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Elizabeth Truss is named Secretary of State for Justice and first ever female Lord Chancellor of the United Kingdom as former chancellor Michael Gove is ousted from the cabinet. | New Prime Minister Theresa May has named Liz Truss as her new Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary, sacking Michael Gove in the process.
Truss became a Member of Parliament at the 2010 election, representing South West Norfolk. She was previously Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
Truss is the first woman to hole the office of Lord Chancellor, and after Chris Grayling and Gove, she becomes the third non-lawyer Lord Chancellor in a row. She has, however, been a member of the Justice Select Committee since 2011.
She read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Merton College, Oxford and is a qualified management accountant.
Responding to the news, Law Society CEO Catherine Dixon said: “Liz Truss is the first woman to hold the post of Lord Chancellor. We welcome her appointment and look forward to working with her as we have with her predecessors. This is a moment of significant change for the country and we are particularly focused on access to justice and that ensuring people’s rights are safeguarded.
“The legal sector contributes £25.7bn to our economy creating more than 370,000 jobs. We are calling on the government to safeguard the ability of lawyers to practice across the EU and other issues such as extradition rights which protect the interests of justice and safeguard our citizens.”
The chief executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, Frances Crook, paid tribute to Michael Gove in a statement, saying: “During his period at the Ministry of Justice, we have seen a welcome change in the rhetoric around prisons and prisoners and the reversal of some misguided policies of the previous coalition government.”
“The problems to be found in our overcrowded prisons can be overcome with imaginative thinking and bold action to stop throwing so many people into these failing institutions, where they are swept away into deeper currents of crime by the boredom, drug abuse and violence behind bars.
“It is to be hoped that Elizabeth Truss is the person to take these opportunities on and we welcome today’s appointment by the new prime minister.”
Reaction to the announcement was mixed from legal commentators on Twitter, with most pointing to her stated eagerness to cut legal aid.
During his time in office, Gove pledged to fix a “creaking and dysfunctional” court system, but mostly concentrated on reforming prisons rather than attacking the Human Rights Act, as some lawyers feared he would do after the Conservative Party won an outright majority in 2015. | Government Job change - Appoint_Inauguration | July 2016 | ['(The Lawyer)'] |
SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket is successfully launched on its maiden test flight. | SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket has enjoyed a successful maiden test flight after the first launch attempted was aborted.
The rocket, which could one day carry astronauts, blasted-off from its launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 1845 GMT.
The California-based firm developed the vehicle with a large subsidy from Nasa.
Friday's first launch attempt was aborted at the last second because an engine parameter fell out of limits.
According to the Spaceflight Now website, a SpaceX spokesperson said the rocket achieved orbit, but they were not sure of the altitude or inclination. US President Barack Obama, who inspected the rocket on its pad in April, has said he wanted the business of taxiing astronauts to and from the International Space Station handed to the commercial sector.
Many commentators believe the Falcon is in a prime position to win that business. Before the rocket can be allowed to launch humans, it has to first demonstrate performance and reliability in the role of lofting robotic spacecraft.
The Falcon 9 in its simplest form is a "single stick" vehicle with a two-stage configuration. A cluster of nine SpaceX-developed Merlin-1C engines will power the rocket off the pad.
A single Merlin on the second stage will complete the task of pushing the payload into orbit.
For its maiden flight, the Falcon 9 carried a cut-down version of its Dragon freighter - a blunt-nosed, 3.7m-wide capsule that will collect engineering performance data during the ascent.
On future flights, Dragon will be filled with supplies for the International Space Station.
Historically, the maiden flights of rockets have a notoriously high failure rate. Some two-thirds of the rockets introduced in the past 20 years have had an unsuccessful first outing.
Millionaire Elon Musk set up SpaceX in 2002 and has already flown a much smaller rocket called the Falcon 1.
To keep costs as low as possible, the Falcon 9 uses many of the same components and systems, including its kerosene/liquid-oxygen-burning Merlin engines.
SpaceX was awarded a $1.6bn contract by Nasa in 2008 for up to 12 Falcon/Dragon missions to the ISS. The Dragon freighter, once operational, is expected to be capable of hauling six tonnes of food, water, air and equipment to the platform.
The company says it has designed Dragon in such a way that it can be converted relatively easily into a crew ship, if Nasa so desires it.
The company claims that it would be ready to launch astronauts on the Falcon within three years of being given an ISS taxiing contract.
However, other space companies and their rockets will almost certainly be in competition for such work, including some of the established industry names like Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
SpaceX hopes the Falcon 9 can also take a sizeable share of the commercial satellite launch market.
It is quoting prices to put large telecommunications spacecraft in geostationary orbit that dramatically undercut current sector leaders, such as Europe's Ariane 5 and Russia's Proton vehicles. But Rachel Villain from the respected space analysts Euroconsult said many in the satellite business were being cautious about SpaceX's future prospects.
"This is not new in the industry," she told BBC News. "When we had the maiden flight of Ariane 4, when we had the maiden flight of Atlas 3, the maiden flight of Delta 4 - all these vehicles promoted a good price for the company taking the risk of being on an early launch. I, like many in the industry, am watching to see if SpaceX can sustain these prices." | New achievements in aerospace | June 2010 | ['(BBC)'] |
The United States imposes a 25% tariff on goods imported from China worth $50 billion, set to come into effect on July 6, and accuses Beijing of "intellectual copyright theft". | President Donald Trump officially rolled out tariffs on roughly $50 billion worth of Chinese goods Friday, and threatened even more measures if the Chinese government hits back.
"In light of China's theft of intellectual property and technology and its other unfair trade practices, the United States will implement a 25 percent tariff on $50 billion of goods from China that contain industrially significant technologies," Trump said in a statement. "This includes goods related to China's Made in China 2025 strategic plan to dominate the emerging high-technology industries that will drive future economic growth for China, but hurt economic growth for the United States and many other countries."
Trump first announced the tariffs on Chinese goods in March, but a preliminary deal following negotiations with the Chinese government appeared to put the trade restrictions on hold. But, the White House announced at the end of May that the tariffs would move forward despite the deal.
In addition to Friday's tariffs, the White House is also considering an additional set of tariffs on another $100 billion of Chinese goods. In the statement, Trump said those measures would be implemented only if the Chinese strike back at Friday's move.
See more related to this story:
"The United States will pursue additional tariffs if China engages in retaliatory measures, such as imposing new tariffs on United States goods, services, or agricultural products; raising non-tariff barriers; or taking punitive actions against American exporters or American companies operating in China," Trump said.
The Chinese government already threatened to retaliate on Thursday when press reports indicated Trump's decision was imminent. | Government Policy Changes | June 2018 | ['(BBC)', '(Business Insider via AOL)'] |
The NASA Spitzer Space Telescope finds evidence of a high–speed collision between two burgeoning planets orbiting a young star. | A Nasa space telescope has found evidence of a high-speed collision between two burgeoning planets orbiting a young star.
Astronomers say the cosmic smash-up is similar to the one that formed our Moon some four billion years ago, when a Mars-sized object crashed into Earth. In this case, two rocky bodies are thought to have slammed into one another in the last few thousand years. Details are to be published in the Astrophysical Journal. The collision involved one object that was at least as big as our Moon and another that was at least as big as Mercury. The impact destroyed the smaller body, vaporising huge amounts of rock and flinging plumes of hot lava into space. Infrared detectors on Nasa's Spitzer Space Telescope were able to pick up the signatures of the vaporised rock, along with fragments of hardened lava, known as tektites. Melted glass
"This collision had to be huge and incredibly high-speed for rock to have been vaporised and melted," said lead author Carey M Lisse of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory at Laurel in Maryland, US. "This is a really rare and short-lived event, critical in the formation of Earth-like planets and moons. We're lucky to have witnessed one not long after it happened." Dr Lisse and his team observed a star called HD 172555, which is about 12 million years old and situated about 100 light-years away in the far southern constellation Pavo (the Peacock). The astronomers used a spectrograph instrument on Spitzer to look for the fingerprints of chemicals in the spectrum of light from the star. The researchers identified large amounts of amorphous silica - melted glass. Silica can be found on Earth in obsidian rocks and tektites. Obsidian is black, shiny volcanic glass. Tektites are hardened chunks of lava thought to have formed when meteorites hit the Earth. Large quantities of orbiting silicon monoxide gas were also detected, created when much of the rock was vaporised. In addition, the astronomers found rocky rubble that was probably flung out from the planetary wreck. The two bodies must have been travelling at a speed of at least 10km/s (about 22,400mph) relative to one other before the collision. Rocky planets form and grow in size by colliding and sticking together. This process merges their cores and causes some of their surfaces to be shed. Though things have settled down in the Solar System today, impacts still occur, as was observed last month when a small comet or asteroid struck Jupiter. "The collision that formed our Moon would have been tremendous, enough to melt the surface of Earth," said co-author Geoff Bryden of Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. "Debris from the collision most likely settled into a disc around Earth that eventually coalesced to make the Moon. This is about the same scale of impact we're seeing with Spitzer." "We don't know if a moon will form or not, but we know a large rocky body's surface was red hot, warped and melted." The Spitzer telescope has witnessed the dusty aftermath of large impacts before, but did not find evidence for rock that had been melted and vaporised. Instead, large amounts of dust, gravel, and boulder-sized rubble were observed, indicating collisions that were slower-paced. What are these? | New achievements in aerospace | August 2009 | ['(BBC)'] |
North Korea fires another missile in a test, landing in the Sea of Japan. | North Korea has fired its highest-ever intercontinental ballistic missile and poses a worldwide threat, US Secretary of Defence James Mattis has said.
The missile, launched early on Wednesday, landed in Japanese waters.
It reached an altitude of 4,500km (2,800 miles) and flew 960km, according to South Korea's military.
It was the latest in a series of weapons tests that has raised tensions. Pyongyang last launched a ballistic missile in September.
It also conducted its sixth nuclear test that month. North Korea has continued to develop its nuclear and missile programme despite global condemnation and sanctions.
The UN Security Council is due to convene an emergency session to discuss the latest test.
Mr Mattis said the missile launch "went higher, frankly, than any previous shots they have taken". The North was building "ballistic missiles that threaten everywhere in the world", he added.
US President Donald Trump was briefed while the missile was still in the air, the White House said. Afterwards he said: "We will take care of it."
The US-based Union of Concerned Scientists said the missile could have travelled more than 13,000km on a standard trajectory, thus reaching "any part of the continental United States".
But it added it seemed likely that the missile had a very light mock warhead - which meant that it could be incapable of carrying a nuclear warhead, which is much heavier, for that distance.
Wednesday's missile was launched from Pyongsong, in South Pyongan province, reported South Korean news agency Yonhap.
Japanese officials said the projectile travelled for about 50 minutes - but did not fly over Japan, as some have done in the past - and landed about 250km off its northern coast.
Japan also said it would "never accept North Korea's continuous provocative behaviour", while South Korea condemned the launch and responded with a missile exercise of its own. The EU has called the launch a "further unacceptable violation" of North Korea's international obligations, while Britain's ambassador to the UN called it "a reckless act".
Jonathan Marcus, BBC Defence and Diplomatic Correspondent
This missile test, the first for some two months, suggests that the lull in firings was not due to North Korea being cowed by Mr Trump's rhetoric or even by Chinese pressure. Experts have indeed pointed to similar seasonal slowdowns in testing in the past.
President Trump, responding to the test, says that his administration will handle it. But handle it how? The US has called for an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council. And Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has spoken of stepping up the pressure on Pyongyang.
But North Korea is already one of the most isolated and heavily sanctioned states in the world. There are few new levers to pull.
North Korea is seemingly a problem without a solution and its nuclear and missile programmes are now, once again, back at the top of the Trump administration's security agenda.
North Korea's last nuclear test reportedly involved a miniaturised hydrogen bomb that could be loaded onto a long-range missile.
Last week, Mr Trump announced that the US was re-designating North Korea a state sponsor of terrorism because of its missile and nuclear programme.
The US imposed fresh sanctions against Pyongyang. The measures targeted North Korean shipping operations and Chinese companies that traded with the North.
North Korea has carried out numerous missile tests this year. Some of these exploded shortly after launch, but others travelled for hundreds of miles before landing in the sea. Here are some of the major tests reported so far:
12 February - A medium-range ballistic missile launched from Banghyon air base near the west coast. It flew east towards the Sea of Japan for about 500km.
5 April - A medium-range ballistic missile fired from the eastern port of Sinpo into the Sea of Japan. South Korea's defence ministry said the missile flew about 60km.
4 July - Pyongyang claimed to have successfully tested an intercontinental ballistic missile for the first time. Officials said it reached an altitude of 2,802km and flew for 39 minutes.
29 August - North Korea fired what is thought to be its first nuclear-weapon capable ballistic missile over Japan. It was launched from near Pyongyang and reached a height of about 550km.
15 September - A ballistic missile was fired across Japan for the second time and landed in the sea off Hokkaido. It reached an altitude of about 770km and travelled 3,700km.
N Korea missile 'higher' than any before
What damage could North Korea do?
North Korea's missile programme
North Korean test splits world powers
Reality Check: Minutes to shelter from a missile
What are North Korea's other WMDs?
| Military Exercise | November 2017 | ['(BBC)'] |
A fire breaks out at The Address Downtown Dubai hotel. Fourteen people are reported as injured, with one indirect casualty. | Updated 0343 GMT (1143 HKT) January 1, 2016 (CNN)Firefighters battled a blaze that engulfed a luxury hotel in Dubai Thursday night while a spectacular New Year's fireworks display lit up the night sky nearby.
Years of construction -- 2005 to 2008
Opened -- October 2008
No. of floors -- 63
Height -- 991 feet No. of rooms -- 171
No. of suites -- 25 No. of residences -- 626 Restaurants -- 7
CNN's Archith Seshadri, Becky Anderson, Kim Kelaita, Justin Lear, Brianna Keilar, Mohammed Tawfeeq, Mark Bixler and Caroline Faraj contributed to this report. | Fire | December 2015 | ['(CNN)'] |
In Nigeria, former education minister Fabian Osuji, former Senate leader Adolphus Wabara and 5 others go on trial for corruption. Osuji claims he is just a "scapegoat". | Fabian Osuji appeared in the Abuja High Court, with former Senate leader Adolphus Wabara, and five lawmakers.
Defence lawyers argue huge publicity surrounding the trial means it will not be fair. All deny the charges.
President Olusegun Obasanjo is on an anti-corruption crusade as he attempts to win international debt relief.
Mr Osuji is accused of paying a $400,000 bribe to parliament to ensure the passing of an inflated budget for his department. The men face 15 charges.
Budget The BBC's Mannir Dan Ali in Abuja said the court was packed with curious Nigerians, lawyers and journalists for the five hours of legal arguments.
President Obasanjo dismissed Mr Osuji in March in a televised address after accusing ministers of colluding with the National Assembly to embezzle funds. President Obasanjo has stepped up the fight against graft
Mr Osuji has said he is being made a scapegoat because he is close to Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, seen as a possible successor to Mr Obasanjo. Defence lawyer Israel Usman said that this was not the right way to make allegations of corruption - and said that as a result, the court was prejudiced.
"We are asking the court to quash the charges, to show the executive there is a way things are done - there is the law. The president is not the court," he said.
Prosecutor Emmanuel Oshe denied that the trial was a "hasty job".
"The charges were prepared and well-laid out," he said.
According to Transparency International, Nigeria is seen as one of the most corrupt countries in the world. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | May 2005 | ['(BBC)'] |
2011 Zengcheng riot: Police in Xintang Town, Zengcheng, Guangzhou area, Guangdong, fire tear gas and use armoured vehicles on workers, including Sichuan migrant workers protesting what they consider the abuse of a pregnant Sichuanese colleague by security guards, after protesters flipped over and burned police vehicles. | GUANGZHOU - The government of Zengcheng, a suburban city of Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province, has sent working groups to villages, factories and residential communities to clarify the rumor about a clash between security personnel and a pregnant street vendor.
Meanwhile, Ye Niuping, mayor of Zengcheng, urged local residents not to spread concocted rumors.
"The city government has made great efforts to tell local residents the truth about the clash by sending special working groups to visit local factories and households," Ye told a news conference in Guangzhou on Sunday.
The clash took place in Dadun village of Xintang township on Friday night.
Wang Lianmei, a pregnant woman, and her husband Tang Xuecai had a fierce quarrel and later clashed with the village's security personnel, who thought the couple had illegally occupied the village's road to sell goods at about 9:30 pm on Friday.
Wang, 20, and Tang, 28, come from Kaijiang county, Sichuan province.
Wang fell to the ground during the clash, after which several police cars and an ambulance were immediately sent to the site.
After mediation, Wang and Tang agreed to stop selling goods in the street and Wang was taken to a hospital by the ambulance at 10:35 pm. However, more than 100 people gathered at the scene to prevent Wang from being sent to the hospital for examination, Ye told media.
Some of them used bottles, bricks and stones to attack the police officers.
Damage was done to three police cars, the ambulance, many private cars, a bank's ATMs and other public property.
And at 3 am on Saturday, more than 100 people gathered at the scene again to use stones and bricks to attack police officers, who were investigating the case and clearing up the scene, after rumors held that Wang had been seriously injured while her husband had been killed by police.
The case was finally brought under control after police had later detained 25 suspects for further investigation.
At one stage the incident had attracted more than 1,000 onlookers.
"The case was just an ordinary clash between street vendors and local public security people but was used by a handful of people who wanted to cause trouble," said Ye.
"Wang and her fetus remained intact in the clash after a thorough examination in hospital, and no death or injuries have been reported in this case."
Xu Zhibiao, Zengcheng's Party chief, arrived at Zengcheng People's Hospital to see Wang on Saturday morning. Xu, who brought Wang a basket of fruit, said he hoped she would take her time to recuperate in the hospital.
Guangzhou police have set up a special task force to investigate the case and have promised to punish anyone who has violated laws in the clash.
Tang said he was satisfied with the government's treatment of the case.
"Both my wife and her baby are healthy," Tang said.
Gao Fengjuan, a Guangzhou white-collar worker, said relevant government departments had quickly responded to the case and settled it properly.
"Police and relevant departments should have the ability to handle any breaking mass events and quickly let the public know the truth," she added. | Riot | June 2011 | ['(BBC)', '(The Associated Press)', '(China Daily)', '(Reuters)', '(Chicago Tribune)'] |
Richard Butler, the controversial governor of the Australian state of Tasmania, resigns. |
Stepping aside: Mr Butler says his decision will protect the Office of Governor. (ABC TV) Tasmanian Governor Richard Butler has announced he will resign his post immediately, after what he says has been a "malicious" campaign against him.
In a statement released by Government House in Hobart, Mr Butler says his decision has been made because he judged the campaign against him would continue and damage the good name of Tasmania.
Mr Butler says he has made the decision with great sadness.
He says that he has always acted in the best interests of the state. "Consistent with that, I felt bound to make this decision," Mr Butler said.
Tasmanian Premier Paul Lennon has praised the decision, describing it as courageous and statesmanlike.
Mr Lennon says Mr Butler has dealt with a very difficult situation with honour. A spokeswoman for the Queen has told the ABC that the matter is one for Mr Lennon.
The announcement came after a three-hour meeting between Mr Lennon and Mr Butler.
The meeting had been prompted by a threat from the state Opposition to withdraw its support for Mr Butler, if Mr Lennon did not restore public confidence in Mr Butler's office. Three of Mr Butler's senior staff left employment at Government House last week, prompting speculation there was a crisis of confidence among his employees. Mr Butler was appointed by the late premier, Jim Bacon, in October 2003 for a five-year term.
His appointment was controversial, with some arguing that an avowed republican could not fulfil the duties of office.
Earning a salary of $370,000, Mr Butler was the highest-paid governor in Australia.
He leaves the position with no payout from the Government.
Until a permanent replacement is appointed, he will be replaced by Chief Justice William Cox.
Mr Butler and his wife will continue to live at Government House until September 3.
Tasmanian Governor Richard Butler has announced he will resign his post immediately. In a statement released by Government House in Hobart, Mr Butler said he has made the decision with great sadness. | Government Job change - Resignation_Dismissal | August 2004 | ['(ABCnews)'] |
Booker Prize winning writer of historical fiction Barry Unsworth dies in Italy. | Barry Unsworth, considered one of the foremost historical novelists in English, who was known for rich, densely textured fiction that conjured lost worlds — those of the Trojan War, medieval Europe and the Napoleonic age, among many others — died on June 4 in Perugia, Italy. He was 81 and had lived in the Umbria region of Italy for many years.
The cause was lung cancer, said Lois Wallace, his literary agent in the United States.
An Englishman, Mr. Unsworth won a Booker Prize in 1992 for “Sacred Hunger,” a story of avarice set amid the Atlantic slave trade of the 18th century. The award, now known as the Man Booker Prize, is considered Britain’s loftiest literary honor. (Mr. Unsworth shared it that year with Michael Ondaatje, who won for “The English Patient.”)
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Get unlimited access for $0.50 a week. | Famous Person - Death | June 2012 | ['(The Guardian)', '(The New York Times)'] |
Macedonian voters go to the polls for the Macedonian parliamentary election, 2008 with reports of violence in ethnic Albanian areas. The Prime Minister of Macedonia Nikola Gruevski claims victory for his centre–right party. | Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski has claimed victory for his centre-right party in Macedonia's snap election, which was marred by ethnic violence. With nearly all votes counted, he predicted his party, which campaigned for EU and Nato membership, could take an overall majority in parliament. Mr Gruevski also voiced regret at violence in ethnic Albanian areas. The poll was called after Greece blocked Macedonia's Nato admission in a dispute over the country's name.
Macedonia is also the name of a northern region of Greece. Mr Gruevski's VMRO-DPMNE party has promised not to change the name of the country in the face of Greek pressure. Re-run promised
Election officials said with more than 97% of votes counted, the prime minister's party had about 47% - more than twice the support for the Social Democrats, who had taken 23%.Police spokesman on violence surrounding Macedonia's election
If the figures were confirmed, "we will have more than 60 seats in the [120-seat] parliament," he said at a press conference at VMRO-DPMNE headquarters in Skopje. In the Albanian stronghold of Aracinovo at least one person was killed and more than 20 were arrested following shootings between rival parties or with the police, and election officials closed a number of polling stations amid reports of intimidation and fraud. Ethnic Albanian rebels fought an insurgency in 2001, demanding more rights for their community, which makes up about a quarter of Macedonia's population - but now the two main ethnic Albanian parties are bitter rivals. "In most parts the vote was fair and democratic, but sadly in one part there were irregularities," Mr Gruevski said. "I will do everything in my power to have a re-run there so each and every MP is elected fairly." Challenges
This troubled polling day could harm the country's chances of Western integration, the BBC's Helen Fawkes reports. The European Union's executive, the Commission, has said it is very concerned by the situation. Denis MacShane, an MP leading a UK observer delegation to the polls, called the violence and disruptions "an assault on democracy unacceptable in today's Europe". "No government can be formed as a result of this election," he said. "New polls must be organised in all the districts where violence, intimidation and stuffing of ballot boxes have taken place." Officials said voting was suspend in 22 polling stations - 1% of the total - and the vote would be repeated in those areas within two weeks. | Government Job change - Election | June 2008 | ['(Reuters)', '(BBC News)'] |
Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich accepts the resignation of Prime Minister Nikolay Azarov and his cabinet; the cabinet will continue to work until a new government is formed. | Ukraine's President Viktor Yanukovych has accepted the resignation of the prime minister and his cabinet amid continuing anti-government protests.
Mykola Azarov had offered to step down as prime minister to create "social and political compromise".
The move came after the Ukrainian parliament voted overwhelmingly to annul a controversial anti-protest law.
The protests have spread in recent days across Ukraine, even to President Yanukovych's stronghold in the east.
Official buildings in several cities have been occupied, and Tuesday saw the interior ministry report that protesters had stabbed and wounded three policemen in the southern city of Kherson, one of whom later died. In total, at least five people have been killed in violence linked to the protests.
Mr Azarov was deeply unpopular with the opposition, who accused him of mismanaging the economy and failing to tackle corruption.
Their antipathy towards him grew after the protests started in November, when he described demonstrators as extremists and was also seen as being responsible for the use of force by police.
Parliament - holding an emergency debate on the crisis - voted by 361 to two to repeal the protest legislation, which among other measures banned the wearing of helmets by protesters and the blockading of public buildings.
The law had helped fuel the demonstrations which began in Independence Square in the capital, Kiev, after Mr Yanukovych pulled out of a planned trade deal with the European Union last November in favour of a $15bn (£9bn) bailout from Russia to bolster the ailing public finances.
MPs applauded in Ukraine's parliament as the result of the annulment vote was announced. Arseniy Yatsenyuk, a leading opposition lawmaker, said: "We have repealed all the laws against which the whole country rose up.''
Parliament adjourned after the vote on the protest law and discussions on the issue of granting an amnesty to convicted protesters proved inconclusive. Mr Yanukovych had offered an amnesty only if protesters cleared barricades and stopped attacking government buildings. In his resignation statement, Prime Minister Azarov said: "To create additional opportunities for social and political compromise and for a peaceful solution to the conflict, I made a personal decision to ask the president of Ukraine to accept my resignation as prime minister of Ukraine."
The government had "done everything to ensure the peaceful resolution of the conflict" and would do "everything possible to prevent bloodshed, an escalation of violence and violation of citizens' rights", he said. The BBC's David Stern, in Kiev, says that two weeks ago, Mr Azarov's resignation would have been unthinkable.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, speaking at an EU-Russia summit in Brussels, said he had had a frank discussion with European leaders on key issues, including Ukraine.
He said that recent Russian financial help to Ukraine was not designed to support the government, and that all the agreements reached with Mr Azarov would remain in place despite the resignation - and even if the opposition formed the next government.
The loan was to "support the people of Ukraine, not the government. It's the people, the common people that suffer", he told a news conference.
Mr Putin also suggested Ukraine could continue to cultivate European connections while also engaging with a Russian-led customs union.
Despite the president accepting their resignations, the Ukrainian cabinet can remain in their posts for 60 days until a new government is formed. Mr Azarov's spokesman told the Interfax news agency that Deputy Prime Minister Serhiy Arbuzov would assume temporary leadership of the cabinet. President Yanukovych had offered Mr Azarov's job to the opposition at the weekend, proposing that Fatherland leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk take the post. Mr Yatsenyuk declined the offer. Meanwhile, top EU diplomat Catherine Ashton has brought forward a planned visit to Ukraine by 48 hours and is scheduled to arrive on Tuesday for meetings with Mr Yanukovych and opposition leaders.
After meeting Mr Putin at the summit, European Council President Herman Van Rompuy said: "The European Union is closely following the events in Ukraine and strongly condemns violence. "We call for restraint and those responsible to be held to account."
| Government Job change - Resignation_Dismissal | January 2014 | ['(BBC)'] |
A Tacoma, Washington police officer drove through a downtown crowd, running over at least one person and sending them to the hospital. The officer was responding to calls that a group of people were blocking a downtown intersection when the crowd surrounded on the police car, Tacoma Police Department said. . | Follow NBC News A Tacoma, Washington, police officer was seen driving through a downtown crowd Saturday night, running over at least one person and sending them to the hospital.
The officer responded to multiple calls that a group of people were blocking a downtown intersection when the crowd began descending on the police car, the Tacoma Police Department said. Interim Tacoma Police Chief Mike Ake said he is “committed” to the department’s full cooperation into an investigation into the incident.
“I am concerned that our department is experiencing another use of deadly force incident,” Ake said.
Multiple bystander videos were posted online of the incident, where the police car can be seen rolling over a person and continuing to move forward. Authorities from Pierce County are taking over the probe into the incident as an independent investigation team.
A crowd of about 100 people and several cars were blocking an intersection at Pacific Avenue when the department arrived downtown, according to a police statement. One Tacoma police car was then surrounded by the crowd and the officer inside struggled to remove himself.
“People hit the body of the police vehicle and its windows as the officer was stopped in the street,” Tacoma police said. “The officer, fearing for his safety, tried to back up, but was unable to do so because of the crowd.”
The officer then moved the car forward, with lights and sirens, striking at least one person. The condition of the individual, who was taken to a local hospital, is unknown.
Police said the officer stopped after moving some distance away and called for medical aid. The officer was not identified by police.
Social media users referred to the event as a "car meet," with some accounts posting videos of people in cars doing donuts in the intersection while some in the crowd filmed on their phones. Videos posted of the car stunts in what appeared to be the same intersection showed similar tire marks in the road as those seen in videos posted of the Tacoma police vehicle. | Road Crash | January 2021 | ['(NBC)'] |
U.S. President Barack Obama announces that BP will finance a $20 billion fund to compensate people whose livelihoods have been damaged by the devastating oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and the company's chairman apologized for the worst spill in U.S. history. | WASHINGTON BP’s embattled chief executive, Tony Hayward, prepared to tell Congress on Thursday that he was “deeply sorry” for the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, seeking to demonstrate that he and the oil giant understood the enormity of the spill’s environmental, economic and human toll. Mr. Hayward has faced withering criticism for his response to the spill, and was expected to receive another onslaught of anger as he testified before the House panel later Thursday morning.
| Organization Fine | June 2010 | ['(USA Today)', '(The New York Times)', '(Chicago Tribune)'] |
Chief Minister of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy is confirmed dead when the wreckage of the helicopter that crashed with him on–board in southern India on Wednesday is located. | NEW DELHI, India (CNN) -- An elected head of a south Indian state and four others died in a helicopter crash, federal authorities said Thursday.
Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh Y.S.R. Reddy smiles at the Congress party office in Hyderabad on May 16.
The chopper carrying Y.S.R. Reddy, chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, went off radar while flying over the state Wednesday morning, according to India's civil aviation ministry.
"The chief minister is no more," Onkar Kedia, spokesman for the federal home ministry, told CNN.
Also onboard were Reddy's principal secretary and chief security officer as well as two pilots, CNN/IBN reported.
Authorities found the wreckage of the helicopter in a large search involving ground and air operations.
The twin-engine Bell 430 went missing after it took off from Begumpet Airport in Hyderabad city and headed to Chittoor district, both in Andhra Pradesh. "The chief minister was a strong supporter of U.S.-India friendship and our bilateral partnership, visible in the strong economic and family ties between the people of Andhra Pradesh and the United States," U.S. Ambassador Timothy J. Roemer said in a statement in New Delhi.
On behalf of the U.S. government, he expressed his condolences to Reddy's family, as well as to the families of those who died along with the chief minister. | Famous Person - Death | September 2009 | ['(BBC)', '(CNN)', '(Economic Times)', '(Press Trust of India)'] |
Representatives of Russia and Israel meet in Moscow to discuss the Middle East, particularly recent developments in Syria and Gaza. | MOSCOW, April 10. /TASS/. Russian president's envoy for the Middle East and African countries, Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov and Israel’s ambassador to Russia Harry Koren discussed the situation in and around Syria, as well as in the Gaza Strip, during their meeting, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.
"The current situation in the Middle East, especially in and around Syria and in the Gaza Strip, was discussed during the meeting," the Russian ministry informed.
"The diplomats also touched upon the pressing issues of Israel-Russia bilateral relations," they added.
Earlier, Koren provided his commentary on the results of the meeting, saying that "it was a routine, scheduled conversation."
On April 9, a massive missile strike was delivered on the T-4 airfield in the Syrian province of Homs. As the news agency SANA reported, citing a military source, there are dead and wounded persons among the Syrian military. Syria blamed Israel for the attack. According to the SANA sources in the Syrian Army command, F-15 fighter aircrafts belonging to the Israeli Air Forces fired several missiles on target from Lebanon’s airspace. | Diplomatic Talks _ Diplomatic_Negotiation_ Summit Meeting | April 2018 | ['(TASS)'] |
Thai head of football Worawi Makudi takes legal action against former Football Association chairman David Triesman, Baron Triesman after being implicated in alleged bribery over the FIFA World Cup. | Last updated on 14 May 201114 May 2011.From the section Football
Thailand's football chief is set to take legal action against Lord Triesman after the former Football Association chairman implicated him in an alleged World Cup bribery scandal.
Triesman stated that Worawi Makudi had demanded the TV rights for a proposed friendly between England and Thailand in return for his 2018 World Cup vote.
Makudi said he had a "very strong case" and that the claims were "groundless".
"I will present evidence to prove these allegations are not true," he added. "I don't know why they were made." Makudi was one of four men accused by former FA chairman Lord Triesman of seeking bribes in return for backing England's failed 2018 World Cup bid.
The FA has appointed a leading lawyer to review the allegations, while Triesman says he now plans to take his evidence to world governing body Fifa.
