam's grandmother, Maureen Lewis, 80, said: "It was total mayhem out there the driver of the white van was driving fast and furious at anyone in his path."
Ely resident Gail Harford, 40, said: "The driver was not just running over people but reversing over them, too. It's too horrendous for words." | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | October 2012 | ['(BBC)', '(Western Mail)', '(The Guardian)'] |
Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History announces the discovery of a 16th–century mass grave at the Tlatelolco archaeological site in Mexico City. | MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Archeologists have found a mass grave in Mexico City with four dozen human skeletons laid out in neat lines that could reveal clues about the 16th century Spanish conquest that killed millions.
The investigators found the 49 skeletons, all lying face up with their arms crossed, as they searched for a palace complex in the Tlatelolco area, once a major religious and political center for the ancient Aztec elite and now a district in the north of the sprawling Mexican capital.
“We were completely taken by surprise. We didn’t expect to find this massive funeral complex,” Salvador Guilliem, in charge of the site for the government’s archeology institute, said when the discovery was announced on Tuesday.
Historians think the Aztecs built Tlatelolco in the early 1300s along with the nearby city of Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztec empire and now the heart of Mexico City, which the Spanish founded after they conquered the Aztecs in 1521.
It is likely the indigenous people buried in the grave died in battle against the invading Spanish or fell victim to diseases that wiped out large swaths of the native population in 1545 and 1576, Guilliem said.
Many Aztec fighters died resisting the Spanish invasion and millions also perished during a four-year epidemic of hemorrhagic fever that began in 1545, killing 80 percent of indigenous Mexicans.
The 13-by-32-foot (four-by-10-meter) burial site differs from other conquest-era graves because of the reverential way the bodies were buried, following Christian customs of the time, unlike thousands of contemporary graves at other Aztec cities where bodies were thrown in at random.
“It is a mass grave, but they were very carefully buried,” Guilliem said.
The burials were likely ordered by Spanish overlords but carried out by Aztecs since most of the artifacts found around the bodies, such as copper necklaces and bone buttons, are from pre-Hispanic cultures, he said.
The skeletons of two children, a teenager, and an old person wearing a ring that could signify higher status, were found along with 45 young adults in the tomb.
The scientists expect to find at least 50 more bodies as excavations continue at the massive Tlatelolco complex, home to 67 ancient structures, including massive pyramids.
“The discovery is filling us with more questions than answers at this point,” Guilliem said.
Writing by Mica Rosenberg; Editing by Eric Walsh
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
All quotes delayed a minimum of 15 minutes. See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays. | New archeological discoveries | February 2009 | ['(Reuters)'] |
A parliamentary committee begins work on Turkey's first fully civilian constitution. | A parliamentary committee in Turkey is due to start work on the country's first fully civilian constitution.
The aim is to draft a simpler and more democratic charter to replace the existing constitution, which was drawn up under military rule 30 years ago.
It gave great powers to the military, curbed individual rights and largely ignored the country's minorities, including the Kurds. The new draft is expected to be completed by the end of the year. The multi-party committee has up to now operated with a rare degree of consensus, promising a charter that represents the will of the people and creates a truly representatives democracy, the BBC's Jonathan Head in Istanbul reports.
To that end there have been meetings across Turkey, encouraging civil society groups to contribute their views, our correspondent says.
But contentious issues lie ahead, he adds, in particular, how much cultural autonomy to allow the Kurds and what powers the presidency should have. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has dominated politics for a decade, has made no secret of his ambition to move into the president's office when his final term is finished. If consensus on the constitution breaks down in parliament, Mr Erdogan has threatened to push the issue through by means of a referendum.
| Government Policy Changes | May 2012 | ['(BBC)'] |
A car drives into three other cars causing an explosive crash outside the National Cancer Institute Egypt campus in central Cairo, killing 20 people and injuring 47 others. The Interior Ministry says that the car that hit the others contained explosives and was to be used in a terrorist operation. The driver fled the scene before the explosion. The minister accuses the Islamist Hasm Movement of being behind the attack. | CAIRO (Reuters) - Twenty people were killed and 47 injured when a car packed with explosives intended for a militant attack blew up outside Cairo’s main cancer hospital on Monday, the interior ministry said.
Officials initially said the explosion was caused when a car driving against the traffic collided with three other cars.
The front of the hospital suffered extensive damaged, with an entrance wrecked and rubble strewn over the pavement. Victims’ belongings were scattered among the debris.
The interior ministry said the car involved in the incident had been stolen a few months ago.
“The initial technical examination also showed that the car contained explosives, and the collision led to their detonation,” a ministry statement said.
“It is estimated that the car was being transported to a location for use in the execution of a terrorist operation,” the ministry added.
It said the Hasm militant group was responsible for rigging up the car.
Related Coverage
Egypt accuses Hasm, which emerged in 2016 and has claimed several attacks, of being a wing of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood. Egypt’s oldest Islamist movement denies this and says it seeks change through peaceful means only.
The explosion caused a blaze that forced the partial evacuation of the National Cancer Institute, the health ministry said.
One resident, who gave her name as Salwa, said bodies had been fused together by the explosion.
“There was a sound of an extremely loud blast. It was no way two cars crashing. The car must have been rigged with explosives,” she told Reuters Television.
Another witness, who declined to give his name, said the car’s driver ran away before it exploded.
Later in the morning, investigators scoured the scene amid a heavy police presence.
Egypt’s public prosecutor is investigating the incident, sources told Reuters.
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi expressed his condolences to the Egyptian people and the families of the victims. He pledged to eradicate “this brutal terrorism”.
Egyptian security forces are waging a counterinsurgency campaign against Islamist militants, some with links to Islamic State, that is focused in the north of the Sinai Peninsula.
Attacks outside Sinai have become relatively rare, although there have been several security incidents in recent months in Giza, across the Nile from central Cairo.
In May, an explosion targeting a tourist bus injured at least 12 people, mostly South African tourists, near the Giza pyramids.
In December, three Vietnamese tourists and an Egyptian guide were killed, and at least 10 others injured when a roadside bomb hit their tour bus near the pyramids.
Reporting by Haitham Ahmed, Alaa Swilam and Mahmoud Reda Mourad, Writing by Nafisa Eltahir, Nadine Awadalla and Giles Elgood; editing by Angus MacSwan
| Armed Conflict | August 2019 | ['(Reuters)'] |
A suicide bomber kills seven paramilitary soldiers and wounds three others near Samarra, Iraq. | BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A suicide bomber blew himself up killing at least seven fighters from an Iraqi paramilitary group near the city of Samarra north of Baghdad on Thursday, the military said in a statement.
It said three other fighters were wounded in the attack, but gave no further details. There was no immediate claim for the attack.
Iraqi forces and mainly Shi’ite Muslim paramilitary groups are fighting an insurgency by Sunni Islamic State militants across parts of northern Iraq, two years after the group lost its sway over territory in the country.
The militants stage regular attacks against security forces but such a deadly one is rare.
Reporting by John Davison
| Armed Conflict | December 2019 | ['(Reuters)'] |
The former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milošević has been found dead in his prison cell in The Hague, Netherlands. | The tribunal said an autopsy would be conducted to establish cause of death, but there was no indication of suicide.
Zdenko Tomanovic, a lawyer for Mr Milosevic, says the autopsy should take place elsewhere as his client said he was being poisoned in the jail.
Mr Milosevic, 64, had been held at the UN war crimes tribunal for genocide and other war crimes since 2001.
Treatment dispute
Mr Milosevic suffered from high blood pressure and a heart condition.
Last month the tribunal rejected a request by the former president to go to Russia for medical treatment.
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His death affected me only because he didn't pay his debts to Serbs and others that suffered after his foolish actions
Radosh, Belgrade, Serbia
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Relief and regret in Balkans
"Russian doctors were prepared to give him the necessary aid and the Russian authorities guaranteed to meet all the demands of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia," a spokesman from Russia's foreign ministry said on Saturday.
"Unfortunately, in spite of our guarantees, the tribunal did not agree to give Slobodan Milosevic the possibility of being treated in Russia," he added.
The tribunal has ordered an inquiry into the death. Damage to tribunal
"Milosevic was found lifeless on his bed in his cell at the United Nations detention unit," the tribunal said in a statement.
"The guard immediately alerted the detention unit officer in command and the medical officer. The latter confirmed that Slobodan Milosevic was dead."
He was determined to continue fighting his case
Milosevic lawyer, Steven Kay QC
Milosevic's lawyer speaks
Tribunal statement on death
The BBC's Geraldine Coughlan at The Hague says Mr Milosevic's death is a blow to prosecutors, who had been hoping to convict him as being part of a joint criminal enterprise that operated across the former Yugoslavia, intent on setting up a greater Serbian state.
Mr Milosevic faced charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his alleged central role in the wars in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo during the 1990s. He also faced genocide charges over the 1992-95 Bosnia war, in which 100,000 people died. 'Punished already'
The news was met with joy by survivors of Srebrenica
Mothers and widows of Muslims killed in Srebrenica during the Bosnian war said they regretted that Mr Milosevic's death meant he would never face justice for the killings.
"However, it seems that God punished him already," said Hajra Catic of the Association of Srebrenica mothers.
Serbia-Montenegro's Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic, who accused Mr Milosevic of organising the assassinations of many of his colleagues and family, said it was a pity the former president had not faced justice in Belgrade.
Mr Milosevic's brother Borislav was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying the war crimes court was "entirely responsible" for his death and that the UN could not be trusted to carry out an autopsy.
Poison claim
Mr Milosevic's lawyer Mr Tomanovic said he had made a formal request for the autopsy to be moved to Moscow "having in mind his claims yesterday that he was being poisoned in the jail".
CHARGES AGAINST MILOSEVIC
Genocide, relating to the massacre in Srebrenica, Bosnia
Crimes against humanity, relating to Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo
Grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, relating to Bosnia and Croatia
Violations of the laws or customs of war, relating to Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo
Full war crimes charges
However, the tribunal has refused the request saying an autopsy will be carried out by Dutch pathologists on Sunday morning. Serbian medical experts will also attend. The tribunal rejected criticism over its handling of Mr Milosevic.
"The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia takes the utmost care of its indictees and of (Milosevic) in particular," spokesman Christian Chartier said. "We cannot be blamed for negligence."
The BBC's Matt Prodger in Belgrade says that Mr Milosevic was not particularly popular at home, but many Serbs are intensely suspicious of The Hague tribunal and do not believe Serb defendants are fairly treated there.
The Serbian government says it also wants answers on how Mr Milosevic died and whether anything could have been done to prevent it.
Second death
The former president had been ill for some time, and his trial was interrupted last year because of health problems. His lawyer told BBC News 24 that Mr Milosevic would not have committed suicide because he wanted to complete his trial, which had been due to restart on 14th March and was scheduled to end in May this year.
"In fact he said to me a few weeks ago: 'I hadn't fought this case for as long as I have with any intention to do any harm to myself, Mr Kay'. And that is why he wanted medical treatment," Steven Kay said.
Both the former Serbian leader's parents committed suicide.
Mr Milosevic's death comes just six days after a fellow Serb prisoner at The Hague, Milan Babic, committed suicide.
The Croatian Serb leader, who was serving a 13-year prison sentence for crimes against humanity carried out during the 1991-95 war in Croatia, testified against Mr Milosevic in 2002. | Famous Person - Death | March 2006 | ['(CNN)', '(Reuters)', '[permanent dead link]', '(BBC)', '(Times)'] |
In another result viewed as a surprise, Georgia defeat Tonga 17–10 in Gloucester. In the match, Georgia's 18-year-old Vasil Lobzhanidze becomes the youngest player ever to appear in a Rugby World Cup match. (PA via ESPN ) | Georgia claimed only the third win in their World Cup history as captain Mamuka Gorgodze inspired them to victory over Pool C rivals Tonga at Kingsholm.
The Toulon back-row forward epitomised Georgia's unrelenting spirit and physical prowess by powering over for a first-half try as a 17-10 triumph meant they added Tonga to previous World Cup scalps Namibia eight years ago and Romania in 2011.
But this was undoubtedly their most satisfying World Cup success, with flanker Giorgi Tkhilaishvili sealing the deal when he touched down after 57 minutes, while full-back Merab Kvirikashvili kicked a penalty and two conversions.
Tonga replied with a Kurt Morath penalty, while he also converted wing Fetu'u Vainilo's 72nd-minute try - he became Tonga's record Test try scorer in the process - yet Georgia deservedly held on after Kvirikashvili was sin-binned during the dying minutes for repeated offside.
It was also a day to savour for 18-year-old Georgia scrum-half Vasil Lobzhanidze, who became the youngest player ever to feature in the tournament.
Tonga took an early lead through Morath's penalty, but they could have few complaints about the result after struggling tactically and also lacking the attacking flair to break down a Georgia defence that put in a relentless tackling shift.
The Gloucester crowd of just over 14,000 relished such a hard-working effort, and Georgia will return to Kingsholm in six days' time for an appointment with Argentina, having already made their mark at World Cup 2015.
With world champions New Zealand overwhelming favourites to win the group and Argentina also seemingly nailed on for a quarter-final spot, Tonga knew they could not afford an opening weekend defeat against a team placed just below them in rugby union's official world rankings.
But although Morath kicked Tonga ahead, Georgia's forwards quickly developed a healthy appetite for battle, with Gorgodze making considerable headway inside opposition territory.
Kvirikashvili should have landed an equalising penalty three minutes later, but he missed a short-range chance, only to make amends shortly afterwards and end an opening quarter that Georgia shaded in terms of territory and endeavour.
Tonga could not get their game going, being frustrated by a combination of poor decision-making and sloppy handling, but Georgia had rumbled them, primarily through consistently-impressive scrummaging work by props Mikheil Nariashvili and Davit Zirakashvili.
And Georgia's forwards laid the foundation for a 28th-minute try, driving Tonga backwards through some excellent phase-play that ultimately resulted in Gorgodze powering over and claiming a touchdown that referee Nigel Owens awarded following consultation with television match official George Ayoub.
Kvirikashvili added the conversion to open up a 10-3 lead, and despite Tonga pressing for an equalising try as half-time approached, number eight Vili Ma'afu was denied a try after Owens ruled a forward pass from an attacking lineout, and Georgia retained their seven-point advantage.
The third quarter proved to be another tale of frustration for Tonga, as they again floundered on Georgia's excellent defensive organisation, and they would have fallen further behind had Kvirikashvili not missed another penalty.
With Lobzhanidze sniping around the forward fringes, Tonga found themselves under sustained pressure, and their defence was shredded following a sharp Kvirikashvili break after 57 minutes.
The full-back almost sent supporting lock Giorgi Nemsadze clear in space, but Georgia did not lose composure when he was hauled down, and quickly recycled possession resulted in Tkhilaishvili enjoying an unhindered run to score.
Kvirikashvili added the conversion, and Georgia were almost out of sight, having thrown down the challenge to Tonga and seeing their opponents offer little in reply.
Even when a clever Morath kick bisected Georgia's defence, Tonga failed to capitalise as centre Siale Piutau was unable to ground the ball as it rolled agonisingly out of his grasp, which summed up the South Sea Islanders' day. | Sports Competition | September 2015 | ['(UK)'] |
Officials serving on President-elect Donald Trump's transition team reveal selections for high-level positions, including Senator Jeff Sessions for Attorney General, Mike Pompeo for Director of the CIA and Michael T. Flynn for National Security Advisor. | Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions pledges his support for then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump before speaking to supporters on Oct. 10 at a rally in Ambridge, Pa.
Jeff Swensen/Getty Images
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Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions pledges his support for then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump before speaking to supporters on Oct. 10 at a rally in Ambridge, Pa.
Updated at 11:45 a.m. ET
President-elect Donald Trump announced his selections today for three key posts: Michael Flynn for national security adviser, Sen. Jeff Sessions for attorney general and Rep. Mike Pompeo for CIA director.
Trump's selections signal that he is prioritizing loyalty as he chooses nominees for top posts — turning to people who were early and outspoken supporters of his campaign.
Sessions is a former U.S. attorney and current senator with lengthy experience with the Justice Department, but whose nomination for a federal judgeship was tanked by reports of racist comments. Flynn, a former lieutenant general, was pushed out of his role as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2014 after clashing with top staffers. Pompeo is a representative who served both on the House Intelligence Committee and on the Benghazi committee.
The attorney general and CIA director nominees will need to be confirmed by the Senate. The national security adviser does not need Senate confirmation.
Sen. Jeff Sessions
The 69-year-old Republican senator, who has been offered the position of attorney general, was one of the first lawmakers to ally himself with the Trump campaign. He embraces a forceful anti-immigration platform and a tough approach to fighting crime.
Sessions "is a world-class legal mind and considered a truly great Attorney General and U.S. Attorney in the state of Alabama," Trump said in a statement from his transition team.
"I am humbled to have been asked by President-elect Trump to serve as Attorney General of the United States," Sessions said. "My previous 15 years working in the Department of Justice were extraordinarily fulfilling. I love the Department, its people and its mission. I can think of no greater honor than to lead them."
Sessions is a former longtime U.S. attorney in Alabama who went on to serve as the top Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which oversees Justice Department and FBI operations.
But earlier in his career, that same committee denied him a position as a lifetime-tenured federal judge after lawyers testified he had used racially insensitive language. Sessions apologized for saying he thought the KKK was OK "until I found out they smoked pot," describing the episode as a joke.
His positions on social issues including same-sex marriage, marijuana legalization and funding for stem-cell research are conservative.
As NPR's Ailsa Chang reported earlier this year, Sessions had a controversial career as a prosecutor and allegations of racism have followed him for decades. He first rose to national attention when he prosecuted three black civil rights workers for voter fraud; a defense lawyer called it "voter persecution," and the jury returned no convictions.
The president of the NAACP called Sessions' appointment "troubling," while a legislative counsel at the ACLU called him "the senator with probably the most anti-immigrant, anti-refugee, anti-child record in the Senate."
Former Alabama Rep. Jo Bonner, a Republican from Sessions' hometown of Mobile, said President-elect Trump "has supreme confidence in Sen. Sessions' judgment, his wisdom, his character and his loyalty."
California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the committee that will review Sessions' nomination, said in a statement:
"Senator Sessions has served on the Senate Judiciary Committee for many years so he's well aware of the thorough vetting he's about to receive. And while many of us have worked with Senator Sessions closely and know him to be a staunch advocate for his beliefs, the process will remain the same: a fair and complete review of the nominee. While Senator Sessions and I differ on a great many issues, I am committed to a full and fair process."
The current attorney general is Loretta Lynch, the first black woman in that position (as a child, she attended civil rights rallies in the South with her parents) and the former U.S. attorney for the eastern district of New York.
Michael Flynn
Then-Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn testifies before the House Select Intelligence Committee in February 2014. He was forced out of that role later that year.
Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images
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Then-Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn testifies before the House Select Intelligence Committee in February 2014. He was forced out of that role later that year.
The brazen retired Army lieutenant general, who was also an early supporter of Trump, has been offered the position of national security adviser.
"General Flynn is one of the country's foremost experts on military and intelligence matters and he will be an invaluable asset to me and my administration," Trump said in the transition team statement.
Flynn said he was "deeply humbled and honored to accept the position as National Security Advisor to serve both our country and our nation's next President, Donald J. Trump."
Flynn has a track record of sharp elbows inside the U.S. intelligence community, as NPR's Tom Bowman wrote Friday. He was fired as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon's military-focused spy service, after pushing to send more operatives overseas and clashing with top staffers and his ultimate bosses in the White House:
"Within military circles, Flynn was a highly respected — though at times controversial — career intelligence officer. He worked his way up the ranks, including stints as the top intelligence officer for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and as Gen. Stanley McChrystal's top aide in Afghanistan. ...
"Flynn, by then a three-star general, went on to run the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon's military-centered spy service. But the workforce there complained he was trying to push through too many changes, including sending more employees overseas.
"Flynn argued that he was trying to get the bureaucracy to be more efficient, to do more. Critics said he couldn't run a large bureaucracy. He was forced out in 2014 after less than two years in the job."
Flynn's return to government in a top administration post could enable him to settle any outstanding scores within the intelligence world, depending on the support he receives from the president and the way Trump structures decision-making inside his national security apparatus.
During the Republican National Convention this summer, he joined in the chants of "Lock her up," in reference to Hillary Clinton. "It was a strange position for someone who was a career military officer and a registered Democrat from Rhode Island," Tom says.
Flynn, who recently wrote a book called The Field of Fight: How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its Allies, has called President Obama "a liar" and has troubled some former colleagues with his partisan political work, Tom reports.
The current national security adviser is Susan Rice, the former U.N. ambassador who was sharply criticized by congressional Republicans for making what she later acknowledged were "incorrect" statements after the Benghazi attack.
Trump's national security picks, including the choice of Flynn, illustrate the choices his administration will face as it translate the promises and rhetoric of the campaign into governance.
For example, Flynn told NPR in August that he thought it would be impractical to impose a blanket ban on travel by Muslims from around the world to the United States. A full stop on such arrivals — which Trump later revised to a call for "extreme vetting" for those entering the U.S. — was one of Trump's signature campaign promises. As president and national security adviser, however, Trump and Flynn must decide how much of either idea they take into the new administration and try to make into reality.
Another critical issue is the U.S. relationship with Russia. Candidate Trump repeated that he wanted better ties with Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, and for the two countries to work together in Syria to fight the Islamic State. (President Obama pursued such a deal but could not conclude one with Moscow.) Flynn's situation is even more nuanced. He's called Russia "an enemy" of the U.S. in his public comments and suggested in a book this year that it's part of a global axis arrayed against the United States. But Flynn also traveled to Moscow last year as a guest of Putin for a banquet celebrating the Russian state news agency RT, part of the Kremlin's propaganda operation targeting the West.
RT quoted a description of Flynn as a 'Russia-loving' appointment in its headline on Friday.
Rep. Mike Pompeo
House Committee on Benghazi member Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., questions then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, during a hearing in October 2015.
Jacquelyn Martin/AP
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House Committee on Benghazi member Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., questions then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, during a hearing in October 2015.
Pompeo, a third-term Republican congressman from Kansas, has been offered the post of CIA director.
"I am honored to have been given this opportunity to serve and to work alongside President-elect Donald J. Trump to keep America safe. I also look forward to working with America's intelligence warriors, who do so much to protect Americans each and every day," Pompeo said.
According to his congressional biography, he graduated from West Point and served as a cavalry officer. He attended Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review, before entering business as an executive in aerospace manufacturing and the oil industry.
He served on the Energy and Commerce committee as well as the House Intelligence Committee, and was a member of the House Select Committee on Benghazi.
The current CIA director is John Brennan, who joined the CIA in 1980 and was a station chief in Saudi Arabia and the chief of the national counterterrorism center.
Like Flynn, Pompeo — if confirmed as CIA director — would face decisions about how much of Trump's campaign rhetoric to attempt to implement as policy.
Pompeo has been as critical as Trump of the Iran nuclear deal, for example — would the two work together to dismantle it, or focus on other ways to try to punish Tehran? | Government Job change - Appoint_Inauguration | November 2016 | ['(NPR)'] |
British Muslim cleric Abu Hamza alMasri will be extradited to the United States to face terror charges. | Abu Hamza, 49, of west London is wanted by the US authorities on charges which include providing support to Al Qaeda.
The Egypt-born preacher is currently serving a seven-year jail term in the UK for inciting murder and race hate.
Abu Hamza's lawyer says he will appeal, but if it fails he will be handed to the US authorities within 28 days.
'Grave concerns'
The extradition was originally approved by a court in London in November, but the actual handover to US authorities had been pending the final approval of that decision by the home secretary.
The Americans have said he will not face the death penalty or be sent to the Guantanamo Bay detention camp - but how can we be sure?
Muddassar Arani
Abu Hamza's solicitor, Muddassar Arani, says he will appeal against the home secretary's ratification of the extradition order. They have 14 days to do so.
Ms Arani, said: "There are grave concerns about what might happen if the extradition goes ahead.
"The Americans have said he will not face the death penalty or be sent to the Guantanamo Bay detention camp - but how can we be sure?
Torture fear
"I also fear that if he was sent to America he would become a victim of torture.
Ms Arani added: "I understand this might be a popular move with some sections of the public. But we have to ask ourselves whether it is morally right.
"We have standards in this country that will not be upheld if we extradite Abu Hamza and whatever people think of him they should understand that."
The US government wants to put Abu Hamza on trial on 11 charges.
This is excellent news for Britain's Muslim community
Khalid Mahmood, MP for Birmingham Perry Bar
It alleges that he funded terrorism, organised a "terrorist training camp" in Oregon between 1998 and 2000, and conspired to take 12 Westerners hostage in Yemen in 1998.
The American charges carry a potential jail sentence of 100 years. Abu Hamza's lawyers claim US evidence has been gained through torture.
Khalid Mahmood, MP for Birmingham Perry Bar, welcomed the home secretary's decision.
He said: "This sends out a clear message to preachers of hate - you are not welcome.
'Delighted'
"Those who propagate evil, hate and division cannot be a part of British society.
"This is excellent news for Britain's Muslim community. For too long Abu Hamza tarnished their name and now they will be delighted to learn he will face further charges in the US."
Abu Hamza was convicted in February 2006 of 11 of the 15 charges he faced in the UK.
He became well known as the imam of Finsbury Park mosque in north London but was dismissed from his position in 2003 after making speeches supporting al-Qaeda and criticising the invasion of Iraq. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | February 2008 | ['(BBC News)'] |
Clashes break out between refugees from Sri Lanka and Afghanistan at an Australian immigration centre on Christmas Island. | Asylum seekers involved in a wild brawl on Christmas Island over the weekend are being threatened with deportation.
More than 40 detainees and five security staff were injured in the clash.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says detainees found guilty of serious offences as a result of the riot will have that taken into account during the processing of their asylum claims.
Mr Rudd and his Immigration Minister Chris Evans were peppered with questions during Question Time this afternoon about the riot and the Government's asylum seeker policies.
One-hundred-and-fifty people were involved in the half-hour brawl at the Christmas Island detention centre on Saturday night. Three detainees suffered serious injuries and were flown to Perth for specialised care.
It is claimed that pool cues, tree branches and broom handles were used in the fight between Sri Lankan and Afghan detainees.
Refugee campaigners say overcrowding led to the violence, but the Government says tension had been building at the centre for some time, due partly to concerns from some Sri Lankans that their asylum applications will fail.
Mr Rudd says the riot could affect the refugee applications of the asylum seekers involved.
"If a detainee on Christmas Island has committed a serious offence, this will be taken into consideration as part of the assessment as to whether or not they are granted a visa," Mr Rudd said.
Senator Evans says the Immigration Department is investigating the riot and Federal Police are looking at laying criminal charges.
"Those that were responsible, if we can identify them, will be prosecuted after an AFP investigation," he said.
"Clearly though security at the centre will be tightened to ensure we don't have any incidents like this again."
The Federal Government recently announced plans to expand the capacity of the Christmas Island detention centre to 1,400, but it is not there yet.
It can only accommodate 1,028 and the latest head count is 975.
Ian Rintoul from the Refugee Action Coalition has been in contact with some of the detainees since the riot.
He says many asylum seekers are worried by some recent deportations, but the sheer number of asylum seekers at the centre is the main reason for the riot.
"I have spoken to one Afghan and one Tamil detainee inside the detention centre. The incident seems like it was confined to just one compound, but they were aware of the situation and had spoken to people and the Afghan guy had observed some of it certainly," he said.
"What they say is that there was no particular cause. That is was a result, people are angry, people are frustrated.
"The overcrowded conditions inside simply boiled over inside the Green 1 compound and the Afghan detainee told me he was surprised it hasn't happened before and he is very certain that it will happen again."
Mr Rintoul says the overcrowding is leading to restricted access to recreation facilities and the internet has been cut off.
"There is restricted news access, restrictions on some of the access to kitchen facilities and making tea and coffee during the day, trying to save," he said.
"It is those kinds of tensions or there are ethnic tensions simply to divert attention away from the deteriorating conditions inside Christmas Island and all the problems that are associated with mandatory detention.
"The Rudd Government has seen fit to continue those Howard government policies and it is now reaping the whirlwind.
"All the consequences, all the difficulties that were faced by the Howard government, will be visited on the Rudd Government because they have perpetuated the appalling conditions in mandatory detention."
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AEST = Australian Eastern Standard Time which is 10 hours ahead of GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) | Riot | November 2009 | ['(BBC)', '(Xinhua)', '(ABC News)'] |
The remnant of Hurricane Norbert causes heavy flooding in the state of Arizona leading to the declaration of a state of emergency and causing one death. , | (CNN) -- Record-setting rains slammed the southwestern United States on Monday, turning roadways into rivers as flash floods washed away cars.
Up to 200 children were briefly trapped in an elementary school in Moapa, Nevada, due to the waters, the state highway patrol said Monday night.
The students at Perkins Elementary school, about 60 miles from Las Vegas, were with teachers and not in danger, said Highway Patrol Spokesman Loy Hixson.
Flash flooding also washed a portion of Interstate 15 away near the community of Glendale, taking many vehicles with it. No one has been injured but it has taken so much of the highway that it may not be fixed until Wednesday, Hixson said.
In Arizona, the governor declared an emergency Monday as flooding from the historic rains closed roads and schools in her state.
