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Al-Shabab militants attack AMISOM's headquarters in Mogadishu, leaving three peacekeeping soldiers and a civilian contractor dead. Five of the attackers are also killed. | At least three African Union soldiers, five fighters and one civilian contractor killed in attack in Mogadishu.
Somalia’s al-Shabab fighters have killed three African Union soldiers and a civilian after staging an attack on the force’s heavily fortified headquarters in the capital Mogadishu.
The AU force, known as AMISOM, said troops regained control of the base in Mogadishu after Thursday’s attack that left five of the assailants dead while three others were captured.
“Three AMISOM soldiers and a civilian contractor unfortunately lost their lives,” AMISOM said in a statement, updating earlier information that said the four had been injured in the Christmas Day attack.
The statement did not mention the nationalities of the victims, but a contingent of Ugandan soldiers is in charge of the base. Burundi, Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti have also contributed troops to the mission.
AMISOM said some of the attackers were wearing Somali national army uniforms when they “breached the base camp around lunch hour and attempted to gain access to critical infrastructure”.
“AMISOM has regained control of the Halane base camp and restored normalcy,” the statement added.
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Al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the attack almost as soon as the first shots rang out.
“Our fighters are inside the headquarters of the foreign troops in Somalia,” Abdulaziz Abu Musab, the spokesman, told the AFP news agency earlier on Thursday, adding that several AU soldiers had been killed.
Maman S Sidikou, head of AMISOM, told Al Jazeera that the force would act “very quickly to the new tactics” being used by al-Shabab and take the measures required to prevent any such events happening again.
A Western security source said between 15 and 20 attackers were involved in the assault.
Paddy Ankunda, the Ugandan spokesman for AMISOM, told AFP the assailants “sneaked into the base camp near the airport… but our troops foiled the attack”.
He added on Twitter that the “attackers sneaked in incognito”.
Somali police official Abdi Ahmed said loud explosions had resonated at the rear entrance to the Halam base, where exchanges of gunfire were also heard.
The AU force headquarters is a fortified structure located on the grounds of the Mogadishu airport, which is also under high security.
The AMISOM force, deployed since 2007, currently has some 22,000 African Union troops.
They have managed to push al-Shabab out of the capital, but the fighters still hold large swathes of territory.
After years of civil war and weak government, the country is awash with weapons.
AU and government forces attempt to strangle al-Shabab’s access to money and weapons with new operation on coastline.
At least 25 tax collectors have been killed since 2012 in Mogadishu, a city awash in weapons and abject poverty.
| Armed Conflict | December 2014 | ['(Al Jazeera)'] |
Kim Davis, the county clerk of Rowan County in the U.S. state of Kentucky, is released from jail on contempt of court charges but she may not interfere with her deputy clerks issuing marriage certificates to same sex couples. | In her first public appearance since her release from jail, Rowan, Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis thanked a crowd gathered outside a county detention center for their support. An emotional Davis was introduced and flanked by former Arkansas and current GOP presidential contender Mike Huckabee.
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Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who was jailed last week for refusing to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples, has been released from prison.
Davis, a clerk in Rowan County, Ky., was incarcerated Thursday for refusing to comply with several court orders to issue marriage licenses to gay couples following the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in June on the basis of her “religious conviction.”
Her attorney, Roger Gannam, told Yahoo News that U.S. District Judge David Bunning, who jailed Davis, ordered her release early Tuesday afternoon.
“It’s six days too late,” Gannam said, “but we’re glad to report Judge Bunning has ordered that she be immediately released from custody.”
Huckabee, left, Davis, center, and her attorney, Matt Staver, address supporters at a rally outside the Carter County Detention Center. (Screengrab via ABC News)
Bunning, Gannam said, was satisfied that the marriage licenses Davis had refused to issue were subsequently granted by her deputies. But Gannam stressed his client “never changed her mind” on the issue.
Davis emerged from the Carter County Detention Center flanked by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who met with her before her release.
“God showed up in the form of an elected official: Kim Davis,” Huckabee said. “Today I was proud to stand with Kim Davis as she was released from jail. Kim Davis should have never been locked up for being a Christian and for following her conscience and the law.“
Davis, center, hugs her attorney, Matt Staver, as Huckabee stands by her side. (Photo: Jonathan Palmer/The Courier-Journal via AP)
Earlier Tuesday, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said Davis should be given another government job, because those licenses “have to be issued” under the law.
“People have a right to practice their religion,” Christie said on “Fox and Friends” Tuesday morning. “Now, I’ve said what I would do with this woman is to move her to another job where this is not an objection for her. Because you have to follow the law — and the law has to be these licenses have to be issued.”
>> Slideshow: The Kim Davis case
“I think we should give her an option to do another job where her religious concerns are not going to be put into the cross hairs on this. So we have to have respect for people, but the government also has to function,” Christie said, adding that fellow 2016 Republican candidates shouldn’t “play politics” with the case.
Huckabee, a former Baptist minister, planned to host a rally for Davis Thursday afternoon. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz also traveled to Kentucky Tuesday to meet with Davis.
Kim Davis (Photo: Carter County Detention Center via AP)
On Sunday, Huckabee likened the Supreme Court decision to “judicial tyranny.”
“What we’ve seen here is the overreach of the judiciary,” Huckabee said on ABC’s “This Week.” “This, if allowed to stand without any congressional approval, without any kind of enabling legislation, is what [President Thomas] Jefferson warned us about. That’s judicial tyranny.”
Last week, Cruz called Davis’ jailing an “outrage.”
“For the first time, we’re seeing a Christian thrown in jail for standing up for her faith,” Cruz told Fox News’ Megyn Kelly. “I’ll tell you, I stand with Kim Davis unequivocally. I stand with her or anyone else the government is trying to persecute for standing up for their faith.”
Sajad Hassan sat at his professor's hospital bedside for three nights, doing most of the talking as his friend and mentor breathed through an oxygen mask and struggled with a suspected COVID-19 infection. Both were confident the 48-year-old academic would be heading home soon, until a coronavirus test came back positive and physicians ordered him moved to the isolation ward — known by many at the university hospital as the “dark room” because so few who entered came out alive. Two days later Dr. Jibraeil was dead, one of nearly 50 professors and non-teaching staff at AMU, one of India's top universities, who fell victim to the coronavirus as it ripped through through the country in April and May. AMU's tragedy was repeated across India as schools suffered similar blows to their faculty, and the loss of their knowledge — and in many cases friendship and guidance — has been devastating to the academic community.
Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/Photos via GettyMyPillow CEO Mike Lindell’s charity and business combo venture to make and sell COVID-19 masks has cost him millions of dollars, according to the increasingly far-right conservative figure.Today his company is sitting on millions of unsold face coverings, which he now despises and wants to burn.“I can’t give them away,” Lindell told The Daily Beast in a phone interview this week. “I tried to. No one wants the things anymore.”Lindell, who clai
Young people who are unvaccinated and socially active may be particularly susceptible to a Delta infection.
Rep. Ted Lieu, a Catholic, said the move was "nakedly partisan" and said "next time I go to Church, I dare you to deny me Communion."
Richard Barnett, a self-described white nationalist, was arrested days after he was photographed with his feet on Nancy Pelosi's desk.
About 84 million years ago, Earth's crust and the mantle below it rotated around the planet's inner core - causing the Earth to tip over.
There’s no rest for Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. After hashing it out with fellow policymakers, now he's talking things out with lawmakers. The Fed Chief back on Capitol Hill - virtually, that is - tops the Reuters Business Calendar for the week of June 21.1. The Fed's learning momentsMarkets get another dose of Mr Powell on Tuesday. He will testify before a House committee delving into quote the "Lessons learned" about The Federal Reserve’s response to the global crisis. The Fed has thrown trillions of dollars at shoring up the economy. Powell's testimony comes with the Fed now ready at least to start thinking about how and when to pull back some of that extra help, given the strength of this economic rebound.Summit Place Financial Advisors President Liz Miller:"The Fed updating its economic dot plot, taking into account that we are seeing arguably a stronger opening than anyone expected in the spring of 2021, and therefore an expectation that rates will start moving up in 2023." 2. Keeping an eye on the gauge But any movement in rates or the Fed's bond-buying program will still largely depend on the data....particularly the big "I" word: inflation. The Fed’s favored inflation gauge comes out on Friday. The Core Personal Consumption Expenditures Index, excluding food and energy, otherwise known as core PCE, is expected to show a year-over-year surge of 3.5 percent for the month of May. It posted the biggest annual surge in nearly 30 years the month before. 3. Big Tech under the microscope Going back to Washington.....There's a vote on Capitol Hill on Wednesday that could mark the beginnings of a Big Tech break-up. Lawmakers on The House Judiciary Committee will vote on six anti-trust bills aimed at limiting the power of America's tech giants. Two of the bills take aim at how big companies like Amazon and Alphabet, the parent of Google, create platforms for other businesses to use...and then compete against those same businesses. Another bill would force tech companies to let consumers take their data with them when they transfer to a competing tech platform. Any of the bills that pass the committee vote would then have to be approved by the full House of Representatives.4. A real deal bandwagonReady....set.....click.....Are consumers ready for a mid-year online shopping spree? Amazon kicks off what it is calling “two days of epic deals” when it launches Prime Day, which - actually - isn't just one day. This year it’s Monday and Tuesday June 21st and 22nd. Not to be outdone, Walmart and Target are ready to go toe-to-toe with Amazon and are starting their online discounts a day earlier.5. Buckling up at the box officeBuckle your seat belts. Hollywood is about to go into hyper drive. "F9: The Fast Saga" comes out Friday June 25th with enough fast-winding twists and turns to give you whiplash. This is the latest installment in the blockbuster car-racing Fast and Furious franchise. The previous eight films have brought in some $5 billion globally, according to promotional materials. The whole gang is back, led by Vin Diesel, but cast newcomers John Cena and Cardi B join the chase....hopefully shaking things up on the big screen and at the box office.
While working her job at Starbucks, the daughter of Miami Gardens’ police chief was allegedly threatened with a gun over an order mix-up — the gunman was given his bagel without cream cheese, police say.
In an interview with McClatchy, Anthony Fauci discusses the Delta variant and his plans to eventually return to research.
Vice reported that the woman, who works at Amazon's JFK8 facility on Staten Island, lives in her car in the warehouse parking lot.
Meadow Walker, 22, was present for Friday's celebration of the newest "Fast and Furious" movie. Her father died in a car accident seven years ago.
Trump's former Vice President Mike Pence was booed at what should've been a friendly crowd at the Faith & Freedom Coalition conference in Orlando.
The urine test could help detect brain cancer earlier than traditional scans, improving patient survival.
Much to the surprise of a puzzled pundit corps, history may well conclude that, while President Joe Biden and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin produced no big-deal breaking news headline, their summit may prove to be one of the 21st century’s pivotal events.
A Tory MP is facing trial accused of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy in 2008, it can now be revealed. Imran Ahmad Khan, 47, the Conservative MP for Wakefield, West Yorkshire, is alleged to have groped the teenager in Staffordshire. Mr Ahmad Khan, who was elected at the 2019 general election, appeared at Westminster Magistrates' Court on Thursday by video-link from his lawyers' office. He was named on Friday after reporting restrictions were lifted. Mr Ahmad Khan has had the Tory whip suspe
The border closure will now extend into its 16th month since the start of the pandemic.
Rebekah Vardy has accused Coleen Rooney of “putting two and two together and making seven” in the latest round of the Wagatha Christie legal battle. Mrs Rooney, wife of England’s top scorer Wayne, accused fellow footballer’s wife Mrs Vardy of leaking stories to tabloid press about her after she turned detective using her own social media accounts. In a dramatic social media post in October 2019, Mrs Rooney detailed how she posted a series of fake stories about her family on her Instagram, and se
Teachers should drop the terms boys and girls in favour of “learners”, and mix up the sexes in PE classes, Stonewall has told schools. The controversial LGBT charity is urging teachers to ditch all gendered language and gendered uniforms and suggests that children should compete against the opposite sex in sport. A series of guidance documents state that uniform policies should "give the option to wear a skirt as well as the option to wear trousers". One of Stonewall’s guides said that its work
Rumours abounded on Friday night that China's top spycatcher had defected to the US, amid a growing focus in Washington on the theory that Covid-19 escaped from a Wuhan laboratory. Dong Jingwei, vice minister of state security, was reported to have flown from Hong Kong to the US in February with his daughter. There was no confirmation of the rumoured development from either the US or China. Dr Han Lianchao, a former Chinese foreign ministry official who is now a pro-democracy activist in the US,
Former White House doctor Rep. Ronny Jackson and 13 other Republicans want President Joe Biden to take a mental cognition test and share the results. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Release | September 2015 | ['(Yahoo! politics)'] |
Fatma Samoura, a Senegalese United Nations official, is appointed as the Secretary General of FIFA. She is the first woman and first person from outside Europe to be appointed to the position. | By Associated Press Published: 02:05 BST, 14 May 2016 | Updated: 02:05 BST, 14 May 2016 MEXICO CITY (AP) — FIFA's corruption crisis was declared to be over by President Gianni Infantino on Friday as the scandal-battered governing body broke new ground by appointing its first female and first non-European secretary general.
Senegalese United Nations official Fatma Samoura has no experience working in sports but Infantino hopes she can help FIFA improve its image and regain its credibility after far-reaching corruption, bribery, and financial crimes by executives.
"Nobody can change the past but I can shape the future," Infantino told his first FIFA Congress as president since succeeding the banned Sepp Blatter. "FIFA is back on track. So I can officially inform you here, the crisis is over."
FIFA President Gianni Infantino speaks during the 66th FIFA Congress, in Mexico City, Friday, May 13, 2016. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
Blatter also said in December 2014 that "the crisis has stopped" after previous bribery cases. But within a year 42 officials and entities linked to soccer were indicted in an American investigation into bribery and fraud.
Samoura is set to replace Jerome Valcke, who was fired by FIFA and banned from soccer for 12 years over a ticketing and TV rights scandal as well as expenses abuses. Blatter was also forced out of the presidency in disgrace over financial misconduct and is now serving a six-year ban imposed by the organization's independent judiciary.
But in an expected move, Infantino effectively seized control of the disciplinary organs put in place by Blatter. The congress handed over power to the ruling council, which is headed by Infantino, to dismiss ethics judge Hans-Joachim Eckert, investigator Cornel Borbely and audit and compliance head Domenico Scala. The three men would not comment on the changes.
"It is the old model," FIFA anti-corruption adviser Mark Pieth said. "We desperately want to go beyond that now."
Infantino defended the move, insisting it was just to provide "flexibility" for the council for the next year "to dismiss and appoint members if the council feels it is needed."
Infantino has appointed the new secretary general to serve under him without an open recruitment process.
In a shakeup of FIFA designed by a reforms panel in the wake of the body's recent scandals, a separation of powers is being implemented that is intended to hand the CEO-like secretary general control of business operations.
Samoura speaks French, English, Spanish, and Italian but appears to have no experience dealing with commercial deals and broadcasters — a key part of the job as FIFA's top administrator. Infantino appears to have more experience in those areas, given he was elected FIFA president in February after nine years leading UEFA's business operations as general secretary.
The 54-year-old Samoura's private sector experience was working for an industrial chemicals company from 1987 to 1995.
"I don't know her at all but I think it's a very important gesture toward gender equity, to recognizing other continents, and apparently she is a formidable personality," said Francois Carrard, who headed the reforms committee last year.
Asked about Samoura's lack of business experience, Carrard said: "The operations will be done by the whole management."
Infantino assured FIFA delegates that Samoura is used to "managing big organizations, big budgets, human resources, finance."
The 54-year-old Samoura, who is yet to pass FIFA's eligibility check, is currently working in development for the U.N. in Nigeria.
"She will bring a fresh wind to FIFA," Infantino said. "Somebody from outside, not somebody from inside, not somebody from the past. Somebody new, somebody who can help us do the right thing in the future."
FIFA expects Samoura to start work at its Zurich headquarters in mid-June, with just a year until Russia hosts the Confederations Cup, the 2018 World Cup warm-up event, and with concerns continuing about preparations for the 2022 tournament in Qatar.
The organization swelled to 211 members on Friday after Gibraltar and Kosovo were admitted in time for European qualifying for the 2018 World Cup.
They are eligible for FIFA grants for development projects that have now climbed from $400,000 per year for each member association to $1.25 million. The announcement was cheered in the congress hall in Mexico City before Infantino warned them: "Don't betray us. Don't misuse the money."
Two former world players of the year — Portugal's Luis Figo and American World Cup winner Mia Hamm — have joined the development committee as independent members.
As Infantino gives more FIFA roles to stars of the game, former Chelsea and Ivory Coast forward Didier Drogba was appointed to the footballer stakeholder committee.
Also at the congress, Indonesian national and club teams, referees, and officials were allowed back into international soccer after the country's FIFA ban was lifted.
Indonesia was readmitted after the government agreed to end its suspension of the soccer federation, but the national team has missed out on qualifying for the 2018 World Cup and 2019 Asian Cup while banned.
Benin joined Kuwait in being suspended due to government interference in their federations' independence.
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FILE - In this Oct. 25, 2013 file photo, United Nations official Fatma Samoura, right, observes as Madagascar presidential hopeful Edgard Razafindravahy casts his ballot, in Antananarivo, Madagascar. FIFA broke new ground by appointing the Senegalese United Nations official as its first female and first non-European secretary general on Friday, May 12, 2016, in Mexico City at the 66th FIFA Congress. Samoura has no experience working in sports but FIFA President Gianni Infantino hopes that will help it try to regain the trust and credibility of the world. (AP Photo/Schalk van Zuydam, File)
Delegates from member nations attend the 66th FIFA Congress, in Mexico City, Friday, May 13, 2016. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
FIFA President Gianni Infantino gives closing remarks at the 66th FIFA Congress, in Mexico City, Friday, May 13, 2016. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell) | Government Job change - Appoint_Inauguration | May 2016 | ['(AP vi Daily Mail)'] |
A new outbreak of the Ebola virus disease kills at least 17 people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. | At least 17 people have died in the north-west of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where health officials have confirmed an outbreak of Ebola, the health ministry has said. It is the ninth time Ebola has been recorded in the DRC, whose eastern Ebola river gave the deadly virus its name when it was discovered there in the 1970s, and the outbreak comes less than a year after one that killed eight people. The health ministry said: Our country is facing another epidemic of the Ebola virus, which constitutes an international public health emergency.
We still dispose of the well-trained human resources that were able to rapidly control previous epidemics.
Ebola is believed to be spread over long distances by bats, which can host the virus without dying, as they infect other animals with which they share trees, such as monkeys. Ebola often spreads to humans via infected bushmeat. Before the outbreak was confirmed, local health officials reported 21 patients showing signs of hemorrhagic fever around the village of Ikoko Impenge, near the town of Bikoro. Seventeen of those later died. Medical teams supported by the World Health Organization and Mdecins Sans Frontires were dispatched to the zone on Saturday and took five samples from suspected active cases. Two of the samples tested positive for the Zaire strain of the Ebola virus, the ministry said.
After DRCs previous Ebola flare-up, authorities approved the use of a new experimental vaccine, but in the end did not deploy it owing to logistical challenges and the relatively minor nature of the outbreak. The worst Ebola epidemic ended in West Africa two years ago after killing more than 11,300 people and infecting about 28,600 across Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. Despite regular outbreaks every few years, death tolls in the DRC have been significantly lower. | Disease Outbreaks | May 2018 | ['(The Guardian)'] |
Two Massachusetts high schools close due to bomb threats; it is the third bomb threat Brockton High School has received this school year. | The latest incident marks the third bomb threat Brockton High School has received this school year, Brockton school officials said.
Police were searching the building Monday, and classes were expected to resume Tuesday, school officials said.
Whitman-Hanson Regional High School also closed after the school received a threatening e-mail Monday morning, Superintendent Ruth C. Gilbert-Whitner said in a statement.
“Due to the timing of the receipt of the e-mail and the scope of the investigation, classes at the high school only have been canceled,” she said. “The police were notified immediately and responded to the building.”
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Buses for all Whitman-Hanson Regional schools were searched Monday morning before leaving to pick up students, the statement said. | Armed Conflict | April 2015 | ['(Boston Globe)'] |
Results from several of New Hampshire's small midnight voting towns are released, showing marginal victories for Clinton in Dixville Notch and Hart's Location, while Trump won significantly more votes in Millsfield. | VOTING proper has begun! It’s the traditional first vote of the US Presidential race, cast at midnight on election day, but it didn’t go so well. A man casts his ballot inside a polling station just after midnight on November 8, 2016 in Dixville Notch, New Hampshire, the first voting to take place in the 2016 US presidential election. Voting has begun in the 2016 US Presidential election and it’s not been the smoothest of starts.
Due to an anomaly in the voting rules in New Hampshire, towns with a population of fewer than 100 can begin voting at midnight, rather than waiting until the morning.
Tradition dictates that Dixville Notch is the first to exercise their democratic right.
It all started so well in Dixville Notch, where a smiling voter waited to cast his ballot, the first on election day.So seven of the good people of the town, close to the Canadian border, patiently lined up to vote.
It didn’t exactly go to plan.
Live on TV across the world, they flubbed it.
Wait, why hasn’t the voting slip gone in? We’re on global TV.The voter and returning officer both held the voting slip tight, a few centimetres above the ballot box, as the seconds slipped by to midnight. There were two hands to ensure it didn’t fall in to the box early.
But when the clock ticked over to Tuesday, the simple task of releasing the slip fell in a heap.
Despite the ballot box being directly below them, and having more than a minute to survey the right trajectory to get the paper in the slot, they failed.
They failed miserably.
The paper refused to go in, then just fell on top of the ballot box as onlookers groaned.
“They had one job,” laughed the CNN presenter. “One job”.
OK, the ballot paper is lying flat on the box now. We need some help, now.Eventually, as panic mounted, the returning officer took matters into his own hand, ripped the slip from the voter, and shoved it in himself.
If you want to get a job done right, it seems, do it yourself.
Despite the debacle, Hillary Clinton will be pleased with the result. According to the votes cast in this one town in this swing state, four voted for her with just two for rival Donald Trump.
Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson won one vote, and there was a write-in vote for Mitt Romney, the losing Republican presidential candidate in 2012. Now that the eight residents have voted the booth has closed.
Two in two other New Hampshire locations, Hart’s Location and Millsfield, also opened just after midnight on Tuesday and closed as soon as everyone had voted. These die-hard voters are proud to have the first word on the big vote.
While Clinton won more votes in Dixville and Hart’s Location, Trump was the overwhelming favourite in Millsfield, with a 16-4 edge.
Under New Hampshire state law, communities with fewer than 100 voters can get permission to open their polls at midnight and close them as soon as all registered voters have cast their ballots.
The main polling booths open in the American’s north east at 6am. | Government Job change - Election | November 2016 | ['(News.com.au)', '(IB Times)'] |
Approximately 70 Iraqi Christian students are wounded and one other Iraqi killed in bombing on the outskirts of Mosul, Iraq. | ERBIL, Iraq About 70 college students, most of them Christians, were wounded Sunday and another Iraqi was killed when a convoy of school buses was attacked in a double bombing on the outskirts of the northern city of Mosul, according to a security official.
“We were going for our education and they presented us with bombs,” said Jamil Salahuddin Jamil, 25, a sophomore geography major, who was on board the lead bus. “I still do not know what they want from Christians.” | Armed Conflict | May 2010 | ['(The New York Times)'] |
The U.S. Senate confirms, 51-49, Congressman Mick Mulvaney to head the Office of Management and Budget. | Senators confirmed Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.) to lead the Office of Management and Budget in a narrow vote Thursday morning, giving the congressman one of the most powerful positions in President Trump's Cabinet and the responsibility of reconciling the new administration's conflicting spending priorities.
The Senate confirmed Mulvaney by a vote of 51-49. No Democrats cast votes in favor of Mulvaney, and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) defected, voting with the Democrats against the nominee.
In a speech on Wednesday, McCain said that he and Mulvaney could not agree on spending on the military. McCain favors an expanded budget for the Pentagon, while Mulvaney advocates reductions.
“We must rebuild our military while at the same time putting our nation on a sustainable long-term fiscal path. We can and must do both,” McCain said. “Unfortunately, Congressman Mulvaney has spent his last six years in the House of Representatives pitting the national debt against our military.”
Elected to Congress in the tea party movement of 2010, Mulvaney has established a reputation as a doctrinaire advocate of limited government who opposes federal expenditures even on programs with broad bipartisan support, such as relief for victims of natural disasters, if that relief is not paid for by savings in other areas of the budget. Liberal senators hectored Mulvaney for supporting drastic reductions in Social Security and Medicare.
Mulvaney now reports to the president, who has pledged to spend more on the military, public works and a wall along the Mexican border. Trump has also said he will maintain current benefits from Social Security and other entitlements.
As director of the Office of Management and Budget, Mulvaney will confront difficult decisions about how to pay for a replacement of the Affordable Care Act, President Obama's health-care reform policy. President Trump has promised to repeal Obama's law and find another way to provide for health insurance for the millions of Americans who cannot afford it on their own, which will likely be expensive.
As Mulvaney prepares to help Trump achieve his immediate goals, the national debt continues to accumulate. The pace of federal borrowing increased again last year for the first time since the beginning of the Obama administration.
Analysts say a fiscal crisis is unlikely for decades to come, but most agree that the country's current borrowing is unsustainable. Last month, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected that the federal debt will equal the size of the economy in 15 years. The office noted that an aging population will contribute less in income and payroll taxes while drawing more on entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare.
Mulvaney has advocated wholesale changes to these programs. He voted in favor of the budget proposed by the Republican Study Committee two years ago, which envisioned reducing spending on Social Security by $188 billion over 10 years and spending on Medicare by $216 billion over the same period.
“We have to end Medicare as we know it,” Mulvaney told Fox Business Network in 2011, three months after he was sworn in as a congressman.
In his opening statement opposing Mulvaney at the confirmation hearing last month, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) noted Trump's support for protecting entitlements.
“One of the cornerstones of his campaign was that he was not going to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. He wasn’t ambiguous about this,” Sanders said of Trump. “It does not make sense to me to have a key adviser to the president having views directly in opposition to what the president campaigned on.”
Mulvaney responded that he was only being honest about the programs' financial situation, and that he would continue to advocate for reforms in the White House.
“The credibility that I think I bring to this job is that I believe very firmly in real numbers,” Mulvaney told the committee. “My job is to tell the president the truth.”
Mulvaney also received criticism from Democrats for failing to pay taxes for a household employee between 2000 and 2004. Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), the minority leader, called the omission “disqualifying,” noting that nominees for the cabinet in past administrations had withdrawn from consideration when unpaid taxes were revealed.
The opposition from McCain and the Democrats is the latest instance of unusually tepid support for Trump's nominees in the Senate. Opposition from Democrats and several Republicans forced Andrew Puzder, the president's pick for labor secretary, to withdraw his name on Wednesday. When a few Republicans defected to vote against Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, Vice President Pence was forced to cast a vote breaking a tie to confirm her.
The most important news stories of the day, curated by Post editors and delivered every morning. | Government Job change - Appoint_Inauguration | February 2017 | ['(The Washington Post)'] |
The United Nations Security Council, headed by world leaders, unanimously approve Resolution 1887 to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons. | UNITED NATIONS: The UN Security Council on Thursday unanimously adopted a resolution to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons in a bid to seek a safer world for all and to create the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons.
The resolution was adopted shortly after US President Barack Obama opened the Summit on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Nuclear Disarmament, the first of its kind in the history of the Council.
The United States holds the rotating Council presidency in September. | Government Policy Changes | September 2009 | ['(BBC)', '(China Daily)', '(New York Times)', '(Associated Press)', '(Hindustan Times)'] |
Fiona Onasanya, the member of the UK Parliament for Peterborough, is removed from her position following a successful recall petition in the wake of her conviction for perverting the course of justice, becoming the first MP in the country's history to lose their seat in this manner. A by–election will be called to elect a replacement MP. | Ms Onasanya, 35, was jailed in January for lying about a speeding offence. She was expelled by Labour after her conviction and had been representing Peterborough as an independent.
Peterborough City Council said 19,261 constituents had signed the petition. Ms Onasanya will be allowed to stand for re-election.
The council said the signatures represented 27.6% of eligible residents. The threshold required to remove Ms Onasanya was 10%.
Commons Speaker John Bercow confirmed the recall petition had been successful.
He told MPs: "Fiona Onasanya is no longer the member for Peterborough and the seat is accordingly vacant.
"She can therefore no longer participate in any parliamentary proceedings as a member of parliament."
Ms Onasanya, who was jailed for perverting the course of justice, has become the first MP to be removed by the recall process, introduced by David Cameron in 2015.
She was first elected to Parliament as a Labour MP with a slender majority of 607 in 2017.
The process by which the electorate can remove an MP before the end of their term was introduced in the UK in 2015 in response to the 2010 MPs' expenses scandal.
The recall procedure can only be triggered under certain circumstances, including if an MP is convicted in the UK of an offence and sentenced or ordered to be imprisoned or detained - and all appeals have been exhausted.
For a recall petition to be successful, 10% of eligible registered voters need to sign the petition. It remains open for six weeks.
If successful, a by-election is called and the recalled MP is allowed to stand as a candidate.
The first recall petition against an MP was triggered in July 2018 against North Antrim MP Ian Paisley after he failed to declare two holidays paid for by the Sri Lankan government.
The petition was unsuccessful, as it was short of 444 signatures, and Mr Paisley remained an MP.
The petition against Ms Onasanya is the first time a recall petition has been held in England.
A third MP, Chris Davies, Conservative member for Brecon and Radnorshire, is facing a recall petition in Wales after he was convicted for a false expenses claim.
Source: UK Parliament
Labour Party chairman Ian Lavery said: "Labour campaigned hard for a victory in this recall petition. "Labour will vigorously fight the by-election here in Peterborough."
Nigel Farage said his new Brexit Party would contest the by-election, but a spokesman said no decision had yet been taken on whether Mr Farage would be the candidate.
The by-election in a city which voted 61% Leave in the 2016 EU referendum potentially offers the former UKIP leader a route to a seat in Parliament after seven unsuccessful attempts.
Meanwhile, the former MP George Galloway - a Brexiteer - also declared on Twitter his intention to stand in the by-election. Conservative parliamentary candidate for Peterborough Paul Bristow said: "The people of Peterborough deserve a better MP who will vote in Parliament to deliver Brexit."
Hannah Olsson, political reporter, BBC Radio Cambridgeshire The by-election in Peterborough will come in the middle of one of the most tumultuous times in modern political history. Brexit has shaken up political alliances like never before, but we don't know what impact that will have, and who it will favour. The by-election could be an opportunity for the new parties to test the popularity of what they're offering, but the question is what party will they be taking voters from?
Another possibility is that Brexit has made everyone so fed up with politics that people in Peterborough will just decide not to vote at all, and we will see a very low turnout. | Government Job change - Resignation_Dismissal | May 2019 | ['(BBC)'] |
In Australia, at least seven emergency warnings have been issued for bushfires in New South Wales resulting in one death at Lake Munmorah, significant property damage and closure of airports and highways. | 7.14am BST We're going to wrap up our live coverage of the bushfires now. Here's a summary of today's events:
Updated at 7.31am BST
6.59am BST Two time-lapse videos of Thursday's bushfires have been uploaded to YouTube. The first shows a time-lapse of smoke viewed from Wollongong:
The second is apparently a time-lapse of the fire at Springwood, in the Blue Mountains:
6.50am BST Information from the Insurance Council of Australia:
The Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) tonight formally declared a Catastrophe for bushfire-affected regions of NSW where properties have been severely damaged or destroyed. ICA CEO Rob Whelan said insurers were still assessing the scope of the damage, but a taskforce had been established to escalate the industry’s response and the ICA had activated its disaster hotline - 1800 734 621. “Insurers are standing by to handle inquiries and claims from policyholders,” Mr Whelan said. “I advise anyone affected by this disaster to follow the instructions of the emergency services and return to their properties only when it is safe to do so. “At this stage the ICA is relying on information from the NSW Rural Fire Service and does not have firm damage estimates. Insurers will monitor the situation overnight and tomorrow, and I expect we will have a firmer grasp of the extent of the damage before the weekend. “The ICA will be liaising with government agencies and emergency services, in particular the RFS, as well as local governments and state MPs, to assist with issues and inquiries.”
The ICA offers the following general advice to affected policyholders:
The ICA’s disaster hotline − 1800 734 621 − can help affected residents who are not sure which insurer they are with, or who have general inquiries about the claims process. 6.40am BST Cars queuing, waiting to get back in to Chain Valley Bay
Cars on reopened Pacific Hwy south of Swansea. But long traffic queue for Chain Valley Bay #nswfires @NewsTalk2UE pic.twitter.com/Vu7MrmuwfH
Updated at 6.41am BST
6.32am BST Here's the press release from the Prime Minister's office with the disaster recovery fund details:
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TO PROVIDE RECOVERY ASSISTANCE TO VICTIMS OF NSW BUSHFIRES
The Federal Government will provide much needed assistance to those affected by the devastating bushfires still raging in New South Wales by making available the Australian Government Disaster Recovery Payment (AGDRP). While the full extent of damage caused by the bushfires is still unfolding, the payment of $1,000 per eligible adult and $400 per eligible child will assist those already affected, particularly those who have lost their homes or suffered damage, are seriously injured or have lost an immediate family member. The AGDRP will be made available in the following severely affected areas: Blue Mountains, Lithgow, Muswellbrook, Port Macquarie-Hastings, Port Stephens, Wyong and Wingecarribee. The AGDRP payment is in addition to the joint funded Commonwealth-State Natural Disaster Relief and Recovery Arrangements, which provides assistance to individuals and families, including emergency food, clothing and accommodation. As the situation is still unfolding, the Government will continue to assess whether broader relief and recovery assistance may be needed. We will work closely with the NSW Government to ensure the recovery needs of the affected communities are met. The Government recognises the heroic efforts of the firefighters for their courage in battling the fires and protecting individuals and communities under threat. Further information about assistance payments is available on the Australian Government’s Disaster Assist website at www.disasterassist.gov.au or on 180 2266. 6.30am BST Multiple fires have had their status downgraded, including the fire at Camden Valley Way, Leppington which is now at the 'advice' level. The Ruttleys Road fire in Wyong Shire has been downgraded to 'watch and act'. Please check the live fire warnings at the RFS website for up to date information. 6.24am BST More from the Abbott press conference at Winmalee:
How serious are these fires compared to others you've experience before? I'll leave the incident controllers and NSW Commissioner to comment on operational aspects of the fire, but plainly this was a very big fire, its quite a long time since we've had property losses in the order of hundreds here in NSW so this was a very, very big fire. Question from Al Jazeera reporter - Australia seems to be able to cope with fires better than other countries, why is that? Look we have had a long long experience with bushfire in this country. We've been dealing with bushfires in this country almost as long as we've had European settlement here. And for thousands of years before the Europeans arrived Aboriginal people were practicing a form of fire management which in some respects was more successful than that which has been practiced since. We do have a very long experience with dealing with fires, we do have a very strong, full-time, paid and volunteer professional infrastructure to cope with fires. As you can see, here at this command post we've got rural fire brigade, we would no doubt have in the area NSW fire brigade, we've got police, we've got ambos, we've got a whole range of volunteer and community groups who come together to support the firefighting apparatus. Look we've just got a very, very long experience and I guess it's ingrained in our culture, we're not called a land of droughts and flooding rains, a sunburned country for nothing. The Premier has indicated you might be close to reaching a deal on disaster funding, any details? The standard disaster relief arrangements are now in place. The NSW Government will be dispensing money under those arrangements and the Commonwealth under the standard apportioning arrangements will be picking up at least 50% of the tab. Any figure on the cost of rebuilding? Look, it is very very early days, we think that property losses are in the hundreds, but it is too early to say what the precise number of homes destroyed, buildings destroyed and damage is, and it's far too early to put a price on how much it would cost to restore the situation. 6.10am BST Centrelink have announced support for people whose homes have been lost. The emergency response number for Centrelink support is: 180 2266
6.05am BST Prime Minister Tony Abbott addressing the media in Winmalee:
Today is a much quieter day than yesterday but this is a fire emergency which could go on for quite some time. There are hundreds of people who are grieving the loss of property, tragically there has been it seems one life lost further north, someone who was defending his house. We grieve for everyone impacted by these fires, and we thank and congratulate everyone who is working to keep the state of NSW safe right now. We've had hundreds of police, we've had hundreds of NSW fire brigade workers, and we've had literally thousands of Rural Fire Brigade volunteers and state emergency services volunteers out over the last 24 hours. These are ordinary people, who on extraordinary days come together to support their community and to protect their fellow australians. We are incredibly lucky to have them. We're also lucky to have supportive employers and supportive families who allow their loved ones to go out and do this kind of work when needed. I want to say thank you to the employers of NSW for making so many of their staff available to serve in the emergency services, particularly in rural fire brigades at this time. It could be a long, hot, dry summer, over the last three months most areas of NSW have had above average temperatures and below average rainfalls. It's projected that over the next three months most parts of NSW will similarly have above average temperatures and below average rainfalls. I trust that the employers of NSW will be patient with those of their staff and workers who need to get out and serve with the emergency services, particularly with the rural fire brigades in coming months. This is an important way in which families and businesses can serve our community by supporting those of their members who are out with the rural fire brigades. Again, I just want to say how sorry we are, on behalf of the people and parliament of Australia, for the heartache which so many hundreds of people in NSW are currently dealing with, but how proud we are of the thousands of volunteers and full time professionals who are out there keeping the community safe on a difficult day. 5.49am BST Prime Minister Tony Abbott has addressed the media in Winmalee, saying "we feel for everyone who has suffered through these devastating fires". "Today is a much quieter day than yesterday but this is a fire emergency which could go on for quite some time." More to come...