Meanwhile, Makudi also insisted he is still president of the Football Association of Thailand, despite reports on Friday saying the Sports Authority of Thailand had removed him from the post for failing to hold an election for the presidency in time. "I am still holder of the position and we will reschedule the election," he added. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | May 2011 | ['(BBC Sport)'] |
Rwandan man Désiré Munyaneza is given a life sentence in Canada for his role in the Rwandan genocide under the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act. | A Rwandan man convicted of war crimes has been jailed for life by a Canadian court, without the prospect of parole for 25 years.
Desire Munyaneza, 42, was found guilty in May in the first court case brought under Canada's 2000 War Crimes Act. He was convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in 1994. The sentencing judge said the law considered the crimes committed by the accused to be the "worst in existence." Judge Andre Denis described the sentence, the harshest possible, as "severe". The trial took place over two years, and heard emotional testimony from 66 witnesses about the atrocities. 'Boost for survivors'
Munyaneza was accused of leading a militia whose members raped and killed dozens of Tutsis, and of orchestrating a massacre of 300-400 Tutsis in a church. His lawyer has said he will appeal against the conviction. Munyaneza arrived in Canada in the 1990s and tried to claim asylum - but the authorities rejected his claims. He was arrested in 2005 in a Toronto suburb after allegations emerged that he had been a militia leader during Rwanda's civil conflict. Rwandan Jean-Paul Nyilinkwaya said: "The fact that he was found guilty is a very big boost for the survivors. Everybody there is desperate for justice." Mr Nyilinkwaya, who now lives in Canada, was instrumental in Munyaneza's capture, according to Associated Press news agency. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Sentence | October 2009 | ['(BBC)', '(CTV)'] |
Six people, including the shooter, are killed in a mass shooting at the Molson Coors Beverage Company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States. The perpetrator, who committed suicide, was an employee who was fired earlier in the day. | by: Associated Press, Melissa Espana MILWAUKEE — An employee at Molson Coors in Milwaukee opened fire and killed five other employees before turning the gun on himself.
Milwaukee Police Chief Alfonso Morales said around 2 p.m. Wednesday, police officers responded to call of a shooting on the 4000 block of West State Street — the location of the old MillerCoors brewery. Upon arrival, police located the suspected gunman, a 51-year-old man, dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. Police then located five other deceased adults.
Morales said the victims’ names will not be released until proper notification is given to the families. The police chief at a press conference Wednesday evening asked the public to respect the victims’ families’ privacy during this time.
No member of the public was involved in the incident, and that all those who were fatally shot were employees of Molson Coors, police said. Some news outlets reported that the gunman was fired earlier in the day, but Molson Coors CEO Gavin Hattersley called the shooter “an active brewery employee.” No further information about the gunman was provided.
Earlier Wednesday, Mayor Tom Barrett spoke to the press and said it was a horrible day for the employees of Molson Coors.
“It’s a very rough day for anybody who is close to this situation,” he said,
The mayor said it was a tragic day not just for the city, but for the state and for the families grieving for their loved ones.
“There are five people who went to work today, just like everybody goes to work, and they thought they were going to go to work, finish their day and return to their families,” Barrett said, “They didn’t. And tragically, they never will.”
Officers worked for hours to clear the more than 20 buildings in the complex where more than 1,000 people work. They announced at a late evening news conference that the work was done and all employees had been allowed to go home. Morales said authorities believe the shooter operated alone.
President Donald Trump addressed the shooting before speaking at the White House about his administration’s efforts to combat the coronavirus.
“Our hearts break for them and their loved ones,” the president said. “We send our condolences. We’ll be with them, and it’s a terrible thing, a terrible thing.”
The attack occurred at a sprawling complex that includes a mix of corporate offices and brewing facilities. The complex is widely known in the Milwaukee area as “Miller Valley,” a reference to the Miller Brewing Co. that is now part of Molson Coors.
James Boyles told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that his wife, Lasonya Ragdales, works at Molson Coors in the claims department. She was texting from inside the building and told her husband that there was active shooter and she was locked in a room with a bunch of co-workers, the Journal Sentinel reported.
One employee described seeing a co-worker shot in the head just 15 feet away. Another said he was on the phone with his family assuring them that he was OK when he saw bodies lying on the floor.
The police chief and mayor thanked all the first responders who aided during the incident. Among those included the police and fire departments, the Marquette Police Department and the FBI.
Some employees of Molson Coors were in Houston for a conference at the time of the incident. Company officials flew back to Milwaukee upon notification of the incident. | Riot | February 2020 | ['(USA Today)', '(WGN-TV)'] |
A female police administrative officer is killed in a stabbing attack at a police station in Rambouillet, France. The attacker is then shot dead at the scene. It is being investigated as a terrorist attack. | A female police employee has been killed in a knife attack at a police station south-west of Paris.
Anti-terror prosecutors have taken over the inquiry, and the killing is being treated as a possible terrorist attack.
The attacker, who reportedly came to France from Tunisia several years ago, was shot dead by police. President Emmanuel Macron led tributes to the 49-year-old victim, and said France would never give in to "Islamist terrorism".
The stabbing took place in the secure entrance to the police station in the commuter town of Rambouillet at 14:20 (12:20 GMT).
Witnesses said the attacker had been seen walking around while on his mobile phone outside the police station and seized his chance to go in as the woman - an unarmed administrative officer - went through the security doors.
He reportedly lunged at the officer, stabbing her in the neck. Her colleagues then opened fire on him. Anti-terrorism prosecutors said they took over the investigation because of the way the attack had unfolded, remarks made by the attacker and the fact that he targeted a police official. Sources close to the inquiry told media outlets that the man had shouted "Allahu Akbar" (God is greatest) during the attack. Officials said the attacker, 36, was not previously known to security agencies. Local outlet BFMTV reported that he had lived in the country illegally before obtaining a residency card, which was due to expire later this year.
Three people were arrested following the attack, according to reports. A judicial source told AFP news agency they were part of the suspect's "entourage". In a Twitter post following the attack, Mr Macron said the victim's name was Stéphanie. "The nation is by the side of her family, her colleagues and security forces," he wrote. Her full name has not been released, but local media reports describe her as a mother of two. Prime Minister Jean Castex and Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin went straight to the scene, in the large Yvelines area to the west of the capital.
Mr Castex said the country had lost an "everyday heroine" and condemned what he described as a "barbaric act of boundless cruelty".
"Our determination to combat terrorism in all its forms is as resolute as ever," he told reporters.
Valérie Pécresse, president of the Paris region, said the attack had been against a "symbol of France". The police, she said, were "the face of France".
Far-right leader Marine Le Pen - seen as the strongest challenger to Mr Macron in next year's presidential election - tweeted condemnation of Friday's attack before details of the suspect's identity had been made public. "The same horrors come one after another, the same infinite sadness as we think about the relatives and the colleagues of this female police employee who has been killed, the same type of person guilty of this barbarity, the same Islamist motives," she wrote.
British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab also reacted to the attack on Twitter. "We stand with our French friends and allies following tragic news of a female police officer killed by a terrorist in Rambouillet while doing her job," he wrote. In his comments on Friday, Mr Castex noted that the Yvelines area had been targeted before, including in 2016 when two members of the police force were fatally stabbed at their home. In October 2020 the militant Islamist murder of teacher Samuel Paty in Yvelines led to national outrage, as he was attacked after an online campaign that began with false claims from a 13-year-old girl at his school.
Deadly attacks on French police
January 2015: Two police officers were among those killed in the attack at the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. A third was killed in a related attack the following day.
June 2016: A police commander and his partner, also a police official, were stabbed to death at their home west of Paris by a man claiming allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) group. The attacker was killed in a police assault on the house.
April 2017: A French policeman was killed by a jihadist on the Champs Elysées in Paris. Two other officers were wounded in the attack. The suspect was shot dead by security forces, and a note defending IS was found near his body.
March 2018: A gunman who pledged allegiance to IS militants launched a series of attacks in southern France, killing four people including a policeman who traded places with a captive. He also opened fire on a group of police officers out jogging, wounding one. The suspect was shot dead by police. October 2019: A police computer operator stabbed four of his colleagues to death at the Paris police headquarters, before being shot dead. Anti-terror prosecutors said he adhered to a radical version of Islam..
| Armed Conflict | April 2021 | ['(BBC)'] |
At least 40 people are killed and 57 wounded in a car bomb explosion in Kandahar, southern Afghanistan. | KANDAHAR, Afghanistan A huge bomb detonated on Tuesday night in a part of Kandahar where international aid agencies and United Nations offices are clustered, in an attack assumed to be by the Taliban on foreigners in the country. At least 31 people were killed and 56 wounded in the blast, which shook the entire city just after dusk at 7 p.m., when Afghans were gathered for the festive evening meal that breaks their daily Ramadan fast. Officials said most of the dead and wounded were civilians. The explosion flattened the headquarters of Saita, a Japanese company engaged in reconstruction efforts, destroyed at least 20 homes and set off raging fires. | Armed Conflict | August 2009 | ['(Reuters)', '(BBC)', '(The New York Times)', '(Aljazeera)'] |
Voters in California's 36th congressional district go to the polls for a special election to replace former Rep. Jane Harman with Democrat Janice Hahn defeating Republican Craig Huey. | Los Angeles Councilwoman Janice Hahn leads Craig Huey by 8 percentage points on the eve of their Southern California special House election, according to a Public Policy Polling survey taken for Daily Kos & the SEIU.
Hahn, the Democrat, takes 52 percent of the vote to Huey's 44 percent, with just 4 percent undecided.
Despite a barrage of attacks launched from both sides, Hahn's approval rating is just 6 percentage points higher than Huey's, 48 percent to 42 percent.
President Barack Obama's approval rating of 44 percent is just 2 percentage points higher than Huey's in the traditionally blue district.
The numbers appear to reflect the developments on the ground. While Huey has overperformed in a district former Rep. Jane Harman won with 60 percent of the vote, no Republican outside his camp has expressed confidence the tea partier could pull off the upset.
Democrats have a double-digit registration advantage, and while Huey has poured nearly $800,000 of his own money into the contest, Hahn enjoyed a financial edge throughout the runoff campaign.
Another promising aspect for Hahn: Of those polled who had already voted, Huey trails by just 5 percentage points. But when broadened to those voting on Election Day, Hahn extends her lead by 10 percentage points.
PPP surveyed 619 likely voters July 8-10. The margin of error is 4 percentage points. | Government Job change - Election | July 2011 | ['(Politico)', '(AP via Houston Chronicle)'] |
A UN war crimes tribunal acquits former Kosovan Prime Minister and former commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army Ramush Haradinaj of war crimes, prompting Serbia to denounce the court. | The former prime minister of Kosovo, Ramush Haradinaj, and two ex-commanders of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) have been cleared of war crimes charges for a second time at a tribunal in The Hague.
The decision to order the immediate release of Haradinaj, Idriz Balaj and Lahi Brahimaj will raise questions about why the international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia pursued the cases for so long.
The indictment against the three men alleged that they were responsible for the "cruel treatment, torture and murder of prisoners in the KLA-run camp at Jablanica". But in its judgment, the trial chamber said the prosecution "presented no direct evidence to prove that the established crimes were committed as part of a [joint criminal enterprise] in which the three accused participated".
The judges also dismissed as "circumstantial" evidence presented by the prosecution to prove the three Kosovans were participants.
All three men were originally acquitted of the same charges in 2008. Two years later the tribunal decided to quash the acquittals and partially retry the former KLA commanders.
Haradinaj, 44, who served as prime minister for 100 days before surrendering himself to the court, has spent four years in custody. He has been praised by western politicians for his statesmanship. Senior British lawyers have criticised the tribunal for its relentless pursuit of Haradinaj.
Allegations of political deals with Serbs – to balance the ethnicity of defendants, thereby smoothing the path towards the capture of General Ratko Mladic and the Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic – have overshadowed the prosecution. There will be celebrations in Pristina, but the latest acquittals are likely to anger Serb leaders in Belgrade.
Ben Emmerson QC, Haradinaj's lawyer, condemned the trial as "ill-judged". "This verdict, coming after the longest and most exhaustive criminal process ever undertaken in the history of international criminal law, is a complete vindication of Mr Haradinaj's innocence. It proves beyond the slightest doubt that he was a war hero and not a war criminal," Emmerson said.
"It is time for the enemies of a free Kosova to accept the verdict of history. This judgment should silence once and for all those senior officials at the very top of government in Belgrade who have been putting out falsehoods about this case, even in the days running up to the judgment.
"Even to suggest that there was some kind of equivalence between the genocidal policies of the Milosevic regime and the resistance of a people's army seeking liberation and self-determination for the people of Kosova was a travesty from the start. It was the equivalent of putting the leaders of the French resistance in the dock at Nuremberg alongside the henchmen of Hitler's Third Reich."
Emmerson called on the tribunal's former prosecutor, Carla del Ponte, to apologise. "There is one individual in particular who needs to answer for this and that is the former prosecutor Carla del Ponte … She must apologise today for her own entirely personal responsibility for the decision to issue this indictment without any reliable evidence to justify her decision, and contrary to the advice of senior lawyers in her office. She must apologise for abusing her position in this way.
"She must have known that her decision to indict Ramush served the political interests of the extreme nationalists in Serbia, by depriving Kosovo of its most effective political leader during this crucial period of transition to independence." | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Sentence | November 2012 | ['(BBC)', '(Reuters)', '(The Guardian)'] |
International demands grow that the United States close Guantanamo Bay prison camp. The European Parliament votes overwhelmingly for a resolution urging that the prison be closed and inmates given a fair trial. UK Prime Minister Tony Blair calls Guantanamo an "anomaly" . UN General Secretary Kofi Annan calls for the camp to be closed "as soon as possible" . Former Irish President and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson urges the US to act on the findings of the UN report (RTÉ), while Northern Ireland Secretary of State Peter Hain also calls for its closure. This follows a United Nations report which calls for it to be closed. | Mr Annan backed a UN report calling for the closure of the camp where some 500 "enemy combatants" have been held without trial for up to four years. He said he did not agree with all findings, but said detainees could not be held "in perpetuity" without charge.
The White House has dismissed the report as "a discredit to the UN".
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The UN says the US should try the approximately 500 inmates, or free them "without further delay".
Mr Annan said bringing the detainees to trial would allow them to explain themselves. Only a handful of detainees have been tried so far.
Civil liberties
While he did not agree with all the findings of the report, Mr Annan said it was crucial to strike a balance.
"The basic premise, that we need to be careful to have a balance between effective action against terrorism and individual liberties and civil rights, I think is valid," Mr Annan told reporters.
Mr McClellan said the military treated all detainees humanely. "These are dangerous terrorists that we're talking about," he added.
"They are people that are determined to harm innocent civilians, or harm innocent Americans. They were enemy combatants picked up on the battlefield in the war on terrorism."
A senior British minister also called for the camp to be closed.
Speaking on the BBC television Question Time programme, Peter Hain said he would prefer to see Guantanamo Bay close.
GUANTANAMO TIMELINE
Jan 2002: First "illegal combatants" arrive at Camp X-ray. Transferred to Camp Delta in April
Feb 2002: More than 100 out of nearly 600 detainees stage first of many hunger strikes
Oct 2002: First releases include four men returned to Afghanistan and Pakistan
Feb 2004: US officials announce the first charges against two detainees
Mar-May 2004: Dozens of detainees released
July 2004: First military tribunal
Jan 2005: US announces investigation into allegations of abuse
May 2005: US magazine report - later retracted - alleges copies of the Koran mishandled by guards, sparking worldwide protests. US later confirms five cases of mishandling
Guantanamo in spotlight
He also indicated that the UK Prime Minister, Tony Blair, agreed with him.
Rejections
The US has dismissed most of the findings of the report which include allegations of torture. It said most of the allegations were "largely without merit" as the five investigators never actually visited Guantanamo Bay.
The investigators say they rejected an offer to go to Guantanamo, as they would not have been allowed to meet the prisoners. The report will be presented to the UN Commission of Human Rights, which authorised the report, at its next session in Geneva on 13 March. | Organization Closed | February 2006 | ['(The Age)', '(Guardian)', '(Toronto Star)', '(BBC)', '(Scotsman)'] |
3 Indian peacekeepers serving in a United Nations peacekeeping operation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are killed by rebels in an apparent ambush. | Dozens of machete-wielding men dressed in raffia palms attacked as soldiers opened a fortified base to help a group of civilians, the Indian army said.
The attackers are thought to belong to the Mai Mai militia group, blamed for contributing to the violence that has disrupted the region for years. The motive for the night attack is unclear, the Indian army said.
A group of five Congolese civilians came to the base, operated by the UN's peacekeeper mission, known as Monusco, in the town of Kirumba.
"They asked the post for assistance. While they were engaging the guard in conversation, a group of approximately 50 rebels attacked the post from the surrounding jungle," an Indian army statement said.
The soldiers opened fire and drove the rebels away, but not before three Indian soldiers were killed and seven wounded, it added.
Nearly 4,000 Indian army soldiers are part of the UN Congo peacekeeping mission.
Repeated rebel attacks in Congo have called into question the ability of the UN force to protect civilians. Hardliner Raisi set to be new Iran president
Cleric Ebrahim Raisi - Iran's top judge - has received most of the votes counted so far.
| Armed Conflict | August 2010 | ['(BBC)', '(Hindustan Times)'] |
An investigation into the crash of a Black Hawk helicopter on HMAS Kanimbla that killed two concludes excessive loading on the engine caused it to lose power. | A CULTURE of poor safety standards and risk-taking exists in the army's elite helicopter squadron, the final report into a fatal Black Hawk crash off Fiji has found.
Captain Mark Bingley and SAS Trooper Joshua Porter were killed when the helicopter slammed into the deck of troop carrier HMAS Kanimbla and plunged into the sea during military exercises on November 29, 2006. Eight crew members survived the crash. A military board of inquiry into the crash was convened last year, headed by retired NSW Supreme Court judge David Levine. The inquiry's final report found senior pilots in the Sydney-based 171 Squadron had a culture of aggressive flying, safety procedures were slack and the reporting of incidents involving engine failures and other safety breaches was haphazard, Fairfax has reported. The crash happened as Captain Bingley was attempting a special operations assault drill, hovering above the ship with the aircraft's nose up to allow soldiers to descend to the ship via rope or fire weapons. According to the report, the crash resulted from an overstressed engine losing power, leading to a dramatic slowing of the rotor blades known as main rotor droop. The inquiry found incidents of main rotor droop were quite common but not always reported, and the army's Black Hawks did not have an electronic control unit which reduced the risk. According to the inquiry, the operation was dangerous given the ship's drift in the sea, the fact the exercise had not been practised at a slower speed and the tailwind, which was misjudged by Capt Bingley. The report was handed to Air Chief Marshall Angus Houston six months ago, with the defence force head said to be appalled by the findings, Fairfax reported. It is understood that he dubbed senior pilots from the squadron "cowboys'' and launched an audit of all helicopter fleets. The inquiry's report and the results of the audit are expected to be published in the next two weeks.
| Air crash | June 2008 | ['(The Australian)'] |
Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott loses his seat to independent candidate and former Olympian Zali Steggall. | One of the Liberals’ leading conservatives and Australia’s 28th prime minister, Tony Abbott, has lost his blue-ribbon Sydney seat of Warringah after moderate Liberal voters abandoned him in protest at the role he played in opposing climate change action.
Abbott lost to the independent candidate and Olympian Zali Steggall, with thecount showing she was likely to win almost 60% of the vote on a two-party-preferred basis.
But Abbott’s loss appeared to be the only black spot on a night when it appeared the Coalition would hold on to government.
“I want to say to you: there is good news and bad news. There is every chance that the Liberal-National Coalition has won the election,” Abbott said in his concession speech, to chants of “Tony, Tony!”
“This – this is a really extraordinary result. It is a stupendous result. It is a great result for Scott Morrison and the rest of the wider Liberal team, and Scott Morrison will now, quite rightly, enter the Liberal pantheon forever,” he said.
“So its disappointing for us in Warringah. I can’t say it doesn’t hurt to lose. But I would rather be a loser than a quitter,” he said to wild applause.
He said the Liberals had become the party who believed that “the most important thing is to raise people up.”
“I think we can see that there is something of a realignment of politics going on right around this country. It’s clear that in what might be described as ‘working seats’, we are doing so much better.
“It’s also clear that in at least some of what might be described as ‘wealthy seats’, we are doing it tough, and the green-left is doing better,” he said.
Abbott said he had feared the worst after the result in the Wentworth byelection last year.
Backed by a number of local community groups, Steggall was drafted as a candidate to advocate for more action on the climate crisis. She had run on a platform that was almost entirely focused on taking meaningful action to counter it, including adopting much tougher targets than the Coalition has embraced – a message that resonated with the middle-class voters of Warringah. Her support was especially strong in Mosman and Manly.
The loss of one the most outspoken members of the conservative wing would normally send deep shockwaves through the Liberal party, but given the other results on Saturday night it seems less certain that Abbott’s defeat will prompt internal debate about the party’s positioning on the climate crisis.
The survival of Peter Dutton in the seat of Dickson will also boost the conservative wing of the party.
Abbott said the result showed that where climate change was a “moral issue, we do it tough. But where it’s an economic issue, we do very, very well.”
Steggall’s campaign was supported by a number of grassroots groups which had formed out of disillusion with the Liberal party’s policy on the climate emergency.
In her acceptance speech she paid tribute to Abbott as “a dedicated and long-serving local member”.
“Nobody can doubt his community spirit, his work ethic, and his contribution to this community. And I wish him well.”
But she said Warringah had “voted for the future”.
“This is a win for moderates with a heart,” she said. “I will be a climate leader for you. And I will keep the new government to account, and make sure we take action on climate change.
The Warringah result is certain to be analysed in terms of what a grassroots campaign can do against a seemingly invulnerable politician.
Several high-profile former Liberal members from Mosman were behind the push to find a candidate to run against Abbott and the vote shows they were successful in their strategy to get family and friends to persuade other Liberal-leaning voters to lodge a protest vote.
There is also likely to be a heated discussion, particularly from the News Corp publications, about the role of left-leaning and progressive organisations in the political process, with conservatives warning that progressive groups represent a threat to democracy because of their deep pockets.
The seat was a hot spot for activism by GetUp, which door-knocked more than 20,000 households in the north shore and northern beaches seat, and Stop Adani, which was also active.
Abbott had held Warringah for 25 years, having won it 1994 in a byelection.
The former journalist and political adviser to John Howard became a public figure as the director of Australians for a Constitional Monarchy in 1992, a position he held until he ran for the seat.
As an MP Abbott rose quickly in the Howard government and was appointed minister for employment services in 1998 after Howard won a second term.
He later became minister for health, where he sought to prosecute a conservative agenda, including seeking to ban the abortion drug RU486, a move Howard ultimately did not embrace.
After Howard lost in 2007, Abbott served in the shadow cabinets of Brendan Nelson and Malcolm Turnbull but he resigned from the frontbench in November 2009 in protest against Turnbull’s support for the Rudd government’s proposed emissions trading scheme.
That set the stage for a decade-long battle within the Liberal party over climate . Abbott once branded the science of climate change “crap” and led the opposition internally to wipe out subsidies for renewables and any policy that attempted to put a price on carbon.
After forcing a leadership ballot on the subject in 2009, Abbott defeated Turnbull by 42 votes to 41, to become the party’s leader and leader of the opposition.
He led the Coalition at the 2010 election, which resulted in a hung parliament but Labor, led by Julia Gillard, formed government, with the support of one Greens MP and three independents.
Regarded as fearsome campaigner, Abbott was re-elected as Liberal leader unopposed. He went on to lead the Coalition to victory in the 2013 election.
But just two years later, on 14 September 2015, Abbott was defeated as Liberal party leader 54 votes to 44 by Malcolm Turnbull, who replaced him as prime minister the following day.
Abbott was widely seen as a driving force behind the destabilisation of Turnbull’s leadership and the thwarting of the national energy guarantee, Turnbull’s policy to tackle global heating.
In 2018 Turnbull was in turn challenged and replaced by Scott Morrison.
Abbott appeared to leave open the door for a possible comeback, saying his public life was not over. | Government Job change - Election | May 2019 | ['(The Guardian)'] |
An unofficial quick-count released by Unitel Bolivia projects Arce as the clear winner. | LA PAZ (Reuters) - Bolivia’s socialist candidate Luis Arce is set to win the country’s presidential election without the need for a run-off, an unofficial rapid count of the vote indicated, which would usher the leftwing party of Evo Morales back into power.
The quick-count from Ciesmori, released by Bolivian TV channel Unitel, said Arce had 52.4% of the votes, while Mesa had 31.5%. To win outright, a candidate needs at least 40% of the vote and to beat the runner up by at least 10 percentage points.
| Government Job change - Election | October 2020 | ['(Reuters)'] |
An earthquake of 6.3 magnitude strikes the region of Canterbury in the South Island of New Zealand, disrupting communications to the area and closing Christchurch Airport. | The Carlton Hotel, after the 6.3 earthquake. Photo / NZPA
2.07am That concludes today's updates coverage of the Christchurch earthquake. We'll be back in a few hours to resume updates from around 6.00am. Thanks. 2.05am Newstalk ZB has confirmed a woman rang the radio network's overnight host and said her 9 month old grandson was killed when the television fell on him. 1.19am Shirley Wan felt the earthquake in Dunedin. "I am in Dunedin. When the earthquake struck i was on the 8th floor of our building and it swayed heavily for atleast 10 sec. At that point I knew Christchurch must have been hit hard." 1.18am Another eyewitness account. Denise Biddick emailed nzherald.co.nz to say: "I was in Mt Pleasant. It was absolutely terrifying. We sheltered under the table which moved around a lot. Everything in every cupboard fell out, the drawers, the wardrobe, the shower door, sell off and over. Two windows broke, french doors fly open with broken windows. I had experienced the previous earthquake, this one was much more extreme. I knew immediately that there would be deaths. I waited three hours before driving home to Cracroft. The devastation as I drove down the hill was enormous. Houses with the whole front missing. People milling out on the street in shock. Roads with tarmack lifted, water running everywhere. It was huge. Much much worse than September." 1.13am Eyewitness, Fiona Stead, provided nzherald this account. "I work in Sydenham. Was just going back inside prior to starting work again on the 1st floor of our 4 floor building when the quake struck. Myself and a colleague ended up on the floor, unable to stand, due to the quake. "Building was evacuated. Air Conditioning unit on top of building erupted, water everywhere. Broken windows, people injured from failing ceilings on the 4th floor. Damage so much worse than intial September quake. "Seriously scary. Have never been in anything so scary. Was sent home. Leaving to go to my car, people lying on Colombo Street - injured. A work colleague said Westpac Helicopter took them to hospital due to congested roads. Sydenham district has been badly hit again - buildings partly damaged last time, have come right down this time." 1.06am A Christchurch eyewitness provided this chilling email to nzherald.co.nz: "I work at Ballantynes, it was chaos! Buildings were falling down everywhere. When evacuating, a little girl about 7 was being carried towards the river, lifeless with rubble all over her. Another man lay impaled by a shop front. "I was getting very frustrated with people taking photos when others where trying to reach a safer place. My heart goes to those who are currently trapped." 12.43am This timelapse map shows yesterday's quake and aftershocks as dots. For the most impressive results, change the time to 'last 24 hours'. 12.39am The Guardian is running a live blog of events here. Its Tokyo correspondent Justin McCurry filed on the Japanese students thought trapped in the collapsed CTV building. "The 23 students from Toyama college of foreign languages were eating lunch at King's Education, a language school in Christchurch, when the quake struck. The school is reportedly located inside Christchurch's CTV building, which collapsed in the earthquake. "The students, 12 of whom are still unaccounted for, arrived in the city last week and were due to study English in New Zealand until 13 March. "Japanese media are reporting that a student and graduate of a language school in Kyoto, as well as three female students from Kagawa University, have not been heard from since the earthquake." 11.50pm Queen Elizabeth II said in a statement she had been "utterly shocked" by the news. "My thoughts are with all those who have been affected by this dreadful event," the statement, reported on the BBC website, said. 11.19pm A Facebook page has been set up to find offers of free accommodation for those left homeless by the quake. 11.00pm Within the next 24 hours 50 officers from the Wellington police district, including two disaster victim identification officers and two recovery dogs, will travel by ferry and road to Christchurch, police said in a statement. Twenty officers from each of the Tasman and Southern districts are driving overnight to Christchurch and a further 43 Southern district staff will travel tomorrow morning. Thirty officers, including six disaster victim identification staff and two recovery dogs, are travelling from the wider Auckland districts tomorrow. Another 130 staff are being drawn from other police districts over the next few days as part of the second phase of police reinforcements. 10.48pm A Royal New Air Force Boeing 757 is heading to Christchurch from Whenuapai Air Force Base in Auckland carrying 54 Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) staff, 20 St John staff, and a staff member from Customs. It picked up a further 34 USAR passengers at Ohakea and there were also two sniffer dogs on the flight. Two Iroquois helicopters from Ohakea have also arrived to assist with rescue efforts in the city and a P-3K Orion aircraft is taking aerial surveillance images of affected areas. The Royal New Zealand Navy's multi-role vessel Canterbury is in Lyttelton and has offloaded about 160 personnel for cordon support duties. HMNZS Resolution has completed a survey of the main shipping route into Lyttelton harbour and results passed to port authorities. HMNZS Otago is en route to Lyttelton. HMNZS Pukaki is at anchor with an element of the navy dive team. 10.30pm More than a thousand Christchurch residents have nowhere to sleep tonight. The Salvation Army's Major Robert Ross says workers are gearing up to help people who have been displaced. "It looks like in excess of 1000 people will require assistance tonight," he told Newstalk ZB. Major Ross says while that was initially going to take place in Hagley Park, operations have been moved to Burwood. Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard says many Australians have called an emergency hotline, concerned about loved ones caught up in events in Christchurch. "Already that line has taken 2,541 calls and it has registered 443 cases of Australians who are in Christchurch," she said. 10.27pm About half of Christchurch remains without power following today's magnitude 6.3 quake, and lines company Orion Energy is warning it will take several days to make repairs. Up to 80 percent of customers lost power when the quake hit just before 1pm and Orion had managed to restore it to some. "We have found serious damage to both major cables and substations in the New Brighton and Dallington areas," Orion Energy chief executive Roger Sutton said. "This is very substantial damage and it will take us two or three days establish a repair time," he said. "We hope to get small pockets of these areas back on later tomorrow,but substantial repairs will take much longer." The damage sustained was far more serious than any damage from the September 4 quake. Damage throughout the area was more substantial, especially in the central city, Summer, Lyttelton and Heathcote areas. "We have started to restore power back to areas west of Cathedral Square," Mr Sutton said. ``We now think we have 50 per cent of power back on to Canterbury (but) there are still substantial areas of the city where we have not been able to access the damage at this stage." Orion's main building was largely undamaged, Mr Sutton said. "I was in our building on the ground floor, and I managed to get under a table, and then I went out into the street and it was an extraordinarily terrible sight." 10.01pm Routine elective surgery will be cancelled in Auckland tomorrow as staff prepare to treat people injured in today's devastating quake. An injured woman and a child will be flown from Christchurch to Auckland for treatment once transfer times had been arranged, Auckland District Health Board (ADHB) said tonight. The woman would be treated at Auckland Hospital, while the child would be treated at Starship Hospital. ADHB incident controller Margaret Dotchin said Auckland had beds and capacity in its intensive care units to support Christchurch in its time of need. Its incident management team was in regular contact with agencies coordinating the earthquake response. Ms Dotchin said two intensive care nurses and three general nurses were on standby to be transferred to Christchurch. Several surgeons, anaesthetists and intensive care staff were also on standby. 9.59pm Air New Zealand has reduced domestic airfares in and out of Christchurch to $50 for those who book before Friday. The discounted tickets will be available to anyone in New Zealand through the carrier's website and call centre. A return Auckland-Christchurch flight will also be available for $50 tomorrow, a statement says. Air New Zealand CEO Rob Fyfe, who is in Christchurch, says Air New Zealand will regularly review capacity and compassionate fare requirements over the coming days. He has offered the full resources of the airline to Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker and Prime Minister John Key. 9.52pm Civil Defence and safety considerations are severely restricting the ability of Telecom network technicians to carry out physical work tonight. But Telecom said it was continuing to monitor network capacity and performance, with a particular focus on 111 services and key emergency response sites. "All central city cell sites that are operational have been connected to generators to keep them running overnight," the company said in a statement. Telecom said the disruption to landline and mobile services in Christchurch was continuing. Mobile performance had improved as people heeded calls to limit non-essential mobile use. Vodafone said its mobile network continued to be fully operational, but due to the current demand on telecommunications we are experiencing some congestion. 9.24pm Twelve Japanese students from a foreign language school have been reported missing in the rubble of a Christchurch building. The Sankei Shimbun newspaper said two Japanese teachers and nine students were rescued, but 12 students from were missing in the Peterborough St building. They are from Toyama city. NNN television news network has quoted Toyama city authorities as saying that three of the rescued students have been taken to hospital, one in a serious condition. 8.33pm All schools and early childhood services in Christchurch City were closed until further notice tonight, the Ministry of Education announced. Updated information would be posted on the ministry's website by 1pm tomorrow. 8.29pm Governor-General Sir Anand Satyanand says he is shocked and distressed about today's deadly earthquake in Christchurch. Prime Minister John Key tonight confirmed at least 65 people had died in the 6.3 magnitude quake which struck the South Island's largest city at 12.51pm today and the toll was expected to rise. "Having just left Christchurch this morning it has been with great shock to learn of the latest earthquake to hit Canterbury this afternoon. I have been informed of damage, serious injuries and, most distressingly, significant loss of life," Sir Anand said. Coming after last September's devastating quake, today's tremor would be traumatic to the people of the city and region who had endured six months of aftershocks while trying to put their lives together, he said. "My wife Susan and I join all New Zealanders in our thoughts for the people of Christchurch and Canterbury at this terrible time." 8.26pm Luxury cruise liner Queen Mary 2 will most likely cancel its visit to Christchurch, which has been devastated by a major earthquake. The two Cunard liners Queen Mary 2 and Queen Elizabeth made maritime history when they passed each other for the first time in Sydney Harbour on Tuesday. Queen Mary 2 was due to sail for New Zealand on Wednesday evening, calling in Christchurch on Saturday and Auckland on Monday. "Queen Mary 2 is due to go down to Christchurch," Cunard director Peter Shanks told AAP on Tuesday. | Earthquakes | February 2011 | ['(New Zealand Herald)', '(Geo Net)', '(New Zealand Herald)'] |
An American judge has ruled that a sixyearold may be sued for negligence after crashing into an elderly woman while riding a bicycle at age four. | A New York child can be sued for crashing a bicycle into an elderly pedestrian and causing injuries that led to her death, a judge has ruled.