A woman was killed after her car was submerged in floodwaters, the Tucson Fire Department said. Rescuers were unable to reach the vehicle in time.
"Within a minute of us getting there, the car washed away," Capt. Barrett Baker told CNN. The waters were up to 12 feet deep, he said, and swept the car for several blocks.
In Phoenix, the flooding left morning commuters stranded on Interstate 10, CNN affiliate KTVK reported.
"This rain is coming down so hard you can't even see to drive, not to mention the thunder and lightning right now," KTVK reporter Jill Galus said in a Twitter post early Monday morning.
In just 24 hours, Phoenix saw more than 6 inches of rain, said Chad Myers, CNN meteorologist and severe weather expert.
"The problem with this ... was that it happened in the dark, it happened before the sunlight, and people were driving into it," he said.
What's causing the record-setting rains and flash floods in the Southwest?
Blame Norbert, which hit Mexico's coast as a hurricane on Saturday. Now the storm system is moving through the United States, and it's still packing a punch.
"This could go on for a few more days," Myers said.
Using the Twitter hashtag #TurnAroundDontDrown, Gov. Jan Brewer's office warned motorists to stay off the streets and said non-essential state employees should remain at home.
By mid-morning Tuesday, the National Weather Service said 2.96 inches of rain had fallen at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, breaking the record of the largest amount of rain to fall in a single calendar day. The airport remained open but fights were delayed by the weather.
The rainfall total in just one day was more than the average amount of rain the area typically sees during its rainy season, officials said.
Videos and photographs from CNN affiliates showed cars submerged in fast-moving floodwaters.
At least 5,000 customers are without power due to flooding and storms in the Phoenix metro area, and the number is expected to grow, Arizona Public Service spokesman Steve Gotfried said.
The Roosevelt School District called off classes "due to the heavy rains and low visibility as a result of fog," officials said in a Facebook post.
Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton declared a state of emergency and said his city was facing a historic amount of rain. Police and fire dispatchers fielded thousands of calls as the storm hit, officials said.
"I am confident as mayor that all the appropriate steps have been taken, are being taken right now and will be taken," Stanton told reporters. "Obviously, we're monitoring the weather very, very closely."
By Monday afternoon rains had stopped in Phoenix, but storms could pick up again overnight, Myers said. | Hurricanes_Tornado_Storm_Blizzard | September 2014 | ['(CNN)'] |
Twin bomb blasts in the Turkish capital Ankara near the main train station leave at least 97 people dead and over 400 wounded. The bombing occurred during a peace rally protesting the conflict between Turkey and the militant Kurdish PKK. , , | Two explosions at a peace rally in the Turkish capital Ankara have killed at least 95 people and injured 245, according to officials.
TV footage showed scenes of panic and people lying on the ground covered in blood, amid protest banners.
The blasts took place near the city's central train station as people gathered for a march organised by leftist groups.
The attack is the deadliest ever of its kind on Turkish soil.
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has announced three days of national mourning, and said there was evidence that two suicide bombers had carried out the attacks.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the attack, which comes three weeks before a re-run of June's inconclusive parliamentary elections, was an act of terrorism and was "loathsome". He has cancelled a planned visit to Turkmenistan.
The rally was demanding an end to the violence between the Kurdish separatist PKK militants and the Turkish government, and had been due to start at 12:00 local time.
The pro-Kurdish HDP party was among those attending, and it said in a statement that it believes its members were the main target of the bombings.
HDP leader Selahettin Demirtas has blamed the state for the attack and has cancelled all election rallies. Mr Demirtas angrily condemned the government as "murderers" and said it had blood on its hands.
The party has previously blamed the government for colluding in attacks on Kurdish activists, which the government denies.
The two explosions happened shortly after 10:00 as crowds gathered ahead of the rally. Amateur video footage showed a group of young people holding hands and singing, before the first blast.
"I lost two of my friends," eyewitness Murat Tasdemir told me. "They are now dead. Many of my friends are wounded. We had to carry the dead and the injured to the ambulances ourselves."
They had come to the scene to gather for what was supposed to be a peace rally. Two attacks within seconds tore them apart. The site is now cordoned off as crime scene investigation units scour the area. The banners that read "Peace" are scattered across the ground.
People across Turkey are mourning for the victims of this deadliest attack on Turkish soil. Many are wondering: What next? If such an attack could take place in the middle of the capital city, how will security be maintained for elections in three weeks' time, they ask.
Bulent Tekdemir, who was at the rally, told the BBC that the police used tear gas "as soon as the bomb went off", and "would not let ambulances through".
A local resident said that angry people tried to attack police cars after the blast. The HDP tweeted that police "attacked" people carrying the injured away.
After the ceasefire between the PKK and the Turkish state broke down in July, Turkey has spiralled into tit-for-tat attacks between the two sides, and tension between Kurds and Turkish nationalists has soared. Amidst the frenzy of a repeat election in November, it was expected that something dangerous was imminent.
The pro-Kurdish HDP party has blamed the state. That is undoubtedly a reference to the so-called "deep state" often talked about here: a shady mix of nationalist forces either colluding with or supporting the government in power.
The West's vital ally in the Middle East is now facing a perfect storm: deep political polarisation, the bubble of economic success on the brink of bursting, a resumption of violence with the PKK, the threat from Islamic State, and two million Syrian refugees and counting. The tragedy in Ankara is a sign of the dark times Turkey is now facing.
Who are the Kurds?
Turkey v Islamic State v the Kurds: What's going on?
An HDP rally in the city of Diyarbakir was bombed in June, ahead of general elections in which the party entered parliament for the first time.
In July, a suicide bombing by suspected Islamic State militants on a gathering of socialist youth activists in the town of Suruc on the Syrian border killed at least 30 people.
A ceasefire between the Kurdish militant group the PKK and Turkey's government later broke down, with the PKK accusing the security forces of collaborating with IS.
This led to an increase in attacks from both sides over the summer.
On Saturday the PKK called on its fighters to halt its guerrilla activities in Turkey unless attacked first. A statement from an umbrella group that includes the PKK said its forces would "make no attempts to hinder or harm the exercise of a fair and equal election".
| Armed Conflict | October 2015 | ['(BBC)', '(CNN)', '(Sky News Australia)'] |
British actor Sir John Hurt dies at the age of 77. | The British actor of stage and screen also received an Academy Award nom for 'Midnight Express' and was memorable in 'Alien,' three Harry Potter films and 'Doctor Who.'
By
John Hurt, the esteemed British actor known for his burry voice and weathered visage — one that was kept hidden for his most acclaimed role, that of the deformed John Merrick in David Lynch’s The Elephant Man — died Friday in London. He was 77.
The two-time Oscar nominee’s six-decade career also included turns on the BBC’s Doctor Who and in A Man for All Seasons (1966), Midnight Express (1978) and three Harry Potter films.
Hurt announced in June 2015 that he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
On screens big and small, Hurt died what seemed a thousand deaths. “I think I’ve got the record,” he once said. “It got to a point where my children wouldn’t ask me if I died, but rather how do you die?”
On his YouTube page, a video titled “The Many Deaths of John Hurt” compiled his cinematic demises in 4 minutes and 30 seconds, from The Wild and the Willing (1962) to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), 40 in all.
One of his most memorable came when he played Kane, the first victim in Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979), in which he collapses over a table and a snakelike alien bursts out of his chest. (How’d they do that? There was an artificial chest screwed to the table, and Hurt was underneath.)
“Ridley didn’t tell the cast,” executive producer Ronald Shusett told Empire magazine in 2009. “He said, ‘They’re just going to see it.’”
Explained Scott: “The reactions were going to be the most difficult thing. If an actor is just acting terrified, you can’t get the genuine look of raw, animal fear. What I wanted was a hardcore reaction.”
Hurt then lampooned the famous torso-busting scene for director Mel Brooks — whose production company produced 1980’s The Elephant Man — for the 1987 comedy Spaceballs.
The Elephant Man received eight Academy Award nominations, including one for Hurt as best actor, but went home empty on Oscar night. (Hurt lost out to Robert De Niro as boxer Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull.)
In 1980, he recalled the extensive makeup needed to become the kind-hearted man with the monstrous skull.
“It never occurred to me it would take eight hours for them to apply the full thing — virtually a working day in itself. There were 16 different pieces to that mask,” he said. “With all that makeup on, I couldn’t be sure what I was doing. I had to rely totally on [Lynch].”
Hurt also garnered an Oscar best supporting actor nomination and a Golden Globe win in 1979 for Midnight Express, in which he portrayed a heroin addict in a Turkish prison. The Alan Parker drama was based on the true story of Billy Hayes (played by Brad Davis), an American college student caught smuggling drugs.
“I loved making Midnight Express,” he said in 2014. “We were making commercial films then that really did have cracking scenes in them, as well as plenty to say, you know?”
His more recent film appearances came in Snowpiercer (2013), The Journey (2016) and Jackie (2016). He is set to be seen in the upcoming features That Good Night and My Name Is Lenny and was to play Neville Chamberlain in the upcoming Joe Wright drama Darkest Hour.
John Vincent Hurt was born Jan. 22, 1940, in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, England. He studied art at his parents’ behest, earning an art teacher’s diploma. Disillusioned with the prospect of becoming a teacher, Hurt moved to London, where he won an acting scholarship at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He studied there for two years, securing bit parts on TV shows.
“I wanted to act very early. I didn’t know how to become an actor, as such, nor did I know that it was possible to be a professional actor, but I first decided that I wanted to act when I was 9,” Hurt told The Guardian in 2000. “I was effused with a feeling of complete and total enjoyment, and I felt that’s where I should be.”
He made his London stage debut in Infanticide in the House of Fred Ginger in 1962. That year, Hurt acted in his first film, The Wild and the Willing, and his role as the duplicitous baron Richard Rich in Oscar best picture winner A Man for All Seasons helped him become more widely known in the U.S.
He often played wizened, sinister characters. In his younger years, his wiry frame, sallow skin and beady eyes curled together in performances that bespoke menace and hard-wrought wisdom. Hurt was especially effective playing psychologically ravaged characters, like when he was a jockey plagued with cancer in Champions (1984) or the viciously decadent Caligula in the 1976 BBC miniseries I, Claudius.
He brought his peculiarly powerful persona to the role of Mr. Ollivander in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001) and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010) and Part 2 (2011).
Hurt also had a recurring role as Trevor “Broom” Bruttenholm in Hellboy (2004) and Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008) and was the voice of the character in the 2007 TV movie Hellboy Animated: Blood and Iron.
Other film credits include The Sailor From Gibraltar (1967), Sinful Davey (1969), 10 Rillington Place (1971), The Osterman Weekend (1983), White Mischief (1987), King Ralph (1991) and Rob Roy (1995). He played a fascist leader of Great Britain in V for Vendetta (2006) and was Professor Oxley in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008).
Hurt also was known for his rich, nicotine-toned timbre, which won him many voiceover assignments. He was the narrator in The Tigger Movie (2000), Dogville (2003), Manderlay (2005) and Charlie Countryman (2013) and lent his dulcet utterances to The Lord of the Rings (1978), Watership Down (1978), The Black Cauldron (1985), Thumbelina (1994) and the Oscar-nominated short film The Gruffalo (2009).
“I have always been aware of voice in film. I think that it’s almost 50 percent of your equipment [as an actor],” he once said. “It’s as important as what you look like, certainly on stage and possibly on film as well. If you think of any of the great American stars, you think of their voices and their looks, any of them — from Clark Gable to Rock Hudson.”
For the small screen, Hurt starred on the TV shows The Storyteller, The Alan Clark Diaries, The Confession and Merlin and in the miniseries Crime and Punishment and Labyrinth. He notably played the War Doctor in the 2013-14 season of Doctor Who.
On participating in the Whovian fandom, Hurt said in 2013: “I’ve done a couple of conferences where you sit and sign autographs for people and then you have photographs taken with them and a lot of them are all dressed up in alien suits or Doctor Who whatevers. I was terrified of doing it because I thought they’d all be loonies, but they are absolutely, totally charming as anything. I’m not saying it’s the healthiest thing — I don’t know whether it is or isn’t — but they are very charming.”
The accomplished stage actor performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company and Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. In 1994, he starred opposite Helen Mirren in Bill Bryden’s West End production of A Month in the Country, and he scraped out an edgy and vigorously dour performance in Samuel Beckett’s autobiographical one-man drama Krapp’s Last Tape in 1999.
When asked about the difference between film and stage acting, Hurt explained: “It’s rather like two different sports. You use two completely different sets of muscles.”
In 2012, Hurt was honored with a lifetime achievement award by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, then was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in July 2015.
Survivors include his fourth wife Anwen Rees-Myers, whom he married in 2005, and sons Alexander and Nicholas. | Famous Person - Death | January 2017 | ['(Hollywood Reporter)'] |
The Nepalese Maoist Party says that they will withdraw support from Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli and form a new government. | KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Nepal’s embattled Prime Minister K.P. Oli will not resign after the main Maoist party that props up his fragile coalition said on Wednesday it would try to form a new government, plunging the Himalayan nation into crisis.
An aide said the 64-year-old leader, who has been in power for just eight months, would seek cross-party talks. If those fail, a no-confidence motion could follow in parliament, holding out the prospect of more uncertainty.
Oli rose to power with the backing of the Maoists after promising to resolve protests against a new constitution by southern plains dwellers and to step up efforts to rebuild homes destroyed by earthquakes last year.
Increasing public anger at Oli has led the Maoists - who waged a decade-long insurgency before joining mainstream politics in 2006 - to conclude that he was an obstacle to ending the constitutional standoff.
Minority Madhesis, who live along the border with India, had imposed a blockade in protest at a proposal to carve Nepal into seven federal states. They say it would divide their homeland and deprive them of a fair say in running the country.
“Our party has decided to form the new government and we appeal to other political parties to help us resolve the outstanding political problems in the south through talks,” said Narayan Kaji Shrestha, a leader of the unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist).
Shrestha said the main opposition Nepali Congress party had offered to support Maoist leader Prachanda to replace Oli.
Oli’s grip on power has been in question for months, but aide Bishnu Rimal said he would seek clarifications from the Maoists about their concerns.
“We invite all political parties including the Nepali Congress and the Madhesi groups to join this cabinet to make it a national government and resolve all outstanding problems,” Rimal told Reuters.
Kunda Dixit, editor of the Nepali Times, said Prachanda could resolve the deadlock in the south by bringing the Madhesi parties and the Nepali Congress on board in a government that includes major stakeholders.
Prakash Sharan Mahat, a Nepali Congress lawmaker, said his party was exploring alternatives to Oli, who he said had failed to deliver on promises.
Prachanda, who goes by the nom-de-guerre he used in the insurgency that means “Fierce”, will need the support of Oli’s Unified Marxist-Leninist Party (UML) or other groups in a fragmented parliament to form a government.
“Any new government does not mean the constitutional issue will be solved like that,” said Lok Raj Baral, a commentator and former diplomat. “If any new government wants to amend the constitution, then the support of the UML will be vital.”
The earthquakes last year killed 9,000 people and destroyed one million homes. International donors pledged $4.1 billion for reconstruction but most of it remains unspent due to political squabbling.
Additional reporting by Ross Adkin; Editing by Douglas Busvine and Robert Birsel
| Famous Person - Give a speech | May 2016 | ['(Reuters)'] |
In boxing, WBO Super bantamweight titleholder Nonito Donaire is named as 2012 Sugar Ray Robinson Fighter of the Year by the Boxing Writers Association of America. | Junior featherweight titleholder Nonito Donaire, who had a dominant 2012 campaign, was voted Sugar Ray Robinson Fighter of the Year in balloting results announced on Sunday by the Boxing Writers Association of America.
Donaire, previously named 2012 ESPN.com fighter of the year, had a huge campaign. After vacating his bantamweight titles, Donaire moved up in weight and won two belts at junior featherweight. He also was 4-0 last year in an era when most top fighters rarely fight more than three times a year.
Donaire also scored knockdowns in each of his wins, which came against former titleholders Wilfredo Vazquez Jr., Toshiaki Nishioka and Jorge Arce as well as Jeffrey Mathebula in a unification fight.
The awards will be given out at the BWAA's annual banquet, which will be held in the spring in New York on a date and at a venue to be announced.
The other award winners:
• Robert Garcia, Donaire's trainer, was voted winner of the Eddie Futch Trainer of the Year award. Besides Donaire, Garcia, also the ESPN.com trainer of the year, trains junior welterweight contender Brandon Rios, who knocked out Mike Alvarado in October in one of the best fights of 2012. He also trains his younger brother Miguel Angel "Mikey" Garcia, a top featherweight contender before winning a world title on Jan. 19, welterweight contender Marcos Maidana and several other fighters.
• The BWAA voted the Dec. 8 fourth fight between Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez as the Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier Fight of the Year. The welterweight rivals slugged it out and traded knockdowns before Marquez scored a massive one-punch knockout of Pacquiao with one second left in the sixth round. Pacquiao still leads the series 2-1-1. The fight was also the ESPN.com fight of the year.
• Al Haymon, the reclusive power broker who handles numerous top fighters, was voted winner of the Cus D'Amato Manager of the Year award. He has a vast roster of top fighters, including pound-for-pound king Floyd Mayweather Jr., junior welterweight titlist Danny Garcia, lightweight titleholder Adrien Broner, heavyweight contender Cristobal Arreola, middleweight titleholder Peter Quillin, junior middleweight titlist Austin Trout, welterweight titlist Devon Alexander, former welterweight titlist Andre Berto, bantamweight titleholder Leo Santa Cruz and several members of the 2012 U.S. Olympic team.
• Middleweight Danny Jacobs, the 2009 ESPN.com prospect of the year, won the Bill Crawford Award for courage in overcoming adversity. The 25-year-old Jacobs returned to the ring in October after a 19-month layoff caused by his battle with cancer. Jacobs nearly died from a tumor that wrapped itself around his spine. He is now cancer-free and has won both of his fights since beating the disease.
• HBO analyst Max Kellerman, the former co-host of ESPN2's "Friday Night Fights," was voted winner of the Sam Taub Award for excellence in broadcast journalism. Recipients can only win this award once.
• Main Events promoter Kathy Duva and Top Rank matchmaker Bruce Trampler, a member of the International Boxing Hall of Fame, tied in voting for the Barney Nagler Award for long and meritorious service to boxing. They will both be honored.
• Steve Farhood, the Showtime analyst and longtime writer, won the Marvin Kohn Good Guy Award. Farhood has previously won the broadcaster and long and meritorious service awards.
In previously announced awards, Dave Kindred won Nat Fleischer Award, a lifetime achievement award for excellence in boxing journalism, and Peter Finney won the A.J. Liebling Award for outstanding boxing writing. | Sports Competition | January 2013 | ['(ESPN)', '(GMA News)'] |
A ceasefire is declared between Houthi fighters and the Yemeni government in northern Yemen. | The ceasefire between the Yemeni government and northern Shia rebels has been violated only hours after it came into effect, according to a minister. The truce had been seen as crucial in preventing Yemen becoming a failed state.
The deputy interior minister, Mohammed Abdullah al-Qawsi, said the rebels killed one soldier and wounded another in an attack on a security office in Saada province. Rebels also opened fire on his convoy, he said.
The truce started at midnight after Yemen's president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, declared an end to military operations against the Houthi clan.
Despite today's killing it is hoped the agreement will bring an end to a six-year conflict that has drawn in neighbouring Saudi Arabia and diverted resources from efforts to fight al-Qaida.
Unnamed security officials told the Associated Press they expected minor violations of the deal but have insisted the ceasefire remains in force.
Bringing an end to the conflict took on a new urgency for western leaders following the failed attempt by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to blow up an aeroplane bound for Detroit on Christmas Day. Abdulmutallab said he was trained by al-Qaida in Yemen.
Several earlier ceasefires quickly disintegrated, mainly because the rebels said their demands were not addressed. As part of this agreement government and rebel representatives will sit on committees to oversee the truce.
"We have decided to halt military operations in the north-western region … to stop bloodshed, bring peace to the region, the return of displaced people to their villages, reconstruction and achieve national reconciliation," Saleh's office said in a statement.
The leader of the rebels, who complain of social, religious and economic discrimination, have told their followers to abide by the agreement.
"According to what was agreed upon, Abdel-Malik Badreddin al-Houthi issued instructions to all fronts and fighting sites to stop firing coinciding with the timing announced by the government," said a rebel statement quoted by Reuters.
Last week, the government presented the rebels with a detailed ceasefire agreement after the militants accepted the government's terms.
The president's office cautioned that the halt to military operations depends on the rebels' commitment to observing the government's conditions. Yemen has demanded that the militants disarm, release captured soldiers and property, clear mountain hideouts, abide by the constitution and vow not to attack Saudi Arabia.
Neighbouring Saudi Arabia became involved in the conflict in November after rebels crossed the border and killed two Saudi border guards. One hundred and thirty three Saudi soldiers have died in the fighting.
The rebels announced a unilateral ceasefire with Saudi Arabia in late January. However, the Saudis responded cautiously to the rebel announcement, and demanded militants pull back from border positions and return five missing soldiers. | Armed Conflict | February 2010 | ['(The Guardian)', '(Al Jazeera)', '(Press TV)'] |
Mike Nesbitt announces he is standing down as leader of the Ulster Unionist Party following the party's poor performance in yesterday's Northern Ireland Assembly election. | The former broadcaster was elected to the Assembly in 2011 as an MLA for Strangford and became leader in March 2012 when Tom Elliott stood down after just 18 months in the job.
Although he retained his seat in the 2017 Assembly election, several of his party colleagues failed to retain theirs. Mr Nesbitt said he would remain in the post until a successor has been found. The Ulster Unionist Party's (UUP) poor election performance saw a number of party figures losing their seats. Jo-Anne Dobson, Harold McKee, Jenny Palmer and former Stormont minister Danny Kennedy all failed to be returned.
At a news conference on Friday evening, the UUP leader said it would be the "height of hypocrisy" if he did not take "full responsibility" for his party's results.
However, he said he would remain as an MLA for Strangford.
Mr Nesbitt said the electorate had rejected his message.
"I am the one who suggested that in a normal society people would vote on performance and that the DUP and Sinn Féin did not earn another mandate," he said. "I'm also the one who said this should be Northern Ireland's first post-sectarian election based on the economy and education and health and housing and that I had a different vision but the electorate disagreed. "They certainly did not give me a mandate big enough for me to feel justified in continuing in this position so I shall not." Party colleague, Doug Beattie, who was re-elected as an MLA in Upper Bann said he was saddened to hear that Mr Nesbitt was standing down as he was a "personal friend and colleague".
Former party colleague John McCallister described it as an "honourable decision".
The Alliance Party leader Naomi Long said she was "quite shocked by how swiftly he had decided to depart the stage".
In the May 2016 Assembly election, Mr Nesbitt said he was "stunned" when he topped the poll in Strangford. The UUP secured 16 seats at Stormont last year - the same number as the 2011 election. He said the UUP's campaign had been neither a success, nor a failure.
Following the assembly elections in May 2016, Mr Nesbitt led the UUP into opposition at Stormont alongside the SDLP.
In February, Mr Nesbitt faced criticism after saying he intended to give the SDLP his second preference in the Assembly election.
Ulster Unionists had wanted the election to be a referendum on how the Renewable Heat Incentive debacle was handled but instead the focus turned to his comments.
Senior party colleague, Danny Kennedy, who lost his seat as an MLA in Newry and Armagh, publically distanced himself from Mr Nesbitt in the aftermath of his remarks. UUP councillor Carol Black resigned from the party as a result of his comments saying the party's "whole ethos" had been destroyed by Mr Nesbitt's voting intentions. Mr Nesbitt defended his remarks and said he had received "very little criticism" while spending a lot of time time knocking doors in heavily unionist areas.
| Government Job change - Resignation_Dismissal | March 2017 | ['(UUP)', '(BBC)'] |
The Queensland Labor Party led by Annastacia Palaszczuk will be in a position to form a minority government after the polls are declared in the Queensland state election. | Queensland Labor leader Annastacia Palaszczuk is confirmed as the state's next Premier, with an interim ministry to be sworn in today.
With a broad smile, Ms Palaszczuk emerged from meeting Queensland's Governor Paul de Jersey on Friday to declare she had been invited to form Government. "It's an extremely humbling experience," she said outside Government House in Brisbane.
The Electoral Commission of Queensland (ECQ) finished declaring the 89 seats which make up Queensland Parliament at 2:15pm (AEST) on Friday.
Labor won 44 electorates and will have the crucial 45 to form a minority government with the support of independent Peter Wellington.
Ms Palaszczuk arrived at Government House for her meeting with the Governor just as Liberal National Party (LNP) leader Lawrence Springborg left.
In a statement outside Old Parliament House, Mr Springborg congratulated Ms Palaszczuk and her team.
"I wish the new Government all the very best in their deliberations over the next few months," he said.
"This night is Annastacia's night."
Meanwhile, the ECQ announced it would not lodge a petition with the Court of Disputed Returns for the seat of Ferny Grove following additional legal advice.
ALP candidate Mark Furner was declared the successful candidate by the ECQ on Thursday by more than 400 votes after preferences.
Palmer United Party candidate Marc Taverner stood for the seat but was revealed to be an undischarged bankrupt, invalidating his candidacy and putting the seat into contention.
He received 993 votes, with 353 of those "exhausted" with no further preferences for Labor, the LNP or Greens candidates.
"Based on preliminary legal advice received last week, the commission intended to refer the Ferny Grove election to the Court of Disputed Returns," an ECQ media release said.
Annastacia Palaszczuk has been dubbed the "accidental Premier", but those closest to her say there was nothing accidental about the way she brought down Campbell Newman.
"However having regard to the final count in Ferny Grove, the winning margin, the number of votes for the PUP candidate and the distribution of preferences, the commission will not be making an application to the Court of Disputed Returns."
LNP state director Brad Henderson said the party would consider its own advice on the matter.
"Following the ECQ's change of mind, the party will now consider its position and seek its own legal advice on whether the matter should be referred to court," Mr Henderson said in a statement.
The LNP finished with 42 seats and Katter's Australian Party with two seats - although they have yet to announce which party they will back.
Meanwhile, ECQ has rejected One Nation founder Pauline Hanson's request for a recount in the seat of Lockyer, after she lost by 184 votes after preferences.
"The Electoral Act 1992 (Qld) provides that recounts are conducted entirely at the discretion of the Electoral Commission and on this occasion the Commissioner did not find sufficient grounds on which to exercise his discretion and order a recount of votes at Lockyer," an ECQ media release stated.
Earlier Curtis Pitt, who served as shadow treasurer for Labor for the past three years, would not confirm if he would be treasurer under a Labor government.
Nevertheless, he has had a confidential briefing with Treasury in the past week.
Mr Pitt said a recent assessment showed economic growth was contracting, due in part to a deteriorating global environment.
"We will be facing an ongoing economy that is sluggish and continued concerns about unemployment," Mr Pitt told 612 ABC Brisbane.
We acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Australians and Traditional Custodians of the lands where we live, learn, and work. | Government Job change - Election | February 2015 | ['(ABC Australia)'] |
The Mendocino Complex Fire grows into the largest active wildfire in California history. | Twin wildfires in California, known as the Mendocino Complex Fire, have grown to become the largest active wildfire in state history, officials said on Monday.
The fires have spread rapidly in recent days to burn 283,800 acres of land - an area almost the size of Los Angeles.
Firefighters are tackling 16 major blazes across the state amid hot weather, strong winds and low humidity.
At least seven people have been killed in the Carr fire in the state's north. Meanwhile US President Donald Trump has reiterated social media comments that the fires' spread is being "made so much worse" by California's environmental laws.
Local officials and experts have criticised and dismissed his tweets. More than 14,000 firefighters and hundreds of US army personnel are trying to contain the more than a dozen major fires burning throughout the state.
National Weather Service meteorologist Brian Hurley has warned conditions are not going to immediately improve - with temperatures as high as 43C (110F) being forecast for some areas. Officials say the Mendocino Complex Fire, which is made up of two nearby fires being treated as the same incident, has surpassed last year's Thomas Fire to become the largest in state history.
Scott McLean, a deputy chief with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CalFire) described the wildfires as "extremely fast, extremely aggressive, extremely dangerous," "Look how big it got, just in a matter of days... Look how fast this Mendocino Complex went up in ranking. That doesn't happen. That just doesn't happen," he said on Monday.
It is only 30% contained so far, with authorities warning it could take another week to get the blaze under control. Experts say 2018 has the worst start to the fire season in 10 years - partly due to the 2012-2017 drought that killed off large amounts of vegetation.
In December, Governor Jerry Brown said devastating wildfires fuelled by climate change had become "the new normal".
The US president has criticised Governor Jerry Brown and California's environmental laws on social media in recent days. He tweeted on Monday that the wildfires were being "magnified & made so much worse" because of a Californian policy to divert water into the Pacific Ocean.
Governor Jerry Brown must allow the Free Flow of the vast amounts of water coming from the North and foolishly being diverted into the Pacific Ocean. Can be used for fires, farming and everything else. Think of California with plenty of Water - Nice! Fast Federal govt. approvals.
California wildfires are being magnified & made so much worse by the bad environmental laws which aren’t allowing massive amounts of readily available water to be properly utilized. It is being diverted into the Pacific Ocean. Must also tree clear to stop fire from spreading!