5.22am BST More from the press conference with Premier Barry O'Farrell and RFS Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons earlier:
O'Farrell:
I simply want to pay tribute to all of those people who have been out fighting fires, but regrettably say they're going to be doing so for days, if not weeks into the future. Fitzsimmons:
We still have 94 fires burning across NSW, 27 of them remain uncontained. We still have the two emergency warning alert fires, that is the fire up in the central coast, the Ruttleys Road fire thats burned right through to Catherine Hill Bay, we're now issuing a further alert to communities in the Chain Valley Bay area where the fire is now starting to impact on. Of the seven large fires we've been focussing some attention on in the last 24 hours they consume around 50,000 hectares. And the fire we've just been getting a detailed briefing on out near Lithgow, its got a fire perimeter of more than a 180 kms now, and has consumed an area of something like 25,000 hectares
There's a lot of fire activity, a lot of challenging weather ahead, before we see a return to more difficult and challenging weather come Sunday and Monday in towards the end of the weekend and early next week. 5.02am BST Emergency warning, Camden Valley Way fire
An emergency warning has been issued for a fire burning near Camden Valley Way and Cowpasture Road at Leppington. 4.40am BST RFS Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons, when asked about the number of homes lost:
"We do need to brace ourselves for home losses, and building losses in the hundreds." 4.30am BST NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell has given an update to the media, after surveying the ongoing fires and damage:
"There are some pretty devastating sights from the air of houses being destroyed." However, despite this O'Farrell says the picture from the air shows some positives:
"From the air it's very clear what an extraordinary job the firefighters have done protecting properties." 4.20am BST NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell has tweeted a number of aerial photos of the bushfires:
Winmalee pic.twitter.com/1cFBE4ME5Z
evidence of the ferocity of the fires - Yellowrock pic.twitter.com/bKhUq0GC7i
pic.twitter.com/2Ar0h7yXcR
The premier has been attending a briefing at Lithgow, and surveying fire damage in the Blue Mountains. 4.15am BST Students at Springwood High School are being evacuated to Faulconbridge Public School, according to the RFS as of 2 pm. 4.11am BST Major fires update:
Emergency warnings remain in place for the Ruttleys Road fire in Wyong Shire, and the Linksview Road fire in Springwood, in the Blue Mountains. Watch and act warnings are current for fires at or near Balmoral Village, Heatherbrae, Mt Victoria, and Lithgow. Check the RFS website for updates on current warnings. 3.59am BST We've compiled some of the bushfire images coming in into this gallery. 3.48am BST The ABC is reporting the historic Norman Lindsay Gallery at Faulconbridge is being evacuated. The sandstone building and gardens were built in the mid 1890s, and house a large collection of artist Norman Lindsay's work. Lindsay is probably best known for children's book The Magic Pudding. BREAKING- Norman Lindsay Gallery is now being evacuated says Sharon from Lindsay's cafe #nswfires #spingwood #faulconbridge
Updated at 3.50am BST
3.36am BST An update on roads:
Motorists are advised to avoid driving over the Blue Mountains if possible. The Great Western Highway remains closed at Mount Victoria, and Bell's Line of Road is closed between Lithgow and Bell. Traffic lights are out around Springwood, causing delays. The Pacific Highway near Swansea is closed, however the M1 Pacific Highway remains open. For live traffic updates, check the livetraffic site. 3.16am BST An update from NSW National Parks:
Anyone planning bushwalks, four-wheel driving, camping, or other activities should check with the relevant local National Parks office first. More here
3.04am BST Blue Mountains police have announced they are commencing investigations into the fires and subsequent property damage. Blue Mountains residents who have lost properties are encouraged to contact police. The statement on the Blue Mountains Local Area Command facebook page:
Blue Mountains LAC and other specialist Police Detectives including representatives from State Crime Command Strike Force Tronto, Detectives from NWMR and other specialists from both Police and other emergency service organisations have commenced investigations related to fires and property damage which occurred in the Blue Mountains area on 17/10/2013. There will be a significant numbers of police in these area over coming days. Strike Force Corkery - Springwood, Winmalee and Yellow Rock fires.Strike Force Murndal - Mt Victoria fires.Police would be requesting local residents who have sustained significant or total property damage to contact Police.Police would also request that local residents who potentially have a family member that may be missing or unaccounted for to also make contact with their local Police, or if persons may have been in fire affected areas undertaking some recreational activities.Springwood Police Station - 47 510 299Katoomba Police Station - 47 828 199
2.45am BST NSW Police have released the following statement regarding the bushfire information line:
The Public Information and Inquiry Centre (PIIC), was activated in support of the Bush Fire Information Line.Members of the public are urged to call the Bush Fire Information Line on 1800 679 737 for all bush fire related information. People can contact the Police Information Centre if they are concerned about the welfare of family and friends on 1800 227 228
Updated at 2.51am BST
2.39am BST Prime minister Tony Abbott has said he wants to visit some fire-affected areas today. Speaking to reporters in Brisbane, Abbott said the sympathies of the nation are with those who have lost homes, or had property damaged by the bushfires. "Australia is a country that is prone to natural disaster but every time it strikes it hurts, and we grieve for those who are now hurting because of what has happened in New South Wales," he said, also acknowledging that there has already been one loss of life "and we fear more". 2.32am BST Central Coast: A number of homes in the Catherine Hill Bay area are believed to be destroyed. The Rutleys Rd fire is continuing to burn out of control in the area and is threatening properties in the area around Chain Valley Bay Road. 2.30am BST Here's a timelapse of the smoke from yesterday's bushfires making it's way over the Sydney city skyline. 2.26am BST There are reports around that NSW police are investigating arson as a possible cause of the Blue Mountains fires, but a spokeswoman for NSW police has told us that there is no specific inquiry into the fire being deliberately lit at this stage. She said that arson is part of all investigations into fires and they will "look at all avenues" as part of police protocol and routine investigating. "There’s nothing to say that’s the cause of the fire at this stage," she said. Investigators are not entering areas where bushfires are still burning, for obvious reasons. "Once places are deemed to be safe then we’ll start to go into those areas." Updated at 2.28am BST
2.17am BST Investigators focussing on this fallen power line as the ignition for Mt Vic fire that's destroyed at least 10 homes pic.twitter.com/OAD1B2VKKa
2.10am BST The Springwood fire has been upgraded to an emergency warning again. The fire is flaring up around Chapman Parade and an alert has been sent to residents to beware of ember attack, RFS deputy commissioner Rob Rogers has told ABC News. “There’s too much active fire front,” for people to stop being on alert, he said. The Lithgow fire is “a monster fire,” he said. He said yesterday is a day that will "live for many years in the memories" of the people of NSW. Worsening weather on Monday is a huge concern. Interstate resources are being coordinated to give some relief to firefighters who have been working for weeks with fierce Spring fires, said Rogers. "We've got a long time to go through Summer." 2.06am BST Residents have begun returning to Winmalee. Brett Thompson, who lost his house, has told ABC News he is “pretty shattered” but trying to focus on being pragmatic. He said they moved to the Mountains four months ago with the knowledge that a fire might happen, but didn’t think it would be so soon. He saw the smoke in the distance at Springwood but didn’t think too much of it. When he smelled smoke and the saw the Springwood fire was closer and larger, he got prepared. “I had a knock on the door from a neighbour across the street saying ‘mate, the fire’s coming, the fire’s coming”. Another neighbour told them to evacuate. 1.58am BST Winmalee resident Jean Cooling going through the remains of her home. @abcnews @ABCNews24 #NSWfires pic.twitter.com/RxR7EcrIP9
#FRNSW strike teams are assembling @ Springwood. Crews will soon be tasked with mopping up & f/fighting ops pic.twitter.com/KmMItuduIX
1.47am BST looking towards Springwood from Winmalee pic.twitter.com/0eyf6w9P5A
1.43am BST A warning to asthma sufferers from Michele Goldman, CEO of Asthma Foundation NSW. While fire can damage property and threaten life, it can also seriously affect the health of people with medical conditions, especially those who live with asthma. Wood smoke is a prime trigger for what could be a potentially fatal asthma attack. We are asking that the responsible adults keep a close eye on all children during this period. Allowing them to stay indoors, keeping windows closed and air conditioners switched off are sensible measures. Consider suspending sporting activities and ensuring that children with asthma are carrying their reliever medication at all times is particularly important. If a child shows signs of respiratory distress and their medication is having no affect call Triple 000 immediately. Read the foundation's statement in full here. 1.30am BST This is a mirror of the NSW Rural Fire Service Current Fires and Incidents map. It should be at most a few minutes behind.Disclaimer: This information is extracted from the NSW Rural Fire Service Incident Database. It is not 'real time' information, but is provided as a general indication of current activity.Please listen to your ABC Local Radio station if you are in a hazardous situation. 1.27am BST QLD firies leaving Bris airport for the Blue Mountains to assist @NSWRFS @FireRescueNSW with #bushfire assessments. | Fire | October 2013 | ['(The Guardian)', '(The Guardian)'] |
A suspected gangrelated shooting in a restaurant at Hisingen, an island near the Swedish city of Gothenburg, kills at least two people with several more injured. , | Two men have been killed and up to 15 injured in a shooting in a restaurant in the south-western Swedish city of Gothenburg, police say.
They say automatic weapons - believed to be Kalashnikov assault rifles - were used in the attack late on Wednesday.
The men who died were between 20 and 25, police said. Police spokeswoman Ulla Brehm was quoted as saying the shooting could have been gang-related. One witness told Sweden's SVT broadcaster that two men entered the restaurant and opened fire.
"I didn't have a chance to think about what happened. Then I saw that my friend was bleeding. I tried to stop the bleeding as well as I could with my hand,'' said the witness, who did not give his name.
The attack happened as customers were watching a football game.
The gunmen are believed to have fled.
The police sealed off the area and launched a murder investigation.
On 30 January, a man was wounded in a shooting in the square outside the restaurant but it is not clear whether the shootings are linked.
Gun violence is not uncommon in Sweden's major cities, though shootings in public places with multiple victims are rare. | Armed Conflict | March 2015 | ['(Reuters)', '(BBC)'] |
Samoan Prime Minister Tuilaepa Aiono Sailele Malielegaoi says his country is "looking seriously at banning Facebook in the country" after "many people complained how it is used to hurt people", being himself a target of "defamation". | A report by TV1Samoa details Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi saying that many people had complained about the popular social media platform and how it was being used to hurt people.
"I am thinking about this a lot especially how it is being used to make defamatory statements about others," he said.
Tuilaepa himself has been a victim of personal attacks on Facebook, and had even taken some bloggers to court for defamation.
He cited a recent example of the prominent Samoan blogger known as King Faipopo who admitted in court that his statements were fabricated to make people hate the Prime Minister and turn them off the government.
"This is being used by people who play what I call dirty politics," Tuilaepa explained.
Samoa is not the first Pacific government that has been critical of social media. In 2018 Papua New Guinea's government sought to ban Facebook for a month while it looked at how it was being used in the country. | Government Policy Changes | July 2020 | ['(RNZ)'] |
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft completes a historic flyby of the dwarf planet Pluto and its five moons. Measurements, along with many high–quality photos and reams of data, were taken, including conclusive information regarding the diameter of Pluto and its moons. | After over nine years of travel in deep space, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is within hours of its historic flyby of Pluto. When the unmanned nuclear-powered probe speeds past the frozen dwarf planet tomorrow at 7:49 am EDT, it will mark not only the success of one of man's most ambitious space missions, but also the completion of the first era of planetary exploration that began in 1962 when the US Mariner 2 mission flew past Venus. Here's what to expect as events unfold.
Discovered in 1930 by American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh, Pluto is the final classical planet in the solar system to be visited by an unmanned spacecraft and has been the subject of controversy since being downgraded in 2006 to a dwarf planet; a decision still under debate. Until the 21st century, it's never been more than a faint, frozen, blurry dot, and to the average person it may seem as uninteresting and pointless to visit as a random rock in the Antarctic. However, there's a great deal more to it than ice cube jokes and HP Lovecraft references, which is why NASA spent US$720 million to get there.
One reason why Pluto is of such interest to scientists is that it's different from every other planet in the Solar System. It isn't a terrestrial planet like Earth, nor is it a gas giant like Jupiter. Instead, it's an ice dwarf. That is, a dwarf planet that's composed largely of ice. Also, Pluto is the largest known resident of the Kuiper belt – a band of frozen asteroids, comets, and planetoids that begins at the orbit of Pluto. Little is known of that region, but by studying Pluto, it could not only shed more light on the belt, but also provide clues as to the origins of the Solar System and perhaps even life on Earth.
As to Pluto itself, it's not much to look at at first glance. It's smaller than the Moon, with a diameter of only about about 2,380 km (1,500 mi). Its composition is 35 percent ice and 65 percent rock, and has a very low density, as is reflected by its gravity, which is surprisingly low at only six percent of Earth gravity.
What Pluto lacks in size, its surface makes up for in unpleasantness. The estimated temperature on Pluto is -233º C (-387º F) and the surface is made of frozen nitrogen, carbon monoxide, methane, and ethane. Meanwhile there's a complex atmosphere of nitrogen, with traces of methane, carbon monoxide, and hydrocarbons. However, the pressure at the moment is 50,000 times less than on Earth, which makes it pretty much a vacuum, and what's there will probably all freeze as the Plutonian winter sets in over the next few decades. Pluto has five known moons consisting of Charon and four smaller ones named Nix, Hydra, Styx, and Kerberos. The largest is Charon with a diameter of 1,200 km (745 mi). Like our Moon, Charon is tidally locked and always shows the same face to Pluto. However, Pluto is also locked, so it always shows the same face to Charon, which is so large in comparison to Pluto that the two form the only double planet in the Solar System, with each rotating every 6.4 Earth days about a common center of gravity located in space.
When New Horizons awoke from hibernation six months ago, it began an intense program of study in the run-up to the flyby as well as rehearsals for tomorrow's encounter, as the spacecraft's 16 hydrazine thrusters made trajectory adjustments and ran the probe through flyby simulations. According to NASA, part of this program was making the most of the opportunity for studying the approaching planet. However, another part involved the practical job of scouting out any hazards (such as previously unknown rings) that might require a course correction to avoid, or turning the spacecraft's main antenna to act as a shield against dust particles. In addition, the long-distance images taken were used to provide a precise fix of New Horizon's position and trajectory, so it could hit its target point about 7,750 mi (12,500 km) from Pluto’s surface.
As New Horizons drew closer to its goal, the increasingly detailed images began to reveal features that even to the Hubble Space Telescope were mere blurs. Regions of high contrast began to show, then spots and polygonal shapes. The first signs of geology, such as what may be cliffs and craters, became visible and might be clues to the planet's internal composition and history.
On Tuesday morning at 7:49 am EDT, new Horizons will makes its closest approach to Pluto at a distance of 12,500 km (7,750 mi) and a speed of 14 km/sec (31,000 mph). It will pass over the planet's northern hemisphere, which will be in daylight. During the encounter, Pluto will be 4.77 billion km (2.96 billion mi) from Earth and radio signals will take 4 hours and 25 min to reach the spacecraft. This means that New Horizons must carry out all of its operations autonomously as it aims at a target circle only 300 km (200 mi) in diameter and a timing error of less than 100 seconds.
The time delay also means that during the actual flyby, mission control will be completely in the dark as to the status of the spacecraft. Worse, as New Horizons makes the flyby, all its instruments will be aimed at Pluto and its moons, so the probe's main antenna will not be aimed at Earth. Therefore, NASA said at today's mission press conference that no news of the success or failure will reach Earth until about 9:00 pm EDT. In addition, New Horizons has only 202 watts of power available from its radioisotope thermoelectric generator, so the amount of data that can be sent will be very limited. With this in mind, the mission planners have programmed New Horizons to take what are called "contingency samples." The name comes from the 1969 Apollo 11 mission, when Neil Armstrong's first task after taking his first steps on the Moon was to scoop up soil samples just in case he had to hightail it back to the Lunar Module. With the same sense of caution, New Horizons is programmed to collect the best data from its recorders and transmit it back to Earth in case it's damaged or destroyed during the flyby. NASA says that during the flyby, Horizon's suite of seven highly advanced instruments will come into play. These include cameras, spectrometers, radio science experiments, and plasma and dust detectors. As the probe closes with Pluto and its moons, it will carry out 30 scientific objectives that will include mapping, atmospheric studies, and looking for new rings and moons. These will constitute 380 separate observations, such as image captures capable of identifying objects 70 m (230 ft) across, and stereo images. These will help scientists to produce maps of Pluto and Charon with a 40-km (25-mi) resolution, as well as ultraviolet and infrared maps.
New Horizons was launched on January 19, 2006, from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida atop a Lockheed Martin Atlas V-551 rocket. It's the fastest spacecraft ever launched, and it reached the distance of lunar orbit in only nine hours. After a February 2007 gravity assist from the planet Jupiter, it reached a speed of 83,600 km/h (52,000 mph) relative to the Sun.
Along with other mementos, New Horizons also carries a sample of the ashes of Pluto's discoverer, Clyde Tombaugh. This will make him, in a manner of speaking, the farthest-traveled astronaut in history and the first on a spacecraft that will leave the Solar System.
After the encounter with Pluto, New Horizons' mission will be far from finished. It will continue to make observations for weeks as it recedes into deep space. Because it can only send back data to Earth at two kilobits per second, it will be transmitting the results of its flyby for the next 16 months. | New achievements in aerospace | July 2015 | ['(Gizmodo)', '(CNN)', '(official NASA page)'] |
Boko Haram militants open fire on farmers in Borno State, killing 22. | ABUJA, June 26 (Xinhua) -- Twenty-two local farmers were killed following an attack by terror group Boko Haram who invaded a village in Nigeria's northeastern state of Borno, security sources said on Wednesday.
The Boko Haram fighters attacked the group of farmers on Monday in Ngamgam village, about 50 km east of Damasak town in Mobbar local government area of the state, one military official told Xinhua.
Dozens of people including women and children fled with bullet wounds, most of them seeking refuge in the nearby Damasak town, as the gunmen went on the rampage.
Usman Bala, head of the government-backed Civilian Joint Task Force, a militia group, said the Boko Haram members came in large numbers on foot and surrounded the village before unleashing terror on the farming community.
Bala said up to 18 bodies were first recovered at Ngamgam as of Tuesday morning during search and rescue operation by locals, but later on, four more bodies were found hit by bullets.
Boko Haram, which launched attacks in Nigeria's northeast a decade ago, is known for its agenda to maintain a virtual caliphate in the most populous African country. Xi meets model civil servants | Armed Conflict | June 2019 | ['(Xinhua)'] |
Jet pilot Andy Hill, accused of eleven counts of manslaughter over a 2015 crash at Shoreham Airshow in England, makes an initial Magistrates' Court appearance. He indicates he will deny the charges and the case is transferred to Crown Court. | The pilot of a jet which crashed during the Shoreham Airshow has appeared in court charged with killing 11 men.
Andy Hill, 54, of Sandon, Hertfordshire was performing aerobatics when the Hawker Hunter jet crashed on the A27 in Sussex in August 2015.
Mr Hill appeared at Westminster Magistrates' Court charged with 11 counts of manslaughter and one count of endangering an aircraft. He indicated he would be pleading not guilty.
Mr Hill was given bail and is due to appear at the Old Bailey on 17 May.
Prosecutor Simon Ringrose confirmed the charges were brought following the fatal crash, which occurred when the vintage jet crashed into traffic on the dual carriageway while trying to execute a loop-the-loop manoeuvre.
Mr Hill was thrown clear of the plane.
He suffered "very serious injuries" as a result, Mr Ringrose said. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | April 2018 | ['(BBC)'] |
A 6.5 magnitude earthquake happens 72 km west of Challis, Idaho, United States. It is the strongest earthquake in the state since 1983. | The March 31, 2020, M 6.5 earthquake west of Challis, Idaho (about 120 km northeast of Boise), occurred as the result of complex strike slip faulting within the shallow crust of the North America plate. Preliminary focal mechanism solutions for the event, which describe the style of faulting in an earthquake, indicate slip likely occurred on a steeply dipping fault striking either east-west (right-lateral) or north-south (left-lateral). This earthquake occurred within the Intermountain Seismic Belt, a prominent zone of recorded seismicity in the Intermountain West, and is within the western part of the Centennial Tectonic Belt, an area of southwest-northeast extension north of the Snake River Plain. The quake is about 16 km north-northeast of the Sawtooth fault, a 60-km-long normal fault that extends along the eastern base of the Sawtooth Range. | Earthquakes | March 2020 | ['(45\xa0mi)', '(USGS)'] |
Apple Inc. must pay the $450 million July 2014 settlement in a price fixing case since the U.S. Supreme Court will not hear its appeal of the June 2015 Court of Appeals ruling that it played a "central role" in a conspiracy with publishers to eliminate retail price competition and raise e–book prices. | With the U.S. Supreme Court's refusal to hear Apple's appeal, the company will now dole out some $400 million to consumers to offset changes it caused in e-book pricing. Here's how to know if you'll get some store credit (or cash) back.
tl;dr: If you bought an e-book from a major publisher between April 2010 and May 2012 and you live in America, you may automatically receive a small credit (up to $6.54 per title) as part of Apple's settlement.
The official website for the settlement is ebooklawsuits.com, where interested parties can keep track of Apple's payout. On Monday, the Supreme Court declined to review Apple's appeal, which means the original $450 million settlement will be paid.
Per the terms of the 2014 settlement agreement, Apple will pay $400 million to e-book consumers. The remaining money will go to legal fees and to the states involved in the suit.
Importantly, the payout does not solely apply to e-books purchased through Apple's iBooks store. For example, Amazon.com told AppleInsider on Monday that the company is prepared to distribute settlement funds to Kindle customers as soon as they are instructed to move forward.
Consumers are included in the Apple settlement if they purchased a qualifying e-book from one of the five publishers involved in the suit during the time period in question. Those publishers are:
The settlement applies to purchases made between the dates of April 1, 2010 and May 21, 2012. The settlement applies only to American citizens, and does not apply to rented, free or gifted e-books.
Citizens who bought an affected title will have their residency determined by the billing address of the credit card they used to buy the e-book.
Those who bought New York Times bestsellers in the appropriate window of time will receive between $6.05 and $6.54 per e-book. Non-bestsellers will result in compensation of between $1.39 and $1.50 per e-book.
E-book purchases from Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble and Kobo will result in an automatic account credit. Purchases through Sony will result in a check in the mail. No forms are needed.
However, if you bought an affected e-book from Google or any other retailer and you didn't act, you may be out of luck: Purchasers who didn't use the services above were required to submit a claim form by Oct. 31, 2014. Those who submitted a form will be included in the settlement.
Similarly, if you wanted to exclude yourself from the Apple settlement, you're too late — Â opt-outs had to be submitted by Oct. 31, 2014. | Organization Fine | March 2016 | ['(Reuters)', '(Bloomberg)', '(AppleInsider)'] |
More than 60 are killed and 150 are injured after a bombing in Baghdad. | The scene of the bomb blast in eastern Baghdad
Nearly 70 people have been killed by a bomb blast in the eastern Sadr City area of Baghdad, Iraqi officials say.
Police said the device went off in a market place in the predominantly Shia area of the Iraqi capital. More than 130 people were also reported to have been injured in the blast, one of the worst in Iraq this year. It comes less than a week before US soldiers pull out of all Iraqi cities, a move the US said would not be affected by a recent surge in violence. 'Horrific'
An interior ministry official told the AFP news agency the blast struck the market place at about 1930 (1630 GMT). The official said the bomb was hidden underneath a motorised cart carrying vegetables for sale. "I heard a boom and saw a ball of fire," said Najim Ali, a 30-year-old father who was injured in the blast. "I saw cars flying in the air because of the force of the explosion," he was quoted as saying by AFP. Raad Latif, a local shop owner, said the scene after the blast was "horrific". He said people ran to help the injured after hearing the explosion but were initially kept back as security forces tried to get emergency vehicles to the scene. "After a while they came to their senses and allowed us to help as much as we could. The scene was horrific," he told Reuters. Another witness told the Associated Press news agency he heard a sound like "unbelievable thunder" and was knocked to the ground by "a hurricane". Market stalls were set on fire and an official told AP that people standing 600m away were hit by shrapnel. ' | Armed Conflict | June 2009 | ['(BBC)'] |
Bradley Robert Edwards is found guilty of the murders of Jane Rimmer and Ciara Glennon in Perth, Western Australia, in 1996 and 1997, respectively. He is found not guilty of the murder of Sarah Spiers in 1996, and her body has never been found. Edwards is slated to be sentenced on December 23. | Bradley Robert Edwards has been found guilty of the murders of Jane Rimmer, 23, and lawyer Ciara Glennon, 27, in the Claremont serial killings trial. He was found not guilty of the murder of Sarah Spiers, 18.
All three women disappeared from the affluent Perth suburb of Claremont in 1995 and 1996. The bodies of Ms Rimmer and Ms Glennon were found in Perth bushland, but no trace of Ms Spiers has ever been found.
WA Supreme Court Justice Stephen Hall delivered his verdict today after a seven-month judge alone trial ended in June.
- Wrap of today's verdicts
- How the case gripped WA for decades
That wraps up our live coverage of the Claremont serial killings verdict.
Bradley Robert Edwards was found guilty of the murders of Jane Rimmer and Ciara Glennon but not guilty of the murder of Sarah Spiers.
He will be sentenced on December 23.
You can read our wrap of today's news here and Gary Adshead's piece on how the case gripped the state of Western Australia for decades here.
Thanks for following along.
Inside two decades worth of files, news clippings and notebooks there is a homemade poster, roughly cut-and-pasted in hasty desperation.
"Have you seen Sarah?"
A photograph of a young woman – her perfect skin and beaming smile – projects a future full of hope and opportunity.
But 24 years later, the life of Sarah Spiers, like the photograph, remains frozen in time.
No one, other than her abductor and killer, has seen the 18-year-old secretary since the early hours of January 27, 1996.
Today was judgement day for Bradley Robert Edwards - the man accused of murdering Sarah Spiers and two other young Perth women.
All three vanished from the affluent western suburb of Claremont over a 15-month period.
And ever since the search for Ms Spiers began, the state of Western Australia had been in the grip of a triple-murder mystery without end and without justice.
READ MORE
The court has now released video of Justice Stephen Hall delivering the verdicts.
Tonight on Channel 9 in Perth, a 9News special on the case will air.
Bradley Robert Edwards has now been taken from court back to prison in a van (below).
He will be sentenced on December 23 for the murders of Jane Rimmer and Ciara Glennon, plus the two sex attacks he pleaded guilty to before the trial. Perth barrister Tom Percy QC told 9News victim impact statements would factor in to Edwards' sentencing. Mr Percy said it was unlikely Edwards would ever be released, given an attorney-general would need to sign off on any parole.
"Bradley Edwards can now be called for what he is: a brutal rapist and a murderer," Commissioner Dawson said.
"I acknowledge and thank all those family members for their strength and their resilience.
"I have just spent some time with all those family members.
"They have carried themselves and continue to with patience, grace and dignity under the most tragic of circumstances.
"Today's verdicts are a testament to many years of work. It does demonstrate that WA Police officers will never give up.
"The current team that stand behind me today are one of over 700 police and analysts and forensic experts that were directly allocated to investigate these crimes which stretch back 32 years.
"Many hundreds more police were involved in painstaking land searches, in answering tens of thousands of phone calls and other work over the years."
Commissioner Chris Dawson is now speaking on the Sarah Spiers murder.
Edwards was found not guilty of killing the 18-year-old, whose body was never found after her disappearance in 1995.
"The investigation into the murder of Sarah Spiers remains open," he said.
"We will never give up trying to locate Sarah, and I have conveyed that to Don and Carol Spiers today and to Amanda.
"Sarah and her family deserve justice. I do note amongst Justice Hall's comments in respect of the acquittal of the charge of murdering Sarah Spiers, and I'll directly quote.
"'The propensity of evidence makes it more likely that the accused was the killer of Ms Spiers but it cannot prove it beyond reasonable doubt in the absence of any other evidence as to the of her killer.'
"We must also recognise the devastation and serious crimes committed on those other women that Bradley Edwards has admitted and is now also convicted of.
"These victims and the witnesses must be commended for their courage and their resilience."
WA Police Commissioner Chris Dawson is delivering a statement following the verdicts.
"This is an important day for justice in Western Australia," Mr Dawson said.
"The Claremont killings struck at the heart of our way of life, stretching become almost a quarter of a century.
"Three innocent young women were killed along with the hopes and dreams they never got to fulfil.
"The justice system has taken its course, and Bradley Edwards has now been convicted of killing two of those women, Jane Rimmer and Ciara Glennon." | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Sentence | September 2020 | ['(9NEWS)'] |
Nominations for the 78th Academy Awards were announced in Beverly Hills, California, by Academy President Sid Ganis and actress Mira Sorvino. | (CNN) -- It has been the subject of controversy and the subject of jokes -- how many times have you heard variations on "I wish I knew how to quit you" or seen parodies of its poster? -- but mostly "Brokeback Mountain" has been the subject of honors.
On Tuesday, the story of two romantically involved male ranch hands -- which already has won best picture honors from the Golden Globes (drama), Broadcast Film Critics Association and New York Film Critics Circle -- crowned its status as Oscar front-runner by leading all films with eight nominations for the 78th annual Academy Awards.
"Brokeback," based on a short story by E. Annie Proulx, picked up nods for best picture, best director (Ang Lee), best actor (Heath Ledger), best supporting actress (Michelle Williams) and best supporting actor (Jake Gyllenhaal). Its screenplay adaptation, by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana, also received a nomination.
"Brokeback," with its overtly gay love story, has proved much more popular at the box office than some pundits had predicted. Even director Lee has been surprised.
"I thought it was a small work of love," he told Reuters. "I never thought it would play like this." Tuesday was also a big day for George Clooney, who picked up nominations for directing "Good Night, and Good Luck" and co-writing its original screenplay -- a story about CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow's battle with Sen. Joe McCarthy -- with Grant Heslov. Clooney was also a pick for best supporting actor for his performance as a CIA agent in "Syriana." Clooney's nominations marked the first time the same person has been nominated for acting in and directing another movie.
"Good Night, and Good Luck" also received nominations for best picture and best actor (David Strathairn, who portrays Murrow), while "Syriana" earned a nod for best original screenplay for its director and writer, Stephen Gaghan.
Other nominees for best picture are "Capote," "Crash" and "Munich." "Crash" won the Screen Actors Guild award Sunday night for best performance by a cast. (Think you know who's going to win Oscar? Play our Inside the Envelope game.)
Some notable films were left out of the best picture running.
"Walk the Line," the Johnny Cash biography that has earned acting honors for stars Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon, was shut out of the best picture and best director races, but Phoenix and Witherspoon were nominated in lead acting categories. "A History of Violence," another critical favorite, earned supporting actor and adapted screenplay nods, but nothing for its director, David Cronenberg. And "King Kong," despite some support for actress Naomi Watts and director Peter Jackson, only picked up technical nominations.
With a handful of exceptions, the nominations matched prognosticators' forecasts. ( Watch what the surprises were -- 4:08)
Philip Seymour Hoffman, who has garnered several awards for his portrayal of author Truman Capote in "Capote," was nominated for best actor. Ledger, Strathairn and Phoenix have been on many short lists. The category's mild surprise was "Hustle & Flow's" Terrence Howard, who earned critical raves but was seen by many as being on the bubble.
The best actress category is seen as a two-person race between Witherspoon, who played June Carter Cash in "Walk the Line," and Felicity Huffman, for her performance as a pre-op transsexual in "Transamerica." Both actresses won Golden Globes for their performances -- Witherspoon for best actress (comedy/musical), Huffman for best actress (drama). Witherspoon took the SAG Award on Sunday night.
Other nominees are previous Oscar winners Charlize Theron ("North Country") and Judi Dench ("Mrs. Henderson Presents") and newcomer Keira Knightley ("Pride & Prejudice").
In the best supporting actor category, Paul Giamatti -- left out of the nominations last year despite being much-lauded for "Sideways" -- was nominated for his performance as boxing manager Joe Gould in "Cinderella Man." William Hurt, who popped up for short, sharp performances in "Syriana" and "A History of Violence," was nominated for the latter film.
The other nominees are Clooney, Gyllenhaal and Matt Dillon ("Crash") .
Rachel Weisz, already a Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award winner for "The Constant Gardener," earned an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress. Her competition includes Amy Adams ("Junebug"), Catherine Keener ("Capote"), Frances McDormand ("North Country") and Williams ("Brokeback Mountain").
Newsweek, in its annual Oscar preview chat among likely nominees, hit it exactly right with the five directors it selected for this year's talk: Paul Haggis ("Crash"), Lee ("Brokeback Mountain"), Bennett Miller ("Capote"), Clooney ("Good Night, and Good Luck") and Steven Spielberg ("Munich").
Some of the directors already knew each other from previous projects. Haggis was a writer and Clooney was an actor on the TV show "The Facts of Life," and Haggis is working with Spielberg on the Clint Eastwood-directed "Flags of Our Fathers."
"Long after the Oscars this year, I think we're going have weekly dinners together. We're all planning to all move in together," Spielberg joked to the AP.
Woody Allen, a frequent original screenplay nominee, was nominated once again, this year for "Match Point." His competition includes Clooney and Heslov, Gaghan, Haggis and Bobby Moresco ("Crash"), and Noah Baumbach ("The Squid and the Whale").
The nominees for best adapted screenplay are McMurtry and Ossana; Dan Futterman, "Capote"; Jeffrey Caine, "The Constant Gardener"; Josh Olson, "A History of Violence"; and Tony Kushner and Eric Roth, "Munich." Oscar steered away from computer-animated films this year, picking "Howl's Moving Castle," "Tim Burton's Corpse Bride" and "Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-rabbit" for best animated feature. The latter two were done with stop-action figures.
Nominees for best foreign film are "Don't Tell," Italy; "Joyeux Noel," France; "Paradise Now," Palestinian territories; "Sophie Scholl -- The Final Days," Germany; and "Tsotsi," South Africa.
After "Brokeback's" eight nominations, three films follow with six: "Crash," "Good Night, and Good Luck" and "Memoirs of a Geisha." "Geisha" was shut out of the major categories.
"Munich" received five nominations.
None of the year's blockbusters was well represented. "Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith" received one nomination, for makeup -- perhaps the first time a "Star Wars" film did not receive a special effects nomination. "King Kong" picked up four nods, and "War of the Worlds," Spielberg's other 2005 film, scored three nods in technical categories.
"The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" was nominated in the sound mixing, makeup and visual effects categories. "Batman Begins" is up for a cinematography prize.
The documentary feature nominees included "March of the Penguins," perhaps the biggest sleeper hit of 2005, along with "Darwin's Nightmare," "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room," "Murderball" and "Street Fight."
The academy apparently didn't like many songs this year; only three were nominated instead of the usual five. They were "In the Deep" from "Crash," "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" from "Hustle & Flow" and "Travelin' Thru" from "Transamerica."
The awards will be held March 5 at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood, California. Jon Stewart is the host, and ABC will broadcast the ceremony. | Awards ceremony | January 2006 | ['(CNN)'] |
Rupert Wingfield-Hayes, the BBC's Tokyo correspondent, was detained in North Korea before being expelled by the government for "speaking very ill of the system". | BBC correspondent Rupert Wingfield-Hayes and his team have been expelled from North Korea after being detained over their reporting.
Our correspondent, producer Maria Byrne and cameraman Matthew Goddard were stopped by officials on Friday as they were about to leave North Korea.
Wingfield-Hayes was questioned for eight hours by North Korean officials and made to sign a statement.
All three remained in Pyongyang before flying to Beijing on Monday. After arriving in Beijing, Byrne tweeted that they were "very happy" to be back but were not doing any interviews.