Juliet Breitman and another child were four years old when they raced their small bicycles on a Manhattan street and ran into Claire Menagh, 87.
Juliet's lawyer had argued Juliet was too young to be held negligent.
The judge disagreed, ruling Juliet's lawyer had presented no evidence she lacked intelligence or maturity.
According to court filings, in April 2009, Juliet Breitman and Jacob Kohn were accompanied by their mothers, Dana Breitman and Rachel Kohn, as they raced their bicycles along the pavement near the East River in New York's Manhattan borough. The children struck Ms Menagh, knocking her to the ground. She underwent surgery for a fractured hip and died three months later.
Ms Menagh - and later her son, acting as executor of her estate - sued the children, arguing they were "negligent in their operation and control of their bicycles". The estate also sued Dana Breitman and Rachel Kohn, saying they had consented to the race.
Juliet's lawyer sought to have the case dismissed, filing with the court a copy of Juliet's birth certificate showing she was four years and nine months old at the time of the accident.
Citing several cases involving young children who had been in accidents, New York Supreme Court Judge Paul Wooten ruled that Juliet, now six years old, could be sued.
While he noted that the law presumes children under age four are incapable of negligence, "for infants above the age of four, there is no bright line rule", he wrote in the decision.
He also wrote that the Juliet's lawyer had presented no evidence as to the child's lack of intelligence or maturity, nor that "a child of similar age and capacity" would not have understood the danger of riding a bicycle into an old woman.
Setback for EU in legal fight with AstraZeneca
But the drug-maker faces hefty fines if it fails to supply doses of Covid-19 vaccine over the summer. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | October 2010 | ['(BBC)'] |
Pablo Picasso's Nude, Green Leaves and Bust sells for US$106 million at Christie's in New York, becoming the most expensive work of art sold at auction. | NEW YORK (Reuters) - Picasso’s “Nude, Green Leaves and Bust” soared to more than $106 million at Christie’s on Tuesday, setting a record for a work of art sold at auction.
The vibrant large-scale depiction of Picasso’s mistress and frequent subject, Marie-Therese Walter, was the highlight of a world-class collection assembled by the late Los Angeles art patrons Frances and Sidney Brody.
It had been estimated to sell for more than $80 million, but many art experts predicted in recent weeks it would ride growing confidence in a recovering art market and break the previous record of $104.3 million set in February by Giacometti’s “Walking Man I” at Sotheby’s in London.
More than half a dozen people bid on the 1932 canvas, which the Brodys acquired in the 1950s from Picasso’s dealers, with the winning bid taken by a Christie’s executive via telephone. The final price of $106,482,500 included the auction’s house’s commission.
Editing by Peter Cooney
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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All quotes delayed a minimum of 15 minutes. See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays. | Break historical records | May 2010 | ['(Reuters)'] |
A gas explosion in a prison in the US town of Pensacola, Florida reportedly kills at least two people, injures 100 and forces an evacuation. | Two jail inmates were killed and more than 180 injured in an apparent gas explosion in a Florida jail, local officials have said.
Part of the Escambia County jail in Pensacola collapsed after the blast late on Wednesday.
As many as 600 people - inmates and corrections officials - were believed to be in the building at the time.
Officials are investigating whether recent flooding could have caused the explosion.
"The explosion shook us so hard it was like we were in an earthquake," inmate Monique Barnes told The Associated Press news agency.
"It was like a movie, a horrible, horrible movie."
The blast happened shortly after 23:00 local time on Wednesday (05:00 GMT Thursday).
"There was an apparent gas explosion in the central booking area of the Escambia County jail," local spokeswoman Kathleen Dough-Castro said. "We had approximately 600 prisoners in the facility at the time. Injured prisoners are being transported under guard to area hospitals. Uninjured prisoners are being transported to other detention facilities."
Three people - two inmates and one correctional staff member - were still in hospital with injuries on Thursday evening.
Parts of Florida - including Escambia County - have been recently hit by heavy flooding caused by a storm system in the region. A number of roads have been badly damaged.
Florida Governor Rick Scott has declared a state of emergency in the affected areas.
| Gas explosion | April 2014 | ['(BBC)'] |
Voters in Venezuela go to the polls for a parliamentary election. | Venezuelans have voted for a new parliament, with opposition parties poised to return to the National Assembly after a poll boycott in 2005. They are set to take back seats from the governing United Socialist Party (PSUV) of President Hugo Chavez.
But Mr Chavez is hoping to hold on to a two-thirds majority in the assembly. Opinion polls suggested that the result could be tight in what is being seen as a test of Mr Chavez's popularity before presidential elections in 2012. Large queues formed outside polling stations on Sunday as Venezuelans flocked to vote in an election that both government and opposition say is crucial. But hours after polls closed, opposition parties were complaining that no results had been released, despite Venezuela's automated voting system.
Electoral officials were still meeting in private in the early hours of Monday morning, as thousands of Venezuelans remained glued to their televisions and radios in anticipation of the results.
A spokesman for the opposition umbrella group Table for Democratic Unity (MUD) demanded the results be released, saying the delay suggested the opposition had done well.
"We demand the National Election Council give the results which we all know already," said Ramon Guillermo Aveledo.
Earlier, Sandra Oblitas of Venezuela's National Electoral Council said voting had gone smoothly.
"The electoral process went ahead with happiness, with tranquillity, with calm, with peace and with a great flow of voters," she said. President Chavez has admitted that his party is likely to lose seats to the MUD. He appealed to Venezuela's 17 million voters to prevent a derailment of his "revolution", and urged his supporters to vote in a "massive attack" that would "demolish" the opposition. Predicting a turnout as high as 70%, Mr Chavez said the election was proof that Venezuela had a healthy democracy. "Everyone knows their vote will be respected," he said. The opposition is hoping to end Mr Chavez's domination of parliament for the first time since he became president nearly 12 years ago. "We need the majority of votes to secure a true democracy in our country," said MUD spokesman Felix Aroyo. Five years ago opposition groups boycotted the legislative elections, saying they did not think the poll would be free and fair. That decision helped left-wing parties loyal to Mr Chavez to get almost all of the assembly's 165 seats, making it easy for him to push through socialist reforms.
This time the opposition agreed to take part, despite concerns about changes to the electoral system which it says give an unfair advantage to the governing socialists. Rather than concentrating on their dislike for the president, opposition parties kept their campaigns narrowly focused on issues like crime and the rising cost of living. | Government Job change - Election | September 2010 | ['(Al Jazeera)', '(BBC)'] |
The total number of worldwide confirmed COVID-19 cases surpasses 40 million. The United States remains the global leader in case numbers, accounting for 20% of all cumulative cases, with India closely following at 19%. |
About a third more deaths in England are occurring at home than before the Covid-19 pandemic, data has revealed, with the majority down to causes other than the coronavirus.
In April, the UK government launched a campaign to encourage people who are unwell to seek medical attention, amid alarm that A&E attendances had plummeted. But the new data, which extends into mid-September, suggests those with life-threatening conditions are still shying away from hospitals.
Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that even after the peak of the first wave of Covid, deaths at home were higher than the five-year average, with about a third more deaths registered C a proportion has remained largely steady since mid-June. Deaths at home have also remained elevated in Wales.
Twitter has removed a tweet by Scott Atlas, a controversial scientist who has Donald Trumps ear, in which he wrongly stated that masks fail to protect against coronavirus.
The Washington Post, meanwhile, reported that Atlas has scattered discord inside the White House, so infuriating Deborah Birx, the coronavirus response coordinator, that she complained to the vice-president, Mike Pence, calling for Atlas to be removed.
The Post reported that at one meeting in the Oval Office, Atlas placed himself behind the Resolute Desk after Trump had left the room. The scientist, a senior fellow from Stanfords conservative Hoover Institution, denied the account.
On Sunday, Twitter took down the tweet in which Atlas said: Masks work? NO. The company said the post violated its policy on Covid-19 misinformation that prohibits sharing false or misleading content which could lead to harm.
Intensive care units (ICUs) at hospitals treating Covid-19 patients should do away with air-conditioning to limit the risk of infecting doctors, according to a study by the Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru. Reuters reports:
Frontline health workers around the world have borne the brunt of the coronavirus crisis. More than 500 doctors have died from Covid-19 in India C the worlds second-worst hit nation C as infections near 8 million, straining the countrys weak and underfunded public health system.
The recirculation of the air by the centralized air-conditioning systems is what has led to the significant infection of our committed medical fraternity and has also led to deaths of doctors and nurses, the study by the Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru, considered one of the countrys best science universities, said.
Reducing recirculation of air and increasing the use of outdoor air can lower the risk of spreading coronavirus in indoor spaces, the World Health Organization has said.
Chinese health authorities investigating a recent Covid-19 outbreak say they have discovered live coronavirus on frozen food packaging, a finding that suggests the virus can survive in cold supply chains.
On Saturday the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said it had found traces of live Covid-19 on the outer packing of frozen cod in the eastern coastal city of Qingdao, marking the first time live coronavirus has been detected on the outside of refrigerated goods. Researchers were investigating the source of a recent cluster of cases linked to a hospital in Qingdao.
Genetic traces have previously been found in samples of frozen food but no living virus has been isolated before.
It has been confirmed that contact with outer packaging contaminated by the new coronavirus can cause infection, the agency said in a statement on its website, without specifying where the batch of frozen food came from.
China, which until the Qingdao outbreak had recorded no new local cases in 55 days, has been one of few countries to point to possible transmission through frozen food. When Beijing had a second outbreak in June after the virus had been largely contained, officials suggested the new cluster could have come from imported salmon.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have said there has been no evidence that handling food or consuming food is associated with Covid-19. New Zealand ruled out the possibility that one of its first infections happened at a cold storage facility.
Lithuanians voted on Monday in the second round of a national election, with some of them casting ballots from their cars in special drive-in polling stations amid a local spike in Covid-19.
Voters arrived alone in their vehicles as instructed, wore face masks and dropped their votes into ballot boxes, AP reported.
There are four such drive-in stations in Lithuania. Only those in isolation and on an official list can vote that way until Thursday. All other registered voters can cast their ballots in the runoff at regular polling stations on 25 October.
In the UK, the new British Airways chief executive Sean Doyle today urged the UK government to end the quarantining of passengers arriving from abroad amid the pandemic.
We need to get the economy moving again and this just isnt possible when youre asking people to quarantine for 14 days, Doyle told an online aviation conference, a week after he replaced Alex Cruz as the CEO of British Airways, AFP reports. If we look abroad to our near neighbours, we see that business travel and indeed tourism is being prioritised by some countries, Doyle added.
Addressing the same event, the UKs transport secretary, Grant Shapps, said the government was looking at introducing a virus test alongside a shortened quarantine period.
My ministerial colleagues and I have agreed a regime, based on a single test provided by the private sector and at the cost to the passenger, after a period of self-isolation.
He added: It will mean a single test for international arrivals, a week after arrival.
Doyle was not convinced, however, telling the conference: Its our view that even if that quarantine period is reduced to seven days, people wont travel here and the UK will get left behind.
The United Nations says it will stockpile 1bn syringes around the world by the end of 2021, to be used for the delivery of any future coronavirus vaccine.
The UN Childrens Fund Unicef says it aims to get 520m syringes in its warehouses by the end of this year, to guarantee an initial supply in countries ahead of the vaccine.
When vaccines are approved for COVID-19, we'll be ready. By the end of this year, we'll have 520 million syringes - enough to wrap around the world one and a half times.We must ensure this is a people's vaccine, accessible to every country.#VaccinesWork @gavi @WHO pic.twitter.com/IqIHCQq2SV
Henrietta Fore, Unicef executive director, said: Vaccinating the world against Covid-19 will be one of the largest mass undertakings in human history, and we will need to move as quickly as the vaccines can be produced.
In order to move fast later, we must move fast now. By the end of the year, we will already have over half a billion syringes pre-positioned where they can be deployed quickly and cost effectively. Thats enough syringes to wrap around the world one and a half times.
At least half of Indias 1.3 billion people are likely to have been infected with coronavirus by next February, helping slow the spread of the disease, a member of a federal government committee tasked with providing projections said on Monday.
India has so far reported 7.55 million cases and is second only to the United States in terms of total infections.
But Covid-19 infections are decreasing in India after a peak in mid-September, with 61,390 new cases reported on average each day, according to a Reuters tally.
Our mathematical model estimates that around 30% of the population is currently infected and it could go up to 50% by February, Manindra Agrawal, a professor at the Indian Institute for Technology in Kanpur and a committee member, told Reuters.
The committees estimate for the current spread of the virus is much higher than the federal governments serological surveys, which showed that only around 14% of the population had been infected, as of September.
But Agrawal said serological surveys might not be able to get sampling absolutely correct because of the sheer size of the population that they were surveying.
Instead, the committee of virologists, scientists and other experts, whose report was made public on Sunday, has relied on a mathematical model.
Experts have warned that infections could rise in India as the holiday season nears, with celebrations for the Hindu festivals of Durga Puja and Diwali due this month and in mid-November, respectively.
| Disease Outbreaks | October 2020 | ['(The Guardian)'] |
Hurricane and storm surge watches are issued for Texas and Louisiana as the tropical system Harvey strengthens into a tropical depression and is predicted to bring both heavy rainfall and storm surge. | Tropical Storm Harvey is expected to strengthen into a hurricane before bringing a extremely dangerous combination of rainfall and storm-surge flooding to areas near the Texas and Louisiana coasts into the weekend or early next week.
| Hurricanes_Tornado_Storm_Blizzard | August 2017 | ['(The Weather Channel)'] |
Germany's army chief Wolfgang Schneiderhan resigns over allegations of a cover up related to a September NATO airstrike in northern Afghanistan. | The head of Germany's armed forces has tendered his resignation. The move comes after media reported that the government may have withheld information about a deadly attack that killed numerous civilians in Afghanistan.
Schneiderhan is the latest casualty of the airstrike
Germany's military chief of staff, Wolfgang Schneiderhan, has stepped down in the wake of revelations about his handling of a deadly bombing raid in Afghanistan.
Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg announced the resignation in parliament on Thursday as a debate began on Germany's military deployment in Afghanistan. Schneiderhan had "released himself from his duties at his own request," said Guttenberg, adding that Deputy Defense Minister Peter Wichert was also resigning.
Both the current and the former defense ministers are under pressure
Guttenberg said that Schneiderhan had failed to provide proper information about the incident, in which a NATO report says that 142 people, including civilians were killed. The positions of Schneiderhan and Wichert became untenable after a revelation that the military received images the same day as the airstrike showing some of the dead were civilians, yet did not make this public.
Chancellor Angela Merkel has called for a full inquiry into the aftermath of the attack. Speaking only hours after the resignations were announced, Merkel told reporters, "I've always said that if we want to win confidence, we have to have full transparency." "The present defense minister of course has my full support if he investigates what needs investigating and puts into effect the necessary consequences," she added.
Speaking at a joint press conference with NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Merkel also failed to defend the former Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung, who was in office at the time of the airstrike. Jung is the current labor minister.
Deadliest post-war airstrike
The attack on September 4 against two tanker trucks was called by German Colonel Georg Klein who feared the vehicles could be used in an attack on troops. The exact details of what happened in the incident near Kunduz may never be known, but reports indicate that the truck drivers were murdered, and the stolen trucks later became bogged down in wet sand in a river bed.
Villagers were apparently helping themselves to free fuel when Colonel Klein directed US fighter-bombers to blow up the trucks and the Taliban fighters aboard them. The pilferers were killed too.
Errors in procedure
NATO's report, which remains classified though its key conclusions are public, criticized Colonel Klein, concluding he overstepped his authority by not checking with ISAF's top command before the strike.
Guttenberg has defended the action, saying that despite "procedural errors" the decision to request the airstrike had been "appropriate in military terms".
Guttenberg met troops in Afghanistan earlier this month
Schneiderhan's resignation follows a report in Thursday's edition of German daily Bild, alleging that former Defense Minister Jung failed to pass on information from a military report and kept secret a video taken in one of the planes involved in the attack. The newspaper report says that shortly after the attack, Jung was informed that children had been injured. Jung, who now serves as labor minister, contended that only insurgents had been killed in the days following the strike. Opposition leaders are putting pressure on Jung to make a statement before the end of the day.
Jung has denied the allegations and said that he had not ruled out the possibility of civilian victims. But he maintained that initial reports from investigations on the scene showed that only the Taliban and their allies had been hit. The German Defense Ministry is investigating the allegations. rc/bk/AP/Reuters/dpa/AFPEditor: Nancy Isenson
A class-action suit is being brought against the German government. The suit will seek compensation for the families of people killed in a controversial airstrike in Afghanistan. (21.11.2009)
In a shift, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle and Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg have been speaking frankly about devising a plan to get German troops out of Afganistan. (16.11.2009)
German federal prosecutors are to look into an airstrike that was ordered by a German commander on Taliban militants in September. NATO has criticized the airstrike, while the German military has defended it. (06.11.2009) | Government Job change - Resignation_Dismissal | November 2009 | ['(Deutsche Welle)', '(Xinhua)'] |
2011 Libyan civil war: NATO warplanes attack the port of Tripoli and the residence of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. | AFP - NATO warplanes early Sunday carried out raids against the port of Tripoli and the residence of Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi near the centre of the capital, a Libyan official said.
"There were two raids on the port and Bab Al-Aziziya", the residence of Kadhafi which has already been targeted several times, the official said.
Earlier, around 12:30 am (2230 GMT Saturday) an AFP journalist heard two explosions and a fighter plane flying over the capital at low altitude.
Taken out in a bus by the authorities, international correspondents were unable to gain access to Kadhafi's residence. An official said after talking to guards in front of the immense residence: "They're expecting new raids, we don't have permission to go in."
Tripoli's port was targeted late Thursday by NATO aircraft which sank or damaged five warships, while three other vessels were hit in Al Khums and Sirte to the east.
Tripoli is targeted nearly daily with air raids by the international coalition, which launched strikes on March 19 to prevent strongman Kadhafi's forces from attacking civilians. | Armed Conflict | May 2011 | ['(AFP via France 24)'] |
Burma says it will not allow the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation to set up a liaison office in the country, following protests against the plan. | OIC refused permission to set up liaison office to aid displaced Rohingya Muslims after protests by Buddhist monks.
Myanmar’s government says it will not allow the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation (OIC) group to open a liaison office after thousands of Buddhist monks and laymen marched in protest against the plan.
Myanmar and the OIC agreed last month to open an office to provide aid for Muslims displaced by the fighting.
The information ministry said on its website pn Monday that the opening of the office would not be allowed because it was not wanted by Myanmar’s people.
“We cannot accept any OIC office here,” Oattamathara, a monk leading the protests in Mandalay, Myanmar’s economic and cultural hub, told the AFP news agency.
A statement posted on the presidential website reflected this: “The government will not allow the opening of an OIC office as it is not in accordance with the desire of people.”
Religious tensions are running high following Buddhist-Rohingya clashes in June in western Rakhine which left dozens of people dead and forced tens of thousands to seek refuge in temporary shelters.
Monks were at the vanguard of a 2007 pro-democracy uprising that was brutally crushed by the former junta.
They have been involved in a series of protests against the OIC and Myanmar’s 800,000 stateless Rohingya, who are described by the UN as one of the world’s most persecuted minorities.
Members of the 57-member OIC toured Rakhine last month after accusations from rights groups that security forces opened fire on Rohingya during the unrest, prompting concern across the Islamic world.
Myanmar’s Rohingya, who speak a dialect similar to neighbouring Bangladesh’s Bengali language, are seen by the government and many Burmese as illegal immigrants.
The tensions in Rakhine have spread to Bangladesh, where police said recently they had arrested nearly 300 people in connection with a wave of violence targeting Buddhist homes and temples.
Nearly a million Rohingya in Myanmar are unwanted at home and shunned by neighbouring countries.
Mutual distrust lingers between two communities months after violence in western Myanmar.
UN says 100,000 Rohingya still living in camps in Myanmar after villages were destroyed in July.
| Protest_Online Condemnation | October 2012 | ['(Al Jazeera)'] |
Seven people, including the pilot, are killed in a helicopter crash on Fox Glacier in New Zealand. |
The last remaining active Covid-19 case has recovered and New Zealand has marked 17 days in a row without a new case.
The recent recovery is a person in their 50s linked to the St Margaret's Hospital and Rest Home cluster.
This is really good news for the person concerned, and its also something the rest of New Zealand can take heart from, says Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield.
Having no active cases for the first time since February 28 is certainly a significant mark in our journey but as weve previously said, ongoing vigilance against Covid-19 will continue to be essential."
READ MORE: * Coronavirus: No new Covid-19 cases for 16 days in succession * Coronavirus: Why is it taking so long to get to zero cases? * Should New Zealand ease coronavirus restrictions? Cabinet faces an obvious decision * Good Vibes winter music festival to go ahead as planned under level 1 They have been symptom-free for 48-hours and have been released from isolation. They were originally listed as a probable case but tested negative. Then, at a later date, test positive when they became unwell. They were made a confirmed case on May 22.
They had been in isolation since the beginning of lockdown.
Public health expert Professor Michael Baker from the University of Otago said the milestone was a sign the country was emerging from the pandemic, but there was still a chance of cases emerging in the future.
"Tail end" cases and potentially unknown chains of transmission could still be cause for concern.
"The active cases ... should all be safely in isolation at home, and so they're not [going to] be infecting anyone."
To date, there have been 1504 confirmed and probable cases across the country - 1482 of whom have recovered.
There is no-one currently receiving hospital-level care for the virus, and the death toll remains at 22.
Laboratories across the country have completed 294,848 tests.
The Ministry of Health said testing capacity remains high and the country's testing approach is constantly under review. Testing at the border and within communities will continue.
Of the 16 significant clusters reported around the country, eight have officially closed. The remaining clusters include the Bluff wedding, Ruby Princess Cruise Ship, and Marist College clusters, aged care facility clusters in Auckland, Christchurch, and Waikato, the Matamata hospitality venue cluster, and a community cluster in Auckland.
A cluster is categorised as closed when there haven't been any new cases reported for 28 days - or two incubation periods - from when all cases finished isolating.
The ministry has recorded 522,000 registrations for the NZ COVID Tracer app, an increase on 5000 from Sunday. Posters have been created by 37,504 businesses, which have been scanned 734,415 times.
Cheers, Aotearoa. Thank you to our readers who have already supported Stuff's reporting. Contribute today to help our journalists bring you independent New Zealand news you can trust. | Disease Outbreaks | November 2015 | ['(stuff.co.nz)'] |
At least 25 people are killed and many others are wounded after a bomb explodes in Maiduguri. | A bomb attack in the north-eastern Nigerian town of Maiduguri has killed at least 25 people and wounded dozens, security sources say.
They say they believe the attack, which occurred in a beer garden, was carried out by the Islamist sect Boko Haram.
The group wants to establish an Islamic government in Nigeria.
It has carried out a number of bombings in north-eastern Nigeria, as well as an attack on police headquarters in the capital Abuja earlier this month. Gunmen on two motorcycles attacked a packed beer garden late on Sunday, officials said.
"The attackers believed to be Boko Haram members threw bombs and fired indiscriminate gun shots on a packed tavern at Dala Kabompi neighbourhood, killing at least 25 people and seriously injuring around 30 others," an unnamed police officer told the AFP news agency.
Eyewitness Emmanuel Okon told AFP: "I just heard a loud bang followed by sporadic shootings and plumes of black smoke filled the area with people screaming and running in all directions."
The police have not officially said how many people died in the attack but correspondents say that if 25 people have been killed, it would be the most deadly attack yet carried out by Boko Haram.
The BBC's Bilkisu Babangida in Maiduguri says there is a mood of fear in the city, with many people staying indoors as they are afraid of being caught up in an attack.
Gunmen believed to be from Boko Haram also staged two attacks in the town of Gamboru-Ngala, in Borno state near the border with Chad, on Sunday:
The group has killed dozens of people, mainly security officers and politicians, in Borno state over the past year.
Earlier this month, the group said it was behind the bombing of the national police headquarters in the capital, Abuja.
It has also said it carried out attacks on the inauguration of President Goodluck Jonathan in May.
The group's trademark has been the use of gunmen on motorbikes. A Christian preacher, a Catholic church, Muslim clerics who have criticised Boko Haram, and last week, a nurse playing cards, have also been targeted.
Its leader Mohammed Yusuf and several hundred of his supporters were killed by security forces in Maiduguri in 2009 after the group attacked police stations. | Riot | June 2011 | ['(BBC)', '(The Guardian)'] |
Alain "Spiderman" Robert climbs another building barehanded, this time in Sydney; he is later arrested. | A French stuntman renowned for climbing skyscrapers has once again been arrested in Sydney after he scaled a building using his bare hands.
Alain Robert was taken into police custody as soon as he reached the top of the 57-storey Lumiere Building on Bathurst Street about 10.50am today while onlookers applauded.
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French Spiderman Alain Robert was arrested this morning after climbing a 57-storey skyscraper in Sydney's CBD.
The 48-year-old, known as the French Spiderman, took 20 minutes to scale the skyscraper without safety equipment and using just his hands.
"It's a wonderful achievement," his agent Max Markson said. "He's the best at what he does.
Alain Robert shows off his handiwork.Credit:AFP
"I'm sad he's been arrested, but hopefully he'll get out soon and we can have some champagne."
Robert, wearing red trousers, a T-shirt and a baseball cap, started to climb the skyscraper at 10.30am.
About 100 passers-by gathered to cheer him on, while police set up a crime scene on Bathurst Street.
Rachel Pepper, 11, said she couldn't believe her eyes when she saw Robert climb up the building.
A police officer waits with a smile to take Alain Robert into custody at the end of his 57-storey climb.Credit:AFP
"I think it's amazing to climb that high without falling," she said.
"He's got superhuman strength."
Alain Robert looks wistful after another adventure ends the same way ... in handcuffs.Credit:AFP
Her mother Wendy Pepper agreed.
"It was a nice surprise when we turned the corner and got to see him," she said.
I'm sad he's been arrested, but hopefully he'll get out soon and we can have some champagne
The crowd cheered as Robert reached the top of the building where police were waiting for him.
He was put into a police van and driven away.
It is not the first time Robert has fallen foul of the law in Australia.
Last year, he was fined $750 for illegally climbing the 41-storey Royal Bank of Scotland building in central Sydney.
At the time, Downing Centre District Court Judge Graeme Henson lectured Robert for disrespecting the laws as a guest in the country.
In June this year, Robert was forced to call off a planned climb of the Deutsche Bank in Sydney after building security guards blocked his access.
And in 2003 he was arrested for scaling the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
He was charged later today with risking the safety of another by climbing a building and entering enclosed land and granted conditional bail to appear at Downing Centre Local Court on Friday.
Robert has climbed about 80 buildings around the world to raise awareness of global warming and to draw attention to the One Hundred Months campaign.
The campaign stems from a belief that 100 months from August 2008 it may no longer be possible to avoid potentially irreversible climate change.
Robert, who has said in the past he suffered from vertigo, started climbing when he was 12 and was locked out of his home.
Instead of waiting for his parents to return, he scaled eight storeys to get in.
Since then he has climbed all sorts of buildings including the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, the Eiffel Tower and The New York Times building. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Arrest | August 2010 | ['(The Sydney Morning Herald)', '(BBC)', '(Xinhua)', '(Sky News)', '(France24)'] |
At least 18 people have died after a truck struck a crowd gathered at a road accident in western Guatemala. The group had apparently gathered on the road to inspect a person who had been killed in a separate crash when the vehicle ploughed into them. The estimates of those dead were later revised by officials. | GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) - A truck crashed into a crowd of people in western Guatemala on Wednesday evening, killing 18 people, authorities said early on Thursday, correcting downward their initial assessment.
The truck struck a group of people who had gone onto the road to inspect another person who had been hit by a car, Cecilio Chacaj, a spokesman for the local fire department, told Reuters.
The crash killed 18 people, including an eight-year-old girl, the Attorney General’s office said. Nineteen people were admitted to hospitals with injuries, the ministry of health said in a statement.
The accident took place in the municipality of Nahuala, west of Guatemala City.
“At this time we are coordinating our response to bring full support to the relatives of the victims,” President Jimmy Morales wrote in a post on Twitter. “My heartfelt condolences.”
The crash marked one of the country’s worst traffic accidents in recent years. In 2013, a bus plunged off a cliff in rural Guatemala, killing at least 43 people and injuring dozens.
Government officials on Thursday said they corrected down their initial assessment of at least 32 dead after firefighters and other officials at the crash scene took more time to examine the wounded in the pile-up of bodies.
Reporting by Sofia Menchu; writing by Julia Love; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore and Meredith Mazzilli
| Road Crash | March 2019 | ['(Sky News)', '(Reuters)', '(BBC)'] |
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan says the Netherlands are "Nazi remnants and fascists", after the plane was turned back. | Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has described the Dutch government as "Nazi remnants and fascists", amid a diplomatic row over a cancelled rally.
Turkey's family minister was blocked from entering the Turkish consulate in Rotterdam as the spat between the two nations worsened on Saturday.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said Mr Erdogan's remark was "way out of line".
Earlier, a rally in the city due to be hosted by the Turkish foreign minister was banned for security reasons. Turkey has summoned the Dutch charge d'affaires to the foreign ministry in Ankara for an explanation.
Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu had been hoping to harness the votes of the Turkish diaspora in the Netherlands, home to some 400,000 Turks, ahead of a referendum in Turkey next month on whether to expand Mr Erdogan's powers.
Austria, Germany and Switzerland have banned similar gatherings where Turkish officials were due to speak. On Saturday, Turkey's family minister, Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya, was stopped by police as she tried to enter the Turkish consulate in Rotterdam after arriving from Germany, where she had held separate meetings.
Dutch news broadcaster NOS ran footage of the minister arriving at the consulate and being denied entry by security forces.
"We were stopped at the Consulate General of Rotterdam, 30 metres away, and are not allowed to enter," Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya wrote on Twitter.
She travelled by land to the Dutch city after hearing that the plane carrying Mr Cavusoglu had been refused permission to land.
Dutch police earlier closed the road leading to the Turkish consulate in Rotterdam for security reasons.
On Saturday evening, hundreds of people waving Turkish flags gathered outside the consulate building in protest.
Dozens of supporters of Mr Erdogan stood near the entrance as police erected barriers to prevent demonstrators from getting too close.
As the crowd numbers increased throughout the evening, security was stepped up and people were later dispersed.
President Erdogan reacted to the ban on his foreign minister by threatening to block Dutch flights.