Deputy fire chief Mr Mclean dismissed Mr Trump's comments to US media, saying firefighters had "plenty of water" to tackle these wildfires. "Our changing climate is leading to more severe and destructive fires that we are seeing this year and last," he told Time magazine.
Some believe Mr Trump's tweets refer to a row about water supplies, fish habitat protection and local farmers - but environmental experts say this has no relevance to the state's firefighting capability. Thousands flee 'tornado' California fires
Dry conditions fuel California wildfires
How wildfires start and how to stop them
| Fire | August 2018 | ['(BBC)'] |
Canadian tourist Kristian Lee Baxter, who had been held in Syrian detention since 2018, is released in Lebanon. | Kristian Lee Baxter arrived in the country on 26 November and stopped contacting his family about a week later. His mother, Andrea Leclair, previously described her son as a "world traveller" and "adventurer". "I thought I would be there forever," Mr Baxter said during an emotional appearance at a news conference in Beirut on Friday.
"I didn't know if anyone knew if I was alive," he added. Lebanon's security chief Abbas Ibrahim, who appeared alongside him, said the Canadian was detained for "reasons related to breaking Syrian law".
Mr Ibrahim was also involved in securing the release of a US traveller, Sam Goodwin, from Syria last month. Canada has advised citizens against travelling to Syria since civil war broke out in 2011. "Syria is not safe for personal travel," the advisory on their website says. "Attempting any form of travel in this very hazardous security environment would place you at grave risk."
Canada's Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland told reporters in Calgary on Friday that she is "personally relieved by this outcome and I'm sure Mr Baxter's family and loved ones are as well". She added that despite the positive outcome in this case that it "should remind us all to exercise a high degree of caution when traveling to dangerous parts of the world". "I'm ecstatic that Kristian is on his way home," said Ms Leclair in a statement, and thanked Canadian officials and the Lebanese government for their assistance in the case.
Mr Baxter, who was 44 when he went missing, was supposed to return home on 13 December.
Ms Leclair told CTV News in January that her son had been staying at a village near the Lebanese border after arriving there from Beirut. He reportedly disappeared while attempting to locate a driver who had gone back to Lebanon to retrieve his luggage, which arrived there by plane after him.
The driver was reportedly detained on the border when a metal detector was found in her son's bag, Ms Leclair said. The circumstances of Mr Baxter's detention and release have not been revealed by officials. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Release | August 2019 | ['(BBC)'] |
The bodies of three people killed by bushfires in Australia are found – two near Glen Innes, and one at Johns River – as fires that have destroyed at least 150 houses continue to burn in eastern New South Wales and Queensland. |
A "state of fire emergency" has been declared across vast swathes of Queensland as firefighters battle multiple fires in "tinderbox-like conditions".
The declaration, effective from 5pm on Saturday, bans the lighting of all types of outdoor fires across 42 local government areas spread throughout south-east, south-west, central, north and far-north Queensland.
Queensland authorities declare 'state of fire emergency' in parts of state.Credit:Noosa Council
It also bans certain potentially fire-causing activities, following what authorities describe as a period of significantly heightened fire weather conditions.
Queensland Fire and Emergency Services acting Commissioner Mike Wassing said: "This declaration is vital to prevent bushfires breaking out and posing a danger to lives and property."
Read more here.
Port Macquarie resident Maria Doherty said she was evacuated from her home on Friday night at 11pm.
"Neighbours came tearing in screaming for us to evacuate," she said.
"We had a day watching from the back fence as helicopter after helicopter dropped water from a local dam repeatedly on fires about a hundred metres from our fence line."
Port Macquarie's sky turned orange and red as the bushfire raged on Friday.
The fire above Port Macqurie turned orange and red on Friday night as bushfires tore through the area.Credit: Nine News
"Today was a better day although roads were closed this morning," she said. "We finally got home after driving a few miles around the long way."
Ms Doherty said they cheered when they saw the house was intact.
"I put a call out for strong men with chainsaws to help clear up the charred remains of trees on our property and the neighbours places too. So many people turned up," she said.
"Then after a few hours of work - smoke plumes encroached, getting really thick and we realised our cul de sac was again in flames although this time from a southerly direction.
"We had to chop down trees and break through the back fence and our helpers stacked logs over the ditches to enable the cars to get out.
"We had a convoy going through and all piled into the more open school grounds.
A few hours later, Ms Doherty was able to return to her home, finding her home intact again.
"We are exhausted but also realising how very very lucky we are," she said.
A NSW Rural Fire Service spokesman said conditions will ease slightly on Sunday but will bring little relief to firefighters.
On Sunday, four areas will remain at very high danger levels: the far North Coast, North Coast, New England and Northern Slopes.
"Although we are seeing no dire danger bands, there are many fires across NSW," the spokesman said.
While conditions are expected to ease on Sunday and Monday, it will bring little relief for firefighters.Credit:AAP
"We've got a long night ahead. The conditions tomorrow, though easing, will still be very tough for our crews," he said.
There are more than 80 fires burning across the state, with two fires remaining at emergency warning levels. Meanwhile, 16 fires are at watch and act levels.
The Bureau of Meteorology's forecaster Abrar Shabre said while there will be an increase in humidity on Sunday and Monday, it's likely to become dry again on Tuesday.
"We're not expecting any rain for the next four or five days," he said.
But he said from Tuesday onwards there is an increasing likelihood of fires in other parts of the state.
"The dry conditions, with higher temperatures and lower dew points will have elevated fire danger, not just for the North Coast, but for large parts of NSW."
NSW RFS Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said little reprieve in fire conditions could be expected over the next week or throughout the summer months of December, January and February.
"The forecast for the balance of the season continues to be driven by above-normal temperatures (and) below-average rainfall to dominate over the coming months," Mr Fitzsimmons said.
With Reuters
The Glen Innes Severn Council mayor Carol Sparks said the community was in “shock”.
“Everybody is just upset and anxious,” she said. “We've lost friends and we've lost homes and we've lost our community. It's terrible and it's happening all over the country.
Glen Innes Severn Council mayor Carol Sparks said the community is in "shock". Credit:Steve Evans
“And yes, it's climate change. This is it. This is what the warnings have been all about. And, you know, it's been met with lacklustre care and attention.”
Cr Sparks said the fires were different to any she had experienced before because the ongoing drought meant the “trees are so dry they're just flaring up and exploding” and there was hardly any water for the firefighters to use.
“We've got these terrible whirling winds that are just gusting and pushing the fire in all directions,” she said.
"The winds mean we can’t get the helicopters up to bucket the water in so basically communities are just left to their own devices.”
Sharon Ashby, her son Nicholas and their two dogs Dexter and Cinnamon have been evacuated from their home on Old Bar Road, NSW, as fires burn out-of-control in the area.
Sharon Ashby, son Nicholas and their two dogs Dexter and Cinnamon have been evacuated from their home in Old Bar Road.Credit:AAP
Emergency warnings were in place for fires at Hillville south of Taree and nearby Crowdy Bay National Park on Saturday evening with the local mayor describing the firestorm as "a disaster of magnificent proportions".
Mayor David West cried as he spoke to worried residents - including parents, children and grandchildren - in a local evacuation centre.
"To go into a room of a couple of hundred of people and talk to them, I'm sorry, I broke down and cried, you feel so helpless," the retired policeman said.
"You see tears in their eyes, you see the sense of hopelessness, knowing they've probably lost everything they own. It's such an incredible, emotional time."
He said the fire was "a disaster of magnificent proportions".
"It's horrifying. To say it's terrible doesn't explain it enough," he said.
With AAP
A third person has died from the bushfires in the township of Johns River, north of Taree.
Their body was found in a burnt-out building on Saturday afternoon.
Police said in a statement: "The burnt-out home belongs to a woman aged 63, however, a post-mortem examination will be required to confirm identity and cause of death."
"Officers from Manning Great Lakes Police District are speaking with the woman's family, and have initiated inquiries."
Police will prepare a report for the Coroner.
The daughter-in-law of Vivian Chaplain has spoken to Nine News, saying: "I was the last one to speak to her."
"She was in an absolute panic," Chrystal Harwood told Nine News.
"She said ‘We’re on fire, there’s fire everywhere, I need the boys here now’.
"And before I got to tell her to just get out, she’d hung up on me I couldn’t get back through to her.
"I tried so many times."
Ms Chaplain, 69, was found unconscious with burns to 40 to 50 per cent of her body at the Kangawalla Fire near Glen Innes, on the Northern Tablelands on Saturday.
She was taken to hospital but later died.
The Insurance Council of Australia has declared a 'catastrophe' for the bushfires that are tearing through hundreds of homes in northern New South Wales.
Insurance Council Head of Risk and Operations, Karl Sullivan said: “The catastrophe declaration means claims from these bushfires will be prioritised by all insurers, and they will be focusing on reducing the immense emotional and financial stress experienced by residents and businesses.”
Mr Sullivan said many policies included providing emergency accommodation.
“Insurers will be poised to move into these communities once emergency services declare it safe to do so,” he said.
“I urge property owners to do the same — do not return to your home until you are told it is safe.
"These fires are still raging in many areas and have already caused the loss of life. The safety of people is paramount.”
Evacuated inmates from the minimum security Glen Innes Correctional Centre will remain at Grafton Correctional Centre overnight.
The 164 inmates were relocated on Saturday morning as the Kangawalla fire raged nearby.
"Visits to Grafton and Glen Innes correctional centres will be cancelled tomorrow," Corrections NSW spokesperson said. | Fire | November 2019 | ['(The Sydney Morning Herald)'] |
The French government approves a draft law that would raise the retirement age to 62 from the age of 60 that has been enshrined since 1982. (RTÉ) | The French government has adopted an unpopular bill to raise the retirement age to 62 from 60.
The vote came after President Nicolas Sarkozy failed to silence his critics over alleged illegal political donations.
Labour Minister Eric Woerth, at the centre of the affair, said this morning he will step down as treasurer of the ruling UMP party.
However, he remains in charge of the bill to overhaul pensions, which he presented to the cabinet.
Mr Sarkozy stressed in a television interview last night that he was determined to see through the plan to raise the retirement age and to make people work longer for a full pension despite expected protests in September.
He said the reform was essential to bring down the public deficit and national debt, and prevent France entering a debt spiral similar to that of Greece and Portugal.
Trade unions have promised to fight the bill and said they would seek to force the government to retreat.
'The risk of social unrest after the summer holidays has not been dissipated,' said Dominique Barbet, an analyst for BNP Paribas.
A former bookkeeper for L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt told police that the billionaire and her late husband made illegal cash donations to Mr Sarkozy's 2007 election campaign.
Mr Sarkozy said Mr Woerth had been exonerated of any wrongdoing by an official finance ministry report, had his full confidence and would remain in charge of the pension reform.
However, he said he had advised the minister to step down as party treasurer.
Opposition politicians said the president did not answer all the tough questions about conflicts of interest in Mr Woerth's dual role of party fundraiser and budget minister.
In addition, Mr Woerth's wife worked for Ms Bettencourt's wealth manager until she resigned last month after allegations of tax evasion by the billionaire became public. | Government Policy Changes | July 2010 | ['(BBC)', '(France24)'] |
Dutch lumber merchant Guus van Kouwenhoven is charged with war crimes and arms smuggling to thenpresident Charles Taylor during civil war in Liberia | Guus van Kouwenhoven, 62, allegedly ran militias in the west African country and funnelled weapons to the regime of deposed dictator Charles Taylor.
Mr Taylor was barred from buying weapons before his fall in 2003.
Mr van Kouwenhoven is the second Dutch businessman to be charged with war crimes in the past week.
He was linked to Liberia by United Nations reports and testimony from NGOs working in the country.
Van Kouwenhoven was a key player in instability in Liberia and Sierra Leone
Global Witness
Last week Frans van Anraat was accused of selling Iraq chemicals used to manufacture poison gas used against the Kurds in Halabja in 1988.
According to a UN report submitted to The Hague, Mr van Kouwenhoven formed part of Charles Taylor's "inner circle".
"Militias formed by the Dutchman's timber companies are alleged to have participated in massacres of civilians where even babies were not spared," a prosecution statement said.
"The weapons used by the militias to commit these war crimes are alleged to have been supplied by the Dutchman."
Rebellion
Mr van Kouwenhoven was arrested on Friday after raids in Rotterdam and Paris, police said.
His name was not officially released, but was widely reported by Dutch media and publicly identified by UN and NGO reports.
Charles Taylor was a flamboyant and controversial figure
British human rights group Global Witness campaigned against Oriental Timber Trading, Mr van Kouwenhoven's company.
"Van Kouwenhoven has been a key player in the regional instability in Liberia and Sierra Leone," said a spokesman, Alex Yearsley.
"It is fantastic that the Dutch have been able to gather enough evidence to make the arrest."
Charles Taylor launched a rebellion in Liberia in 1989, before being elected president in 1997.
He soon faced accusations of diamond smuggling and arms dealing and was linked to instability in neighbouring Sierra Leone.
From 1999 Liberia again descended into civil war as rebels mounted a campaign to oust the president, who went into exile in 2003. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | March 2005 | ['(Reuters SA)', '(BBC)'] |
The United Nations Security Council calls for an immediate ceasefire on the Gaza Strip after an emergency meeting. | The UN Security Council has called for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza. It comes as US Secretary of State John Kerry heads to Cairo for talks on the crisis amid a mounting death toll.
More than 500 Palestinians, mainly civilians, have been killed since the Israeli offensive began 13 days ago, Gaza's health ministry says. Twenty Israelis - 18 of them soldiers - have died, Israel says, as it seeks to end rocket fire from Gaza. Sunday was the deadliest day since the start of Israel's offensive, with 13 Israeli soldiers and more than 100 Palestinians killed.
Israel says it has killed at least 120 militants since Thursday night when it launched a ground offensive, the second phase of a military operation that began on 8 July.
In other developments:
Sunday's late-night UN Security Council session was convened at the request of Jordan, which is understood to have proposed a strongly worded draft resolution for consideration.
However, the 15-member council instead issued a statement to the media, with Rwanda's UN ambassador calling for "an immediate cessation of hostilities".
Eugene Gasana said members voiced alarm at the escalation of violence during a "sobering session". UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon had earlier spoken out on the situation, describing an Israeli assault on the densely populated Shejaiya neighbourhood of Gaza as "an atrocious action".
More than 60 Palestinians alone were killed during heavy shelling in Shejaiya, in what Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called "a massacre". He called for urgent talks, saying the "situation is intolerable" in Gaza and describing the Israeli attacks as "crimes against humanity."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to continue operations "as much as we need to" despite the number of Israeli soldiers killed rising to 18 at the weekend. Two of the soldiers killed were American citizens, US state department spokesperson Jen Psaki said. Sunday's death toll for Israel's military is higher than that sustained during the entire three-week duration of Israel's last ground offensive in Gaza in 2008-2009.
The deaths of so many soldiers on a single day will shock Israeli society, the BBC's Chris Morris reports from southern Israel.
Hamas said on Sunday evening that it had captured an Israeli soldier, prompting celebrations on the streets of Gaza and West Bank.
However Israel's UN ambassador Ron Prosor denied the claim, saying "those rumours are untrue".
The UN says 83,695 people have now been displaced in Gaza and that the figure is "rising all the time".
There were scenes of panic in Shejaiya, with thousands of residents fleeing.
The fact that the battle has moved into a heavily populated urban area means that the civilian death toll will rise markedly. With it will come added pressure from outside to end the operation once and for all.
Hamas's infiltration tunnels prompted the Israeli movement on the ground. Many civilians may have fled but clearly others remained. Now the fighting is close-up and bitter and it's taking a toll on the Israelis as well.
This may well be exactly what Hamas military commanders wanted: to draw the Israeli forces into a close urban environment, a difficult battleground for any modern army.
Jonathan Marcus: Turning point reached?
In an interview with BBC Arabic, Mr Netanyahu called Shejaiya a "terror stronghold" and a centre for rocket attacks on Israel.
Mr Netanyahu said Israeli troops had no choice but to enter densely populated areas and that they had asked civilians to leave.
Israel sent ground troops into Gaza after days of heavy air and naval barrages failed to stop rocket fire.
Israel says the ground operation is necessary to target Hamas' network of tunnels, which it says have been used by militants to infiltrate Israel and carry out attacks.
| Armed Conflict | July 2014 | ['(BBC)'] |
Pretoria, the administrative capital of South Africa, experiences widespread looting and violent attacks by rioters focused on foreigners. Police are currently outnumbered and many businesses have been set on fire. The riots follow the death of a taxi driver reportedly shot by Nigerian drug dealers after they realized he had seen them complete a drug deal and had also seen their supplier. Bus services are suspended and authorities say the capital is currently unsafe. | South African Capital City, Pretoria, CBD has descended into chaos, as reports coming in from sources claim that foreign-owned shops have been targeted by angry rioters.
Based on the information that is circulating on social media, it is not safe to be walking in and around the Pretoria CBD area.
#PretoriaCBD current scenes. Police remain outnumbered and looting & torching of spaza shops continues
According to @TrafficSA, a well-reputed road traffic news source, riots have broken out in the capital’s central business district, and foreign-owned shops are at the receiving end of the violence.
The details are sketchy at the moment but it appears that the riots have been fuelled by the death of a taxi driver. Avoid using Pretoria CBD routes today. Apparently a South African man was shot by Nigerians after witnessing them selling drugs and seeing the actual supplier. May his soul Rest In Peace!
Police have not issued an official statement nor has the City of Tshwane issued any updates on the events that are unfolding in Pretoria CBD.
However, according to research, the revolt allegedly comes after a taxi driver was murdered by foreign nationals. This, however, has not been confirmed as SAPS in Pretoria have not said anything.
@TrafficSA has, on Wednesday morning, issued a warning to motorists and commuters: Avoid Pretoria CBD at all cost.
| Riot | August 2019 | ['(Radio 702)', '(ZimEye)'] |
A teacher suffers scrapes and bruises and a 14yearold boy is shot in the back of the neck and suffers a nonlifethreatening wound at Luther Judson Price Middle School, a newer Atlanta Public Schools facility in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. The boy is stable at a hospital and the suspected student was safely disarmed by a resource officer and arrested. | A 14-year-old has been taken to hospital after being shot in the back of the neck outside a school in Atlanta, Georgia, say police.
The teenager is alert, conscious and breathing, and all other pupils are safe.
A teacher suffered minor cuts and bruises in the incident at Price Middle School, said Atlanta Fire Captain Marian McDaniel.
A suspect, thought to be a student, has been taken into custody.
Aerial news footage showed a number of police at the scene.
Children at the school had been taken into an auditorium for their safety after the shooting at 13:50 local time (18:50 GMT). They were being released to their parents around 17:00 local time.
Authorities said an armed officer at the school was able to disarm the gunman moments after the incident occurred.
There are metal detectors at the school, according to Atlanta Public Schools Superintendent Erroll Davis. It is not known how the gunman brought the weapon on to the premises.
Police say they believe the attack was not random.
Thursday's shooting comes the day after a closely watched Senate hearing on gun control.
A mass shooting at a primary school in Connecticut that saw 27 people, including children, killed has revived debate over whether to tighten the nation's gun laws. | Armed Conflict | January 2013 | ['(NBC News)', '(CBS News)', '(Fox News)', '(BBC)'] |
The President of Mexico Felipe Calderón travels to Washington, D.C., to meet with the President of the United States Barack Obama, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives and other leading political figures. | (CNN) -- Mexican President Felipe Calderon travels to Washington on Thursday to meet with President Barack Obama, U.S. House Speaker John Boehner and others during a two-day visit likely to include discussions on organized crime, immigration and commerce.
There has been tension between the United States and Mexico recently, and the meeting may serve to smooth things out.
A U.S. diplomatic cable released last fall by WikiLeaks quoted U.S. officials talking about "widespread corruption" in Mexican security agencies and "a dysfunctionally low level of collaboration." The cable, dated January 29, 2010, also described the Mexican army as "slow" and "risk averse" and concluded that only 2% of people arrested in Ciudad Juarez -- the most violent city in Mexico, wracked by drug-cartel-related killings -- were charged with a crime.
In a recent interview with the Mexican newspaper El Universal, Calderon stopped short of saying he was offended by U.S. officials, but he complained of what he implicitly interpreted as attempts by his neighbors to the north to meddle in Mexican domestic policy.
"I have no need to tell (U.S. Ambassador Carlos Pascual) how many times I meet with my security Cabinet nor what I say, right? The truth is that it's a matter that does not concern him and I don't tolerate nor accept any type of interference," Calderon told the newspaper.
Calderon said that when it comes to lack of communication, Americans should start by looking at themselves. "If there's a lack of coordination between agencies in terms of security that happens among the American agencies where we see that the DEA and the CIA and ICE ... all of them have a (disorganized) policy, right?" said Calderon.
That is the backdrop for the meeting at the White House Thursday between Calderon and Obama. It will be their fifth face-to-face talks in two years. They met for the first time in January 2009, only days before Obama was sworn in.
When both presidents met last year in May, also at the White House, immigration was at the top of the agenda as well as drug violence.
At the time, Obama said that he had directed the Department of Justice to take a "very close look" at the controversial Arizona law to crack down on illegal immigration. Calderon spoke of his fellow Mexican immigrants, saying that "many of them, despite their significant contribution to the economy and to the society of the United States, still live in the shadows and, occasionally, as in Arizona, they even face discrimination."
At least publicly, the Obama administration has talked about a close relationship with Mexico. White House press secretary Jay Carney praised the Mexican president for his efforts against drug cartels and organized crime at a news conference on February 23.
"The president is deeply committed to this strong partnership the United States has with Mexico. I think that is the reason for the (upcoming) meeting. We admire the commitment and sacrifices of the Mexican people as they confront the criminal organizations that have brought so much violence to Mexico," said Carney.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in January visited the Mexican historic town of Guanajuato, where she met with her Mexican counterpart, Patricia Espinosa.
With a backdrop of Spanish colonial-era buildings, Clinton said that "both President Obama and I have been very impressed by President Calderon's courage and leadership and we are very heartened by his commitment to a stronger U.S.-Mexico partnership." She announced an aid package worth a half billion dollars to help Mexico fight organized crime.
Calderon's Washington's visit happens only 16 days after American immigration and customs enforcement agent Jaime Zapata was shot and killed in a Mexican provincial highway in the state of San Luis Potosi. His partner, Victor Avila Jr., was also shot, but survived.
Eight days after the shooting, Mexican authorities arrested Julian Zapata, aka "Tweety," and five other men in connection with the crime. Last weekend, they arrested Sergio Mora Cortes, alias "El Toto," the leader of the Zetas cartel cell that operates in San Luis Potosi state.
Mexico is the United States' third-largest trading partner, after Canada and China, and the second-largest market for American exports.
Calderon will also meet in Washington with Boehner. At the top of the agenda will be issues including cooperation in security and immigration.
The Mexican president is also expected to meet with American business leaders with interests in Mexico who are concerned about drug violence. | Diplomatic Visit | March 2011 | ['(CNN)'] |
The Landtag of the Free State of Saxony has lifted the immunity of Frauke Petry, Party Chair in the Alternative for Germany party, opening the way for prosecutors to pursue possible perjury charges against her concerning statements made to a committee of the Saxony parliament about how the party’s campaign for the 2014 election was financed. | BERLIN (Reuters) - A regional parliament has lifted the immunity of the best known politician in the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, opening the way for prosecutors to pursue possible perjury charges against her.
Frauke Petry, who is the AfD’s co-chairwoman, has been dogged by allegations that she lied under oath to a committee of the Saxony parliament about how the party’s campaign for the 2014 election in the state was financed.
The ending of her immunity from prosecution adds to the right-wing party’s problems less than four weeks before a national election. Weakened by infighting, it has bled support over the last year as voters’ concerns about immigration have eased.
Prosecutors have pursued the case against Petry, who denies the allegations, for more than a year.
Her immunity as a member of the Saxony’s parliament ended at midnight, a spokesman for the assembly said.
A spokesman for prosecutors in the state capital Dresden said they would await written confirmation of that from the parliament’s president before any further proceedings could be agreed upon.
The AfD is polling between 7 and 10 percent in opinion surveys - well down from a high of 15.5 percent at the end of 2016 but still clearing the 5-percent threshold needed to enter the federal parliament in the Sept. 24 national election.
Petry cuts an increasingly isolated figure in the AfD, which she transformed from an anti-euro party at its founding in 2013 into a group that taps into voters’ concerns about migration.
The party soared in the polls after Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision in 2015 to open Germany’s borders to migrants fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and beyond, of whom more than a million have since arrived.
At a party conference in April, Petry suffered a humiliating defeat when delegates refused to discuss her plan to shift the party towards the mainstream.
| Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | August 2017 | ['(Reuters)'] |
Voters in Malawi go to the polls for a general election. | Tuesday's election in Malawi is one of Africa's most competitive - the closest since the re-introduction of multi-party politics in Malawi in 1993. Four of the 12 candidates in the presidential race have a chance of winning. They are preacher-turned-politician Lazarus Chakwera of the Malawi Congress Party (MCP), Atupele Muluzi representing the United Democratic Front (UDF), Peter Mutharika of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the incumbent Joyce Banda representing the People's Party (PP). Mr Mutharika is the younger brother of former President Bingu wa Mutharika while Mr Atupele is the son of ex-President Bakili Muluzi. None of the four has contested a presidential election before.
Joyce Banda is one of three of female presidents in Africa and the current chairwoman of the regional body, the Southern African Development Community (SADC). She became president following the sudden death of Bingu wa Mutharika in April 2012. If she loses she will become the first serving female African head of state and first serving Malawian president to have lost an election. These elections are also significant because this is the first time in Malawi's history that the country is holding presidential, parliamentary and local government elections on the same day. The last local government elections were held 14 years ago. And with polls just hours away from opening many voters are still undecided. The economy is one of the issues that could decide the election. As recently as 2008, Malawi was second only to Qatar as the world's fastest-growing economy. But by the time President Mutharika died, the economy was in tatters. Inflation was rising at a fast pace, foreign reserves were depleted and there was a huge fiscal deficit. As one of the world's poorest countries, Malawi's economy is heavily dependent on aid. Donors provide 40% of Malawi's budget. They had frozen aid to the country after accusing the Mutharika administration of bad governance. The former president ignored donor demands and introduced a budget aimed at raising revenue internally to cover the financial shortfall. It failed. When Ms Banda came to power, aid taps reopened. Her economic reforms caused prices to soar, hitting the public hard. However, there were signs that the economy was recovering. It grew by 6.1% in 2013, compared with 1.9% in 2012 when Ms Banda took office. But the donors withheld aid again, over a scandal dubbed "Cash gate" in which millions of dollars worth of public money were allegedly stolen by civil servants. The withdrawal has affected the delivery of some government services. Not surprisingly, debates around aid dominated the election campaign. Both donors and Malawi's politicians now agree the country must move towards independence from aid. The candidature of Mr Muluzi, 35, in the presidential race forced Ms Banda and Mr Mutharika to choose youthful running-mates. The youth vote has therefore assumed prominence in these elections. Young people constitute up to 60% of Malawi's population and many will be voting for the first time. Malawi's youth lack opportunities. The election campaign has largely been peaceful but the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) encountered several challenges ahead of the polls. For example, they had to suspend the voter verification exercise after it was discovered that many names on the voters' roll were missing. That has been sorted out. Concern had been raised regarding the safety of ballot papers, prompting the MEC to assure Malawians they had several anti-counterfeit security features. MEC chairperson Justice Maxon Mbendera told the BBC they have taken every step to ensure they are well-prepared. He dismissed allegations of rigging as rumour-mongering and said he was confident the elections will be free and fair. Hundreds of local and international observers are monitoring the vote. Malawi uses the first-past-the post electoral system - the presidential candidate with the most votes is declared the winner and there is no provision for a run-off. In the parliamentary race, 193 seats are up for grabs. Candidates will also contest 462 local council wards. Up to 7.5 million Malawians have registered to vote and, with the elections being extremely competitive, a high turn-out is expected. Behind 'Cashgate' scandal
| Government Job change - Election | May 2014 | ['(BBC)'] |
IranianAmerican journalist Roxana Saberi is charged with espionage and imprisoned in Iran until 2017. | An Iranian-American journalist branded a US spy has been jailed for eight years by Iran after a brief trial held behind closed doors.
