title stringlengths 1 7.43k | text stringlengths 111 32.3k | event_type stringlengths 4 57 | date stringlengths 8 14 ⌀ | metadata stringlengths 2 205 ⌀ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
A gas explosion and consecutive fire in an apartment building in Prešov, Slovakia killed at least seven people and injured dozens. | An apartment block is in danger of collapsing after a lunchtime gas explosion. Slovak premier Peter Pellegrini is heading to the scene of the accident.
A gas explosion at a high-rise apartment building in Slovakia killed at least seven people and injured several others on Friday, according to police and the fire brigade.
The blast occurred in the eastern town of Presov, 410 kilometers (254 miles) from Bratislava. Firefighters said the building was at risk of collapsing.
"The blast followed by a fire affected four or five floors" at the top of the 12-story building, firefighters told local media. The roof and a staircase caved in due to the explosion as more than 80 firefighters tried to combat the blaze.
Mayor Andrea Turcanova said that there were "many injured" in the biggest tragedy to occur in the town in almost five decades.
The prime minister of Slovakia, Peter Pellegrini, was en route to the town along with some members of his Cabinet. | Gas explosion | December 2019 | ['(Deutsche Welle)', '(The New York Times)'] |
A large wildfire has broken out in Glenshane Pass in County Londonderry, Northern Ireland, rapidly growing to cover around one square mile of dry gorse. High temperatures hamper efforts to tackle the wildfire, and firefighters have to be airlifted close to the front line. | Firefighters will maintain a watching brief overnight at the scene of a gorse fire on the Glenshane Pass in County Londonderry.
The fire is in a remote area of the Sperrins near Dungiven.
Mark Smyth from the NI Fire & Rescue Service (NIFRS) said "great progress" had been made throughout Thursday.
He said there is a possibility the fire could burn out overnight, but if it does not the operation will resume on Friday.
The fire was first reported at 04:57 BST on Wednesday morning.
Heat prevented fire crews getting to the scene for much of the day and they were taken to the scene by helicopter on Wednesday evening.
Conditions were more favourable on Thursday and four fire appliances and a command support unit attended the scene. One appliance will stay at the scene on Thursday night.
Commander Smyth said they were helped by the weather.
"The good news is that there isn't much wind, and the wind is blowing against the fire and helping contain it.
"The fire has encroached on part of the forest but the hope is that it will burn out when it hits the more mature trees which tend to burn more slowly," he said.
On Wednesday Commander Smyth said the fire was caused by some sort of human error.
"Be very careful not to be putting heat into dry ground and lighting barbecues.
"This was one of our most difficult incidents because of access. It was very dangerous terrain."
The fire is spread across an area of 800-1000 hectares with three seats of fire. | Fire | June 2018 | ['(BBC)'] |
Two 'high–value' al–Qaida targets are arrested in Pakistan. |
Pakistan's interior minister said the arrest of the high-ranking targets in eastern Punjab province was a major break only days after intelligence agents caught Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, the Tanzanian sought by U.S. officials for the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa.
"In addition to Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, whose bounty was $25 million, we have captured another most-wanted suspect with a bounty on him running into the millions of dollars," Faisal Saleh Hayyat told reporters in the capital.
He said both men were of African origin but refused to identify them or their nationalities.
Four Egyptians and a Libyan on the FBI's list of 22 most-wanted terrorists are believed to be in Pakistan or Afghanistan. Each has a $5 million bounty on his head in connection with the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed more than 200 people, including 12 Americans. There are two Kenyans on the list, though they were not believed to be hiding in the region.
Osama bin Laden's No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahri, is from Egypt. He and the al-Qaida chief are believed to be hiding along the Pakistan-Afghan border, far from Punjab province.
The arrests have come with stunning swiftness since the capture in Karachi on July 13 of an al-Qaida computer expert identified as Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan, who was allegedly sending coded e-mails to other operatives. An intelligence official said Khan led authorities to Ghailani, who was captured after a 12-hour gunbattle in the eastern city of Gujrat.
Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said Ghailani's home computers contained e-mails with instructions for attacks in the United States and Britain.
Intelligence gained from Khan's and other arrests was a major factor in U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge's decision to issue a warning Sunday about a possible al-Qaida attack on prominent financial institutions in New York, Washington and Newark, N.J.
Pakistani officials are also pointing to the arrest in June of Masrab Arochi, the nephew of former al-Qaida No. 3 Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, as providing useful intelligence. Arochi was arrested along with nine others in raids in Karachi.
An intelligence official in the capital, Islamabad, said Arochi led police to a network of other operatives and that several as yet undisclosed arrests have been made. He said Arochi has been made available to U.S. intelligence agents, though Pakistan has promised not to turn him over to the United States.