The BBC team was in North Korea ahead of the Workers' Party Congress, accompanying a delegation of Nobel prize laureates conducting a research trip. The North Korean leadership was displeased with their reports highlighting aspects of life in the capital.
At a news conference on Monday, a North Korean government spokesperson said Wingfield-Hayes and his colleagues had been "speaking very ill of the system". A BBC spokesman said: "We are very disappointed that our reporter Rupert Wingfield-Hayes and his team have been deported from North Korea after the government took offence at material he had filed.
"Four BBC staff, who were invited to cover the Workers Party Congress, remain in North Korea and we expect them to be allowed to continue their reporting." | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Arrest | May 2016 | ['(BBC)'] |
Thousands of protestors defy COVID-19 restrictions and take to the streets in Kherrata to both commemorate the second anniversary of the protests and to repeat their demands for the ruling government to step down. | Thousands of people take to the streets of Kherrata to protest against government of President Abdelmadjid Tebboune.
Thousands of people have rallied in the eastern Algerian city of Kherrata to commemorate the beginning of demonstrations against former longtime President Abdelaziz Bouteflika two years ago.
Defying coronavirus restrictions, demonstrators in Kherrata, located some 300km (186 miles) east of the capital Algiers, shouted slogans on Tuesday against the country’s political class and powerful military.
They chanted “a civilian state, not a military state” and “the gang must go” as they brandished Berber and Algerian flags. February 16, 2021
Some of the demonstrators arrived from other provinces to take part in Tuesday’s rally in Kherrata where the first protests against Bouteflika took place on February 16, 2019.
On February 22 that year, tens of thousands of protesters marched in cities across the country to demand the octogenarian’s departure and later a sweeping overhaul of the ruling system that was in place since Algeria’s independence from France in 1962.
“We came to revive the Hirak that was stopped for health reasons. They didn’t stop us. We stopped because we care for our people. Today coronavirus is over and we will get the Hirak back,” Nassima, a protester, was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency.
The rallies came to a halt in March last year as the coronavirus pandemic reached the North African country.Mass demonstrations in Kherrata to celebrate the second anniversary of the Hirak.
But demonstrations have been witnessed in recent weeks again, particularly in the traditionally restive region of Kabylie.
In recent days, President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, elected in December 2019, has been in talks with heads of political parties, during which he discussed the possibility of dissolving the parliament and holding early elections, according to politicians.
The move could be aimed at appeasing the Hirak protest movement which criticises Tebboune for belonging to Bouteflika’s old regime.
He was prime minister under Bouteflika but was sacked after three months in office.
While the protest movement has no clear leadership, its supporters have repeatedly discussed online how to rekindle its presence on the streets as an active force to press for change.
“It is a revolutionary process for a very precise goal, which is the departure of the regime, the whole regime with all its components,” said Hamid, a protester.
| Protest_Online Condemnation | February 2021 | ['(Al Jazeera)'] |
Turkish jets bomb Kurdish PKK positions in southeast Turkey. | The strikes followed a three-day PKK assault on a military outpost with heavy machine guns and rocket launchers, it said.
Clashes were also reported between the PKK and troops in the Tunceli area of east-central Turkey on Monday, far from the border.
Last week Kurdish protests gripped Turkey's Kurdish-majority south-eastern provinces. At least 31 people died in widespread street clashes, as Kurds vented their anger at Turkey's passive policy over Kobane. The army imposed a curfew in some areas. But some of the fighting was reported to be between PKK supporters and Islamist Kurds sympathetic to IS.
Heavy fighting has been raging in Kobane since mid-September, as Syrian Kurds battle to defend the town against better-armed IS militants. Turkey treats the PKK as a "terrorist" organisation and its leader Abdullah Ocalan is in jail. But he has been Turkey's main point of contact in peace negotiations since he was incarcerated in 2012. The PKK - also labelled "terrorist" by Western governments - has been waging a 30-year insurgency for self-rule in eastern Turkey. The unrest has killed more than 40,000 people. | Armed Conflict | October 2014 | ['(BBC)'] |
Poland's acting President is to review travel rules for military officials after the late President and all his army generals die in one plane crash. | Poland's acting president is to review travel rules for military officials after the president and other top officials were killed in a plane crash.
Bronislaw Komorowski announced the move as mourning continued for the 96 people killed when the jet crashed in fog while trying to land in western Russia. President Lech Kaczynski's body is to lie in state in a closed coffin. Questions are being asked about why the jet's pilots ignored advice to divert to another airport because of the fog. Russia flew the bodies of victims, many of them believed to be disfigured beyond recognition, to morgues in Moscow. As of Tuesday morning, 45 had been identified, Russian Health Minister Tatyana Golikova said. The body of the president's wife, Maria Kaczynska, has been identified and is to due to be returned to Poland. There is no precedent for a dual funeral involving a head of state and his first lady, but a spokesman for the president's office said a joint funeral would be held once the bodies of all those killed had been repatriated. Those killed had been due to attend a memorial for the Polish victims of the World War II massacre by Soviet secret police at Katyn in the Smolensk region. Commentators in Poland have stressed the irony that so many senior figures were killed making a visit to commemorate victims of a massacre which targeted the elite of Poland's officer corps. 'Advised against landing'
The Soviet-built Tu-154 airliner clipped tree-tops as it tried to land at a former air base north of the city of Smolensk on Saturday morning. Polish Prosecutor General Andrzej Seremet said that Polish investigators had talked to the flight controller and flight supervisor and concluded that there had been "no conditions for landing". "The tower was advising against the landing," he said. Polish investigators, he said, had not yet listened to the cockpit conversations recorded on the plane's recovered black boxes but would do so to see if there had been "any suggestions made to the pilots" from other people aboard the plane. There has been speculation the pilot and co-pilot, who were both aged 36, were under pressure not to delay the landing. Sergei Ivanov, Russia's first deputy prime minister, said the black boxes were "absolutely functional and recorded absolutely all the information, sound as well as parametric [information], till the moment of crash". "It is reliably confirmed that warning of the unfavourable weather conditions at the North airport and recommendations to go to a reserve airport were not only transmitted but received by the crew of the plane," he added. Mr Seremet said the remains of 87 people had been found so far and he hoped the rest would be retrieved when the crash debris was lifted with heavy machinery. Special session
A special joint session of the Polish parliament has been called for Tuesday to debate the disaster whose victims included MPs. Thousands of students filed slowly through Warsaw
It is believed the funerals could be held this weekend. The crash shocked many Russians as well, the BBC's Duncan Kennedy reports from Warsaw. President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin have devoted much time and effort to dealing with the aftermath of the crash, he adds, and Monday was a day of mourning in Russia. The country was "suffering and grieving together with the Poles", Mr Putin told a cabinet meeting. Russia's handling of the tragedy has been widely appreciated by many in Poland, though others suggest the thaw in relations may not last, our correspondent says. "I don't know whether there will be a political breakthrough, because we have many opposing interests with Russia," Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said on a Polish radio station. "But we already have an emotional breakthrough and that is already a great deal." "I must emphasise that the Russian side is behaving with extraordinary openness and, even more, with a Slavic openness and kindness," he added. At least 130 relatives have been flown to the Russian capital in the hope of helping forensic scientists to identify their loved ones' remains. They are being aided by Polish and Russian psychologists. "We all had to fulfil this difficult duty," said Rafal Dobrzeniecki, whose fiancee's father died in the crash. "I never had the chance to call him my dear father-in-law, he will always stay in my memory." What are these? | Armed Conflict | April 2010 | ['(BBC)'] |
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded to Peter J. Ratcliffe, William Kaelin Jr. and Gregg L. Semenza for their discoveries of how cells sense and adapt to oxygen availability. | The prize was awarded to William G. Kaelin Jr., Peter J. Ratcliffe and Gregg L. Semenza for discoveries about how cells sense and adapt to oxygen availability. By Gina Kolata and Megan Specia
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was jointly awarded to three scientists — William G. Kaelin Jr., Peter J. Ratcliffe and Gregg L. Semenza — for their work on how cells sense and adapt to oxygen availability. The Nobel Assembly announced the prize at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm on Monday.
Their work established the genetic mechanisms that allow cells to respond to changes in oxygen levels. The findings have implications for treating a variety of diseases, including cancer, anemia, heart attacks and strokes.
“Oxygen is the lifeblood of living organisms,” said Dr. George Daley, dean of Harvard Medical School. “Without oxygen, cells can’t survive.” But too much or too little oxygen also can be deadly. The three researchers tried to answer this question: How do cells regulate their responses? The investigators uncovered detailed genetic responses to changing oxygen levels that allow cells in the bodies of humans and other animals sense and respond to fluctuations, increasing and decreasing how much oxygen they receive.
The discoveries reveal the cellular mechanisms that control such things as adaptation to high altitudes and how cancer cells manage to hijack oxygen. Randall Johnson, a member of the Nobel Assembly, described the work as a “textbook discovery” and said it would be something students would start learning at the most basic levels of biology education. “This is a basic aspect of how a cell works, and I think from that standpoint alone it’s a very exciting thing,” Mr. Johnson said.
The research also has implications for treating various diseases in which oxygen is in short supply — including anemia, heart attacks and strokes — as well as for treatment of cancers that are fed by and seek out oxygen. William G. Kaelin Jr., professor of medicine at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham & Women’s Hospital Harvard Medical School, was drawn to science for its objectivity. “Like any scientist, I like solving puzzles,” he said in an interview this morning.
But he had an unprepossessing start. When he was a pre-med student hoping to become a physician researcher, a professor wrote, “Mr. Kaelin appears to be a bright young man whose future lies outside of the laboratory.”
Eventually he became intrigued by a rare, genetic cancer, von Hippel-Lindau disease, that is characterized by a profusion of extra blood vessels and overproduction of erythropoietin, or EPO, a hormone that stimulates production of the red blood cells that carry oxygen.
The cancer “was really fascinating,” Dr. Kaelin said. It had unusual features, like causing the body to make a substance, vegF, that stimulates the formation of blood vessels. And the cancer can cause the body to make too many red blood cells by increasing the production of EPO.
He had a hunch about what was going awry: “I thought it had something to do with oxygen sensing.” As it turned out, he was right.
“It is one of the great stories of biomedical science,” Dr. Daley said. “Bill is the consummate physician-scientist. He took a clinical problem and through incredibly rigorous science figured it out.” Dr. Kaelin said he knew, of course, that today the Nobel Prize would be awarded. But his chances were “so astronomically small” that he stuck with this usual routine and did not stay up last night.
He had a dream, though, that he had not gotten the 5 a.m. call from Sweden. He woke up and looked at the time; in fact, it was just 1:30 a.m. He went back to sleep, and when it really was 5 a.m., his phone rang. Gregg L. Semenza, professor of genetic medicine at Johns Hopkins, said his life was changed by a high school teacher, Rose Nelson, who taught biology at Sleepy Hollow High School in Sleepy Hollow, N.Y. “She was unbelievable,” Dr. Semenza recalled in an interview. “She transmitted the wonder and joy of science and scientific discovery. She set me on a course to science.”
In college, at Harvard, he thought he would get a Ph.D. and do research in genetics. But then a family he was close to had a child with Down syndrome. “That shifted me from being interested in genetics as kind of a scientific discipline to thinking about the impacts of genetics on people,” he said. After attending medical school at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Semenza set out to understand what cancer cells are searching for when they spread into surrounding tissues, and then into blood vessels that carry them around the body. His guess was that cancer cells are searching for oxygen.
Dr. Semenza turned his attention to the gene the guides production of EPO. Once it is activated, the body makes more oxygen carrying red blood cells. But how is that switch turned on when the body is deprived of oxygen? As a geneticist, he was trained to study rare genetic diseases. But his work on cellular responses to oxygen led him to study such common diseases as heart disease and cancer. At first, he divided his attention between the two conditions. More recently, Dr. Semenza said, he has focused on cancer, looking for ways to use what he has learned to find new ways to attack tumors.
Dr. Semenza was asleep when the call from Sweden came this morning, and did not get to his phone in time to answer it. The phone rang again a few minutes later.
“I heard this very distinguished gentleman tell me I was going to receive the Nobel Prize,” he said. “I was shocked, of course. And I was kind of in a daze. I’ve been in a daze ever since.”
But he added, “It’s been wonderful.”
Peter J. Ratcliffe, the third Nobelist, is the director of clinical research at the Francis Crick Institute in London and director of the Target Discovery Institute at Oxford. He became a medical researcher almost by chance. “I was a tolerable schoolboy chemist and intent on a career in industrial chemistry,” he said in a speech in 2016. “The ethereal but formidable headmaster appeared one morning in the chemistry classroom. ‘Peter,’ he said with unnerving serenity, ‘I think you should study medicine’. And without further thought, my university application forms were changed.” He became a kidney specialist, fascinated by the way the organs regulate production of EPO in response to the amount of oxygen available. Some colleagues, he said, felt this was not very important. But he persisted, intrigued by the scientific puzzle. “We set about the problem of EPO regulation, which might have been seen, and some did see, as a niche area,” he said in a telephone interview posted by the Nobel Committee on Twitter. “But I believed it was tractable, it could be solved by someone. The impact of that became evident later.”
The research is an illustration of the value of basic research, he added: “We make knowledge, That’s what I do as a publicly funded scientist. It is good knowledge. It is true. It is correct.” But, he added, “We set out on a journey without a clear understanding of the value of that knowledge.”
When the call from Sweden came, Dr. Ratcliffe was writing a grant proposal. Today he will continue working on it. “I’m happy about it,” he said of the Nobel Prize. But also was not enthusiastic about being thrust into the public eye. “I’ll do my duty, I hope,” he said. “It’s a tribute to the lab, to those who helped me set it up and worked with me on the project over the years, to many others in the field, and not least to my family for their forbearance of all the up and downs,” he said in a statement released by Oxford. The prize last year went to James P. Allison of the United States and Tasuku Honjo of Japan for their work on immunotherapy, for unleashing the body’s immune system to attack cancer. This breakthrough has resulted in an entirely new class of drugs and brought lasting remissions to many patients who had run out of options.
The 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to James Peebles, Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz for their contributions to the understanding of the evolution of the universe and Earth’s place in the cosmos.
The prize for chemistry was shared by John B. Goodenough, M. Stanley Whittingham and Akira Yoshino for their work on the development of lithium-ion batteries.
The Nobel Prize in Physics will be announced on Tuesday in Sweden. Read about last year’s winners, Arthur Ashkin, Gérard Mourou and Donna Strickland.
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry will be announced on Wednesday in Sweden. Read about last year’s winners, Frances H. Arnold, George P. Smith and Gregory P. Winter.
The 2018 and 2019 Nobel Prizes in Literature will be announced on Thursday in Sweden. The prize last year was postponed after the husband of an academy member was accused, and ultimately convicted, of rape — a crisis that led to the departure of several board members and required the intervention of the King of Sweden. Read about 2017’s winner, Kazuo Ishiguro. The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on Friday in Norway. Read about last year’s winners, Nadia Murad and Denis Mukwege.
The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science will be announced Monday next week in Sweden. Read about last year’s winners, William Nordhaus and Paul Romer.
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| Awards ceremony | October 2019 | ['(The New York Times)'] |
Brazil's Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirms the closure of five of its embassies, the ones in Antigua and Barbuda, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis and Dominica. Former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had opened more than 65 embassies in countries throughout the Global South in a bid to enhance political and economic ties with Brazil. | Brazil retreats from its South-South cooperation policy by closing five of its embassies in the Caribbean.
Brazil confirmed the closure Wednesday of five Caribbean embassies to include those in Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The Brazilian Foreign Ministry is also considering more embassy closures in two African countries.
Bolsonaro
Brazil’s Foreign Minister Ernesto Araujo made the official confirmation Wednesday through a press release to the media. His stated justification for the closures was based on “adjusting foreign policy needs to the realities of our resources, both human and financial.”
According to the Itamaraty, the name for the headquarters of the foreign ministry, the closures “will not diminish bilateral relations,” assuring that Brazil’s interests “will be covered by other diplomatic missions in the region that are already prepared or can be optimized to take over new duties.”
These closures represent a departure from the policies backed by former President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva and his Workers Party, which opened at least 67 embassies in countries throughout the Global South in a bid to enhance political and economic ties with Brazil and as part of a larger strategy of South-South cooperation.
Despite the insistence that the move is related to costs and available personnel, Brazil's former Foreign Minister, Celso Amorim, told a local media outlet that “the costs of those embassies is minimal. This just shows a lack of interest.”
Araujo was appointed as head of Brazil’s Foreign Ministry by President Jair Bolsonaro in November 2018. His appointment came as a surprise since the relatively young top diplomat was low on the foreign service hierarchy.
Some media reports have speculated that Araujo’s appointment was made in part thanks to a pro-Trump essay he wrote back in 2017 which praised U.S. President Donald Trump, lambasted the United Nations and globalism, and advocated for a Trump-Brazil alliance.
Two other embassies are being assessed for possible closure, both in Africa. Brazil’s Liberian embassy in the capital of Monrovia and Sierra Leone’s embassy in Freetown. Another embassy in Africa, that of Libya, is technically active, but has no staff appointed to it. | Organization Closed | June 2019 | ['(teleSUR)'] |
The Tony Awards, honoring excellence in Broadway theatre, are held in New York City. Kinky Boots takes home the most awards, with six, including Best Musical. | 8:22 p.m.: “Kinky Boots” was named best new musical, bringing its awards haul to six, the most of any production at the 67th annual Tony Awards. The musical, based on the 2005 British movie about a drag queen who saves a shoe factory, beat out the London import “Matilda,” which won four prizes.
Winning for musical revival was “Pippin,” which originated at the American Repertory Theatre in Massachusetts. “Pippin” took four Tonys. The Steppenwolf’s revival of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and Douglas Carter Beane’s “The Nance” each won three awards.
COMPLETE LIST: Tonys 2013 winners and nominees
8:02 p.m.: “Kinky Boots, The Musical” wins the 2013 Tony for best musical.
7:54 p.m.: “Pippin” wins for best revival of a musical.
7:48 p.m.: Cicely Tyson won her first Tony Award for the revival of Horton Foote’s “The Trip to Bountiful.” “It’s been 30 years since I stood on the stage,” said Tyson, 79. But she said she had a “burning desire to just one more” great role.
In what may go down as one of the most elegant responses to music playing over a winner who had exceeded his or her time, Tyson, looked down and noted that she was being asked to wrap it up.
“That’s exactly what you did, you wrapped me up in your arms, and now I can go home with a Tony,” Tyson said.
The actress plays Carrie Watts, a role that won Geraldine Page an Oscar in the 1985 film adaptation.
Patina Miller won for lead actress in a musical for the revival of “Pippin.” She was previously nominated in the musical “Sister Act.”
Tonys 2013: The Times’ Twitter coverage
7:22 p.m.: Tracy Letts upsets Tom Hanks for best performance by a lead actor in a play for his performance in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”
7:17 p.m.: As expected, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg received a special Tony at Sunday’s ceremony. Standing next to presenter Sigourney Weaver, Bloomberg quipped: “I can’t sing, I can’t dance and I can’t act. I’m a triple threat, literally.”
Weaver presented the award for a revival of a play to the Steppenwolf Theatre Co.'s production of Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” The production originated at the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago before transferring to Broadway this season.
7:05 p.m.: “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” wins for best revival of a play.
7:00 p.m.: Playwright Christopher Durang won his first Tony Award, for his comedy “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike,” which was named best play.
“I wrote my first play in the second grade in 1958,” Durang said. Emily Mann, the artistic head of the McCarter Theatre in New Jersey, shared the award. “Vanya” debuted at the McCarter before moving off-Broadway and then to Broadway. The play is a modern-day comic riff on the plays of Anton Chekhov.
RELATED: Tonys 2013: Judith Light’s love affair with Broadway community
The award was presented by Jesse Eisenberg, the star of “The Social Network” who also has a budding side career as a playwright. Eisenberg’s “The Revisionist” was a success this season, running at the off-Broadway Cherry Lane Theatre. Hollywood was the butt of an extended joke when Harris, Andrew Rannells, Megan Hilty and Laura Benanti took to the stage to lament the perilous world of television. Harris ribbed the former “Book of Mormon” star Rannells for his recently canceled sitcom “The New Normal.” Hilty struck out with “Smash,” while Benanti has two canceled TV shows -- “The Playboy Club” and “Go On.” Harris comically bragged about his successful TV career, which includes the long-running CBS sitcom “How I Met Your Mother.”
Andrea Martin, another actor who has worked extensively in TV, won her second Tony Award, for featured actress in a musical for the revival of “Pippin.”
6:43 p.m.: “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike” by Christopher Durang wins the 2013 Tony for best play.
PHOTOS: Tonys 2013 Arrivals
6:30 p.m.: Cyndi Lauper’s true color was punk red on Sunday when she accepted the award for her original score of “Kinky Boots.” The chameleonic rock star, sporting a loud red hairdo, admitted that even though she had rehearsed her speech in front of the shower curtain, she was still surprised to have won.
Lauper beat out another rock musician -- Trey Anastasio of the band Phish, nominated for the short-lived musical “Hands on a Hardbody,” which had a tryout run at the La Jolla Playhouse.
“Kinky Boots” continued its 2013 Tony run with Jerry Mitchell taking the award for choreography.
6:12 p.m.: For the second time in Tony Awards history, two women took the awards for direction -- Diane Paulus for the revival of “Pippin” and Pam MacKinnon for the revival of Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”
MacKinnon reserved her biggest thanks for Albee, for giving her career “a spine.” The director was nominated last season for Bruce Norris’ “Clybourne Park,” which ran at the Mark Taper Forum in L.A. before transferring to Broadway.
Paulus also was nominated last year for “The Gershwins’ Porgy & Bess.”
Note: An earlier version of this post incorrectly said this marked the first sweep by women in the directing category. In 1998, Julie Taymor won for “Lion King” and Garry Hynes won for “The Beauty Queen of Leenane”
5:59 p.m.: It’s hard to believe that Alan Cumming and Scarlett Johansson exist on the same plane of reality. But there they were -- two Tony snubs of 2013 presenting an award arm in arm with tense smiles. They presented the award for featured actor in a musical to Gabriel Ebert for “Matilda.” An even stranger pairing was cast members of the hair-metal musical “Rock of Ages” introducing a scene from the ultra-traditional “Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella.” Liam Neeson and Oliver Platt put in a joint comic appearance to promote the American Theatre Wing, the main organizer of the Tonys.
5:58 p.m.: Pam MacKinnon wins for best direction of a play for “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”
5:55 p.m. Diane Paulus wins for best direction of a musical for “Pippin.”
5:53 p.m.: Leon Rothenberg wins for sound design for a play for his work on “The Nance.”
5:40 p.m.: Gabriel Ebert wins his first Tony for his role in “Matilda, The Musical.” FULL COVERAGE: Tonys 2013
5:34 p.m.: The “Who’s the Boss?” actress won last year for “Other Desert Cities.”
The Tony Awards have been called a three-hour commercial for the Broadway industry, and this year is no different.
Cast members from old musicals have been brought back to introduce scenes from new musicals. Essentially, you get two marketing plugs for the price of one: “Newsies” introduced “Matilda,” “Chicago” introduced “Bring It On,” etc.
5:20 p.m.: Courtney B. Vance won the first major Tony Award of the evening, for featured actor in a play, for his performance in Nora Ephron’s “Lucky Guy.” The actor thanked his wife, actress Angela Bassett, and director George C. Wolfe.
Tony Awards handed out before the telecast went to costume designers Ann Roth for “The Nance” and William Ivey Long for “Cinderella.” “Kinky Boots,” the musical juggernaut nominated for 13 awards, won for orchestrations.
RELATED: Courtney Vance glad he took a chance on ‘Lucky Guy’
5:14 p.m.: Are we still in 2012? The 67th annual Tony Awards opened with host Neil Patrick Harris performing a comic tribute to the musical “Once,” which opened last season.
It’s easy to understand why Tony producers spotlighted a musical that’s old news and one that’s based on a movie at the top of its prime-time broadcast on CBS. The need to appeal to a wide audience is a necessary evil for an awards show whose ratings have dropped steadily in the past few years. In case you needed further evidence, the telecast’s first cut-away to “Lucky Guy” nominee Tom Hanks came just five minutes into the show.
Harris then jumped into a wisecracking, Billy Crystal-esque musical medley of the season’s nominated musicals. To keep things topical, he made humorous references to Shia LaBeof and the movie version of “Les Miserables.”
4:45 p.m.: The annual Tony Awards will begin at 5 p.m. PDT on Sunday with our coverage of the ceremony at Radio City Music Hall in New York. The CBS broadcast will be delayed until 8 p.m. PDT on the West Coast.
Culture Monster will have continuous coverage of the ceremony, with news updates of the winners and the most notable moments from Broadway’s biggest night.
Viewers on the West Coast who like surprises should check by later because our online coverage will be live, beginning around 5 p.m. on Sunday.
PHOTOS: Hollywood stars on stage
This year’s Broadway season featured big musical blockbusters (“Matilda,” “Kinky Boots”), critically acclaimed playwrights (Richard Greenberg, Chistopher Durang) and a handful of celebrities (Tom Hanks, Sigourney Weaver, Scarlett Johansson).
The telecast will feature an impressive list of presenters that will include the aformentioned stars as well as Jesse Eisenberg, Jake Gyllenhaal, Sally Field, Zachary Quinto, Jon Cryer and Anna Kendrick.
| Awards ceremony | June 2013 | ['(Los Angeles Times)'] |
The political campaigns of Republican incumbent George W. Bush and Democratic challenger John Kerry agree to a tentative schedule of three televised debates, the first of which will take place on September 30 in Florida. | The campaigns of President Bush and Sen. John F. Kerry have tentatively settled on a package of three face-to-face debates that both sides view as a potentially decisive chance to sway huge audiences ahead of the Nov. 2 election, Democrats and Republicans said yesterday.
Bush's campaign opened the negotiations by urging just two sessions involving Bush and Kerry, but yielded to the full slate of debates that had been proposed by the Commission on Presidential Debates, according to people in both parties who were briefed on the negotiations.
No agreement will be final until the two sides agree on details for the format of a town-meeting-style debate that Bush at first resisted but now is willing to endorse, the party representatives said.
The debates will be spread over two weeks just before the hectic homestretch of a bitter contest, which had been tied for months until Bush recently opened a small lead in a number of national polls. The nominees will focus on foreign policy during the opening session, on Sept. 30 in Florida; they will take questions from undecided voters at the town-meeting-style debate Oct. 8 in Missouri; and they will conclude with a session on Oct. 13 in Arizona that will revolve around domestic issues.
Vice President Cheney and Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards will debate Oct. 5 in Ohio. Each of the four debates will begin at 9 p.m. Eastern time and will run 90 minutes.
The officials, who declined to be identified because they were not supposed to be discussing the matter with reporters, would not say when an agreement will be announced. Both campaigns declined to comment on the state of negotiations. Bush-Cheney communications director Nicolle Devenish said: "The campaign maintains its position that it will not negotiate the terms of the debates in the press." Kerry's campaign sees the debates as especially important, coming after a period in which he has been put on the defensive by the Bush campaign and its conservative allies. Polls paint a confusing picture of the state of the race, with some showing a virtual dead heat and others giving Bush a clear advantage. In many of the key battleground states, Bush appears in stronger shape than his challenger.
Bush's chief negotiator, former secretary of state James A. Baker III, agreed to add the third debate in part because of Missouri's importance as a swing state and because the president did not want to be portrayed as ducking his opponent, according to a source.
Under the commission's proposal, the participants for the town meeting will be undecided voters from the St. Louis metropolitan area who are chosen by the Gallup Organization. "The Bush campaign didn't want to do the town hall because they really didn't trust the process for identifying uncommitted voters," said a Republican source familiar with the talks. "But things are going so well for them and so poorly for Kerry that they didn't want to give Kerry an opportunity to change the subject and say that Bush is afraid of debates. Bush not doing debates or dragging out the debate on debates could have been played by the Kerry campaign as arrogance."
A Democratic official involved in the process said the Kerry campaign worked to bring pressure on the Bush campaign through the news media, Republican donors and public officials in Missouri to go through with the town-hall debate. Bush won the state by three percentage points in 2000, and both sides expected it to be among the most closely contested swing states, although a number of polls show Bush ahead there now.
After reaching agreement on the broad outlines of the schedule, Baker and Kerry's lead negotiator, Democratic power broker Vernon E. Jordan Jr., were negotiating details of the town meeting. Officials indirectly involved said they believed that was the only element standing in the way of a final agreement. The town-meeting debate is to be held at Washington University in St. Louis, which hosted debates in 1992 and 2000 and had been selected as a commission site in 1996, but lost out when President Bill Clinton agreed to only two debates. University officials had already completed expensive preparations for security, broadcast transmission and parking.
The two sides decided to reverse the commission's recommendation that the debates focus first on domestic policy and later on foreign policy, which the president's campaign sees as his strength. Jordan agreed, both sides said. The nonpartisan commission has sponsored debates in each election since 1988, but candidates are not obligated to accept the commission's proposal. As negotiations continued, the commission issued an unusual letter Wednesday saying the campaigns must settle on a schedule by today for production and logistical deadlines to be met. In a nudge to the Bush campaign, the letter included a reference to the popularity of the town-hall format with the public.
Both sides have already begun portraying the opposing candidate as a tremendous debater, as part of the quadrennial ritual of trying to lower expectations for the nominees' performances. Kerry strategist Joe Lockhart told reporters during a conference call Friday that he would "challenge anyone to name a major debate that George Bush has been in where he hasn't been considered the winner."
Matthew Dowd, the Bush-Cheney campaign's chief strategist, said in an interview earlier this month that Kerry "is very formidable, and probably the best debater ever to run for president." "I'm not joking," Dowd added. "I think he's better than Cicero," the ancient Roman orator. "But I think it'll be a very good thing for the American public to see these two men stand side by side. You can't hide who you are."
Both campaigns agreed to the dates, locations and moderators proposed by the commission. Commission officials plan to begin moving equipment and other materials into place at the debate sites today, on the assumption that their plan will be embraced by the campaigns.
The Sept. 30 debate will be held at the University of Miami in Coral Gables and will be moderated by Jim Lehrer, anchor and executive editor of "The NewsHour" on PBS. The Oct. 8 town-hall debate will be moderated by Charles Gibson, co-anchor of ABC's "Good Morning America." The Oct 13 debate will be at Arizona State University in Tempe. The questioner will be Bob Schieffer, CBS News chief Washington correspondent and moderator of "Face the Nation."
The Oct. 5 vice presidential debate will be held at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland and will be moderated by Gwen Ifill, senior correspondent of "The NewsHour" and moderator of PBS's "Washington Week." | Government Job change - Election | September 2004 | ['(Washington Post)'] |
The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 4–3 decision, upholds the University of Texas's practice of considering race in college admissions. Justice Elena Kagan recused herself for prior work on the case as United States solicitor general. | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the consideration of race in college admissions, rejecting a white woman’s challenge to a University of Texas program designed to boost the enrollment of minority students.
The court, in a 4-3 ruling written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, decided in favor of the university and turned aside the conservative challenge to a policy intended to foster racial and ethnic diversity on campus.
The ruling ended an eight-year legal challenge to the affirmative action admissions system used by the University of Texas at Austin brought by Abigail Fisher, who was denied a place in 2008.
Affirmative action is a policy under which racial minorities historically subject to discrimination are given certain preferences in education and employment. Instead of a retreat on affirmative action that Fisher and her conservative backers had sought, the court endorsed race-based admissions for diversity.
Fisher said the university denied her admission in favor of lesser-qualified black and Hispanic applicants in violation of the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law.
Kennedy, a conservative who has previously voted against university affirmative action, was joined by three of the court’s liberals in the ruling. He said that “it remains an enduring challenge to our nation’s education system to reconcile the pursuit of diversity with the constitutional promise of equal treatment and dignity.”
In the Texas case, the challengers had failed to show that the university could have met its needs with another process, he said. Kennedy noted that the school “tried and failed to increase diversity” through other race-neutral means.
University officials contend that having a sizable number of minorities enrolled exposes students to varied perspectives and enhances the educational experience for all students.
The justices upheld a 2014 ruling by the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that had endorsed the school’s “limited use of race in its search for holistic diversity.”
President Barack Obama’s administration backed the university in the dispute.
“I’m pleased that the Supreme Court upheld the basic notion that diversity is an important value in our society and that this country should provide a high-quality education to all our young people regardless of their background,” Obama said at the White House.
“We are not a country that guarantees equal outcomes, but we do strive to provide an equal shot to everybody,” Obama added.
Civil rights groups hailed the ruling, saying such programs provide a foundation for achieving equality throughout U.S. society. Conservatives said the ruling endorsed discrimination based on race.
The university admits most freshmen through a program that guarantees a place to students in the top 10 percent of their Texas high school graduating classes. It uses other factors including race to admit the remainder. Fisher was not in the top 10 percent of her high school class, and the university disputed whether she would have gained entry under any circumstance.
The justices had considered Fisher’s case in June 2013. But rather than rule on the program’s constitutionality then, they ordered the appeals court to scrutinize the Texas policy more closely.
‘THE WIDER WORLD’
The university’s president, Gregory Fenves, praised the decision and said race continues to matter in American life.
“We must make sure all of our students are able to excel in the wider world when they leave campus - educating them in an environment as diverse as the United States is one of the most effective ways to do so,” Fenves said.
Writing in dissent, Justice Samuel Alito described the university’s program as “affirmative action gone wild” because of the way it can benefit minorities from wealthy backgrounds. He said that while the university’s stated goals are laudable, “they are not concrete or precise, and they offer no limiting principle for the use of racial preferences.”
Joining Alito in dissent were Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Clarence Thomas.
Justice Elena Kagan, who was U.S. solicitor general in the Obama administration when it backed the university in lower-court litigation, took no part in the decision.
Fisher, now 26, graduated from her second-choice college, Louisiana State University, and now works as a financial analyst in Austin.
“I am disappointed that the Supreme Court has ruled that students applying to the University of Texas can be treated differently because of their race or ethnicity. I hope that the nation will one day move beyond affirmative action,” Fisher said in a statement.
Edward Blum, a conservative activist who engineered Fisher’s challenge, said racial classifications and preferences are among the most polarizing policies in America today.
“As long as universities like the University of Texas continue to treat applicants differently by race and ethnicity, the social fabric that holds us together as a nation will be weakened,” added Blum, president of the Project on Fair Representation.
Blum has separately challenged the 1978 Supreme Court precedent that first allowed affirmative action, with new lawsuits against Harvard and the University of North Carolina.
Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Additional reporting by Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; Editing by Will Dunham
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
All quotes delayed a minimum of 15 minutes. See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays.
| Government Policy Changes | June 2016 | ['(Reuters)', '(AP)', '(The New York Times)'] |
China successfully launches the Bolivian Túpac Katari from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center. | The Bolivian satellite Tupac Katari (TKSAT-1) was successfully launched on December 20 from the Xinchang satellite launch center in China, Bolivian state news agency ABI reported.
The aircraft is expected to enter into operations in March 2014 after a three-month trial once put in orbit.
The Túpac Katari satellite was constructed in China by Chinese firm China Great Wall Industry Corporation (CGWIC). It was launched by the LM-3B/E vehicle developed by the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT). The satellite required parts manufactured in the US, France and Germany, according to the report.
The satellite will provide the government of Bolivia with data for internet access and telemedicine projects as well as distance learning.
The overall financial benefit of the Bolivian satellite Tupac Katari (TKSAT-1) is expected to reach US$600mn, according to previous reports. This figure represents the amount that may be invested by both private and state firms to develop projects associated with the launch of the aircraft.
The total cost of the satellite project is US$302mn. The project, which is jointly financed by China's Development Bank and the government of Bolivia, also stipulates the construction of terrestrial base stations in La Paz and Santa Cruz. According to the country's space agency (AEB) head Iván Zambrana, Bolivia will recover the investments made in the satellite in approximately 10 years. Zambrana also said that the satellite will generate annual revenues of nearly US$40mn for the provision of services to local and international firms.
In December 2011, Bolivia signed a contract with the Chinese firm to build the satellite, which is intended to improve communications in the country's rural areas, including TV, internet and telephony. The aircraft will also facilitate the development of civil projects like remote education and telemedicine.
The Túpac Katari satellite will have 30 transponders and a useful life of 15 years.
Several countries have already expressed interest in acquiring satellite capacity from the satellite, international press reported. | New achievements in aerospace | December 2013 | ['(BNamericas)'] |
Cameroon closes most of its northern markets on the Nigerian border. | Wearied by incessant suicide bombing against its citizens by Boko Haram militants, Cameroon has announced a closure of most of its northern markets on the border with Nigeria.