Roxana Saberi, 31, who was arrested in January and went on trial this week, denies the charge and plans to go on hunger strike, her father said. Ms Saberi has reported for a number of foreign news organisations including the BBC, NPR radio and Fox News. A spokesman said the US president was "deeply disappointed" at the outcome. The journalist originally faced the less serious accusation of buying alcohol, and later of working as a journalist without a valid press card. Then, in a period of fewer than two weeks, the charge of spying was introduced, and she was tried by the Revolutionary Court and sentenced. No evidence of espionage was made public. An unnamed judiciary official told the Iranian news agency Isna: "Branch 28 of the Revolutionary Court sentenced Roxana Saberi to eight years for espionage. She can appeal the sentence." Ms Saberi's lawyer Abdolsamad Khorramshahi and her father confirmed that an appeal would be made. The case is bound to have serious implications for relations between Iran and the US at a time when President Barack Obama has been reaching out to the Islamic Republic, the BBC's Jon Leyne reports from Tehran. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she was "deeply disappointed" by the verdict. Washington, which has no diplomatic ties with Iran, was working with Swiss diplomats in Tehran to obtain details about the court's decision and ensure Ms Saberi's well-being, she said. "We will continue to vigorously raise our concerns to the Iranian government," she added. 'Coerced and deceived'
Reza Saberi told NPR radio that his daughter was "weak and frail", and that interrogators had used undue pressure against his daughter to procure statements that were later used against her in court. Her later repudiation of these statements was not considered by the court, he said. His daughter was, he said, "not only coerced but deceived". "They told her that if she says [something] like this, they will free her, and then they didn't free her. Later she found out that it was a trick." Mr Saberi said his daughter was "quite depressed" and wanted to go on hunger strike but he was trying to persuade her against doing so. Mr Saberi, who was not allowed to attend the trial, said his daughter's lawyer had not been allowed to argue the case for the defence properly. Expressing his dismay at the verdict, he added that he had been hoping for a sentence of six months and clemency. "We are extremely concerned at the severe sentence passed on Roxana Saberi," the BBC Press Office said. "Roxana was tried in secret and no evidence of espionage has been made public. Roxana's many friends in the BBC are saddened by the decision and are thinking of Roxana and her family at this difficult time." NPR's chief executive, Vivian Schiller, said: "We are deeply distressed by this harsh and unwarranted sentence." This is a very tough sentence, even for the serious charge of spying, our correspondent says. Iran's authorities have not even given details of the charges against her, he notes. US unease
The conviction was criticised by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, which said her trial had "lacked transparency". "We call on the Iranian authorities to release her on bail pending her appeal," said Mohamed Abdel Dayem, the group's Middle East and North Africa programme coordinator. Public awareness of Ms Saberi's situation is low in Iran, where local media do not seem to have reported her arrest or trial in any way, our correspondent says. A US-Iranian national, Ms Saberi has spent six years in Iran studying and writing a book. The daughter of an Iranian father and a Japanese mother, she was once crowned Miss North Dakota and was among the top 10 finalists in Miss America 1998. She holds two master's degrees, from Northwestern University in the US and from Cambridge University in the UK. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | April 2009 | ['(BBC)'] |
Nepalis vote in the second round of local elections, a major step in the near decade-long transition from monarchy to democratic government. The first round was held on May 14, and the final round is scheduled for September 18, after the monsoon season. Parliamentary elections are expected later this year. | KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Nepalis began voting in the second round of local elections on Wednesday, a key step towards holding a general election later this year that would complete a near decade-long democratic transition after the abolition of its monarchy.
The latest round of voting covers parts of the restive southern plains that border India and there are concerns about possible violence after Rastriya Janata Party Nepal (RJPN), a group that dominates the area, said it would boycott the vote and called for a general strike.
In 2015 and 2016 scores of people were killed, mainly in clashes with police, in protests by the local ethnic Madhesi against a new constitution that they say leaves them marginalized and favors those living in the hills of the Himalayan nation.
The Madhesis are demanding a unified homeland, and greater participation in state organs including parliament, the judiciary, bureaucracy and the national army.
“Elections cannot be held before our demands are met,” said Hridayesh Tripathi, a RJPN leader.
The local elections - the first in Nepal since 1997 - mark an attempt by the government to restore democracy at the local level hit by a decade-long civil war that ended in 2006 and years of instability after the monarchy was abolished in 2008.
“This election will empower local bodies and open the floodgate of social and economic prosperity,” President Bidya Devi Bhandari said in a statement.
Television channels showed lines of voters carrying umbrellas bearing candidates’ pictorial symbols including a glass, torch light, house and rhinoceros, but no names.
The first phase of municipal polls was held on May 14 and a final round is set for September 18 after the end of the monsoon rains. Local polls serve as a barometer of public opinion ahead of parliamentary elections expected before the year end.
| Government Job change - Election | June 2017 | ['(Reuters)'] |
Flash floods sweep across central Europe and the Baltic states, killing at least 15 people - 5 Czechs, 4 Lithuanians, 3 Germans, 3 Poles -, whilst 3 Czechs are also missing. | Floods caused by torrential rain left 14 people dead and several others missing in central Europe over the weekend, with residents rescued from rising waters in boats, buses and helicopters.
While rivers burst their banks and dykes were breached in Poland, Germany the Czech Republic and Lithuania, in western Europe about 500 firefighters tackled wildfires in Portugal.
Three people drowned in southwestern Poland, near the border with Germany and the Czech Republic, Polish Interior Minister Jerzy Miller told reporters on Sunday.
A woman drowned in the town of Bogatynia, which was heavily damaged by a river that burst its banks on Saturday, forcing 700 people to leave their homes, Polish firefighters' spokesman Pawel Fratczak told AFP.
Another woman drowned in the same region, where a 55-year-old fireman was also swept away when a dyke burst, he added.
A burst dam sent a flood wave down the Neisse River separating Germany from Poland, putting parts of the twin cities of Zgorzelec-Goerlitz on the German-Polish border underwater.
"The flood wave hit the town in a few hours. We couldn't do anything to get ready for that," Goerlitz mayor Michael Wieler told Germany's N24 TV channel, saying that the river rose by several metres in the space of a few hours.
The Neisse reached a height of 7.07 metres in Goerlitz -- more than three times its normal level and the highest since record-keeping began in 1912.
German police said nearly 1500 people including the residents of two homes for elderly people had been evacuated in the same region in boats, buses and helicopters.
About 1700 rescue workers fanned out across the region to help those stranded.
"The elderly in particular are in a state and worrying about their homes and animals," said Christoph Wiesener of the Goerlitz fire brigade.
In Neukirchen near Chemnitz in southeastern Germany, three people were found drowned in a cellar on Saturday.
In the northern Czech Republic, three people drowned on Saturday and one "died of stress when cleaning his flooded house", local ambulance spokeswoman Lenka Moravcova told AFP on Sunday.
Czech authorities also said at least three people were missing with next to no chance of being found.
In Liberec, about 100km north of Prague, thousands were forced to leave their homes due to rising waters.
Whole streets and squares disappeared under muddy waters in the region, where about 200 people were evacuated by helicopters as several dams and dykes threatened to burst.
In other parts of the country, rescuers evacuated children from several summer camps.
A 16-year-old girl went missing as a raft with six people capsized on a rain-swollen river in western Czech Republic on Sunday.
But the rain stopped on Sunday and weather forecasts for the region were optimistic.
In May and June this year heavy flooding killed 22 people in Poland and six in the Czech Republic.
As the heavy rains moved north into the Baltic state of Lithuania four people were killed, including two campers when a tree crashed down on their tent, the Baltic News Service reported.
Flash flooding cut traffic on numerous roads, and some streets in the port city of Klaipeda were underwater.
In Portugal nearly 500 firefighters tackled wildfires in the north and centre of the country, with rescue services saying the situation was improving due to changing weather conditions.
The number of major fires had dropped from 20 on Saturday to eight on Sunday, the civil protection agency said.
The biggest blaze was near the town of Sao Pedro do Sul, in the Viseu area, where more than 200 firefighters, 60 vehicles and three helicopters were deployed. | Floods | August 2010 | ['(BBC)', '(Deutsche Welle)', '(IOL)', '(Reuters Africa)', '(The Age)'] |
Socialists win national elections in Greece, defeating a center-right government crippled by corruption scandals and a growing economic crisis. | ATHENS Socialists won national elections in Greece on Sunday, trouncing a center-right government crippled by corruption scandals and a growing economic crisis.
With 88 percent of Greece’s 10 million votes counted, according to The Associated Press, the Socialist Pasok Party was leading with 44 percent of the vote to 34 percent for the center-right New Democracy Party, a margin expected to give the Socialists their largest victory ever and a comfortable majority in Parliament.
“Today we set off together to build the Greece we want and need. We have no time to waste,” the Socialist leader, George Papandreou, said in his victory speech. “We want it, we can do it, we will succeed.”
“Nothing will be easy,” he added. “But I will always be honest and upfront with the Greeks.”
In conceding defeat, Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis said he had failed to persuade Greeks to accept the two years of austerity measures he had called for to steer the country out of its economic crisis. “The voters did not approve of this policy. It was their choice, and I respect it,” he said.
Mr. Karamanlis also stepped down as leader of the New Democracy Party, which suffered its worst performance since the restoration of Greek democracy in 1974 after years of military dictatorship. He said he would call a party congress to elect a new leader within a month.
Mr. Karamanlis, 53, called early elections last month, two years into a mandate dogged by corruption scandals and economic crisis, aiming to win a fresh mandate and stave off labor unrest. He had called for a freeze in public-sector wages to fight rising debt and unemployment, but he had difficulty pushing through important economic and structural reforms because he governed with a one-vote margin in Parliament.
Mr. Papandreou, 57, instead favored increased spending, including a $4.5 billion stimulus package to revive the Greek economy though infrastructure projects and environmentally sustainable development, while cracking down on tax evasion. Experts estimate that Greece loses $17.5 billion annually in unpaid income taxes and $13 billion in unpaid payroll taxes.
The victory by the Socialists here was a rare event for Europe, where the left has been losing ground and has often been unable to capitalize on the financial crisis for its own political gain.
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But many Greek voters appeared to be voting against Mr. Karamanlis as much as for the Socialists. After two decades of Socialist rule, Mr. Karamanlis was elected in 2004 promising to restore faith in government. But Greeks began to lose confidence in him after a series of corruption scandals and over the government’s lack of swift response to wildfires over the past few years, as well as its handling of violent protests after a teenage boy was shot and killed by the police last December. Pasok inherits a difficult situation. After 15 years of sustained growth, the Greek economy is expected to slide into a recession this year, exacerbated by endemic problems including a costly and ailing pension system. The pillars of the Greek economy, tourism and shipping, have also been hard hit by the crisis.
Mr. Papandreou has said he will start by asking the European Commission to extend the timeframe in which Greece is required to bring its deficit, estimated at 7.8 percent of gross domestic product, under the 3 percent ceiling set for the euro zone.
During the campaign, Mr. Papandreou said he would bring in well-regarded financial experts from abroad and vowed to increase meritocracy in a system still dominated by political patronage. | Government Job change - Election | October 2009 | ['(NY Times)'] |
The Constitutional Court of Thailand invalidates the general election held on February 2, on the grounds that voting was not held on the same day throughout the country. | (AFP) - Thailand’s Constitutional Court ruled on Friday that a general election held last month was invalid, deepening a political stalemate following weeks of opposition protests.
The February 2 polls, called by Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra in an unsuccessful attempt to ease a months-old political crisis, have not yet been completed because of disruption by demonstrators.
A court spokesman told reporters that the 6:3 ruling was reached on the grounds that voting was not held for the entire country on the same day.
Opposition protesters blocked candidate registrations in 28 constituencies, and also caused the closure of about 10 percent of polling stations.
The main opposition Democrat Party boycotted the vote, saying it would not end years of political turmoil.
The case was one of a slew of legal hurdles facing Yingluck, who has withstood calls to resign despite months of political street protests.
A spokesman for her Puea Thai Party described the outcome as “regrettable”, and said the annulment of the vote would “set a bad precedent”.
The petition was filed by a Bangkok law lecturer. A similar bid, submitted by the opposition on the grounds that the failure to hold the entire election on the same day was an attempt to grab power unconstitutionally, was rejected by the Constitutional Court last month.
Yingluck’s government, in a caretaker role following the incomplete election, faces a series of legal challenges that could lead to her removal from office, including negligence charges linked to a rice subsidy scheme.
She has faced more than four months of street demonstrations seeking to force her from office and install an unelected government to oversee reforms and curb the dominance of her billionaire family.
Twenty-three people have been killed in recent weeks in gun and grenade attacks, mostly targeting protesters.
It is the latest chapter in a political crisis stretching back to a military coup in 2006 that ousted Yingluck’s brother Thaksin Shinawatra, a divisive tycoon-turned-politician who lives in Dubai to avoid prison for a corruption conviction.
On Tuesday, Thailand ended a state of emergency in force for almost two months in Bangkok and surrounding areas, reflecting an improvement in security since protesters scaled down their rallies at the start of March.
| Government Job change - Election | March 2014 | ['(AFP via Malaysia Today)'] |
Floods in Vietnam killed 23 people (16 in Lai Chau, 5 in Ha Giang Province while two others in other provinces) and caused several damages. | Floods and landslides triggered by torrential rains had killed at least 23 people, and left 10 missing as of Thursday morning.
Lai Chau is the worst hit province with 16 dead. Meanwhile, Ha Giang province has lost five residents, according to updates from Vietnam Disaster Management Authority.
While the flood waters have receded from the northern mountainous provinces of Lai Chau, Ha Giang and Lao Cai, many villages and towns have been isolated and rendered unreachable by barricades of mud and stones deposited by multiple landslides.
As of Tuesday morning, more than 80 houses had been swept away and over 700 hectares of rice fields damaged, according to the Central Steering Committee on Natural Disaster Prevention and Control (NDPC).
The total damage in the provinces of Lao Cai, Ha Giang and Lai Chau has been estimated at VND530 billion ($23.2 million).
Deputy Prime Minister Trinh Dinh Dung and Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Xuan Cuong, head of the NDPC, arrived in Lai Chau Province’s Tam Duong District on Tuesday morning to inspect the damage and direct relief operations.
On Sunday, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc sent an urgent document to local authorities urging them to take due steps to prevent further flooding and minimize damage to people and property.
Natural disasters including floods and tropical storms killed more than 390 people across the country last year and caused damage worth nearly VND52.2 trillion ($2.34 billion), according to official figures. | Floods | June 2018 | ['(VnExpress International)'] |
A severe storm system brings tornado watches and warnings throughout the U.S. states of Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, and Missouri. A "large and dangerous" tornado is confirmed near Gore, Oklahoma. Several other tornadoes are seen by storm chasers. | 12:30 a.m. The strongest storms have exited the 40/29 viewing area. The Tornado Watch for much of western Arkansas has been cancelled. 12:10 a.m. Tornado Warning for Johnson, Logan, and Pope Counties has been allowed to expire. New Severe Thunderstorm Warning for eastern Johnson County and NE Logan County until 1:00 a.m. A line of severe thunderstorms is moving NE at about 65 mph. 60 mph wind gusts with quarter-sized hail are possible. 11:57
A Tornado Warning has been issued for southern Johnson County - including Clarksville until 12:15 a.m.
At 11:57 p.m., A severe thunderstorm capable of producing a tornado was located over Hoyt - near Clarksville - moving east at 65 mph. 11:52 p.m. A Severe Thunderstorm Warning has been issued for NE Benton Co., northern Madison Co, Carroll Co., and NE Washington County until 12:45 a.m. 60 mph wind gusts are possible. 11:30 p.m. The Tornado Warning over Crawford and Sequoyah counties has been allowed to expire. A new Severe Thunderstorm Warning has been issued for most of Benton County and the northern part of Washington County until 12:30 a.m. A Severe Thunderstorm Warning has also been issued for Polk County until 12:15 a.m. 11:20 p.m. A Tornado Warning has been issued for parts of Crawford and Sequoyah counties. At 11:09 p.m., a severe thunderstorm capable of producing a tornado was located over Short moving northeast at 55 mph. 10:40 p.m.
A Severe Thunderstorm Warning has been issued for parts of Crawford and Washington counties until 11:15 p.m. At 10:37 p.m., a severe thunderstorm was located over Cedarville, moving north at 50 mph. 60 mph wind gusts and quarter sized hail are possible. 10:30 p.m. The Tornado Warning has been extended into parts of Benton, Adair, and Cherokee counties until 11:00 p.m. 10:25 p.m.
A Tornado Warning remains in effect for Adair/Cherokee counties until 10:45 p.m. Shortly before 10:20 p.m., a confirmed, large tornado was located near Procter, moving northeast at 45 mph. As of 10:25 p.m. the tornado continues to track across NW Adair County. 10 p.m.
Storm spotter reports power lines down along Highway 64 east of Highway 10 and damage to cars and at least one home in the Tenkiller area. 9:40 p.m.
A storm spotter reported a tornado on the ground near Gore, Oklahoma.
A "large and dangerous" tornado was reported in that area.
Damage was reported near the Gore exit of I-40.
---------------------------------------
9:20pm, Friday Update: A Severe Thunderstorm Warning has been issued for Adair, Sequoyah, and Cherokee counties until 10pm. The storm is moving toward the northeast at 45 mph. The main concern 60 mph winds. This storm was Tornado warned toward the south of Sequoyah county. 8:oopm, Friday UPDATE: The Storm Prediction Center has moved the Enhanced Risk for severe weather a little farther north, now including much of NW Arkansas. The hatched area, indicating the area at greatest risk for a strong tornado, was also pushed a little farther north and west.
All this means is that the SPC is now a little more confident that the severe weather could end up being a little more north than originally expected.
And I'm going to tell you the same thing we've been telling you... the severe threat extends over our entire area, and it's not that much higher in one area or the other. Certainly the threat, in theory, is slightly higher in the River Valley, but, it's certainly no guarantee that the worst storms will inevitably occur there. We're all in the area of concern tonight. We'll keep watching it carefully.
A Tornado Watch Has Been Issued For The Following Counties: Sebastian, Crawford, Washington, Benton, Franklin, Carroll, and Madison Effective Until 2:00 am
A Tornado Watch Has Been Issued For The Following Counties: Polk, Scott, Johnson, and Logan Effective Until 2:00 am Get severe weather alerts and the latest forecast on your phone with the free 40/29 News app, available on Apple and Android devices 5:30pm, Friday UPDATE:
The first Tornado Watch has been issued for Eastern Oklahoma. It includes Sequoyah, Delaware, Adair, and Le Flore counties until Midnight. We do expect additional tornado watches in Arkansas. Those should come out in the next hour or two.Again, a few tornadoes, large hail and damaging winds possible across our entire area tonight, thru about 2am.12:05pm, Friday UPDATE:
The Storm Prediction Center continues to highlight much of NW Arkansas, and especially the River Valley and the SW corner of Arkansas, for the threat of severe weather this evening and overnight. The yellow indicates the Slight risk, the orange is the Enhanced risk, where severe weather is most likely with this system.
Bottom line... our entire viewing area has a chance to see a few storms capable of producing large hail and damaging winds, and even a few tornadoes. The area I've highlighted in the black circle is where the SPC thinks a strong tornado (EF2 or stronger) is a little more likely. As always, we'll be watching it carefully at 40/29 and we'll have updates throughout the night, as needed.
Chief Meteorologist Darby Bybee
The Storm Prediction Center has updated the projections for severe weather in our area. The line of division is basically I-40. If you live NORTH of I-40, you have a SLIGHT chance of severe weather tonight. If you live along and SOUTH of I-40, you have an ENHANCED chance of severe weather. The timing of the storms has basically stayed the same. While we could see a few spotty showers during the day, the chance for stormier weather doesn't begin going up (first in the River Valley) until later this afternoon ( after 5pm). The chances of storms intensifying increases throughout the evening. However, all showers and storms should be out of here by 2:00 Saturday morning. The peak threat looks to be between 9pm and midnight...
Keep in mind that all modes of severe weather are possible tonight. Winds greater than 60 mph, large hail, and even isolated tornadoes could all be in the mix. And while the greatest threat for severe weather looks to be in the River Valley and southward, we will also be watching NW Arkansas for the development of any strong to severe storms throughout the night. Remember, the threat for severe weather tonight is very real. We'll be watching it very closely in the 40/29 Weather Center, and will have updates on 40/29 News and on line leading up to tonight's storms.
Chief Meteorologist Darby Bybee
Hearst Television participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on purchases made through our links to retailer sites. | Hurricanes_Tornado_Storm_Blizzard | November 2018 | ['(4029 News)'] |
The Social Democratic Party of Austria, the future majority partner in the grand coalition government that will be sworn in in Austria on January 11, 2007, announces its future ministers. | VIENNA: Austria’s main centre-left and conservative parties sealed agreement on a ruling coalition yesterday under which Social Democrat Alfred Gusenbauer will become chancellor, three months after narrowly winning an election.Gusenbauer said his pact with conservative leader and incumbent Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel would bring more social justice to Austria and underpin its economy with additional spending on education, science, streets and railways.“If you look at the government programme you will see that Austria is one of the few countries in Europe where not only competitiveness but social justice too is at the top of the agenda,” Gusenbauer told reporters.He defied opinion polls last year by coming in just ahead of Schuessel in national elections. The deal brings back his Social Democrats to power after seven years in which Schuessel’s People’s Party governed with the far right.But Schuessel, who lost more than a quarter of his voters in the poll, proved his negotiating skills by securing the finance, foreign and economy ministries, and by blocking some of Gusenbauer’s campaign pledges.“The People’s Party has got a disproportionately large piece of the cake,” said analyst Wolfgang Bachmayr of pollster OGM. “With this cabinet you can assume that the political direction of Schuessel’s government will by and large continue.”Schuessel and Gusenbauer did not say who would head any of the ministries. A senior Social Democratic source said incumbent Finance Minister Karl-Heinz Grasser would leave government, but it was unclear whether Schuessel himself or conservative parliamentary leader Wilhelm Molterer would take over his post.Social Democrats will run the ministries of defence, justice, education, social affairs and infrastructure. The conservatives will also get the interior and agriculture portfolios.Cabinet appointments will be decided today and the government sworn in on Thursday. “Grand coalitions” of conservatives and Social Democrats ruled Austria in the first 21 years after World War II and in the late 1980s and the 1990s.The coalition was finalised after a weekend deal on some 1bn euros ($1.3bn) in added government spending – 400mn for social benefits including a rise in minimum pension, 400mn for infrastructure and the rest for education.Gusenbauer bowed to conservative demands on budget issues, watering down a plan to guarantee a minimum income of 800 euros ($1,054) per month. The idea survived as a small rise in minimum welfare and state pension levels.He also agreed to delay a 3bn-euro tax cut for middle incomes, one of his election pledges. Another prominent pledge, to abolish university tuition fees, did not make it into the government programme either.Schuessel granted him only the right to renegotiate a 2bn-euro deal to buy 18 jet fighters from the Eurofighter consortium, which Gusenbauer said the next defence minister would do immediately.Gusenbauer said in newspaper interviews earlier that his party could not expect to achieve 100% of its programme with the 35% of the vote in won in the October 1 election.Schuessel said the business-friendly tax cuts and sweeping pension reform of his government had been largely preserved.The coalition talks often stumbled on mutual accusations of bad faith and sabotage. But growing public discontent over delays prompted Gusenbauer and Schuessel last month to set themselves the goal of a new government sworn in on January 11. – Reuters | Government Job change - Appoint_Inauguration | January 2007 | ['(Gulf Times)'] |
SOPA and PIPA are postponed indefinitely as a result of the recent protests. | Hundreds turned out for a New York protest against SOPA and PIPA, a pair of controversial anti-piracy proposals.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- When the entire Internet gets angry, Congress takes notice. Both the House and the Senate on Friday backed away from a pair of controversial anti-piracy bills, tossing them into limbo and throwing doubt on their future viability.
The Senate had been scheduled to hold a proceedural vote next week on whether to take up the Protect IP Act (PIPA) -- a bill that once had widespread, bipartisan support. But on Friday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he was postponing the vote "in light of recent events." Meanwhile, the House of Representatives said it is putting on hold its version of the bill, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). The House will "postpone consideration of the legislation until there is wider agreement on a solution," House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith said in a written statement. The moves came after several lawmakers flipped their position on the bills in the wake of widespread online and offline protests against them. Tech companies, who largely oppose the bills, mobilized their users this week to contact representatives and speak out against the legislation. Sites including Wikipedia and Reddit launched site blackouts on January 18, while protesters hit the streets in New York, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C. Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) drew more than 7 million signatures for an anti-SOPA and PIPA petition that it linked on its highly trafficked homepage. The tide turned soon after the protest, and both bills lost some of their Congressional backers. "I have heard from the critics and I take seriously their concerns," Smith said Friday in a prepared statement. "It is clear that we need to revisit the approach on how best to address the problem of foreign thieves."
PIPA and SOPA aim to crack down on copyright infringement by restricting access and services to sites that host or facilitate the trading of pirated content. Backed by media companies, including CNNMoney parent Time Warner, the bills initially seemed on the fast track to passage. PIPA was approved unanimously by a Senate committee in May. But when the House took up its own version of the bill, SOPA, tech companies began lobbying heavily in opposition -- an effort that culminated in this week's demonstrations. Reid hinted that PIPA may not be dead yet, saying: "There is no reason that the legitimate issues raised by many about this bill cannot be resolved."
Meanwhile, alternative legislation has also been proposed. A bipartisan group of senators introduced the Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade Act (OPEN) on January 18 -- the same day as the Wikipedia site blackout.
Among other differences, OPEN offers more protection than SOPA would to sites accused of hosting pirated content. It also beefs up the enforcement process. It would allow digital rights holders to bring cases before the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), an independent agency that handles trademark infringement and other trade disputes. California Republican Darrell Issa introduced OPEN in the House, and Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden introduced the Senate version. OPEN's backers had posted the draft legislation online and invited the Web community to comment on and revise the proposal.
Soon after SOPA and PIPA were tabled, Issa released a statement cheering "supporters of the Internet" for their protest efforts.
He wrote: "Over the last two months, the intense popular effort to stop SOPA and PIPA has defeated an effort that once looked unstoppable but lacked a fundamental understanding of how Internet technologies work."
| Protest_Online Condemnation | January 2012 | ['(CNN)'] |
Russia bans all United States agricultural products, European Union fruit and vegetable imports in response to Western sanctions imposed on Russia over the Ukrainian crisis. | Russia is imposing a "full embargo" on food imports from the EU, US and some other Western countries, in response to sanctions over Ukraine. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said it would include fruit, vegetables, meat, fish, milk and dairy imports.
Australia, Canada and Norway are also affected. Elsewhere, Nato chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Ukraine's freedom and future were "under attack," promising support against Russian "aggression".
The latest developments come during heightened tensions between Russia and the West over Ukraine, where heavy shelling was reported in the eastern rebel stronghold of Donetsk on Thursday.
Russian voices: Yuri Alexandrov, St Petersburg
I'd being living in the UK with my family for quite a while, but we decided to go back to Russia some time ago. These sanctions mean not much at all. Most day-to-day food can be sourced locally and most of the time we buy locally produced meat and vegetables anyway. I would probably miss milk products from Finland but it's not the end of the world. We used to have quality milk from local factories. I really hope those sanctions show to Europe that Russia and Western Europe have much more in common rather than our overseas friend, the US. Russian embargo: 'It's not the end of the world'
Pro-Russian separatists have shot down a Ukrainian Mig-29 fighter jet near Yenakiieve, in Donetsk region, Ukrainian "Anti-Terrorism Operation" spokesperson Olexiy Dmytrashkivskyi told the BBC.
An airman managed to eject and is currently being sought, he added.
In addition to the food imports embargo, Russia is banning Ukrainian airlines from transit across its territory, Mr Medvedev said in televised comments to the government.
The Russian government is also considering banning transit flights for EU and US airlines in retaliation for sanctions over Ukraine, he said.
Barring airlines from Siberian airspace would significantly increase costs and flying time for many jets bound for Asian destinations. EU food exports to Russia last year were worth 11.8bn euros (£9bn; $15.8bn) while US food exports to Russia were worth 972m euros (£772m; $1.3bn).
Russia was the EU's second-biggest market for food exports (10% of total), after the US (13%).
The European Commission said the Russian embargo was "clearly politically motivated". It is considering how to respond.
Western governments accuse the Kremlin of fomenting the unrest in eastern Ukraine by supplying weapons and expertise to the pro-Russian separatists. Nato's Anders Fogh Rasmussen, speaking during a visit to Kiev on Thursday, called on Russia to stop supporting the rebels and pull back its troops from Ukraine's border. Russia "should not use peace-keeping as an excuse for war-making", he is quoted by Reuters as saying.
Last month the EU and US tightened sanctions on Russia, with Brussels applying restrictions to key sectors of the economy as well as individuals. The first round of sanctions came after Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimea region in March.
The crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 last month, killing 298 people, exacerbated tensions between the West and Russia, as the separatists in eastern Ukraine were widely blamed. It is strongly suspected that a Russian missile system was used to down the jet.
Dutch investigators have suspended work at the crash site, saying it is too dangerous, and Ukrainian forces battling the rebels in the area say their ceasefire has now ended.
There has been more heavy shelling on the outskirts of rebel-held Donetsk as Ukrainian troops edge closer to the city. Several civilian deaths were reported. In a separate development, the political leader of the separatists in Donetsk announced that he was resigning his position on Thursday.
Alexander Borodai, a Russian national, said a local field commander named Aleksander Zakharchenko would take over his role. Mr Borodai has vowed to continue working in Donetsk.
Meanwhile, there were scuffles in the heart of the Ukrainian capital Kiev when municipal workers started dismantling tents used by protesters. Acrid smoke from burning tyres billowed over Independence Square, where protesters first began camping last November, in the huge "Maidan" rallies which eventually toppled President Viktor Yanukovych. President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that the food embargo would take immediate effect and last for a year.