He said: "Ban our foreign minister from flying however much you like, but from now on, let's see how your flights will land in Turkey." Mr Cavusoglu also warned Turkey would impose heavy sanctions if his visit were blocked.
Mr Rutte warned in a statement (in Dutch) that the Turkish threat of sanctions made "the search for a reasonable solution impossible". Mr Rutte also stressed that Dutch officials had earlier discussed whether the planned rally with Mr Cavusoglu could be private and "smaller-scale" and held in a Turkish consulate or embassy. The Netherlands "regrets the course of events, and remains committed to dialogue with Turkey," the statement added.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan is a canny political operator. While his falling-out with key European allies and explosive comparisons to the Nazis may seem chaotic, it's quite possibly all planned by a man who knows he thrives as the underdog. Sending Turkish ministers to Europe when relations with Turkey are flagging and some European states are nearing elections was never going to be warmly welcomed by the German or Dutch governments. They rose to the bait - and it has allowed Mr Erdogan to paint this as a conspiracy against Turkey and himself as the nationalist Turkish hero fending off the European oppressor. That will rally his support base and the far-right nationalists he's trying to woo before the presidential referendum next month. But it will horrify the other side of Turkey - the pro-European liberals who see their country drifting ever further from the west and their President engaging in unprecedented slander against other Nato allies.
The diplomatic row comes just days before Dutch voters go to the polls. The election campaign has been dominated by issues of identity, the BBC's Anna Holligan in The Hague says. The anti-Islam leader of the Freedom Party, Geert Wilders - who campaigned against the Turkish minister's visit - is expected to make significant gains, our correspondent adds.
Last week, Mr Erdogan accused Berlin of "Nazi practices" after a number of his rallies were cancelled, drawing a sharp response from the German government. He is seeking to extend his powers in the 16 April vote and targeting millions of expatriate voters - including 1.4 million in Germany.
There is uncertainty about whether an event Mr Cavusoglu was due to attend in Zurich, Switzerland, on Sunday would go ahead after one venue refused to hold it.
Another event in Zurich scheduled for Friday was cancelled, as were rallies in the Austrian towns of Hoerbranz, Linz and Herzogenburg.
The Dutch and Austrian governments have criticised the Turkish government's drive to take its referendum campaign to Turks based in EU countries.
Relations between Turkey and European countries have deteriorated since last July's attempted coup in Turkey. Germany has been critical of the mass arrests and purges that followed - with nearly 100,000 civil servants removed from their posts.
Many European nations have expressed deep disquiet about Turkey's response to the coup attempt and its perceived slide towards authoritarianism under President Erdogan.
Turkey is a key partner in an arrangement attempting to limit the movement of migrants into the EU, but has threatened to "open the gates" if the EU reneges on commitments to provide aid, visa-free travel for its nationals and accelerated membership talks. | Famous Person - Give a speech | March 2017 | ['(BBC)'] |
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who is up for re-election, bans the main opposition parties, Justice First, Democratic Action and Popular Will from running in next year's presidential election. | Venezuela's President, Nicolás Maduro, says the country's main opposition parties are banned from taking part in next year's presidential election.
He said only parties which took part in Sunday's mayoral polls would be able to contest the presidency.
Leaders from the Justice First, Popular Will and Democratic Action parties boycotted the vote because they said the electoral system was biased.
President Maduro insists the Venezuelan system is entirely trustworthy.
In a speech on Sunday, he said the opposition parties had "disappeared from the political map".
"A party that has not participated today and has called for the boycott of the elections can't participate anymore," he said.
In October, the three main opposition parties announced they would be boycotting Sunday's vote, saying it only served what they called President Maduro's dictatorship.
President Maduro says his party won more than 300 of the 335 mayoral races being contested. The election board put turn out at 47%.
Venezuela has been mired in a worsening economic crisis characterised by shortages of basic goods and soaring inflation.
Katy Watson, BBC Latin America correspondent - Barquisimeto, Venezuela
Mr Maduro's pronouncement is designed to provoke the opposition. Especially since he justified the move saying it was a condition set out by the National Constituent Assembly - a body that the opposition refuses to recognise because they say it is undemocratic. Mr Maduro has lost popularity because of the worsening economic crisis. In the face of criticism, his strategy has been one of "divide and conquer" - find ways of weakening the opposition to make them less of a threat.
And he hs succeeded - he has imprisoned some of the most popular opposition leaders like Leopoldo López. He has prevented others like Henrique Capriles from running for office. And now this threat - banning the most influential parties from taking part in future elections. The opposition is in crisis and Mr Maduro is gloating.
Mr Maduro said he was following the criteria set by the National Constituent Assembly in banning opposition parties from contesting next year's election.
But the assembly, which came into force in August and has the ability to rewrite the constitution, is made up exclusively of government loyalists. Opposition parties see it as a way for the president to cling to power.
The presidential vote had been scheduled for December 2018, but analysts say it could now be brought forward.
Venezuela, in the north of South America, is home to more than 30 million people. It has some of the world's largest oil deposits as well as huge quantities of coal and iron ore.
Despite its rich natural resources many Venezuelans live in poverty. This led President Maduro's predecessor, Hugo Chávez, to style himself as a champion of the poor during his 14 years in office.
Now the country is starkly divided between supporters of President Maduro and those who want an end to the Socialist Party's 18 years in government.
Supporters of Mr Maduro say his party has lifted many people out of poverty, but critics say it has eroded Venezuela's democratic institutions and mismanaged its economy. | Government Job change - Election | December 2017 | ['(BBC)'] |
The 53 Americans taken hostage in Tehran, Iran, in 1979, or their families, will receive compensation of $4.4 million each from the United States government as a result of a provision in the spending deal signed into law last week. |
Thanks to a provision in the spending deal signed into law last week, each of the 53 hostages and their estates are set to receive up to $4.4 million, with spouses and children eligible for a $600,000 payment.
“It was absolutely delightful news. It came as a surprise and couldn’t have come at a better time,” Michael Howland, a security aide at the embassy, said in an interview with ABC News on Thursday. “Finally, after 36 years or more we are going to find some kind of closure. I am very grateful.”
For years, the hostages were prevented from using the legal system to seek compensation for their ordeal: The agreement struck between the United States and Iran that secured their freedom also prevented them using the courts to seek payments from Iran.
Now, 36 years later, many Americans and their families are eligible for benefits under a measure in the $1.1 trillion year-end spending bill, bringing to a conclusion the long battle waged by the hostages who felt slighted by their inability to receive some payment for their time in captivity.
The money, which will start being distributed within the year, will be taken from a new $1 billion fund established by the spending law, filled in part by fines collected by the U.S. government on companies that have illegally done business with Iran.
Many of the 37 surviving hostages unsuccessfully pressed Congress and the Obama administration to force Iran to provide compensation as part of the nuclear agreement reached this summer.
Eventually, supporters in Congress turned to the year-end spending bill – a must-pass measure to keep the government open – to authorize payments to the former hostages.
The American hostages were taken captive by Iranian student revolutionaries at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in November 1979 and were freed on January 20, 1981.
The United States had previously provided each hostage with a cash payment of $22,000, or $50 for every day of captivity, during the 1980s. Under the new program, they will receive up to $10,000 for each day they were held hostage.
Many hostages have recalled the inhumane treatment they received during those 444 days.
“I was beaten very badly the night of the release,” said Howland. He added that since his return home he has undergone nine surgeries on his spine and aside from other procedures he also undergoes physical therapy twice a week, “artifacts” from his time held hostage.
While the former hostages still have to work with the government to secure their compensation, the fact that it is on the way serves as a relief for many.
"When we got the word it was an emotional high that just overtook me," said Rodney "Rocky" Sickmann, a former Marine who served as a guard at the Tehran embassy when he was taken hostage. "I had to pull over to the side of the road and I cried."
Victims of the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in East Africa and other state-sponsored terror attacks are also authorized to receive compensation under the new law. | Sign Agreement | December 2015 | ['(ABC News)', '(The Hill)'] |
Tom Thabane steps down as Prime Minister of Lesotho following investigations into his third wife's alleged murder of his second wife, Lipolelo Thabane. | JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - A love triangle murder case that made front page news proved one problem too many for Prime Minister Thomas Thabane, who survived repeated security crises to become Lesotho’s dominant politician but is expected to submit his resignation on Wednesday.
The 80-year-old’s ruling coalition collapsed in parliament on Monday, leaving him until May 22 to leave office. On Tuesday night French news agency AFP quoted him as saying he would inform King Letsie III of his intention to leave in a letter the following day.
His departure brings down the curtain on a career marked by exile, political feuding, intrigue and strains with the military.
Thabane leaves nearly three years after the event that stunned his fellow citizens and overshadowed his second term in office, the unsolved killing of his then wife Lipolelo in June 2017.
Police this year accused his current wife, Maesaiah, of assassinating Lipolelo. Police also accuse Thabane of being involved, but have yet to bring their charges to court.
Both he and Maesaiah have repeatedly denied having anything to do with the killing of Lipolelo, who was shot dead while driving her car towards her home just outside of the capital.
But the charges plunged the country into turmoil and battered Thabane’s prestige and influence. Voices in his own party began pushing for him to be declared unfit for office.
It is not the first time Thabane, a stocky, shaven-headed figure fond of quoting Bible passages, has been at the centre of intrigue.
In 2014, he fled the mountainous kingdom to neighbouring South Africa after accusing the military of having staged a coup against him, which the military denied at the time. South African security forces had to escort him back.
Thabane was born on May 28, 1939, in what was then Britain’s colony of Basutoland, composed of mountains running along South Africa’s Drakensberg range. Lesotho is often nicknamed the ‘kingdom in the sky’ because its lowest point of elevation is higher than any other nation’s.
Though small and with a population of not much more than 2 million, its political upheavals often draw in its bigger neighbour, South Africa, a parched country that gets essential supplies of tap water from Lesotho’s well-rained mountains.
Thabane began his career in the civil service in 1966, the year of Lesotho’s independence. He stayed there for two decades before the military seized power in a 1986 coup, one of several since independence.
The military junta promoted him, making him foreign, and then information, minister, effectively launching his political career. Thabane later helped negotiate a return to civilian rule and repatriation of exiles, culminating in elections in 1993.
In the next poll, in 1998, he won a seat in parliament and became foreign minister. Months later, accusations of electoral fraud triggered rioting, and Nelson Mandela, then president of South Africa, deployed troops to try to quell it, which they failed to do, pulling out after seven months.
In 2006, after several ministerial posts in the LCD ruling party, Thabane left to form his own, the All Basotho Convention (ABC), enabling him to take power as prime minister in 2012.
In the same year, he filed for divorce from his wife, Lipolelo, so that he could marry his then lover, Maesaiah. Lipolelo refused, and a very public spat erupted between the two rivals for his affections that sometimes ended up in court.
Less than a year after the alleged coup against him, Thabane failed to retain his majority in a 2015 election. He resigned as premier before fleeing again to South Africa, whose security forces he saw as his only protection against his own military.
He spent much of his time there, at his house in the town of Ficksberg, where he often lived while in opposition, until a subsequent poll brought him to power again on June 3, 2017.
Asked in 2017 what was the worst problem his country faced, he replied, “Abject poverty”. He said his party’s motto was “Man’s biggest enemy is hunger”.
In the same month, on June 14, say police, a gang of eight gunmen shot Lipolelo in the head, killing her instantly. Two days later, Thabane was sworn in as prime minister for a second time. He married Measaiah a month later.
When police named him and Measaiah as suspects in Lipolelo’s murder earlier this year, he came under pressure to resign.
He promised to do so by the end of July, but several members of his now divided ABC party demanded he go immediately.
On Feb. 21, the day he was due to appear in court on charges of murdering Lipolelo, he again crossed into South Africa, his aides said for medical reasons, but returned days later | Government Job change - Resignation_Dismissal | May 2020 | ['(Reuters)'] |
The Italian coast guard responds to a distressed rescue ship funded by English street artist Banksy, which overcrowded and stalled off the coast of Lampedusa in the Mediterranean Sea after it attempted to rescue more than 200 migrants. At least one migrant had died by the time the coast guard arrived. | An Italian coastguard vessel Saturday rushed to a rescue ship funded by British street artist Banksy, which sent out a call for help with more than 200 migrants onboard, and took in 49 of the most vulnerable people on board.
The German-flagged MV Louise Michel said it was stranded and needed urgent help after helping a boat carrying at least one dead migrant.
The 31-metre (101-foot) vessel’s crew said it was overcrowded and unable to move after encountering another boat with 130 people on board trying to cross the sea dividing Europe and Africa.
“Given the danger of the situation, the coastguard sent a patrol boat to Lampedusa which took in 49 people deemed the most fragile, including 32 women, 13 children and four men,” a statement said.
They were transferred to a vessel chartered by the German NGO Sea Watch and medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF).
“There is already one dead person on the boat. We need immediate assistance,” the Louise Michel crew wrote on Twitter earlier, saying other migrants had fuel burns and had been at sea for days.
The rescued migrants later said three people had died at sea before the arrival of the Louise Michel.
Banksy, who keeps his true identity a secret, explained in a video posted online that he had bought the boat to help migrants “because EU authorities deliberately ignore distress calls from non-Europeans”.
The Louise Michel crew said in a tweet it was “great” the Italian coastguard had intervened and taken 49 migrants, but added that the majority were still waiting.
The Sea-Watch 4 vessel had arrived and “will help us to do what Europe is not capable of doing”, it added.
Sea-Watch 4, which has a clinic onboard, had already rescued 201 migrants and is itself in search of a host port,
Its crew nonetheless decided to help the Louise Michel “in the face of the lack of reaction” from the authorities, a spokesman for the German NGO Sea-Watch,, told AFP.
The Louise Michel’s vessel’s crew of 10 had already rescued 89 people from a rubber boat in distress Thursday.
They tweeted that there were a total 219 people on board and that they had requested assistance from both the Italian and Maltese authorities.
The boat — a former French customs vessel named after 19th-century French anarchist Louise Michel — was around 90 kilometres (55 miles) southeast of Lampedusa on Saturday, according to the global ship tracking website Marine Traffic.
Painted in hot pink and white, the Louise Michel features a Banksy artwork depicting a girl in a life vest holding a heart-shaped safety buoy.
Its crew is “made up of European activists with long experience in search and rescue operations” and is captained by German human rights activist Pia Klemp, who has also captained other such rescue vessels, The Guardian newspaper reported.
Thousands of people are thought to have died making the dangerous trip across the Mediterranean to flee conflict, repression and poverty in Africa and the Middle East.
According to the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, attempts by migrant boats to cross the Mediterranean into Europe have increased this year, up 91 percent from January to July over last year’s figures, to 14,481 people.
Banksy’s involvement in the rescue mission goes back to September 2019 when he sent Klemp an email asking how he could contribute.
Klemp, who initially thought it was a joke, told the paper she believed she was chosen because of her political stance, The Guardian said.
“I don’t see sea rescue as a humanitarian action, but as part of an anti-fascist fight,” she told the paper.
Early this month, humanitarian organisations said they would resume migrant rescues in the Mediterranean Sea, where none have operated since the Ocean Viking docked in Italy in early July.
Before the Ocean Viking’s last mission, rescue operations in the Mediterranean had been suspended for months due to the global coronavirus pandemic.
Meanwhile in the French Mediterranean city of Marseille, 30 protesters called on the Italian authorities to release the migrant rescue ship Ocean Viking, detained last month by the Italian coastguard over technical irregularities. | Shipwreck | August 2020 | ['(AFP via Macau Business)'] |
At least 20 people are buried by a landslide in the northern Colombian department of Santander. | Local authorities say twenty people are missing after a mudslide hit a village in the north Colombian Santander department.
"The mountain fell on top of some houses located alongside the road between Rionegro and El Playon, destroying the homes. It appears that some 20 people were at that place and we haven't been able to find them so far," Santander police commander Mario Aurelio Pedroza told Caracol Radio.
The army and police are using helicopters to evacuate residents from the area where authorities fear other deadly landslides.
The Santander department is one most severely hit by landslides caused by excessive rains. The roads connecting the capital Bucaramanga with the Caribbean coast and the center of the country have been closed because of landslides and according to authorities at least four people were killed and another 20 missing in the past few weeks.
This year's rainy season is the most deadly in recorded history; More than 280 people were killed in floods or landslides since the rains began in March and more than 2 million Colombians are affected by the weather. | Mudslides | December 2010 | ['(Colombia Reports)', '(Xinhua)'] |
Dozens of tornadoes spawned by thunderstorms touch down in the American Midwest, damaging or destroying numerous homes and businesses and causing some injuries. The Johnson County Executive Airport in Olathe, Kansas is closed following heavy damage caused by the severe weather. | A reported 29 tornadoes touch down in the Midwest. Tornadoes tear through parts of the Midwest
— -- The Midwest was slammed with 29 reported tornadoes Monday, according to the National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center, leaving a trail of damaged homes and displaced and injured residents.
Missouri, Illinois, and Kansas were among the states hit.
Several homes damaged in Oak Grove by possible tornado
Several homes damaged in Oak Grove by possible tornado "These 29 reported tornadoes occurred late Monday afternoon into Monday night," ABC News meteorologist Daniel Manzo said. "This made a for a very perilous situation for millions of Americans ... in addition to the tornadoes, giant tennis ball sized hail was reported across eastern Kansas and Missouri."
Hail up to tennis ball-sized reported in parts of the metro District in Oak Grove, Missouri, told ABC News Monday night that between 100 and 200 people have been displaced from their homes, but that figure may increase. He added that "dozens and dozens" of homes have sustained moderate to severe damage in Oak Grove, with a significant number of additional sustaining light to minimal damage.
Scarborough said he is aware of 12 people who were treated for injuries, three of whom were transported to the hospital. None of the injuries were life-threatening.
Most of Oak Grove -- located about 30 miles east of Kansas City -- was without power, as of Monday night, as power lines were down as a result of falling trees and airborne debris.
In Smithville, Missouri, located about 22 miles north of Kansas City, police Chief Jason Lockridge told The Associated Press that 20 to 25 homes were damaged. Planes and hangars at the Johnson County Executive Airport in Olathe, Kansas, were also damaged.
The city of Smithville posted on it Facebook page that "one person was injured but was not transported to the hospital."
Kansas City Power & Light reported on its website early Tuesday morning that about 40,000 customers were without power. That's down from more than 100,000 late Monday night.
Looking ahead, Manzo says "the threat for severe weather shifts southward today with possible damaging winds and large hail from northern Louisiana to Southern Tennessee." | Hurricanes_Tornado_Storm_Blizzard | March 2017 | ['(ABC News)'] |
The first arrests are made for war crimes in Darfur, Sudan: 15 officials in South Darfur are accused of rape, murder, and other crimes related to the Darfur conflict. Whether they will be tried in a Sudanese or international court is uncertain at this time. | The BBC's Jonah Fisher in Sudan says it is the first time that Sudanese security personnel have been arrested over atrocities committed in Darfur. Khartoum says it would reject any UN vote which refers war crimes suspects to the International Criminal Court.
The UN Security Council is expected to vote on Wednesday on a French-drafted resolution on whether to send suspects in Sudan to the new court in The Hague.
The pro-government Janjaweed militia in Sudan's Darfur region are accused of killing thousands of villagers and forcing two million from their homes. A UN commission earlier this year found the atrocities committed in Darfur could be crimes against humanity, and said the culprits should be tried at the ICC - which was created to deal with cases of war crimes and genocide.
Justice Minister Ali Mohamed Osman Yassin told reporters a government committee had arrested 14 people in West Darfur and one in North Darfur state.
The committee had not yet finished work, he said. "The objective of the commission is to investigate criminal offences," he said.
"They are going to investigate... rape crimes, human rights violations, crimes against humanity and war crimes," he added.
Wasting time
Darfur's rebel groups say that people are being killed while the world powers squabble over where to refer the war crimes charges.
Even though nine Security Council members are expected to support France's resolution, the outcome is still uncertain.
Atrocities strain US relations
The US has the power to veto the move. It rejects the court, saying Americans abroad could be targeted by politically motivated prosecutions.
Nigeria had previously proposed setting up a special Africa-run tribunal in order to break the deadlock.
Russia and China, which have close ties to the Sudan government, have blocked previous attempts to threaten sanctions on Sudan if the violence does not stop. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | March 2005 | ['(BBC)', '(Reuters)'] |
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announces that charges will be dropped against eight people in the Flint water crisis and investigations will be restarted in the scandal, which has plagued the city since 2014. | Prosecutors have said they are dismissing all criminal charges against eight people who were charged in the Flint, Mich., water crisis and are restarting their investigation into one of the worst manmade public health crises in U.S. history.
The announcement of the dropped charges comes as prosecutors say they will essentially start from scratch in reviewing the water crisis in order toexpand the scope of the investigation.
Michigan Solicitor General Fadwa Hammoud took over the case in January and said previousprosecutorshad not taken advantage of allavailable evidence, according toThe Associated Press.
"This week, we completed the transfer into our possession millions of documents and hundreds of new electronic devices, significantly expanding the scope of our investigation," Hammoud said in a statement.
That expanded search includedseizing the cell phoneand other records from former Gov. Rick Snyder (R).
Former state health director Nick Lyon was among those whose charges were dropped.Lyon was facing charges of involuntary manslaughter and accused of notquickly alerting the public of aLegionnaires’ disease outbreak while Flint used water that was not properly treated.
The outbreak ofLegionnaires’, a form of pneumonia,occurred while the city used lead-contaminated water that also containedother bacteria tied to the disease. Lyon was the top official charged in the probe.
With the announcement of the dropped charges, Lyon's attorney, Chip Chamberlain, told the AP they "feel fantastic and vindicated," but acknowledged that Lyon and others could be charged again.
In April, a federal judge ruled residents of Flint, Mich., can sue the federal government over its response to the city's drinking water crisis.
Residents have long blamed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for waiting too long to intervene into state and local management of the city's water.
Flint's water troubles began in 2014 after switching its water source to the Flint River. The city no longer uses the river for its water supply.
| Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | June 2019 | ['(Wall Street Journal)', '(The Hill)'] |
Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev declares a ‘state of war’ with Armenia on Twitter saying “We are not living in peace, we are living in a state of war". | Ilham Aliyev tweeted: 'We don't want war, we want peace. But at the same time, we want our lands back'
The President of Azerbaijan has said in a highly militant series of messages that his country is in a “state of war” with Armenia over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Writing in English on Twitter, President Ilham Aliyev threatened to take military action to regain the area, which was the subject of a six-year war between the two countries following the fall of the Soviet Union. An estimated 30,000 people were killed during the conflict, which ended in a ceasefire in 1994.
However, more than 15 people were killed in clashes between the two country's forces earlier this month.
Mr Aliyev tweeted more than 60 messages today, saying: “We are not living in peace, we are living in a state of war.
“The war is not over. Only the first stage of it is. But the second stage may start too. No-one can rule that out. We don't want war, we want peace. But at the same time, we want our lands back.”
He added that the “sense of patriotism among Azerbaijani soldiers is very high” while the “enemy is in a state of panic and hysteria”. He described the Armenians as “barbarians and vandals.”
“We will restore our territorial integrity either by peaceful or military means. We are ready for both options,” Mr Aliyev wrote. “Just as we have beaten the Armenians on the political and economic fronts, we are able to defeat them on the battlefield.”
Armenia is allied to Russia, while Azerbaijan is an ally of Turkey, a member of Nato. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has been hosting peace talks but with little success.
Sabine Freizer, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council think tank, told Turkish newspaper Today's Zaman that tensions were higher than ever and that “the chances for a negotiated settlement - as promoted by the OSCE's Minsk Group - are fading.”
| Armed Conflict | August 2014 | ['(The Independent)'] |
An analysis of data detected by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter of the LCROSS impact last October finds the presence of carbon monoxide in Cabeus Crater in higher concentrations than the approximately 155 kg of water ice and water vapour, more than initially estimated, in addition to two hydroxyl flavours and smaller quantities of hydrogen sulfide, carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, methane, formaldehyde, mercury, magnesium, calcium, sodium, hydrogen gas, and possibly ammonia, ethylene and silver. | A year ago, NASA successfully slammed a spent Centaur rocket into Cabeus Crater, a permanently shadowed region at the lunar South Pole. The “shepherding” LCROSS (Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite) spacecraft followed close on the impactor’s heels, monitoring the resulting ejecta cloud to see what materials could be found inside this dark, unstudied region of the Moon. Today, the LCROSS team released the most recent findings from their year-long analysis, and principal investigator Tony Colaprete told Universe Today that LCROSS found water and much, much more. “The ‘much more’ is actually as interesting as the water,” he said, “but the combination of water and the various volatiles we saw is even more interesting — and puzzling.”
The 2400 kg (5200 pound) Centaur rocket created a crater about 25 to 30 meters wide, and the LCROSS team estimates that somewhere between 4,000 kilograms (8,818 pounds) to 6,000 kilograms (13,228 pounds) of debris was blown out of the dark crater and into the sunlit LCROSS field of view. The impact created both a low angle and a high angle ejecta cloud. (Read more about the unusual plume in our interview with LCROSS’s Pete Schultz).
The LCROSS team was able to measure a substantial amount of water and found it in several forms. “We measured it in water vapor,” Colaprete said, “and much more importantly in my mind, we measured it in water ice. Ice is really important because it talks about certain levels of concentration.”
With a combination of near-infrared, ultraviolet and visible spectrometers onboard the shepherding spacecraft, LCROSS found about 155 kilograms (342 pounds) of water vapor and water ice were blown out of crater and detected by LCROSS. From that, Colaprete and his team estimate that approximately 5.6 percent of the total mass inside Cabeus crater (plus or minus 2.9 percent) could be attributed to water ice alone.
Colaprete said finding ice in concentrations – “blocks” of ice — is extremely important. “It means there has to be some kind of process by which it is being enhanced, enriched and concentrated so that you have what is called a critical cluster that allows germ formation and crystalline growth and condensation of ice. So that data point is important because now we have to ask that question, how did it become ice?” he said.
In with the water vapor, the LCROSS team also saw two ‘flavors’ of hydroxyl. “We saw one that was emitting as it if it was just being excited,” Colaprete said, “which means this OH could have come from grains — it could be the adsorbed OH we saw in the M Cubed data, as it was released or liberated from a hot impact and coming up into view. We also see an emission from OH that is called prompt emission, which is unique to the emission you get when OH is formed through photolysis.”
Then came the ‘much more.’ Between the LCROSS instruments, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter’s observations – and in particular the LAMP instrument (Lyman Alpha Mapping Project) – the most abundant volatile in terms of total mass was carbon monoxide, then was water, the hydrogen sulfide. Then was carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, methane, formaldehyde, perhaps ethylene, ammonia, and even mercury and silver. “So there’s a variety of different species, and what is interesting is that a number of those species are common to water,” Colaprete said. “So for example the ammonia and methane are at concentrations relative to the total water mass we saw, similar to what you would see in a comet.”
Colaprete said the fact that they see carbon monoxide as more abundant than water and that hydrogen sulfide exists as a significant fraction of the total water, suggests a considerable amount of processing within the crater itself.
“There is likely chemistry occurring on the grains in the dark crater,” he explained. “That is interesting because how do you get chemistry going on at 40 to 50 degrees Kelvin with no sunlight? What is the energy — is it cosmic rays, solar wind protons working their way in, is it other electrical potentials associated with the dark and light regions? We don’t know. So this is, again, a circumstance where we have some data that doesn’t make entirely a lot of sense, but it does match certain findings elsewhere, meaning it does look cometary in some extent, and does look like what we see in cold grain processes in interstellar space.”
Colaprete said that finding many of these compounds came as a surprise, such as the carbon monoxide, mercury, and particularly methane and molecular hydrogen. “We have a lot of questions because of the appearance of these species, “ he said. There were also differences in the abundances of all the species over the time – the short 4 minutes of time when they were able to monitor the ejecta cloud before the shepherding spacecraft itself impacted the Moon. “We actually can de-convolve, if you will, the release of the volatiles as a function of time as we look more and more closely at the data,” he said. “And this is important because we can relate what was released at the initial impact, what was released as grains sublimed in sunlight, and what was “sweated out” of the hot crater. So that’s where we’re at right now, it’s not just, ‘hey we saw water, and we saw a significant amount.’ But as a function of time there are different parts coming out, and different ‘flavors’ of water, so we are unraveling it to a finer and finer detail. That is important, since we need to understand more accurately what we actually impacted into. That is really what we are interested in, is what are the conditions we impacted into, and how is the water distributed in the soil in that dark crater.”
So the big question is, how did all these different compounds get there? Cometary impacts seem to offer the best answer, but it could also be outgassing from the early Moon, solar wind delivery, another unknown process, or a combination. “We don’t understand it at all, really,” Colaprete said. “The analysis and the modeling is really in its infancy. It is just beginning, and now we finally have some data from all these various missions to constrain the models and really allow us to move beyond speculation.” LCROSS was an “add-on” mission to the LRO launch, and the mission had several unknowns. Colaprete said his biggest fear going into the impact and going into the results was that they wouldn’t get any data. “I had fears that something would happen, there would be no ejecta, no vapor and we’d just disappear into this black hole,” he confessed. “And that would have been unfortunate, even though it would have been a data point and we would have had to figure out how the heck that would happen.”
But they did get data, and in an abundance that — like any successful mission — offers more questions than answers. “It really was exploration,” Colaprete said. “We were going somewhere we had absolutely never gone before, a permanently shadowed crater in the poles of the Moon, so we knew going into this that whatever we got back data-wise would probably leave us scratching our heads.” Additional source: Science
Amazing!
CO + H2S, that doesn’t sound like too much of a human-friendly place.
I want a rover up there!
Wow, looks like we could have the history of the solar system sitting in those polar craters waiting to be read – more probes!
Hydrogen sulfide, eh? Due to rotting alien eggs, perhaps? I wonder if NASA sat on this data until after Constellation was officially killed? It wouldn’t do Obama well if this info got out while the debate was going on about Constellation would it?
@Random63 — Certainly not. Science takes time. I talked to Colaprete in July and they were still analyzing and figuring things out then.
Arrgh, conspirationism!
The LCROSS water finds broke 091113. Constellation was canceled 100201.
Look, matey. Conspiracy “theories” are, mostly by design to prevent testing, nearly always the least likely explanation for … well, most anything. While science theories are, mostly by design to promote testing, nearly always the most likely explanation for … well, most anything. Opponents to the crown of science will be mercilessly keel hauled under the mind-and-crosspropositional flag of rationality. Avast ye scurvy dogs, don’t be such scallywags!
Well the battle for Constellation was not finally ended until two or three weeks ago when Congress approved the “Senate Plan”. With these results coming out so soon after the final vote, I wondered if NASA sat on the data so Obama could get the vote he wanted from Congress. It’s a legitimate question and not some “conspiracy theory” considering how the present administration does their politics. | New achievements in aerospace | October 2010 | ['(Universe Today)', '(New York Times)', '(The Register)'] |
Voters in Moldova head to the polls in the country's presidential runoff between two opposition candidates, Igor Dodon, from the pro-Russian socialist PSRM, and Maia Sandu, from the pro-EU liberal PAS, with Dodon expected to win. Preliminary results, in this first Moldovan election where the president is chosen by national votes rather than by parliament, will be announced Monday. | Moldova's pro-Russian presidential candidate Igor Dodon has declared victory in Sunday's presidential runoff vote, holding a commanding lead in the former Soviet republic with nearly all votes counted.
With 97 percent of all ballots tallied late Sunday, Dodon, who campaigned on promises to restore closer ties with Russia, held a commanding 55.3 to 44.7 percent lead over pro-Europe rival Maia Sandu.
"We have won, everyone knows it," Dodon said at a late night news conference.
Final results are expected early Monday in the impoverished country of 3.5 million.
Dodon, who came close to winning the presidency outright in the first round of voting two weeks ago, also has pledged to foster good relations with Moldova's neighbors, Romania and Ukraine. However, such appeasement gestures may face stiff resistance in Kyiv by many who object to Dodon's support for Russia's 2014 annexation of Ukraine's Crimean peninsula.
For her part, Sandu - a former education minister - used her campaign to urge closer ties with Europe. She also called for the withdrawal of several thousand Russian troops from Moldova's Russian-speaking separatist region of Trans-Dniester.
Dodon's apparent victory comes alongside that of nearby Bulgaria's pro-Russian presidential candidate Gen. Rumen Radev, a political novice whose win on Sunday prompted center-right Prime Minister Boyko Borisov to announce his resignation.
Moldova, like Bulgaria, has in recent years been plagued with rampant official corruption.