The latest attack in a market in Bodo sparked the measure. Thirty five people died in the attack, while at least 70 people were injured. Just two days after, Boko Haram suicide bomber also hit Chibok market, in Borno state, North east Nigeria.
The country’s government spokesperson, Issa Tchiroma Bakary, said it was the 30th attack by suspected Boko Haram fighters on Cameroon since the start of the new year, VOA reported.
Midjiyawa Bakari, the governor of the far north region of Cameroon, says the decision to close markets on Cameroon’s northern border with Nigeria until further notice was taken for security reasons because the four female suicide bombers who attacked Bodo were disguised as traders and hid explosives in bags of vegetables they pretended to sell.
“The decision has been taken to close some markets in the border but people have been persisting to sell and to buy things. They should know that Boko Haram is looking for where people are gathering to do these attacks,” he said.
Businessman Inoussa Yegie says shock and consternation has gripped the town of Bodo, where Monday’s attack took place. He says it will take time for them to recover, in spite of the heavy deployment of troops. The 33-year-old says the decision by the government to close all border markets in their locality may backfire, especially now that Boko Haram fighters are recruiting young people to steal and seize money and goods from farmers and traders.
Yegie says traders are becoming poorer because all their shops have been sealed. He says youths who use commercial motorcycles to transport goods and people from the market to supply towns in Nigeria no longer have jobs, and they may now be tempted to join Boko Haram fighters who promise them better lives.
After Monday’s attack, Cameroon soldiers launched raids on the Nigerian town of Achigashia, from where they believe the suicide bombers came. Cameroon’s spokesperson Issa Tchiroma Bakary says 17 insurgents were killed in the operation. He says Cameroon has counted at least 30 attacks on its territory this year.
“Faced with such harassment both un-grounded and unjustified, our defense and security forces have always retaliated leading the enemy to incur several setbacks that has considerably weakened the group and reduced it to mere acts of cowardice, especially suicide bombings, which have become its modus operandi,” he said. | Organization Closed | January 2016 | ['(The News)', '(Voice of America)'] |
Twin bombings kill at least 40 people, mostly Shia Iraqi pilgrims, and wound over 100 in the Bab al-Saghir area of Damascus. | A twin bomb attack in Syria's capital, Damascus, has killed 40 Iraqis and wounded 120, Iraq's government says.
The attack was near the Bab al-Saghir cemetery, which houses Shia mausoleums, with those targeted said to be pilgrims arriving by bus.
Sunni militants often target Shias but attacks in the capital are uncommon.
A nationwide truce brokered by Russia, Turkey and Iran took effect on 30 December after talks in Kazakhstan, but sporadic attacks continue.
There have been two rounds of talks, with another planned next week.
Damascus is mostly under the control of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, but rebel groups are present in outlying districts of the city.
It is not yet clear who was behind the latest attack, which Iraqi foreign ministry spokesman Ahmed Jamal called a "criminal terrorist operation".
Images showed blood stains on the ground near several damaged buses.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a roadside bomb blew up as a bus passed and a suicide bomber also detonated explosives.
A double suicide bombing in the Kafr Sousa district of the capital in January killed at least 10 people.
Former al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat Fateh al-Sham said it was behind that attack.
The group is excluded from the peace talks and its mainly north-western bases have been regularly targeted by the Syrian army and its Russian allies.
So-called Islamic State is another Sunni extremist group that controls significant areas of Syria. Its Iraqi stronghold of Mosul is currently under attack from Iraqi government forces and their allies.
More than 300,000 people have been killed and 11 million others displaced since the uprising against President Assad began in March 2011.
| Armed Conflict | March 2017 | ['(BBC)', '(Al Jazeera)'] |
Palestinians riot along the Israel-Gaza border fence, burning tyres and flying flaming kites across the border to set Israeli fields ablaze; Israel Defence Forces soldiers respond with tear gas and live fire, killing four Palestinians, including a 15-year-old, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. | UN Mideast envoy blasts Israel's 'outrageous' killing of minor Palestinian at Gaza protest, calls for investigation
The Health Ministry in Gaza reported that four Palestinians were killed and 156 wounded by Israeli live fire on Friday as thousands of Gazans protested along the border in the fourth consecutive week of the "March of Return."
The ministry said a total of 729 Palestinians were wounded in the protests by, among other things, live fire, tear gas inhalation and rubber bullets. Those killed were named as Ahmad Nabil Abu Aqel, 25, Mohammed Ayoub, 15, Ahmad Rashad Al-Atamana, 24, and Said Abd Al-Aal Abu Taha, 19. Of those wounded, 305 were taken to hospital, 4 of them in serious condition and 166 in moderate condition.
| Riot | April 2018 | ['(Haaretz)', '(The Times of Israel)'] |
Haiti delays Carnival celebrations over concern that anti-government protests might turn violent. | After President Michel Martelly ended term with no replacement, protesters clash with police, with some trying to attack Carnival stages
Last modified on Wed 10 Feb 2016 10.21 GMT
Haiti delayed the start of Carnival celebrations on Sunday because of fears of violence from anti-government protesters, as President Michel Martelly ended his term with nobody elected to replace him. Widespread unrest set off by an election that critics say was fraudulent meant the impoverished Caribbean nation was unable to hold a runoff to choose a new president before Martelly stepped down, leaving the country facing a period of interim government. In a speech before parliament, Martelly said his “biggest regret is that the presidential election was postponed” and said he worked “night and day” to better Haiti and was “ready to answer before the court of history”.
Protesters and police clashed again in downtown Port-au-Prince, in the area that hosts the capital’s heavily attended and raucous annual Mardi Gras celebrations. Some groups tried to attack Carnival stages. “We learned political groups planned to protest in the area of the palace, on Champ de Mars, which is the same area where Carnival activities will be concentrated,” said Carel Pedre, a spokesman for the Carnival committee. Two of Haiti’s top Carnival musical groups had already pulled out, citing security concerns. Pedre said festivities would continue as normal on Monday and Tuesday, the peak of Carnival before the Christian period of Lent. “We could not take the risk, because of security issues that we don’t have control of,” said bandleader Roberto Martino. He said he was not sure if his group, T-Vice, would take part at all. The last day of Carnival was canceled in 2015 after at least 16 people were killed in a stampede set off when a singer on a float hit an overhead power line.
Martelly rose to fame as a risqué singer known for Carnival performances. He has released a new song with sexually suggestive lyrics that insult a female journalist. There had been speculation he would return to Carnival floats to perform the song after his presidency ended. Martelly handed over the presidential sash on Sunday, during a ceremony at the heavily guarded national assembly, attended by parliamentarians who under a last-minute deal will choose an interim president until a new leader is elected. Assembly president Jocelerme Privert called for a “truce” to allow enough stability to organize the elections, already postponed three times, most recently in January. The vote is now set for 24 April; an elected president is supposed to take office in May. The interim government will have to overcome disagreements about which candidates can participate in the election, since many are convinced the first round was riddled with fraud that favored ruling party candidate Jovenel Moise. Martelly’s government denied any wrongdoing. Prime minister Evans Paul remains in office. | Protest_Online Condemnation | February 2016 | ['(Reuters)', '(The Guardian)'] |
The UK's Director of Public Prosecutions is to review a 2009 decision by the Crown Prosecution Service not to prosecute Jimmy Savile over allegations of sexual abuse. | Keir Starmer, the Director of Public Prosecutions is to review legal papers relating to abuse allegations against Jimmy Savile, David Cameron said today.
Keir Starmer will look again at the Crown Prosecution Services’ decision not to go ahead with a case against Savile, as David Cameron pledged the Government will do “everything it can”. Speaking at Prime Minister’s Questions today, Mr Cameron disclosed the Director of Public Prosecutions had instructed his principle legal advisor to review the papers relating to Savile. He will also consider what more can be done to alert the authorities about concerns relating to dropped prosecutions, Mr Cameron said. The Prime Minister made his comments in response to MP Bob Stewart, who asked whether he would “ensure the full panoply of Government power is used to investigate the predatory activities of the late Mr Jimmy Savile”. Mr Cameron said: "The Director of Public Prosecutions has confirmed that his principal legal adviser will again review the papers from the time when a case was put to the CPS for prosecution. "The Director of Public Prosecutions specifically is going to consider what more can be done to alert relevant authorities where there are concerns that a prosecution is not taken forward. "The Government will do everything it can do, other institutions must do what they can do, to make sure that we learn the lesson of this and it can never happen again."
The Crown Prosecution Service has previously examined sexual assault claims involving four alleged victims in 2009 following an investigation by Surrey Police. The investigation was eventually dropped because none of the victims would support the prosecution against Savile. In a statement released today, Keir Starmer QC said: “In light of the numerous allegations made about Jimmy Savile recently, last week I asked the Chief Crown Prosecutor for the South East, Roger Coe-Salazar, to read and consider the files in relation to the four incidents referred to us. "He has done so and he has assured me that the decisions taken at the time were the right decisions based on the information and evidence then available. “Out of an abundance of caution I have asked for the papers in the four cases to be provided to my Principal Legal Advisor, Alison Levitt QC, forthwith so that she can consider the decisions made and advise me accordingly. “This is not a straightforward issue but I have said to the Attorney General that I would like to discuss with him whether the CPS should adopt a policy of referring cases to other relevant agencies, such as social services, where an allegation is made but cannot be proceeded with for evidential reasons.”
Today, Mr Cameron said the emerging allegations had shocked the “entire country”, leaving institutions including the BBC facing “serious questions”. “The allegations and what seems to have happened are completely appalling and I think are shocking the entire country,” Mr Cameron added. “These allegations do leave many institutions, perhaps particularly the BBC, with serious questions to answer. “I think above all the question of ‘how did he get away with this for so long?’
“The most important this is that the police operation is properly resourced and is allowed to continue. “I don’t rule out further steps, but we do now have independent investigations by the BBC, independent investigations into the NHS. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Investigate | October 2012 | ['(Belfast Telegraph)', '(The Daily Telegraph)'] |
U.S. President George W. Bush announces, in a televised address, his strategy change in response to Iraq Study Group criticisms. This will involve a surge of 21,500 more troops to fight in the War in Iraq. | WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Linking the fight in Iraq with the greater war on terror, President Bush told the nation there is "no magic formula for success in Iraq" but that failure there "would be a disaster for the United States."
Speaking from the White House Wednesday night as about 50 protesters gathered outside, Bush said he will increase American forces by more than 20,000, the vast majority of them coming from "five brigades [that] will be deployed to Baghdad." Bush recognized that the progress of the war is "unacceptable to the American people -- and it is unacceptable to me," adding, "Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me." (Read the speech)
The additional troops will work alongside Iraqi units. (Watch Bush talk about U.S. troop increase )
"Our troops will have a well-defined mission: to help Iraqis clear and secure neighborhoods, to help them protect the local population, and to help ensure that the Iraqi forces left behind are capable of providing the security that Baghdad needs." Bush said that if the situation in Iraq does not turn for the better, "Radical Islamic extremists would grow in strength and gain new recruits."
They would then be emboldened to topple moderate governments and "use oil revenues to fund their ambitions." Iran would also have an opportunity to ratchet up its pursuit of nuclear weapons, he said.
Bush gave two reasons for the failure to secure Baghdad in particular. There are "not enough Iraqi and American troops to secure neighborhoods," he said. And there are too many restrictions on the troops that are in place, Bush said. "Our military commanders reviewed the new Iraqi plan to ensure that it addressed these mistakes. They report that it does," he said.
"They also report that this plan can work ... and [Iraqi] Prime Minister [Nuri] al-Maliki has pledged that political or sectarian interference will not be tolerated."
Bush said only the Iraqis can end the sectarian violence that has besieged their country and he said that the Iraqi government "has put forward an aggressive plan" to accomplish that. (Watch Bush explain what the Iraqi military will do )
Bush rejected ideas "to step back." That, the president said "would force a collapse of the Iraqi government. ... Such a scenario would result in our troops being forced to stay in Iraq even longer, and confront an enemy that is even more lethal." The Iraqi government will spend $10 billion "of its own money on reconstruction and infrastructure projects" to spur job growth, Bush said. (Watch Bush speak of Iraq's economic contribution )
And Iraq will hold provincial elections later this year. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will leave for the Middle East Friday, he said, to "continue the urgent diplomacy required to help bring peace" to the region. (Watch Bush explain diplomatic efforts )
Earlier Wednesday, top Democrats who had met with the president said they should have been granted a meeting weeks ago to discuss his new war strategy.
Emerging from their meeting with Bush about 3:15 p.m. ET, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said they felt they were not able to give input to the Bush plan.
Their meeting "was notification, not consultation," said Pelosi. In the Democrat-controlled Senate, Reid said senators are working on a nonbinding resolution opposing more troops, and he said several Republicans are likely to support it. The House plans to raise a similar resolution. (Democrats react to speech)
The Republican congressional leadership is standing behind President Bush's new plan, and faulted Democrats for not offering their own plan for victory.
"I know many members of Congress are skeptical about will this plan work. We've had other plans. They haven't worked," said House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio. "I think the administration has put together a good plan. It is our best shot at victory in Iraq. And I think that's what the American people want and expect."
In Baghdad, Iraqi soldiers will take the lead, with backup from the Americans, the officials said. The Iraqi army will add three army brigades to Baghdad to make it an Iraqi-led operation. The Iraqi troops' main goal would be to neutralize Shiite militias loyal to influential Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, officials said. Al-Maliki has been reluctant to move against the militias until now because al-Sadr's political support has been crucial to al-Maliki's rise to power and continuation in office.
The additional troops will be sent to Iraq in phases, officials said. The first deployments would begin by the end of January, a U.S. official said. To accomplish the plan, the normal tours of duty for soldiers and Marines will be extended, the officials said. Marines who usually spend seven months in Iraq will be there three or four months longer; soldiers who normally serve for a year will be there up to four months longer.
To sustain the increase, the Pentagon is expected to have to activate more National Guard and Reserve units, according to the officials.
The plan, which U.S. officials said the Iraqis helped prepare, would add billions of dollars to the cost of the war.
The White House will ask Congress for $5.6 billion for the additional troops, and $1.2 billion for rebuilding and jobs programs in Iraq, senior administration officials said.
Supporters say more troops are needed to stave off a U.S. defeat in the nearly four-year-old war, which has cost more than $400 billion and the lives of more than 3,000 U.S. troops. (Watch how the war's costs are mounting )
Democrats leading the House and Senate are under pressure from opponents of the war to block money for additional troop deployments. (Time.com: Democrats more bark than bite on Iraq)
And while Democrats have been the sharpest critics of Bush's plan to increase U.S. troop levels in Iraq, the president does not enjoy full support in his own party. A number of Republican senators -- including Sen. Gordon Smith of Oregon, Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota, Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio, Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine and Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas -- have publicly questioned whether Bush's plan to increase troop strength will help stabilize Iraq. "A troop surge in Baghdad would put more American troops at risk to address a problem that is not a military problem," Coleman said Wednesday on the Senate floor. "It would put more American soldiers in the crosshairs of sectarian violence and create more targets. I just don't believe this makes sense," Coleman said.President Bush said that a "step back" from Iraq would only cause its government to collapse. | Famous Person - Give a speech | January 2007 | ['(CNN)'] |
The secretary of the Iranian Expediency Discernment Council, former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Mohsen Rezaee, tweets that "vigorous revenge against America" will be pursued following the assassination of Soleimani. Iranian state television cuts all broadcasts, replacing them with prayers for Soleimani. | DUBAI (Reuters) - A former commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Mohsen Rezaei, on Friday vowed “vigorous revenge against America” for the killing of Qassem Soleimani, head of the elite Quds Force.
“Martyr Lieutenant General Qassem Suleimani joined his martyred brothers, but we will take vigorous revenge on America,” Rezaei, who is now the secretary of a powerful state body, said in a post on Twitter.
Reporting by Dubai newsroom; Editing by Kim Coghill
| Famous Person - Give a speech | January 2020 | ['(Reuters)', '(The Raw Story)'] |
Mayor of New York City Bill de Blasio announces he is running for the Democratic Party's nomination to be President of the United States in the 2020 presidential election. | New York mayor, who traveled to early primary states such as Iowa, says he is running ‘because it’s time we put working people first’
New York’s mayor, Bill de Blasio, has jumped into the 2020 presidential race, joining at least 21 other declared Democratic candidates for the party’s nomination.
The mayor announced his run with a video released by his campaign.
“There’s plenty of money in this world. There’s plenty of money in this country. It’s just in the wrong hands,” De Blasio says at the beginning of the video. He concludes: “I’m running for president because it’s time we put working people first.”
De Blasio has traveled to early primary states including Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, and formed a federal political action committee (Pac) called Fairness Pac to bankroll his travels.
His message on those travels has centered on economic inequality.
De Blasio has sought for years to position himself as a national progressive leader, after racking up accomplishments in his first few years in office including universal pre-kindergarten, paid sick days and living wage legislation and a city ID card available to undocumented immigrants.
But frustrations have built over New York’s crumbling public housing system, where hundreds of children got lead poisoning after officials lied about doing inspections, and stubbornly high homelessness.
De Blasio has also been the target of multiple ethics inquiries, where no criminal charges were brought, but prosecutors found he made inquiries on behalf of political donors seeking favors.
Polls have shown a vast majority of New Yorkers – 76% – don’t think he should run for president, and his aspirations have been widely mocked in his home town and discouraged by his own allies.
“I’m glad I’ve unified the people of New York City,” he quipped when asked about the lack of enthusiasm in the polls.
De Blasio has been criticized for leaving the city to explore a presidential run in early voting states, and that criticism will probably grow as he travels more for official campaign stops. This week, he is scheduled to campaign in Iowa and South Carolina before traveling to Connecticut for his son’s graduation on Sunday.
Political observers said that even if De Blasio’s candidacy doesn’t gain traction, he will be able to promote his policies and potentially angle for a job in a future Democratic administration. He is barred by term limits from running for mayor again.
De Blasio’s Pac has been polling voters in Iowa. He said last week in an appearance on WNYC radio that he has not yet hit the polling or donation thresholds to qualify for the Democratic primary debates.
The previous New York City mayor, Michael Bloomberg, decided not to run for president after months of flirting with a bid as a Democrat, opting instead to pour his considerable wealth into the resistance to Donald Trump. Though, since then at least one news report has said Bloomberg was reconsidering his position.
In the video announcing his bid, the mayor touted his work pushing a progressive agenda in New York City before arguing that he is the candidate who can defeat the president.
“I’m a New Yorker, I’ve known Trump is a bully for a long time,” De Blasio said.
Under De Blasio, New York City has challenged Trump immigration policies, including family separation, in court and maintained a commitment to fighting climate change, despite the Trump administration’s rolling back of environmental regulations and withdrawal from the Paris climate accord.
“Donald Trump must be stopped,” De Blasio said.
He is the second Democrat this week to announce they are joining the presidential race, following Montana’s governor, Steve Bullock. | Government Job change - Election | May 2019 | ['(The Guardian)'] |
A magnitude 5.6 earthquake strikes Pawnee, Oklahoma, tying the record for the strongest in state history. At least one person was injured. | Updated 1329 GMT (2129 HKT) September 4, 2016 (CNN)The Oklahoma Corporation Commission is telling operators to shut down 35 disposal wells that may have played a role in a 5.6-magnitude earthquake that shook at least six states Saturday, Gov. Mary Fallin said.
Oklahoma Corporation Commission staff is at the office reviewing disposal wells in the vicinity of the earthquake near Pawnee.
We will rebuild. We will press on. pic.twitter.com/teTlwixZEn
This morning wake up call brought to by Oklahoma's oil and natural gas industry.
That wasn't an earthquake that hit Oklahoma this morning. | Earthquakes | September 2016 | ['(CNN)', '(KOKI-TV)'] |
A large skirmish occurs in eastern Ukraine when pro-Russian separatists launch a massive attack on a border control centre near the city of Luhansk; five militants are killed and another eight are wounded, and seven Ukrainian border guards are wounded in the clash. | Hundreds of separatists in eastern Ukraine are continuing their assault on a border command centre near the city of Luhansk, the border agency says.
It says five militants were killed and eight wounded when the centre came under sustained attack. Seven border guards are said to have been wounded. A Ukrainian military aircraft was called in to support the centre.
In Luhansk, there was an explosion in the main regional building seized by the separatists several weeks ago.
It was not immediately known what caused the blast. Unconfirmed reports say there were casualties.
Pro-Russian groups accused Ukraine's military of carrying out an air strike. Kiev denied the claim, suggesting that separatists in the building could have mishandled a portable anti-aircraft missile system.
In Moscow, the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement: "The Kiev authorities committed another crime against their own people."
In other developments:
A spokesman for Ukraine's border agency, Oleh Slobodyan, said the militants had attacked the border centre with heavy weapons early in the morning.
As many as 500 pro-Russian gunmen are believed to be involved in the assault.
The agency says fighting is continuing and that the attackers - including snipers - are firing from residential buildings, which makes it difficult for Ukrainian troops to respond.
The attackers - reported by the AP news agency to be wearing uniforms - have promised safety for Ukrainian officers if they surrender and put down their arms. There was a brief ceasefire, but the battle later resumed. Correspondents say the separatists have become more and more aggressive in their assaults on government-held positions as they try to obtain weapons and ammunition from Ukrainian forces. For weeks, Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine has been the scene of deadly clashes between government troops and pro-Russian insurgents who have taken over key buildings across the region.
Ukrainian President-elect Petro Poroshenko has said that his priority is to bring fighting in the east of the country to an end.
"We must make every effort to make sure that no more Ukrainians die at the hands of terrorists and bandits," he said on Friday.
The conflict has intensified in recent days. The rebels say they lost up to 100 fighters when they unsuccessfully tried to seize Donetsk's international airport on 26 May.
Pro-Russian separatists in the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk declared independence after referendums on 11 May, which were not recognised by Kiev or its Western allies.
The rebels took their cue from a disputed referendum in Crimea, which led to Russia's annexation of Ukraine's southern peninsula.
| Armed Conflict | June 2014 | ['(BBC)'] |
François Hollande, the President of France, announces that he will not run in next year's presidential election. This leaves the selection of a candidate for the French Socialist Party wide open. | Surprise move not to stand for a second term in upcoming presidential election throws selection of a Socialist candidate wide open
François Hollande, the least popular French president since the second world war, has announced he will not run for a second term in office.
With a satisfaction rating so low it recently dropped to just 4%, the Socialist president appeared shaken and emotional as he said in a live televised address from the Élysée palace that he would not attempt to run for a second term, conscious of the “risks” to the French left if he did so.
“Today I am aware of the risks that going down a route that would not gather sufficient support would entail, so I have decided not to be a candidate in the presidential election,” a sombre-looking Hollande said. He said his only concern was “the superior interest of this country” and that he could not stand for “the break-up of the left”. He said his time in power had taught him “humility”.
He is the first French president since the war not to attempt to run for re-election.
François Fillon, the right’s presidential candidate and the favourite to win next spring, said Hollande had “admitted with lucidity that his obvious failure stopped him going any further”. Fillon, who last week called Hollande’s presidency “pathetic”, said Hollande’s presidency was ending in a “political shambles”.
Hollande’s decision leaves the way open for a bitter Socialist primary race in January to decide who will run in his place. Manuel Valls, the ambitious prime minister who is a tough law-and-order voice and pro-business reformist on the right of the party, could now decide to run to become the Socialist candidate. If he does run, Valls will face opposition from several former government ministers who are part of a leftwing rebel movement, including the ambitious former economy minister Arnaud Montebourg, who is fiercely critical of Hollande’s pro-business line.
Hollande’s popularity slumped right from the start of his presidency in 2012. He beat the rightwing Nicolas Sarkozy after a classic leftwing campaign in which he targeted big business and pledged to raise taxes for high earners.
He began his presidency with a leftist programme that included a wealth super-tax of 75% on top earners but he shifted course midway through his term.
Grassroots supporters were further alienated by a pro-business switch in 2014, a wavering over security reforms, and labour laws that brought thousands out onto the streets in protests early this year. Hollande was accused of a lack of preparation, zigzagging on policy and being unable to keep a lid on his government’s internal feuding on how to address the economy. His initial attempt to style himself as a “normal president” – paying no heed to the superficial trappings of office – backfired and endeared him even less to the electorate. Accused of lacking authority and coherence, dithering over policy decisions from tax increases to pro-business reform, failing to kickstart the sluggish economy and failing to protect France from a series of devastating terrorist attacks, he was eventually abandoned by his own core of Socialist party voters who felt betrayed by his muddled, stop-start pro-business reforms.
One recent poll by Odoxa put him at only 7.5% in the first round of the presidential race, behind the right’s Fillon, the far-right Marine Le Pen, his former economy minister and maverick independent candidate Emmanuel Macron, and the hard-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
In his televised address, Hollande said he felt he had achieved many changes for France in his time in office, including introducing same-sex marriage and beginning to lower France’s stubbornly high jobless figures after decades of mass unemployment. But he admitted that the drop in the number of unemployed had come too late and “unemployment is still too high”.
Hollande said he was pleased he had led France to intervene against Islamists in Mali, in west Africa. He said his biggest regret came after the Paris terrorist attacks of November 2015 when he planned to strip French citizenship from dual-nationality citizens convicted of terrorism. The plan caused havoc and division on the left and right, and Hollande was forced to abandon it.
Hollande’s complicated personal life in office only served to reinforce his image as indecisive and distracted. In January 2014 he was photographed by paparazzi going by scooter to a flat near the Élysée where he was conducting an affair with actor Julie Gayet. His partner, the political journalist Valérie Trierweiler, then wrote a tell-all book about their tumultuous relationship, in which she described their relationship breakdown in excruciating detail and, most seriously, accused Hollande of mocking poor people as “toothless”. The fallout was disastrous for his image.
A recent 600-page book, A President Shouldn’t Say That, in which Hollande shocked even those in his close circle by regularly confiding in two journalists with the private details of his presidency and personal life – including openly discussing state secrets such as details of plans for an airstrike on Syria in 2013, or paying ransom for abducted French journalists – served to damage him further.
More than any other French president, Hollande attempted to play the transparency card, confiding in journalists and inviting documentary crews into the Elysée, yet there was a communication gap in which he was never able to build a relationship with the French people in which they understood his goals and felt he understood them.
Hollande’s family, including his ex-partner and mother of his children, Ségolène Royal, a government minister, is said to have advised him not to stand again and risk being humiliated. | Government Job change - Election | December 2016 | ['(The Guardian)'] |
Petro Poroshenko is sworn in as the President of Ukraine as the Pro–Russian separatist conflict continues. | Petro Poroshenko has been sworn in as president of Ukraine, setting out a plan to bring peace to the conflict-torn east of the country.
The 48-year-old tycoon, who won the 25 May election, offered political concessions to people in the east and said he did not want war or revenge.
But he also said he had told Russia's president that Crimea, which Moscow has annexed, would "always be Ukrainian".
Some separatists dismissed the speech, saying they would "never surrender".
Russia's ambassador said the address was a "promising declaration of intent".
Mikhail Zurabov, who attended the inauguration, said Ukraine should end its military operation in the east, provided that militias called a ceasefire and allowed humanitarian access.
Kiev says Moscow is backing armed militants in the eastern Donbass area, an accusation that Russia denies.
Clashes continued in some eastern areas on Saturday, with reports of the army shelling the rebel stronghold of Sloviansk and of shooting further south in Mariupol.
Mr Poroshenko was inaugurated in the presence of dozens of foreign dignitaries - including US Vice-President Joe Biden - in parliament in the capital Kiev.
Mr Poroshenko, the owner of the Roshen chocolates group, laid out a programme for ending the crisis that included an offer of early regional elections in the east and a decentralisation of power to the regional administrations.
He said: "I don't want war. I don't want revenge, despite the huge sacrifice of the Ukrainian people."
Analysis
By Kiev correspondent David Stern
Petro Poroshenko's inauguration speech was forceful and seemed to hit all the right notes for his supporters. Local commentators and bloggers' reaction was overwhelmingly positive.
Pro-revolution Ukrainians were undoubtedly heartened by his strong position on keeping the country unified, and advocacy for EU membership.
The Kremlin will give its reaction fairly soon: Moscow and Kiev officials are expected to meet on Sunday to discuss the crisis in Ukraine's east.
Ukrainians in the east and south may see Mr Poroshenko as a man who will defend their interests. But they may be angered by his calls to join the EU and insistence that Ukrainian remain the sole state language - and feel once again that their voices are not being listened to.
Poroshenko - the rescuer of Ukraine
Poroshenko speech excerpts
Mr Poroshenko called on separatists in the east to lay down their arms, saying he would guarantee indemnity from criminal charges to all those who did not have blood on their hands.
But he added: "Talking to gangsters and killers is not our path."
The BBC's David Stern in Kiev says part of the speech was in Russian - directed at those in strife-torn Donbass - and offered concessions on Russian language and a corridor for Russian fighters to return home.
But our correspondent says there were also standing ovations for the president's comments on Crimea and on ties with the European Union - which he reiterated he wanted Ukraine to join.
Mr Poroshenko said of Crimea - annexed in March by Russia - "Crimea is, was and always will be Ukrainian soil."
Referring to a brief meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in France on Friday, he said: "I put that clearly to the Russian leader in Normandy."
Mr Poroshenko also said there would be no discussion concerning the territorial integrity of Ukraine.
Mr Poroshenko condemned the rule of former President Viktor Yanukovych, seen by many as pro-Russian, who fled in February after a popular uprising in Kiev.
He accused Mr Yanukovych of financing terrorism in the east, saying he was "fully responsible for the situation there today".
Some separatists were unimpressed by Mr Poroshenko's speech, including a spokesman in Donetsk, Fyodor Berezin, who said the president wanted "one-sided disarmament and for us to surrender. That will never happen".
An insurgency leader in Luhansk, Valery Bolotov, said he did not believe Mr Poroshenko's offer of amnesty.
After their meeting on Friday, Mr Putin said he liked Mr Poroshenko's approach but would wait to see what he could deliver.
Mr Putin and US President Barack Obama also held an "informal meeting" lasting about 10-15 minutes, according to the White House.
On Saturday, US Secretary of State John Kerry struck an upbeat note, saying: "I hope that in the next few days we can see some steps taken that will reduce the tensions... I'm confident there are ways forward."
Targeted sanctions were introduced by the EU and US after Russia annexed Crimea, following a controversial referendum on joining Russia. | Government Job change - Appoint_Inauguration | June 2014 | ['(NDTV)', '(BBC)'] |
An Israeli court sentences Asher Weisgan to four consecutive life sentences plus an additional 12 years in prison for murdering four Palestinian workmen and wounding a fifth in August 2005. Weisgan must also pay more than 1,000,000 shekels ($US 235,000) in compensation to the victims' families. | Jerusalem District Court on Wednesday sentenced a Jewish terrorist to four consecutive life sentences plus an additional 12 years in prison for murdering four Palestinian men.Asher Weisgan was convicted on September 11 of murdering four Arab workmen and wounding a fifth at a factory in the West Bank settlement of Shilo where they all worked, the day before the implementation of the Gaza disengagement plan in August 2005. At the end of the work day at the factory, Weisgan gave four Arab workmen a ride in his car, snatched an M-16 assault rifle from the guard and used it to shoot his four passengers, killing three of them and wounding the fourth. Then he ran toward the factory and shot another workman. He then turned himself in to the security officer who arrived on the scene. The victims of the terror attack were Mohammed Mansour, 48; Bassem Tuwafshe, 30; Khalil Alulwil, 42; and Osama Tuwafshe, 33.Weisgan, a settler from Shvut Rachel, said his objective had been to prevent the disengagement from proceeding.The court also ruled Wednesday that Weisgan must pay more than one million shekels in compensation to the families of his Palestinian victims. He is obligated to pay NIS 228,000 to each of the families of the murder victims and another NIS 100,000 to the man he wounded.During the sentencing hearing, the judges debated whether to sentence Weisgan for four separate counts of murder - i.e.: four consecutive life sentences - or for one act of murder that claimed the lives of four victims. The judges decided that sentencing for just one count of murder would impinge upon the deterrent effect of the sentence."Every one of the victims had a name and an identity... They were the immediate victims of the convicted man's actions and he must be punished for the murders of each and every one of them," the judges ruled. Weisgan claimed at his trial that he had "caused the death of innocents in order to thereby prevent harsh decrees and disasters that would be imposed on the people of Israel from heaven as a result of the disengagement being implemented." His lawyer argued that Weisgan is exempt from criminal culpability because he acted in "necessary defense" - "He wanted to save the people of Israel from expected calamities through the act of murder, and should therefore be acquitted." The judges rejected the argument.In their conviction, judges Orit Efaal-Gabay, Aharon Farkash and Moshe Ravid wrote, "Even if the accused thought, and we do not believe he thought so, that his actions would be welcome in God's eyes, they are not worthy in man's eyes." | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Sentence | September 2006 | ['(Haaretz)'] |
A second suspect is arrested in connection with the murder of rapper XXXTentacion. | A second suspect in the murder of rapper XXXTentacion was arrested, Florida authorities said Wednesday.
Michael Boatwright, 22, was the one of the two suspects who approached the rapper, whose real name was Jahseh Onfroy, and shot him when he was leaving the Riva Motorsports shop in Deerfield Beach, north of Miami on June 18, the Broward County Sheriff’s Office said.
The suspect was first arrested on drug-related charges on July 5 and served with an arrest warrant on Tuesday for first-degree murder while being held at Broward Sheriff’s Office Main Jail, the sheriff's office said.
The first arrest in this investigation was made on June 21 when Florida police pulled over Dedrick Williams, 22, and charged him with first-degree murder without premeditation, a probation violation and with failing to have a valid driver's license.
Onfroy, 20, gained fame after his single, “Look at Me” climbed to No. 34 on the Billboard Hot 100. A few months later, he reportedly secured a $6 million record deal with a Capitol Music Group subsidiary.
But the rapper’s brief rise was also checkered with controversy. In 2016, Onfroy was arrested numerous times including domestic abuse against his pregnant girlfriend. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | July 2018 | ['(NBC News)'] |
Frank Sherwood Rowland, the winner of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for warning about the depletion of the ozone layer, dies in the US state of California. | LOS ANGELES (AP) — F. Sherwood Rowland, the Nobel prize-winning chemist who sounded the alarm on the thinning of the Earth's ozone layer and crusaded against the use of man-made chemicals that were harming earth's atmospheric blanket, has died. He was 84.
Rowland died Saturday at his home in Corona del Mar of complications from Parkinson's disease, the dean of the University of California, Irvine's physical sciences department said Sunday.
"We have lost our finest friend and mentor," Kenneth C. Janda said in a statement. "He saved the world from a major catastrophe: never wavering in his commitment to science, truth and humanity and did so with integrity and grace."
Rowland was among three scientists awarded the 1995 Nobel Prize for chemistry for explaining how the ozone is formed and decomposed through chemical processes in the atmosphere.
The prize was awarded more than two decades after Rowland and his post-doctoral student Mario Molina calculated that if human use of chlorofluorocarbon, a byproduct of aerosol sprays, deodorants and other household products was to continue at an unaltered rate, the ozone layer would be depleted after several decades. Their work at UC Irvine built upon findings by atmospheric scientist Paul Crutzen.
Their prediction caught enormous attention and was strongly challenged partly because CFC's non-toxic properties were thought to be environmentally safe. Their work gained widespread recognition more than a decade later with the discovery of the ozone hole over Earth's polar regions and leaders of nations worldwide began to act to ban or curb usage of the chemicals.
"It was to turn out that they had even underestimated the risk," a Nobel committee said in its award citation for Rowland, Molina and Crutzen.
Molina said his former mentor never shied from defending his work or advocating a ban on CFC.
"He showed me that if we believe in the science ... we should speak out when we feel it's important for society to change," Molina told the Associated Press.
His work on ozone depletion made Rowland a prominent voice for scientists concerned about global warming.
"Isn't it a responsibility of scientists, if you believe that you have found something that can affect the environment, isn't it your responsibility to do something about it, enough so that action actually takes place?" Rowland said at a White House climate change roundtable in 1997.
"If not us, who? If not now, when?" he asked.
Rowland, who was known by those who knew him as "Sherry," was survived by his wife of nearly 60 years, Joan, a son and a daughter.
Scarlett Johansson says her character was treated like "a possession or a thing" in Iron Man 2.
Kim Jong Un addressed North Korea's government on Thursday, where he "stressed the need to get prepared for both dialogue and confrontation."
Nothing is more important for our democracy than ensuring that Trump does not escape justice forever simply because he was once elected president.
Kim Kardashian married former NBA player Kris Humphries in a televised wedding in 2011. The couple split up 72 days later.
In 2016, then-89-year-old activist Opal Lee marched 1,400 miles from Fort Worth, Texas, to Washington, DC, to raise awareness about Juneteenth.
It’s like a coin flip: risk contracting COVID-19 — and potentially becoming a long-hauler — or getting vaccinated.