Mr Medvedev ordered the agriculture ministry and producer organisations to find ways to boost Russian farm output in order to prevent price rises for consumers. The Russian authorities say they are confident the supermarket shelves will not be left empty - they are searching for alternative suppliers in South America, Turkey and China. But filling the gap will not be easy, the BBC's Steve Rosenberg reports from Moscow. It is estimated that in big cities, like Moscow, more than 60% of food in the shops is imported. Researchers at Capital Economics say "far and away the most vulnerable to the Russian sanctions is Lithuania, where exports of the banned products to Russia are equivalent to 2.5% of GDP".
But they add that "the biggest loser from the import ban looks set to be Russia".
The major food exporters to Russia last year were, in order of importance: Belarus ($2.7bn), Brazil ($2.4bn), Ukraine ($1.9bn), Germany ($1.8bn) and Turkey ($1.68bn), Reuters news agency reports.
| Government Policy Changes | August 2014 | ['(RT)', '(BBC)'] |
American Actor George S. Irving, best known for being one of the last members of the original production of Oklahoma! and voicing Heat Miser from The Year Without a Santa Claus, dies at age 94. | Irving appeared in the original Broadway production of 'Oklahoma' and voiced the character of Heat Miser in the animated 'The Year Without a Santa Claus.'
By the Associated Press
Actor George S. Irving, who won a Tony Award starring with Debbie Reynolds in the musical Irene and appeared in the original Broadway production of Oklahoma, died Monday at age 94.
He died in New York, said actor-director David Staller, Irving’s friend.
Irving had several television and film credits, including appearances on All in the Family, Car 54 Where Are You?, Ryan’s Hope and The Patty Duke Show. As a voice actor, he narrated the cartoon Underdog and played the Heat Miser in the animated The Year Without a Santa Claus.
He was also a regular in New York theater. Irving was nominated for a Tony for Broadway’s Me and My Girl and appeared in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Can-Can and the 1981 revival of The Pirates of Penzance.
Although retired, Irving’s last role in 2015 was in the Staller-directed off-Broadway adaptation of Chekhov’s short story Swan Song in which he played an aging actor.
“He was one of those Broadway legends who worked all the time,” Staller said. “He was never a huge star. But everyone who knew him genuinely loved him.” | Famous Person - Death | December 2016 | ['(The Hollywood Reporter)'] |
The Gambia severs diplomatic and economic relations with Iran and orders Iranian government representatives to leave within 48 hours. The Gambia has given no reason for the move. | The Gambia has said it is cutting all ties with Iran and ordered all Iranian government representatives to leave within 48 hours.
Officials from the small West African nation gave no reason for the move.
But last month Nigeria said it had intercepted an illegal arms shipment in Lagos from Iran, destined for The Gambia.
Senior Iranian official Alaeddin Borujerdi has said the move was taken under US pressure.
The Nigerian authorities said they had discovered the weapons, including rocket launchers and grenades, in containers labelled as building materials.
The France-based shipping company CMA CGM which transported the shipment said attempts were made to send it to The Gambia before the Nigerian police seized it. Mr Borujerdi, chairman of the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee of Iran's parliament, confirmed that a private Iranian company had sent the arms to The Gambia but said this was "in line with international laws", reports the official Islamic Republic News Agency (Irna). Rana Rahimpour from the BBC's Persian Service says the breaking of ties does seem to have taken Iran by surprise and officials appear to be playing it down.
She says Mr Borujerdi's comments are the first from an Iranian official to confirm that the arms were destined for The Gambia.
Nigeria has reported the seizure to the UN Security Council.
Iran is under UN sanctions because of its nuclear programme and is banned from supplying, selling or transferring arms.
"All government of The Gambia projects and programmes, which were [being] implemented in co-operation with the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, have been cancelled," the Gambian foreign ministry said in a statement.
Correspondents say ties between Tehran and Banjul - which have both faced criticism over their human rights records - became closer after Gambia's President Yahya Jammeh came to power in 1994. When The Gambia hosted the African Union summit in 2006, Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was a guest of honour.
The Gambia has been among those developing nations who have defended Iran's right to nuclear power. Charlie Zrom, who has published a paper on Iranian foreign policy for the American Enterprise Institute, a think-tank in Washington, says the move will be an embarrassment for Iran.
"Iran has sought partners around the world especially as sanctions have come on the table in the last few years," he told the BBC's Network Africa programme.
"West Africa has been a key priority for them and we've seen a number of visits both from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and from the defence minister.
"It's a tool by which Iran tries to prevent measures harmful to it, or it believes harmful to it, being passed at the United Nations."
Correspondents say the decision to expel all Iranian diplomats will bring an end to several projects funded by Iran, such as the $2bn (£1.2bn) agreement to supply The Gambia with heavy and commercial vehicles.
| Government Policy Changes | November 2010 | ['(BBC)', '(Reuters)'] |
MESSENGER, a NASA mission, flies by Mercury, the second spacecraft to do so and the first in thirty–three years. | The first probe to visit Mercury in more than 30 years has passed within just 200km (125 miles) of the planet.
The fly-by was the first of three to be made by the Messenger spacecraft as it prepares to enter into orbit around the Solar System's smallest planet in 2011.
The US probe was programmed to collect more than 1,300 images and make other observations during the encounter.
No mission has viewed Mercury up close since the Mariner 10's third and final fly-by in March 1975.
'Lap times'
Marilyn Lindstrom, the US space agency (Nasa) mission's programme scientist, said: "[Messenger's] goal is to understand the surface, the interior, the magnetosphere and the atmosphere of this innermost planet; but in the process of doing that we hope to apply that [knowledge] to understand how all four of the terrestrial, Earth-like, planets formed."
Messenger is half-way through what will be a seven-year tour of the inner Solar System. Mercury pictured during Messenger's approach
It is not due in orbit around Mercury until March 2011. To get there, it must perform a series of fly-bys and engine firings to put it on a correct course and, crucially, slow its final approach.
This week's pass, which took place some 53 million km (33 million miles) from the Sun, was intended to reduce the spacecraft's velocity by 8,000km/h (5,000mph). Even so, it still moved over the cratered surface at a relative speed of 25,000km/h (16,000mph).
"Messenger's orbital period around the Sun will be decreased by 11 days thus setting up a planetary car race with Mercury," explained Eric Finnegan, mission systems engineer at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.
"Using its engine and future gravity assists, the spacecraft after being lapped by Mercury many times in its race around the Sun will eventually match the 88-day orbital period of the innermost planet."
Strange world
Messenger began its fly-by observations on Sunday. The probe's instruments were expected to gather data over a period of 55 hours.
The moment of closest approach occurred at 1904 GMT on Monday. The data treasure from the pass was due to be transmitted to Earth on Tuesday.
THE PLANET MERCURY
Closest planet to the Sun
Diameter: 4,800km
Mercurian year: 88 days
Has global magnetic field
Messenger is operating in an extremely harsh environment. Its electronics and observational instruments are protected behind a shield that allows them to operate at "room temperature". The Sun-facing side of the shield, however, experiences temperatures in excess of 300C.
All the terrestrial planets are believed to have formed at the same time by common processes - but Mercury itself is a bit of an oddball. It is so dense that more than two-thirds of it has to be of an iron-metal composition. It is so close to the Sun that the temperature variation between day and night at the equator is more than 600 degrees; and yet there may be water-ice at the poles in craters that are in permanent shadow.
Europeans to follow
"Mariner 10 showed us a surface that was so heavily cratered that it looked like geological activity on Mercury ended very early in the history of the Solar System," said Sean Solomon, Messenger's principal investigator from the Carnegie Institution of Washington.
"And yet, Mercury is the only other inner planet that like Earth has a magnetic field which we believe means it must have a very dynamic molten iron core. "So how to reconcile this ancient surface with this modern-day internal dynamic activity is one of the mysteries we hope to solve."
Messenger's first fly-by was designed to:
On Friday this week, the European Space Agency (Esa) will sign an industrial contract with EADS Astrium to build BepiColombo.
This mission will be launched to Mercury in 2013. It consists of two spacecraft - an orbiter for planetary investigation, led by Esa, and one for magnetospheric studies, led by the Jaxa (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency).
The satellite duo will reach Mercury in 2019 after a six-year journey towards the inner Solar System. | New achievements in aerospace | January 2008 | ['(BBC News)'] |
Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun–ying and other government officials observe three minutes of silence to mourn the victims of a ferry collision off Lamma Island on October 1, marking the start of a three–day mourning period. | Hong Kong has observed three minutes' silence to mourn the 38 victims of Monday's fatal collision between two boats, as investigations continue. The Chinese and Hong Kong flags flew at half-mast, with Hong Kong Chief Executive CY Leung leading the tribute.
The collision off Lamma Island was the worst maritime accident in Hong Kong for over 40 years.
Seven crew members from the two boats were arrested after the accident and have now been released on bail.
Mr Leung led government officials in a memorial service, with schools and other public offices also observing a moment of silence. He has declared three days of mourning, which began on Thursday, and expressed his sympathy for the victims' families.
The collision on Monday night involved a pleasure boat, the Lamma IV, and a ferry operated by the Hong Kong and Kowloon Ferry (HKKF) company.
Five children were among the dead and one UK national is known to have died. More than 90 people were hospitalised after the accident. By Wednesday, 71 people had been discharged and one was in critical condition, hospital authorities said.
A complete picture of the accident, which reportedly occurred in clear conditions, may not emerge any time soon, investigators said.
"The investigation is expected to take around six months," a marine department spokeswoman told reporters.
Those arrested include the captains of the two vessels. Investigators are examining the wreck of the Lamma IV, which has been towed to a beach, revealing a huge hole in its rear.
The accident occurred during a busy period for passenger travel, at the end of a long holiday weekend to mark the mid-autumn festival that this year coincided with China's National Day on 1 October.
The Lamma IV was carrying employees of Hong Kong Electric and their families to watch a firework display. It partially sank within minutes of the collision. The ferry was able to reach Lamma safely despite taking on water.
The crash is Hong Kong's worst maritime accident since 1971, when a ferry sank during a typhoon, leaving 88 people dead. 1. Hong Kong Electric boat departs power plant for firework display in Victoria Harbour
2. Ferry departs Hong Kong island on regular route to Lamma Island
3. Collision occurs north of Lamma Island. Damaged ferry continues to port at Yung Shue Wan. Lamma IV sinks. Arrests over Hong Kong collision
| Shipwreck | October 2012 | ['(BBC)'] |
Royal Thai Army chief and coup leader General Prayuth Chan-ocha detains former Prime Minister of Thailand Yingluck Shinawatra after summoning her for talks a day after the coup. | Thai army chief Prayuth Chan-ocha summons ousted Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra to a meeting, one day after he seized power in a bloodless coup. Sarah Toms reports.
By Amy Sawitta Lefevre and Pracha Hariraksapitak BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand's military rulers detained former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra on Friday, a senior officer said, after summoning her for talks a day after the army overthrew her caretaker government in a coup. As the army moved to consolidate its grip on the country, its chief, General Prayuth Chan-ocha, set out his plans for the country, saying reforms were needed before an election. But some Thais defied martial law to protest against the takeover. Prayuth launched his coup after rival factions refused to give ground in a struggle for power between the royalist establishment and Yingluck's populist government that had raised fears of serious violence and damaged the economy. "We have detained Yingluck, her sister and brother-in-law," a senior military officer told Reuters. The two relatives have held top political posts. "We will do so for not more than week, that would be too long. We just need to organize matters in the country first," said the officer who declined to be identified. He declined to say where Yingluck was being held, but media said she was at an army base in Saraburi province, north of Bangkok. Soldiers detained politicians from both sides on Thursday after Prayuth announced the military takeover, which drew swift international condemnation. In what appeared to be a coordinated operation to neutralize possible opposition to the coup, the military summoned the ousted Yingluck to a meeting and then banned her and 154 others, including politicians and activists, from leaving Thailand. Yingluck is the sister of Thaksin Shinawatra, a billionaire telecommunications tycoon turned politician who won huge support among the poor but the loathing of the royalist establishment, largely over accusations of corruption and nepotism. He was ousted as premier in a 2006 military coup. Responding to the summons, Yingluck arrived at an army facility at noon along with other politicians. Prayuth was there at the same time but there was no confirmation they met. After Prayuth had left, nine vans with tinted windows were seen leaving, but it was not clear if Yingluck was in one of them or where they were going. An aide to a minister in the ousted government who declined to be identified said some people, including his minister, had been detained. A former aide to Yingluck said she had been out of telephone contact for hours. Yingluck was forced to step down as prime minister by a court on May 7 but her caretaker government, buffeted by more than six months of protests against it, had remained nominally in power, even after the army declared martial law on Tuesday. Prayuth also summoned hundreds of civil servants and told them he needed their help. "We must have economic, social and political reforms before elections. If the situation is peaceful, we are ready to return power to the people," he said. The military has censored the media, dispersed rival protesters and imposed a nationwide 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew. The armed forces have a long history of intervening in politics - there have been 18 previous successful or attempted coups since Thailand became a constitutional monarchy in 1932. "GET OUT DICTATORS" Bangkok was mostly calm and life appeared normal, but there was some opposition to the takeover. Several hundred people, including students, gathered in a central shopping district despite a ban on protests by five or more people to voice their opposition to military rule. Some held signs saying "No coup" and "Get Out Dictators". About 200 soldiers lined up across a road to contain the protesters and eventually dispersed them. There was no serious trouble but at least one person was detained, a Reuters witness said. About 80 protesters also gathered in the northern city of Chiang Mai, Thaksin's hometown and power base, to denounce the putsch and call for an election, a Reuters witness said. Several policemen watched the protesters, who vowed to gather every day. The former education minister in Yingluck's government criticized the coup in a posting on Facebook. "A coup will only make the situation worse. Seizing power is not a way out," Chaturon Chaisang said. The military suspended television and radio broadcasts on Thursday and made channels broadcast its material, but six free-to-air channels came back on the air late on Friday. Several satellite channels, including partisan ones on both sides, remained banned. International news channels were off the air and the military threatened to block provocative websites. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Thursday there was no justification for a coup, which would have "negative implications" for ties with its ally, especially military ones. Washington is reviewing its aid to Thailand and on Friday the U.S. State Department said it had already suspended about $3.5 million in military aid, including a portion for training. "We are reviewing all programs to determine other assistance which we may suspend," State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said. The U.S. Army's top general, Raymond Odierno, had spoken by phone with Prayuth, in the first contact between Prayuth and a U.S. military official since the coup, the Pentagon said on Friday. The U.S. Defense Department said the call was constructive and that Odierno had "made it clear that we certainly expect a return to democratic principles in Thailand just as soon as possible," Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby said. The State Department also recommended that U.S. citizens reconsider any non-essential travel to Thailand, particularly Bangkok, due to the unrest. The Thai military briefed diplomats on Friday though some declined the invitation, apparently as a gesture of disapproval. Prayuth is a member of the royalist establishment generally seen as hostile to the Shinawatras, although he tried for months to keep the army out of the strife and to appear even-handed. The army chief, who is 60 and due to retire later this year, has taken over the powers of prime minister, but it was not clear whether he intended to hold on to the position. An undercurrent of a crisis that is dividing rich and poor is causing deep anxiety over the issue of royal succession. King Bhumibol, the world's longest-reigning monarch, is 86 and spent the years from 2009 to 2013 in hospital. Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn does not command the same devotion as his father, but some Thaksin supporters have recently been making a point of their loyalty to the prince. The anti-Thaksin protesters had demanded electoral changes that would end the Shinawatras' success at the ballot box. Thaksin or his parties have won every election since 2001. Thaksin's "red shirt" supporters were angry but said they had no immediate plans for protests. Many political analysts predicted tension and violence. Mass protests by Thaksin's well-organized loyalists would be a major test for the military. In 2010, more than 90 people were killed in clashes, most when the army broke up protests against a pro-establishment government that had taken office after a pro-Thaksin administration was removed by the courts in 2008. Investors have generally taken Thailand's upheavals in stride, and the market reaction to the coup was muted. The baht traded at about 32.60 per dollar, firmer than its low point on Thursday of 32.70. The stock market opened down 2 percent but rallied to end 0.6 percent lower. Thailand's economy contracted 2.1 percent in the first quarter of 2014 largely because of the prolonged unrest, which has frightened off tourists and dented confidence, bringing fears of recession. (Additional reporting by Apornrath Phoonphongphiphat, Aukkarapon Niyomyat and Bangkok bureau and David Brunnstrom and Phil Stewart in Washington; Writing by Robert Birsel and Alan Raybould; Editing by Alex Richardson, Andrew Hay and Ken Wills) | Regime Change | May 2014 | ['(Reuters via Yahoo! News)'] |
President of Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari makes his first visit to the affected areas. | Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has tried to fend off public anger at his handling of the country's floods crisis by visiting affected areas for the first time.
Mr Zardari met flood victims in Sukkur in Sindh province.
His spokesman said the president had promised houses would be rebuilt.
However some politicians said this was too little, too late, with critics still angry he did not cut short his tour of Europe to deal with the crisis.
The floods have affected 14 million people and left at least 1,600 dead.
Meanwhile, a shipload of US marines and helicopters has arrived to help with the relief efforts.
Mr Zardari was briefed about the flood damage as he toured Sukkur.
He inspected the Sukkur Barrage, a key flood barrier in Sindh, which has been under pressure from the massive volume of floodwaters flowing down the Indus river.
His spokesman, Farhatullah Babar, told the BBC: "The president heard people's grievances and told them that the government was determined to improve their situation as quickly as possible.
"He distributed relief goods among the families housed at the camp."
But a spokesman of the opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, Siddiqul Farooq, said the visit was too little, too late.
"He is president of Pakistan and he should behave like a president," Mr Farooq told AFP news agency.
The BBC's Orla Guerin in Islamabad says that only state media were allowed during Mr Zardari's visit to the banks of the Indus river. The television footage was released without sound, our correspondent says, as the president has reason to fear what the people might have to say.
Many Pakistani citizens are still angry at the foreign trip.
Osama Sadoon Memon, from Lahore, told the BBC: "This visit should have taken place weeks ago. He needed to be here rather then enjoying cocktails in luxury hotels abroad at the government's expense."
Farhan Mangi, from Larkana, agreed the president should have cut short the trip, but said Mr Zardari could regain the initiative by "ensuring the speedy search and rescue operations and then rehabilitating the refugees".
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has also been out viewing affected areas, flying over parts of Punjab, Sindh and Baluchistan.
He said: "We need more help from our international friends. We need more such helicopters because the magnitude of the destruction was far more [than first thought]."
Later, the prime minister and president met each other in Islamabad to discuss the crisis.
Official media reported that the men thanked the UN for launching a donors' conference, and saluted the bravery of the people of Pakistan.
The USS Peleliu has now arrived off Pakistan, carrying helicopters and 1,000 marines to deliver aid.
The UN launched an appeal for $459m in emergency aid on Wednesday.
The UN humanitarian co-ordinator in Pakistan, Martin Mogwanja, says $195m has so far been pledged.
Rain is continuing to fall in some parts of Pakistan, with dams still threatened in Sindh and the monsoons not due to end for several weeks.
The deluge has caused extensive damage to key crops - such as wheat, cotton and sugar cane - in a country where agriculture is an economic lynchpin. Food and Agriculture Minister Nazar Muhammad Gondal told the BBC the disaster had caused "huge losses" to its crops. BBC Urdu will transmit six daily bulletins in Urdu and Pashto providing vital information including how to stay safe, avoid disease and access aid. Special programmes will be broadcast each day in Urdu at 12.30, 15.30 and 18.30 and in Pashto at 12.45, 15.45 and 18.45 (local times).
BBC Urdu
Pakistan government
| Floods | August 2010 | ['(BBC)', '(Aljazeera)', '(The Guardian)', '(AFP via France24)', '[permanent dead link]', '(Channel 4)', '(AP via Google News)'] |
United States President Barack Obama addresses a joint session of Congress. | US President Barack Obama has addressed a joint session of Congress for the first time, warning that the nation faces a "day of reckoning".
Stressing the severity of the economic crisis, Mr Obama told lawmakers the US would emerge stronger when it ended.
"We will rebuild, we will recover," Mr Obama said, adding: "Now is the time to act boldly and wisely."
Republicans said Mr Obama's plans were "wasteful", saying they spent "money we do not have on things we do not need".
Mr Obama has seen Congress pass a $787bn (£545bn) economic stimulus plan and is preparing to announce a budget.
Delivering a televised rebuttal shortly after Mr Obama spoke, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal said Republicans opposed the view that the way to strengthen the country was to strengthen government.
In his speech to the joint session of the House of Representatives and the Senate, Mr Obama emphasised that his hard-fought stimulus bill - which includes efforts to save or create 3.5m jobs - will help restore growth.
An era of extravagant spending must end, the president told Congress.
Outlining what he saw as the roots of the economic crisis, Mr Obama told congressmen that short-term gains had been prized over long-term prosperity.
"And all the while, critical debates and difficult decisions were put off for some other time on some other day," he said.
"Well, that day of reckoning has arrived, and the time to take charge of our future is here."
He praised Congress for passing the economic stimulus plan, which he said would create millions of jobs and revitalise the US, and deliver a tax cut to 95% of Americans by 1 April. to play. Obama: 'We will recover'
The package, signed after compromises debated in both houses, was designed to channel federal money toward infrastructure projects, health care, renewable energy development and conservation programmes.
The first month of Mr Obama's presidency has also included a banking bail-out worth at least $1.5 trillion (£1.02 trillion) and a plan to support "responsible homeowners" struggling with mortgages.
He won a standing ovation when he told his audience that banks and bankers taking public money would be fully accountable, vowing that tax dollars would not be frittered away.
"Those days are over," Mr Obama said. "It's not about helping banks, it's about helping people."
The speech came days before the unveiling of the administration's first budget, with sights set on reducing the giant US deficit, currently standing at about $1 trillion.
Mr Obama said the vast deficit and the "crushing cost" of healthcare made the need for wide-ranging reform more urgent than ever, and he pledged to reform and improve the nation's schooling and boost the numbers of students in higher education.
He restated a pledge made on Monday to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term, and said officials had begun to go "line by line" through the federal budget "to eliminate wasteful and ineffective" schemes.
Foreign fields
The BBC's Kevin Connolly in Washington says Barack Obama delivered a powerful address, offering more hope than in recent major speeches.
The address looks and feels like the State of the Union speech which normally come at about this point in the political calendar.
But because Mr Obama is new to office, and therefore not in a position to take responsibility for the triumphs and disasters of 2008, this was billed simply as an address to the joint houses, our correspondent adds.
While much of his speech focused on domestic issues, Mr Obama also touched on the key foreign policy issues facing his administration.
Reviews of US involvement in both Iraq and Afghanistan were currently ongoing, the president said, and would soon deliver their results.
He promised a "new and comprehensive strategy" for Afghanistan and Pakistan aimed at defeating al-Qaeda and defeating extremism.
And while he paid tribute to US troops serving overseas, there was no detailed reference to plans for Iraq, or any reference to Iran, whose nuclear programme is viewed by many analysts as a major foreign policy challenge for the new president.
The speech came as some of the first polls analysing Mr Obama's level of public support indicated that voters still strongly back the man they chose for office fewer than four months ago.
A New York Times/CBS News poll published ahead of his speech put the president's approval rating at 63%, with a Washington Post/ABC News survey showing 68% support.
The presidential address - which began late and lasted a little over 45 minutes - was followed by a response from Republican Bobby Jindal.
The 37-year-old governor of Louisiana - the first Indian-American to occupy such a post - is one of the Republican Party's rising stars, and is tipped as a likely contender for the White House four years from now.
He was highly critical of Mr Obama's plans, dismissing the stimulus plan and banking bail-out as Washington waste.
"The way to lead is not to raise taxes and put more money and power in hands of Washington politicians," he said.
The economic crisis requires immediate, bold and comprehensive action. And on Tuesday night, Mr Obama displayed the ambition and the sweeping vision that won him the White House - and that this crisis demands. It was a refreshing change after his less-than-forceful handling of the stimulus bill.
Editorial, New York Times
The speech capped an often frantic start for his administration that has surpassed even the first month of FDR's New Deal. And for Obama, it was a chance to step back and spell out the full scope of the challenges facing the nation — and connect the dots of his economic plan for moving ahead.
David Rogers, Politico
Well, this was an extraordinary speech. We certainly do have a new president. My own reaction was that Obama looked stronger and more confident tonight than I have ever seen him before - and he has never lacked for confidence in the past.
Robert G Kaiser, Washington Post
Well, the problem for Republicans is that, (a), Americans support Obama's tax plan as laid out during the campaign. (b), Americans are demanding more government involvement. Remember October 2008: the specter of socialism, as dredged up by the GOP, failed. And the problems weren't as bad as they are now! | Famous Person - Give a speech | February 2009 | ['(BBC)'] |
Colorado Party candidate Mario Abdo Benítez is elected President of Paraguay. | He beat his closest rival, Efraín Alegre from the liberal opposition alliance, by four percentage points.
The result means the right-wing Colorado Party, which has dominated Paraguayan politics for decades, will maintain its hold on power.
Mr Abdo Benítez, 46, has promised to retain low tax policies and boost agricultural exports..
With almost all of the ballots counted, he had won 46.46% of the vote compared to 42.73% for Mr Alegre.
"My administration will be committed to gaining the confidence of those who did not accompany us," he said in his acceptance speech on Sunday night.
"[We] welcome those who want to build a just homeland, a homeland with equity, a homeland with moral, strong, independent institutions."
Mr Alegre has not yet conceded victory, but he told reporters that he "respects" the preliminary results.
Mr Abdo Benítez is the son of a close aide to former military dictator General Alfredo Stroessner, and has faced criticism for defending the former leader's record.
Gen Stroessner ruled the country from 1954 to 1989 and is viewed by critics as one of Latin America's most secretive and sinister dictators.
Paraguayans also voted to elect senators, parliament deputies, governors and other local officeholders on Sunday.
Outgoing President Horacio Cartes, who triggered riots last year when he tried to change the constitution to allow him to seek a second term, won a seat in the Senate.
The current constitution, established in 1992 after the dictatorship, limits the head of state to a single five-year term.
Paraguay, a leading exporter of soybeans and beef, has enjoyed strong economic growth in recent years.
Political debate in the low-key electoral campaign focused mainly on security, corruption and social issues, over which analysts noted the two presidential rivals held relatively similar positions.
Both candidates pledged to reform the country's judicial system to more effectively tackle corruption.
| Government Job change - Election | April 2018 | ['(BBC News)'] |
President Barack Obama meets with the Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, during which Netanyahu emphasizes that Israel would not make a full withdraw to the pre–1967 borders as Obama requested yesterday, because these borders are "not defensible"., | May 20, 2011— -- President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu downplayed disagreements between their two countries as they met today amid a backdrop of chilly relations that many observers believe were exacerbated by Obama's Mideast policy speech Thursday.
Speaking to reporters after their more than an hour and a half long meeting, Obama sought to diffuse the tensions, saying that differences will "happen between friends."
The president's call Thursday for Israel's borders and a future Palestinian homeland to be based on pre-1967 lines caused outrage among supporters of Israel.
"There are some differences between us in the precise formulations and language, and that's going to happen between friends," the president said. "But what we are in complete accord about is that a true peace can only occur if the ultimate resolution allows Israel to defend itself against threats and that Israel's secuirity will remain paramount in U.S. evaluations of any prospective peace deal."
More telling, however, was Netanyahu's response. Talking directly to Obama, Netanyahu asserted that any border based on lines that existed before the 1967 Six Day War would be "indefensible" and a threat to Israel's security.
"They don't take into account certain changes that have taken place on the ground; demographic changes that have taken place over the last 44 years. Remember that before 1967, Israel was all of 9 miles wide -- half the width of the Washington Beltway," Netanyahu said. "Israel has certain security requirements that will have to come into place in any deal that we make."
Netanyahu also refused to work with any Palestinian government that would include Hamas in the negotiations, calling the group the "Palestinian version of al Qaeda."
Obama's remarks, part of his broad-ranging speech on the Middle East and the so-called Arab Spring, caused a stir across the Arab world.
Two of Israel's main newspapers carried the headline "confrontation," as editorial writers blasted the Obama administration for the "ambush."
Officials say Netanyahu's issue with Obama's invoking the pre-1967 lines as a starting point for negotiations is less the notion itself than a belief that it would essentially reward Palestinians at the bargaining table without their having to concede anything in return.
Although there's unilateral consensus among experts that the relationship between the United States and Israel is at its nadir, the tension between the two leaders has been building for years amid disagreements on the issue of settlements and the peace process.
Thursday was the first time a U.S. president has laid out his vision on the borders so starkly in a high-profile speech. Administration officials said they hoped the message would appease Palestinians and stop them from pursuing unilateral recognition at the United Nations, something the president warned against Thursday. In a nod to the Israelis, the president also avoided the issue of settlements and division of Jerusalem, another two main points of contention.
But critics say Obama made lofty pronouncements that have cornered not just Israelis but Palestinians as well. In the absence of a peace dialogue, some observers say, Obama has declared policy positions that are unlikely to have much of an effect.
"The relationship was already frayed between the two men and between the U.S. and Israel, and this will deepen the already existing tension," said Michael Singh, managing director of The Washington Institute and a former senior director for Middle East affairs at the National Security Council. "It's telling that he [Obama] didn't actually call for any particular action -- a quartet meeting or a summit. To do this the day before he meets with the Israeli prime minister, it's bad diplomacy and bad timing."