Former Moldovan prime minister Vlad Filat was sentenced earlier this year to a nine-year prison term, after a court found him guilty of corruption and abuse of power during his 2009-2013 term as head of government. His pro-European ruling coalition had been linked to the country's most powerful oligarch, Vladimir Plahotniuc, who has long been accused of running the country through bribes and intimidation.
Filat was arrested last year during a parliamentary session and later charged for his links to a bank fraud scheme that included the disappearance from three banks of $1 billion - nearly 13 percent of the tiny country's annual GDP. | Government Job change - Election | November 2016 | ['(ABCNEWS)', '(Voice of America)'] |
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un begins an official visit to Vietnam, three days after arriving in the country for a nuclear summit with U.S. President Donald Trump that ended in deadlock. | HANOI (AFP) - North Korean leader Kim Jong Un kicked off an official visit to Vietnam on Friday (March 1), three days after arriving in the country for a nuclear summit with United States President Donald Trump that ended in deadlock.
Mr Kim put aside the troubled negotiations for the pageantry of a formal diplomatic occasion in Hanoi, where - accompanied by his sister and close aide Kim Yo Jong - he was received by Vietnam President and Communist Party chief Nguyen Phu Trong.
The smiling leader walked before rows of children waving Vietnamese and North Korean flags outside the mustard-yellow colonial-era Presidential Palace, before inspecting an honour guard.
The long-isolated North is increasingly seeking to portray itself as a country like any other, and Vietnam is Mr Kim's fourth foreign destination in less than 12 months, after not leaving his borders for more than six years following his inheritance of power.
He has travelled to China four times for meetings with President Xi Jinping, walked across the border with South Korea for a summit with President Moon Jae-in, and went to Singapore for his first summit with Mr Trump.
But for protocol purposes, Mr Kim's trips do not rank as state visits, as he is not North Korea's head of state - his grandfather Kim Il Sung retains the title of Eternal President even though he died in 1994.
Instead, Mr Kim is officially chairman of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea and chairman of the State Affairs Commission, although he is most widely referred to as the "Supreme Leader".
The North's state KCNA news agency described it as an "official goodwill visit" to Vietnam.
Curious onlookers lined the streets on Friday to catch a glimpse of Mr Kim - the first North Korean leader to visit Vietnam since Mr Kim Il Sung in 1964.
But not all were impressed.
"The summit failed. I don't know how much Vietnam has spent on this, but it must be a lot," Hanoi resident Tu Mai, 40, told AFP. "I don't like either Trump or Kim."
The North Korean leader later met the head of the Vietnam's Parliament, Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, telling her that the warm relationship between their nations was established by Mr Kim Il Sung and Vietnam’s revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh.
“I was deeply moved by the fervent welcome from the Vietnamese people and felt our 70-year history of friendly ties,” Mr Kim said.
During the Cold War, Vietnam and North Korea were both members of the Communist bloc, with Pyongyang sending Hanoi pilots and psychological warfare specialists to help it in the Vietnam War.
Hanoi has since embraced market economics and been rewarded with rapid growth, while it now counts the US as an ally.
Mr Kim is expected to lay wreaths at the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum and war martyrs monument on Saturday ahead of his planned departure by train for the marathon return journey home.
Mr Kim undertook a 4,000km two-and-a-half day rail journey through China to Vietnam to attend the summit.
The streets of Hanoi have been lined with heavy security along with military equipment and armoured vehicles for the summit, and some said it was exhausting work.
"It's tiring, we've been on high alert for two weeks now," a police officer told AFP. | Diplomatic Visit | March 2019 | ['(The Straits Times)'] |
The city of Toruń in Poland wins the right to host the 2021 European Athletics Indoor Championships, defeating Apeldoorn in the Netherlands. | Toruń beat out the Dutch city of Apeldoorn in a close race to host the track-and-field event, European Athletics said.
It added that the north-central Polish city had won 11 votes versus Apeldoorn's four votes.
The event will be held at the city's Toruń Arena venue in early March 2021, Polish Radio’s IAR news agency reported.
This will be the second time the European Athletics Indoor Championships will be held in Poland, following the 1975 championships in its southern city of Katowice.
European Athletics Indoor Championships are held every two years. The next such event will take place in Glasgow, Scotland, on March 1-3, 2019.
Poland won 12 medals, including seven gold, and topped the medal table at the 2017 European Athletics Indoor Championships in Belgrade, Serbia. | Sports Competition | April 2018 | ['(Radio Poland)'] |
United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton flees the volcano, cutting short her visit to the region. | The US secretary of state has cut short a three-nation tour of Africa following a volcano eruption that has created an ash cloud over parts of East Africa.
Hillary Clinton arrived in the Ethiopian capital on Monday for an address to the African Union.
US officials said the decision was taken because the cloud was due to move towards Addis Ababa.
The cloud, triggered by an eruption in Eritrea, has led to the cancellation of some flights to East Africa.
The German airline Lufthansa cancelled flights to both Eritrea and neighbouring Ethiopia.
Mrs Clinton had been due to leave for the US on Tuesday afternoon. But a senior US official told AFP news agency said she would leave on Monday "because the ash cloud is moving towards Addis and it could cover the city".
Earlier on Monday, she addressed the 53-member African Union, urging them to call for Libya's leader Muammar Gaddafi to step down as he faces an uprising by rebels supported by Nato aircraft. "Your words and your actions could make the difference [in ending this situation]... and allowing the people of Libya to get to work writing a constitution and rebuilding their country," Reuters news agency quotes Mrs Clinton as saying in her speech.
The US secretary of state then met Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, but cancelled a scheduled media briefing and held meetings with advisers to Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir as well as Salva Kiir, president of the soon-to-be independent South Sudan. The Nabro volcano, in the Southern Red Sea Region, erupted on Sunday, sending plumes of ash 13km (eight miles) into the air. "The plume from the volcano is covering the whole of Asmara since the morning, but now it is clearing somewhat," one resident was quoted as saying, Reuters reports.
"If the cloud reaches Egypt, Israel or the Arab peninsula, the impact on air traffic will be more significant, but it is too early to know," AFP quotes Jean Nicolau of French weather service Meteo-France, which houses the Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre responsible for Africa, as saying.
According to the Israel Meteorological Survey, the ash is expected to reach Saudi Arabia, Jordan and southern Israel.
Saudi Arabia and Jordan were likely to be severely affected by the ash, it said. Peggy Hellweg, a seismologist at the University of California, said it was difficult to know if the volcano would cause more problems.
"It could go on rumbling and spewing ash for quite some time or it could even blow up quite largely and cause much more trauma to our international interactions," she told the BBC's Network Africa programme. | Diplomatic Visit | June 2011 | ['(BBC)'] |
Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej, 88, the world's longest reigning monarch, is in unstable condition after a hemodialysis treatment. , | BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand’s 88-year-old King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the world’s longest reigning monarch, is in an unstable condition after receiving hemodialysis treatment, the palace said in a statement late on Sunday.
News about the king’s health is closely monitored in Thailand, where King Bhumibol is widely revered, and the wording of palace statements on his health is intensely scrutinized.
Strict laws protecting the royal family stifles any public discussion of the king’s health.
It is unusual for the palace to state that the king’s health is not stable. Statements on his health are usually issued after the monarch’s condition shows improvement or when he is recovering from an illness.
Thailand's main stock index .SETI tumbled as much as 3.6 percent on Monday and the baht THB=TH fell to more than two-month lows, following the news.
The king has been treated for various ailments over the past year at Bangkok’s Siriraj Hospital - his home for much of the past year - and was last seen in public on Jan. 11, when he spent several hours visiting his palace in the Thai capital.
Anxiety over the king’s health and an eventual succession has formed the backdrop to more than a decade of bitter political divide in Thailand that has included two military coups and often-violent street demonstrations.
Sunday’s statement was the second health bulletin this month after the palace said on Oct. 1 that the king was recovering after a respiratory infection.
On Saturday, the king was given hemodialysis - a way of cleansing the blood of toxins, extra salts and fluids - which made his blood pressure drop occasionally, the palace said.
Doctors gave him some medicine and put him on a ventilator to bring his blood pressure back to normal, it said.
They continue to monitor his condition closely, the statement said.
“His condition has yet to stabilize,” the palace said.
In 2011, Princess Chulabhorn, the king’s youngest daughter, said in a rare televised statement that the king had suffered a health scare and fell unconscious after suffering from internal bleeding likely induced by stress as a result of a flood crisis at the time.
Laws protecting the royals from insult make it a crime to defame, insult or threaten the king, queen, heir to the throne or regent.
Reporting by Amy Sawitta Lefevre and Khettiya Jittapong; Editing by Amy Sawitta Lefevre, Robert Birsel
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
| Famous Person - Sick | October 2016 | ['(Reuters)', '(Al Jazeera)'] |
A suicide bombing at a mosque in Maymana, Afghanistan, kills at least 41 people and wounds up to 50 others. | A suicide bomber targeted worshippers who had gathered at a mosque in north Afghanistan for prayers to mark Eid al-Adha, killing at least 41 people.
More than 50 people were wounded in the attack, which happened as people were leaving the Eid Gah mosque in Maymana, capital of Faryab province.
Senior provincial government and police officials attended the prayers, but appeared to escape serious injury.
The victims were mainly police officers and civilians.
Officials said that 14 civilians and six children were among the dead.
"We had just finished Eid al-Adha prayers and we were congratulating and hugging each other," deputy provincial governor Abdul Satar Barez told the AFP news agency.
"Suddenly a big explosion took place and the area was full of dust and smoke and body parts of police and civilians were all over the place. It was a very powerful explosion."
One survivor told the BBC that the attacker had used potent explosives and ball bearings inside his suicide jacket to cause maximum casualties.
Mr Barez said senior police and government officials had been the target, but were inside the mosque at the time so escaped the force of the blast.
Shafi Bekoghlu, a BBC Uzbek reporter based in Maymana, said he had been due to go to the mosque but was running late so went to a different mosque for Eid prayers.
"Just as I got home, I heard a very loud explosion. I rushed to the hospital and saw lots of cars, police cars and ambulances - carrying bodies in," he said, adding that police fired warning shots into the air to prevent people entering the hospital.
"I went back to the hospital a couple of hours later and saw the bodies of policemen lined up."
Doctors told the BBC that a number of the injured were in a critical condition.
One prominent tribal elder who survived the blast said the attacker was wearing police uniform and was not searched by members of the security forces, the BBC's Bilal Sarwary reports.
He managed to breach several layers of security, 50m from the provincial governor's office.
Intelligence reports prior to the attack had suggested insurgents wanted to target the Eid Gah mosque, in the heart of Maymana, our correspondent adds.
Attacks in northern Afghanistan are far less common than in the south and east, and Faryab province has been considered to be relatively peaceful.
However, there have been a spate of assassinations in Maymana in recent days, our correspondent says.
A senior former Taliban commander, who had defected to the government side, was killed along with his son, as well as a number of very prominent tribal elders seen to be giving crucial support to the government.
Friday's attack came as Afghan President Hamid Karzai urged the Taliban to stop "killing their people and destroying their mosques, hospitals and schools" and join the peace process.
"They can run for any position they want... if they want to join the government they are welcome," Mr Karzai said of the insurgents in his Eid al-Adha message. | Armed Conflict | October 2012 | ['(BBC)'] |
A tornado outbreak occurs in the Southeastern United States. Mississippi declares a tornado emergency. |
An Easter tornado outbreak spawned a swarm of tornadoes and widespread damaging thunderstorm winds from Texas to the Carolinas and Maryland on April 12-13, 2020.
National Weather Service damage surveys confirmed at least 140 tornadoes touched down from early morning on Easter Sunday, April 12, through early afternoon on April 13, one of the nation's most prolific April two-day outbreaks in the modern era, according to Steve Bowen, meteorologist and head of catastrophe insight at Aon. It was the fifth highest Alabama tornado count from a single outbreak - at least 27 tornadoes confirmed - dating to 1950, according to the National Weather Service. The outbreak also produced over 600 reports of damaging thunderstorm winds in just 24 hours from Easter Sunday morning through the following Monday morning, more than any other 24-hour period since the Ohio Valley and Mid-Atlantic derecho of June 2012, according to The Weather Channel senior meteorologist, Stu Ostro. The storms claimed at least 37 lives.
The National Weather Service issued 141 separate tornado warnings from 7 a.m. CDT Sunday, April 12, to 7 a.m. CDT Monday, April 13, according to Greg Diamond, a weather producer at The Weather Channel. This was the most within the 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. 24-hour period since the March 2-3, 2012 tornado outbreak, according to Daryl Herzmann of the Iowa Environmental Mesonet.
A pair of EF4 tornadoes carved through parts of southern Mississippi on Easter Sunday. The first of these touched down in Walthall County, Mississippi, leveling two homes near the Lawrence County line, leaving only the slab foundation remaining of one of the homes, according to the NWS damage survey. The NWS found nearly every tree in its path in this part of northeast Walthall County was either snapped or uprooted. A second EF4 tornado grew to over 2-miles in width, the largest documented tornado on record in Mississippi as it tore a 68-mile long path from Jefferson Davis County to Clarke County, devastating areas near the towns of Bassfield, Soso and Moss.
The scar from this tornado could be seen from satellite images taken on April 14. Soso, Mississippi, was simultaneously under a National Weather Service tornado emergency for both tornadoes. The first tornado was striking the town when the National Weather Service issued the second tornado emergency for the tornado following behind it. Between the two, tornado emergencies spanned 75 miles across southern Mississippi at 5:30 p.m. CDT Sunday, April 12. Just 24 minutes after this second EF4 tornado first touched down, the longest-track tornado of the outbreak, rated EF3, began an 84-mile long siege in about 90 minutes from Lawrence to Jasper Counties, Mississippi. This tornado was also just over a mile-wide at one time. An EF3 tornado tore through parts of Monroe, Louisiana, just before noon on Easter Sunday, missing the city's downtown by about a mile, but damaging the roof of the Masur Museum of Art. A pair of tornadoes, rated EF1 and EF2, touched down just north of the city near Sterlington. Ouachita Parish authorities estimated 23 homes were destroyed and another 108 suffered major damage. In east Tennessee, an EF3 tornado tore a 15-mile long path through parts of the Chattanooga metro area, including East Ridge and Ooltewah, leveling an auto parts store. In Georgia, one severe thunderstorm spawned a pair of EF3 tornadoes which carved through Upson, Lamar and Monroe Counties, just northwest of Macon. The Southern Crescent Technical College and Raintree Golf and Country Club near Thomaston each took a direct hit, and one unoccupied home was shifted onto a road. National Weather Service radar detected debris from the Upson County tornado was lofted as high as 25,000 feet. At least 25 tornadoes tore through South Carolina, a number of them on the stronger end of the scale.
Particularly hard hit was Barnwell County, where the NWS confirmed four separate tornadoes - three rated EF3, the other an EF2 - tore distinct path through parts of the county. One home anchored to the ground was tossed and destroyed, according to the NWS damage survey. As the squall line roared into neighboring Orangeburg County, a weird interaction of two tornadoes appears to have taken place, as documented in detail by The Washington Post's Matthew Cappucci. Another large tornado, at least a half mile wide, carved a 16-mile path through Oconee and Pickens counties just north of Clemson around 3:20 a.m. EDT, causing at least one fatality. Top winds were estimated at 160 mph in this tornado, which was rated EF3.
At around 6 a.m. EDT Monday, a long-track tornado produced EF4 damage in Hampton County, South Carolina, the first F/EF4 rated tornado on record in South Carolina's Lowcountry and first anywhere in the state in over 24 years. This tornado caused least five fatalities and 60 injuries, according to the NWS.
Sixteen tornadoes, most of them weaker tornadoes, were spawned in North Carolina on April 13. Early in the afternoon, a couple of weak tornadoes - one rated EF0, the other EF1 - touched down briefly in Maryland near Baltimore Corner and Frizzzellburg, respectively. The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. | Hurricanes_Tornado_Storm_Blizzard | April 2020 | ['(Weather)'] |
Two people are killed and several are missing due to a tornado in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. | At least two people were killed and 29 injured, some critically, when a tornado ripped through an Oklahoma City suburb in the middle of the night, wiping out a hotel, a mobile-home park and several other buildings in just four minutes.
The National Weather Service confirmed Sunday that a tornado hit El Reno, a town with a population of nearly 20,000, on Saturday and left a swath of damage that will take weeks to clean up and pain loved ones of the dead will likely never get over.
"This community is brokenhearted, we're hurt, we're absolutely devastated," El Reno Mayor Matt White said at a news conference Sunday morning.
White said the two deaths occurred in the area of the Sky View mobile-home park where the twister touched down at 10:28 p.m. While sirens signaled the approaching funnel cloud, residents said there was little time to seek shelter.
Search-and-rescue teams, according to White, were conducting grid searches through the devastated area, "picking up walls of debris to make sure nobody is under there."
He said an unknown number of people are unaccounted for.
Sixteen people were taken by ambulance to hospitals from the epicenter of the calamity and another 13 were raced to emergency rooms in private vehicles, according to White. He said injuries ranged from minor to critical, and that several people were undergoing surgery at the Oklahoma University Medical Center in Oklahoma City.
A woman who survived the tornado told ABC station KOCO in Oklahoma City that she and her two grandchildren escaped their mobile home only to find themselves in the middle of a "disaster zone."
"We heard screaming and stuff, children and adults both," she said. "A lot of destruction, a lot of chaos and .... death."
The National Weather Service meteorologists in Norman, Oklahoma, rated the tornado an EF3 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale, meaning it generated wind speeds in the range of 136 to 165 mph. The highest rating on the scale, an EF5, packs winds topping 200 mph.
The weather service reported that the twister cut a 2.2-mile long path of destruction, and was about 75 yards at its widest point.
The tornado carried debris more than 4 miles northeast of El Reno, officials said.
Video showed the devastation. The tornado slammed a two-story American Budget Value Inn off Interstate 40, ripping off most of its second floor, and reducing much the structure to splintered pieces of wood and shattered glass.
A lot of destruction, a lot of chaos and .... death.
"As far as we know right now, there is no one in the rubble," the hotel's owner, Ramesh Patel, told KOCO.
A woman who was working in the office when the tornado hit suffered a broken leg, Patel said.
White confirmed that everyone at the hotel when the tornado struck has been accounted for.
At sunrise Sunday, video showed a mobile home park next to the hotel strewn with shattered glass, wood and other debris that just hours earlier were residences of a thriving community. Aerial footage showed the twister slammed residences in a corner of the mobile home park while leaving other homes virtually unscathed.
Several vehicles were overturned and others were smashed by debris.
After striking the Sky View mobile home park, the tornado hit the hotel and a nearby Dodge dealership, tearing the roof off the business, aerial footage showed.
"We have absolutely experienced a traumatic event here in El Reno," White said.
He asked people to stay away from the area until search-and-rescue teams finish combing through the rubble.
"I think El Reno, Oklahoma, needs a lot of prayers," White said. "None of this is easy. We're all shook up."
Police in the neighboring town of Union City put out an all points bulletin -- for prayer.
"Please pray for those affected by these storms as well as the emergency services workers assisting in this ongoing rescue," Union City police said in a statement posted to Facebook. "This is an unfortunate example of just how quickly these types of storms can develop from a simple thunderstorm into a deadly supercell tornado."
A National Weather Service meteorologist confirmed the catastrophic weather event was a tornado by analyzing radar images, seeing a "debris ball" in the area, and by detecting telltale evidence of a twister by examining pictures of the damage and eyeballing the devastation in person, officials said.
El Reno damageDillon Richards (@KOCODillon) May 26, 2019 El Reno damage pic.twitter.com/XLf2T3YhM0
The tornado that hit El Reno comes on the heels of a severe weather week in the Southern Plains. There were 104 tornadoes reported across eight states -- Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, and Maryland -- from Monday to Thursday.
Three people were killed in Golden City, Missouri, on Thursday as a tornado moved through the region. The state's capital, Jefferson City, about 170 miles northeast of Golden City, also suffered severe damage the same night from a tornado, but no one was killed.
At least four other people were killed from storms, including flash flooding, in the central U.S. this week. | Hurricanes_Tornado_Storm_Blizzard | May 2019 | ['(ABC News)'] |
Disgruntled police officers and soldiers storm the National Parliament of Papua New Guinea due to unpaid allowances related to the APEC Papua New Guinea 2018 conference last weekend. |
Papua New Guinea’s national parliament was in lockdown on Tuesday after hundreds of soldiers and police officers attacked the building, smashing vehicles and entryways.
The officers are believed to have attacked the parliament in protest against unpaid allowances from the Apec conference at the weekend, before blocking surrounding streets.
The parliamentarian Allan Bird told Guardian Australia that he and other opposition MPs had been in a locked conference room when they heard the group.
“We heard them coming in, you could hear them smashing things – the glass entryways, a few vehicles on the way in,” he said.
“I understand some of the parliament security guards were assaulted, a few ministers may have also been assaulted. I think the [group] were mostly targeting ministers, but anyone who got in their way was roughed up.”
A police spokesman told Guardian Australia he didn’t have any further information beyond the fact that some “disgruntled” police officers and soldiers had attacked the building.
Bird said he didn’t feel in danger as the opposition were not the target of the “unhappy” soldiers and officers. “I know we haven’t done anything wrong as an opposition … but I’d be scared if I was a member of government, to be honest,” he said.
“I think it’s a lot of longstanding issues, but the trigger was the nonpayment of allowances from Apec. That was the spark that set them off.”
The crowd of an estimated 300 people later dispersed, after meeting with ministers and reportedly receiving assurances they would be paid on Wednesday.
Chris Hawkins, the chief executive of Apec and a senior adviser to the prime minister, said payments had already started. “The payment of allowances for police, CS and defence normally take a week to process at the end of the end of a major event,” he told the ABC.
“The meeting ended two days ago and the security operation is now winding down.
But by Tuesday evening there were widespread reports of looting in different areas of Port Moresby.
The opposition MP Bryan Kramer said police had been on site shortly after the attack. “Members of the armed forces including CIS [Corrective Institutions Service] and police stormed parliament over grievances over their allowances,” he said on social media.
Kramer said he and colleagues had been told that the police commissioner, Gary Baki, the police minister and members of police had met on Tuesday morning to discuss the allowances issue. After the meeting members of the police force travelled to parliament and stormed the building, he said. “Numerous staff of parliament were assaulted as part of this confrontation.”
He said the group was outside the parliament waiting to be addressed by the government.
Media were escorted into the building on Tuesday afternoon to wait for the prime minister, Peter O’Neill, Baki, and the Apec minister, Justin Tkatchenko, who were holding an emergency meeting.
The Police Association appeared to support the rogue officers and said it was a “slap in the face” that officers had not been paid for helping the government host thousands of dignitaries and delegates. “It is an absolute disgrace that these efforts are not adequately recognised.”
It called for immediate payment, warning that delays would escalate the situation. Funds had been budgeted within Apec costs and there was no excuse for nonpayment, it said.
Apec wrapped up at the weekend without a joint communique from attending leaders – for the first time in the conference’s history – and after extraordinary confrontations between Chinese and PNG officials.
In the lead-up, PNG citizens staged two nationwide strikes in protest at the government’s spending on the conference, including exorbitant infrastructure projects and the purchase of a fleet of Maseratis and several Bentleys. Tkatchenko claimed the luxury cars were to be used driving dignitaries around, and that all would then be purchased by the “private sector”, resulting in no cost to the government.
The government has also been widely criticised by its people for cutting the salaries of teachers and other public servants, and presiding over a health crisis and medication shortage. It has also struggled to pay electricity bills for government departments in the past.
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| Protest_Online Condemnation | November 2018 | ['(The Guardian)'] |
A French parliamentary report backs a partial ban on the wearing of burkhas by Muslim women. | A much-anticipated French parliament report called Tuesday for a ban on the burqa, or full Islamic veil, in all schools, hospitals, public transport and government offices, saying the veil was an affront to French values.
"The wearing of the full veil is a challenge to our republic. This is unacceptable," the report released by a parliament commission said.
No consensus
Facts on Islam in France
The commission charged with investigating a law to ban the veil interviewed senior politicians, cultural and educational experts, historians, and experts on Islam.
I LIKE WOMAN WEARING THE FULL BURQA Although a Roman Catholic, I support the right of Muslim women to wear a veil with the following exception. That exception being the so-called "Burqa" or any veil that covers the full face of a woman. I would never support a "mask" being worn in public for anyone
...the burqa is extreme. France should ban it in their nation. Others will follow.....colorado, usa
I would like to say that the veil is a personal choice of every Muslims women, and no one should feel threat to himself or his society... It is against Democratic values whihc west is trying to bring to eastern countries... and it will give a bad expression for all Muslims all over the world...
Although the burqa looks grim it has been defined as a measure of the inferiority of men. The theory is that men are so weak, their faith so shallow that the sight of an uncovered women would make them abandon their faith. The burqa affirms the strength of women and the weakness of men
readers i have some comments about wearing of burqa whom a one of the muslims tradation and culture,readers in my side i think their is no such reasons why they discriminate this way of wearing,,as long as a persons who wear this kind of dress or whatever burqa we call,,have no any bad intentions to somebody else they can wear any what they want to wear,remember that we born without any clothes that we have during our childs birth..for me it is a big mistake and one kind of discrimination to a human being ,,i know their are some rules that the rules of that culture or tradation will be follow whom they made their rules for being muslims like ,readers this is only my own opinion about this issue that i read and see in your report as of this moments,,me i respect all persons either they had different kind of wearing or whatever like that .
I understand the French concern... In my experience, Muslims are unapologetic when violating the west culture and values. In fact, Muslim culture is used as defence when they act against western values. Just read the history for the Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights.
However... how can France enforce a law against the Burqa? I dont think someone who willingly wears a Burqa should be criminal. Is not coercive, violent, or harmful.
That said... I'm from the U.S. which does not have a large immigration of Muslims and our 'freedom of religion' value is much different. Can someone from France comment there point of view
If I lived or visited a Muslim country, Iran per say, I would respect their culture and laws. So I'll never visit such a place. Meanwhile, no burqas in France! or any other democratic nation
What a free country?
Muslim countries will never allow either one of us as European or US to dress up in our own way . Mrs. Clinton came to muslim country see have to put her weil even just for a short visit . I only see those women just hypocrites but nothing else . | Government Policy Changes | January 2010 | ['(France 24)', '(Al Jazeera)', '(CNN)'] |
Two fossils found in Kenya challenge existing views of human evolution by showing that Homo erectus and Homo habilis lived side by side in eastern Africa for half a million years. | Two fossils found in Kenya have shaken the human family tree, possibly rearranging major branches thought to be in a straight ancestral line to Homo sapiens.
Scientists who dated and analyzed the specimens — a 1.44 million-year-old Homo habilis and a 1.55 million-year-old Homo erectus — said their findings challenged the conventional view that these species evolved one after the other. Instead, they apparently lived side by side in eastern Africa for almost half a million years.
If this interpretation is correct, the early evolution of the genus Homo is left even more shrouded in mystery than before. It means that both habilis and erectus must have originated from a common ancestor between two million and three million years ago, a time when fossil hunters had drawn a virtual blank.
Although the findings do not change the relationship of Homo erectus as a direct ancestor of Homo sapiens, scientists said, the surprisingly diminutive erectus skull implies that this species was not as humanlike as once thought.
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Other paleontologists and experts in human evolution said the discovery strongly suggested that the early transition from more apelike to more humanlike ancestors was still poorly understood. They also said that this emphasized the need to search more widely for fossils from the critical period at the still unknown dawn of our own genus, Homo.
The challenge to the idea of a more linear succession of the three Homo species is being reported today in the journal Nature. The lead author is Fred Spoor, an evolutionary anatomist at University College London. Other authors include Meave G. Leakey and her daughter Louise Leakey, the Kenyan paleontologists who are co-directors of the Koobi Fora Research Project that made the discovery. The fieldwork was supported by the National Geographic Society. The fossils were found east of Lake Turkana in Kenya in 2000. It took years to prepare the specimens, encased in hardened sediment, for study and to be sure of the identification of the species, the scientists said. University of Utah geologists determined the dates of the fossils from volcanic ash deposits.
The most recent fossils of the habilis species known before now were 1.65 million years old or older. Some fragments of fossils with apparent habilis attributes have been dated as early as 2.33 million years old.
In recent years, scientists not involved in the project said, discoveries were hinting at possible overlap between the habilis and erectus species. But the implications were considered so profound that little was said about these dates, pending more conclusive evidence.
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“The oldest Homo habilis we had known of was about the same age as erectus,” said Daniel Lieberman, a professor of biological anthropology at Harvard University. “Now we have extended the duration of the habilis species, and there’s no doubt that it overlaps considerably with erectus.” In their report, Dr. Spoor and his colleagues wrote, “With the discovery of the new, well dated specimens, H. habilis and H. erectus can now be shown to have co-occurred in eastern Africa for nearly half a million years.”
The fact that the two hominid species lived together in the same lake basin for so long and remained separate species, Dr. Meave Leakey said in a statement from Nairobi, “suggests that they had their own ecological niche, thus avoiding direct competition.” For example, the two may have had foraging and dietary differences.
In any case, Dr. Leakey said, “Their co-existence makes it unlikely that Homo erectus evolved from Homo habilis.”
Dr. Spoor, speaking by satellite phone from a field site near Lake Turkana, said the evidence clearly contradicted previous ideas of human evolution “as one strong, single line from early to us.” The new findings, he added, support the revised interpretations of “a lot of bushiness and experimentation in the fossil record,” rather than a more linear succession of species.
But Dr. Spoor said the second fossil, the 1.55 million-year-old erectus skull, was probably the more surprising discovery. The bones are unusually well preserved.
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“What is truly striking about this fossil is its size,” he said. “It is the smallest Homo erectus found thus far anywhere in the world.”
The scientists reported that the individual was a young adult or “a late subadult.” Its size was closer to that of a habilis than previously known erectus fossils. But the distinctive ridge on the cranium, the jaw and teeth and the shape of the neck are all characteristic of erectus rather than habilis or other human ancestors.
From the skull’s small size, the scientists concluded that Homo erectus was, in one important respect, less humanlike than had been previously assumed. Other erectus skull and skeletal fossils had seemed to show erectus to be the first human ancestor that was like us in so many ways, except for a smaller brain.
Susan Anton, an anthropologist at New York University and one of the report’s authors, said that the small skull pointed up a significant variation in the sizes of erectus specimens, particularly differences between the male and female of the species, or sexual dimorphism.
Such a characteristic is thought to be a primitive stage in evolution. In humans, males average about 15 percent larger than females, and the same is true for chimpanzees. Sexual dimorphism is much more striking in gorillas, and apparently also in erectus.
“The new Kenyan fossil suggests that contrary to common belief, this may have been true of Homo erectus,” Dr. Anton said, implying that erectus was not as humanlike as once thought.
Dr. Lieberman of Harvard said, “The small skull has got to be a female, and my guess is that all the previous erectus we have found turned out to be male.” | New archeological discoveries | August 2007 | ['(New York Times)'] |
At least 16 inmates are killed and five others injured in a riot that breaks out at a prison in Zacatecas, Mexico. | At least 16 inmates have been killed after a riot broke out at a prison in central Mexico, authorities say.
Five others were wounded in clashes at the prison facility in the town of Cieneguillas, Zacatecas state.
During the riot, which lasted for about two-and-a-half hours, officials say prisoners fought each other using handguns and knives.
Violence is often reported at Mexico's prisons, many of which are overcrowded and dominated by drug gangs.
The state security agency said the fight broke out at Cieneguillas' Regional Center for Social Reintegration at about 14:30 (20:30 GMT) on Tuesday and was under control by 17:00.
One prisoner was arrested with a gun still in his possession, and three other handguns and knives were later found inside the prison. Fifteen of the victims died at the prison and one died later at hospital. Zacatecas state security secretary Ismael Camberos Hernandez told local reporters that some victims had suffered gunshot wounds, while others were stabbed or beaten with objects. No guards or police were wounded into the riot. Details of how it started were not immediately clear, but the state government said it had launched an investigation to find out who was responsible and how the weapons got into the prison. The incident is just the latest deadly clash to break out among inmates in Mexico, where prisons are notoriously overcrowded and corrupt. In October, six people were killed in a riot in a facility in the central state of Morelos. | Riot | January 2020 | ['(BBC News)'] |
One person dies and nine others are injured in a shooting at a block party on a basketball court in Detroit, Michigan. | Detroit - Ten people were shot and one of them died when someone opened fire at a block party on a basketball court in Detroit.
Police were not releasing the identity of the person killed in the shooting on Saturday night.
The Detroit Free Press said one other person was in critical condition.
Detroit Assti Police Chief Steve Dolunt said authorities do not know the reason for the shooting.