Kate Middleton is known for recycling some of her best looks, but she's not the only royal who likes to rewear outfits.
The police report alleges the officer did not call for medical attention for the victim.
For a hopelessly divided ideological court, the Supreme Court seems to be saying a lot in one voice about the law and its own institution
Comedy CentralUnlike Jimmy Kimmel, The Daily Show’s Jordan Klepper couldn’t get the MyPillow guy to come to him. So he did what he does best and went to the MyPillow guy.In his latest field piece from MAGA world, the long-serving correspondent traveled to Mike Lindell’s “free speech Woodstock” in Wisconsin with the hope of interviewing some of the election truthers who are still holding out hope that Donald Trump will return to the White House this summer. He likely never could have imagined tha
It’s like a coin flip: risk contracting COVID-19 — and potentially becoming a long-hauler — or getting vaccinated.
Erin Schaff/ GettyThe Affordable Care Act has survived its third Supreme Court challenge and is still the law of the land.Most importantly, it did so with the support of four conservative justices–Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas, Kavanaugh, and Barrett, who voted with three liberals to dismiss the case, California v. Texas, for lack of standing.They didn’t do this to save Obamacare–indeed, Justice Thomas wrote a concurring opinion maligning the law and the Court’s previous examinations
GettyTwo teenage brothers from New Jersey are facing a murder charge after a Pennsylvania state trooper stumbled upon them trying to dump the body of a murder victim in an isolated area in the middle of the night, authorities said Thursday. Joshua Gamble, 17, and Anthony Gamble, 19, are said to have left their hazard lights on when they parked their two vehicles along the side of a road in a rural area of Bucks County, about 55 miles from their home in Somerset, New Jersey. The hazard lights led
Singer Katy Perry and her fiance, actor Orlando Bloom, released an ad on Thursday depicting a dystopian future in which "democracy is dead."
Officials don’t know how long the body was there.
The former House Speaker will travel to South Carolina on Friday with U.S. Tim Scott, a popular GOP figure.
Alun Cairns, the ex-Secretary of State for Wales, will earn nearly £360 an hour to provide advice to a Singaporean firm that owns over 120 jobcentres.
Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, has promised to veto a Republican measure that would restrict voting by mail.
OnlyFans model Karley Stokes said that after she posted her poolside photo, a security guard arrived to escort her group out of the Florida property.
Gerrit Cole said gripping the ball is "so hard" after his first start since MLB announced a strict penalty for pitchers who use sticky substances. | Famous Person - Death | March 2012 | ['(AP via Yahoo News)'] |
French police arrest a 39yearold Rwandan refugee who is charged with arson after he admitted setting fires inside Nantes Cathedral on July 18, which destroyed the 17thcentury grand organ and stainedglass windows. | A church volunteer has admitted starting a fire that devastated the cathedral in the French city of Nantes last week, his lawyer has said.
The Rwandan refugee, who worked as a warden at the cathedral, was rearrested on Saturday night.
No motive for the fire, which destroyed the cathedral's 17th Century organ as well as historic stained-glass windows, has been given.
His lawyer told reporters his client felt "relief" after confessing.
"It's someone who is scared, who is somehow overwhelmed," his lawyer, Quentin Chabert, was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency.
The 39-year-old volunteer, who has not been named, was initially detained for questioning after the blaze but then released without charge.
He had been in charge of locking up the Saint-Pierre-et-Saint-Paul cathedral the day before the blaze on 18 July.
Officials had previously said that the fire was believed to have been arson and had been started in three different places. Nantes prosecutor Pierre Sennes said on Saturday that the man had been charged with "destruction and damage by fire" and could face up to 10 years in prison and 150,000 ($175,000; 135,000) in fines, according to the AFP news agency.
Around 100 firefighters managed to stop the flames from destroying the main structure at the cathedral. French Prime Minister Jean Castex praised their "professionalism, courage and self-control".
The fire comes about 15 months after a blaze nearly destroyed Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris.
| Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | July 2020 | ['(BBC)'] |
The French electorate reject the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe by approximately 55% to 45%, igniting a political crisis in the union and dealing a sharp blow to French President Jacques Chirac. All 25 EU member states must ratify the treaty for it to come into effect – 9 have done so to date, but only Spain has previously held a referendum. | French voters rejected a proposed European Union constitution Sunday, igniting a political crisis in the alliance and dealing a sharp blow to French President Jacques Chirac.
With nearly all ballots counted, the Interior Ministry reported that 55.5% of voters had rejected the constitution and 44.5% had approved it.
Although the defeat had been predicted in recent polls, the result was nonetheless remarkable. France, a founder of the European Union and its powerhouse for decades, may have scuttled an ambitious plan -- written by a former French president -- to make the alliance a stronger, more cohesive political entity.
Nine EU nations have approved the document, but it needs to be ratified by all 25 members to take effect. Although some prominent French and European leaders warned that France’s rejection would doom the larger ratification process, others said that a second-chance vote might be possible.
The document would strengthen the powers of the EU presidency, its foreign affairs representative and its Parliament, and would streamline decision-making to ease the integration of the 10 nations who joined last year.
But many French voters expressed discontent with the EU, saying it had become an aloof, undemocratic bureaucracy that had grown too fast. They feared the new constitution would hurt French living standards by unleashing economic competition and immigration from poorer countries in Eastern Europe.
The defeat was a devastating repudiation for Chirac, now in his 10th year in office. As an elder statesman, he gambled by submitting the issue to voters instead of following the safer path of legislative approval, chosen by eight out of the nine other member states that have endorsed the document so far.
Some rivals demanded Sunday that Chirac resign, arguing that the dramatic result revealed a chasm between the government and an angry electorate.
The 72-year-old Chirac ignored the sniping. He gave a short speech promising to respond to the voters’ concerns by quickly overhauling his government -- a statement seen by many as indication that he plans to replace embattled Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin.
“Make no mistake, France’s decision inevitably creates a difficult context for the defense of our interests in Europe,” Chirac said. He added that EU leaders would consider their options at a regularly scheduled meeting in Brussels next month.
Because the European Union is an arcane work-in-progress, an evolving alliance of nations with interconnected economies, predominantly open borders and often divergent political cultures, it is not completely clear what will happen next.
EU leaders insisted the ratification process would continue because 15 members had not yet voted.
“The ratification procedure must be pursued in other countries,” Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker of Luxembourg, which has not weighed in on the charter, said at a news conference Sunday night in Brussels.
Another referendum is to take place Wednesday in the Netherlands. Dutch resentment of immigration and vast subsidies to the EU have pushed the “no” camp well into the lead there, opinion polls show.
Some European officials have suggested France and any other countries that reject the proposed constitution could hold new votes or try to renegotiate disputed aspects of the text. But Juncker, who currently holds the rotating presidency of the EU, said Sunday it would be impossible to renegotiate the treaty.
In a joint statement, Juncker and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, who oversees the EU’s day-to-day affairs, noted the gloomy repercussions of the French vote Sunday.
“We regret the choice coming from a member state that for 50 years has been one of the essential motors of the construction of our common future,” the leaders’ statement said.
They added that European leaders must analyze the reasons behind the apparent hostility to the EU, and that they should explain to their citizens that the proposed constitution is intended to respond to complaints about the bloc’s ineffectiveness.
Among the reasons for drafting the new constitution was a desire to change rules that have become increasingly cumbersome for a 25-member union, such as requiring unanimous approval of many initiatives. The proposal also called for having an elected president for 2 1/2 years rather than the current revolving presidency that shifts to another country every six months.
The EU will continue to function based on existing treaties. But the defeat of the proposed constitution suddenly makes the leadership role of France -- along with Germany -- in the bloc uncertain.
The two countries have tried to shape the EU as a global counterweight to the U.S. and China. But Germany is reeling from the defeat of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s party in recent regional elections. Sunday’s developments in France may only exacerbate the decline in influence of the Franco-German alliance, and signal the rise of Poland and other Eastern European nations that are more pro-American, more free-marketoriented and more likely to align with Britain, which is ambivalent toward the EU and often clashes with France and Germany.
Western European voters did not get a chance to vote on the recent eastward expansion of the EU, fueling some resentment. Adding to voter discontent Sunday was the bureaucratic prose of the lengthy proposed constitution, which was penned by former French President Valery Giscard d’Estaing.
During the campaign on the referendum in France, critics ridiculed the text as quintessentially convoluted EU-speak and depicted Giscard as an out-of-touch elitist.
A beautician in the industrial suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis north of Paris said Sunday she had voted against the referendum to send a blunt message to her government: Do something about 10% unemployment at home before inviting poorer countries into the club.
“I also voted ‘no’ to make the politicians react,” said Emeline Pradenc, 24. “They need to wake up and understand that the people are worried about their future.... I am not against the EU, but I am against the fact that ... we should pay for the other countries.
“It makes me sick to think that people from [other EU countries] work in France for less money,” she added. “This is how companies end up firing massively because it costs less to hire workers.”
Like Pradenc, many “no” voters were young, working-class people worried about protecting France’s generous employment benefits, healthcare programs and public services, according to pollsters. The campaign against the proposal was led by parties on the far left and far right.
Voters favoring the constitution tended to be better-educated, higher-income professionals who believed that expansion and the accompanying political integration would eventually create lucrative new markets for Western Europe. Support was also strong among senior citizens who saw European unity as a shield against the wars and deprivation of the first half of the 20th century.
In addition to Chirac’s support, the proposed EU constitution had the endorsement of the main opposition party, the center-left Socialists.
But one faction of Socialists rebelled against the party’s official stance, arguing that Europe deserved a better document that focused more on social programs. Their defection probably sealed the fate of the referendum.
Opponents of the constitution said the rebuff of both the Socialists and Chirac’s center-right coalition showed the alienation of the French from their governing elite. They accused politicians, business leaders and the media of trying to browbeat voters into approving the constitution with warnings of political and economic chaos.
“This is a big slap to a whole system that wanted to control our way of thinking,” said Phillippe de Villiers, head of a small rightist party that opposed the document. “A big disconnect between the institutional country and the real country.”
| Government Job change - Election | May 2005 | ['(BBC)', '(Los Angeles Times)', '(Bloomberg)', '(Reuters)'] |
A 5.4 magnitude earthquake occurs in the Los Angeles, California, area, about two miles southwest of Chino Hills. The earthquake is felt from Los Angeles to San Diego and more slightly in Las Vegas, Nevada. | LOS ANGELES — Scattered minor damage and a few minor injuries have been reported in the aftermath of an earthquake that was strongly felt across Southern California. The magnitude-5.4 jolt struck at 11:42 a.m. Tuesday and was felt from Los Angeles south to San Diego, and as far east as Las Vegas. The quake — considered moderate — was centered 29 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles near the city of Chino Hills. The state Office of Emergency Services in Sacramento reports scattered minor infrastructure damage, including broken water mains and gas lines. Freeway traffic appears normal. Acting mayor Wendy Greuel says minor structural damage has been reported throughout Los Angeles, along with five minor injuries and people stuck in elevators. Mom drops of baby at FW fire station
Heat kills man; wife dies of heart attack
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Strong earthquake rocks Southern California Gas well worker killed in Burleson
Plano firm closes Bennigan's chain Nibbling fish perform pedicures
Neighbors claim wind turbine makes them ill Boy ends up at Hooters after slipping out of day care Strong earthquake rocks Southern California Viewers' bad intersections list given to council | Earthquakes | July 2008 | ['(3 km)', '(USGS)', '(AP via WFAA)'] |
Fighting in Syria continues as the ceasefire agreement mediated by U.N. special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi to occur during the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha begins. | Two previous cease-fire attempts failed, and both the Syrian Army and rebels have hedged their commitment to this one.Just hours after the Syrian cease-fire took hold, reports of its violation began to emerge. Two previous truces in the 20 month conflict did not last, but there is hope that this most recent cease-fire will provide a long-enough pause in the fighting to begin negotiations to end the conflict.
But both sides have attached caveats to their agreement to a cessation of violence which has already killed nearly 35,000 people, according to the opposition, and displaced hundreds of thousands eroding the likelihood that it can hold.
The Syrian Army warned that although it agreed to the cease-fire, it would respond to rebel attacks, while the rebel forces who lack a unified leadership gave varying answers about how much they would respect the agreement.
"Syrian armed forces will, however, reserve the right to reply to terrorists attacks, attempts of armed groups to reinforce or resupply, or attempts to infiltrate from neighboring countries," the Army said in a statement, according to BBC.
Col. Ahmed Hijazi, who identified himself as the chief of staff of the Free Syrian Army, the rebels’ primary fighting force, said the rebels wouldn’t agree to a cease-fire because it was skeptical of the regime’s compliance. "The regime is used to treachery and scheming," Colonel Hijazi said, according to the BBC. "It is not to be trusted."
Meanwhile, rebel spokesman Brig. Methqal Husani al-Btaish al-Neemeh laid out conditions for a cessation to fighting: freedom for all prisoners, an end to air strikes, an end to the siege on the city of Homs, and a promise not to use the pause in fighting to re-arm. None of those conditions have been met.
One of the first breaks in the cease-fire seems to have happened near Aleppo, when Syrian government troops fired on anti-government activists attempting to stage a demonstration, The Washington Post reports. Emboldened by the government’s agreement to the cease-fire, Syrians staged similar protests across the country, reminiscent of the large Friday protests that sparked the uprising-turned-civil-war in the first place, but which have largely ceased amid the violence.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said there were “fierce clashes” in northern Idlib province, reporting that fighters with rebel group Jabhat al-Nusra Front, one of the factions that said it would not observe a truce, attacked a Syrian Army checkpoint. The Army retaliated by shelling a nearby village.
Jabhat al-Nusra’s attack highlights one of the key challenges of any agreement in Syria: The Free Syrian Army, the main rebel fighting force, and the Syrian National Council, the political entity that represents many of the anti-regime groups, can only nominally control the many factions of the vast opposition movement. Jabhat al-Nusra is one of the many that the FSA has been unable to bring under its wing.
According to the Post, Mustafa al-Sheik, commander of the FSA’s military council, told Al Jazeera that if the Syrian Army stopped its shelling campaign, the rebels would obey the cease-fire. But later in the interview he seemed to acknowledge he couldn’t make that promise.
“For now, no one can speak for the armed opposition,” Mr. Sheik said. “It only listens to the Syrian will.”
Tony Karon speculates in Time that the true intent of the cease-fire isn’t a pause in fighting that perhaps even United Nations special envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi, who brokered the agreement, accepts that neither side intended to keep its promise but to make clear who the parties for a final agreement might be.
The absence of any external monitoring personnel or established protocols for disengagement, much less any enforcement mechanism, is a clear sign that the Eid al-Adha truce plan is largely an effort to have the combatants make a symbolic commitment to the idea of a future political settlement. Having honed his reputation in decades of mediating such intractable conflicts as the civil warsLebanonand Afghanistan, Brahimi is not so naive as to believe Syria’s can be ended any time soon; instead, he’s establishing lines of communication with all sides, making sure that the Syrian combatants and their foreign sponsors will know where to turn when one or the other is ready to sue for peace. That moment, though, will likely be some time in coming.
“Brahimi is not making the same mistake as his predecessor in the mediator’s role, Kofi Annan, in pretending he can solve the conflict any time soon,” says Joshua Landis, a Syria expert at the University of Oklahoma. “Instead, he’s establishing himself as a go-between, knocking on the doors of all the players inside Syria and outside, looking for the lowest common denominators that can change the dynamic without making optimistic claims. And the fact that he’s got the major actors saying ‘yes’ to a cease-fire even when we all know they mean ‘no’, is a sign that the Syrian parties remain concerned to maintain international backing.” | Armed Conflict | October 2012 | ['(Christian Science Monitor)'] |
Dozens of prisoners escape/are wounded after an explosion occurs at a prison in Daleh. | Dozens of inmates have escaped from a Yemeni jail after a bomb went off in the prison, causing chaos, reports say.
The escape occurred from a prison in Daleh province of southern Yemen. At least four inmates were wounded and 30 more escaped in the mayhem immediately following the blast, unnamed police sources told reporters. The Yemeni government in Sanaa has been cracking down on separatists in southern Yemen who want the country to be split. Southern separatists say their region - a separate country before 1990 - is being exploited by northern Yemen. A truce with another rebel group in the north has allowed the government in Sanaa to turn its attention to the secessionists. Yemen President Ali Abdallah Saleh has offered talks with the separatist movement, but said the "separatist flag will burn" if the talks were rejected. | Armed Conflict | April 2010 | ['(BBC)', '(Philippine Daily Inquirer)', '(The Daily Telegraph)', '(Reuters)'] |
A tower block at New Providence Wharf, London, United Kingdom, catches fire. The block is clad in the same material as that which was on Grenfell Tower, which caught fire in 2017. More than 100 firefighters and 20 fire engines were sent to the scene. | Survivors and bereaved relatives from the Grenfell Tower disaster have told the Govenment ‘enough is enough’ after a fire broke out at a block of flats with the same type of cladding.
More than 40 people needed treatment after the blaze ripped through the 19-storey New Providence Wharf development, near Canary Wharf in east London, on Friday morning.
Around a fifth of the building’s facade features aluminium composite material polyethylene (ACM PE) cladding panels, which were found to be a key factor in the fire which killed 72 at Grenfell in 2017.
Survivors and relatives said they were ‘horrified’ by news of the latest blaze, adding in a statement issued by the Grenfell United group: ‘When will the Government take this scandal seriously? Enough is enough.
‘The Government promised to remove dangerous cladding by June 2020 – it has completely failed its own target and every day that goes by lives are at risk.
‘Today more people have lost their homes in another terrifying fire. The Government needs to treat this as an emergency and stop stonewalling residents who are raising concerns.
‘No more games, no more excuses.’
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said: ‘The spectre of the tragedy at Grenfell still hangs over our city. Today we have seen again why residents in buildings with flammable cladding are living in fear.
‘It is vital that Government, developers, building owners and regional authorities work together to urgently remove the cladding from every affected building.’
Work to replace the cladding was ‘under way’ and the main contractor had been due to take possession of the site on Monday, according to building developer Ballymore.
Pictures and videos on social media show part of the building engulfed in flames, with thick grey smoke pouring out of the block, several stories high.
Sorry, this video isn't available any more.
One resident posted on Instagram: ‘When your building has the same cladding as Grenfell Tower. Oh my god.’
Others said fire alarms did not go off until around half an hour after the blaze started, with witnesses describing how some were ‘stuck on their balconies shouting for help’.
The fire comes just days after the introduction of the Government’s post-Grenfell fire safety regulations, which campaigners argue could leave leaseholders paying tens of thousands of pounds to remove cladding on their buildings.
Fire Brigades Union general secretary Matt Wrack said: ‘It is extremely alarming to see another high-rise building in the heart of London light up in flames.
‘It should shame this Government that four years on from Grenfell, there are people across the country living in buildings wrapped in flammable cladding.
‘Time and time again we’ve warned that another Grenfell could be just around the corner unless they prioritise making people’s homes safe.
‘The pace of removing flammable cladding has been glacial and it’s putting people’s lives at risk. The Government must intervene and take quick and decisive action to end our building safety crisis once and for all.’
LFB said parts of the eighth, ninth and 10th floors were alight on the building, adding that it had received 13 calls to the fire.
It added: ‘The brigade was called at 0855. Fire crews from Poplar, Millwall, Shadwell, Plaistow, Whitechapel and surrounding fire stations are at the scene.
‘The cause of the fire is not known at this stage.’
Apsana Begum, the Poplar & Limehouse Labour MP, said: ‘For years now, constituents at New Providence Wharf, where there are 1,500 apartments, have been left vulnerable and unsafe due to numerous fire safety and building safety defects and the fact that ACM cladding remains on these buildings.
‘The fire this morning shows just how serious this issue is and why constituents have been right to continue to raise alarm bells for so many months and having met with them again I know just how terrified they must be feeling at this time.
‘The developer Ballymore have promised action, but to date, constituents have not received information on fire engineer reports and details of any remediation works.’
She added: ‘It is simply not good enough for developers to say that they cannot act or that they are and then do nothing. They must act now and the government must act now and hold them accountable in order to protect residents.’
The fire in #Poplar is now under control. Two men have been taken to hospital suffering smoke inhalation. A further 38 adults & four children have been treated at the scene by @Ldn_Ambulance crews for shock & smoke inhalation. https://t.co/XsbfJEXQqm © @ATLondon2 pic.twitter.com/LlzcVbi5rm
Sir Ed Davey, leader of the Liberal Democrats, tweeted: ‘My thoughts and prayers are with everyone affected by this awful fire – and with all those for whom it stirs memories and fears.
‘It is simply a national scandal that more has not been done by Government to remove this dangerous cladding.’
Ballymore said in a statement: ‘Our thoughts are with everyone who has been affected by this morning’s fire at New Providence Wharf.
‘The safety of our residents is paramount and we are working closely with the London Fire Brigade.
‘We can confirm that the fire was quickly brought under control by the Fire Brigade and is now extinguished. Our response team are on-site to support residents and assist with alternative accommodation where necessary.
‘We will update once we have more information.’
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The blaze engulfed three floors at the 19-storey New Providence Wharf development (Picture: Alex Thorpe/Getty/Natalie Carter)
More than 40 people needed treatment (Picture: Alex Thorpe)
Survivors and relatives said they were ‘horrified’ by news of the latest blaze (Picture: AFP via Getty)
More than 100 firefighters helped tackle the blaze (Picture: PA)
The FBU said it was ‘extremely alarming to see another high-rise building in the heart of London light up in flames’ (Picture: PA) | Fire | May 2021 | ['(Metro)'] |
In mixed martial arts, Amanda Nunes defeats Ronda Rousey to retain the Women's Bantamweight title at UFC 207. | LAS VEGAS — Ronda Rousey was stopped 48 seconds into her comeback fight Friday night, losing to the bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes at U.F.C. 207.
Rousey (12-2) returned from a 13-month absence and never managed to get her footing against Nunes (14-4), who knocked Rousey off guard with her very first punches.
. | Sports Competition | December 2016 | ['(The New York Times)'] |
The President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen announces a European 25 bilion euro fund to face the coronavirus crisis. | A German court has refused to extradite a Polish suspect to his home country due to "profound doubts about the future independence of the Polish judiciary."
Karlsruhe Higher Regional Court issued a press release expressing "doubts as to whether the independence of the Polish judiciary" and the "right to a fair trial" was guaranteed in the wake of Poland's controversial judicial reforms.
The court therefore "revoked the arrest warrant and asked the Polish authorities for further information about the effects of the Polish judicial reform" on these specific proceedings. The suspect had been arrested on December 4, 2019.
According to the German Association of Judges, it is the first time this has happened in Germany.
Poland would like to prosecute the suspect for allegations of fraud. He could face a maximum prison sentence of eight years. However, he rejects the allegations and claims two influential Polish citizens had bribed witnesses to make false statements and harm him physically.
The press release further states that the Senate is abiding by a 2018 decision of the European Court of Justice (CJEU), which obliges the national courts to examine the guarantee of the European fundamental right to a fair trial in the event of extradition.
The Polish court will also have to rule on the alleged "interference by influential people" in the truth-finding mission of the proceedings.
However, if the Polish judges could face disciplinary sanctions for allowing the evidence, they would not be entirely independent. That would mean this would not be a fair trial," the German ruling obtained by the news website Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND) states.
On top of that, the Karlsruhe Higher Regional Court said it had "profound doubts about the future independence of the Polish judiciary".
When making its decision to release the man, the court also considered that the suspect is not charged with a particularly serious crime and that he has a permanent residence in Germany.
The federal managing director of the German Judges Association, Sven Rebehn, told the RND: Poland is threatening to isolate itself in the European legal community by restructuring its judicial system. The other member states find it very difficult to support law enforcement in a country that is moving ever further away from the EU's common understanding of the rule of law. However, if the integrity of the Polish constitutional state is increasingly in question, legal cooperation with the judiciary in Poland will lose ground.
On January 7, 2019, the CJEU issued a resolution, which referred to an older judgement with regards to an inquiry by the Irish High Court. Ireland had asked whether it can extradite a Polish citizen under the European Arrest Warrant procedure.
The CJEU also laid down the criteria and definition of what an independent court is.
The Karlsruhe court referred to these two judgements and examined whether the rule of law was under threat in Poland. The result was: it is.
Poland's president Andrzej Duda had signed the Muzzle law on February 4, 2020. It aims at disciplining judges who question government judicial reforms that the EU says don't comply with the rule of law.
The law came into force on February 14, 2020.
Analysts fear the law could be used to intimidate or stifle judges critical of legal reforms imposed by the government.
The step was criticised by the EU, Polish legal experts and opposition lawmakers. The EU argued the draft law violates EU principles and the separation of powers.
Poland's ruling party defended the law, saying it is aimed to put an end to the "anarchy" among judges.
The new law also forbids judges from publicly criticising new judicial appointments.
The "Constitutional blog" (transl. Verfassungsblog) of the Center for Global Constitutionalism published an open letter to President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen on March 9, criticising the Muzzle Law.
In the open letter, a group of legal academics, warn against the danger the new law poses. In it they urge von der Leyen to take further action. "The Commission must quickly bring an expedited infringement action against this muzzle law, the letter reads.
They argue the law "bars judges from ensuring observance of the right to a fair trial and from guaranteeing rights deriving from the EU treaties, including effective judicial protection."
Moreover, they say the German court's decision and that of a Norwegian court "are a sign that the EU's legal system is already unravelling, and if judicial cooperation can no longer be assured, a major pillar that holds up the EU will soon collapse.
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Europe stands united in the face of the coronavirus outbreak. That's the pledge from Brussels -- where leaders unveiled a raft of emergency measures on Tuesday to shore up health care systems and help the bloc's economy.
The European Union has close to 15,000 confirmed infections and more than 530 deaths - with all 27 member states affected.
Speaking after a video-conference with EU leaders, Council President Charles Michel told reporters "Our citizens' health is the first priority". But economic concerns aren't far behind: Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced a 25 billion coronavirus investment fund for the health care sector, labour market and SMEs. The first 7.5bn will be released from the current EU budget - with the rest to be distributed later.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that European nations needed to cooperate in the fight against COVID-19 as Slovenia and Austria closed their borders with Italy as the virus spread.
Merkel said that she had talked to other EU leaders and the European Commission via video link and explained what her country is doing to contain the spread and financially supporting companies that have been hit by the outbreak.
In a written statement, she said that the other leaders also stressed that European cooperation in the battle against the coronavirus was much needed.
The coronavirus outbreak has now struck at the heart of European politics, with the EU parliament becoming a ghost town and EU leaders reduced to holding the virtual summit.
During their video meeting, which was attended by European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, the leaders discussed how to coordinate their response to the virus and its economic consequences.
They pledged to accelerate research into the disease and to support the sectors the hardest hit, such as aviation.
From the infamous gay propaganda law in 2013 to the mass persecution of perceived LGBTIQ people in Chechnya in 2017, it seems news of the deterioration of the rights of LGBTIQ people in Russia never ceases. Over recent weeks, a new headline has appeared - Vladimir Putin has vowed that same-sex marriage will not become a reality as long as he is president, and swiftly included a corresponding provision in proposed constitutional changes due to be voted on in a second reading by the State Duma this week, which will be put to a referendum next month.
The proposed ban on same-sex marriage is part of a long-standing pattern. Russia has been at the forefront of not only opposing recognition of the human rights of LGBTIQ people at home, but of actively, vocally and strategically opposing and regressing them at the UN.
Other proposed changes submitted concurrently with the same-sex marriage ban include codifying faith in God, ensuring a defence of historical truth regarding Russias role in the Second World War, and a string of changes relating to the power held by the office of the president. Experts warn that the move is an effort to solidify Putins hold on power before the expiration of his fourth presidential term in 2024.
Same-sex relations were decriminalised in Russia at the fall of the Soviet Union, but that is about the only freedom LGBTIQ people enjoy. The infamous gay-propaganda law bans any communication about LGBTIQ issues to children, be that in the media or online, and has been used to curtail any manifestations by LGBTIQ organisations, to shut down websites, and prosecute activists for comments made even on private social media pages.
LGBTIQ people are not protected from discrimination, hate crime or hate speech - all of which are prevalent at the hands of private and state actors, including vigilante groups which openly and publicly hunt predominantly gay or bisexual men with complete impunity. LGBTIQ organising has been significantly restricted through so-called foreign agent laws and increasingly, organisations are not able to register at all on the grounds that they violate public morals and family values and pose a threat to national security.
In this context, same-sex marriage is so far from the priorities of local activists, it seems almost outrageous. The Article 12 of the Family Code of the Russian Federation already defines marriage as between a man and a woman. As such, Putins proposed measure, and the fact that it will be put to a public vote with no doubt a corresponding campaign, constitutes complete legal overkill and only serves to increase hate and stigma against LGBTIQ people.
Claiming that same-sex marriage is so threatening to society that it merits its own legal restrictions is a tactic we have seen used in different parts of the world. Constitutional bans on same-sex marriage have been introduced in Latvia (2005), Lithuania (2013), Slovakia (2014), Armenia (2015) and elsewhere. While LGBTIQ people face legal and social challenges in all of the aforementioned countries, there has also been progress in societal acceptance and some recognition of the human rights of LGBTIQ people. Another place where the human rights of LGBTIQ people have been steadily deteriorating, yet still a same-sex marriage (prohibition) act was passed, is Nigeria. Nigeria criminalises same-sex relations, civil society organisations which work on LGBTIQ issues are not able to register, and same-sex marriage is worlds away, making the law superfluous.
What it does achieve is presenting LGBTIQ people as a danger to society, thus enabling authorities to subject LGBTIQ people to arbitrary arrest and extortion. 47 men are currently on trial charged under this law after attending a private birthday party. LGBTIQ organisations working underground have also experienced more harassment, and violence at the hands of private individuals has increased. I fear LGBTIQ people in Russia are facing a similarly growing threat.
The only possible explanation for taking this step in Russia is power. It solidifies the position of President Putin, and Russia as a blazing protector of so-called traditional values. LGBTIQ people are a particular target in the quest for protection of traditional values as we have been positioned as everything that contradicts, and even threatens, them. Making traditional values so central to his rule has ensured that President Putin has secured unquestionable support for his leadership from the Orthodox Church (in a country in which 70% identify as Orthodox), thus greatly enhancing his position of power and elevating him to an almost saint-like figure who can do no wrong. In turn, the dedication to traditional values globally has enabled President Putin to restore the image of Russia as a global leader, with allies spanning conservative states in its former sphere of influence across Eastern Europe and Central Asia, as well as newer allies in parts of Latin America, Africa and the Middle-East.
Introducing a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage is another step in solidifying this position and his power, both with the Orthodox Church and Putins growing conservative global alliance. In essence, LGBTIQ people - citizens of his own country - are being used as pawns in a political game. This is callous and disgraceful, and stands in stark contrast with the most basic human rights standard - that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.
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| Disease Outbreaks | March 2020 | ['(Euronews)'] |
A resolution is adopted by the United Nations Human Rights Council with 19 votes in favour, 7 against and 21 abstentions, accusing Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro government of thousands of extrajudicial murders, forced disappearances, and torture, after being proposed by the Lima Group and backed by many European countries. The UN resolves to send an investigative mission to the country. Maduro says the motion was "produced by the United States to run a hate campaign". Another Venezuelan representative calls the UN a "small group" that they "will not cooperate with". | The UN Human Rights Council will investigate alleged human rights violations in Venezuela, including executions, disappearances and torture.
The forum approved sending a fact-finding mission after a resolution was put forward by Venezuela's neighbours and backed by European countries.
Many of the 6,000 deaths in security raids since January 2018 could have been extrajudicial executions, it said.
Venezuela's envoy said the "hostile" text was part of a US-led campaign.
The country is suffering a severe economic and political crisis, and a quarter of its 30 million population need aid, according to the UN. Some four million people have fled in recent years.
President Nicolás Maduro has accused Washington of waging an "economic war" against his country and orchestrating a coup to oust him.
The Geneva-based council adopted the resolution brought by countries including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Peru, which are hosting millions of Venezuelan refugees.
These nations, part of the Lima Group, are among the 50 countries that have given their backing to Juan Guaidó, head of Venezuela's National Assembly, who declared himself president in January saying Mr Maduro's re-election last year was fraudulent.
The resolution condemned "widespread targeted repression and persecution" through what it called the excessive use of force by security agents against peaceful anti-government protesters, the closing down of media and the erosion of the rule of law.
It also condemned arbitrary detentions and enforced disappearances carried out by security agencies, including the special force known as Faes, and pro-government civilian armed groups, called colectivos.
The text was adopted by the 47-member council with 19 votes in favour, seven against and 21 abstentions.
"It must be clear to all at this council that when violations of this gravity and scale are reported to us, we must respond in an equally serious manner," said UK Ambassador Julian Braithwaite, whose country backed the resolution.
In a report in July, UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet accused the Venezuelan security forces of sending death squads to murder young men and staging the scenes to make it look like the victims resisted arrest.
Venezuelan Ambassador Jorge Valero slammed the resolution as a "hostile initiative" and said his country had no intention to co-operate with the mission. "This small group follows to a tee instruments handed to them by the American empire, these are shameful subjects of administration of President [Donald] Trump," he said.
A report is expected to be delivered in a year. Even if Venezuela refuses access to the investigators, they will take testimony from victims and witnesses inside and outside the country, as they have done with Syria and Myanmar.
| Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | September 2019 | ['(BBC)'] |
It is reported that nearly one thousand children have been hospitalized with respiratory illnesses in several U.S. states. | Officials in 10 states are reporting cases of respiratory illness, some severe enough to send children to hospitals.
In Kansas City, Mo., more than 300 cases of respiratory illnesses were reported last month, according to the state Department of Health and Senior Services. About 15% of the illnesses resulted in children being placed in an intensive care unit, according to a health alert issued Aug. 29.
Ten states have contacted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for help in investigating enterovirus Colorado, North Carolina, Georgia, Ohio, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma and Kentucky, according to WXIA-TV.
Enteroviruses, with symptoms similar to an intense cold, hits its peak in September, according to medical officials.
But it is unusual that there have been so many hospitalizations, CNN reports.
The number of hospitalizations reported could be "just the tip of the iceberg in terms of severe cases," Mark Pallansch, director of the CDC's Division of Viral Diseases, told CNN.
Pallansch said the division is looking into the situation.
Cincinnati medical officials admitted a record number of children to a local hospital over the weekend. Although there's been no confirmed cases of the enterovirus at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, officials admitted 540 patients Friday, said Dr. Derek Wheeler, associate chief of staff at the hospital.
The previous record was around 515, Wheeler said.
"We're just seeing the (increased) volumes, we haven't seen (patients) sicker than usual yet," he said.
While hospitals from other states have placed restrictions on visitations, Wheeler said there are no plans to do that in Cincinnati.
The virus is similar to what doctors treat during cold and flu season. That means nothing really changes if a child comes down with the rare virus, he said.
"The bottom line is this is a virus you wouldn't treat with antibiotics, so other than the (high-level of) interest, there's no reason we would need to know it's an enterovirus," Wheeler said.
In Kentucky, Kraig Humbaugh, deputy commissioner of the Kentucky Department of Public Health, said the CDC recently confirmed that five of 10 cases it tested from Kentucky were enterovirus D68.
"We're seeing more than the usual number of cases," Humbaugh said, adding it has ranged from mild cold-like symptoms to hospitalizations.
At Kosair Children's Hospital in Louisville, about 100 children in August tested positive for one of two viruses that include an enterovirus, but officials can't be certain how many if any might be D68.
"We have seen an increase in kids admitted to the ICU with respiratory illness," said Kris Bryant, an epidemiologist at Kosair and a pediatric infectious disease specialist with University of Louisville Physicians.
WXIA-TV News medical correspondent Dr. Sujatha Reddy said children with asthma or allergies are the ones who are suffering the severest side effects of the virus.
"If you see your kid's condition changing they're going just from having the sniffles to a fever to now, perhaps, difficulty breathing, or they just look like they don't feel good you want to take them to the doctor or to the emergency room to make sure," Reddy said. "Because these kids that have asthma (or allergies) and get this enterovirus can get very ill."
This particular type of enterovirus EV-D68 is uncommon, but not new. It was first identified in the 1960s.
An analysis by the CDC showed at least 19 of the Kansas City children tested positive for EV-D68, according to the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services.
A vaccine for EV-D68 isn't available.
"Many infections will be mild and self-limited, requiring only symptomatic treatment," the analysis said. "Some people with several respiratory illness caused by EV-D68 may need to be hospitalized and receive intensive supportive therapy."
"The virus just runs its course. The illness goes away by itself," Reddy said. "But for kids who may have asthma or may have bad allergies, or have some other underlying medical problem, they're the ones that, potentially, could get more sick."