On the other hand, Obama's speech hasn't tempered Palestinian sentiments either. A spokesman for President Mahmoud Abbas said they appreciated Obama's efforts to revive the peace process, but expressed some disappointment with the lack of pointed language on the settlements.
The speech will do little to remove the distrust between Obama and the Palestinians, an issue that was highlighted in Abbas' recent interview with Newsweek.
"It was Obama who suggested a full settlement freeze," Abbas said in the April interview. "I said OK, I accept. We both went up the tree. After that, he came down with a ladder and he removed the ladder and said to me, 'Jump.' Three times he did it."
Without solid peace talks in progress and a lack of trust on all fronts, the president's words will do little to advance negotiations, experts say.
"What's really needed is that the U.S. have trust with both parties," Singh said. "Without that trust, the U.S. simply becomes kind of a cheerleader; no different than other countries who make pronouncements."
More widely in the Arab world, the reaction to the speech was also less positive than some in the administration might have hoped.
In North Africa and the Middle East, the general reaction has been "more of the same, no substance." Despite Israeli outrage, the 1967 proposal is being taken in the region as continued support for Israel because there was no mention of refugees, Jerusalem and settlements.
Some critics say they believe Obama is dangerously meddling into affairs that are not within his reach. "Tell Obama to leave us alone," a young Egyptian told ABC News.
On the other hand, Obama's economic outreach has been well received, especially in Egypt. The United States will provide a debt relief of $1 billion to Egypt -- one of the United States' oldest and closest partners in the Arab world -- and guarantee another $1 billion in loans to finance infrastructure and job creation.
In Egypt, Thursday's headlines bore not a word about Obama, but today's newspapers highlighted the $2 billion for Egypt above the fold. While there are some who say "we don't need your money," by and large it has been well-received and is appreciated. | Diplomatic Talks _ Diplomatic_Negotiation_ Summit Meeting | May 2011 | ['(ABC News)', '(CNN)'] |
Wildfires in Spain and Portugal kill at least 31 people, which were worsened by strong winds brought by Hurricane Ophelia. | A wave of wildfires in central and north Portugal which started at the weekend has killed at least 31 people, civil defence authorities say.
Dozens of the 145 fires still raging are considered serious, a spokeswoman said. To the north, fires which broke out across the border in Spain's Galicia region claimed at least three lives.
Thousands of firefighters are battling the flames, which erupted after a hot dry summer.
Conditions were worsened by Hurricane Ophelia, as it approached Europe's western coast, bringing strong winds to fan and spread the flames. Raging wildfires - in pictures
More than 50 people have also been injured in Portugal; 15 are reported to be in a serious condition. Local media say several people are still missing there, including a month-old baby.
In Spain, two of the victims were found in a burned-out car by the side of the road.
Rain is forecast for the affected regions late on Monday.
A state of emergency has been declared in Portugal north of the Tagus river - about half of the country's land area. More than 6,000 firefighters in 1,800 vehicles were deployed by early Monday morning. As a result of the fires, at least a dozen roads were closed, as well as schools in some places. The Portuguese deaths were in the Coimbra, Guarda, Castelo Branca and Viseu areas.
"We went through absolute hell. It was horrible. There was fire everywhere," a resident of Penacova, near Coimbra, was quoted as telling Portuguese RTP radio and TV. Fabio Ventura, who lives in Marinha Grande, in Leria district, told the BBC that some of his friends in villages in the nearby forest had lost their homes.
"Currently, we don't have water in our homes because the pipes were damaged by the fire. We are avoiding taking showers to save water. The mobile network is going down several times and there is a huge cloud of smoke and ashes above my city.
"Schools were closed, public services are closed, some roads are also closed. I have friends that lost their homes, but everyone is OK in my area."
Spain's Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy travelled to the Pontevedra area of Galicia and met emergency workers on Monday afternoon. "What we are dealing with here is something that is not caused by accident. It has been provoked," Mr Rajoy said.
"We are here in Pazos de Borden where there has been a big fire which began at 01:30 (22:00 GMT) in the morning at five different points. So as you can see it's impossible for this to be triggered under natural circumstances."
Galician leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo has claimed the fires were deliberately set by arsonists, in what he called "terrorist acts".
Earlier, Spain's Interior Minister Juan Ignacio Zoido said several people had already been identified in connection with the fires, and appealed for anyone with further information to share it with the national protection service.
The wildfires follow a massive forest blaze in Portugal in June which killed 64 people and injured more than 130. Firefighters tackling that blaze also alleged it had been started by a "criminal hand". But in the aftermath, questions were raised about the speed of the response and the readiness to tackle such a fire. It also emerged that the country's rescue network, a public-private partnership, failed to connect several emergency calls to firefighters.
Firefighters battle deadly Portugal blaze | Fire | October 2017 | ['(BBC)'] |
North Korea asks for food aid from the United Nations after last month's floods. | The United Nations says North Korea has requested immediate food aid after devastating floods last month.
UN officials in Pyongyang said the need for aid was urgent after visiting flood-hit parts of the country to assess damage.
North Korea state media said that at least 119 people died and tens of thousands were left homeless.
Damage to infrastructure and farmland has affected the country's already dire food shortage problem.
The most badly affected areas are Anju city and Songchon County in South Phyongan Province, and Chonnae County in Kangwon Province, said the UN.
Residents in these areas are in urgent need of food supplies, as well as clean water, as wells have been contaminated by sewage during the floods.
A UN spokesman in New York confirmed that the North Korean government has asked the UN to release emergency supplies such as food and fuel.
Some international aid groups have already begun gathering supplies and donations. On Thursday, the Red Cross said it would allocate more than $300,000 (£193,000) for flood victims.
Recent images from Anju taken by state news agency KCNA showed houses underwater, flooded agricultural land and people sheltering in the upper stories of buildings. Kim Kwang-dok, vice-chairman of the Anju City People's Committee, told the Associated Press news agency that the flooding was the worst in the city's history. The floods - which followed a severe drought earlier this year - have sparked fresh concern over North Korea's struggle to feed its people, says the BBC's Lucy Williamson in Seoul.
North Korea relies on food aid because it cannot grow enough food to feed its people. Famine in the mid-1990s is believed to have killed hundreds of thousands of people. A UN report released last month estimated that two-thirds of North Korea's 24m population suffer from a chronic shortage of food.
| Financial Aid | August 2012 | ['(BBC)'] |
President Obama nominates Solicitor General Elena Kagan as the youngest Justice and third woman for the Supreme Court of the United States. | Washington and legal insiders offered congratulations on the appointment, but some also adopted a wait-and-see attitude about how she might perform on the high court bench because of her lack of judicial experience. Others who've worked with her praised her for what they saw as an ability to make thoughtful decisions based on integrity. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said her year and some months as solicitor general should count toward judicial experience because the person in that role works closely with the Supreme Court. He also said her 1987-1988 clerkship under Justice Thurgood Marshall exposed her to judicial decision-making.
"Solicitor General Kagan has argued a broad range of issues, including in defense of Congress' ability to protect children from pedophiles and our ability to fight against those who provide material support to terrorist organizations," he said in a statement.
But Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said that an appointment to the Supreme Court lasts a lifetime and, therefore, deserves a more rigorous vetting process than another role.
"It strikes me that if a nominee does not have judicial experience, they should have substantial litigation experience," McConnell said in a statement. "Ms. Kagan has neither, unlike (the late) Chief Justice (William) Rehnquist, for instance, who was in private practice for 16 years prior to his appointment to the Supreme Court."
Other reactions to Kagan's nomination:
筆artha Minow, dean of Harvard Law School, the same job Kagan held from 2003 to 2009 as the institution's first female dean:
"Elena Kagan was an astonishingly effective dean who led the school in putting students first, renovating the curriculum and expanding the faculty into the best and most wide-ranging to be found at any law school ... She bridged past political divides over hiring, renewed the physical spaces of the campus, moved the library into the digital age and created a climate of mutual respect across a diverse community."
百en. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will review Kagan's nomination:
"Ms. Kagan's lack of judicial experience and short time as solicitor general, arguing just six cases before the court, is troubling. The public expects Supreme Court nominees to possess a mastery of the law, a sound judicial philosophy and a demonstrated dedication to the impartial application of the law and the Constitution."
弼ohn Podesta, president and CEO of the Washington-based Center for American Progress, who worked with Kagan when he was President Clinton's chief of staff and she served in various roles for the Clinton administration, including deputy director of the Domestic Policy Council from 1997 to 1999:
"General Kagan forged a bipartisan consensus in favor of regulations preventing tobacco companies from marketing their products to children. Despite this consensus, a conservative 5-4 majority of the Supreme Court adopted an implausible reading of federal law to declare such regulations invalid in 2000. Unlike these conservative justices, Kagan understands that it is emphatically the province and duty of the judiciary to say what the law is, not what a powerful industry says it should be."
菱ilary Shelton, director, NAACP Washington Bureau:
""We are meticulously assessing her civil rights record. We're just going to take a close look, dig in very, very deeply," Shelton said in a telephone interview. "We'll certainly be looking for any background on basic civil rights laws, criminal justice issues. We're looking for any background on employment discrimination concerns, equal opportunity programs, including but not limited to affirmative action and many, many others."
菱ouse Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.:
"If confirmed, Elena Kagan's appointment will mean that for the first time in history, three women will sit on the bench of the Supreme Court," Pelosi, the first female speaker of the House, said in a prepared statement. "I look forward to Elena Kagan's timely confirmation by the United States Senate."
疋ouglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee:
"The president stated that he wanted someone 'who is going to be interpreting our Constitution in a way that takes into account ... women's rights' ... In light of the president's stated intent, senators have an obligation to probe whether Elena Kagan will tolerate limits on abortion ... or will seek to impose extreme pro-abortion views by judicial decree."
--By Melanie Eversley, USA TODAY
A look at how long it took to get the current justices confirmed, from the day they were publicly announced as nominees:
Note: Roberts' days reflect his confirmation as chief justice. He originally had been nominated as an associate justice to replace Sandra Day O'Connor. Sources: Senate Judiciary Committee, USA TODAY research "Despite long odds of success," Obama said, Kagan chose to make her debut argument before the justices defending the government's ability to limit corporate campaign spending.
That decision, Obama said, underscored the "tenacity" of the 50-year-old former Harvard law dean who, if confirmed, would become the current court's youngest justice and its third woman — the first time in the nine-member court's history that three women would serve together.
Kagan's nomination also says something about the tenacity of the president who selected her and his determination to refashion a court that has veered increasingly to the right in recent decades.
"She's an intellectual counterweight to John Roberts," said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., referring to the conservative, 55-year-old chief justice appointed in 2005 by President George W. Bush.
In the campaign-finance case, the Roberts Court's 5-4 ruling in January against decades-old limits on political spending by corporations so incensed Obama that he made it the subject of an unusual public rebuke in his State of the Union Address, with six justices in the audience.
The public struggle between the judicial and executive branches is just one of the new political dynamics in play as Obama offers Kagan to replace retiring Justice John Paul Stevens, one of the court's four more liberal members.
Obama's slipping poll numbers and a looming midterm election are among the factors that could make Kagan's confirmation process different than the one last year for the Democratic president's first high-court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor. Veteran Democratic strategist Carter Eskew is predicting a "bumpier" ride.
The granddaughter of immigrants, Kagan spoke emotionally Monday at the White House about her New York upbringing, her mentor, the late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, and her choice to pursue a legal career "because law matters. .. it protects our most fundamental rights and freedoms."
Supporters pointed to her ideological evenhandedness and her recruitment of conservative law professors to Harvard. Skeptics questioned her legal experience and her decision to challenge the Pentagon's ban on gays serving in the military.
Within hours of the president's announcement, partisan battle lines were forming in the Senate, which must vote on Kagan's lifetime appointment.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., accused some Republicans of looking for any excuse to oppose an Obama nominee.
"The president could have nominated Moses the Lawgiver" and critics would have said, " 'Where is his birth certificate?' " Leahy quipped. He predicted flatly, "She will be confirmed."
Not necessarily, said the top-ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Jeff Sessions of Alabama. "Her background is thin for this position," said Sessions, a theme that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., reiterated in a Senate floor speech.
"It strikes me that if a nominee does not have judicial experience, they should have substantial litigation experience. Ms. Kagan has neither," McConnell said. "A lifetime position on the Supreme Court does not lend itself to on-the-job training."
If confirmed, Kagan would be the first appointee in nearly 40 years who never served as a lower-court judge. The last such appointee, Democrats were quick to point out, was the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist, a conservative icon.
McConnell noted that Rehnquist had extensive experience as a trial lawyer. Kagan, by contrast, spent most of her career as an academic and as a legal adviser to Democratic Presidents Obama and Bill Clinton.
On the plus side for Kagan, her nomination was greeted with favorable to semi-favorable notices from several senators who are likely to be key votes in the confirmation process, including Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Arlen Specter, D-Pa. Last year, as a member of the Republican Party, Specter was one of 31 votes — all from Republicans — against Kagan's confirmation as solicitor general. Now, as a Democrat facing a tough primary challenge, Specter is promising to keep "an open mind" on her nomination.
Some Republicans expressed reservations about the former Harvard Law School dean's role in temporarily barring military recruiters from campus over the Pentagon's ban on openly gay servicemembers. As dean, Kagan in 2005 joined other law school leaders in urging the justices to strike down a ban on federal funds to schools that denied military recruiters access to campus because of the prohibition on openly gay men and lesbians. The justices in 2006 unanimously rejected the law school deans' case.
Sessions played down talk of a filibuster against Kagan. Use of the Senate parliamentary maneuver, which allows a minority of 41 senators — the exact number in the Republican caucus — to block a vote, should be a "last option," he said.
Even so, he would not rule it out. "To say it's not possible would not be accurate," he said.
One sign that the White House is taking nothing for granted: Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, a GOP moderate, said White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel called her to discuss Kagan's nomination Monday morning.
A changed playing field The political landscape has changed considerably since August, when Sotomayor was confirmed by the Senate 68-31. Nine Republicans voted for her.
When Sotomayor's nomination went to the Senate a year ago, Obama's approval ratings were above 60%, and the midterm elections were more than a year and a half away. Now, it's 174 days until lawmakers face the voters, and polls show the president's approval numbers hovering around 50%. Since January, Democrats have lost major statewide races in Massachusetts, Virginia and New Jersey, all states Obama won in 2008.
One of those contests, a special Senate election to fill the seat left vacant by the death of Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., put Republican Scott Brown in the Senate, giving the GOP the 41st vote it needed to filibuster legislation. Activists on the right and left are pressuring senators. Liberals complain that Republicans have slow-walked even the most non-controversial of the president's lower-court nominees.
Appellate-court nominees Denny Chin of New York and Rogeriee Thompson of Rhode Island waited months before being confirmed, 98-0. "A lot of frustration has built up over the past year," said Marcia Greenburger of the left-leaning National Women's Law Center.
In 1999, Kagan's own appointment, by President Clinton to an appeals court, stalled in the Republican-dominated Senate.
Republicans are acutely aware of the rise of the "Tea Party" movement, which is demanding greater ideological purity of conservatives and which last week claimed its first incumbent senator. Republican Bob Bennett of Utah, a three-term Senate veteran, lost his party's nomination at a convention dominated by Tea Party members. Bennett's colleague in the Senate is Orrin Hatch, the most senior Republican member of the Judiciary Committee.
'A consensus builder' On Monday, Obama called Kagan "a consensus builder" and "a trailblazing leader," and he said her success at Harvard bridging differences between liberal and conservative faculty could serve her well on the high court.
At Harvard, Kagan hired conservative faculty members, including Jack Goldsmith, a former top Bush administration lawyer. At a 2005 dinner sponsored by the conservative Federalist Society, Kagan received such thunderous applause that she joked, "You are not my people."
Her nomination to be solicitor general won support from notable conservatives, including former GOP solicitors Theodore Olson and Charles Fried.
"She has many friends on the right, who appreciated her fair-minded leadership as dean of Harvard Law School," Cornell law professor Michael Dorf said.
If Kagan can get through a divided Senate, Obama is hoping she can influence a divided court.
The man she would succeed has been the leader of the liberal wing, composed of Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sotomayor. They often are relegated to dissent, as they were in the campaign-finance case, Citizens Unitedv. Federal Election Commission.
Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito align with Roberts to make up the court's conservative majority.
As solicitor general, Kagan has had a chance to study the court's divisions, including in the Citizens United case. In that instance, the battle between court liberals and conservatives erupted in a public fight with the administration that continued Monday.
In the January decision, the majority rejected Kagan's arguments on behalf of the federal government and struck down Congress' restrictions on independent corporate and labor spending in elections, upending long-standing regulations and court precedent.
During his State of the Union Address the next week, Obama said the decision "reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests."
In a moment captured on national TV, Alito, with colleagues in the audience, shook his head and appeared to mouth, "Not true." A few weeks later, Roberts told an Alabama audience that he found the State of the Union atmosphere "very troubling" and said it had "degenerated into a political pep rally."
Democrats, led by Obama, have continued to criticize the decision, echoing Kagan's arguments before the justices that corporate wealth can unduly influence elections. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., have introduced legislation that would impose new campaign-spending disclosure rules for corporate beneficiaries of federal money and government contractors.
On Monday, Obama made her role in that case emblematic of the legacy he hopes to leave on the court: It showed her "commitment to protect our fundamental rights," he said, "because in a democracy, powerful interests must not be allowed to drown out the voices of ordinary citizens." | Government Job change - Appoint_Inauguration | May 2010 | ['(USA Today)', '(The Times)'] |
Three bombs explode in the northeastern city of Maiduguri killing three people, in an attack blamed on the Islamist sect Boko Haram. | Two blasts went off at a hotel and one at a transport hub on Sunday night. There was a fourth blast at a cattle market on Monday morning.
Similar attacks have been blamed on the Islamist Boko Haram sect which has been battling security services in the city.
The latest bombings come ahead of polls on Tuesday for the governors of Nigeria's 36 states. Unrest swept across Nigeria's north following a presidential election on 16 April, which was won by incumbent Goodluck Jonathan, a southerner. Hundreds of people are believed to have been killed and tens of thousands fled their homes.
Police said the bombs bore all hallmarks of Boko Haram, which has mounted almost daily attacks and killings in the city in recent months.
Correspondents say Boko Haram's grievances are entirely separate to the post-election violence, but there are also suspicions that the group has been used locally by politicians to attack and to intimidate voters.
Police say three people died, including a police officer, at the explosions at the Tudu Palace hotel's bar and 14 people were wounded.
The BBC's Bilkisu Babangida, in Maiduguri, says a police officer was also wounded in the explosion at the city's cattle market on Monday morning.
On Sunday, a three-page statement from Boko Haram, a group which is opposed to Western education and wants to see Islamic law imposed across Nigeria, was left outside of a newspaper office in the city warning of further attacks, our correspondent says.
"We will never accept any system of governance apart from the one described by Islam because that is the only way Muslims can be liberated," it said.
"We do not respect the Nigerian government because it is illegal. We will continue to fight its military and police because they are not protecting Islam."
There were two explosions in Maiduguri ahead of presidential polls, although no injuries were reported at the time.
Violence has also marred the election campaign in Borno state, including the assassination in January of the opposition All Nigeria People's Party (ANPP) candidate.
But our reporter says the latest bombings come as a surprise, as security is tight in the city because of the elections for governor.
"From all indications, this is the handiwork of Boko Haram, which has carried out similar attacks in the past," police spokesman Mai Mamm told AFP news agency.
Clashes in Maiduguri between Boko Haram and the police in July 2009 left hundreds of people dead, mainly member of the sect.
For the past six months, sect members have been fighting a guerrilla war, killing policemen and people they believe helped the security services in the fight against them.
Jibrin Ibrahim, political analyst at the Centre for Democracy and Development in Abuja, says Boko Haram has been arming itself for some time and is consciously trying to disrupt the polls.
"Elections are a demonstration of Western modernity which it is against," Mr Ibrahim told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme.
"Secondly it holds certain members of the political class responsible for the attempt to wipe them out a couple of years ago." | Armed Conflict | April 2011 | ['(BBC)'] |
At least 5 people are killed during a bomb explosion at a bus station in Jandool in Lower Dir, Pakistan. | At least seven people have been killed in a suicide-bomb attack at a bus station in north-west Pakistan.
Twenty-two were also injured in the town of Jandool in Lower Dir, where Pakistani troops fought a major offensive against the Taliban in 2009.
A member of a government-backed peace committee, set up to maintain security after the offensive, was reported to have been killed in the blast.
Militants frequently launch attacks in districts close to the Afghan border. But no group has yet said it carried out the latest attack - the sixth bombing in Pakistan in as many days.
Regional deputy inspector Qazi Jamil ur-Rehman told the AFP news agency: "It was a suicide attack. The bomber was on foot. We're investigating what the target was."
The wounded from the blast were taken to two nearby hospitals and authorities warned that the death toll could rise, Pakistan's APP news agency reported.
| Armed Conflict | April 2011 | ['(BBC)', '(Al Jazeera)'] |
Gunmen attack the Ogba Zoo in Benin City, Nigeria, killing three police officers and abduct the zoo's director. There is no information on who the gunmen and abductors are, or whether they have made any demands. | Three policemen have been killed by gunmen who attacked a zoo in Nigeria's mid-western Edo State, the police have told the BBC.
The gunmen also abducted the head of the zoo, after they stormed the 750-acre Ogba Zoo and Nature Park.
The information minister has condemned the attack, describing it as a big blow to efforts to promote tourism.
According to a police spokesman, Sunday's incident occurred in the presence of more than 200 visitors. There is no information on who the gunmen and abductors are, or whether they have made any demands.
Information and Culture Minister Lai Mohammed described the zoo as one of Nigeria's top tourist destinations.
He called on the abductors of zoo director Andy Ehanire to quickly release him unharmed.
Mr Mohammed said that security at all tourist sites across the country would be stepped up. | Armed Conflict | September 2017 | ['(BBC)'] |
Tens of thousands of protesters begin their anticorruption protests, "Million Voices Against Corruption, President Chen Must Go", against President Chen Shui–bian in Taipei, Taiwan. , | TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Tens of thousands of red-clad protesters thronged Taiwan's capital Saturday, demanding that President Chen Shui-bian resign over a series of alleged corruption scandals involving his family and inner circle.
The color of their clothes symbolizing anger, the protesters shouted slogans and gave the "thumbs down" gesture, emblematic of their feeling that Chen should resign to restore the dignity of the self-governing island of 23 million people.
Police estimated 90,000 people jammed a broad boulevard adjacent to the ornate Presidential Office Building in Taipei, though protest organizers claimed they reached their target of 200,000.
Protest leader Shih Ming-teh said Taiwan would be paralyzed of Chen served out his term, which ends in May 2008.
"The people of Taiwan have the power to ask Chen to step down," Shih said. "We will not stop this protest until he does."
As rain began to fall, Shih sat down on the boulevard to symbolize his steadfastness, and the crowd followed suit. He has vowed to stage a sit-in protest outside the Presidential Office Building until Chen steps down.
Chen has been under fire for more than four months over allegations that his relatives and aides have exploited their connections to him for illegal financial gain.
On Thursday, the Presidential Office acknowledged that prosecutors questioned Chen last month about the use of false invoices to account for part of a secret fund used for Taiwanese diplomatic activities. Chen admitted his office had used false invoices in the accounting of the diplomatic fund. However, the office said the ruse was necessary because of the fund's highly secretive nature.
In July, his son-in-law was indicted for alleged insider trading involving a local development firm, a charge he denies. First lady Wu Shu-chen is also under investigation for allegedly profiting from the transfer of an upscale department store to new owners. Chen's office insists she was not involved.
Many protesters appeared to be supporters of the opposition Nationalist Party, though there were also some disappointed followers of Chen's Democratic Progressive Party.
"I want him to go," said Ted Lai, 45, a Taipei salesman who supported Chen in the past. "He has been corrupt and he has done many things wrong."
Barbed-wire barricades kept the protesters away from the presidential offices. Police said Friday they had contingency plans to deploy 2,000 officers and 600 barricades if violence broke out.
Last month, Shih announced he would enlist 1 million Taiwanese to donate $3 each to support his campaign to get Chen to step down. He said he reached his goal in a week.
In a letter published in leading Taiwanese newspapers Saturday, opposition leader Ma Ying-jeou _ a strong favorite to lead the National Party in 2008 presidential elections _ said Chen's party should not become "an accomplice to corruption."
"We will not be happy to see the DPP collapse because of its support for Chen," Ma said, calling on the party to introduce a recall motion against Chen in the legislature.
In June, the Nationalists and their allied People First Party failed to push through a bill calling for a national referendum on whether to recall the president. The bill failed to receive the required two-thirds backing from lawmakers.
On Friday, about 5,000 of Chen's backers rallied in Taipei in support of the embattled president.
Chen spent Saturday visiting his hometown of Kuantien in southern Taiwan, where his supporters burned red shirts to express their disapproval of Shih's campaign. | Protest_Online Condemnation | September 2006 | ['(Associated Press via Washington Post)', '(BBC)'] |
Daniel Inouye, the senior Senator from Hawaii and the President pro tempore, dies in Honolulu at the age of 88. | Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), the nation's longest-serving senator and a decorated World War II combat veteran, died Monday at 88.
Inouye's office said the senator died of "respiratory complications" on Monday evening. His last word, according to a statement released by his staff, was "Aloha." The long-time senator had been hospitalized since early December because of respiratory problems.
A full obituary for Sen. Inouye can be found here.
Inouye had served in the Senate since 1963 and represented Hawaii since 1954, serving as the Aloha State's first congressman beginning in 1959. He served as the Senate pro tempore — the designation for the chamber's longest-serving Senator — and the person third in line to the presidency. He also chaired the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee at the time of his death.
As The Post's Jason Horowitz wrote in a 2010 profile of Inouye:
Inouye enlisted in the U.S. Army at age 17, just after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. He served in a combat capacity in Europe and lost an arm in battle. He won the Medal of Honor for his service.
President Obama highlighted Inouye's military service in a statement, saying the country had lost a "true American hero."
"In Washington, he worked to strengthen our military, forge bipartisan consensus, and hold those of us in government accountable to the people we were elected to serve," Obama said. "But it was his incredible bravery during World War II – including one heroic effort that cost him his arm but earned him the Medal of Honor – that made Danny not just a colleague and a mentor, but someone revered by all of us lucky enough to know him."
Immediately following Inouye's death, his colleagues took to the Senate floor to remember him. "His service to the Senate will be with the greats of this body," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).
Reid recalled a story about Inouye's son asking him why he had volunteered to fight in War World II, even though the U.S. had declared Japanese Americans "enemy aliens." Reid said of Inouye's response: "He did it for the children. That’s Senator Inouye."
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) praised Inouye as a man of uncommon modesty.
"He had every reason to call attention to himself, but never did," McConnell said. "He was the kind of man, in short, that America has always been grateful to have, especially in her darkest hours: Men who lead by example and expect nothing in return."
Inouye's office said that when he was asked in recent days how he wanted to be remembered, he said: "I represented the people of Hawaii and this nation honestly and to the best of my ability. I think I did okay."
Inouye's seat will be filled by an appointment by Gov. Neil Abercrombie (D). He will pick from three finalists provided by the state Democratic Party. State law requires that Inouye must be replaced by a senator from the same political party. Inouye's seat is up for a full term in 2016.
It wasn’t immediately clear who Abercrombie might pick to replace the longtime senator. Both of the state’s House members are relative newcomers, with Rep. Colleen Hanabusa (D) having been first elected in 2010 and Rep.-elect Tulsi Gabbard (D) set to take office in January. Gabbard is a rising star in the Democratic Party: She's just 31-years-old, and will be one of the first female combat veterans to serve in Congress. Hanabusa, a close ally of Inouye's, called the senator a "mentor."
"I am proud to have called Dan Inouye a friend and a mentor," she said in a statement. "His professional generosity and personal kindness have meant the world to me. I attribute a great deal of the success I have enjoyed to his willingness to share with a smile, and to guide with a gentle word. I will miss him, and I join our state and our nation in mourning the loss of a great American and a wonderful man.”
In a speech honoring his Aloha State colleague Monday evening, Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii) noted that Tuesday “will be the first day since Hawaii became a state in 1959 that Dan Inouye will not be representing us in Congress.”
“Every child born in Hawaii will learn of Dan Inouye, a man who changed the islands forever,” Akaka said. His voice broke several times as he paid tribute to his colleague.
Elsewhere n the Senate, Inouye's colleagues praised his service as both legislator and soldier.
"Danny Inouye was an American hero of the highest order," said Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), in a statement. "As a soldier he broke barriers with his heroism, as a proud Hawaiian he committed his life’s work to serving the people of his state, and as a legislator he earned the admiration of everyone he ever worked with on both sides of the aisle, including me."
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said Inouye was among the first senators he reached out to after he was elected in 2010.