No other information was immediately released.
| Armed Conflict | June 2015 | ['(AP via News24)', '(ABC News)'] |
East African leaders call for 20,000 troops to be deployed across Somalia to support the United Nations-backed Transitional Federal Government and for the United Nations to replace the African Union Mission to Somalia. | East African leaders have called for 20,000 troops to be deployed across Somalia to support the country's besieged transitional federal government.
In a communique released after a meeting which ended in Addis Ababa on Monday, the leaders also announced they would boost immediately the number of African Union (AU) peacekeepers in Somalia by 2,000, bringing the mission to its planned full strength of 8,100.
They repeated an earlier call on the United Nations Security Council, to convert the AU mission into a UN peacekeeping operation "without delay".
The communique was issued by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), which groups East African heads of state and government.
IGAD said its member states were committed to "unswerving support" to the transitional government and branded its opponents as "extremist and terrorist groups".
"The conflict in Somalia," the IGAD leaders said, "is not a conflict among the Somalis but between the people of Somalia and international terrorist groups." The insurgency represented an "escalating danger" not only for Somalia but for the sub-region.
They also supported the supply of resources and equipment to Somali forces from neighbouring countries, and called on AU member countries which had not contributed peacekeepers to give financial and material support.
Their meeting in Addis Ababa was chaired by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia, and attended by President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, President Ismael Omar Guelleh of Djibouti, President Mwai Kibaki of Kenya and President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, head of the Somali transitional government.
| Famous Person - Give a speech | July 2010 | ['(AllAfrica.com)', '(BBC News)'] |
Islamic State captures the Syrian city of Tadmur from the Syrian Army with grave concerns held about the Palmyra site. | In this November 12, 2010 photo, sun sets behind ruined columns at the city of Palmyra, in the Syrian desert, some 240 km northeast the capital of Damascus. Islamic State stormed the historic city on Wednesday, fighting off pro-government forces.
Islamic State insurgents stormed the historic Syrian city of Palmyra on Wednesday, fighting off pro-government forces who withdrew after evacuating most of the civilian population, state television said.
The capture of Palmyra is the first time the al-Qaeda offshoot has taken control of a city directly from the Syrian Army and allied forces, which have already lost ground in the northwest and south to other insurgent groups in recent weeks.
The central city, also known as Tadmur, is built alongside the remains of a oasis civilisation whose colonnaded streets, temple and theatre have stood for 2,000 years.
Islamic State has destroyed antiquities and ancient monuments in neighbouring Iraq and is being targeted by U.S.-led air strikes in both countries.
Syria’s antiquities chief called on the world to save its ancient monuments and state television said Islamic State fighters were trying to enter the city’s historical sites.
Palmyra is also a strategic military gain, home to modern Army installations and situated on a desert highway linking the capital Damascus with Syria’s eastern Provinces, mostly under insurgent control.
“Praise God, it has been liberated,” said an Islamic State fighter speaking via the Internet from the Palmyra area. He said Islamic State was in control of a hospital in the city which Syrian forces had used as a base before withdrawing.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said Islamic State had seized almost all of the city. It said it was unclear what had happened to forces stationed at an army outpost on its outskirts or the fate of a major military prison.
Syria’s antiquities chief Maamoun Abdulkarim told Reuters earlier on Wednesday that hundreds of statues had been moved to safe locations but called on the Syrian Army, opposition and international community to save the site.
“The fear is for the museum and the large monuments that cannot be moved,” he said, “This is the entire world’s battle.”
Westward march
The attack is part of a westward advance by Islamic State that is adding to pressures on the overstretched military and allied militia. The group holds tracts of land in the north and east and is now edging towards the more heavily populated areas along its western flank.
In the east, U.S. special forces carried out a ground assault on Saturday against Islamic State and killed a militant believed to be in charge of the group’s financial operations.
UNESCO called for called for international efforts to protect Palmyra’s population “and safeguard the unique cultural heritage”.
Palmyra’s ancient monuments, which lie on the south-western fringe of the modern city, were put on UNESCO’s World Heritage in danger list in 2013. The ruins were part of a desert oasis that was one of the most significant cultural centres of the ancient world.
Islamic State supporters posted pictures on social media showing what they said were gunmen in the streets of Palmyra, which is the location of one of Syria’s biggest weapons depots as well as army bases, an airport and a major prison.
In the northeast, Kurdish forces backed by U.S.-led air strikes pressed an attack on Islamic State that has killed at least 170 members of the group this week, a Kurdish official and the Observatory said. U.S-led forces have concentrated their air strikes on Syria’s north and east, areas out of government control. | Armed Conflict | May 2015 | ['(The Hindu)', '(BBC)'] |
Italian far–left terrorist Cesare Battisti is extradited to Italy after his capture in Bolivia. Battisti was convicted of multiple murders nearly three decades ago. | Fugitive Italian communist militant Cesare Battisti has been extradited to Italy after his capture in Bolivia nearly three decades after being convicted of multiple murders. His extradition was confirmed in a statement from the Government of Brazil, where Battisti lived for several years until recently fleeing to Bolivia after Brazil's outgoing President signed a decree ordering his extradition.
The development sets the stage for a climax to one of Italy's longest-running efforts to bring a fugitive to justice, after Bolivian police arrested Battisti, 64, on the weekend.
Italy's Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said he would "finish his days in prison" as soon as he steps on Italian soil.
Battisti escaped from an Italian prison in 1981 while awaiting trial on four counts of murder allegedly committed when he was a member of the Armed Proletarians for Communism, and was subsequently given a life sentence in absentia.
He has acknowledged membership in the group but has denied killing anyone.
Battisti's membership of the Armed Proletarians for Communism came at a time of great political and social upheaval for Italy.
Reuters: Max Rossi
Between the late 1960s and early 1980s, the country was thrown into the Anni di Piombo — or Years of Lead —that saw acts of political terrorism spring from both the left and the right in acts designed to shock. Far-left militants known as the Red Brigades assassinated Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro in 1978, dumping his bullet-riddled body in a car boot in the centre of Rome.
It was during this period Battisti was accused of murdering, or being an accessory to, the murders of shopkeepers, a butcher and jeweller and two police officers in 1979. He was sentenced to 12-and-a-half years in prison, but managed to break out of a jail in Rome in 1981. After initially fleeing to Mexico, he then fled to France and was given protection under the Mitterand Doctrine — a French policy protecting left-wing Italian terrorists that "renounced violence" that held in place until the early 2000s. When France's commitment to the doctrine fell, Battisti fled to Mexico, then to Brazil, where he was able to enjoy relative freedom and support from the French left throughout. In the intervening years, Battisti was able to make a career as a novelist, following in the footsteps of other Mediterranean Noir writers such as Massimo Carlotto.
Former French President François Hollande paid Battisti a visit in a Paris prison in 2004, while prominent French philosopher Bernard Henri Lévy was by his side in a Brazilian prison in 2007. Writing in support of the man around the time of his Brazilian arrest, Mr Lévy made a direct appeal to then Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva: "Extraditing Battisti would create a dangerous precedent. Not extraditing him would show the world — which has its eyes fixed on Brazil and on you — that there are principles that neither reasons of national interest nor the logic of cold monsters can purchase," he wrote. The President eventually granted asylum to Battisti in 2010. Battisti was arrested again in 2017 after he was caught trying to cross the Brazil-Bolivia border carrying the equivalent of about $7,500 in undeclared cash.
He was released after a few days.
Reuters: Sergio Moraes As a result of that incident, Brazilian Supreme Federal Tribunal Justice Luiz Fux said in December that Interpol had issued the latest request for Battisti's arrest on tax evasion and money laundering charges, leading him to issue a Brazilian warrant. Based on that, outgoing Brazilian President Michel Temer signed the decree ordering the extradition.
Minister Salvini praised Bolivian police and Brazil's new government for following through on the case. He called Mr Battisti a "delinquent who doesn't deserve to live comfortably on the beach but rather to finish his days in prison".
| Famous Person - Commit Crime - Sentence | January 2019 | ['(ABC)'] |
UK Health Minister John Reid warns against anti–tobacco vigilantism, defending cigarettes as one of the "very few pleasures in life" available to the poor. | His comments come days after Tony Blair said ministers were considering banning smoking in public places.
Ex-smoker Dr Reid said: "All I say is be careful, please be careful that we don't patronise people.
"As my mother would put it, people from those lower socio-economic categories have very few pleasures in life and one of them they regard as smoking."
He added at a Labour Big Conversation event in London: "I note the forcible representations on banning smoking, particularly banning smoking to overcome the difficulties that the lower working class get out of the ailments of smoking.
If it's one of life's few pleasures - then smoke outdoors or in your own home Alice, London
"I just worry slightly about the unanimity of the medical and professional activists in taking that view."
Dr Reid said his fears about the issue were not allayed when he heard one contributor to the event saying "we should start by banning 10 cigarettes so those who can only afford 10 can't have a fag".
He asked: "But if you can buy them in a 100 presumably it's alright?"
People from those lower socio-economic categories have very few pleasures in life and one of them they regard as smoking
Later in a statement he added: "We want everyone to live a healthy lifestyle but not everyone lives in the same circumstances. "If we wish to change people's habits we will often have to help change the circumstances in which they live."
Dr Reid's comments were seized upon by the Tories who branded them "regrettable".
Tory health spokesman Andrew Lansley said: "It is impossible to see how the government can promote a consistent public health strategy when with one hand it is funding the British Heart Foundation's ad campaign against smoking and with the other John Reid makes remarks likes these."
He added: "To suggest that for a poor mum with three kids to be smoking is anything other than damaging, coming from the health secretary, is regrettable."
Lib Dem health spokesman Paul Burstow said: "John Reid's message to those in deprived areas is not 'let them eat cake' but 'let them smoke fags'.
"This is yet more evidence that the Health Secretary has no clue when it comes to public health. His statement is patronising, damaging and based on weak assumptions."
The prime minister's spokesman later insisted the health secretary had been contributing to the debate on the issue being encouraged by the government.
"We want everybody to pursue a healthy lifestyle. There are warnings and everybody knows the dangers of smoking.
"At the moment we are having a discussion and people are expressing different views. The advice is there, the health secretary has made his comments and the consultation will continue."
That consultation should be completed by the summer when the government would decide what to do.
On Friday the prime minister said the government was considering introducing a ban on smoking in public places and will come to a view in the "next few months".
'Patronising'
He stressed it was "a difficult balance" protecting the public's health on the one hand and not being overly interfering on the other.
Dr Reid went further indicating that he was not in favour of instructing ordering adults about how to make their choices.
The health secretary's comments came under fire from health and anti-smoking organisations.
The British Medical Association expressed surprise at what Mr Reid had said
"Quite apart from the individual damage to smokers, there's passive smoking to consider," a spokesman said.
And a spokesman for the anti-smoking group Ash said: "It's incredibly patronising to talk about smoking in this way - the argument is that we should have smoke-free work environments."
He added: "Smoking kills a disproportionate number of people from social classes D and E.
"And it's the biggest single contributor to health inequality - and differences in life expectancy - between social classes."
But the health secretary's remarks were welcomed by smokers' lobby Forest which said smoking gave a lot of pleasure to a lot of people.
On Friday Mr Blair told BBC Breakfast: "You have got to have some balanced decision making in this, and it's a difficult balance."
The government has already announced it is assessing the public's feelings about a ban as part of a major consultation on health that will form part of the Public Health White Paper, to be published later this year.
But the prime minister hinted the decision might ultimately be left to local authorities.
"In the end, though, you have also got to have some local decision-making in
this," he said.
Smoking is the biggest cause of preventable death in the UK, responsible for 120,000 premature deaths a year. | Famous Person - Give a speech | June 2004 | ['(BBC)', '(Daily Telegraph)'] |
Seven Pakistani soldiers are beheaded and four others remain missing after being seized by Taliban militants close to the Afghan border. | Seven Pakistani soldiers have been beheaded after being seized by Taliban militants close to the Afghan border on Sunday, security officials say. Four other soldiers remain missing after the reported cross-border attack involving 100 heavily armed militants.
The soldiers were on patrol in the north-western district of Upper Dir. Separately, the Taliban in Pakistan's South Waziristan tribal area have banned a polio vaccination campaign until US drone attacks stop.
Correspondents say the Upper Dir skirmish has provoked new tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Islamabad has often complained that militants use parts of Afghanistan as a sanctuary from which to stage attacks inside Pakistan. That claim helps Pakistan fend off frequent US and Nato complaints that militants based in Pakistan are responsible for much of the violence in Afghanistan.
Pakistan's newly-elected Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf said he would complain directly to Afghan President Hamid Karzai about the incident. Afghanistan has denied that militants based on its side of the border were responsible. The Pakistani Taliban is reported to have said its fighters carried out the raid. However they did not say from which country the attackers originated.
The border region between the two countries is a hotbed of militancy, with much of it not controlled by the Pakistani government.
Meanwhile militants in the South Waziristan region have implemented the same polio vaccinations ban as that enforced in neighbouring North Waziristan last week, linking its continuation to an end to US drone attacks in the region. The BBC's M Ilyas Khan in Islamabad says that militant groups have for several years resisted polio vaccination campaigns in Pakistan - one of only four countries where the disease still exists. A pamphlet released by the Taliban said that the "infidel world" is using the vaccination campaign "to uproot Muslims" and run spy networks. | Armed Conflict | June 2012 | ['(BBC)'] |
Laurent Lamothe resigns as Prime Minister of Haiti along with several ministers following violent protests and a commission's call for him to step down. The protesters have been demanding the holding of early elections. | PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe announced early Sunday that he was resigning along with several ministers in the wake of violent anti-government protests and a commission's call for him to step down.
In a speech that was delayed past midnight, Lamothe said he was leaving "with a sense of accomplishment," adding: "This country has undergone a deep and dynamic transformation and a real change in benefit of its people."
President Michel Martelly said earlier he accepted the findings of the commission that had recommended Lamothe's replacement.
Martelly appointed Lamothe as prime minister in 2012, and some political analysts believe Lamothe might seek the presidency in upcoming elections.
Lamothe's resignation complicates the current political situation because nominations for a new prime minister require approval from Parliament and it is unclear whether someone would be nominated before Parliament is dissolves in January, said Michael Deibert, author of "Notes from the Last Testament: The Struggle for Haiti."
He noted that Lamothe was Martelly's third nomination for prime minister during a drawn-out selection process.
"Without a functioning Parliament and without a prime minister, I'm afraid it could be a tumultuous time in January," Deibert said in a telephone interview from Cap-Haitien.
He warned that political instability would undermine confidence in the government and the confidence that the international community has in Haiti in terms of investment. "That's not an image that Haiti wants to project to the world," Deibert said.
Haiti's capital has endured a growing number of violent demonstrations in recent weeks during which protesters have demanded the holding of elections that were expected in 2011 and the resignations of Lamothe as well as Martelly.
On Saturday, one man was found dead in a protest in Port-Au-Prince during clashes with police who fired tear gas. It was not immediately clear how the man died, but he was shot at least once in the wrist. Demonstrations also spread to other towns, including Gonaives and Cap-Haitien.
The unrest followed a demonstration Friday in which U.N. peacekeeping troops opened fire on a crowd that marched through Port-au-Prince, set tires on fire and skirmished with troops and police.
Martelly's administration blamed the delay in holding elections on six opposition senators who contend legislation that would authorize the vote unfairly favors the government.
The commission set up to break the impasse recommended that Lamothe resign, along with the head of the Supreme Court and current members of Haiti's Provisional Electoral Council. It also called for the release of several "political prisoners."
Martelly said he would meet Monday with government officials to discuss the commission's report.
Administration officials have insisted the government wants to hold the elections. The terms of 10 senators expire in mid-January and Parliament will be dissolved, meaning Martelly would rule by decree.
| Government Job change - Resignation_Dismissal | December 2014 | ['(TownHall)'] |
A 250lb car bomb explodes outside a courthouse in Newry, Northern Ireland, the first such bomb to explode in the area since 2000. | Ch Supt Alisdair Robinson said it was a miracle no one was killed or injured
Police were left with just minutes to clear the area around Newry courthouse before a car bomb weighing up to 250lbs exploded on Monday night.
No-one was killed or injured in the blast which was heard two miles away. But police said that was a "sheer miracle". Dissident republicans are being blamed for the attack in which a number of buildings were damaged. Newry centre could be closed for two days as a security operation continues. "We could have been looking today at multiple deaths," Police Chief Superintendent Alisdair Robinson said. People were still being moved to safety at the time of the explosion. "It was very significant," he said. "It was certainly big enough to have caused multiple casualties to anyone passing." He said the blast happened just 17 minutes after a telephone warning which said that it would go off in half an hour. Buildings in New Street including Downshire Road Presbyterian Church
were damaged in the explosion. The gates of the courthouse and a security hut were destroyed in the attack which is thought to be the work of dissident republicans opposed to the peace process. Most of the roads near the courthouse have reopened to traffic, although New Street remains cordoned off. Diversions have been put in place. Windsor Hill Primary School in Newry will remain closed to pupils on Wednesday. The dissidents are making it clear they want to wreck any political progress.
Politicians at Stormont will be disappointed and disgusted at the bomb attack - but they won't be surprised.
Gradually in recent weeks, the dissidents have been stepping up their activities. Since they tried to kill a Catholic police officer, Peader Heffron, in Co Antrim last month, they've targeted three police stations in Co Armagh and now they've exploded a bomb in Co Down.
By striking in three different counties, they are trying to increase the range and intensity of their violence.
But they still have very little support and a limited amount of weaponry. Without that, they cannot mount a full-scale campaign.
Chief Constable Matt Baggott rejected suggestions that the police and the government had become complacent about the threat posed by dissident republicans. "We have put many more police officers back on the streets, we are continuing to invest in the right capabilities and technology to tackle the dissident threat, and we are fully behind the devolution of power to Stormont, because again that's about the political consensus that we need," he said. Chief Superintendent Robinson said: "We didn't get any calls warning of the bomb until 10.20pm which was from a third party. "That stated that we had around 30 minutes to clear the area. The explosion went off at 10.37pm which was 17 minutes later. "At the time we were still clearing the area. But for the fact there was divine intervention, there could have been multiple casualties." Clinton
Later, the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, condemned the car bomb and insisted it would "not destabilise the peace process". "I strongly condemn the bombing last night, it was another cowardly act of violence by those who would prefer to plant bombs than to argue for votes and participate in the political process," she said. "The parties in Northern Ireland have similarly condemned that action in the strongest terms and I urge that everyone continue to work towards seeing the devolution of authority and a better future for Northern Ireland." The attack comes days after a mortar bomb was abandoned near a police station in the village of Keady, about 20 miles away. It is thought to be the first time a large car bomb has exploded in Northern Ireland since the bombing of Stewartstown police station in 2000. In the last few years a number of large car bombs been have planted but have either failed to detonate or only partially detonated. There have also been several attacks with smaller under-car bombs such as the one which almost killed a police officer in County Antrim in January. BBC NI Home Affairs correspondent Vincent Kearney said police had been bracing themselves for some kind of response to the Hillsborough Agreement, signed just over two weeks ago. "The fact that it has taken them so long to respond tells us something about their capabilities," he said. Prime Minster Gordon Brown's official spokesman condemned the attack. "Such acts are entirely unrepresentative of the views of the vast majority of people in Northern Ireland ... we will not allow a tiny minority to turn the clock back," he said. Sinn Fein MP for Newry and Armagh Conor Murphy said: "The fact that we're in the process of devolving policing and justice powers and there's an attack on a courthouse will not be lost on people. Chief Constable Matt Baggott said that there was 'absolutely no excuse' for the bomb attack
"These people are trying to drag us backwards and ensure we have the British army back on the streets." DUP MLA William Irwin said the bomb was "a cowardly action by those who want to drag Northern Ireland back to the past". SDLP MLA Dominic Bradley said: "People are saying that they got enough of this sort of thing during the Provo campaign, it was wrong and senseless then and it is wrong now." Ulster Unionist assembly member Danny Kennedy said the bomb was "proof of a deteriorating security situation in Northern Ireland". "It represents a clear attack on security services and government institutions. It shows a very worrying level of capability that these dissidents now have." The attack was also condemned in the Northern Ireland Assembly | Armed Conflict | February 2010 | ['(BBC)'] |
Florida Governor Rick Scott declares a state of emergency as Erika is forecast to hit the Gulf Coast of Florida on Monday. The storm is over Hispaniola with maximum sustained winds of 50 mph, but is expected to weaken this weekend. Of particular concern is Tampa Bay, which has had historic rainfall in late July and early August. , | Meteorologists may have remained divided Friday evening on the fate of Tropical Storm Erika, but bay area leaders prepared for the worst following a month of historic flooding.
At 11 p.m., National Hurricane Center officials in Miami reported that Erika was moving west northwest at 20 mph and dumping heavy rains across the island of Hispaniola. Erika was forecast to degenerate into a tropical depression that would bring heavy downpours.
Still, "any additional rain will have a big impact on us," said Preston Cook, director of Hillsborough County's Emergency Operations Center. "It's a brutal situation." Pinellas County officials said they were also in monitoring mode after tracking the storm's movements Friday.
Whatever Erika becomes, "we're preparing for a tropical storm," said Mary Burrell, public information manager for Pinellas County. Emergency management officials offered the same advice Friday afternoon: Even in a weakened condition, do not dismiss Erika. Buy supplies. Make a plan. Communicate with family members. The anticipated track for Erika shifted west Friday morning after the storm swept through Puerto Rico and Dominica, where hundreds of homes, bridges and roads were destroyed and least 20 people died.
Dominica's Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit said in a televised address late Friday that "we have, in essence, to rebuild Dominica."
In Puerto Rico, Erika caused more than $16 million in damage to crops, including plantains, bananas and coffee. Meteorologist Dennis Feltgen, with the National Hurricane Center, characterized Erika as "weak and unorganized." He said Hispaniola's mountainous terrain could flatten Erika and lessen its potency. "If (Erika) doesn't get past Hispaniola," Feltgen said, "it's a moot point." Others seemed less convinced. "The problem is, the core of it hasn't been moving over Hispaniola," said WTSP 10 Weather chief meteorologist Jim Van Fleet. "I think it's highly volatile whether it's going to become a depression."
The latest track shows a greater likelihood that Erika will hit near Naples along the Gulf of Mexico on Monday morning. Earlier Friday, the track showed Erika heading for Miami before making a straight sweep through the spine of Florida and brushing Tampa Bay. While wind shear should weaken the storm system, Van Fleet said the biggest question is whether Erika continues to travel northwest into the Gulf of Mexico, where slightly warmer waters could serve as "high-octane fuel," potentially restoring its power.
"There are several things that are promising," Van Fleet said of the weather reports. "And there are several things that spell bad news." Although predictions are hazy, the general consensus revolves around rain. What does that spell for an already-soaked bay area?
Even if Erika hits Florida as a weak tropical storm, it will still deluge much of the state, said Jeff Masters, co-founder of Weather Underground. Between 3 and 6 inches of rain could fall in many areas, he said, and Tampa Bay would be especially vulnerable because of the sodden ground. Some local waterways are still at or near flood stage.
"You should look for some of the worst flooding you've seen there over the past five years," Masters said.
In line with the cautionary messages, Gov. Rick Scott declared a state of emergency Friday in face of the storm. At a news conference, Scott said no area of Florida is more saturated than Tampa Bay after the massive stretch of rain.
"If we get a lot of rain here, that's probably one of our biggest concerns," said Scott, who also visited Tampa to ensure residents were prepared. "You need three days of water, three days of food," he said. Times staff writers Katie Mettler, Michael Majchrowicz, and Steve Contorno contributed to this report. Information from the Associated Press was used in this report. | Hurricanes_Tornado_Storm_Blizzard | August 2015 | ['(The Tampa Bay Times)', '(The Miami Herald)'] |
Following their 3–1 win against Swansea City in the fifth round of the FA Cup, Manchester City sets a record for the most consecutive wins in all competitions by a top-flight English football club, with 15 consecutive wins. | ON A ROLL. Raheem Sterling and Manchester City mark a historic win. Photo by Rebecca Naden/Reuters SWANSEA, WALES
Manchester City sets a new record for successive wins in all competitions by an English top-flight club
Advertisement
Manchester City secured a record 15th straight victory in all competitions with a 3-1 win at Championship side Swansea City in the FA Cup fifth round on Wednesday, February 10.
The victory run is a record for a top-flight team, surpassing the 14 successive wins achieved by Preston in 1892 and Arsenal in 1987.
City, who made 7 changes from the team who won 4-1 at champions Liverpool on Sunday, took the lead in the 30th minute with a low cross-shot from Kyle Walker which sneaked in at the far post.
Pep Guardiola's side doubled the advantage two minutes after halftime when Raheem Sterling was left free on the left and converted confidently.
Brazilian Gabriel Jesus made it 3 with wonderful control and a shot on the turn after collecting a header across the area from Bernardo Silva.
Morgan Whittaker pulled a goal back for the Welsh side in the 77th minute but the only real downside for City was an injury to midfielder Rodri.
The last game City failed to win was against West Bromwich Albion at the Etihad Stadium on December 15 and Wednesday's victory was Guardiola's 200th in 268 games in charge of the club.
"We came to win that was the most important thing. We cannot deny how pleased and how proud we are to break this record from a long time ago. Records are there to be broken. It is not easy in the modern era to do 15 games in a row. We are happy for our club," the Spaniard said. – Rappler.com | Sports Competition | February 2021 | ['(Rappler)'] |
La La Land becomes the single most winning film in Golden Globes history, winning all seven awards out of its seven nominations and becomes the seventh film to achieve all the awards it was nominated for, the others being Doctor Zhivago , Love Story , The Godfather , One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest , A Star is Born and Midnight Express . | “La La Land” swept the 74th Golden Globe Awards. Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone’s musical movie led the field of nominees with seven nominations.
In addition to the acting awards for Gosling and Stone, “La La Land” was up for comedy picture, director, screenplay, score and song. By winning the Golden Globe for comedy picture, “La La Land” notched its seventh win, surpassing the record of six awards held by “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” (1975) and “Midnight Express” (1978).
Damien Chazelle won for directing and screenplay, and Justin Hurwitz won for original score. The award for song went to Benj Pasek and Justin Paul for “City of Stars.”
| Awards ceremony | January 2017 | ['(1966)', '(1971)', '(1973)', '(1976)', '(1977)', '(1979)', '(Golden Globes)', '(Los Angeles Times)'] |
Prominent Hillsborough disaster justice campaigner Anne Williams dies from cancer, having made her last public appearance at Anfield's recent 24th anniversary memorial. | Tributes were paid today to one the leading lights in the family campaign to bring truth and justice for the victims and survivors of the Hillsborough disaster.
Anne Williams, who has died aged 60, had been suffering from cancer. Her tireless efforts to prove that her son Kevin was still alive after the 3.15pm cut off imposed by the coroner at the controversial inquest into the deaths were completely vindicated by the findings of the Hillsborough Independent Panel last year.
Kevin, 15, was among the 96 who died as a result of the crush at the FA Cup semi-final in 1989. The original accidental death verdicts have since been quashed and new inquests are due to be held. Her last appearance was at the 24th anniversary memorial at Anfield this week where she had not been expected to attend due to her declining health.
Liverpool FC posted a statement on Twitter today saying: "Liverpool Football Club was this morning saddened to hear of the death of prominent Hillsborough campaigner Anne Williams. RIP Anne."
On Monday, Sheila Coleman, of the Hillsborough Justice Campaign, said of Mrs Williams: "We applaud Anne's tenacity to draw on whatever reserves she has left to be here today - she is quite simply an inspiration."
Other friends and well-wishers took to Twitter to pay tribute to the campaigner. Paul Mac wrote: "Deepest sympathy to Anne's family a truly truly lovely woman and your with Kevin now Anne. We will never forget you x."
Steve Monahan added: "R.I.P Anne Williams. What a true fighter and a wonderful woman. What she has had to endure for the last 24 years is a disgrace and it should never have been this long. But in the face of adversity she remained dignified and never gave up hope. If I'm half the parent she was when I have children I'll be doing well.”
Mrs Williams was diagnosed with terminal cancer last year just a month after the findings of the Panel which concluded that up to 41 of the victims might not have died if they had received adequate emergency care. It also disclosed evidence of a cover up in the wake of the tragedy which is now part of the largest investigation ever held by the Independent Police Complaints Commission.
Speaking after attending a hearing at London's Royal Courts of Justice in December when the original inquest verdicts were quashed, she said: "I am glad we never gave up. It has been hard, but we wouldn't have been here today. I'd like a corporate manslaughter verdict in the inquest, it's the least for what they have done.
"God willing, I will be here, it has been a long wait to see justice. I am so glad I could be here today to hear it for myself."
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today. | Famous Person - Death | April 2013 | ['(The Independent)'] |
Dennis Rader, also known as the BTK Killer, is sentenced 10 consecutive life sentences for 10 murders between 1974 and 1991. | WICHITA, Kansas (Reuters) - Confessed Kansas serial killer Dennis Rader was sentenced on Thursday to 10 life sentences for a 17-year murder spree that Rader, a former church leader and dog catcher, said was driven by demons and sexual fantasies.
Sedgwick County District Court Judge Gregory Waller said the 60-year-old Rader will not be eligible for parole for at least 40 years because at least one murder qualified as "especially heinous."
Rader was arrested in February and pleaded guilty in June to stalking, torturing and killing 7 women, two children and one man. He is not eligible for the death penalty because Kansas did not reinstate the death penalty until after his crimes, which ran from 1974 to 1991.
In a rambling, disjointed statement offered just prior to the sentencing, Rader called himself a Christian, quoted a Bible verse and talked about demons he referred to as "factor x" that drove him to torture and kill.
"I hope some day God will accept me. The dark side was there, but now I think light is beginning to shine," he told the judge.
Earlier, law enforcement agents testified at the second day of his sentencing hearing that Rader had a lifetime obsession with sexual bondage and torture and kept souvenirs of his 10 victims to remember the thrill the crimes gave him.
Police officials testified that the man who called himself BTK for "bind, torture and kill," collected underwear from women he killed and wrote stories and poems about the killings.
He also kept drawings of his many sexual fantasies and note cards with pictures of fantasy women that he could carry with him as he went about an outwardly normal life as a dog catcher, church congregation president and Boy Scout leader.
The fantasies began when Rader was young, and would dress up in women's clothes, take pictures of himself and torture and hang animals, according to testimony.
After a day and a half of testimony about Rader's crimes and the evidence found linking him to the murders, the prosecution rested shortly before noon on Thursday.
In one case, he strangled a 53-year-old neighbor and then took her body to a church, where he posed her in various bondage positions on the altar as he snapped photos, according to testimony at the hearing in Sedgwick County District Court in Wichita.
His first victims were the parents and two children of the Otero family, whom he killed in their Wichita-area home in 1974. After strangling and suffocating the parents and 9-year-old son, Rader hanged 11-year-old Josephine in the basement, masturbating as she struggled and finally died.
At the time of his arrest, Rader was married and the lay president of the congregation at Wichita's Christ Lutheran Church where he was a regular Sunday worshiper. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Sentence | August 2005 | ['(Reuters)', '(CNN)'] |
Hosts Canada defeat the United States 3-2 in overtime to win the men's hockey tournament. | Canada’s fantasy has been brought to vivid life here in Vancouver. In what will be enshrined as a nation’s finest sporting hour, their ice hockey men skated thrillingly to a 14th gold medal in the climactic final event of these Winter Games to break an all-time Olympic record.
No country had ever previously won more than 13 golds in a single Games but when their golden boy Sidney Crosby smashed home the puck to earn an historic 3-2 overtime win over the USA, it prompted a final unreal crescendo of national fervour, the like of which has rarely been experienced at an Olympics. Yes, time to drink Canada dry.