At Children's Hospital in Denver, 447 kids with respiratory complaints came to the emergency department Sept. 4-7. Of those, 39 were admitted to the hospital for treatment, said Chris Nyquist.
"Young children are having a tougher time," said Nyquist, a pediatric infectious disease specialist. "It is a huge upswing in the numbers we're seeing."
Nyquist said parents are alarmed because in some cases kids without any previous asthma symptoms start wheezing after coming down with what appears to be a common cold. She said a small number of kids have required intensive care and breathing assistance from ventilators, but there have been no reported deaths.
Nyquist said the hospital initially ran low on supplies to treat the asthma complications but has caught up now. The illness is driving a 12-15% increase in overall ER visits compared to this time last year.
She said kids with uncontrolled asthma are at greatest risk for serious illness. Those with no history of breathing problems will recover quickly, Nyquist said.
"Most of the children really do just fine," she said. "That's the scary part the unpredictability of it."
Rocky Mountain Hospital for Children in Denver had five children in intensive care and 20 more in the pediatric unit, KUSA-TV reported last week.
"This is the worst I've seen in my time here at Rocky Mountain Hospital for Children," Raju Meyeppan told the station. "We're going to have a pretty busy winter at this institution and throughout the hospitals of Denver."
Will Cornejo, 13, was among the children in intensive care at Rocky Mountain after he came down with a cold and then woke up Tuesday night with an asthma attack that couldn't be controlled with his medicine albuterol. His mother, Jennifer, called 911 when her son's breathing became shallow, and her son was airlifted to the Denver hospital, she told KUSA.
In Cincinnati, Wheeler said parents can prevent their children from getting the virus by making them wash their hands frequently and drink plenty of fluids.
If they do suspect their child contracted the virus, he suggested parents call their pediatrician first because urgent care facilities will be busy. | Disease Outbreaks | September 2014 | ['(USA Today)'] |
Former Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim is freed from jail after his sodomy conviction is overturned by the country's highest court. | The decision came six years to the day after his mentor-turned-rival, former leader Mahathir Mohammed, sacked him following a row over the economy. Mr Anwar has always argued that charges against him were politically motivated.
He told the BBC he would now travel to Germany for treatment for back problems he says resulted from a police beating.
As news of his release filtered out of the court, a roar went up from supporters outside.
ANWAR'S LEGAL BATTLE
Sept 98 - Sacked and arrested
April 99 - Jailed for six years for corruption relating to alleged sodomy
July 00 - Sentenced to further nine years for sodomy - alleged to have had sex with five men
July 2002 - Loses appeal against corruption conviction
Sept 2004 - Wins appeal against sodomy conviction
Profile: Anwar Ibrahim
Anwar's release: have your say
Mr Anwar, looking frail, sat impassive in a wheelchair in the dock, but when faced with his jubilant supporters, who held him aloft on their shoulders, he was overcome with emotion.
"Thank God, after six years I am now free," he told the BBC.
His original trials had been widely condemned as flawed and Malaysia's federal court accepted that his sodomy conviction was unsafe. The court was reviewing an earlier rejection of Mr Anwar's appeal - but decided to quash the original conviction by a vote of 2-1.
"We allow the sentence and conviction to be set aside. We find the High Court misdirected itself. He should have been acquitted," said Judge Abdul Hamid Mohamad, head of a three-judge panel.
'Unreliable witness'
In reviewing the evidence, the court decided the prosecution's key witness was unreliable and in effect an accomplice. Azizan Abubakar alleged he had been sodomised by Mr Anwar in May 1994. The date was later amended to May 1992, but when it emerged that the condominium where the alleged act supposedly took place did not then exist, the charge was amended a second time. Mr Anwar's supporters say he was charged for politically motivates
The court also concluded that Mr Anwar's co-accused did not appear to have confessed voluntarily, and expressed concern that the police had been heavy-handed. The judges therefore concluded that Mr Anwar should have been acquitted without having to enter a defence as the prosecution had not managed to prove the case beyond reasonable doubt.
Mr Anwar was sacked from his post as deputy in 1998 following a rift with Dr Mahathir over how to run the country's economy.
Mr Anwar responded by leading a massive anti-government protest. That evening police broke down his door and arrested him.
In 1999 he was jailed for six years for corruption, and in 2000 he received a further nine years for sodomy.
Mr Anwar had already failed to reverse the first of those convictions and finished serving his sentence for corruption last year. Thursday's appeal to Malaysia's highest court over the second sentence was the last legal opening for the former minister. The BBC correspondent in Kuala Lumpur, Jonathan Kent, says Mr Anwar's continued imprisonment had posed problems for the government of current Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi, who succeeded Dr Mahathir in November.
"You've got to recognise the fact that his predecessor wouldn't have made this judgment possible," Mr Anwar told reporters on Thursday. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Release | September 2004 | ['(Bloomberg)', '(BBC)'] |
Sweden is imposing temporary border controls to stem a record inflow of refugees. The Nordic nation pleads with the rest of Europe for help. | Sweden has introduced temporary border controls for refugees entering the country, with Swedish officials demanding that other European countries do more to assist with the refugee crisis.
At noon on Thursday, police in the south of the country began carrying out passport checks at the country's border, Swedish broadcaster SVT reports. At the same time, police announced at a press conference that the checks will continue to take place on the Öresund Bridge and ferry terminals in southern Sweden for 10 days.
Border checks could be carried out for an additional 20 days, Sweden's The Local reports.
The introduction of border controls means that the police can now stop and check the identity of anyone crossing Sweden's borders—usually, they are only permitted to do so if there is a suspicion of criminal activity.
"We're not going to control all who are traveling across the border, but there is going to be a mainly randomized selection," Patrik Engström, who is head of Sweden's police border unit, said at the conference.
"There are certain traffic intensive areas, like the Öresund Bridge, where we cannot check everyone," he added. According to Engström, around 20,000 cars travel across the Öresund Bridge—which connects Sweden with Denmark—on a daily basis.
Swedish Interior Minister Anders Ygeman announced the proposed controls on Wednesday when he also called on other EU members to help the efforts to house refugees.
"Our signal to the rest of the EU is crystal clear—Sweden is the country that has shouldered the greatest responsibility for the refugee crisis," Ygeman said. "If we are to cope with this mutual challenge, the other countries must take their responsibility."
The Scandinavian country expects to take in 190,000 refugees by the end of the year, the highest per head of population in any EU country. Swedish officials said the checks would assist them with the registration of refugees and stop people remaining in the country illegally.
Elsewhere, Slovenia began constructing a fence on its border with Croatia on Wednesday to limit the number of refugees entering the country.
| Government Policy Changes | November 2015 | ['(Bloomberg)', '(Newsweek)'] |
Two aftershocks strike Anchorage, Alaska, the first a magnitude 4.1, and the second a magnitude 3.7, occurring 23 minutes later. | Two aftershocks centered in roughly the same area shook Southcentral Alaska late Wednesday morning within a half hour.
The first aftershock, with a reviewed magnitude of 4.1, struck at 11:04 a.m. 13 miles northwest of Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, according to the Alaska Earthquake Center.
It was the largest aftershock in just over two weeks.
[The aftershocks keep coming: 4.5 earthquake rumbles through Southcentral Alaska]
A second, smaller quake, centered a few miles south of the first, followed 23 minutes later with a reviewed magnitude of 3.7.
Reviewed magnitude is 3.7 as well. Larger red dot is the M4.1 at 11:04am, smaller is the M3.7 at 11:27am.
Both epicenters were located at the southern end of a 20-mile-long “fault patch,” roughly underneath Point MacKenzie. More than 8,000 aftershocks have originated there since the Nov. 30 main shock.
Both quakes also struck at a similar depth. The earthquake center estimates the first hit about 26 miles down, while the second was 21 miles. | Earthquakes | February 2019 | ['(Anchorage Daily News)'] |
The United States House of Representatives votes 220–215 to pass the highly debated health care reform act. | WASHINGTON Handing President Obama a hard-fought victory, the House narrowly approved a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s health care system on Saturday night, advancing legislation that Democrats said could stand as their defining social policy achievement. After a daylong clash with Republicans over what has been a Democratic goal for decades, lawmakers voted 220 to 215 to approve a plan that would cost $1.1 trillion over 10 years. Democrats said the legislation would provide overdue relief to Americans struggling to buy or hold on to health insurance.
| Government Policy Changes | November 2009 | ['(New York Times)'] |
A fire is reported at a power plant in the city of Ahvaz, in south–western Iran, while a chlorine gas leak injures 70 workers at a petrochemicals plant near Bandar–e Emam Khomeyni. The incidents come after a string of other unexplained blazes and explosions at Iranian facilities. | A fire broke out at a power station in south-western Iran on Saturday, Iranian media reported, the latest in a string of fires and explosions, some of which have hit sensitive sites.
The blaze, which affected a transformer in the power station in the city of Ahvaz, was put out by firefighters and electricity was restored after partial outages, Mostafa Rajabi Mashhadi, a spokesman for state-run power company Tavanir, told the semi-official news agency Tasnim.
There have been several other incidents at facilities across the country.
A chlorine gas leak occurred at a unit of the Karoon petrochemicals plant near the port of Bandar Imam Khomeini on the Gulf on Saturday, injuring dozens, the semi-official ILNA news agency reported.
“In this incident, 70 members of the personnel who were near the unit suffered slight injuries (due to chlorine inhalation) and were taken to a hospital with the help of rescue workers,” the plant’s spokesman, Massoud Shabanlou, told ILNA, adding that all but two had been released.
On Thursday, a fire broke out at Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility but officials said operations were not affected.
A former official suggested the incident could have been an attempt to sabotage work at the plant, which has been involved in activities that breach an international nuclear deal.
On Tuesday, 19 people were killed in an explosion at a medical clinic in the north of the capital Tehran, which an official said was caused by a gas leak.
On 26 June, an explosion occurred east of Tehran near the Parchin military and weapons development base that the authorities said was caused by a leak in a gas storage facility in an area outside the base. | Fire | July 2020 | ['(The Guardian)'] |
Doctors without Borders criticizes the response to the 2010 Haiti cholera outbreak as inadequate. | The response to a cholera outbreak in Haiti that has killed nearly 1,200 people has been "inadequate", a major medical charity says.
Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said despite the huge aid agency presence in Haiti, urgent needs were not being met.
It called for swift action to build latrines, provide safe water supplies, remove bodies and reassure frightened people that the disease is treatable.
The UN has called for an end to the riots which have followed the outbreak.
Edmond Mulet, the head of the UN mission in Haiti, said violent protests by people who blame peacekeepers for the spread of the disease were wasting time and costing lives.
The cholera outbreak began in Haiti last month; on Friday another 76 deaths were reported, bringing the total to 1,186, the health ministry said.
MSF's chief in Haiti, Stefano Zannini, said the charity had treated more than 16,500 people but that there had been "no real and efficient response from other organisations".
"This is alarming in the sense that we haven't reached the peak yet, that might take some time, and so the number of patients might still go up while we still don't see actions on behalf of other people," he said.
In a statement, Mr Zannini said more help was urgently needed to treat the sick and implement preventative measures.
"There is no time left for meetings and debate - the time for action is now," he said.
Cholera was previously unknown in Haiti, so MSF said much work had to be done to reassure the population, particularly of the low risk and positive benefits of having treatment centres close to areas where people live.
Chlorinated water, soap, latrines and suitable waste disposal sites were also urgently needed, it said.
Other aid groups have criticised the slow pace of international donations in response to the crisis. Imogen Wall, a spokeswoman for the UN humanitarian agency OCHA, told Reuters that the UN had only received $5m (3m) of the $164m it had appealed for a week ago to fight the epidemic. But the UN agencies have also complained that their work has been hindered in recent days by protests and riots by people angry about the epidemic. On Thursday police fired tear gas as demonstrators set up barricades and threw rocks at UN vehicles. Clashes on Monday in the north left two people dead.
"If this situation continues, more and more patients in desperate need of care are likely to die and more and more Haitians awaiting access to preventive care may be overtaken by the epidemic," said Mr Mulet.
Some Haitians blame UN peacekeepers from Nepal - where cholera is endemic - for bringing the disease to the country.
Oxfam says the violence has prevented it from carrying out relief work in the Cap-Haitien area, which has the highest fatality rate in the country.
The charity said it had been forced to stop distributing soap, water tablets and rehydration salts, and to suspend its public information campaign about good hygiene.
UN officials argue that the violence is being encouraged by forces that want to disrupt the presidential election, due on 28 November.
Cholera - a water-borne disease - is present in all 10 of Haiti's regions and has affected more than 20,000 people.
The first cases were reported near the Artibonite River north of Port-au-Prince, but medical experts have warned future outbreaks could be caused by contaminated food. The disease causes diarrhoea and vomiting, leading to severe dehydration. It can kill quickly, but is treated easily through rehydration and antibiotics.
| Disease Outbreaks | November 2010 | ['(BBC)'] |
Undercover press reporters make allegations of corruption against Southampton F.C. assistant manager Eric Black. | Last updated on 30 September 201630 September 2016.From the section Football
Southampton assistant manager Eric Black gave undercover reporters advice on how to bribe officials at other clubs, the Daily Telegraph has claimed.external-link
Black, 52, was filmed apparently naming staff at other clubs who could be induced to pass on information about players to a company for money.
Such payments would be against Football Association rules.
Black, who oversaw Aston Villa's final seven Premier League matches last season, has denied the allegations.
"It doesn't take too much to get these people involved," Black says in the covert recording.
"They won't have an awful lot of money."
Former Aberdeen striker Black quotes a figure of "a couple of grand", which the Telegraph claims was his suggestion of a suitable payment to an unnamed assistant coach at a Championship side in return for introducing players to the undercover reporters' fictitious agency.
Black denies suggesting that any football official should be paid, saying that his "couple of grand" comment related to a freelance scout that an agency looking to break into the football industry might approach.
Under FA rules,external-link intermediaries "must not give, offer or seek to offer, any consideration of any kind" to a club official "in return for any benefit, service, favour or any kind of preferential treatment".
A spokesperson for Black said his client did not recall the possibility of bribing officials being mentioned. "This was not the purpose of the meeting so far as our client understood it. Any suggestion that he was complicit in such discussions is false," the spokesperson added.
Southampton said they were "fully committed" to investigating the claims and intend to work closely with the Premier League and FA on them.
Black has held permanent managerial posts at Motherwell and Coventry, as well as having caretaker spells at Birmingham, Sunderland, Blackburn, Rotherham and Villa.
He played for Aberdeen and French side Metz and won three caps for Scotland before he became a coach at Celtic.
The allegations about Black are the latest from the Daily Telegraph's investigation into corruption in football.
On Thursday, Barnsley assistant boss Tommy Wright was sacked over claims he took cash for trying to engineer certain transfers. Wright has "categorically denied" the claims.
Sam Allardyce left his post as England manager on Tuesday, making a "whole-hearted apology" in the wake of allegations in the newspaper that he offered advice on how to "get around" rules on player transfers.
The FA said it has been liaising with The Daily Telegraph and City of London Police over the allegations, adding it would meet police next week. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | September 2016 | ['(BBC Sport)'] |
The House of Representatives of Thailand selects Abhisit Vejjajiva of the Democrat Party as the new Prime Minister. | . Abhisit Vejjajiva learns of his victory in the parliamentary vote
Thailand's opposition leader, Abhisit Vejjajiva, has been confirmed as the country's new prime minister after winning a special vote in parliament.
The speaker of the lower house, Chai Chidchob, said the Democrat Party leader had beaten former police chief Pracha Promnok by 235 votes to 198.
Mr Abhisit will become Thailand's fifth leader in a little over two years.
The previous prime minister, Somchai Wongsawat, was forced to resign after a court ruling earlier this month.
The BBC's Jonathan Head in Bangkok says Mr Abhisit will start his term in office confronting some formidable challenges.
The 44-year-old British-born politician needs to restore battered economic confidence, cool the emotional political climate, and impose his authority on a cabinet drawn up as a result of days of bargaining with his coalition partners, our correspondent says.
'Silent coup'
After the speaker of parliament had gone round and asked each of the 436 MPs to state the choice, he announced that Mr Abhisit had won and that the Democrats would be given their first chance to govern for eight years.
"Abhisit gained more than half of the vote, therefore I declare that Abhisit has been elected the new prime minister," Mr Chai said.
Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play. Protesters reacted furiously to the confirmation of Abhisit Vejjajiva as the new PM
However, correspondents say the new coalition may only last a few weeks, as by-elections will be held on 11 January to fill 29 seats held by Thaksin supporters barred from politics by the court ruling.
There are also questions about the nature of the behind-the-scenes bargaining needed to persuade Thaksin loyalists to switch sides, with lucrative cabinet posts and, allegedly, large sums of cash being offered by both sides.
Outside the parliament, about 200 supporters of the ousted government reacted furiously to what they called a "silent coup", hurling barricades at the gates and stopping MPs from leaving. Several cars had their windows broken.
Some chanted "Abhisit, army nominee", Reuters news agency reported. The military is seen as being close to the Democrats.
Most demonstrators dispersed peacefully but promised to gather again later in the day.
Months of deadlock
Earlier this month, the Constitutional Court found Mr Somchai's governing People Power Party (PPP) guilty of fraud during the last election a year ago, and banned it and two other parties in the governing coalition.
Mr Somchai and several other PPP leaders were also barred from politics for five years.
However, lawmakers from the three parties who escaped the politics ban quickly formed a new party - Puea Thai (For Thailand) - or joined other parties.
On Sunday, Mr Somchai's brother-in-law, exiled former PM Thaksin Shinawatra, accused the army of using the courts to undermine the government and warned them not to interfere in politics.
The country was stricken by months of political deadlock as anti-government protesters from the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) mounted a campaign to topple the PPP.
The PAD accused the PPP of being a proxy for Mr Thaksin, who was ousted in a coup in 2006.
The protest culminated in a week-long occupation of Bangkok's main international airport which left 300,000 foreign tourists stranded. | Government Job change - Appoint_Inauguration | December 2008 | ['(New York Times)', '(BBC)'] |
Three Iranian pilgrims are killed after their bus exploded at a petrol station in the Syrian capital Damascus. | Three people were killed after an explosion near a bus in the Syrian capital, Damascus, today.
The blast occurred at about 7.30am (GMT) near a coach in the Sayeeda Zeinab area of the city, according to the Arab broadcaster al-Jazeera. After conflicting initial reports about the number of casualties the Syrian authorities played down the incident and flatly denied it was a terrorist attack.
Syria's interior minister, Said Mohammad Sammour, said the explosion killed the bus driver and two petrol station workers when a tyre they were pumping air into exploded. No explosives were involved, he insisted.
There was no way to independently confirm the casualty figures and Syria's state-run media did not report the blast.
Initial reports were that five people had been killed and dozens injured. Reuters said six people had been killed, including at least one Iranian. "Body parts are still scattered around the bus," a witness told Reuters.
The agency also reported that the back of the bus had been ripped open and that nearby buildings were damaged.
Iranian state television also reported six people had been killed, including two drivers. It said the explosion happened while the bus, said to be carrying Iranian pilgrims, was filling up at the petrol station. Press TV, Iran's state-controlled English-language television channel, said on its website that Iranians had been killed in the blast before taking the story down.
Police sealed off the area and reporters were banned from reaching the site. The incident took place as Saeed Jalili, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, was visiting Damascus for meetings with Syrian officials.
Sayeeda Zeinab is host to a famous Shia shrine, dedicated to the granddaughter of the prophet Muhammad, which is visited by hundreds of Iranians every day. The area is also home to many Iraqi refugees.
A terrorist attack in the same area in September 2008 killed 17, the bloodiest in Syria in recent memory. It was blamed on Lebanon-based Sunni militants but there was also speculation it may have been caused by "blowback" from jihadis operating in Iraq. | Armed Conflict | December 2009 | ['(The Guardian)', '(BBC)', '(Alalam News Network)'] |
Madagascar's political rivals agree on cabinet posts in a unity government; the President is Andry Rajoelina, the Vice–President is Emmanuel Rakotovahiny, and the Prime Minister is Eugene Mangalaza. | ANTANANARIVO, Oct 6 (Reuters) - Madagascar's feuding political parties agreed the top three posts in an interim government on Tuesday with 35-year-old Andry Rajoelina remaining president, delegates at power-sharing talks said.
"We now have the three posts that were missing in Maputo," Ange Andrianarisoa, head of one of the four delegations, told reporters, referring to previous talks. "The president is Andry Rajoelina, the vice-president is Emmanuel Rakotovahiny, and the prime minister is Eugene Mangalaza."
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
| Government Job change - Appoint_Inauguration | October 2009 | ['(BBC)', '(Reuters)'] |
Voters go to the polls in the Eastleigh by–election following the resignation of former UK Cabinet Minister Chris Huhne with Liberal Democrat candidate Mike Thornton retaining the seat for his party. | For all the hype about tonight's Eastleigh byelection being the most important for 30 years, it's worth remembering that byelections themselves don't normally tell you very much about who's going to run the country after the next general election. "It cannot be stressed strongly enough that journalists, editiorial writers, party leaders and political scientists should be highly cautious about reading too much into individual [byelection] results," says Pippa Norris in British Byelections, one of the standard academic books on the subject. And Anthony Wells made a similar point on his UK Polling Report blog last night. Anyway, let's assume the results are as the polls suggest – that the Liberal Democrats narrowly hold the seat over the Conservatives, UKIP do extremely well and Labour get squeezed down to fourth place. Journalists will write comment pieces concluding that the Lib Dems will do much better than the polls suggest as they'll still be able to get tactical support from Labour, that UKIP pose a serious threat to the Conservatives and that UKIP voters DON'T seem willing to vote tactically for the Tories and, for the Conservative leaning amongst them, that the poor Labour performance shows that Ed Miliband's "One Nation" mantra is just empty words. All of these conclusions are nonsense. Or at least, while some of them may very well be true, none of them will be things we can tell from Eastleigh. Firstly, if it votes in line with the polls Eastleigh doesn't really show the Lib Dems withstanding the national swing in seats they hold. In the final Ashcroft poll they were down 14 points on their general election score, which is pretty much what the polls show is happening to their national support. Secondly, I wouldn't conclude anything about tactical voting either Lab to LD or UKIP to Con – by-elections are very special cases, voters get an intense amount of literature and contact from the parties imploring them to vote tactically and send a message, and their vote won't change who governs so in many ways people are free to vote without consequence. The argument about Labour's one nation message is just point scoring – it is perfectly normal for a third party to be squeezed in a tight by-election and despite the exuberance of some Labour supporters at the start of the campaign it was bleeding bloody obvious from the beginning that Labour had no hope whatsoever in this seat. Although Wells is exaggerating for effect, he's largely right. And yet, as he goes on to point out, that doesn't mean byelections like Eastleigh aren't important. They are – not because they tell us anything particularly new about which party is up and which party is down, but because politicians think that they do. An election win is a solid event that confers authority, and after tonight either David Cameron or Nick Clegg (or conceivably both, but don't bet on it) is going to look like a loser. In a way that is hard to quantify, that will matter. Eastleigh is interesting partly because it is only the fifth time since 1945 that the Lib Dems, or their predecessors the Liberals, have defended a parliamentary seat in a byelection. But the main reason why swarms of journalists have come to this Hampshire town to cover this campaign is that it is the first time since 2010 that the two coalition parties have gone head to head in a byelection. Cameron needs to win to show that he has a realistic chance of winning an outright majority in 2015. Clegg needs to win to show that, when the general election comes, the Lib Dems can avoid a wipeout. That's why it is billed as the most important contest of its kind for 30 years. And there's another factor in play too. This byelection seems likely to mark another step in the rise of Ukip. In November last year in Corby, when Ukip got 14%, it was their best ever result in a byelection. Two weeks later it got 22% in Rotherham and tonight it could do even better. With not a single MP in the Commons, Ukip is still in many respects a fringe party. But, in byelections, it is establishing itself as one of the four main parties in English politics. I'm at the Fleming Park leisure centre in Eastleigh, where the counting will start after the polls close at 10pm. As I write, the media consensus seems to be that the Lib Dems will win, and that Ukip are challenging the Tories for second place. But, of course, no one really knows. It should be an exciting night, and I'll be reporting on all the developments as they happen. 9.32pm: Here's the scene from where I'm sitting at the count. Half an hour to go until the polls close. 9.34pm: Here is some background about the Eastleigh constituency. • The Eastleigh constituency Wikipedia page, with the results of all elections here since 1955. • A ward by ward analysis of the political makeup of the constituency on the all that's left website. • A Telegraph graphic with demographic and other information about Eastleigh
And here are the key election results from 2010. Chris Huhne (Lib Dem) - 24,966 (46.5%)
Maria Hutchings (Con) - 21,102 (39.3%)
Leo Barraclough (Lab) - 5,153 (9.6%)
Ray Finch (Ukip) - 1,933 (3.6%)
Lib Dem majority - 3,864 (7.19%)
10.00pm: It's 10pm. The polls have closed. Some ballot boxes, containing postal votes, are already here and the verification process - checking that papers are valid - is now underway. 10.19pm: Unusually, there have been five opinion polls during the byelection campaign. Here are the results. A poll by Lord Ashcroft published on 8 February
Conservatives: 34%Lib Dems: 31%Labour: 19%Ukip: 13%
Conservative lead: 3 points
A poll by Survation for the Mail on Sunday on 10 February
Lib Dems: 36%Conservatives: 33%Ukip: 16%Labour: 13%
Lib Dem lead: 3 points
A Populus poll for the Times on 23 Feburary
Lib Dems: 33%Conservatives: 28%Ukip: 21%Labour: 11%
Lib Dem lead: 5 points
A Survation poll for the Mail on Sunday on 24 February
Conservatives: 33%Lib Dems: 29%Ukip: 21%Labour: 13%
Conservative lead: 4 points
A poll for Lord Ashcroft published on 26 February
Lib Dems: 33%Conservatives: 28%Ukip: 21%Labour: 12%
There's a neat Guardian interactive graphic here which shows all five polls on a chart. And here are two surveys of the polling published at the end of the campaign
• A final analysis by Survation• An analysis by Anthony Wells at UK Polling Report
10.27pm: There are 14 candidates in all. Here are the main four candidates. Mike Thornton - Lib Dem
Thornton is a classic solid, dependable local candidate. A business development manager, he's lived in the constituency for more than 15 years, he's served on the council for almost six years and he's campaigned as a local man championing local issues, not as an aspiring cabinet minister. He is not necessarily the most polished candidate on the ballot paper, but his opponents found it hard to find anything in his record to attack with much credibility. There are more details about him on his website. Maria Hutchings - Conservative
"I am not a professional politician," Hutchings said on her leaflets. "I'm a straight-talking business woman and mother of four." The Tories tried to turn her outspokenness into an asset (read Boris Johnson on Monday), but a rash comment implying that local state schools were not good enough for her able son turned out to be the major gaffe of the campaign and there is no sign that her anti-Europe, anti-immigration stance has staunched the flow of votes to Ukip. There are more details about her on her website. Diane James - UkipThere was a time when Ukip candidates were noted for their flakiness and eccentricity, but James, a healthcare executive and a councillor in Surrey, has come over as mainstream and professional. The Guardian's John Harris said she was "a smart, apparently unflappable operator who you might easily mistake for an A-list Tory candidate" and in the Sunday Times Camilla Long said: "It is obvious that [James] should be the Conservative candidate, and ... Hutchings, a mother-of-four with unpalatable views on abortion and gay marriage, should be standing for UKIP." There are more details about James on her website.John 0'Farrell - Labour
A comic writer and long-serving activist who wrote Things Can Only Get Better, a classic memoir about life as a Labour supporter, O'Farrell seems like a gentle soul, but, on the basis of what he wrote about his fleeting thoughts on first hearing about the IRA's attempt to kill Margaret Thatcher, the Tory tabloid press - and David Cameron - have depicted him in lurid terms as a terrorist sympathiser (which is a travesty, as I explained yesterday). Labour never had much chance here, and the smear campaign hasn't helped, but O'Farrell has livened things up with some wry tweets. There are more details on his website. And here are the other candidates. Colin Bex – Wessex Regionalists
David Bishop – Elvis Loves Pets party
Jim Duggan – The Peace party
Ray Hall – Beer, Baccy and Crumpet party
Howling "Laud" Hope – Monster Raving Loony William Hill party
Iain McClenann – National Health ActionKevin Milburn – Christian Party "Proclaiming Christ's Lordship"Daz Proctor – Trade Unionists and Socialists Against Cuts Danny Stupple – Independent
Michael Walters – The English Democrats – "Putting England First!" 10.36pm: I spoke to all four main parties before the polls closed, and the Lib Dems and Ukip were certainly the happiest. They did not have any solid intelligence, but - for what it's worth - here's what they were saying. Lib Dems: "It's going well," said a source. "Generally we are optimistic. We have had a good response." The party says it has had 600 activists in the constituency today - "coachloads of people coming in" - and other supporters have been making calls from home. The Lib Dems also think Ukip has done well. Tories: The Tory camp sounded quite defensive. "It's between us and the Lib Dems, but it does look fairly close," said a party source. Ukip: "We're a happy campaign," I was told. "We do not have to win to be successful." My source pointed out that Ukip started the campaign at 13% in the polls (see 10.19pm) and that it is now on course to do as well as it did in Rotherham, where it achieved its best result in an election to the Commons (21.7%). Ukip is also particularly flattered that the Conservatives have been putting out leaflets in Eastleigh using Ukip colours. "We are pretty confident of a great show, and that will send out a strong message that we are here to stay." Labour: Labour believe that the Lib Dems will win. They think that the turnout will be high, that the momentum is with Ukip, but that the Labour vote is holding up. 11.13pm: All the boxes from polling stations are now at the count. 11.16pm: Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader, says he will be "very disappointed" if Ukip comes third, according to the Press Association. 11.20pm: LabourList are running a live blog about the Eastleigh result too. And msn news has got one on the go too, which you can read here. 11.19pm: Question Time is coming from Eastleigh tonight. I haven't heard very much of it, but PoliticsHome has filed the key lines. Here are what the participants have been saying about Eastleigh. Angela Eagle, the shadow leader of the Commons, said the Tories would be "in meltdown" if they came third behind Ukip (as Nigel Farage seems to be predicting - see 11.16pm.) "If UKIP come second and the Conservatives come third, they've got a right to be very worried," she said. Neil Hamilton, the former Tory minister who resigned over cash-for-question and who is now a senior figure in Ukip, said Eastleigh was now a three-way marginal. "My message is: get used to Ukip, because we will be providing the real choice [in 2015]," he said. Claire Perry, the Conservative MP, said the byelection showed the need to link national arguments to local problems. "The lesson we should take away is, if we're trying to talk about the big important stuff like fixing Britain, we have to keep making it relevant," she said. "We have to keep getting out of Westminster." Jeremy Browne, the Lib Dem Home Office minister, said the byelection showed that his party was resilient. "The big story for me is not that the Lib Dems are crumbling away; the big story for me is the resilience of the Lib Dems," he said. 11.46pm: If you were to apply the "who's looking glummest" approach to electoral forecasting, then the Tories are going to come third. There's a row of about a dozen of them, wearing rosettes and sitting on the elevated benches at the back of the hall, all looking as if they are attending a funeral. Party officials still insist that it is too early to know, but they don't look as if they are anticipating a triumph. According to one party official, around 20 boxes have been counted already. There are 68 boxes in all to count. The Lib Dems and Ukip are both saying that it's looking as if Ukip has come second, but they are not making firm predictions yet. 12.06am: If the Lib Dems win, as we expect, and if Ukip come second, which now seems quite possible, the focus at Westminster will be on the Conservatives. Labour's Angela Eagle said the Tories would be in "meltdown" if they came third. (See 11.19pm.) But she was only echoing what David Davis said on Wednesday. But if Labour do as badly as the polls suggest there may well be some sort of Labour party inquest too. Patrick Diamond, the former Number 10 adviser, has already kicked it off. In an article for the Guardian he says a poor result in Eastleigh would highlight the need for the party to do more to establish economic credibility. Southern electors deserve an alternative to the coalition parties. The Conservatives and Lib Dems are perceived as economically prudent but harsh and unfair. Labour is viewed as caring but lacking the resolve to be a party of government. The voters deserve a governing party which ensures that even in tough times, economic efficiency and social justice go hand in hand. 12.28am: We've got a firm prediction now. It's from the Labour camp, based on the what their counting agents have seen as they watched the ballot papers coming out of the boxes during the verification process. They think that the Lib Dems have won (just), that Ukip is in second place and that the Tories have come third. That means Labour has come fourth. But the party thinks it has increased its share of the vote from the 9.6% it got in 2010. 12.33am: The Conservative MP George Hollingbery is giving a radio interview now, about six feet from where I'm sitting. He has not conceded yet (or, if he has, I did not hear it), but he is in full "brave face on defeat" mode: the Lib Dems were always going to do well here because they hold so many council seats, governing parties only very rarely win seats in byelections (the last time was in 1982, when the Tories took a seat from a Labour MP who defected to the SDP and was rash enough to seek re-election), and "One Nation" Labour should be doing better etc. 12.38am: We should be getting a turnout figure soon. The verification process (which involves counting the number of valid ballot papers) is over, the counters have had a break and the full counting process is about to start. 12.27am: Richard Ward, the acting returning officer, has just announced the turnout. | Government Job change - Election | February 2013 | ['(BBC)', '(The Guardian)'] |
Kenya permits prisoners to vote in a referendum on a new constitution in a landmark court ruling. | A court in Kenya has ruled that prisoners will be allowed to vote in a referendum on a new constitution.
It is the first time that prisoners in the East Africa nation have been given the right to vote.
The ruling applies only to voting in August's referendum, but correspondents say it may lead to further concessions for future elections. There will now be a rush to register an estimated 50,000 inmates in time for the referendum.
The ruling was made after a petition was filed by convicts at Shimo La Tewa Prison in the coastal town of Mombasa.
The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) welcomed the decision.
"It is a credible decision," said the commission's Hassan Omar Hassan.
"The punishment is supposed to be reformative and when people are incarcerated they lose their freedom but other rights should stay."
However, the BBC's Will Ross in Nairobi says if the inmates had been hoping to get a day out in order to vote they will be disappointed.
The same ruling stipulated that every prison would become a polling station. When Kenyan politicians agreed to share power after disputed elections in December 2007, writing a new constitution was part of the deal to end the violence.
The draft constitution provides for greater checks on presidential powers and more regional devolution. It also recognises the UN human rights charter and creates a second parliamentary chamber - the Senate. Kenya 'hate speech' MP suspended
| Government Policy Changes | June 2010 | ['(BBC)', '(Daily Nation)', '(KBC)'] |
Bryson takes medical leave while he undergoes test related to a seizure that occurred during the crashes. | U.S. Commerce Secretary John Bryson will take a medical leave after being involved in two San Gabriel Valley hit-and-run crashes, the White House announced Monday night.
“Secretary Bryson informed the White House tonight that he will be taking a medical leave of absence from his position as Commerce secretary as he undergoes tests and evaluations. The president’s thoughts are with Secretary Bryson and his family during this time. Secretary Bryson assured the White House that the Commerce Department staff will not miss a beat in their work helping America’s businesses compete," Jay Carney, White House Press Secretary, said.
Authorities found Bryson, 68, unconscious at the wheel of his Lexus after hitting two vehicles shortly after 5 p.m. Saturday, authorities said. He was cited for felony hit-and-run but was not booked. He was taken to a hospital.
Commerce Department spokeswoman Jennifer Friedman confirmed the information to The Times on Monday.
"Secretary Bryson was involved in a traffic accident in Los Angeles over the weekend. He suffered a seizure," Friedman said in a statement. "He was taken to the hospital for examination and remained overnight for observation. He was released and has returned to Washington."
A Commerce official said later that Bryson had never had a seizure before and had "limited recall of the events." He remains in contact with doctors, the official said. | Famous Person - Sick | June 2012 | ['(Los Angeles Times)'] |
A court in Jakarta convicts cleric Aman Abdurrahman of inciting others to commit terror attacks in support of ISIS and sentence him to death. | The South Jakarta District Court found on Friday Aman Abdurrahman guilty of inciting several terror attacks in Indonesia and sentenced the radical cleric to death.
"The defendant has been found guilty beyond reasonable doubt of inciting others to commit terrorism," presiding judge Akhmad Jaini read in the verdict.
Aman, the de facto leader of Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), a local affiliate of the Islamic State (IS) terror group, had been found responsible for inciting others to commit at least five terror attacks in Indonesia, including the Thamrin shootings and suicide bombings in 2016 on Jl. MH Thamrin in Central Jakarta and the Kampung Melayu bombings in East Jakarta last year.
The panel of five judges found his teachings were behind the terror attacks.
Aman denied that he was involved in the attack, despite admitting that he had urged his followers to go to Syria to join the IS in its quest to establish a global caliphate.