"When I arrived in Washington, he was one of the first senators I sought out to introduce myself to in the first days after being sworn in," Rubio said. "I always admired his story and how he was the last of the Greatest Generation of Americans that served this country in World War II and then in peace in the U.S. Senate."
| Famous Person - Death | December 2012 | ['(Washington Post)'] |
During his visit to West Africa, French President Emmanuel Macron says that French forces killed 33 Islamist militants in central Mali earlier that day. | French president makes announcement on west Africa trip that has focused on jihadist threat in region
Last modified on Sat 21 Dec 2019 19.00 GMT
French forces have killed 33 Islamic extremists in central Mali, Emmanuel Macron has said.
The French president made the announcement on the second day of his three-day trip to west Africa, which has been dominated by the growing threat posed by jihadist groups.
Macron tweeted that he was “proud of our soldiers who protect us”. Two Malian gendarmes also were rescued in the operation, he said.
France has 4,500 military personnel in west and central Africa, much of which was previously under French colonial rule. The French forces led a military operation in 2013 to dislodge Islamic extremists from power in northern Mali.
The militants have since regrouped and pushed further into central Mali, where Saturday morning’s operation was carried out.
Macron met French military personnel stationed in Ivory Coast, which shares a long border with Mali and Burkina Faso, on Friday.
He was also expected to highlight a new initiative on Saturday. The International Academy to Fight Terrorism will focus on regional strategies and training those involved in the fight against extremism, according to the French presidency. | Diplomatic Visit | December 2019 | ['(The Guardian)'] |
Pro and anti government protestors demonstrate in the Thai capital Bangkok and near the Preah Vihear Temple along the border with Cambodia. | Thousands of troops were deployed in Thailand as rival political groups held separate protests, one of which turned violent.
Crowds of demonstrators turned out in Bangkok to mark the third anniversary of the coup which ousted controversial Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. On the Cambodian border an anti-Thaksin group clashed with police as it tried to enter a disputed border temple. Several people were injured and one man was shot in the neck, an official said. Security forces and local villagers had set up roadblocks to try to prevent the group entering the 11th century Preah Vihear site, the scene of deadly shootings between Cambodian and Thai troops in recent months. Election call
In Bangkok, thousands of troops and police were ordered onto the streets ahead of the protest by Mr Thaksin's red-shirted supporters. Mr Thaksin himself is in overseas exile, and has been convicted in absentia of corruption. In a speech to his supporters via videolink, he called for national reconciliation. "Our country has deteriorated and risks being a failed state. I have already forgiven everybody, let's start anew and decide on new elections," he was quoted as saying by AFP news agency. Mr Thaksin won elections in 2001 and 2005, swept to office by a wave of support from rural voters whose concerns he worked to address. After he was ousted, his allies won the first post-coup elections in 2007. But protests - including a blockade of Bangkok's two international airports - by those who opposed him, the yellow-shirted People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), forced that government from office, allowing the party they backed to form a coalition. The red camp want fresh elections and a pardon for Mr Thaksin. Their last rally, in April, ended in violence, with several buses burned and dozens of people injured. By early evening, several thousand demonstrators had joined the protests, police said. "This will be a peaceful protest and will end by midnight if the government does not use violence," Red Shirt leader Jatuporn Promphan said. Temple tensions
The yellow camp, meanwhile, battled riot police and local villagers near Preah Vihear, the temple complex at the heart of a border dispute between Thailand and Cambodia. An international court awarded the temple area to Cambodia in 1962, but disputes over land surrounding it have never been resolved. The PAD says the government must eject Cambodian troops from what they perceive as Thai territory. About 4,000 PAD supporters had joined the protest, reports said, and had broken through barricades to reach the foot of the temple. Both Thailand and Cambodia deployed troops there last year after the temple was awarded Unesco World Heritage status, raising nationalist sentiment on either side. Since then there have been several deadly exchanges of fire across the border. | Protest_Online Condemnation | September 2009 | ['(Bangkok Post)', '(BBC)', '(Xinhua)'] |
Australia tops the medal tally followed by India and England. | (CNN) -- India's hosting of the 2010 Commonwealth Games ended on a high note on Thursday as badminton player Saina Nehwal won a dramatic final gold of the 11-day competition to put her country second in the overall medal table.
India had earlier suffered a humiliating defeat in one of its most popular sports when Australia registered a resounding 8-0 victory in the men's hockey final for a leading 74th gold medal and 177 in total.
But Nehwal came back from the brink of defeat to secure India's 38th victory, edging England into third place, as she won the women's singles event.
She became the first Indian to claim a Commonwealth gold in the sport, surviving a match-point in the second set before going on to beat Malaysian second seed 19-21 23-21 21-13 Wong Mew Choo.
It was a much-needed boost for India, which had to deal with controversies about child labor, questions as to whether the venues in New Delhi would be ready in time, technology faults, disputed qualifications in athletics events and three positive drug tests -- one of whom was a home competitor, female walker Rani Yadav.
With the sporting events concluded, the chairman of the New Delhi Organizing Committee, Suresh Kalmadi, applauded his country's efforts during the handing-over ceremony to the 2014 host city, Glasgow of Scotland.
"For the athletes it has been a life-changing experience. For India it has been a new beginning in sports," he told the crowd at a packed Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium after being greeted with boos. "For the world it has been evidence of what India can do on the sporting stage. This is a new era for Indian sport. All this has made what has turned out to be the largest, the most-watched and the most enjoyable Games ever." Australia, the host four years ago in Melbourne, was the dominant country throughout the competition -- which is contested by nations from the former British Empire, but was hit this year by the absence of many top athletes such as sprint star Usain Bolt of Jamaica.
The Australian men's field hockey team has now won gold every time since the sport was first included, in Kuala Lumpur in 1998, and had little problems in brushing aside India on Thursday.
Luke Doerner and Jason Wilon scored two goals each as their team followed up their World Cup triumph at the same Major Dhyan Chand stadium in March to seal a hat-trick of titles in 2010 along with the Champions Trophy.
New Zealand won the bronze medal with a surprise victory over fourth seeds England, winning 5-3 in a penalty shootout after the match was tied 3-3 after extra-time.
However, Australia's world netball champions were unable to add Commonwealth Gold to their CV as longtime rivals New Zealand retained their title with a 66-64 victory in a rematch of the 2006 final.
Kenya edged out Australia as the top nation in the track and field events, winning both the marathon races on Thursday.
John Kelai ended the African country's 20-year wait to win the men's title as he triumphed in a time of two hours 14 minutes and 35 seconds from Michael Shelley and compatriot Amos Matui. Irene Kosgei gave Kenya a historic first success in the women's event, edging past teammate Irene Mogake late in the race to win in a time of 2:34.32, with Australia's Lisa Weightman claiming bronze.
Singapore dominated the closing table tennis events, continuing a gold rush that saw their players give up just one gold -- to India in the men's doubles on Wednesday.
Yang Zi beat compatriot Gao Ning 4-1 in the men's singles final, while in another all-Singapore affair second seeds Li Jiawei and Sun Beibei upset the favored Feng Tianwei and Wang Yuegu 3-2 in the women's doubles.
But Singapore suffered defeat in the badminton arena, with top-seeded Shinta Sari and Yao Lei losing to India's second-ranked Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Michimanda in straight sets.
Malaysian top seeds Koo Kien Keat and Tan Boon Heong won the men's doubles, beating England's second seeds Nathan Robertson and Anthony Clark 21-19 21-14.
Robertson also had to settle for silver in the mixed doubles, despite being the top seeds, as he and Jenny Wallwork lost 22-20 21-12 by Koo Kien Keat and Chin Ee Hui, also of Malaysia. | Sports Competition | October 2010 | ['(CNN)'] |
After a surprise visit by U.S. President Donald Trump, the Taliban say they are ready to restart peace talks and reach a ceasefire. | KABUL (Reuters) - The Taliban said on Friday they were ready to restart peace talks with the United States, a day after President Donald Trump visited U.S. troops in Afghanistan and said he believed the radical group would agree to a ceasefire.
Taliban says ready to resume peace talks
01:24
Trump’s surprise Thanksgiving Day visit was his first to Afghanistan since becoming president and came a week after a prisoner swap between Washington and Kabul that raised hopes for a long elusive peace deal to end the 18-year war.
“The Taliban wants to make a deal and we are meeting with them,” Trump told reporters after arriving in Afghanistan on Thursday.
“We say it has to be a ceasefire and they didn’t want to do a ceasefire and now they want to do a ceasefire, I believe. It will probably work out that way,” he said.
Trump canceled peace negotiations in September after the militant group claimed responsibility for an attack in Kabul that killed 12 people, including an American soldier.
Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the hardline Islamist insurgent group, said on Friday they were “ready to restart the talks”.
“Our stance is still the same. If peace talks start, it will be resumed from the stage where it had stopped,” Mujahid told Reuters.
Taliban leaders have told Reuters that the group has been holding meetings with senior U.S. officials in Doha since last weekend, adding they could soon resume formal peace talks.
“We are hoping that Trump’s visit to Afghanistan will prove that he is serious to start talks again. We don’t think he has not much of a choice,” said a senior Taliban commander on conditions of anonymity.
Trump did not answer reporters’ questions when he returned on Friday morning to Florida, where he is spending the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday weekend away from Washington.
There are currently about 13,000 U.S. forces as well as thousands of other NATO troops in Afghanistan, 18 years after a U.S.-led coalition invaded the country following the Sept. 11, 2001, al Qaeda attacks on the United States.
About 2,400 U.S. service members have been killed in the course of the Afghan conflict.
A draft accord agreed in September would have thousands of American troops withdrawn in exchange for guarantees that Afghanistan would not be used as a base for militant attacks on the United States or its allies.
Still, many U.S. officials doubt the Taliban could be relied upon to prevent al Qaeda from again plotting attacks against the United States from Afghan soil.
| Diplomatic Visit | November 2019 | ['(Reuters)'] |
North Carolina's controversial voter ID law is in effect for the first time. Voters without these new ID credentials, including voters with a “reasonable impediment” to obtaining an ID, can cast a provisional ballot. Citizens (2,567) faced this problem during early voting, including U.S. Senator Richard Burr who, because his driver's license was stolen, was without ID. In addition, votes for congressional candidates for House seats don't count because the state's congressional district map was redrawn after the ballots were printed. The actual congressional primary is scheduled for June 7. (The Nation via Moyers & Company) | BY Ari Berman | March 15, 2016 North Carolina voters listen as Hillary Clinton speaks during a Get Out the Vote event at Grady Cole Center on March 14, 2016 in Charlotte, North Carolina. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
This post originally appeared at The Nation.
North Carolina’s new voter-ID law goes into effect for the first time during the March 15 primary, and 218,000 registered voters do not have an acceptable form of government-issued ID now required to vote.
Ethelene Douglas, an 85-year-old African-American woman who grew up in the segregated South and first registered to vote in 1964, was one of them. Her struggle to obtain the necessary ID vividly illustrates the problems with the law.
In September 2012, Douglas’s niece, Clara Quick, took her to the DMV in Laurinburg, North Carolina, to get a state photo ID. Douglas was told she needed a copy of her birth certificate to get an ID. So they traveled across the state line to Dillon, South Carolina, where Douglas was born, to find her birth certificate. But the government office there said she needed a photo ID to get a birth certificate, and Douglas was caught in a seemingly unresolvable catch-22. (This account comes from an affidavit Quick filed in federal court.)
Her niece called the South Carolina’s Vital Records office, paid $17 for an expedited birth certificate, but still couldn’t get one. Instead, she was told to find her aunt’s marriage certificate, which was in Bennettsville, South Carolina. After getting that, they made a second trip to the North Carolina DMV, but were once again told Douglas couldn’t get a photo ID because she didn’t have a birth certificate.
They were so frustrated that they gave up trying for a time. In the fall of 2013, after North Carolina passed the voter-ID law, they made a third trip to the DMV. An employee told Quick to get a census report to confirm her aunt’s identify, which she purchased for $69. Quick brought her aunt’s census report, marriage certificate, Social Security card and utility bill during a fourth trip to the DMV in September 2014 and was finally able to get her the photo ID needed to vote.
It took two years, four trips to the DMV, two trips to South Carolina, and $86 in government documents for an 85-year-old woman to continue to vote. Quick called it “an absolute nightmare. There are other voters out there that do not have the money, time, access to transportation, and family assistance to obtain a NCDMV photo ID. It should not be this difficult to obtain an ID for voting.”
Douglas’s story is all too familiar these days. In recent weeks, I’ve written about 94-year-old Rosanell Eaton, who had to recite the Preamble to the Constitution from memory to register to vote in Jim Crow North Carolina during the 1940s and had to make 11 trips to different state agencies in 2015 to comply with the new law. And 86-year-old Reba Bowser, a Republican voter since the Eisenhower era, whose voter ID application was initially rejected despite the fact that she presented an expired New Hampshire driver’s license, two different birth certificates, a Social Security card, a Medicare card and her apartment lease to the DMV.
Nor have the problems been confined to elderly voters. Logan Graham, a student at North Carolina State, couldn’t vote with his out-of-state driver’s license or his state university-issued ID. When he went to the DMV to get a voter ID, he was wrongly sent to the Board of Elections, which then sent him back to the DMV, where the two-hour lines twice forced him to leave before obtaining an ID so he could go to class.
The good news is those with a “reasonable impediment” to obtaining an ID can still vote in North Carolina. The GOP legislature, evidently worried that the law would be struck down, added this provision three weeks before a federal court heard a challenge to the rule. The bad news is they must cast a provisional ballot that is subject to challenge, and more than half of the provisional ballots cast in North Carolina in 2014 were rejected. Furthermore, few voters know the reasonable impediment provision exists. “The state has flatly done an inadequate job of educating people,” says Allison Riggs, a senior attorney with the Southern Coalition for Social Justice.
During the early voting period, over 2,567 provisional ballots have been cast — 865 voters did not bring an acceptable ID to the polls and will have to return to the county board of elections by March 21 with an ID to have their ballot counted, and 391 voters cited a reasonable impediment to obtaining one. One of those voters was North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr, a supporter of the law who lost his driver’s license and showed up at the polls without ID.
Voter ID was just one of the sweeping voting restrictions adopted by the North Carolina legislature a month after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act. The limits include cutting early voting, eliminating same-day registration, banning out-of-precinct voting and ending preregistration for 16- and 17-year-olds. Luckily for voters, same-day registration and out-of-precinct voting will be in effect for the primary, based on an order from the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit that is pending judgment before a lower court.
In 2014, Democracy North Carolina estimated that “the new voting limitations and polling place problems reduced turnout by at least 30,000 voters.” The group found 2,344 rejected provisional ballots would have been counted if same-day registration and out-of-precinct voting had been in place. The elimination of these provisions disproportionately affected African-American and Democratic voters. African-Americans made up 22 percent of registered voters but cast 38 percent of rejected ballots. Democrats accounted for nearly half of all rejected ballots.
A 2014 study by the Government Accountability Office found that voter ID laws reduced turnout by 2 percent, with the largest impact among younger, newly registered and minority voters. For those who argue that these restrictions don’t make a difference, remember that in 2008, Barack Obama won North Carolina by 14,177 votes, or 0.32 percent.
TOPICS: Civil Liberties
| Government Policy Changes | March 2016 | ['(WRAL)', '(NPR)', '(Charlotte Observer)', '(The New York Times)'] |
The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Japanese manufacturer of airbags Takata Corp. agree to a five-year consent decree where the company agrees to pay a civil penalty of $70 million and faces as much as $130 million more in fines if it violates the settlement. Twelve automakers are ordered to speed up recalls that so far have only reached about a quarter of the affected cars. | U.S. automotive safety regulators on Tuesday said Japanese auto supplier Takata has agreed to accept penalties for failures involving exploding air bags that have killed at least eight people and injured at least 98.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will fine Takata at least $70 million and could increase that penalty up to $200 million if the supplier does not adequately comply with a plan to accelerate recalls of defective air bags and eliminate a chemical that may have caused the incidents. It's the largest civil penalty in the agency's history.
In another blow, Honda said Takata had "misrepresented and manipulated test data" on air bag inflators and said it would not use the Japanese auto supplier's air bags in any future products. All of the known deaths so far attributable to Takata air bags occurred in Honda's vehicles.
Takata acknowledged "that it was aware of a defect but failed to issue a timely recall," NHTSA said.
Consequently, the Department of Transportation is leveraging never-before-used authority to force Takata and major automakers to speed their efforts to fix 19 million vehicles fitted with potentially defective air bags. NHTSA is an agency within the department.
NHTSA will also appoint a monitor to oversee Takata's air bag recall, which must be completed about two years earlier than previously planned. A date, however, was not specified.
"American drivers should not have to worry that a device designed to save their life might actually take it," Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx told reporters at a press conference.
Foxx said Takata had fired employees as a result of the federal investigation, but he said he did not know how many. He also said Takata had moved from "kicking and screaming" over the suggestion that its air bags were defective to an admission of fault.
Takata said in a statement that it's "committed to being part of the solution" through further investigation of the matter, accelerated recalls and improved safety procedures.
"We deeply regret the circumstances that led to this," Takata CEO Shigehisa Takada said. "This settlement is an important step forward for Takata that will enable us to focus on rebuilding the trust of automakers, regulators and the driving public."
The root cause of the exploding air bags remains a mystery, although federal investigators suspect that it may be related to ammonium nitrate propellant. As part of the consent agreement, Takata must phase out the use of ammonium nitrate propellant unless it can prove that it's not related to the exploding air bags.
In dumping Takata as an air-bag supplier, Honda said it had provided details and documents on the Takata data to NHTSA during the agency's investigation but had not publicly disclosed the information until Tuesday.
"Honda expects its suppliers to act with integrity at all times and we are deeply troubled by this apparent behavior by one of our suppliers," the company said.
NHTSA also left open the possibility that it will require Takata to recall all the air bags it has ever produced with ammonium nitrate.
Regulators have urged consumers to get their vehicles repaired for free as soon as possible.
Vehicles that have been housed in hot, humid climates for at least five years are most at risk, suggesting that climate is a contributing factor. NHTSA is forcing the auto companies to give those vehicles priority in the recall process.
Foxx said he suspects that "millions more" vehicles may be recalled once NHTSA finishes its probe into the air bags.
NHTSA also expanded its investigation in October to include a side air bag inflator that has ruptured in accidents involving General Motors and Volkswagen vehicles.
The agency had already ordered a recall of 19 million vehicles — of which 14 million are from BMW, Fiat Chrysler, Ford, Honda and Mazda. The rest are from General Motors, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Subaru, Toyota, and Daimler.
About 6 million of those vehicles are considered by NHTSA to be of the highest priority because of their location and age.
Production of replacement air bag inflators and harnesses used to mount the devices is proceeding at a rate of about 2.8 million units per month. Other air bag manufacturers are making about 70% of the parts to aid Takata in speeding the repairs.
NHTSA's action against Takata drew a swift reaction from U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and U.S. Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., who have both criticized the auto industry for safety failures.
"Meager fines do nothing more than change the costs of doing business and provide no meaningful deterrence for continuing reprehensible and irresponsible behavior that costs countless preventable injuries and lives," they said in a joint statement. "Today's action provides further evidence that the cap on civil penalties levied by NHTSA must be eliminated by Congress, and we must also reform the criminal penalties associated with concealing life-saving information about defects from the public." | Government Policy Changes | November 2015 | ['(Bloomberg)', '(USA Today)'] |
The towns of Marysville, Kinglake, Strathewen and others are almost completely destroyed by bushfires. | Jane Cowan in Marysville and reporters
The township of Marysville in central Victoria has been almost completely destroyed by bushfires and there are grave fears for the town of Kinglake, where at least 12 people are known to have died.
Survivors in Marysville told ABC reporter Jane Cowan of seeing house after house go up in flames as the fire hit, with exploding gas canisters hurled through walls, and said at least one woman had been killed.
Aerial pictures taken by the ABC show street after street of completely destroyed homes in Marysville. Most are just piles of rubble. Some still have walls standing and a handful appear to be mostly intact.
In all 35 people are now confirmed to have died in the fires north of Melbourne and this morning there are unconfirmed reports of bodies being found in cars overtaken by the fires in Gippsland in the state's east.
Six of the confirmed dead have been found at Kinglake, six at Kinglake West and four each at St Andrews and Wandong, all north of Melbourne. More bodies have been found at Humevale, Bendigo, and Arthurs Creek and there are reports of at least one death in Marysville.
Authorities are unable to get into Kinglake to confirm the level of destruction but yesterday ABC Local Radio listener Peter Mitchell said the entire town was on fire.
"The whole of Kinglake is ablaze," he said. "I live a couple of kilometres out of town and when I heard explosions I went to the end of my road to see what was going on and by the time I got there I saw fires everywhere."
Jane Cowan visited Marysville this morning and says the township has "virtually ceased to exist".
"We were in the main street and it's like a warzone, like a bomb has been dropped on the entire township," she said.
"People there are in an absolute state of shock. Most people had already left, but the people, I'd say about 30 people that are still left and had spent the night sheltering on the Football Oval there, are just completely dazed.
"[They are] walking around the streets with rugs around their shoulders because it's actually getting cold here now if you can believe it.
"And they tell stories of how fast everything turned bad there yesterday, about five or six o'clock in the evening.
"They say they actually thought the fire was going to go around the town of Marysville and then in a matter of minutes the sky went black and they knew they were in big trouble.
"People are talking about sheltering in their homes seeing every single house in their street go up in flames in a row, one by one ... of narrow escapes ... houses that managed to survive.
"There's a handful of houses that miraculously are still standing in Marysville.
"One lady whose house actually made it said she thought she was going to lose hers as well as she watched all the others go up around her.
"Then one of their windows cracked and she thought that was it theirs going as well. But somehow they made it.
"There are stories of households that sheltered three families in one house. Of gas bottles from nearby houses exploding and then piercing their houses and then those houses catching fire as well. It's an absolute warzone.
"They're just in a state of shock John. It's way too early [to talk about rebuilding].
"The people who are there are being very generous with their emotions. Everything's very raw, there are lives that have been lost in Marysville.
"People are saying that there are bodies in the town, terrible stories of for instance a woman who was found in her car this morning, obviously, was trying to escape. She didn't make it. She had her crockery on the seat beside her in the car.
"That's where their heads are at the moment. It's way too early to start thinking about rebuilding.
"They've got no power, no water, no phone coverage. And they've all actually just left the town, abandoned the town this morning, in a convoy.
"They've been driven out by the emergency services now who are cutting trees off the road to get them out because it's just not safe to be there even now because they've absolultely no services."
But there were conflicting reports from the nearby township of Narbethong, south-west of Marysville.
Resident Raylene Kincaide lost her home and says the whole township is gone.
"It's just devastating. We've lost everything. It's not good," she said. "Our little town had gone 20 minutes after we left. Probably 95 per cent of the houses are gone.
She said they are worried that some residents are missing and have not been accounted for.
"My partner was up there and he left when he saw the cattle burning. I've been in Ash Wednesday, but this is worse," she said.
But Jane Cowan said she believed "probably three houses have been lost" in Narbethong.
"It's very difficult to tell at the moment, we're still getting a handle on the damage there," she said.
"It's nowhere near the same damage as places like Marysville. It looks like there would have been a lot of damage to stock, paddocks are blackened, but it's still very difficult to get a handle on it.
"Homes have been lost all over the place out here but I couldn't give you too much information about Narbethong now."
About 700 firefighters are working around Kinglake, Kilmore, Murrindindi and Marysville.
The SES number is 132 500. In a life-threatening emergency or to report a fire, call 000.
Eighteen people are being treated for burns at Melbourne's Alfred Hospital, eight of whom are in intensive care.
Emergency physician John Coleridge says it is going to be grim day for those searching for others caught out by the fires
"There are apparently cars along the roadside just abandoned," he said.
"Unfortunately they'll probably find many more people, many of whom may not survive."
Hospital workers say the injuries suffered by victims are the worst they have seen since the Bali bombings.
In total, the blazes are thought to have burnt through more than 100,000 hectares and caused extensive property damage.
For information on the Victorian fires call the Country Fire Authority's information line on 1800 240 667.
| Fire | February 2009 | ['(ABC News Australia)'] |
The Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe Dunja Mijatović urges Polish authorities to "immediately release" an LGBT rights activist detained on Friday. The activist was arrested on charges of hooliganism and vandalism. Yesterday, 48 pro-LGBT protesters were also arrested when they tried to stop police from detaining the activist. | Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe Dunja Mijatovic on Saturday appealed to Poland to "immediately release" Michal Sz. aka 'Margo,' an LGBT rights activist detained by a court order on Friday. Michal Sz. claims a female identity.
In her opinion, the arrest sends a disturbing signal concerning freedom of speech and LGBT rights in Poland.
"I call for the immediate release of LGBT activist Margot from @stopbzdurom (an anti-homophobia group - PAP) detained yesterday for blocking an anti-LGBT hate van & putting rainbow flags on #Warsaw monuments. Order to detain her for 2 months sends very chilling signal for #FreedomOfSpeech & #LGBT rights in #Poland," Mijatovic wrote on Twitter.
According to the Polish prosecutor's office, Michal Sz. (surname withheld under Polish law) is suspected of committing an act of hooliganism on June 27 by taking part in a brutal attack on a pro-life activist and destroying property belonging to a pro-life foundation, for which he faces up to five years in prison.
Commenting on the Mijatovic post, Polish Deputy Minister of Justice Sebastian Kaleta tweeted on Saturday: "He's not an activist, but a criminal. Stop spreading #FakeNews," and posted a video recording of the incident.
He also referred to his earlier Facebook post in which he warned his readers that "European leftism" would be defending "the hooligan Michal Sz."
On Saturday, Polish police said they had detained 48 people after protesters tried to stop them arresting Michal Sz.
On Sunday, Polish Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro also slammed Mijatovic's appeal.
"If someone forcibly threw you out of a car, beat you and pierced the wheels of the car with a knife, would you think that arresting the perpetrator by the court is an attack on freedom? Be ashamed of your appeal in defence of the aggressor and apologise to a defenceless man beaten by an LGBT activist!" Ziobro tweeted.
The wheelchair, with one wheel, a bucket-like seat and four grip-holds to help move it up the mountain, came to the attention of officials at the Tatra Mountains National Park after an employee launched a crowdfunding campaign to buy one for her disabled sister.
Josie Dixon had little idea that her great-great-great-great grandfather Felix Yaniewicz was one of the 19th century’s most notable composers until a chance conversation about a Stradivarius violin led her on a path of discovery. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Arrest | August 2020 | ['(The First News)'] |
The Scots Makar Edwin Morgan, a leading twentieth century poet, dies. | Edwin Morgan, who has died aged 90, was a poet, both scholarly and playful, who demonstrated a complete mastery of form and an amazingly wide sweep of subject matter. A subtle humorist with a sometimes tragic air, he was also a superb translator from several European languages.
Morgan, never easily categorisable, displayed an attractive energy, openness and the conviction that nothing was off-limits for poetry to address. His verse concerned such topics as meetings with aliens and spaceships, but could also be about a story from that day’s newspaper or an encounter with reality in a Glasgow street.
His collection The Second Life (1968) covered a fairly typical thematic range: successive poems dealt with Ernest Hemingway; Marilyn Monroe; Edith Piaf; the domes of St Sophia in Istanbul; a white rhinoceros; a wolf; an Aberdeen train; and the opening of the Forth Road Bridge.
The forms he used were likewise eclectic — ranging from substantial sonnet sequences to experiments with concrete poetry. He was flexible, too, with language. He was equally at home in English and in Scots, and also made attempts to create the speech patterns of the Loch Ness Monster and of the inhabitants encountered by “The First Men on Mercury”— “Gawl horrop. Bawr. Abawrhannabanna!” for example.
Although well-known for its lightness of touch, and its sheer enthusiasm for the trivial and miraculous phenomena of the 20th century, Morgan’s poetry was often found to depend for its celebratory nature on catching a moment before it had gone forever — and so pointing up, first of all, the moment’s imminent passing.
In an early poem, The Cape of Good Hope (1955), he asked the reader to, “remember/ My voice and verse, and pardon in the hope/ The despair, for by the despair I spoke.” Although that was written at a dark time for him, and his most joyful verse was still to come, Morgan retained his melancholy vein throughout his career.
Edwin George Morgan was born in Glasgow on April 27 1920, the only child of Stanley and Madge Morgan. His father, who had started as a clerk at a small firm of iron and steel merchants, was to end up a director. Even as a child, Edwin’s self-absorption disturbed his loving, but rigorously Presbyterian, parents.
He was educated at Rutherglen Academy, where he was unhappy; his fellow pupils labelled him a swot, although he maintained: “I just happened to get good marks.” From there he transferred to Glasgow High, where he began to write long, fantastic prose narratives, influenced by Verne, Wells and Burroughs. At 17 he enrolled at Glasgow University where, while reading English, he pursued his interest in American poets (e.e. cummings, Robert Lowell, Laura Riding) but also absorbed poetry in various European languages, particularly French and Russian. It was the beginning of his interest in translation.
By the end of his career he was to have translated from French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian and Hungarian among other languages; the authors included Yevtushenko, Pasternak, Mayakovsky, Montale, Quasimodo, Lorca and Brecht. In 2001 he won the Weidenfeld Prize for Translation.
His Beowulf (1952) became a standard translation in America, while his Scots version of Cyrano de Bergerac (1992) was staged in a highly-acclaimed touring production by the Communicado company.