In truth, the record was secondary; a nation which defines itself through one sport would have given up all the other baubles for this one. But, goodness, how a nation was put through the wringer before being able to cherish its wondrous Olympic climax. This was a thunderous, heart-stopping game, one for the ages. Canada had been leading 2-1 against the unbeaten Americans who had defeated them just a week earlier but with just 24.4 seconds left, the visitors, having pulled off their goaltender to launch one last desperate assault with an extra outfielder, managed to scrape an equaliser through Zach Parise. Twenty five seconds. Agony. The banners read “Destiny on Ice” but it felt as if Canada’s destiny was just going to be too cruel. That is, until ‘Sid the Kid’ stepped up. Crosby is to Canadian hockey what an amalgam of Beckham and Rooney would be for English football; the biggest star in Canadian sport, yet one who had been largely anonymous during the latter stages of the tournament. Yet what a time to discover a date with destiny. As Canada swept forward seven minutes and 40 seconds into overtime, the man wearing the same 87 shirt as most of the 19,000 crowd, took a second to control the puck and another to whip it past the splendid US goaltender Ryan Miller. Cue utter hysteria. This replaces Paul Henderson’s winning goal in the 1972 ‘Summit Series’ against the Soviets as the single grandest moment in Canadian sport, its Geoff Hurst moment. Carried on a wave of patriotism at Canada Hockey Place and the exhortation of one national newspaper “One Game Our Game”, this had all the authentic feel of the perfect climax to one of sport’s truly great occasions. The biggest ever TV audience was expected to tune in to the high noon duel; tickets were changing hands for up to $10,000 and they were queuing at bars to watch the game from 8am. What a finish for Canada. Indeed, it felt hard to disagree with PM Stephen Harper’s vision of a country “coming of age” with its astonishing embrace of - and eventual golden success at - these Games. Not just that but you could also sense a ‘told you so’ defiance, aimed at those who have criticised their multi-million dollar ‘Own the Podium’ programme as being aggressively un-Canadian. Well, it was equally un-Canadian to beat the record 13 golds won by the Soviet machine in 1976 and Norway in 2002. “The country feels confident and with the performance of the athletes, people really feel the country has come of age,” said Harper. “In terms of achievement, the record for Olympic golds, this is a moment for the country we have never seen before.” Ironically, the aim of ‘Own the Podium’ had been to put Canada on top of the table in terms of overall medals won, a target it failed to achieve as USA won a record 37 and Germany 30 to Canada’s 26. Yet the rest of the world outside North America has always recognised that the champion nation is that which wins most golds, and in this category there was no contest, Canada’s 14 eclipsing Germany’s 10 and America’s nine. As, amid the fireworks, the crowd offered a post-match rendition of ‘O Canada’ so stirring it could have been heard all the way through this vast old country, we could only be reminded of the observation of Jacques Rogge, the International Olympic Committee President: “I have never seen a city embrace the Games in this way." Vancouverites have surely now set the standard for Londoners for 2012. Now, if only someone will deliver our Sidney Crosby moment… | Sports Competition | February 2010 | ['(The Daily Telegraph)'] |
The foreign ministers of Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand meet in Kuala Lumpur to discuss people smuggling and the migrant crisis. Malaysia and Indonesia agree to accept asylum seekers providing that they can be resettled or repatriated within a year. , |
PUTRAJAYA - Foreign ministers from Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand held talks in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday on human trafficking.
The focus of the meeting was on "the issue of irregular movement of people, in particular human trafficking,'' Bernama news agency reported.
The talks involved Malaysia's Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Anifah Aman and his Thailand counterpart General Tanasak Patimapragorn, who is also Thai Deputy Prime Minister, and Indonesia's Retno Marsudi.
Wednesday's meeting came amid a human trafficking crisis in South-east Asia. Nearly 3,000 Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar and Bangladeshi migrants have made it ashore in Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia in recent days after being abandoned by smugglers in open waters.
In a statement, Malaysia said it remains committed to working closely with affected countries and members of the international community in resolving the issue in the region, Bernama reported.
"Malaysia will continue to seek a solution on the issue through, inter alia, concerted and coordinated efforts among the countries of origin, transit and destination," it said.
It was reported that 1,158 Bangladeshi migrants and Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar, including women and children, landed illegally by boat in Langkawi, Kedah on May 10. The number is reportedly the largest to date. | Diplomatic Talks _ Diplomatic_Negotiation_ Summit Meeting | May 2015 | ['(Straits Times)', '(wires and ABC Online)'] |
A police officer storms the police headquarters in the city of Ponce, Puerto Rico, and shoots dead three fellow officers, including a commanding officer. Authorities say Guarionex Candelario, 50, was arrested for the killings shortly afterwards and taken to hospital for minor injuries. | Three police officers, including a commanding officer, were shot and killed by a fellow cop Monday inside the police headquarters of the city of Ponce, Puerto Rico, according to reports.
"There are no words to describe this tragedy where three colleagues have lost their lives," Puerto Rico Police Deputy Superintendent Col. Juan Rodriguez Davila wrote on twitter.
"No hay palabras para describir esta tragedia donde 3 compañeros han perdido la vida. Nuestras condolencias para las familias", Súper Asoc.
Guarionex Candelario, 50, was arrested for the killing of his supervisor Lt. Luz M. Soto Segarra, 49, Cmdr. Frank Román, 49, and policewoman Rosario Hernández de Hoyos, 42, authorities told the Daily News.
Candelario had been previously stripped of his weapon but had it returned following a psychological evaluation almost two years ago, police said.
Candelario allegedly held his coworkers hostage in an office following an argument, auhtorities said.
Police were about to start negotiations with him when he started shooting, killing the three hostages.
Candelario was injured when police stormed the room and was taken to the hospital with non life-threatening injuries, according to police.
An explosives division of the Ponce police department found a "suspicious" package in Candelario's car and evacuated police headquarters, according to authorities.
"Officers and civilians are crying and giving each other comfort," reporter Michelle Estrada tweeted from outside the Ponce police headquarters. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Arrest | December 2015 | ['(NY Daily News)'] |
NATO members meet in Lisbon, Portugal, to discuss progress in the War in Afghanistan and relations with Russia. | A Nato summit has opened in Portugal with leaders meeting to discuss new threats such as cyber-warfare and how to protect its 28 member states from ballistic missile attack.
On Saturday, they will debate the war in Afghanistan, with plans to bring combat operations to an end by 2014. US President Barack Obama has said the summit will revitalise the alliance for the 21st Century.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is attending - a sign of warming ties.
Mr Obama said Nato was moving to a new phase in Afghanistan: "a transition to Afghan responsibility that begins in 2011 with Afghan forces taking the lead for security across Afghanistan by 2014."
Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who is scheduled to address the summit on Saturday, has said he wants Nato to hand back control of the country's security by the end of 2014 - a deadline the US has described as realistic but not set in stone.
Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said the deadline had existed for some time as "an aspirational goal" but that this did not mean all coalition forces would have to leave by that date.
Meanwhile, the US has announced it is to send tanks to Afghanistan for the first time.
Defence officials say 14 M1A1 Abrams tanks will be deployed in the southern Afghan province of Helmand next month, along with 115 extra Marines. Canadian and Danish troops have already used tanks in Afghanistan. The Lisbon talks are expected to shape the future of Nato at a time of shrinking budget cuts and expanding challenges, says BBC defence correspondent Caroline Wyatt.
Key to the future credibility of the alliance will be ensuring a workable transition in Afghanistan, our correspondent adds.
Nato Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told the BBC on Friday that a security handover to Afghan forces was realistic by the end of 2014.
"We will make a very important announcement at the summit in Lisbon that a gradual transition to leave Afghan responsibility is about to start at the beginning of 2011 and we hope to see this gradual process completed by the end of 2014, and I find that roadmap realistic," he told Radio 4's Today programme.
Asked about US plans to start bringing troops home next year, he said: "I'm not aware of concrete plans for withdrawal of troops.
"On the contrary, I think all allies are prepared to stay committed as long as it takes to finish our job."
There are some 130,000 international troops
attached to the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) in Afghanistan.
The BBC's Paul Wood in Kabul says the last thing Nato wants is for its military campaign to end with parts of Afghanistan in the hands of warlords and an opium mafia. Nato generals do not use the term "victory" any more. But our correspondent says if the violence is at a level that can be managed by Afghan forces, Nato will consider it has done its job - and the troops will start coming home.
Meanwhile, Dmitry Medvedev will become the first Russian president to attend a Nato summit since his country's conflict with Georgia in 2008, when he meets leaders on Saturday.
The alliance is keen to build bridges with Moscow, and a key issue at the summit will be agreeing plans for a joint study of missile defence.
The efforts have been aided by US President Barack Obama's insistence that the US will ratify a new nuclear arms treaty with Russia.
He said there was "no higher national security priority" for the government before the start of the new Congress in January.
Moscow is promising logistical help for Nato in Afghanistan by easing restrictions on transit routes into the country.
The summit will also debate proposals on changing Nato's command structure, in an attempt to reduce bureaucracy and expenditure.
The changes could see the number of Nato agencies which look after areas such as logistics, communications, research and training cut from 14 to three.
Can Afghan forces step up?
What does Nato hope to achieve?
Profile: Nato
Map: Troops in Afghanistan
Is Nato losing the Afghan war?
Afghanistan Government
Nato
International Security Assistance Force
| Diplomatic Talks _ Diplomatic_Negotiation_ Summit Meeting | November 2010 | ['(BBC)'] |
President Obama is accused of breaking the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013 by not notifying the US Congress about the release of prisoners from Guantanamo Bay detention camp in the deal to release Bowe Bergdahl. | By David Martosko, U.S. Political Editor Published: 19:03 BST, 2 June 2014 | Updated: 23:00 BST, 4 June 2014 1.1k
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Barack Obama broke a federal law that he signed just six months ago when he authorized the release of five high-ranking Taliban terror targets from the Guantanamo Bay detention center in exchange for the return of U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, senior congressional Republicans claimed today.
And the president may also have written a new chapter in the case for his own impeachment, according to a former federal prosecutor who helped bring the 1993 World Trade Center bombers to justice.
'The return of senior terrorists to the Taliban [is] ... a "high crime and misdemeanor",' author Andrew C. McCarthy told MailOnline.
His book 'Faithless Execution: Building the case for Obama's impeachment,' is set to be published Tuesday.
On Saturday Obama called Bergdahl's parents Jani and Bob shortly after he was secured to give them the good news. Together they officially announced the release of Bowe in the White House Rose Garden
Something fishy: Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel (C) made press statements aboard a military aircraft but failed to notify Congress that five Guantanamo Bay detainees would be walking free. Now soldiers have come forward demanding to know why they were attempted to be hushed
Obama 'clearly violated laws which require him to notify Congress thirty days before any transfer of terrorists from Guantanamo Bay, and to explain how the threat posed by such terrorists has been substantially mitigated,' House Armed Services Committee chairman Rep. Buck McKeon of California and Senate Armed Services Committee ranking member Sen. JIm Inhofe of Oklahoma said Saturday.
'Our joy at Sergeant Berghdal’s release is tempered by the fact that President Obama chose to ignore the law, not to mention sound policy, to achieve it.'
What makes the news more controversial still is that many do not see Bergdahl as a hero. Instead he has been branded a 'deserter' by many of his former comrades.
An official Pentagon report in 2010 concluded that he 'walked away' from his post, so the U.S. Army did not exert any extraordinary efforts to find him after an initial flurry of searches, according to an insider who spoke to the Associated Press.
And at least six soldiers lost their lives in circumstances related to the Idaho native's disappearance from his post on June 30, 2009. Parents of one dead military men were told that their son perished in a mission aimed at taking down a Taliban target, not capturing a deserter.
With the circumstances of Bergdahl's disappearance no longer in any substantial doubt, the remaining outrage has focused on the Obama administration's decision to trade five high-value Taliban terror detainees for him several years after the Pentagon decided he wasn't worth recovering.
Yet it appears the administration believed it would win a PR victory big enough to eclipse any legalistic hand-wringing on Capitol Hill, and whatever objections might surface among the military rank-and-file.
A White House official told MailOnline on Monday morning that Obama's deputies were caught flatfooted by the intensity of public outrage in some quarters after Bergdahl's rescue by Special Forces.
'Everyone thought this would be a January 1981 moment,' the insider said, referring to the negotiated release of 52 U.S. hostages in Iran after 444 days in captivity.
Obama also brushed aside questions today about the circumstances surrounding Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl's capture by insurgents in 2009, saying the U.S. has an obligation to not leave its military personnel behind
Cover-up? Bergdahl, the last American hostage from the Iraq or Afghanistan wars, was released this weekend in a prisoner exchange that saw five Guantanamo terrorism suspects freed. Meanwhile, some of the soldiers who served with Bergdahl say they were made to sign a highly unusual non disclosure agreement covering his disappearance The United States won their freedom by releasing about $8 billion in Iranian assets that were frozen during the hostage standoff, and immunizing the Iranian government from any lawsuits that might be filed after the crisis was over.
'Reagan negotiated with terrorists in the weeks before he took office,' the official said. 'I don't remember anyone objecting at the time. They just wanted our people home.'
What the White House didn't count on was a cadre of Bergdahl's former platoon-mates coming forward and describing him as a dishonorable soldier beyond redemption.
The law Obama is accused of breaking, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2013, requires Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to 'notify the appropriate committees of Congress ... not later than 30 days before the transfer or release' of detainees from Guantanamo.
Hagel is required to explain why prisoners are being let go, why it's 'in the national security interests of the United States,' and what the administration has done 'to mitigate the risks' that the terror targets will 're-engage' in war against the U.S.
Obama signed the lengthy law in December it sets budgets and policy for the entire Defense Department but issued a statement saying that he thought the notification requirement was unfair.
'[I]n certain circumstances,,' he wrote, it 'would violate constitutional separation of powers principles. The executive branch must have the flexibility, among other things, to act swiftly in conducting negotiations with foreign countries regarding the circumstances of detainee transfers.'
Congress had moved significantly in the president's direction, compared with the previous year's NDAA. That law expressly forbade the administration from spending any money to release enemy combatants to foreign countries from Guantanamo.
Now Obama can make his move, provided he keeps Congress in the loop which by all accounts he failed to do.
Administration officials were quick to assert that an emergency related to Bergdahl's health made convening a war council impracticable. 'We had reason to be concerned that this was an urgent and acute situation,' National Security Adviser Susan Rice said Sunday on ABC.
'Had we waited and lost him, I don’t think anybody would have forgiven the United States government.'
But Monday morning on CNN, outgoing White House Press Secretary Jay Carney couldn't back up that assertion.
Prisoner swap: Abdul Waq-Hasiq, left, and Norullah Noori, right, are to be freed from Guantanamo Bay
Former combatants: The prisoners, including Khirullah Khairkhwa, left, and Mohammed Nabi, right, will remain in Qatar for at least next year as part of the terms of their release
'Now that you have him,' host Chris Cuomo asked, 'have they been able to diagnose anything that substantiated the concerns?'
'Well, you know, I think at this point, Chris,' Carney said, 'we need to allow for Sergeant Bergdahl to recover privately. Out of respect for him and his family. we're not going to get into details of that process. We're just thrilled that he is back.'
RELEASED: Mohammad Fazi is believed to have been at the command of a mass killing, and the United Nations has sought his prosecution for war crimes
It's not flouting the defense law that upsets McCarthy, the prosecutor-turned-author.
He thinks the NDAA itself is unconstitutional since it forbade Obama from moving chess pieces around the battlefield instead of continuing to prohibit him from spending money to do it, which is Congress' job.
But putting senior Taliban leaders back in a position to harm U.S. national interests, McCarthy argues, could be Obama's undoing.
'I don't think it's an impeachable offense for violating the NDAA,' he told MailOnline. 'Congress unconstitutionally restricted the president's war power over the disposition of enemy combatants.'
'They could have properly done it by using the power of the purse to deny funds for the transfers, but that's not what they did [this time].'
But transferring the five high-value prisoners to Qatar, as Obama has authorized, 'violates the law against material support to terrorism,' McCarthy said.
'And because high crimes and misdemeanors are not statutory offenses but political wrongs that endanger the United States, the return of senior terrorists to the Taliban while we still have soldiers in harm’s way is, in my view, a "high crime and misdemeanor".'
Article Two of the United States Constitution provides Congress with a way to remove officials, including the president, from the executive branch.
'The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors,' it reads in part.
A 'high' crime is one that only a person in a position of power or authority can commit.
American history has seen only three serious attempts at impeachment: Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. Nixon resigned before he could be removed from the White House over the Watergate affair. The U.S. Senate failed to gather the two-thirds majority required to convict (and depose) either Clinton or Johnson.
McCarthy said he's spoiled for choice with Obama's impeachable offenses, and the Bergdahl affair doesn't crack the top tier.
'If it was a standalone, I would never impeach based solely on it, but I would add it to a larger indictment,' he told MailOnline.
That indictment, laid out in his book, includes references to Obamacare's 'multiple unilaterally decreed amendments,' security failures in Benghazi, 'a Department of Justice that has covered up the Fast & Furious scandal' and the 'selective targeting' of conservative groups by the IRS.
Andrew McCarthy (L) is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney who led the 1995 terrorism prosecution against Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and eleven others. His book 'Faithless Execution' makes the case that President Obama has repeatedly ignored the rule of law, and that Americans should make their peace with the idea of firing him
Bizarre: Bowe Bergdahl was 'made to dance,' his former ballet teacher told MailOnline of the wayward soldier
But he's under no illusion that the release of five Taliban in exchange for a U.S. soldier who may have deserted his post and plotted to join with the enemy will suddenly bring out the peasants and their pitchforks.
And the lessons of Republicans' failed effort to remove President Bill Clinton from power, he says, must not be forgotten.
'The error to avoid is not the endeavor to remove a rogue president,' he told MailOnline. 'It is the endeavor to remove a rogue president without first having convinced the public that his removal is warranted that the punishment fits the crime.'
He wrote Monday in the New York Post that 'at this point, impeachment seems farfetched. ... You can prove a thousand impeachable offenses, but absent the public will to remove the president from power, impeachment is a non-starter.'
'The political case for ousting a president must be built. That is a good deal tougher than building the legal case.'
| Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | June 2014 | ['(Daily Mail)'] |
The United Nations Security Council agrees that Israel and Lebanon must show "utmost restraint" following the clash. | Israel and Lebanon must show "utmost restraint", the UN Security Council says, after a clash between troops on the border left five people dead.
The UN urged both sides to abide by the deal that ended the last cross-border conflict in 2006.
Both sides blamed each other after three Lebanese soldiers, a Lebanese journalist and an Israeli officer died in the fighting.
Tensions are often high along the heavily fortified frontier.
But Tuesday's deaths marked the most serious incident since 2006, when Israel fought a 34-day conflict with the Lebanese Shia militant group, Hezbollah. Although the most recent skirmish involved soldiers from the regular army, Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said his militants would not "stand idle".
The Lebanese army said Israeli soldiers crossed the border to uproot a tree which was blocking their view.
Troops then fired warning shots and Israel responded with fire from artillery positions and helicopters.
Israel denied the crossing the border and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would respond "aggressively" to any attack. UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon say they have seen no evidence that Israeli soldiers had crossed into Lebanon, reports the BBC's Wyre Davies, from the border between the two countries. The Security Council met to discuss the clash, and afterwards Russia's UN envoy Vitaly Churkin said both sides must "strictly abide by their obligations" under the UN resolution that ended the 2006 conflict.
He said they must "observe the cessation of hostilities and prevent any further escalation".
The UN statement followed a similar plea from US state department spokesman PJ Crowley.
"The region has enough tension as it is, the last thing that we want to see is that this incident expand into something more significant," he said | Armed Conflict | August 2010 | ['(BBC)'] |
Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Olmert announces his intention to resign as Prime Minister in two months as his Kadima party chooses a new leader. He will also resign as Chairman of Kadima effective in two months. One reason for resignation is the corruption scandal in which Olmert is embattled. | Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announces his decision to leave office
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has announced he will stand down within months, saying a corruption case involving him is hurting his family.
Vowing to prove his innocence, he said that he would quit as leader of his Kadima party as soon as it elects a new leader on 17 September.
He will remain caretaker prime minister until a new government is formed.
Mr Olmert had been under pressure to resign over a police inquiry into money he received from a businessman.
The corruption inquiry centres around allegations that a US citizen, Morris Talansky, made election donations in cash to Mr Olmert in 2006, which may have subsequently been used to buy luxury items.
Mr Olmert has already denied all wrongdoing.
The prime minister had faced mounting pressure from within his own party to resign and it had become clear that he would have been humiliated had he stood in the September ballot, the BBC's Wyre Davies reports from Jerusalem.
Many analysts say Mr Olmert's weak political position has severely impaired chances for a peace deal with the Palestinians by the end of the year, our correspondent adds.
A spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the announcement was "an internal Israeli matter" and that Palestinian negotiators still hoped to reach a peace settlement before the end of this year.
The US state department said that peace negotiations would continue and that it looked forward to "working with all responsible Israeli leaders in the government".
Syria's UN ambassador said the resignation might affect indirect peace talks with Israel, which are being brokered by Turkey.
"It could do. I hope not," said Bashar Ja'afari told Reuters news agency.
'Public interest'
The scandal is one of six corruption investigations Mr Olmert has faced during his time in office.
Mr Olmert said he felt able to continue carrying out his duties despite the corruption investigation but he asked:
"What is more important, my personal justice or the public interest?"
Noting that the investigation was turning people against him, he said that "people hurting my family bothers me a lot".
He complained of "relentless attacks from self-appointed 'fighters for justice' who sought to depose me from my position, when the ends sanctified all the means".
The Israeli prime minister also seemed to direct veiled criticisms against the justice system, saying "the prime minister is not above the law but he is in no way below it".
"I am proud to be the prime minister of a country that investigates its prime ministers," he remarked.
Possible successors
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, one of Israel's most popular politicians, is tipped to replace Mr Olmert in the party contest.
A former protege of Ariel Sharon, she helped broker Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
She is viewed as one of the few centrists in the government not tainted by corruption, and champions a vision of Israel co-existing with a Palestinian state.
However, critics argue that she lacks the military and political experience to lead the country.
Shaul Mofaz, Avi Dichter and Meir Sheetrit are also seen as contenders for the party leadership. | Government Job change - Resignation_Dismissal | July 2008 | ['(BBC News)'] |
Prime Minister Gordon Brown battles a book published in The Observer which makes claims of bullying, including grabbing a secretary, stabbing with a pen and shouting expletives as members of his own staff contact the National Bullying Helpline to express their "concerns". | He screams, throws tantrums and physically intimidates his staff. That's how excerpts published Sunday from a new book on Britain's Labour Party, describe Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Brown has denied the allegations.
The book couldn't have come at a worse time for Brown as he trails in the polls
Published in the Observer on Sunday, excerpts from 'The End of the Party,' by political journalist Andrew Rawnsley depict Brown as a verbally abusive bully to his staff.
The book could further damage Prime Minister Gordon Brown's chances of election this year. Brown is already trailing in opinion polls and his defeat could end Labour's 13-year stint in power. Rawnsley's book could further dent Brown's sliding popularity
Author Rawnsley claims that Sir Gus O'Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary, "felt compelled to directly confront the Prime Minister and give him a stern 'pep' talk about his conduct towards the staff."
According to Rawnsley, the conduct that led to that pep talk included screaming and swearing at staff, grabbing an aide by the collar of his shirt, pushing aside a secretary who he felt wasn't typing fast enough and taking over the keyboard.
Rawnsley wrote that Brown's staff was "afraid of him because he was always shouting at people, being unpleasant, constantly blaming people for things going wrong."
On Saturday, ahead of the publication, Brown defended himself in a television interview, saying he had never hit anybody. "If I get angry, I get angry with myself," he said. "I don't do these sorts of things. His official spokesman released a statement on Sunday rejecting the portrayal. "These malicious allegations are totally without foundation," it said.
Prominent conservative William Hague told Sky News on Sunday that the descriptions of Brown in the book raised doubts about his ability to lead the country.
"I don't think he has ever shown that he can lead a happy team and a successful team," he said. "I don't think he has really been cut out for it." However, "the main reason we should decide to have a change in government is because of the bigger issues," he said.
Brits don't want a "shrinking violet," Mandelson said in defense of Brown
But Labour allies lined up to defend their prime minister. Home Secretary Alan Johnson told the BBC he had known Brown for 17 years and had "never" heard him swear or raise his voice.
Also speaking to the BBC, Business Secretary Peter Mandelson admitted that Brown was demanding, both of his staff and of himself, but said he did not abuse his staff.
"He knows what he wants to do … He will go on and on until he's got a policy or an idea in the best possible form which he can then roll out," he said. "On the way, yes, there is a degree of impatience about the man, but what would you like, some sort of shrinking violet at the helm of the government when we're going through such storm waters?" he said.
Britain must hold elections before June, and although the Labour Party has been in power since 1997, Brown himself is untested at the ballot box. He took the top job in 2007 when former Prime Minister Tony Blair stepped down. Opinion polls indicate a loss for the Labour Party, with voters unhappy about the struggling economy and the number of troops being killed in the unpopular war in Afghanistan.
| Famous Person - Give a speech | February 2010 | ['(The Daily Telegraph)', '(BBC)', '(Deutsche Welle)', '(CBC)'] |
A Peruvian congressional committee accuses President Alejandro Toledo of electoral fraud. | The commission is split between his opponents and supporters - with the latter refusing to sign the report.
The panel's recommendations now go to Congress - where the government has a narrow majority.
President Toledo denies helping to fake signatures to register his political party for elections in 2000.
Prosecutors in Peru have alleged that Mr Toledo's Peru Possible party forged almost 80% of the 520,000 signatures it used to register for the poll, which it subsequently lost.
'Conspiracy'
The commission accused both the president and his sister Margarita of being involved in the scandal.
However the conclusions are being questioned by two of the five panel members, who refused to approve the document.
The findings, which took seven months to compile, now have to be debated by a plenary session of Peru's Congress. The BBC's Hannah Hennessy in Lima says the nature of any possible sanction is not clear, but reports suggest the commission had recommended vacating the presidency.
This is the worst scandal to hit Mr Toledo, who has just over a year left in office and the support of less than 10% of the population, according to polls.
President Toledo says he is being targeted by a "conspiracy against democracy" designed to bring down his government. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | May 2005 | ['(BBC)'] |
France knocks out Belgium from the World Cup, with France moving on to the final against either Croatia or England. | ST. PETERSBURG, Russia — They were only glimpses, fleeting and flickering and ultimately insignificant, but they were so tantalizing that they were impossible to miss.
Kylian Mbappé, inside the first 10 seconds, burning Belgium’s Jan Vertonghen away, an express train speeding past a bewildered commuter. Paul Pogba striding forward, Antoine Griezmann dancing through challenges. Mbappé again, splitting Belgium’s defense in two with a blink-of-the-eye pirouetting drag-back.
There have been 23 goals scored in the 90th minute and second-half stoppage time so far in this World Cup, shattering the previous high of 14, set four years ago in Brazil.
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If you have a critical piece of feedback for us, you can always reach the newsroom via the Reader Center. | Sports Competition | July 2018 | ['(New York Times)'] |
The Swedish Academy announces that American singer–songwriter Bob Dylan has agreed to accept his Nobel Prize in Literature this weekend at a private location in Stockholm. | Bob Dylan will finally accept his Nobel Prize for Literature in Stockholm this weekend, the academy has announced.
The American singer was awarded the prize in October but failed to travel to pick up the award, or deliver the lecture that is required to receive the 8m kroner ($900,000;£727,000) prize.
The academy said it would meet Dylan, 75, in private in the Swedish capital, where he is giving two concerts.
He will not lecture in person but is expected to send a taped version.
If he does not deliver a lecture by June, he will have to forfeit the prize money. A blog entry from Prof Sara Danius, the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, said: "The good news is that the Swedish Academy and Bob Dylan have decided to meet this weekend.
"The Academy will then hand over Dylan's Nobel diploma and the Nobel medal, and congratulate him on the Nobel Prize in Literature.
"The setting will be small and intimate, and no media will be present; only Bob Dylan and members of the Academy will attend, all according to Dylan's wishes."
Prof Darius said taped lectures had been sent by other winners in the past, including Alice Munro in 2013.
Earlier this week, Prof Darius said the academy had had no phone conversations with Dylan and that he had until 10 June to perform the lecture in order to receive the money.
"What he decides to do is his own business," she had said.
In October, Bob Dylan became the first songwriter to win the prestigious award, and the first American since novelist Toni Morrison in 1993.
He received the prize "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition", the award citation said.
It took him more than two weeks to make any public comment, finally saying the honour had left him "speechless".
He then snubbed the Nobel ceremony in December because of "pre-existing commitments".
But in a speech read out on his behalf, he said he had thought his odds of winning were as likely as him "standing on the moon". | Awards ceremony | March 2017 | ['(BBC)'] |
Members of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation meet to discuss trade, terrorism, and poverty. Tensions between India and Pakistan threaten to overshadow the eight–nation gathering. | COLOMBO (AFP) — A summit of South Asian leaders opened in Sri Lanka on Saturday, with tensions between India and Pakistan seen eclipsing regional talks on trade, terrorism and poverty.
The summit was inaugurated by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, outgoing chairman of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC).
"It is a matter of privilege and great honour for me to declare the 15th SAARC summit open," Singh told the eight-nation gathering in the Sri Lankan capital being held amid tight security.
Singh was due to meet later in the day with his Pakistani counterpart Yousuf Raza Gilani to discuss the strained peace process between the two countries.
The discussions, the first between the two premiers, will be the highest-level meeting of the nuclear-armed neighbours in 15 months.
The meeting was slated a day after Indian Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon said the bilateral dialogue was in "a state where it hasn't been in the past four years because we face a situation where things have happened in the recent past which were unfortunate".
India has blamed "elements" in Pakistan -- by which it refers to the state spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) -- for a bomb attack on its Kabul embassy last month in which about 60 people were killed, including New Delhi's military attache to Afghanistan.
Pakistan has repeatedly denied the allegation.
Singh will also convey to Gilani India's concerns over bombings a week ago in the Indian cities of Ahmedabad and Bangalore that claimed at least 50 lives. Indian media have reports that New Delhi again suspects Pakistani involvement.
There have also been ceasefire violations along the Line of Control dividing the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, an area that has been the cause of two out of three wars between India and Pakistan.
A separatist revolt against New Delhi's rule in Indian Kashmir has raged since 1989, but Islamabad denies India's claims that it assists the Muslim rebels, in turn accusing India of fuelling sectarian violence on its soil.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said Islamabad did not want to trade blame rather than normalise ties.
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse, whose country is gripped by a deadly ethnic civil war, told the summit most countries in the region face "the curse of terrorism that threatens the peace and stability that is needed so much for the forward march of our people."
President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, battling a Taliban-led insurgency, said: "We need collective action to wipe out terrorism in the region."
A Sri Lankan diplomat said SAARC would move from the "declaration stage to implementation stage" after being dismissed as little more than a talking shop since its founding in 1985.
Other SAARC members hoped to focus on battling poverty and high oil prices, developing alternate energy sources and improving infrastructure in the region that is home to 1.5 billion people.
SAARC, founded with the aim of deepening regional economic cooperation, groups Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka has imposed unprecedented security for the summit, deploying nearly 20,000 police and troops in Colombo, while continuing to pound Tamil rebel positions in the embattled north. | Diplomatic Talks _ Diplomatic_Negotiation_ Summit Meeting | August 2008 | ['(AFP via Google News)', '(Reuters)'] |
The United States expels 21 Royal Saudi Air Force cadets. Amid an investigation into the Saudi Arabian military following the attack on Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida, the cadets were found to have jihadist material and child pornography on their phones. However, none of the cadets are believed to have assisted the gunman in the attack. | Twenty-one members of the Saudi military are being expelled from the US after a cadet carried out a mass shooting at a air base last month.
The servicemen are not accused of aiding the 21-year old Saudi Air Force lieutenant.
But US Attorney General William Barr said the cadets were found to have had jihadist material and indecent images of children in their possession.
Three sailors were killed and eight wounded in the 6 December attack. Training for Saudi servicemen was put on hold in the US after the attack.
Mr Barr told a news conference on Monday that the shooting at Naval Air Station Pensacola had been an "act of terrorism". He said he had asked Apple to unlock two iPhones that belonged to the gunman, who was killed by police in the attack. The gunman fired a bullet into one phone in an effort to destroy it, Mr Barr said, but FBI investigators were able to restore the device.
"We have asked Apple for their help in unlocking the shooter's iPhones," Mr Barr said." So far Apple has not given us any substantive assistance."
Apple had given the FBI iCloud data from the attacker's online account, the New York Times reported, but refused to unlock the phone, saying it would undermine their own encryption software.
The tech firm has clashed previously with the FBI over requests to unlock iPhones belonging to terror suspects. A similar 2016 clash was resolved when the FBI found a way to unlock a phone belonging to a mass shooter in California without help from Apple.
Mr Barr said that initial reports that other Saudi cadets had filmed the attack as it unfolded were inaccurate. The gunman had arrived at the scene of the shooting alone, he said.
The attorney general said 17 of the expelled cadets were found to have possessed online terrorist material. Fifteen, including some of the 17 who possessed online terrorist material, had indecent images of children, he added.
"While one of individuals had a significant number of images, all the rest had one of two images, in most cases posted in a chat room by some other person or received over social media," said Mr Barr.
He said the 21 cadets were being disenrolled and returned home on Monday. The Saudi cadets, he said, had fully co-operated with FBI investigation.