He denounced in his defense plea the recent terror attacks in Indonesia, saying the perpetrators were ignorant and mentally ill.
The judges dismissed Aman's claim, saying based on witnesses’ testimony he had instructed his followers to create chaos and panic in Indonesia as mandated by IS leader Al-Baghdadi. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Sentence | June 2018 | ['(The Jakarta Post)'] |
Protesters in Potosí and the Bolivian government resolve a three–week disagreement. | Officials in Bolivia say a long-running protest which had paralysed the country's mining region has ended. The governor of Potosi province said protesters had agreed to lift a three-week blockade of the airport and major access roads.
The blockade hampered food supplies and cut off production at the country's main silver mines. The government agreed to some of the protesters' demands, including building a cement plant and a new airport. The 19-day protest is the longest Bolivian President Evo Morales has had to face so far, and a major test for his government.
Support for President Morales in Potosi, in the south-west of the country, was strong at the last election, but the protesters said they felt he had not delivered on many of his campaign promises.
They demanded more government investment and the settlement of a boundary dispute with the neighbouring department of Oruro.
The protest closed down the world's biggest pure silver mine, the American-owned San Bartolome, as well as two major foreign-owned silver, zinc and lead mines.
Officials said one of the mines had already reopened, the two others were expected to resume work on Tuesday.
The protest had also left dozens of foreign tourists stranded for days. Governor of Potosi Felix Gonzalez welcomed the end of the strike and the deal reached with the government.
"We've shown that when we're united we can achieve our objectives and demands," he said.
He said the government had agreed to reopen a metal plant and build an international airport in the region.
He said it was now time to "get everything working again".
Bolivia protest talks break down
Bolivia protests hit mine output
Plight of Bolivia's child miners
Bolivian presidency (in Spanish)
Hardliner Raisi set to be new Iran president
Cleric Ebrahim Raisi - Iran's top judge - has received most of the votes counted so far.
New wave of virus under way in England - scientist
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How the Delta variant took hold in the UK. VideoHow the Delta variant took hold in the UK | Protest_Online Condemnation | August 2010 | ['(BBC)'] |
196 people are indicted in Istanbul for plotting to overthrow the government. (People's Daily) | An Istanbul court has indicted 196 people for plotting to overthrow the government, the state news agency says.
The suspects were arrested earlier this year, and include serving and former senior military officers.
They are accused of involvement in an alleged conspiracy to create chaos and pave the way for a military takeover.
The case is the latest in a series involving alleged plots against the Islamist-rooted government by the military and secular establishment.
Hundreds of people, including academics, journalists, politicians and military officers, are currently on trial over separate alleged plots against the government.
However, no-one has been convicted more than three years after the first official investigation.
Most of those charged on Monday were detained in February - but then released - after the national newspaper Taraf published allegedly leaked copies of documents detailing their supposed plans. No trial date has been set.
The indictment says the alleged conspiracy was drawn up in 2003 at the Istanbul base of the Turkish First Army shortly after the governing AKP party came to power.
Those charged include Gen Cetin Dogan, former head of the First Army; former navy chief Adm Ozden Ornek; former air force commander Gen Halil Ibrahim Firtina and the former number two of the general staff, retired Gen Ergin Saygun, Anatolia news agency reported.
The alleged plot - codenamed Operation Sledgehammer - reportedly involved plans to bomb mosques and provoke tensions with Greece, in order to spark political chaos and justify a military takeover. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | July 2010 | ['(BBC)', '(Reuters)', '(The Guardian)', '(The News international)', '(The Sydney Morning Herald)'] |
President of Russia Vladimir Putin accuses the United States of reneging on a 16-year-old deal that called for reducing Russia's and the United States' stockpiles of weapons-grade plutonium. He accused Washington of trying to preserve its ability to turn some of its plutonium stockpile back into a form usable for nuclear weapons. | WASHINGTON -- At a forum in St. Petersburg earlier this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin spent much of his time mocking the Panama Papers document leak, which implicated close friends of his in shady financial transactions.
Then he took time to hit his favorite punching bag -- the United States -- with an arcane allegation and a veiled threat about the disposal of one of the most radioactive substances on the planet: plutonium.
The Americans, he alleged, were reneging on a 16-year-old deal that called for reducing Russia's and the United States' stockpiles of weapons-grade plutonium. He accused Washington of trying to preserve its ability to turn some of its plutonium stockpile back into a form usable for nuclear weapons.
"This is not what we agreed on. Now we will have to think about what to do about this and how to respond to this," Putin said. "By all indications, this will also be an irritant, which will provoke a corresponding reaction.”
The assertion, which has been denied by the United States, went largely overlooked by the wider public. But Putin’s comments caught the attention of arms-control and nonproliferation experts, as well as two U.S. senators, and serves to highlight the precarious state of affairs between Russia and the United States.
Losing That '90s Optimism
The agreement was "a sign of the ability of the two countries to work together," said Cheryl Rofer, a retired nuclear scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where U.S. nuclear weapons are designed. "I hate that we have lost the optimism of the 1990s, although not everyone thought that was a good thing then." Plutonium has been produced in the United States and Russia for decades. In its enriched form, it is valued as fuel for nuclear weapons; in a less-pure state, it can be used to fuel power plants.
The two countries together hold the world’s largest stockpiles. The most recent inventory by the U.S. Energy Department showed the United States had around 95 tons, most of which was weapons grade.
Russia, for its part, is estimated to have around 128 tons of weapons-grade plutonium.
In 2010, Moscow and Washington recommitted themselves to a deal signed a decade earlier called the Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement.
That deal, which was negotiated in the 1990s, called for turning a chunk, though not all, of the countries’ weapons-grade plutonium stockpiles into other forms, such as fuel for nuclear power plants.
Though the amount involved was just a fraction of the overall stockpiles -- 34 tons -- the deal has been widely viewed as a barometer of U.S.-Russian nuclear cooperation.
In the United States, the disposal process has long involved blending the plutonium with uranium and turning it into mixed-oxide fuel, or MOX, for use in power plants.
A government facility being built in South Carolina for that purpose, however, has gone billions of dollars over budget and fallen far behind schedule. The fact that uranium prices have fallen amid a global glut means there’s even less demand among nuclear-plant operators for MOX.
In February, following years of mounting criticism, President Barack Obama’s administration pulled funding for it, a decision that was praised by some experts and former Obama administration officials as "principled."
In place of the MOX plant, the U.S. government is leaning toward a "dilute and dispose" approach or "immobilization." That involves adding the plutonium to a nonradioactive substance, encasing it in glass or metal-can type containers or oil drums, and burying it at a federal waste site in New Mexico. Unlike with MOX, experts say this method could still allow for plutonium to be extracted some day and put back into weapons, though with difficulty.
This is what likely prompted Putin’s response to a question that appeared to have been planted by organizers of the April 8 St. Petersburg forum.
"Our partners should understand that, jokes aside, all their efforts to promote information products aimed against Russia are one thing, but serious issues, especially with regard to nuclear arms, are quite a different matter and one should be able to meet one’s obligations," Putin said.
The assertion drew a predictably caustic response from Dmitry Kiselyov, a television anchor and state-media boss who’s known for bombastic commentary: "America Deceives!"
"America deceives" says Russian TV tonight, slams US for not destroying its stockpiles of weapon grade plutonium pic.twitter.com/iEY4RbPyHC
The two U.S. senators representing South Carolina, whose districts would suffer the loss of well-paying jobs if the MOX project were ended, also weighed in on April 11, accusing the Obama administration of allowing Putin to take the high road.
Gary Samore, who oversaw nonproliferation and arms control efforts in the White House under both Obama and President Bill Clinton, said Putin’s remarks reflect Russian worries about U.S. intentions and capabilities that date back to the early days of the Cold War.
However, he said, by moving away from the MOX dilution effort, the Americans are essentially changing the agreement.
"Putin is right. We’re proposing to modify the agreement," Samore told RFE/RL.
"And the Russians, if they wanted to, they would be within their rights to say that they’re not going to carry through with the agreement."
The State Department, however, has denied that the United States has violated the agreement, saying it allows for the two sides to "agree on disposition methods that do not involve irradiation in nuclear reactors."
New Agreement Required?
"Accommodating any such new method of disposal...requires written agreement between the parties; we would expect such consultations on a separate agreement to begin at an appropriate later time," said Eric Lund, a spokesman for the State Department's Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation. "The United States remains firmly committed to the [agreement] and continues to believe that verifiable disposition of excess weapon-grade plutonium -- initially enough for 17,000 nuclear weapons -- represents an important nonproliferation and arms control step," he told RFE/RL in an e-mail.
Pavel Podvig, a Geneva-based researcher who studies Russian strategic forces, said it is likely that the Kremlin was looking at the issue as a way to put political pressure on Washington as part of its overall approach toward the United States.
"The U.S. in a difficult situation," he said in an e-mail. "Renegotiating [the agreement] would mean making some accommodations with Russia. Not impossible, of course, but may be difficult to accept."
Matthew Bunn, who runs the Project on Managing the Atom at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, agreed that if relations were better, the two sides could amend the deal, just like they did when it was renegotiated in 2010.
"I thought that was possible up until Putin made his comments," he said. "Now it would be extremely difficult for the Russians to agree to anything, given what Putin said."
Ultimately, experts say, what matters is not the increasingly likely demise of the agreement but what it says about the poisoned relationship between the two countries. "Frankly, the way things are going, it seems to me that the agreement is nothing much at this point," Rofer said. "Mainly something to fight over."
Mike Eckel is a senior correspondent in Prague, where he reports on developments in Russia, Ukraine, and around the former Soviet Union, as well as news involving cybercrime and money laundering. Before joining RFE/RL in 2015, he worked for the Associated Press in Moscow. He has also reported and edited for The Christian Science Monitor, Al Jazeera America, Voice of America, and the Vladivostok News. | Tear Up Agreement | April 2016 | ['(Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)'] |
83 people are rescued from a floating restaurant after it drifted away carrying 150 passengers on the flooded Ohio River in Covington, Kentucky, USA, and became lodged under the Clay Wade Bailey Bridge. | CINCINNATI — The Waterfront Restaurant, owned by Cincinnati entrepreneur Jeff Ruby, broke free from its dock on the Ohio River late Friday night and floated 100 feet down the river, according to Local 12 WKRC.
Local 12 reported there were 150 people inside the business at the time of the incident, which was at around 10:30 p.m. Friday.
Fire crews evacuated people from the restaurant individually, taking each down a special pier wearing a life jacket, according to Local 12.
At around midnight today, the restaurant was wedged on a pier near the Clay Wade Bailey Bridge in Covington, Ky., forcing the bridge to close as a precaution.
Investigators are not certain why the restaurant broke free, though the high water likely was a factor. The Ohio River is at about 55 feet, which is 3 feet above flood stage.
The Waterfront specializes in seafood dishes and, when docked, is located at the Pete Rose Pier in Covington.
| Floods | March 2011 | ['(Dayton Daily News)', '(CTV Edmonton)'] |
Guy Scott, the Vice–President of Zambia, becomes the interim President following the death of Michael Sata in London on Tuesday. | Last updated on: October 29, 2014 9:35 AM
Zambian Vice President Guy Scott has been named the interim leader of Africa's second-largest copper-producing nation, a government minister said on Wednesday.
He succeeds President Michael Sata, 77, who died Tuesday in London, where he had been undergoing treatment for an undisclosed illness.
Zambia will hold a presidential election to choose a permanent successor within three months, defense minister Edgar Lungu said.
Scott becomes Africa's first white president since F.W. de Klerk governed South Africa from 1989 to 1994. The new Zambian leader, 70, was born in Zambia when the country was British-ruled Northern Rhodesia.
Under the constitution, he cannot be president permanently because his parents were not born in Zambia. Last week, the Zambian government presented lawmakers with a new draft constitution that would eliminate that restriction.
Sata praised for action
Sata, during his three-year term, promised to wipe out corruption and hold foreign investors in check. Even his critics say he got some things done, such as improving the nation’s infrastructure. His friends and colleagues praise him as a man of action.
Even Michael Sata knew he was better known for his sharp tongue than for his populist policies as Zambia's fifth president.
On his official, but rarely updated, Facebook page, the late president of the southern African nation wrote that as an up-and-coming politician, "my political style was described as ‘increasingly abrasive.' "
Hence his nickname, King Cobra.
"He is called King Cobra because he gets things done. He strikes. ... If it is not done, he is thumping the table the next day," Scott explained when he was vice president.
But the name also stemmed from Sata's numerous sharp ripostes – aimed at journalists, rivals and ordinary citizens. He even took a stab, in 2012, at former President George W. Bush, who he called a "young man" and a "colonialist."
Sharp tongue, steely resolve
Scott said Sata's sharp teeth hid a steely determination.
“I have no trouble getting on with him," Scott had said. "He likes growling, he likes making people wake up. He has got a complicated personality, but he has the loyalty of people who know him and work with him, and love him. He has a bigger, more loyal following than any other politician in Zambia."
Sata was born a colonial subject in what was then known as Northern Rhodesia. He said he worked for a time on the railway system in Britain, though few details are available.
He ran for president four times. In his final, successful campaign in 2011, he promised to crack down on corruption and rein in Chinese interests in the copper-rich nation.
But Sata also had a softer side. His official biography from his party, the Patriotic Front, describes him as a family man and a dedicated Catholic. And, it said, despite his achievements as a police officer, pilot and politician, he was a populist at heart, attending mass in the vernacular and refusing on principle to drink bottled water until all of his countrymen have access to clean water.
That was one of many of his goals he did not meet. According to UNICEF, more than a third of Zambians lack access to clean water.
Failing grades for late president
An organization called Zambian Watchdog gave the president across-the-board failing grades after 18 months in power, slamming him for disregarding the constitution and for lacking clear plans. The organization also acidly noted that Sata's "conduct home and abroad has been less than decent and impressive."
Law Society of Zambia General Secretary Likando Kalaluka said that Sata improved the nation’s infrastructure, but added that his legacy would be "overshadowed by the delay in the constitution – the draft constitution."
Near the end of his life, Sata was plagued by reports of ill health, and he vanished from public view for nearly three months. | Government Job change - Appoint_Inauguration | October 2014 | ['(Voice of America)'] |
Sligo Rovers claim their first league title in nearly forty years with an historic 3–2 win over St Patrick's Athletic at the Showgrounds. | Sligo Rovers 3 St Patrick’s Athletic 2:A late penalty converted by Mark Quigley helped Sligo Rovers get the better of St Patrick’s Athletic in a five-goal thriller at The Showgrounds as they claimed their third league title and first since 1977.
The home side knew that a victory over the second-placed Dublin side would be enough to win the title and they looked well on course at half-time after taking a 2-0 lead.
Local hero Raffaele Cretaro got the ball rolling on 21 minutes, placing the ball past Saints goalkeeper Barry Murphy after being put through by a smart pass from Pascal Millien.
The full house of over 5,000 didn’t have long to wait for the second and it was the Tubbercurry man again that came up with the goods as he scored from Ross Gaynor’s corner following a flick-on from Gavin Peers.
Six points behind at the start of the day, Liam Buckley’s side knew they had to go all out to get back into the game, but they failed to take advantage of chances before the break.
They turned that around in some style after the interval, with Christy Fagan firing home after a delightful chipped through ball from Seán O’Connor after 53 minutes.
O’Connor then hit a post with a free-kick before they levelled matters on the hour mark when Chris Forrester beat Gary Rogers in the Sligo goal after a short free-kick from O’Connor.
Both sides had their chances to seal the three points before a controversial penalty decision saw former Pat’s striker Mark Quigley fire home the spot kick after Conor Kenna was harshly adjudged to have handled the ball in the box.
There was further drama before the finish with O’Connor and Danny Ventre both seeing red after an altercation in injury time.
But not long after they left the pitch, the hordes of Sligo fans took their place as the final whistle saw a huge pitch invasion as the locals celebrated their first league title in 35 years. | Sports Competition | October 2012 | ['(The Irish 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. | SKOPJE, June 1 (Reuters) - Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski claimed victory in Sunday's parliamentary election, a vote marred by alleged fraud and shootings that could cloud the country's European Union ambitions.
The violence, limited to ethnic Albanian areas, highlighted the rivalry between the parties vying for the vote of a 25 percent Albanian minority. One person was shot dead, nine were wounded and voting stopped in one town after a gun battle.
"In most parts the vote was fair and democratic, but sadly in one part there were irregularities," Gruevski said.
"I will do everything in my power to have a re-run there so each and every MP is elected fairly."
He said his conservative VMRO-DPMNE party was expecting to have 60 deputies in the 120-seat assembly, over a third more than it won in the last election in 2006.
The figures partly vindicate Gruevski's controversial decision to call an election shortly after Greece blocked Macedonia's NATO invitation in April, betting that nationalist indignation over the snub would strengthen his hand.
Athens says Macedonia must change its name, which it shares with a neighbouring Greek province, or can never enter the EU and NATO.
But observers say Gruevski failed to come down hard on violence among rival Albanian parties and misjudged the risk of unrest, ultimately harming the image of a country desperate to convince the EU it is mature enough for membership talks.
The election commission noted instances of suspected fraud such as broken or missing ballot boxes. Two of its officials in the ethnic Albanian Tetovo area were briefly detained by an unknown armed group before being rescued unharmed by police.
It is the worst violence since the end of a 2001 rebellion, when all-out ethnic war was averted by the West using the lure of NATO and the EU to get Albanian guerrillas to disarm.
The ethnic Albanian Democratic Union for Integration (DUI) blamed the rival Democratic Party of Albanians (DPA) and the police for "provocations, violence and psychological terror" and demanded a repeat vote in the troubled areas.
"That is the only way for Macedonia to avoid the danger of a political crisis," DUI official Izet Mexhiti told Reuters.
The two parties have been on bad terms since 2006, when the DUI, which won most of the Albanian votes, was left out of a coalition government in favour of the DPA.
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and the United States embassy in Skopje both issued statements expressing concern and calling for restraint. Before the vote, Brussels had said the election is a test Macedonia must pass to start EU negotiations.
The West is worried by any signs of instability in the Balkans so soon after the February secession of Kosovo's ethnic Albanians from Serbia, the latest shudder in a region torn apart by the collapse of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
The violence on voting day began soon after polls opened.
Scuffles broke out in several Albanian areas and a small explosive device was thrown at an empty cafe. Near Skopje, voting was stopped in the town of Aracinovo after a gun battle.
Police said officers went to the town after local monitors reported the arrival of men with machine guns. They came under fire and retaliated, killing one gunman and injuring two others.
But the DUI said the incident was initiated by plain-clothes police, which stopped a convoy and started shooting.
In Skopje's Cair neighbourhood, another shooting took place outside a polling station. One DUI official was in critical condition and five other people were wounded, police said.
At least 10 people have been arrested in connection with the violence. They included Agim Krasniqi, a commander of the guerrilla Albanian National Army in the 2001 rebellion who remained active after a peace deal was reached. (additional reporting by Benet Koleka; Writing by Ellie Tzortzi; editing by Mary Gabriel)
| Government Job change - Election | June 2008 | ['(Reuters)', '(BBC News)'] |
Ten newborn babies die in a hospital fire in western Maharashtra, India. The fire was supposedly caused by an electrical short circuit. Prime Minister Narendra Modi says that the news was "heart–wrenching". | Emergency services and staff were unable to reach the babies in time. Prime Minister Narendra Modi called the tragedy "heart-wrenching."
Emergency services and staff rescued seven babies as the District General Hospital in Bhandara after a fire broke out
Ten newborn babies were killed in a maternity unit in India early on Saturday after a fire broke out in major hospital, a doctor said.
The infants were 1 to 3 months old, the Press Trust of India news agency said.
The incident took place at the Bhandara District General Hospital in the western state of Maharashtra, nearly 1,000 kilometers (625 miles) south of New Delhi.
Nurses on duty noticed a fire coming from the hospital's neonatal unit at around 1.30 a.m. local time (20:00 UTC, Friday) and raised the alarm.
Staff and emergency services rescued seven of the newborn infants hospital, Pramod Khandate, a senior doctor, told news agency AFP.
They were unable to reach the other 10 babies who were in a separate ward.
"Our staff extinguished the fire as soon as they could. The smoke led to the babies suffocating," Khandate said.
The fire brigade stopped the blaze from spreading to other parts of the hospital and other patients were moved to safety.
A preliminary investigation suggests it was caused by an electrical short-circuit, said police officer V.S. Chavan, reported news agency AP. However, this is not confirmed.
Authorities have ordered an immediate inquiry into Saturday's disaster.
"Heart-wrenching tragedy in Bhandara, Maharashtra, where we have lost precious young lives," Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Twitter.
Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi called the deaths "extremely tragic."
Home Minister Amit Shah expressed condolences in a tweet, adding: "I am pained beyond words."
More than 90 people died in an inferno in a Kolkata hospital in 2011.
A fire at a hospital in Ahmedabad in August killed eight coronavirus patients. Another five COVID-19 patients died in a blaze in a clinic in Rajkot in November.
The Supreme Court called for a report on safety in coronavirus hospitals, following these latest incidents. | Fire | January 2021 | ['(DW)'] |
Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev appoints former mayor of Bishkek, Daniar Usenov, as the new Prime Minister following the resignation of his predecessor, Igor Chudinov. | Kyrgyz new Prime Minister Daniyar Usenov delivers a speech during a session of State Parliament in Bishkek, October 21, 2009. Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev on Wednesday named his long-standing ally Usenov as the new prime minister, Bakiyev's office said. REUTERS/Vladimir Pirogov
BISHKEK (Reuters) - Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev named long-standing ally Daniyar Usenov Wednesday as prime minister, in a major shake-up of government that cements his grip on power.
Bakiyev’s Ak Zhol party nominated Usenov Tuesday after the president removed the previous government and transferred key agencies, including the state security service and financial police, to his own control.
Bakiyev says the changes are designed to make government more efficient and help the country address economic problems and security threats. His critics say they only boost his already sweeping powers.
Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet republic in Central Asia, hosts a U.S. airbase which supplies coalition troops fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. The poor country of 5 million people exports gold, tobacco, cotton, mercury and uranium.
Bakiyev won a second five-year term in office in July in a poll criticized by Western observers. The opposition has dismissed it as rigged and accused the government of cracking down on dissent.
New prime minister Usenov, 49, was previously Bakiyev’s chief of staff.
Reporting by Olga Dzyubenko; writing by Olzhas Auyezov; editing by Mark Trevelyan
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
| Government Job change - Appoint_Inauguration | October 2009 | ['(BBC)', '(Reuters)'] |
An Australian student who had been detained in North Korea on June 25 is freed thanks to diplomatic talks between Australia and North Korea via Swedish officials. | SYDNEY/TOKYO (Reuters) - An Australian student who was detained in North Korea was freed and safely left the country on Thursday, arriving in Tokyo via Beijing later the same day after Swedish officials helped broker his release.
Alek Sigley, 29, who was studying in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, had been missing since June 25.
“I’m OK. I’m good, I’m very good,” Sigley told reporters after arriving at Beijing airport.
He declined to comment about what happened to him in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang where he had been living. He made a peace sign as he walked through the airport.
Hours later he landed in Tokyo, walking past a throng of reporters waiting at the airport without answering their questions. Sigley is married to a Japanese woman, Yuka Morinaga.
An Australian government source familiar with the situation said Sigley was due to travel to Tokyo from Beijing.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison interrupted parliament earlier on Thursday to confirm that Sigley had been freed.
Morrison later said in a statement that Swedish authorities had helped secure the student’s release.
“This outcome demonstrates the value of the discreet, behind the scenes work of officials in resolving complex and sensitive consular cases, in close partnership with other governments,” Morrison said in the statement.
He did not say why Sigley had been detained.
Australia has no diplomatic presence in North Korea and relies on other countries such as Sweden to act on its behalf.
In a statement to Reuters, the Swedish foreign ministry said it welcomed the release.
“Sweden has acted in accordance with the agreement on providing consular services that exists with Australia and in close cooperation with Australian authorities,” it added.
Sigley’s father, a professor of Asian studies in the western Australian city of Perth, told reporters his son would soon be reunited with his wife.
“We are extremely pleased that Alek is safe and sound,” Gary Sigley said.
Sigley was an active social media user in North Korea and regularly posted photos and blog posts about subjects such as food and fashion. Alarm was first raised that he was missing when he disappeared from his social media accounts.
He was also a regular contributor to international media about life in North Korea, which he was invariably enthusiastic about.
It was no coincidence the detention came during negotiations between North Korea and the United States, a close ally of Australia, said Asian security specialist Euan Graham.
“North Korea would not have taken an Australian citizen into custody without considering the geopolitical ramifications,” said Graham, a professor at La Trobe University in Melbourne.
The detention could have been used as leverage, he added.
On Sunday, U.S. President Donald Trump became the first incumbent U.S. president to set foot in North Korea when he met its leader, Kim Jong Un, in the region’s demilitarized zone to resume stalled nuclear talks.
The treatment of foreigners, most usually from the United States, by the secretive North has long been a contentious issue. Some have been held prisoner for years on accusations of spying.
The death of American student Otto Warmbier in 2017 after he was detained for 17 months sparked a long period of tension between the United States and North Korea.
He had been sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in 2016 for, according to North Korean state media, trying to steal an item bearing a political slogan.
Warmbier died shortly after he was flown home to Ohio in a coma.
Reporting by Colin Packham, Tom Westbrook in SYDNEY, Chris Gallagher in TOKYO, James Pearson in HANOI, Ben Blanchard in BEIJING and Niklas Pollard in STOKHOLM; Writing by Jonathan Barrett; Editing by Clarence Fernandez, Robert Birsel and Hugh Lawson
| Diplomatic Talks _ Diplomatic_Negotiation_ Summit Meeting | July 2019 | ['(Reuters)'] |
At least seven people die and approximately 40 are injured at a stampede at a political rally by Pakistan opposition leader Imran Khan in the city of Multan. | At least seven people have died in Pakistan after a stampede after a political rally at a stadium in Multan with around 40 injured.
The incident happened after a speech by opposition politician, Imran Khan.
Mr Khan, the rally's organiser, called for Pakistan's prime minister to resign. He accuses Nawaz Sharif of vote-rigging in last year's elections.
Mr Sharif expressed sorrow for what happened at the rally, one of many held against him since August.
Mr Khan has been vocal in his criticism of the prime minister. In August he and Tahir ul-Qadri, a Sufi cleric, led protesters in occupying government buildings and embassies in the capital Islamabad.
Supporters of Mr Sharif claim the demonstrations were instigated by Pakistan's powerful army, who, they say, are trying to weaken the prime minister.
Last month, crowds tried to storm Mr Sharif's house and briefly forced the state television channel to suspend broadcasts. | Riot | October 2014 | ['(BBC)'] |
An American man is held responsible for the "coldblooded murder" of two men in Lahore, Pakistan, by city police chief Aslam Tareen. | A Pakistani police chief has said a US citizen in custody over the deaths of two men in Lahore last month was guilty of "cold-blooded murder".
Lahore city police chief Aslam Tareen told a news conference that one of the men was killed while running away.
He spoke after Raymond Davis was remanded for another 14 days following an appearance in a Lahore court. Mr Davis, 36, has admitted he shot the men, but says he acted in self-defence because they were trying to rob him.
The court has ordered the Pakistani government to clarify US embassy claims that Mr Davis has diplomatic immunity. He is charged on two counts - murder and possession of illegal weapons. Mr Tareen told a news conference: "The police investigation and forensic report show it was not self-defence.
"His plea has been rejected by police investigators. He gave no chance to them to survive. Mr Tareen also said that forensic evidence did not support Mr Davis's claim that one of the motorbike riders had approached his car window, cocked his gun and pointed it at him.
No fingerprints had been uncovered on the triggers of the pistols found on the bodies of the two men, he said.
And tests had shown that the bullets remained in the magazine of the men's gun, not the chamber.
"It was cold-blooded murder," said Mr Tareen. "Eyewitnesses have told police that he directly shot at them and he kept shooting even when one was running away. It was an intentional murder."
Police officials have previously said that the two men were street robbers, although conspiracy theorists have suggested that the pair were members of Pakistani intelligence.
Mr Davis was taken to court very early on Friday to avoid the media and possible protests, the BBC's M Ilyas Khan in Islamabad says. The American has reportedly been sent to the high-security Kot Lakhpat jail in Lahore. His next hearing is scheduled for 25 February.
He is said to have told police that he acted in self-defence during the incident on 27 January because the motorcycle rider and his pillion passenger tried to hijack his vehicle at gunpoint. As his colleagues came to his aid, their vehicle ran over and killed a third person. Mr Tareen said police had written five times to the US consulate in Lahore, requesting access to the consulate vehicle involved in that collision.
It is not clear what Mr Davis's role in Lahore was - American officials in the capital Islamabad have said only that he was an US embassy employee who was part of the "administrative and technical staff".
The Associated Press news agency says Pentagon records show that Mr Davis is a former Special Forces soldier who left the army in 2003 after 10 years of service.
BBC correspondents say the case is threatening to derail relations between the US and Pakistan, a crucial ally in the fight against militants. Islamabad is under tremendous pressure at home, with demands that Mr Davis must stand trial in Pakistan and not be handed over to the US government.
Earlier this month, the Lahore High Court barred officials from freeing Mr Davis and ordered them to place his name on the "exit control list" to stop him leaving Pakistan. Last weekend tensions rose further when the widow of one of the men shot dead by Mr Davis killed herself by taking poison.
In her dying statement, she said she feared the American would be released without trial, police and doctors said.
| Armed Conflict | February 2011 | ['(BBC)'] |
A rare Mediterranean tropical-like cyclone , with winds up to 120 km/h , kills three people as it passes over Greece heading toward the island of Crete. About 5,000 homes in Karditsa, Greece, were affected by flooding and heavy winds. One person is still reported missing. | Three people have died and two remain missing after a rare hurricane-like storm swept across Greece, flooding streets and homes and cutting power.
Hundreds of people became trapped as Cyclone Ianos, known as a "medicane" (Mediterranean hurricane), hit areas north of Athens before heading south.
Train services linking the north and south of the country were cut off.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has pledged that "all the affected areas will have immediate support". Mr Mitsotakis has sent three senior officials to the worst-hit central region.
On Sunday, the body of a man, a 62-year-old farmer, was found under the collapsed roof of his house in a village near Karditsa, north of Athens, officials said. Another man was found dead on his farm in the same region on Saturday, while the body of a woman was recovered from her flooded home in a nearby town, local media reported.
Two other people are still missing - one of them is a woman was swept away in her car, which has since been found empty, firefighters said. As Ianos churned eastwards overnight Friday and into Saturday, the city of Karditsa was lashed by winds of up to 120km/h (75mph) that brought down power lines and triggered landslides. About 5,000 homes in the city were reportedly affected by flooding, while roads were also damaged.
TV images showed Karditsa badly flooded, with a bridge collapsed.
"We're dealing with a total catastrophe," said Nikolaos Gousios, a resident of nearby Farsala village.
By Saturday evening, the storm had reached the island of Crete, bringing heavy rainfall that flooded streets and properties. Footage on social media earlier showed huge waves lashing the beaches on the Ionian islands of Kefalonia and Zakynthos as the storm headed in. Flights and ferry services were cancelled and tourists were advised to stay indoors. "I call on citizens to remain vigilant for as long as this phenomenon lasts," Mr Mitsotakis warned those in its path, adding: "What takes precedence now is protection of life."
A boat believed to be carrying 55 migrants off the western Peloponnese was also reported to be in distress on Friday. However, the Greek coast guard told AFP news agency that the boat may have changed course after receiving no help.
Medicanes - tropical-like cyclones - have only been categorised by meteorologists in the past 40 years, according to Kostas Lagouvardos, an expert at the Athens Observatory.
"Mediterranean cyclones or hurricanes have tropical characteristics like those in the Atlantic, but they often have a smaller volume and are less intense," he told AFP news agency. | Hurricanes_Tornado_Storm_Blizzard | September 2020 | ['(medicane)', '(75 mph)', '(BBC)', '(Greek City Times)'] |
The United Kingdom House of Commons approves by 522 votes to 13 a snap general election to be held on June 8. | SNP MPs will abstain in the House of Commons vote on whether there should be a snap general election, the party's leader at Westminster has confirmed. Angus Robertson said his party believed in fixed-term parliaments, but would not stand in the way of an early election.
The prime minister's plan to hold an election on 8 June is expected to be authorised by MPs later.
Labour and the Liberal Democrats have already said they support the move. The next general election had been due to be held in 2020, but the Fixed Term Parliaments Act allows for one to be held earlier if two-thirds of MPs are in favour. Theresa May has argued that a snap general election will help the UK make a success of Brexit and provide long-term certainty.
Opposition parties have highlighted Mrs May's U-turn after she had previously insisted she would not be calling an early poll.
But the prime minister told the BBC she had "reluctantly" changed her mind on the issue in recent weeks.
Asking the public to trust her, she said a new mandate would give her the "strongest hand" in talks and make it hard for people to "frustrate" EU exit.
Speaking on the BBC's Good Morning Scotland programme, Mr Robertson accused the prime minister of putting her party before her country by holding a general election just two years after the last one. He added: "We are supporters of the Fixed Term Parliament Act, and that means that parliaments should go their term.
"But we are not going to stand in the way of the election because the election is going to happen.
"The Labour Party is going to vote with the Tories. We are not going to vote with the Tories, we are not going to make life easy for them, we are here to hold them to account."
The decision to abstain in the Commons vote was made at a meeting of SNP MPs on Tuesday evening.
Mr Robertson insisted he "absolutely" relished the prospect of an election, and said the SNP would be contesting every seat in Scotland with the intention of winning them.
He said the vote "will be an opportunity for us in Scotland to at least get some insurance against the worst excesses of a hard-right Brexit, which is what the UK government is steering towards".
Mr Robertson also confirmed that the SNP winning a majority of seats in Scotland would not be enough for the country to become independent - with a referendum needed to decide the issue. But he would not confirm whether or not the party's manifesto would have a commitment to an independent Scotland seeking EU membership - which is the SNP's current policy. First Minister and SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon joined Mr Robertson and the party's other MPs outside Westminster ahead of the Commons vote.
She told journalists that the UK government's arguments against holding a second independence referendum would "crumble to dust" if the SNP won the election in Scotland. The SNP won 56 of the country's 59 seats in 2015 - making it the third largest party in the Commons - with the Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats winning one each.
But two MPs - Michelle Thomson and Natalie McGarry - are currently suspended by the party.
Ms McGarry has been charged with fraud offences relating to a potential financial discrepancy in the accounts of the Women for Independence group, while Mrs Thomson has been reported to prosecutors after a police investigation into allegations of mortgage fraud.
The SNP's National Executive Committee will meet on Saturday to discuss whether Ms McGarry and Mrs Thomson would be able to put themselves forward as potential candidates in the election. Recent opinion polls have suggested that the SNP continues to hold a commanding lead over its rivals in Scotland, with the Conservatives in second place ahead of Labour.
Writing in the Scotsman newspaper on Wednesday morning, the prime minister said that backing the Scottish Conservatives in the election would send a clear message of opposition to SNP calls for a second independence referendum.
And she insisted that holding an election now will provide the UK with "five years of strong and stable leadership to see us through the (Brexit) negotiations and the period thereafter".
Mrs May added: "A vote for the Scottish Conservatives in June will do two things. It will send a clear message of opposition to the SNP's divisive plans for a second independence referendum, and it will strengthen my hand as I negotiate on behalf of the whole United Kingdom with the EU. "In Scotland, only Ruth Davidson and her Scottish Conservative colleagues are able to stand up for our United Kingdom and provide a strong voice against the SNP. "And only a strong Conservative Government at Westminster can deliver a Brexit that works for the whole UK."
Meanwhile, Scottish Secretary David Mundell insisted it was "absolutely" not hypocritical of the UK government to call a snap general election while denying SNP calls for a second referendum on independence.
He said the general election would be over in six weeks, before Brexit negotiations begin, while Ms Sturgeon wanted the independence referendum campaign to be held while the EU negotiations were ongoing. Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale said the upcoming general election would give voters a "significant and historic choice".
She said: "At this election, the choice again will be clear: a Tory Party intent on a hard and damaging Brexit; or a Labour Party that will oppose a second independence referendum and fight for a better future for everybody.
"We will work tirelessly to elect Jeremy Corbyn Prime Minister and deliver a Labour government."
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie also said his party was "relishing the prospect of this election".
He stated: "It is a chance to change the direction of the whole of the UK. Our optimistic agenda is pro-UK, pro-EU and progressive. We stand with the majority opinion in this country."
And Scottish Greens co-convener Patrick Harvie urged Scottish voters to use the election to "reassert our choice for a fairer and more equal society."
| Government Job change - Election | April 2017 | ['(BBC)'] |
The 21st summit of APEC begins in Singapore. | THE summit of Asia-Pacific leaders started on Sunday with a closed-door meeting of senior officials from the 21 Apec members.