On the outbreak of the Second World War, Morgan registered as a conscientious objector; but, before his case could be heard, he came to believe that there was no alternative to war with Germany. He therefore asked permission to serve with the RAMC, and did so, with the 42nd General Hospital in Egypt, Palestine and the Lebanon, from 1940 to 1946.
He then completed his (first-class) degree at Glasgow, where he became an assistant lecturer, and in 1950 a lecturer. He was at this time a particularly troubled person, by no means at peace with his homosexuality, of which he had been aware since his school days. Various casual affairs caused extensive misery, but in 1963, when he met John Scott, a working-class storeman from a Catholic family, Morgan at last found a relationship of romantic, enduring, reciprocated love. It was Scott who gave Morgan the capacity for joy which inspired much of his best later work; and the title The Second Life refers to the new lease Morgan felt he received through his love. Poems of Years (1982) is dedicated to Scott, who died in 1978.
Homosexuality was not decriminalised in Scotland until 1980, and Morgan, characteristically impish, “came out” officially only on his 70th birthday. But his work had long since made matters plain. The New Divan (1977), for example, which recreates the exotic world of his wartime experience, tells of an affair which ended when the authorities posted the man elsewhere. By the 1980s even the titles — Dear man, my love goes out in waves — told all. But he maintained official reticence to ensure that he was not confined in the role of “gay poet”.
Although highly academic, Morgan was extremely open to foreign influences such as the Black Mountain poets, the Beats, Russian modernism and Portuguese concrete poets, as well as being excited by the liberating influence of pop music (he recently collaborated with the Scottish band Idlewild). He was not keen on, or worthy of, being pigeonholed.
He became Senior Lecturer at Glasgow in 1965, a Reader in 1971 and Professor in 1975. He retired in 1980 and was a visiting professor of English at Strathclyde University from 1987 to 1990.
In 2004 a poem he wrote for the opening of the Scottish Parliament building was read at the occasion. He continued to publish volumes of poetry in his old age, in April this year bringing out a book of new and uncollected poems, Dreams and Other Nightmares.
Morgan was appointed OBE in 1982, and received the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 2000. In 1999 he was named Glasgow’s first Poet Laureate, and in 2004 as the first Scottish national poet, The Scots Makar — shortly afterwards the Heritage Lottery Fund awarded the Scottish Poetry Library a £50,000 grant to acquire and house Morgan’s extensive archive.
He won Scottish Arts Council Book Awards in 1968, 1973, 1977, 1978, 1983, 1985, 1988, 1991 and 1992. In 1983, for Poems of Thirty Years, he shared the Saltire Society Award for Best Scottish Book of the Year, and two years later he won the Soros Translation Award for translations from Attila Jozsef. He blew the prize-money on a day-trip by Concorde to the North Pole, where he met Father Christmas.
Latterly Morgan had been suffering from cancer and was being cared for in a residential home in Glasgow. Although often in pain, he said recently: “Scientists will be working on that, I feel quite sure. But even if they overcome it, there is one big overhanging effect to it all — the knowledge that you’re not going to live for very much longer. And that can make you very pessimistic — or it can make you very determined not to be pessimistic. I prefer the second option.” | Famous Person - Death | August 2010 | ['(national poet)', '(BBC)', '(The Guardian)', '(The Daily Telegraph)', '(AFP via Google News)'] |
The six officers are taken into custody and charged with second degree murder, involuntary manslaughter and misconduct. | Baltimore - Six Baltimore police officers were charged on Friday over the death of a 25-year-old African-American from injuries sustained while in custody, in a surprise announcement after days of riots and protests in the US city.
The charges - ranging from second-degree murder and manslaughter to misconduct - were set out by Maryland state prosecutor Marilyn Mosby.
Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said five of the six had been taken in custody. "The findings of our comprehensive, thorough and independent investigation, coupled with the medical examiner's determination that Mr Gray's death was a homicide... have led us to believe that we have probable cause to file criminal charges," Mosby said.
Cheers broke out when Mosby unveiled the charges on the steps of Baltimore's war memorial, across the street from city hall - a focal point of protests demanding justice over Gray's death.
Many in this East Coast port city of 620 000, about an hour's drive north of Washington, had expected Mosby only to say that the case was still under investigation, one day after Police Commissioner Anthony Batts submitted his detectives' findings to date.
"I didn't know that a decision would be coming today," said Congressman Elijah Cummings, whose district includes much of Baltimore.
Cars honked their horns, and youths chanted "Justice for Freddie Gray" as they lifted their fists into the air in a gesture of victory.
Baltimore is still under a state of emergency, with the National Guard alongside police in riot gear on the streets, and an overnight curfew in place.
Gray, who had a record of non-violent drug offenses, died April 19 from spinal injuries sustained when he was arrested a week earlier in a west Baltimore public housing estate.
Charged with murder Facing the most serious charges of second-degree murder is Officer Caesar Goodson, the driver of the van that transported Gray to a police station.
Goodson, 45, was also charged with involuntary manslaughter, second-degree assault, vehicular manslaughter and misconduct.
Three other officers were charged with involuntary manslaughter, second-degree assault and misconduct, and two more charged with second-degree assault and misconduct.
One officer was also charged with false imprisonment.
All six officers have been suspended with pay since Gray's death.
Mosby - an African-American woman who is the daughter, granddaughter and niece of police officers - said Gray had been "illegally arrested" as "no crime had been committed."
She urged protesters to keep the peace in the wake of the charges, and reiterated that the investigation was ongoing.
In an open letter, Baltimore's police union called for an independent prosecutor to take over the case from Mosby, who at 34 is America's youngest big-city chief prosecutor.
It cited Mosby's relationships with Gray's family lawyer, who contributed $5 000 to her election campaign, and her husband, a city council member who represents the poverty-stricken section of Baltimore where Gray lived and died.
National debate
Gray has become the latest face of an intense national debate over whether American police are too quick to use violence against unarmed black males.
In the best-known case, a white police officer fatally shot unarmed teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri - prompting riots in the St. Louis suburb - but was not indicted by a grand jury.
In December, a grand jury similarly did not indict a New York police officer over the chokehold death of Eric Garner.
In North Charleston, South Carolina, however, a police officer stands accused of murder after he was captured on video fatally shooting Walter Scott during a traffic stop on April 4.
And in Oklahoma, a reserve deputy sheriff has pleaded not guilty of manslaughter after he fatally shot Eric Harris. He claims he thought he had drawn his Taser stun gun, not a firearm, when Harris was apprehended during a sting operation.
'Lacked probable cause'
Recounting the circumstances of Gray's arrest, Mosby said police made eye contact with Gray, and pursued him on foot and on bicycles, but lacked probable cause to detain him - and repeatedly denied his requests for medical help.
Mosby said Gray "suffered a severe and critical neck injury as a result of being handcuffed, shackled by his feet and unrestrained" inside the police van.
En route to the Western District police station, the police van stopped at least three times, including once to pick up a suspect in an unrelated case.
Goodson got out to check on Gray's condition, Mosby said, but "at no point did he seek nor did he render any medical assistance".
Among the other officers charged, Mosby said Sergeant Alicia White, 30, witnessed Gray unresponsive on the floor of the police van, yet "did nothing further", despite being told he needed medical help.
"It is absolutely vital that the truth comes out on what happened to Freddie Gray," Obama said at the White House after the dramatic revelation of the charges.
"What I think the people of Baltimore want more than anything else is the truth. That's what people around the country expect."
The Weekly
| Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | May 2015 | ['(AFP via News24)'] |
JAXA space probe Hayabusa2 delivers the first ever subsurface asteroid samples to Earth. The capsule, containing a small amount of material from Apollo asteroid 162173 Ryugu, landed in the Australian outback. |
A Japanese capsule returned to Earth on Saturday carrying a special delivery: the first rock samples from beneath the surface of an asteroid. When it plummeted to Earth, the capsule provided a stunning show above the Australian outback, streaking across the sky as a dazzling fireball.
Project manager Yuichi Tsuda called the mission a "rare event in human history." It marks just the second time pristine, untouched material directly from an asteroid has been brought back to Earth.
Japan's Hayabusa2 probe, which is roughly the size of a refrigerator, launched in December 2014, thrilling scientists when it landed on the diamond-shaped asteroid Ryugu, which means "dragon palace" in Japanese, located 185 million miles away.
On Saturday, the probe successfully released a capsule for Earth, according to JAXA, Japan's national aerospace and space agency. The 15-inch capsule separated from the probe about 136,701 miles above Earth ahead of its planned descent into the Australian outback, near Woomera, South Australia.
At 12:29 p.m. ET, the capsule streaked across the sky as a bright fireball. It was "slower than we expected," officials said during a live stream of the event. At 12:32 p.m. ET, the parachute successfully deployed and the direction searcher received a beacon radio wave signal from the capsule, indicating its location.
Shortly after, the capsule landed. The capsule landing point was estimated at 1:07 p.m. ET.
The rescue mission lasted nearly two hours, as officials raced around the outback in search of the tiny capsule. At 2:47 p.m. ET, the team found the capsule and its parachute in the planned landing area, thanks to the helicopter search.
"The operation was perfect," JAXA tweeted. JAXA streamed the entire event live on Twitter and YouTube. Watch it here.
WHY, HELLO SAMPLE CAPSULE! ☄️ The capsule weighs about 16 kg and is about 40 x 20 cm in size. The light is from the heat shield, which should have reached temperatures of around 3000°C during atmospheric re-entry, protecting the sample from such crazy temperatures. Scientists expect the capsule to contain a small amount of asteroid material, collected last year, with the goal of learning more about the origins of the solar system and life on Earth. Scientists believe that the rocks that compose the asteroid are around four billion years old.
The samples could shed light on "how matter is scattered around the solar system, why it exists on the asteroid and how it is related to Earth," Tsuda told reporters, according to a Friday news release.
The samples were collected during two separate landings on Ryugu last year. During the first, the probe collected dust and blasted a hole in the asteroid's surface to find additional material beneath it. Several months later, the probe returned to the crater it created to collect more samples.
"We may be able to get substances that will give us clues to the birth of a planet and the origin of life... I'm very interested to see the substances," mission manager Makoto Yoshikawa told reporters.
Now that the capsule has arrived, the samples will soon be processed and flown to Japan, then divided between researchers at JAXA, NASA and other international organizations. Some samples will be set aside for future studies when technology has further advanced.
JAXA plans to extend Hayabusa2's mission for more than a decade, with its sights set on two new asteroids, 2001 CC21 and 1998 KY26.
Soichi Noguchi, a JAXA astronaut currently aboard the International Space Station, tweeted that he saw the spacecraft fly past the ISS. "Just spotted #hayabusa2 from #ISS! Unfortunately not bright enough for handheld camera, but enjoyed watching capsule!"
The NASA OSIRIS-REx mission recently collected a sample from another near-Earth asteroid — Bennu, which is similar to Ryugu. The sample will return to Earth in 2023. | New achievements in aerospace | December 2020 | ['(CBS News)'] |
After Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau suggests the plane was downed by an Iranian missile, Iranian authorities reject this theory. Iranian civil aviation chief says he is "certain" the plane was not hit by a missile, still asserting the cause was "mechanical failure". | Iran has again rejected suggestions that one of its missiles brought down a Ukrainian passenger jet near the capital, Tehran, on Wednesday.
Its civil aviation chief said on Friday he was "certain" that the plane was not hit by a missile.
He was responding to claims by Western leaders that evidence suggested the plane had been hit by a surface-to-air missile, possibly in error.
New video appeared to show a plane being hit by a projectile over Tehran.
The crash of Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 with the loss of 176 lives came just hours after Iran carried out missile strikes on two airbases housing US forces in Iraq.
US media have speculated that the airliner may have been mistaken for a warplane as Iran prepared for possible US retaliation.
Victims of the crash included 82 Iranians, 63 Canadians and 11 Ukrainians as well as nationals from Sweden, the UK, Afghanistan and Germany.
Iran has promised a full investigation. However, TV images from the crash site on Thursday showed a mechanical digger helping to clear debris away, raising concerns that important evidence could have been removed.
CBS crew just visited the #Ukrainian airlines crash site west of Tehran. Nine am local time. Virtually all pieces of the plane were removed yesterday - say locals. Scavengers now picking site clean. No security. Not cordoned off. No sign of any investigators. pic.twitter.com/hhNJyokhjq
Meanwhile, the so-called "black box" recovered from the wreckage will be opened on Friday, Iran's official Irna news agency reported.
Iran said it would download the information itself, adding that the process could take up to two months.
Black boxes contain the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder, and could provide vital clues about what caused the crash.
At a news conference on Friday, Iran's Civil Aviation Organisation (CAOI) chief Ali Abedzadeh repeated his view that a missile was not the cause of the crash.
"The thing that is clear to us and that we can say with certainty is that this plane was not hit by a missile," he told reporters.
"As I said last night, this plane for more than one and a half minutes was on fire and was in the air, and the location shows that the pilot was attempting to return."
On Thursday, government spokesman Ali Rabiei accused the US and its allies of "lying and engaging in psychological warfare" in their speculation over the cause of the accident.
An Iranian official told the BBC on Friday that there was documentation to prove that the plane had a mechanical issue before take-off. It was not signed off for flying, but Ukrainian airline officials had overruled these objections, the official said, without giving further details.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he had received intelligence from multiple sources indicating the plane was shot down by an Iranian surface-to-air missile, adding that it was possible that this was unintentional.
"This reinforces the need for a thorough investigation," he said. "Canadians have questions and they deserve answers."
But he said it was too early to apportion blame or draw any conclusions, and refused to go into detail about the evidence.
The Ukrainian flight was headed to the Canadian city of Toronto via the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson echoed Mr Trudeau's words and said Britain was working closely with Canada and other international partners affected by the crash.
Speaking in Canada, UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said British nationals were advised not to travel to Iran, "given the body of information that UIA Flight 752 was shot down by an Iranian surface-to-air missile, and the heightened tensions".
Newsweek quoted a Pentagon and senior US intelligence officials, as well as an Iraqi intelligence official, as saying they believed flight PS752 was hit by a Russian-made Tor missile.
Ukraine said on Friday that the US had passed on "important data" about the crash to President's Volodymyr Zelensky, without providing any further details.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo later said he spoke with Mr Zelensky to express his "deepest condolences for the lives lost in the tragic crash".
Video obtained by the New York Times appeared to show a missile streaking across the night sky over Tehran and then exploding on contact with a plane. About 10 seconds later, a loud explosion is heard on the ground. Iran initially said it would not hand over the recovered "black boxes" to Boeing, the plane's manufacturer, or to the US.
This followed the killing of top Iranian general Qasem Soleimani in a US drone attack on 3 January and the subsequent strikes against US bases in Iraq on Wednesday.
However, the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) later confirmed it had been invited to take part in the investigation and would send a representative.
Boeing said it would support the NTSB in the inquiry, and the Transportation Safety Board of Canada said it had also been invited to the accident site by Tehran.
France's BEA air accident agency said on Friday it had also been invited to take part in the investigation.
What clues point towards a missile strike?
What we know about the Iran plane crash
What Iranians think about the plane crash
I have my suspicions on plane crash - Trump
Why were so many Canadians on doomed Iran plane?
'She was full of dreams, and now they're gone'
Iran won't give plane black boxes to Boeing or US
Who are the victims of Iran plane crash?
Tributes to three Britons killed in plane crash
Hardliner Raisi set to be new Iran president
Cleric Ebrahim Raisi - Iran's top judge - has received most of the votes counted so far.
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How the Delta variant took hold in the UK. VideoHow the Delta variant took hold in the UK | Air crash | January 2020 | ['(BBC News)'] |
Belarusian opposition leader Andrei Sannikov is sentenced to five years' imprisonment for "organizing mass disturbances" following his role in protests disputing the results of the 2010 presidential election. | A high-profile opposition leader in Belarus has been jailed for five years on charges of organising mass protests after last year's presidential poll.
Andrei Sannikov, a former deputy foreign minister and co-founder of the Charter 97 group, had pleaded innocent.
Sannikov, 57, was one of seven presidential candidates detained at a rally in December after Alexander Lukashenko won a fourth term.
The EU and US condemned the crackdown and imposed sanctions on Mr Lukashenko.
He has been president of the former Soviet republic since 1994.
Sannikov was accused of organising "mass disturbances" by calling on people to take part in a protest march on 19 December and then leading it. Hundreds of opposition activists were detained at the demonstration.
Sannikov was convicted at a court in Minsk and will serve his sentence in a high-security prison.
Four other defendants were handed prison terms of up to three-and-a-half years, the Agence France-Presse news agency reports.
The opposition said Mr Lukashenko's re-election with nearly 80% of the vote was fraudulent. Western monitors described the poll as "flawed".
Sannikov won most votes among the nine opposition candidates, taking 2.43%.
Belarus has come under increasing political and economic pressure in the past months, with the United States and European Union slapping harsh sanctions on the government.
President Lukashenko and other top officials have been forbidden from travelling to the West.
The country's central bank has been running out of hard currency, with many analysts predicting a steep devaluation of its ruble.
Although President Lukashenko governs what is considered Europe's strictest authoritarian state, the BBC's David Stern says many Belarusians do support him, in part in gratitude for the stability and law and order that he provides.
That came under severe pressure last month, when a massive explosion ripped through a metro station in Minsk, killing 12 people and injuring more than 200.
| Famous Person - Commit Crime - Sentence | May 2011 | ['(BBC)'] |
Kadima Party leader and Acting Prime Minister of Israel Tzipi Livni abandons efforts to form a coalition government and calls for early elections. | JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Unable to form a new coalition government, Kadima Party leader Tzipi Livni said Sunday she has asked Israeli President Shimon Peres to hold early general elections.
Israel's Tzipi Livni has asked for early general elections.
The likelihood of holding snap elections became a near-certainty Friday, when the ultra-Orthodox Shas party rejected a bid to join a coalition headed by Livni, who would have become prime minister. Other minority parties also rejected her invitations. Livni is expected to meet with Peres at 2 p.m. (8 a.m. ET), Livni spokesman Gil Messing said. The elections would most likely be held in mid-February, he said. Earlier, Messing said Livni had to choose between "blackmail" and elections. Livni opted not to give in to "unreasonable" demands, he said. The developments further imperil President Bush's desire for the Israelis and Palestinians to reach a peace deal by the time he leaves office in January.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will continue to lead as interim prime minister until a successor is chosen. However, it is unclear whether he will be able to strike a deal with the Palestinians before Israel forms its new government.
Livni had submitted coalition proposals to the Pensioner's Party and the Meretz Party. The Pensioner's Party, with four seats, said the offer was far from acceptable and pulled out of talks, telling Israel's Haaretz newspaper, "in this situation there is no point in engaging in negotiations -- it's a waste of time."
Shas, which has been known for its hardball negotiating demands, said it could not reach agreement with Livni on two major points -- increasing welfare payments to the poor and the final status of Jerusalem.
Roy Lahmanovich, the Shas party spokesman, said the Council of Sages of Shas, headed by Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, had decided in a phone referendum not to have its 12 parliament members join a coalition led by Livni.
Shas negotiators offered alternatives to Livni's proposal that she did not accept, according to Lahmanovich.
On September 17, Livni narrowly won the Kadima Party primary to become party leader, beating out her more conservative rival, Shaul Mofaz, the current transportation minister and the former defense minister.
Livni's 1 percent victory over Mofaz led her political rivals, chief among them Likud opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu, to declare Livni did not have a real mandate to govern Israel.
In the intervening weeks, Livni persuaded the Labor Party with its 19 seats to remain in a coalition government with her by agreeing to name Labor chief Ehud Barak to the position of second-in-command as the senior deputy prime minister and giving him a major role in the peace negotiations with Syria.
To assume power, Livni would have to find enough coalition members to give her government a minimum of 61 seats in the 120-member parliament, the Knesset. Kadima has 29 seats. Livni had also been talking with the United Torah Judaism with its six seats.
One option was for Livni to put together a narrow coalition with Labor, the Pensioners Party, Meretz and United Torah Judaism with 63 seats. However, Labor Party officials said they would be reluctant to be in a coalition with such a thin mandate. | Government Job change - Election | October 2008 | ['(CNN)'] |
Two oil and transport unions begin a strike in Nigeria over an increase in fuel duty and a doubling of sales tax. | "We have decided to go on an indefinite strike beginning on Wednesday," trade union leader Nuhu Toro told the BBC.
The trade unions had warned the new government of President Umaru Yar'Adua to reverse the increases two weeks ago or face a national strike.
Long queues are already being reported at petrol stations after transport and oil unions went on strike on Friday.
Street protests will accompany the general strike, Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) President Abdulwahed Omar said.
"All offices, ports, banks, petrol stations and business premises will be shut down. All schools, airports, official and semi-official business premises will be closed," Mr Omar told a news conference in the capital, Abuja.
The BBC's Mannir Dan Ali in Abuja says there is anger at economic decisions taken in the last days of former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
He says the next few days could be the first real test for the new leader.
Talks between the Nigeria Labour Congress and the new government broke down over the 15% rise in fuel prices and a VAT increase from 5% to 10%.
The union also wants Nigeria's new President, Umaru Musa Yar'Adua, to reverse Mr Obasanjo's sale of two of the country's refineries.
Walking to work
The impact of the strike is already being felt by many Nigerians who had to walk long distances to work on Monday.
The strike could be Umaru Yar'Adua's first real test There were a few taxis and buses working in the capital, Abuja.
"Even the few taxis and minibuses that are on the road today are charging higher fares because of the new petrol price," says Musa Abdullahi, a security man who had to walk to work.
"The hardship we are facing in the country is too much," another Nigerian in Abuja told the BBC.
Nigeria is Africa's largest oil producer but attacks and kidnappings of foreign oil workers by Niger Delta militants have cut production. Despite the oil wealth, most Nigerians live in poverty. | Protest_Online Condemnation | June 2007 | ['(BBC)'] |
Reiwa (令和) is revealed as the new Japanese Era name set to start on May 1 upon Crown Prince Naruhito's accession to the Chrysanthemum Throne as the 126th Emperor of Japan. |
In a much-awaited moment that heralded the approach of a new chapter in Japan’s history, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga announced Monday that the new Imperial era will be named Reiwa, in one of the final steps toward initiating the nation’s first Imperial succession in three decades.
Holding up a placard that displayed the kanji characters for the new era, Suga said the name was formulated based on the introduction to a set of poems from “Manyoshu,” the oldest existing compilation of Japanese poetry. The first character represents “good fortune,” while the second can be translated as “peace” or “harmony.”
The new era will be the 248th in the history of Japan, which has used the Chinese-style system for indicating the year since 645. In modern times, each era has run the length of an emperor’s reign. This is said to be the first time that the characters chosen were drawn from Japanese classical literature, with prior era names, or gengō, having used kanji from Chinese literature.
The poem from which they are taken describes an ume Japanese apricot flower in full bloom in early spring after surviving a cold winter.
The new era will start on May 1, when Crown Prince Naruhito ascends to the Chrysanthemum Throne following the abdication of his father, Emperor Akihito, a day earlier.
The arrival of the Reiwa Era will in turn end the 30-year run of the Heisei (“achieving peace”) Era, which began in Jan. 8, 1989.
Later on Monday, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told a news conference that the government chose the kanji characters because they signify “a culture being born and nurtured by people coming together beautifully.”
He also pointed out that “Manyoshu,” which was compiled more than 1,200 years ago, contained poems by people of various social status, including emperors, noblemen and noblewomen, warriors and ordinary farmers. “I hope the new era name will take root among the public and be widely accepted by the people,” Abe said.
In addressing the nation after Suga’s announcement, Abe said Reiwa reflects his hope that it will “help pass Japan’s long history, noble culture and beautiful, four-season nature down to the next generations.”
“I hope each and every one of the Japanese people can bloom their own magnificent flowers — this is the kind of Japan I had in my mind when I settled on the name Reiwa.”
Citing Reiwa’s connection with the ume flower, Abe referred to “Sekai ni Hitotsu Dake no Hana (The One and Only Flower in the World),” a smash-hit song sung by boy band SMAP that became one of the best-selling hits of the Heisei Era.
Noting how today’s tech-savvy youth have the potential to “create a new movement” and break through the status quo in society, Abe said, “I hope the next era will see these people from a younger generation fulfill their potential as they move toward realizing their hopes and dreams.”
The naming of a new Imperial era is a significant event here, with such names playing an integral role, both practically and psychologically, in the lives of Japanese people.
With gengō often seen as reflective of the zeitgeist, speculation had been rife about what the new era would be named.
In a nation where gengō have long been cherished as a way of identifying a year — as in Heisei 31, which corresponds to 2019 in the current era — in official documents and computer systems, its change has far-reaching practical implications.
Local municipality officials, computer engineers and calendar manufacturers, for example, have spent months preparing for the various adjustments involved.
On Monday, Reiwa was approved by Abe’s Cabinet after undergoing scrutiny by a group of representatives from the business community, media and education industry, as well as chairpersons of the legislature.
It is the first time that particular kanji for “rei” was chosen for an era name, according to a Japanese official.
The private sector representatives invited to pore over the shortlist included novelist Mariko Hayashi; Shinya Yamanaka, a Nobel Prize-winning researcher at Kyoto University who developed iPS cells; Itsuro Terada, former chief justice of the Supreme Court; and Ryoichi Ueda, chairman of public broadcaster NHK.
After the next era name was announced, Yamanaka told reporters he thinks of the new gengō as a combination of the new and old. The first-ever use of the kanji “rei” and the nostalgic touch evoked by “wa” — the same character that was used in Showa — makes the forthcoming gengō “perfectly befitting today’s Japan, which both cherishes tradition and strives to try out new things,” he was quoted as telling reporters.
The Manyoshu passage that inspired Reiwa was written by poet Otomo no Tabito as an introduction to 32 ume-themed poems penned by his poet friends, according to officials. In the introduction, “rei” was used to refer to “reigetsu,” or “auspicious month,” while “wa” described the peaceful manner of an early spring breeze.
Having never been used before, the choice of “rei” came as a surprise for many.
Many Japanese people are not familiar with use of “rei” to mean “good fortune” or “auspicious.” For most, the first phrase that comes to mind is likely to be “meirei,” which literally means an order or command from a supervisor.
Some took to Twitter to express their confusion over what they said was “meirei no rei” or “(‘rei’ as in command)” — causing the keyword to briefly trend over social network services.
Masaharu Mizukami, a professor of Chinese and Japanese literature at Chuo University, said the choice of “rei” makes sense given positive phrases such as “reijō” and “reisoku” — a respectable way of referring to someone’s daughter or son, respectively.
But on the other hand, “rei” has a history of being screened out in the past due to its authoritative implications, Mizukami said.
In the twilight years of the Tokugawa shogunate, the era name Reitoku was once presented as a candidate, only to elicit strenuous opposition from the Tokugawa-led government because the proposed gengō — with “toku” naturally representing the shogunate — could have been read as “commanding Tokugawa,” the professor said.
Meanwhile, according to Asao Kure, an associate professor at Kyoto Sangyo University who specializes in legal history and is an expert on Imperial era names, people shouldn’t focus too much on the meanings associated with one kanji that constitutes the gengō.
What is more important is what classical text the gengō draws from, as well as how the two kanji compliment each other, he explained.
“The new era name draws on text about nature, which is unlike the previous era names,” he said.
“Past era names have usually posited specific political principles, but ‘Reiwa’ instead puts forth a new kind of social philosophy inspired by nature — one that aims to achieve harmony among individuals in the same way that harmony and balance is found in natural phenomena,” he explained.
“I do feel that the new gengō is aligned with modern ways of thinking, in that it focuses more on harmonious relationships between individuals to create a diverse society, rather than putting forward a specific principle,” Kure said.
What differentiated the arrival of the latest era from its past four predecessors — Heisei, Showa, Taisho and Meiji — is that the government announced its name while the reigning Emperor is still alive.
In a rare address to the nation in August 2016 Emperor Akihito hinted at his desire to abdicate due to his advanced age, in contrast to his immediate predecessors who reigned until their deaths. His unprecedented address launched preparations for what will be the first abdication by a sitting Japanese monarch in around 200 years.
| Government Job change - Appoint_Inauguration | April 2019 | ['(The Japan Times)'] |
Argentina signs an "energy security treaty" with Venezuela in Buenos Aires. | Speaking in the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires, he announced the signing of what he called an "energy security treaty" with Argentina.
Mr Chavez said he intended to sign similar treaties with Uruguay, Nicaragua, Ecuador and Bolivia.
Venezuela regularly uses its large oil and gas reserves as a tool to help broker deals with other countries.
The deal with Buenos Aires came at a good time for Argentina - which is currently suffering a severe winter and fuel shortages. 'Dracula' jibe
Mr Chavez used a speech at the end of his trip to Argentina to launch a verbal attack on Washington.
"The United States has 5% of the world's population, but it consumes more than 20% of the energy used in the planet," he said.
He described the US as having an "insatiable voracity", before comparing the country to Count Dracula - sucking more than its fair share of fuel from the world's reserves.
"The US has a very serious problem. Its oil reserves won't last for many more years. It has used up its own reserves, and it has used up the reserves of half the world." Mr Chavez said the country's insatiable appetite for oil had led it many times to impose its will on Latin America at the point of a gun. | Sign Agreement | August 2007 | ['(BBC)'] |
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