Mr Barr also said the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia had given "complete and total" support to the inquiry. Saudi officials had determined the cadets' conduct was "unbecoming an officer in the Saudi Royal Air Force and Royal Navy", said the attorney general.
He added that the expelled cadets had not been charged with any crime in the US, but might face prosecution back home. There are more than 850 Saudi military cadets conducting training in the US.
Investigators say the attacker, Second Lt Mohammed Alshamrani, had shown videos of violence to his colleagues at a dinner party before the attack. The 9mm handgun he used was purchased lawfully.
Asked about the planned expulsions on Sunday, White House National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien told Fox News the Pentagon had decided to expel the Saudi cadets.
"Obviously Pensacola showed that there had been errors in the way that we vetted," said Mr O'Brien.
"And I think out of an abundance of caution Secretary [of Defence Mark] Esper's taking these actions to protect our service men and women."
The Pensacola base has long offered aviation training to foreign military forces. Saudi pilots started training there in 1995, alongside other personnel from Italy, Singapore and Germany.
After last month's attack, the base's commanding officer said that about 200 international students were enrolled in programmes there. According to its website, the base employs more than 16,000 military and 7,400 civilian personnel. | Riot | January 2020 | ['(BBC News)'] |
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority announces it has fined Bank of America Merrill Lynch $7 million for failure to supervise the use of leverage in its brokerage accounts, especially in connection with Puerto Rico municipal bonds. | NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority said on Wednesday it fined Bank of America BAC.N Merrill Lynch $7 million for inadequate supervision of client brokerage accounts that used leverage to buy Puerto Rican municipal bonds and other securities.
FINRA found that between 2010 and mid-2013, Merrill Lynch’s systems did not adequately enforce policies that govern how clients can use securities-backed loans. Lines of credit, called loan management accounts at Merrill Lynch, allow clients to borrow money using the securities in their portfolios as collateral.
FINRA found Merrill Lynch’s systems failed to ensure the suitability of Puerto Rican municipal bonds and closed-end funds for customers who were highly leveraged through these loans or whose investments were mostly concentrated in Puerto Rican securities.
FINRA said that 25 customers with modest net worth had three-quarters of their portfolios invested in Puerto Rican securities and lost a total of $1.2 million.
The fine includes $780,000 in restitution for those clients.
“Following a comprehensive internal review of our loan management accounts, we reported issues to FINRA, cooperated fully with their inquiry and have strengthened our controls and procedures,” Bank of America spokesman Bill Halldin wrote in an email.
Merrill Lynch neither admitted nor denied the charges.
| Organization Fine | November 2016 | ['(Reuters)'] |
Prominent religious leader Maulvi Showkat Ahmed Shah is killed when explosives attached to a bicycle are detonated outside a mosque in Srinagar, Kashmir, thought to be the first attack of its kind in about two years. The capital's shops shut down and traffic is suspended. | A prominent religious leader in Indian-administered Kashmir has been killed by a bomb outside a mosque in Srinagar, officials say.
Maulvi Showkat Ahmed Shah was entering the mosque when the bomb went off. At least one other person was hurt.
It is not clear who carried out the attack. The cleric was close to moderate separatist leader Yasin Malik.
The blast follows a lull in separatist violence in Kashmir, which is claimed by both India and Pakistan.
It is thought to be the first attack of its kind since 2009 when separatist leader, Fazal Haq Qureshi, survived an attempt on his life.
The cleric was entering the mosque for Friday prayers when the attackers detonated an explosive device attached to a nearby bicycle, police said. According to a BBC reporter at the scene, his supporters are waiting to bury his body, weeping and chanting pro-independence slogans. Shopkeepers across the city have closed for the day and traffic has been suspended. The situation in Srinagar is tense and the police and paramilitary forces have stepped up their presence on the streets. This was the third attempt on Maulvi Showkat's life in recent years. He was a leader of the Jamiat-e-Ahle Hadith religious party, which represents the Wahabi sect of Muslims. The party split a few years ago and Maulvi Showkat headed one of the two factions.
He was a well-known supporter of the separatist movement, which wants an independent Kashmir. But, correspondents say, he was considered to be a moderate voice and was a close ally of the pro-independence Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front.
Recently he had been criticised by other separatist groups for meeting the state's governor over setting up an Islamic University in the Kashmir Valley, our correspondent says. UN calls for end of arms sales to Myanmar
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The Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet wins the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize for its "decisive contribution to the building of a pluralistic democracy in Tunisia in the wake of the Jasmine Revolution of 2011." The Tunisian General Labour Union , the Tunisian Confederation of Industry, Trade and Handicrafts , the Tunisian Human Rights League , and the Tunisian Order of Lawyers comprise the quartet. | The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2015 is to be awarded to the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet for its decisive contribution to the building of a pluralistic democracy in Tunisia in the wake of the Jasmine Revolution of 2011. The Quartet was formed in the summer of 2013 when the democratization process was in danger of collapsing as a result of political assassinations and widespread social unrest. It established an alternative, peaceful political process at a time when the country was on the brink of civil war. It was thus instrumental in enabling Tunisia, in the space of a few years, to establish a constitutional system of government guaranteeing fundamental rights for the entire population, irrespective of gender, political conviction or religious belief.
The National Dialogue Quartet has comprised four key organizations in Tunisian civil society: the Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT, Union Générale Tunisienne du Travail), the Tunisian Confederation of Industry, Trade and Handicrafts (UTICA, Union Tunisienne de l’Industrie, du Commerce et de l’Artisanat), the Tunisian Human Rights League (LTDH, La Ligue Tunisienne pour la Défense des Droits de l’Homme), and the Tunisian Order of Lawyers (Ordre National des Avocats de Tunisie). These organizations represent different sectors and values in Tunisian society: working life and welfare, principles of the rule of law and human rights. On this basis, the Quartet exercised its role as a mediator and driving force to advance peaceful democratic development in Tunisia with great moral authority. The Nobel Peace Prize for 2015 is awarded to this Quartet, not to the four individual organizations as such.
The Arab Spring originated in Tunisia in 2010-2011, but quickly spread to a number of countries in North Africa and the Middle East. In many of these countries, the struggle for democracy and fundamental rights has come to a standstill or suffered setbacks. Tunisia, however, has seen a democratic transition based on a vibrant civil society with demands for respect for basic human rights.
An essential factor for the culmination of the revolution in Tunisia in peaceful, democratic elections last autumn was the effort made by the Quartet to support the work of the constituent assembly and to secure approval of the constitutional process among the Tunisian population at large. The Quartet paved the way for a peaceful dialogue between the citizens, the political parties and the authorities and helped to find consensus-based solutions to a wide range of challenges across political and religious divides. The broad-based national dialogue that the Quartet succeeded in establishing countered the spread of violence in Tunisia and its function is therefore comparable to that of the peace congresses to which Alfred Nobel refers in his will.
The course that events have taken in Tunisia since the fall of the authoritarian Ben Ali regime in January 2011 is unique and remarkable for several reasons. Firstly, it shows that Islamist and secular political movements can work together to achieve significant results in the country’s best interests. The example of Tunisia thus underscores the value of dialogue and a sense of national belonging in a region marked by conflict. Secondly, the transition in Tunisia shows that civil society institutions and organizations can play a crucial role in a country’s democratization, and that such a process, even under difficult circumstances, can lead to free elections and the peaceful transfer of power. The National Dialogue Quartet must be given much of the credit for this achievement and for ensuring that the benefits of the Jasmine Revolution have not been lost.
Tunisia faces significant political, economic and security challenges. The Norwegian Nobel Committee hopes that this year’s prize will contribute towards safeguarding democracy in Tunisia and be an inspiration to all those who seek to promote peace and democracy in the Middle East, North Africa and the rest of the world. More than anything, the prize is intended as an encouragement to the Tunisian people, who despite major challenges have laid the groundwork for a national fraternity which the Committee hopes will serve as an example to be followed by other countries. | Awards ceremony | October 2015 | ['(UGTT)', '(UTICA)', '(LTDH)', '(BBC)', '(CNN)', '(Nobel Peace Prize)'] |
The Government of Colombia and rebel group FARC announce a new peace deal after an earlier agreement was rejected by a referendum six weeks ago. | The Colombian government and the Farc rebel group have announced a new peace agreement, six weeks after the original deal was rejected in a popular vote.
The two sides, which have been holding talks in Cuba for four years, said the revised plan incorporated proposals from the opposition and others groups.
The initial deal had been deemed to be too favourable to the left-wing rebels.
The new agreement is not expected to be put to another popular vote, but rather submitted to Congress.
"We have reached a new final agreement to end the armed conflict, which incorporates changes, clarifications and some new contributions from various social groups," the two sides said in a statement. It was read by diplomats from Cuba and Norway, the mediating countries, in the Cuban capital, Havana.
The statement did not give details of the revised agreement but Colombia's lead negotiator, Humberto de la Calle, said it "resolves many criticisms" of the previous deal. One new requirement was for the Farc to draw up a complete list of its assets, to be used for victim compensation, he added. Further details are expected to be released over the weekend.
However the leader of the "No" campaign, former President Alvaro Uribe, said the new proposals did not go far enough. The previous deal was rejected by 50.2% of voters in a vote held on 2 October. Many objected to the lenient sentences given to fighters who confessed to crimes. Some would have avoided serving any time in conventional prisons.
Those who opposed the deal also balked at the government's plan to pay demobilised Farc rebels a monthly stipend while offering those wanting to start a business financial help.
Polls had initially indicated that the agreement would be approved by a comfortable margin, but opposition to the agreement had been stronger than expected.
Despite the rejection of the deal by voters, President Juan Manuel Santos was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his part in the negotiations.
Farc, Colombia's largest rebel group, was formed in 1964 with the stated intention of overthrowing the government and installing a Marxist regime.
After modest beginnings, the group rose to prominence through the 1980s and 1990s as its association with the drugs trade improved its financial standing. At its peak it was the largest and best-equipped guerrilla force in Latin America.
But the number of active Farc fighters has diminished from its estimated high of 20,000 to about 7,000 after thousands of guerrilla fighters were demobilised or killed.
Colombia's second-largest rebel group, the National Liberation Army (ELN), has also been engaged in an armed conflict for more than five decades.
About 260,000 people have killed and millions displaced in the 52-year conflict.
| Government Policy Changes | November 2016 | ['(Noticias Caracol)', '(BBC)'] |
Manfo Kwaku Asiedu is sentenced to 33 years in jail for his role in the 21 July 2005 London bombings. | Earlier this year a jury was unable to reach a verdict when Manfo Kwaku Asiedu went on trial accused of conspiracy to murder. That charge has been dropped. The judge recommended Asiedu, 34, should be deported back to Ghana.
Four other men were jailed for life after being convicted of conspiracy to murder over the failed 2005 bombings.
Muktar Ibrahim, Yassin Omar, Ramzi Mohammed and Hussain Osman were told they would serve a minimum of 40 years.
21 JULY BOMBERS
Muktar Ibrahim
Yassin Omar
Ramzi Mohammed
Hussain Osman
Bomber's 'cut-throat' defence
A sixth man, Adel Yahya, pleaded guilty to a lesser charge earlier this month and was jailed for six years and nine months.
After the jury in his original trial was unable to reach a verdict, Asiedu had been due to face a retrial, which would have been extremely costly. But after he agreed to plead guilty to conspiring to cause explosions, the prosecution dropped the charge of conspiracy to murder and he was sentenced at Kingston Crown Court.
'Dedicated terrorist'
After the hearing, Peter Clarke, the head of the Metropolitan Police's counter terrorism branch, welcomed the jailing of Asiedu. He said: "He is a dedicated terrorist who consistently lied about the role he played in this plot. Only now, has he finally admitted his guilt."
Mr Clarke said the public must remain alert and anybody with concerns about suspicious behaviour should report them to the confidential Anti-Terrorist Hotline.
He said; "In the weeks and months preceding the attacks, Asiedu and his accomplices compiled the raw ingredients to build their bombs. "Much of the material was purchased on the high street and then put together in a flat in a busy residential area.
"We want people to look out for the unusual - some activity or behaviour which strikes them as not quite right and out of place in their normal day to day lives."
'Central figure'
Earlier, Judge Mr Justice Calvert-Smith told the court Asiedu had lied on an "epic scale" about his part in the bomb plot and that it was "inconceivable" he did not know the gang's motives. He told Asiedu he had become the "central figure" in researching and buying the chemicals needed for the bombs.
Although your involvement was central, you were certainly not the leader or organiser of the plot
Mr Justice Calvert-Smith
Mr Justice Calvert-Smith said the public had waited for Asiedu to admit his part in the attacks and "explain his motivation for the commission of such a dreadful crime".
"You have effectively chosen not to do so," he said.
The judge added Asiedu not only had not attempted to warn the police or Londoners of the plot, he had also continued to assist the conspirators by trying to dispose of incriminating evidence.
But he told Asiedu: "The maximum sentence for this offence is one of life imprisonment. I do not believe that the criteria for such a sentence are met in your case.
"Although your involvement was central, you were certainly not the leader or organiser of the plot."
'Wrong crowd'
Asiedu, whose real name is Sumaila Abubakari, had claimed he was oblivious of the plan to kill anyone until hours before the plotters went into action. He took part in a cover-up after the bombs failed to explode both for his benefit and the benefit of his conspirators
Nigel Sweeney QC
He said that as soon as he had had the chance he had dumped his rucksack, containing explosives, in a park at Little Wormwood Scrubs in west London.
Defending Asiedu, Stephen Kamlish QC, told the court his client was a devout Muslim who had had "fallen in with the wrong crowd" after arriving in Britain from Ghana seeking a better life.
He said the other July 21 plotters took him in and gave him somewhere to live but also exposed him to their extremist views while they were living in the 'cauldron' of the council flat.
But Nigel Sweeney QC, prosecuting, said: "The defendant's principal role in the conspiracy was in the purchase of 443 litres [97.4 gallons] of hydrogen peroxide, which were a vital ingredient in the main charge of the explosive devices required to be connected.
"Further he took part in a cover-up after the bombs failed to explode both for his benefit and the benefit of his conspirators."
Having arrived in the UK on a false passport, he adopted the name Asiedu after finding documents belonging to a previous lodger of that name. Asiedu then began attending a mosque in Finchley, north London, which was also frequented by co-defendant Yassin Omar. And in June 2005, after a fire in his flat, he moved in with Omar at Curtis House in New Southgate.
Bomb ingredients
Curtis House later became a "bomb factory", with hundreds of bottles of hydrogen peroxide littering the flat. During the trial, Asiedu sought to portray himself as a terrified man and unwilling participant in the events of 21 July. However, he was intimately involved in the buying of bomb ingredients including the critical element of hydrogen peroxide hair bleach. He had been working as a painter and decorator at the time and told several wholesalers he needed the chemical to bleach wood or to strip wallpaper. Mr Sweeney said: "He is plainly, or thinks he is, a consummate liar or deceiver - only someone who thinks that could go about false entry into the UK, adopting a false identity to remain here and go to the police taking them on in over 1,000 transcripts of interviews during which he sewed an intricate web of lies to try and avoid his guilt. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Sentence | November 2007 | ['(BBC)'] |
U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron confirms that two ISIS militants, UK citizens, Reyaad Khan and Ruhul Amin, were killed in Syria when a British drone attack hit their car on August 21, 2015. Both Khan and Amin had appeared in an ISIS recruitment video last year. They are alleged to have been plotting a terrorist attack on the UK. | Community leaders and politicians call for answers over deaths of British Isis militants who were killed in drone strikes authorised by UK government
Reyaad Khan, an Islamic State militant from Wales who once aspired to be the UK’s first Asian prime minister has instead become the first Briton to be killed by the RAF outside a British warzone.
In a statement to parliament, David Cameron confirmed that Khan died in the targeted drone strike near Raqqa, Syria on 21 August. Travelling in the same car as Khan was another Briton, Ruhul Amin, 26, who was also killed.
Both Khan and Amin had appeared in an Isis recruitment video in June 2014 alongside Cardiff-born Nasser Muthana, arguing the case for Isis. In the video, titled There Is No Life Without Jihad, Amin called on his fellow western Muslims to join Isis in Syria. “Are you willing to sacrifice the fat job you’ve got, the big car, the family you have?,” he said. “If you do Allah will give you back 700 times more.”
Sitting cross-legged on the ground, one person removed from Amin, was Khan who said: “You can be here in these golden times, fighting, or you can be on the sidelines commentating. It’s your choice.”
Within weeks of the video emerging, both Khan and Amin had their assets frozen by the Treasury, along with Muthana and Muthana’s younger brother. This freezing order was later renewed in July 2015, according to Treasury documents.
Khan, a 21-year-old straight-A student from Riverside in Cardiff, was once a politically active teenager. In 2009, he was said to be “excited” to meet former shadow chancellor Ed Balls, and in a Facebook post said he wanted to become the country’s first Asian prime minister.
In 2010 he was filmed speaking of his desire to rid the world of evil and of the problems of growing up in a deprived inner-city area. In the interview, which was obtained by the Guardian, he argued the government wasted resources on “illegal wars” and said more money ought to be spent on young people to help prevent them being led down the “wrong path”.
Asked if the world was a good place, Khan replied: “The world can be a lovely place but you’ve just got to get rid of the evil. If everyone could choose the good, the evil will go away.”
By November 2013 he had travelled to Syria, taking the nom de guerre Abu Dujana. He began using his social media accounts to post graphic and satirically dark messages. On Twitter he boasted of the murders he had committed, writing “executed many prisoners yesterday”.
In another he wrote: “Anyone want to sponsor my explosive belt? Gucci, give me a shout.” A further post showed bloody corpses, which Khan said belonged to a group that he and other militants had captured and executed.
On Monday, friends of Khan and his family in Cardiff reacted with horror to the circumstances of his death. Mohammed Islam, a family friend and community leader, said: “This is very shocking. It’s so sad for the family and devastating for the whole community. We never expected it to come to this.”
Islam said Khan’s family was respectable and law-abiding. “They should not be blamed for their son’s actions. It is nothing to do with them.” He said the family wanted time to grieve, adding: “I think the whole community will want answers.”
There was no answer at the door of the terraced house where Khan used to live, a 10-minute walk from the centre of the Welsh capital. Not far from Khan’s former home, sadness was expressed at the Jalalia mosque, where members of his family are believed to worship.
Mosque secretary Mokaddus Miah said: “If a person has done something bad then he has what’s coming to him. Anyone who wants to do something wrong must be punished. But I would have preferred to see him tried in a British court.”
Khan’s death also provoked questions amongst Welsh politicians. The leader of Plaid Cymru, Leanne Wood, said: “There is a real danger now that the refugee crisis will be exploited as an excuse for launching a bombing campaign in Syria.
“Plaid Cymru has also been disturbed by the news that the UK government authorised the killing of a British citizen among possibly others on Syrian soil, despite parliament voting down any military action in the region.”
Khan’s fellow armed militant, Amin, was born in Moulvibazar, north-east Bangladesh in February 1989. He was raised and went to school in Aberdeen and was described in local reports as a keen footballer who frequented nightclubs and liked drinking.
Weeks after appearing in the Isis recruitment video Amin gave an interview to ITV in which he described the moment his plane took off from Gatwick Airport as “one of the happiest of my life”.
He said: “I did not learn my jihad from the Aberdeen mosque, I learned that through my own on the internet or whatever.” Within weeks of that interview he was reported to have been killed by an Iraqi army Swat team in Ramadi, 75 miles west of Baghdad.
The reports turned out to be incorrect: he later contacted his sister by social media channels, reportedly telling her: “I do miss you, I love you, but I love Allah more.”
The cousin of Ruhul Amin said he was “shocked” to learn that he had been killed. Sueb Miah had previously pleaded with the man he described as being “like his brother” to come home from Iraq.
Miah said: “It’s a real shock. I guess it means I finally know what happened to him but I can’t say I’m glad to find out. I can’t talk on behalf of the community but as far as I was concerned when I was growing up with him he was a good boy. When he was younger he did his prayers, he had lots of friends, he mixed with everybody.
“He would always stick up for the weaker person. He had a big heart. I don’t know what happened to him.”
And a family friend also revealed that he thought Amin wanted to come back to Britain - but did not want to face the consequences.
Maqbool Chaudry, 46, owner of the Khyber Pass takeaway near the Aberdeen Mosque and Islamic Centre, knew Amin since he was a young boy. Chaudry described him as a normal youngster, who would look up to him and call him uncle when growing up in Aberdeen.
Chaudry said: “If he had any problems he would come and speak to me. What I saw in the last few months that I knew him was that he started to go quiet. I just thought he had one or two family issues and it was because of that. The next thing I knew he had moved away. Then I was watching the telly one day and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
“Personally I felt guilty for a while. I felt that if I could have seen it coming I could have done something. But we never had any indication. I just treated him like one of my own kids.
He added: “I spoke to him after he left, but not directly, and he said that he didn’t think he would come back again. He said he was a dead man anyway. He was in a no-win situation. I would say he wanted to come back but he was looking at a long sentence. So he decided to stay out there.”
Speaking to ITV on Monday a childhood friend, Steven Marvin, told the channel he believed Amin had been radicalised in Birmingham. “He said he met people in Birmingham and he was spoken to there and offered to go to Syria under the promise he was allowed to leave whenever he wanted to.”
Marvin said that he had spoken to Amin from Syria and had heard gunshots in the background. He said: “I asked him, aren’t you scared of getting shot? He said, if he dies, he’ll be with Allah. That kind of shocked me. You’re not used to hearing, especially in Aberdeen, you’re not used to hearing your friends talk like that. He had no fear whatsoever of death.” | Armed Conflict | September 2015 | ['(BBC)', '(The Guardian)'] |
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above the 15,000 mark for the first time, setting a record. The S&P 500, up 0.5%, sets a record high as well. | NEW YORK -- The Dow Jones industrial average closed above 15,000 for the first time ever on Monday, marking the latest milestone in a powerful bull market that has had few true believers since it began in March 2009.
Gaining 0.6% for the day -- 87 points -- the Dow settled at 15,056.20. The S&P 500, which gained 0.5%, also had a record close, hitting 1,625.96.
While reaching the new milestone certainly has psychological implications for investors, it also is a time for them to reevaluate their investments and whether they have the right mix of assets, says Erik Davidson, deputy chief investment officer at Wells Fargo Private Bank.
USA TODAY INVESTING EVENT:How to spot and avoid the next crisis
"Like any milestone event in life, like having a baby, celebrating a birthday or graduating from college, it's a reason to pause and reflect," says Davidson.
Dow 15,000 could finally convince investors that have been on the sidelines earning roughly 0% on their cash to redeploy some assets into the stock market, says Joseph Tanious, global market strategist at J.P. Morgan Funds.
"The fact that the market is breaking out to new highs is getting more people off the sidelines," which is reflected in fund-flow data to U.S.-focused stock mutual funds, says Tanious.
He believes the market has more upside, perhaps as much as 5%, thanks to the Federal Reserve's easy-money policies, an earnings season in which worst-case fears have not been realized and signs that the job market and economy continue to gradually improve.
The market's ability to keep going up, however, is raising the question of how long it can last.
"It could keep going up," says Michael Farr, president of money management firm Farr Miller & Washington.
Bur Farr adds that there is "reason for caution" because the market is more expensive today from a price-to-earnings standpoint than it was when the rally began four years ago. "The market's getting pricier," says Farr, adding that the market's P-E multiple has risen from 12 at the market trough to roughly 14 or 15 in the current bull market.
Rob Lutts, chief investment officer at Cabot Money Management, says investors are reacting to a slow but steady improvement in the U.S. economy and he expects more gains ahead. According to his calculations, the market is 15% undervalued, Lutts says.
"The basic underlying foundation of the economy is a lot stronger than many people believe," says Lutts, adding that the economy is getting a big boost from the rebounding housing market and the nation's increasing push to become more energy efficient.
The fact that many investors, both on Main Street and institutional investors, remain underweight in stocks is also a plus, as it means the market should continue to get fresh flows of cash as investors look to take part in the rally and exit conservative assets that are yielding little if anything at all.
Lutts balks at talk that the market's new highs are a sign that it can't rise much more.
"The stock market is essentially back where it was 12 or 13 years ago," he says. "And when you look at it that way, you could have some good catch-up in performance."
Overseas Tuesday, Japanese stocks outperformed all others as traders returned from a public holiday in buoyant mood, sending the Nikkei stock index above 14,000 for the first time in nearly five years.
The Nikkei surged 3.6% to 14,180.24 on its first day of trading following the Golden Week holiday — that's the first time the Nikkei has breached the 14,000 mark since June 2008.
Japanese stocks have been marked up heavily after the Bank of Japan announced a new aggressive monetary policy to get the country out of its near two-decade stagnation. One repercussion of the plan to pump huge amounts of yen into the Japanese economy has been to sharply weaken the currency. A lower yen is boosting economic growth by making the country's exports cheaper in international markets.
Elsewhere, investors remained largely positive amid a dearth of scheduled economic and corporate news, as they continued to draw encouragement from Friday's better than anticipated U.S. payrolls figures. The data often set the market tone for a week or two after their release.
In Europe, the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares as up 0.3% at 6,540 while Germany's DAX rose 0.6% to 8,164. The CAC-40 in France was 0.4% higher at 3,921.
"Wall Street may be eyeing a relatively unchanged start to Tuesday, but there's no denying the current levels remain bullish and the fact the S&P is holding above 1,600 is certainly worthy of note," said Fawad Razaqzada, market strategist at GFT Markets.
The dollar was also fairly steady after gaining in the wake of the payrolls data. The euro was flat at $1.3075 while the dollar was 0.2% lower at 99.19 yen.
Earlier in Asia, Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose 0.6% to 23,047.09, while South Korea's Kospi fell 0.4% to 1,954.49 . Mainland Chinese shares were higher. The Shanghai Composite Index gained 0.2% to 2,235.58 and the smaller Shenzhen Composite Index added 0.1% to 955.33.
Australia was in focus after the Reserve Bank of Australia lowered its official interest rate by a quarter percentage point to 2.75% amid some signs the economy is coming off the boil as the Australian dollar rises. Following the reduction, the Aussie dollar fell 0.9% to $1.0169. However, the S&P/ASX 200 stock index fell 0.2% to 5,143.70.
Oil prices drifted lower after a strong run, with the benchmark New York rate down 71 cents at $95.45 a barrel.
On Monday, U.S. stocks ended mixed. The Dow fell less than 0.1% to 14,968.89. The S&P 500 rose 0.2% to 1,617.50. The Nasdaq composite index rose 0.4% to 3,392.97. | Break historical records | May 2013 | ['(USA Today)'] |
More than 150 people are helped to safety by emergency services after heavy overnight rain caused flooding in Wales. | Residents caught up in severe overnight flooding in mid Wales have spoken of the speed the floods hit.
Villages in Ceredigion have been cut off with houses and four caravan parks being flooded. Emergency services have helped at least 150 people to safety with several being rescued by helicopter.
Stephen South, owner of Riverside Caravan Park in Llandre, near Aberystwyth, described the situation as "very, very frightening".
"I've lived on Riverside for 22 years but I've never witnessed anything like this before.
"The surprising thing is I've seen rain worse than this but nothing of this nature has gone on.
"There was some problem 40 years ago, then the water board or river board put these flooding embankments in place.
"It seems over the last 10 years, less and less work has been done on the rivers which adds to this sort of problems."
A spokesman for Environment Agency Wales responded: "The flood banks on the Leri near the Riverside Caravan Park are in a good condition and we had recently completed a programme of works to refurbish them - but the rainfall levels meant the river rose so quickly that they were overtopped."
Mr South added that his site was "devastated" but praised the emergency services for helping to rescue those staying at the park.
He said: "It was roughly 2.30am when there were signs of water gathering on the site... and it all seemed to happen so quickly - the depth of the water and the strength of it.
"We started knocking on caravan doors and trying to get the people away.
"Everyone has thankfully got away safely thanks to all the crews, they were fantastic. Without them we could have had some serious problems.
"The site is just devastated but the main concern originally was the people of course."
Pat Edwards, 56, whose partner runs Mill House Caravan Park, said they had not seen flooding like it in 50 years.
She said: "The helicopter has come over and offered to rescue us. At the moment we've got three families here. One is staying in their caravan and two couples are upstairs with us.
"We've got an escape route planned if necessary, if we need to we can climb up the bank and get picked up by the helicopter."
The worse affected areas were Talybont, Dol-y-bont, Llandre, Penrhyngoch all in Ceredigion.
Machynlleth in Powys was also flooded.
People were trapped on the upper floors of homes affected by flooding while some have made it to higher ground where they are being looked after.
Mike Barber's cottage in Capel Bangor was flooded and emergency services had to break a hole in his door to let the water out.
He said: "My next door neighbour woke me at quarter-to-five this morning and said I'd better try and move my car but I couldn't get to it.
"We tried to stop the water coming in from the back but the current was far too strong and it's overwhelmed the three cottages coming right through.
"I'm devastated, shocked. I've just decorated it all and had a new carpet. "People who have lived here for years say they've never seen anything like it. Everyone is just gutted. They never expected it.
"I'm mentally and physically exhausted. I spent the night in the cottage upstairs but I've been trying to stop the water coming in and salvage a few things and put them upstairs."
Christine Roberts from Dol-y-bont was woken by a neighbour and had "a few minutes" to leave her bungalow before being taken to a rescue centre where about 100 others are.
"[My home] is totally flooded, everything is gone, everything is ruined." she said.
"We have nothing. The only clothes we have is what we're standing up in, but we're safe and that's all that matters."
Sam Ebenezer, also from Talybont, was helping to look after some neighbours and friends from the village.
He said: "We are safe because we are on high ground.
"It's devastating to see close friends whose houses are getting soaked all the way through.
"Everyone is just devastated and amazed with the amount of water that's flowing through the river.
"I've never seen the river as high as it has been. It came as a shock to everybody." | Floods | June 2012 | ['(BBC)'] |
French energy company Total SE ceases operations and evacuates all of its staff from its power plant in the Cabo Delgado Province, after IS-CAP insurgents infiltrate a security perimeter surrounding the liquefied natural gas reserves where the plant is located. | French energy giant Total has shut its operations and withdrawn all staff from a site in northern Mozambique following last week's deadly militant attack in the area, security sources said.
"Total has gone," a security source in Maputo told AFP news agency, while a military source said separately that "all the facilities are abandoned. Total made a decision to evacuate all of its staff."
The company pulled all its staff and shut its Afungi natural gas project site amid ongoing clashes between Daesh-linked insurgents and the Mozambican military, sources with direct knowledge of the Afungi site's operations told Reuters news agency.
Total, which last week called off a planned resumption of construction at the $20 billion development due to the violence, declined immediate comment when contacted by Reuters.
The situation around Palma is still highly volatile, with insurgents staging attacks on two security posts south of the town on Thursday, a source involved in providing support for humanitarian organisations on the ground told Reuters.
Authorities have confirmed dozens of deaths in the assault by the insurgents that began last week in the coastal town of Palma, in a district near gas projects worth billions of dollars meant to transform Mozambique's economy.
Army's assurance to Total
Earlier on Friday, a Mozambique army spokesman was quoted as saying in a radio report that the Total project is beyond the reach of militants.
"It is protected... At no time was its integrity at stake," Radio Mozambique quoted army spokesman Chongo Vidigal as saying about Total's project on the Afungi Peninsula near Palma.
Radio Mozambique added in its report published late on Thursday that the area around the Total project was being patrolled day and night to repel any threat.
Mozambique's Defence Ministry did not respond to a request for comment.
Reuters has not been able to independently verify the accounts from Palma. Most means of communication were cut off after the attack began on March 24.
Total's project is among ones worth a combined $60 billion that would reshape the economy of the southern African country. Mozambique's gross domestic product was around $15 billion in 2019, according to World Bank data.
Insurgents have been increasingly active in the surrounding province of Cabo Delgado since 2017, although it is unclear whether they have a unified aim or what specifically they are fighting for.
Humanitarian crisis
More than 900,000 people in Mozambique now require food aid because of the crisis in the northern part of the country, according to the UN World Food Program.
"It is a fast-evolving conflict situation and large numbers of people are fleeing through the bush, with nothing, nothing by the clothes on their backs," Lola Castro, the regional director for WFP told The Associated Press.
"This humanitarian crisis is not going away, it’s increasing."
At least 9,150 people have arrived in other districts of Cabo Delgado since the attack began, with thousands more believed displaced within the Palma district, the United Nations said on Friday.
"The new wave of displacement has uprooted many people who had fled their places of origin due to the conflict in other parts of Cabo Delgado and had been seeking shelter in Palma," it said, adding the majority of those displaced were being accommodated by host families.
. | Organization Closed | April 2021 | ['(TRT World)'] |
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