The officials have two days to conclude their draft reports before Apec finance, trade and foreign ministers meet on Wednesday and Thursday.
Chairing the sessions of the Senior Officials' Meeting at the Suntec Convention Centre is Mr Ravi Menon, Second Permanent Secretary at Singapore's Ministry of Trade and Industry.
On Sunday, the senior officials were said to have discussed several items, including how to ensure that economic growth can be more inclusive, by widening access to opportunities to allow everyone to benefit from growth. This will strengthen the consensus for free trade.
They reviewed efforts to help accelerate trade 'at the border' by simplifying documentation and procedures relating to rules of origin and facilitating cross-border services trade.
To improve the business environment in Apec, the officials were to have discussed a proposal to set Apec-wide targets in five priority areas. | Diplomatic Talks _ Diplomatic_Negotiation_ Summit Meeting | November 2009 | ['(Channel News Asia)', '(Straits Times)'] |
Multiple skeletons of Oksoko avarsan are discovered in the Gobi Desert in Mongolia. | A new species of toothless dinosaur that had just two fingers on each arm has been discovered in the Gobi Desert in Mongolia.
Researchers from the University of Edinburgh found multiple skeletons of the species, named Oksoko avarsan.
The feathered creature, which dates from about one hundred million years ago, also had a large, toothless beak.
The team said the discovery could help explain how animals lose fingers and toes through evolution.
They said the species had one fewer finger on each forearm compared with its close relatives, suggesting an adaptability that enabled the animals to spread during the Late Cretaceous Period.
Several complete skeletons of the feathered, omnivorous creatures were unearthed.
The animals, which grew to two metres long, had a large, toothless beak similar to the type seen in parrots.
It is the first evidence of digit loss in the three-fingered family of dinosaurs, known as oviraptors. The team said the discovery that the dinosaurs could evolve forelimb adaptations suggested they could alter their diets and lifestyles, and potentially diversify and multiply.
The team also discovered that Oksoko avarsan, like many other prehistoric species, were social as juveniles.
The fossil remains of four young dinosaurs were preserved resting together.
Dr Gregory Funston, of the University of Edinburgh's school of geosciences, said the discovery shed light on how a group of parrot-like animals thrived more than 68 million years ago.
"Oksoko avarsan is interesting because the skeletons are very complete and the way they were preserved resting together shows that juveniles roamed together in groups.
"But more importantly, its two-fingered hand prompted us to look at the way the hand and forelimb changed throughout the evolution of oviraptors, which hadn't been studied before.
"This revealed some unexpected trends that are a key piece in the puzzle of why oviraptors were so diverse before the extinction that killed the dinosaurs."
The study, published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, was funded by The Royal Society and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada.
It also involved researchers from the University of Alberta and Philip J Currie Dinosaur Museum in Canada, Hokkaido University in Japan, and the Mongolian Academy of Sciences. | New archeological discoveries | October 2020 | ['(BBC)'] |
The Trump administration through the United States Department of Health and Human Services plans to include a legal definition of gender in the federal civil rights Title IX law. The proposed alteration to the law would define gender as an unchangeable anatomical and genetic condition determined at birth. Members of the LGBT community plan to contest the move, which they state would largely end protections for transgender Americans. | Demonstrators hold signs in support of trans equality outside the White House on Monday. The Trump administration is reportedly considering defining "sex" in a way that would restrict civil rights protections to transgender Americans.
Updated at 5:15 pm ET
A memo that has reportedly been circulating at the Department of Health and Human Services aims to narrow the federal government's definition of "sex" under Title IX — a change that could leave transgender people without a number of the legal protections that have become standard in recent years.
The memo reported on by The New York Times has not been released publicly. NPR has not seen it, and HHS says it does not comment on "alleged leaked documents."
But the potential impact of the policies described in the memo, and the headline under which The Times ran its story — 'Transgender' Could Be Defined Out of Existence Under Trump Administration — inspired grave fears and fervent protest.
People gathered in New York City's Washington Square Park on Sunday evening to rally for trans rights, and protesters on Monday rallied in front of the White House holding signs that declared, "We will not be erased."
Many trans people began posting photos of themselves to social media, using the hashtag #WontBeErased.
"We're here. We're loud. We're not going anywhere. #WontBeErased," tweeted the National Center for Transgender Equality.
Trans cutie reporting for duty! I’m the first non-binary Realtor in my office and am teaching my colleagues the joy of singular they!The Times reports that the document was written in the spring and proposes that different government agencies adopt a unified definition of sex — specifically one that defines it as determined "on a biological basis that is clear, grounded in science, objective and administrable."
"The agency's proposed definition would define sex as either male or female, unchangeable, and determined by the genitals that a person is born with," The Times reports, based on the draft seen by its reporters. "Any dispute about one's sex would have to be clarified using genetic testing."
Title IX is the federal law passed as part of the Education Amendments of 1972 that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex "under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance." The term "sex" refers to gender, which has since been expanded under the law to include sexual orientation and gender identity.
It's not clear who drafted the memo, but The Times reports that it is part of an effort by the HHS to establish a uniform definition accepted by the four agencies that enforce Title IX: the departments of education, justice, HHS and labor.
At the White House on Monday, President Trump was asked about his earlier promise to protect transgender Americans and others in the LGBTQ community. "We're looking at it," Trump replied. "We have a lot of different concepts right now. They have a lot of different things happening with respect to transgender right now."
"I'm protecting everybody," he added. "I want to protect our country."
"I am a #transgender person. I am livid but clear-headed. I am threatened but absolutely resolute. @transequality will always fight," wrote Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality.
"I know folks are scared and hurt. So am I. We are working to stop this and we will never give up. The courts are scary. The administration is scary. This world is scary. We still have tools. I am here. I see your beautiful humanity. And I love you," tweeted Chase Strangio, an attorney with the ACLU's LGBT and AIDS Project.
✊️ Standing in #solidarity with our U.S. #transgender #Muslim community today. We #WontBeErased pic.twitter.com/eYyuGTwUvH
The Trump administration already has taken steps to try to disqualify most transgender people from serving in the military.
Earlier this month, the State Department implemented a policy denying visas to same-sex partners of foreign diplomats and the staff of U.S.-based international organizations if they are not legally married. Many of the affected couples are from countries where same-sex marriage is illegal. | Government Policy Changes | October 2018 | ['(The New York Times)', '(NPR)'] |
In Kuwait, two women become the first females to be appointed to municipal council. They are Sheikha Fatima al–Sabah of the ruling Sabah family and engineer Fawziya al–Bahar | The government of Kuwait has named two women to join its municipal council in the first appointment of its kind for the oil-rich Gulf emirate.
Kuwaiti Social Affairs Minister Faisal al-Hajji told journalists that the cabinet had approved the appointment of two women "for the first time in the history of Kuwait". The move comes less than a month after women were granted full political rights. Shaikha Fatima Nasir al-Sabah - a member of the ruling family and a qualified engineer - and Fawziya al-Bahar are to join 14 others named by Prime Minister Shaikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah on Monday. "I never dreamed of being a member in the council. I am very proud to be the first Kuwaiti woman to be appointed in the municipal council," Shaikha Fatima said. "I hope I will be able to serve my country Kuwait. Although the council is technical and deals with planning matters, I will try to promote the cause of Kuwaiti women wherever possible," she added. Changing times
"I never dreamed of being a member in the council"Shaikha Fatima,council member-designateThe decision marks a small step in a slow process of reform under way in the deeply conservative oil-rich Gulf Arab monarchies. "I never dreamed of being a member in the council"Shaikha Fatima,council member-designate
The local media had reported after the 2 June vote that the government intended to appoint up to three women to the council, to manage civic planning, monitoring some public services and restaurants, roads and civil construction. Women will make their election debut in the 2007 legislative elections and are to vote in and contest the next municipal polls in 2009, after parliament voted on 16 May to grant them full political rights. Five women - a journalist, a writer, two women's rights activists and an academic - have said they plan to contest the parliamentary elections, with an estimated 200,000 women expected to register as eligible voters next February. | Government Job change - Appoint_Inauguration | June 2005 | ['(Al–Jazeera)', '(Gulf Daily News)', '(BBC)'] |
Two roadside bombs detonate in the Sinai Peninsula injuring six international peacekeepers, who were there to support the 1979 EgyptIsrael Peace Treaty. | EL-ARISH, Egypt -- An official from the Multinational Force and Observers' peacekeeping mission in Egypt's northern Sinai Peninsula says their vehicles that were hit with explosive devices are similar to ones used by the Egyptian army, but were painted white.
The official, who requested anonymity because he's not authorized to speak to reporters, says Friday the vehicles were patrolling near their base in the town of el-Gorah town when the bomb exploded. He says the explosion injured four U.S. soldiers and two Fijians.
The U.S. Defense Department said Thursday the soldiers were being treated for non-life-threatening injuries.
Egypt has been battling a long-running insurgency in the region that spiked after Islamist President Mohammed Morsi was toppled by the military in July 2013.
The peacekeepers support the 1979 peace treaty between Israel and Egypt.
First published on September 4, 2015 / 1:39 AM
| Armed Conflict | September 2015 | ['(AP via CBS)'] |
Liberians register to vote in the first elections after a long civil war. Elections are due on October 11. | Presidential aspirant Charles W. Brumskine has called on Liberians to take advantage of the voters' registration exercise that is expected to kick-off today.
He challenged Liberians from to see the voter's registration exercise as the first step towards the election of a constitutional government. He said that "the future of Liberia depends on our action today by Liberians choosing their leadership through the ballot box."
Cllr. Brumskine said his call "is not a partisan approach but rather a call to action and a call to rescue our nation." He furthered that whether any Liberian supports him or not, they should still register to vote. "If you do not register to vote, you would not be able to vote during the October elections," the presidential aspirant said.
Brumskine who is expected to travel to his home town of Grand Bassa County to register, said that regardless of what Liberians' "feelings are about the many candidates or even about the country, they owed it to themselves and to their children born or unborn to vote in the ensuing elections." He challenged Liberians all over the country to preserve their rights by registering to vote.
The presidential aspirant also used the occasion to request the National Elections Commission, ECOWAS, the EU, UNMIL and other members of the international community associated with the electoral process to ensure that "polling stations are established in all of the major localities in the country."
He said that according to the schedules published in some of the local dailies, some major towns were left out of the electoral mapping and this in it self represents an issue of concern.
Cllr. Brumskine also called on the NEC to ensure that Liberians in every locality are given the same amount of time for the voter's registration.
According to the NEC's schedule, all of the voting centers are not given equal length of time. The published listing showed that some towns were given less than 10 days while others were granted 21- 25 days.
Since the publication of the voter's registration listing, some Liberians have been calling on the NEC to increase the registration centers so as to accord every Liberian the right to register.
A major town in Grand Kru County with an estimated population of more than 15, 000 potential voters were left out of the registration process. Even a densely populated town like Bellewalay in Tappita district was left out of the process.
A release said a Cape Mountainian also informed the Brumskine camp that big towns such as Diah and Pujun in Tawor district were left out of the voter's registration listing.
"If the issue raised by Cllr. Brumskine and other citizens is not taken seriously, many Liberians who are already discouraged about the election process may abandon the whole exercise.
Moreover, walking more than six to twelve hours just to go and register to vote may not be a priority for the ordinary man who sees his daily search for food as a major priority". | Government Job change - Election | April 2005 | ['(Land Claims Court)', '(Reuters AlertNet)', '(BBC)'] |
The death toll from Friday's violence at the Gaza Strip border is now seven Palestinians. Of the 60 wounded, 10 were seriously injured. Massive riots managed to breach the border fence and enter Israeli territory and were dispersed by live fire. | Around 400 Palestinians from the Shuja'iya neighborhood demonstrated in the area after the shots were fired, throwing stones and burning tires.
IDF troops also responded to a violent demonstration along Gaza's southern border with Israel near Khan Younis, with protests also reported at the eastern border area.
Hamas previously declared that Friday would be a "Day of Rage"
after days of attacks in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
A Jordanian government spokesperson, Mohammed Al-Momani, released a statement, emphasizing that "The crime of killing the five Palestinian youths is clear proof of Israel's disregard for human rights, and this is a crime which builds upon the continues Israel crimes against the Palestinian people."
Momani called on the international community to intervene on the behalf of the Palestinian people. Rockets were also fired towards Israel Friday night, but fell short and landed within the coastal territory. Attacks continued throughout Israel on Thursday. A 15-year-old Haredi Jew was stabbed in the Shaul Hanavi neighborhood in Jerusalem and lightly wounded.
Just minutes after, a 47-year-old police officer was wounded in Kiryat Arba when a suspect tried to steal his rifle and was shot by other police officers.
Not long after, a female attacker was shot and seriously wounded after trying to stab a security guard at the entrace to the central bus station the northern city of Afula.
Later on in the afternoon six people, including two children, were lightly wounded as a result of a car accident that the IDF confirmed was caused by stone-throwing. In the car were the wife and children of Yossi Dagan, the head of the Shomron Regional Council. They were on their way to the protest tent Dagan established in Jerusalem when their vehicle was attacked by stones near Eli.
"I have been in the tent for a week and am now on my way to the Shaare Tzedek hospital to visit my wife and three children, who were injured by stone-throwers," Dagan said. | Armed Conflict | October 2015 | ['(Ynet News)'] |
The Royal Thai Government has fired Police General Jumpol Manmai for "extremely evil" misconduct and political interests which threatened national security. | BANGKOK (Reuters) - A top official in Thailand’s palace has been fired for “extremely evil” misconduct and political interests which threatened national security, the government said on Tuesday.
Police General Jumpol Manmai, who had served as intelligence chief under ousted former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, had until recently been one of the most senior figures in new King Maha Vajiralongkorn’s household.
The government said in a statement Jumpol had “committed misconduct considered extremely evil behavior” which did not befit a civil servant with a position close to the king.
“He has wrongly used his official position for personal gain. He had political interests which were detrimental to national security and not trusted by the king,” said the statement signed by Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha.
A police spokesman said he could not comment on whether Jumpol would be prosecuted over the accusations in the statement. Jumpol faces a separate investigation for building private property on protected land.
Neither Jumpol nor his family were immediately available for comment.
With prison sentences of up to 15 years for any offence of insulting the monarchy, Thais are cautious of commenting on anything related to the palace. The law also limits what news organizations can report from Thailand.
The king has asserted his authority on many fronts since taking the throne in December after the death of his widely revered father. As well as changes within the palace, he has requested constitutional changes to which the junta agreed.
Party politics stopped in 2014 when the junta seized power in the name of ending political chaos. But a divide remains between a largely Bangkok-based, conservative elite and followers of Thaksin’s populist movement.
Thaksin, overthrown in 2006, lives in exile to avoid a jail term for corruption that he says was politically motivated.
His sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, became prime minister after a landslide election win in 2011, but her government was overthrown in the last coup.
The junta has promised elections, now scheduled for next year, and has set up a military-led panel to try to encourage reconciliation between political rivals. | Government Job change - Resignation_Dismissal | February 2017 | ['(Reuters)'] |
The 16th World Economic Forum on Africa is convened in Cape Town, South Africa.. | The World Economic Forum on Africa opened proceedings in Cape Town, South Africa under the banner "Going for Growth". Unfortunately it kicked off with a whimper instead of the aplomb that the organisers had in mind. The reasons are numerous and various. But when one gets to grip with the degrees of apathy and malaise the international community has regarding investment and trading in Africa, for all the age-old reasons of corruption, nepotism, dictatorial regimes and the on-going undercurrent of debt relief, one can see why proceedings have not come up to par with expectations. Clearly the developed world sees Africa as one, with no inherent borders, therefore all the countries collectively are tarred with the same negative points as afore mentioned. World players
However, this is a gross misconception because Africa is most definitely 54 separate countries, which are as diverse in all respects, as they are similar. Gold is South Africa's main export
In order for any of these countries to lose this "drag-net" effect, one needs to recognise those countries that are purposefully driving themselves to become players on the world stage, especially with regards to trade; some examples are Uganda, Tanzania, Ghana, Angola, Nigeria, Egypt and Morocco. Many other countries have other opportunities on offer - agriculturally, logistically or geographically. It is also very interesting to note that the continent offers nine of the most highly sought after minerals and agricultural products on the planet; some of these include oil, diamonds, gold, platinum, exotic woods, cocoa and coffee. Quadrants
Somebody once asked me: "What is the African way of doing business?" My response was: "How much time have you got?" One must understand that the continent is basically divided into quadrants and to walk you through my logic of how things hang together, consider that the roots of colonisation had plenty to do with the way entrepreneurs have had to go about performing their tasks in Africa today. Objectives
Projects and organisations like the New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad), the United Nations, the World Bank and numerous non-government organisations (NGOs) are doing sterling work to promote, build, grow and develop business in many African countries. The telecommunications sector is booming across Africa
The objectives here are obvious - sustainable development, employment and the gradual positive growth of the per capita income of the populations on this continent. A net return for international investors would also be forthcoming in this situation.
In conjunction with these organisational inputs, there is a huge opportunity in the world of skills training and development in many African markets and countries as many individuals find out that there is fast becoming a demand for skilled people like computer technicians, telecoms technicians and motor mechanics. The rub off to like-minded companies and organisations wanting to enter into any of these markets, offering any of these skills is obvious.
'Bring back'
An interesting point to note is that approximately 37% of Africa's wealth is in fact invested out of the continent and Gerald Meyerman of the World Bank has challenged, "Africans to bring back their investments from London and the USA to Africa." Clearly a sure sign that the road to investor confidence is on the rise, albeit for selected regions on the continent.
The inherent lack of understanding by the international community by and large concerning the many diverse cultures, steeped traditions and historical issues concerning tribalism/nepotism which in some instances tend to lean heavily into the camp of self-empowerment for any given political party, government or individual, will not just cease; it will take time. People who want to trade in Africa have to learn how to deal with its peoples, the same way as people have to learn how to deal with the anomalies on any other continent. | Diplomatic Talks _ Diplomatic_Negotiation_ Summit Meeting | June 2006 | ['(BBC)'] |
The storm cuts power and communications in the Philippine province of Batanes as it undergoes a "state of calamity." | The province does not have power, and communication lines are cut in the towns of Basco, Itbayat, and Mahatao
CAGAYAN, Philippines – Batanes province has been placed under a state of calamity due to the onslaught of Typhoon Ferdie (Meranti).
Norma Talosig, chief of the Office of the Civil Defense (OCD) in Cagayan Valley region, confirmed to Rappler on Friday, September 16, that the provincial board declared the province under a state of calamity on Thursday, September 15.
The declaration follows the recommendation of the provincial disaster management agency, according to Talosig.
Governor Marilou Cayco said on Friday that the declaration will allow the provincial government to "immediately respond to the restoration needs of some facilities which were greatly affected by strong the typhoon and to enable quick response and service delivery to the affected families."
Cayco said the provincial government will prioritize families whose houses were totally damaged by strong winds.
On Thursday, Batanes Representative Henedina Abad said the province was "heavily" damaged by Ferdie.
Abad said the province still had no power supply, and the communication lines in the towns of Basco, Itbayat, and Mahatao had been cut.
“Our communities at the moment do not have access to water or electricity, and communication across the province is difficult to establish,” Abad said, adding that there was also great damage in agriculture and infrastructure.
She said she's "thankful" that there were no casualties reported.
Talosig, meanwhile, reported 50 houses were totally damaged while 100 were partially damaged.
The buildings of the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) and the Technical Education Development Authority (TESDA), Basco Central School, Batanes National High School, Provincial Capitol building and Sto Domingo Church also suffered damages.
'No help yet'
In a Facebook post, Rachel Ponce, Abad's aide who is a resident of Itbayat, pleaded for help as they have yet to contact some towns.
Ponce lamented the lack of media coverage on the aftermath of Ferdie in Batanes, saying the damage had left some town islands isolated.
"Nakakalungkot na [sobra ang] media coverage [sa] Senate samantalang ang mga kahilyan (kababayan) sa Itbayat eh nagiiyak na sa pag aalala sa Itbayat Island," Ponce said.
(It is saddening that the Senate is receiving a huge media coverage while our countrymen in Itbayat are crying and worried of what had happened to our families in Itbayat Island.) | Hurricanes_Tornado_Storm_Blizzard | September 2016 | ['(Rappler)'] |
Nineteen immigrants drown as a boat carrying 80 people capsizes off the coast of Malaysia's Tanjung Piai cape. | JOHOR BARU: Two people died and 19 others are feared drowned after a boat with 80 Indonesian illegal immigrants reportedly capsized off Tanjung Piai near Pontian early today. The dead, a man and a woman, were among 61 people pulled out of the water by fire and rescue personnel, said Johor assistant director of fire and rescue operations Mohd Rizal Buang. Ten others were injured and sent to the Sultanah Aminah Hospital, he said, adding that the 49 others were safe. Mohd Rizal said 20 fire and rescue personnel searched for the remaining passengers of the boat after the fire and rescue service was alerted at 1.33am of the boat mishap which occurred three nautical miles off Tanjung Piai. In a latest development, a massive search – jointly mounted by the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA), Fire and Rescue Department, Civil Defence Department and Marine Department – is underway in a six square nautical mile area between Tanjung Pelepas and Tanjung Piai. "The Fire and Rescue Department has been assigned an area about two nautical miles off Tanjung Pelepas. We are waiting for the low tide at 4.30pm to deploy five boats until 7pm," he said. The boat had collided with a vessel of the Malaysia Maritime Enforcement Agency that was engaged in an "Ops Tumpas" operation, he said. – Bernama | Shipwreck | July 2014 | ['(The Sun Daily)'] |
In the men's singles final match, Serbian Novak Djokovic beats Swiss Roger Federer in five sets for his 16th Grand Slam title win in a match that lasted four hours and 56 minutes. It was the longest Wimbledon final of all time, and also the first men's singles final in any of the four Grand Slam events that went to a fifth-set tiebreaker. | When Roger Federer walks on to Centre Court these days, he tends to walk hand in hand with history. And, sure enough, he was a part of something historic: for the first time ever, the gentlemen’s single title was decided on a fifth set tie-break. It was the longest gentlemen’s final on record.
But it was Novak Djokovic who walked off with the spoils: his fifth title at the All England Club and his 16th Grand Slam trophy in all. The world No.1 had equalled Bjorn Borg’s record in SW19 and he edged closer to his ultimate goal of rewriting every record in the book. He won 7-6(5), 1-6, 7-6(4) 4-6, 13-12(3).
For great swathes of the four hours and 57 minutes it took, he was not the best player on the court – the stats told that story: Federer won more points, hit more winners – and yet he hung on and played the three tie-breaks better. He staved off two Championships points as Federer served at 8-7 in the fifth set, he clung on to his dream and finally, he got his reward.
“If this was not the most thrilling and exciting finals I was ever a part of, then definitely it’s top two or three in my career against one of the greatest players of all time – Roger,” Djokovic said. “I respect him a lot. Unfortunately in these kind of matches, one of the players has to lose and, as Roger said, we both had our chances. It’s quite unreal to be two match points down and to come back.”
It took but a matter of moments to realise what they both wanted to do. Djokovic wanted to rally from the baseline, wear his older rival out, punish him with the most physical of games. Federer – obviously – wanted none of that.
He wanted the short, sharp attack. There was the one-two punch when he was serving: drag Djokovic away from his comfort zone and, once he is out of position, unleash the forehand at full throttle.
Then there was the fly-fishing tactics on the return games. Tickling, tempting and teasing Djokovic with his backhand slice, like a beautiful fly dancing on the water above the trout, he lured the world No.1 forward into no-man’s land – not quite committed to the net; too far away from the baseline to get back – and then yanked on the line to land his catch with a venomous forehand.
This went on, game after game, for 50 minutes and more. Chances were so thin on the ground that 30-30 or deuce was deemed a real, live, cast-iron opportunity. The one break point of the set was earned by Federer but when it came to capitalising on that tiny sprinkling of gold dust, Federer fluffed his forehand, ballooning it far out of the court.
And then, in the tie-break, the whole set was condensed into a matter of minutes. The world No.1 took the early lead, Federer whisked it back again and then, in relentless fashion, Djokovic marched off with the last four points. Federer was the better player but Djokovic was the winner. That was the theme of the day.
But where the first set had been so desperately close, Federer ran away with the second in just 25 minutes. Djokovic’s concentration wavered, the Mighty One pounced and after 11 minutes he was two breaks to the good and the set was always going Federer’s way.
Yet a chap does not win 15 Grand Slam titles by being slapdash. As the third set began, it was clear that Djokovic’s momentary dip (think of it as a mental power nap) was over. He was back.
And so we went back to the tactics of the first set: Djokovic trying to keep the old GOAT on, or preferably behind, the baseline and Federer looking to attack at every opportunity. Two totally different styles of play (the ruthlessly efficient percentage player vs the ruthlessly efficient risk taker), two totally different styles of champion (the earnest, striving Djokovic, desperate to make history vs the relaxed, confident, established legend). And there wasn’t a whisker between them. Or there wasn’t until the tie-break.
Yet again, Djokovic took the early lead. When he pushed the Swiss into another error at the end of another stamina-draining rally, he was 5-1 to the good. He turned to his box and raised a clenched fist. He was doing what King Canute could not: he was forcing the tide to retreat.
Federer was playing the better tennis, the crowd was willing the eight-time champion on, their hero had not faced a break point in two hours and 15 minutes of play and very nearly three sets and yet Djokovic was now in the driving seat. Minutes later, the Serbian had the third set and had moved ominously into the lead again.
Throughout all of this, Federer remained impassive, focused and utterly dedicated to his game plan. Djokovic, meanwhile, was beginning to get frustrated. He would create a half-chance; Federer would create a moment of genius to take it away again. How? How does this guy do this? Why can’t I stop him? No wonder the defending champion was getting frazzled.
But frustrated or not, Djokovic forced himself to be patient and after two hours and 47 minutes, he had his first break point. Yes, Federer saved it at the end of a 35-stroke rally, but he could not save the second threat to his serve. No matter, he had been two breaks of serve to the good when Djokovic stormed the Federer ramparts – the Swiss served out the fourth set and we were off into the fifth.
On moments of history: after that fourth set, Federer left the court with an armful of clean kit. It was his second bathroom break. Now, it is rare to see him nip to the facilities once in a match; the historians were scouring the record books to find an occasion when he had done it twice. A fifth set is a completely different ball game to the rest of the match. There is physical tiredness to contend with, mental exhaustion after four sets of chances taken and chances missed, and the emotional stress of moving ever closer to the finish line. It is as if every mistake counts double – there is so little time to repair the damage.
Djokovic, the younger man, the defending champion, broke first. Federer’s friends, family and team looked as if they were about to implode with nerves up in the players’ box. Then Djokovic got tight, just tight enough that Federer could break straight back. As the crowd chanted his name, the Swiss got back on level terms at 4-4. By this point, the nerves of both men looked stretched to breaking point while the crowd had bitten their fingernails down to the elbows.
Federer was trying to keep the points short; Djokovic was trying to remember to breathe. Neither of them were doing it perfectly. And with Djokovic serving first, the pressure was mounting on Federer with every game. History was calling to both of them but who would hear him first?
Djokovic got tight again, or, rather, tighter. Federer broke for 8-7. Federer had two championships points; Djokovic broke him for 8-8. From being so close to defeat, Djokovic won seven points in a row. He was back in the driving seat, holding serve and forcing his old foe to play catch up all the way to the first match tiebreak in Wimbledon’s history.
That was when Djokovic heard the voice in the distance: history had called him home.
Follow the latest news and scores from Wimbledon 2019 on wimbledon.com or Apple TV, or download the official IOS or Android apps for smartphone and tablet | Sports Competition | July 2019 | ['(Wimbledon)', '(ESPN)'] |
U.S. President Donald Trump has suggested November's presidential election could be postponed, saying increased postal voting could lead to fraud and inaccurate results. Under the U.S. Constitution, Trump does not have the authority to postpone the election himself; a delay would have to be approved by both houses of Congress. | Donald Trump has suggested November's presidential election be postponed, saying increased postal voting could lead to fraud and inaccurate results.
He floated a delay until people could "properly, securely and safely" vote.
There is little evidence to support Mr Trump's claims but he has long railed against mail-in voting which he has said would be susceptible to fraud.
US states want to make postal voting easier due to public health concerns over the coronavirus pandemic.
Under the US constitution, Mr Trump does not have the authority to postpone the election himself. Any delay would have to be approved by Congress. The president does not have direct power over the two houses of Congress.
In a series of tweets, Mr Trump said "universal mail-in voting" would make November's vote the "most inaccurate and fraudulent election in history" and a "great embarrassment to the USA".
With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???
He suggested - without providing evidence - that mail-in voting, as it is known in the US, would be susceptible to foreign interference.
"The [Democrats] talk of foreign influence in voting, but they know that Mail-In Voting is an easy way for foreign countries to enter the race," he said.
Mr Trump also said postal voting was "already proving to be a catastrophic disaster" in areas where it was being tried out.
In June, New York allowed voters to vote by post in the Democratic primary poll for the party's presidential candidate. But there have been long delays in counting the ballots and the results are still unknown.
US media report that there are also concerns that many ballots will not be counted because they were not filled in correctly or do not have postmarks on them that show they were sent before voting officially ended.
However, several other states have long conducted votes by post.
Donald Trump can't delay November's presidential election without Congress, partially controlled by the Democrats, first approving the decision. If he didn't already know this, someone has certainly told him by now.
The president also must know that tweeting about a delay - even framed as an "I'm just asking!" question - is sure to ignite a political firestorm, particularly after he has repeatedly refused to say whether he'd accept an adverse result in the upcoming presidential election.
Mr Trump appears to be doing everything in his power to undermine the credibility of November's vote, in which a record number of Americans are predicted to rely on mail-in voting to avoid the risk of exposure to the coronavirus. He's repeatedly made false and misleading claims about the reliability of the mail balloting and suggested broad conspiracy theories. Critics warn that he could be laying the groundwork for contesting the results - although the purpose may be simply to give him a scapegoat if he loses. His tweet could also be an attempt to divert attention away from the truly dismal second-quarter economic numbers just released. He's been relying on a financial turnaround to breathe life into his re-election campaign, and instead the outlook appears exceedingly gloomy.
Whatever the reason, tweeting about an election delay is not the move of a candidate confident of victory - and could be a sign of more desperate moves to come. Read Anthony's full analysis
Quizzed by reporters on whether a president could delay the election, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he would not "enter a legal judgement on the fly". When pressed, he said the justice department would "make that legal determination", adding "we want an election that everyone is confident in".
Ellen Weintraub, chairwoman of the US Federal Election Commission, said Mr Trump did not have the power to move the election - and added: "Nor should it be moved." She called for more funding for states to be able to run "the safe and secure elections all Americans want".
Numerous Republicans - including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House of Representatives Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy - also dismissed the idea. "Never in the history of the federal elections have we ever not held an election and we should go forward with our election," Mr McCarthy said. Trump ally Senator Lindsay Graham meanwhile said a delay was "not a good idea". Democrats have also been lining up to condemn Mr Trump's suggestion. New Mexico Senator Tom Udall said there was "no way" the president could delay the election.
"But the fact that he is even suggesting it is a serious, chilling attack on the democratic process. All members of Congress - and the administration - should speak out," he said.
However Chris Stewart, a Republican congressman from Utah, said that while he did not support delaying the election, Mr Trump had a legitimate point about postal voting being hard to monitor.
"Can you ensure the accuracy of mail-in voting? Now in some states you can. In my state in Utah, for example, we've been doing it for quite a while, but we're a small state with a relatively small population. It's harder to do on a national scale," he told the BBC.
President Trump does not have the authority to move the date of the election, which is usually held on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. Any change of date would need to be approved by the two houses of Congress - the House of Representatives and the Senate. Democrats control the House of Representatives and some have already said they will not support any delay to the vote.
Any move by Congress to delay the election into 2021 would also require a constitutional amendment, US media quoted constitutional experts as saying. The amendment would be needed to change the dates for swearing in members of Congress and the new presidential administration, according to NPR.
Finally, legal experts quoted by NBC said that even if Congress did agree to delay the election, Mr Trump's own term as president would still expire by 20 January 2021 under the constitution's 20th Amendment.
Earlier this month, six US states were planning to hold "all-mail" ballot elections in November: California, Utah, Hawaii, Colorado, Oregon and Washington. Other states are considering it, according to a postal voting campaign group.
These states will automatically send postal ballots to all registered voters, which then have to be sent back or dropped off on election day - although some in-person voting is still available in certain limited circumstances.
About half of US states allow any registered voter to cast their ballot by post on request.
Critics of postal voting argue that people could vote more than once via absentee ballots and in person. Mr Trump has in the past said there was a risk of "thousands and thousands of people sitting in somebody's living room, signing ballots all over the place".
However, there is no evidence of widespread fraud, according to numerous nationwide and state-level studies over the years.
| Government Job change - Election | July 2020 | ['(BBC)'] |
Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo agree an international border force to patrol their mutual border. | Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo have agreed in principle to allow a neutral international force to patrol their borders, reports say.
The proposed force would tackle militia groups in the eastern DR Congo. The deal was reached by leaders of the two countries on the sidelines of an African Union summit, Rwanda's Paul Kagame told AFP news agency. DR Congo and Rwanda often accuse each other of backing rival rebel groups, and have gone to war in the past.
Recent rebel advances in eastern DR Congo have led to thousands of displaced civilians.
On Sunday, Mr Kagame and Congolese President Joseph Kabila held a one-to-one meeting at the headquarters of the African Union in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, aides said.
According to a declaration seen by Reuters news agency, they agreed to "work with the AU and the UN for an immediate establishment of a neutral international force to eradicate" armed groups in eastern DR Congo.
The declaration also reportedly says that no support should be given to "any negative force" to "destabilise the region and eastern Congo in particular".
Mr Kagame said that the exact details of the force - including its size, mandate, nationality and deployment details - had yet to be defined.
The conflict, which has killed and displaced million of civilians over nearly two decades, has its roots in Tutsi-Hutu enmities dating back to Rwanda's 1994 genocide.
The UN already has a peacekeeping mission of more than 17,000 in DR Congo but has often struggled to stem fighting in the vast country. AU Peace and Security Commissioner Ramtane Lamamra said that changing the mandate of the UN peacekeeping mission there "was one scenario", AFP reports.
In June, a UN report accused Rwanda of supporting Congolese rebels, among whom are a Tutsi-led group known as the M23 rebellion. The group takes its name from a 2009 peace accord which the rebels say was violated by Kinshasa. The group has been joined by hundreds of Congolese army defectors who abandoned their posts in support of fugitive Congolese General Bosco Ntaganda, wanted by the International Criminal Court on war crimes charges. | Armed Conflict | July 2012 | ['(BBC)'] |
Most of the employees of the Reserve Bank of India, that country's central bank, go on strike demanding better pension benefits. The RBI acknowledges "some interruptions" in its clearing and settlement functions. | Most of the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) 17,000 employees went on strike on Thursday in what the central bank described as "mass casual leave".
The walk out resulted in "some interruptions" to clearing and settlement operations at the central bank, but it said that its systems were largely operational.
Four unions had called for the strike to demand better pension benefits. It was also against reforms that would reduce the RBI's regulatory powers.
The central bank has been in debate over its policy independence with the government, which has been trying to assert more influence over the RBI's interest rate setting process.
The government wants to create a rate-setting board with its appointed members to vote on such decisions.
The RBI has cut interest rates four times this year, with the latest move in September to boost growth as inflation hit a record low on tumbling commodity prices.
Union leaders said the dispute over retirement benefits showed that the bank was losing its independence, because it used raise pensions without approval from the government.
Workers want their pensions to be increased to reflect rising costs and payments to former employees raised by $75 (£49) a month so that they can afford healthcare. The unions have warned of longer strikes in the near future if the central bank does not meet its demands.
| Strike | November 2015 | ['(BBC)'] |
Ninety–four people die, and 45 others are hospitalized, after drinking moonshine in Mumbai , India. | Mumbai - Toxic homemade liquor has killed at least 94 slum dwellers in India's financial capital Mumbai, with more than 45 in hospital, police said on Sunday, in the latest disaster involving moonshine.
Police have arrested five people in connection with the deaths in a western neighbourhood of the city, on the west coast of India, which started on Wednesday.
"More than 150 have consumed this alcohol. The death toll may rise," said Dhananjay Kulkarni, Mumbai's deputy police commissioner, adding that eight police officials had been suspended for suspected negligence.
Homemade liquor, often using poisonous industrial methanol, is popular among the poor in India because it is cheap.
More than 140 people were killed in West Bengal state, in eastern India, in 2011 from drinking homemade liquor.
| Mass Poisoning | June 2015 | ['(Bombay)', '(Reuters via News24)'] |
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