Meanwhile, the police chief who led the raid that caught Ghailani told The Associated Press he received several threatening calls in on his cell phone warning him not to take action against the al-Qaida suspect - even as his men were storming the building.
"They said 'The people inside the house are serving Islam and any harm to them will be dangerous for you,'" Police Chief Raja Munawar Hussain said the caller warned. "They were highly organized terrorists. They were so well informed that they remained in touch with their men (on the outside) during the raid."
Hussain said police also arrested a Pakistani who acted as a front man for Ghailani, leasing a car and opening a bank account for him.
The announcement that two top terror operatives were in custody came within hours of news that at least six al-Qaida suspects have been arrested in separate raids:
-Two Pakistanis and a foreigner were arrested on a road near Lahore. Police found five grenades and two AK-47 rifles in their sports utility vehicle, a high-ranking intelligence official told AP.
-Mohammed Salman Eisa, alias Ibrahim, was captured at Lahore airport Monday night while boarding a flight to the United Arab Emirates, a senior intelligence official in the eastern city told AP. The official said Eisa was believed to be Nigerian, but it was not clear if he was one of the top suspects. There are no Nigerians on the FBI most-wanted list.
-Raja Waqar, a policeman assigned to the office of Punjab province's top politician, is suspected of passing al-Qaida linked groups information on the whereabouts of top government officials, Lahore police chief Tariq Salim Dogar told the AP.
"The previous record of the policeman shows that he has been involved in jihadi activities and had links with al-Qaida. We have initiated a probe to find out how he managed to get posted to such a sensitive place," Dogar said.
-Another suspect, arrested Sunday at a bus station in a town near Lahore, identified himself as Juma Ibrahim, a Syrian, said district police chief Aslam Ghauri. He said Ibrahim was turned over to Pakistan's spy agency.
It was not immediately clear if any of the six militants described by Pakistani officials included the two senior al-Qaida men that Hayyat said were wanted by the United States. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Arrest | August 2004 | ['(Tampa Bay Online)'] |
The hijacker of CanJet Flight 918 surrenders and releases his six hostages. | A gunman who hijacked a passenger plane in Montego Bay, Jamaica, has surrendered after police and soldiers boarded the jet, say officials.
Six crew members held hostage by the man were released unharmed. More than 150 passengers were on board when the man forced his way onto the Canada-bound plane demanding passage to Cuba, but were released within hours. The hijacker, believed to be a 20-year-old local man, was described by the authorities as "troubled". Jamaican Information Minister Daryl Vaz told the BBC the incident had ended "without any injuries or harm". He said the authorities had been "getting nowhere with the negotiations" with the hijacker. "Police and military went on the plane and captured him," he said. Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding flew in to Montego Bay and offered support to the passengers. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, currently in Jamaica on a one-day visit following the recent Summit of the Americas in Trinidad, telephoned Mr Golding to congratulate him "for the successful resolution", his spokesman said. 'No-one hurt'
The aircraft was bound for Halifax, Nova Scotia, but was due to stop in Santa Clara in Cuba on the way. Jamaican minister Daryl Vaz: 'Gunman is a Jamaican national'
The gunman reportedly checked in for the flight then forced his way past checkpoints and went on board around 2230 local time (0330 GMT), brandishing a firearm. He is said to have robbed passengers, most of whom were released after half an hour. Police and security services closed and cordoned off the airport and surrounded the plane as the situation developed. The charter airline that owns the Boeing 737 plane, CanJet, said 182 people, including 174 passengers, were due to travel on the flight. But reports said only 159 passengers had been on board when the incident began. CanJet's Vice-President and General Manager, Ken Woodside, told an earlier news conference that a shot may have been fired outside the aircraft, but no-one was hit. Two of the passengers were held for several hours before being released, according to reports. Most passengers, all of whom are Canadian, were taken to a local hospital, some of them suffering from shock. The parents of Christian Gosselin, a passenger on the flight, said he had telephoned them and appeared "very shaken up and calm at the same time". "Passengers were asked to give out all their money," Mr Gosselin's father, Alphonse, told Canada's CBC news channel. "[Christian] told his girlfriend to hide their passports in her back pocket, and also their credit cards," he said. Mr Vaz told the BBC the authorities had not yet been able to establish how the armed man managed to pass security. He said an investigation had been started and would be "pursued vigorously" so the authorities could identity security breaches. Mr Vaz has described the hijacker as a "mentally challenged youngster" who was demanding to be flown to Cuba. Correspondents say security at Montego Bay's Sangster International Airport is normally very good. The airport, one of the most modern in the Caribbean, handles about four million passengers a year. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Release | April 2009 | ['(BBC)', '(Sky News)'] |
Services from the UK, France, Germany and the Netherlands remain disrupted as investigations continue into the Halle train collision in Belgium. | Eurostar services between the UK and Brussels will remain suspended until Monday following the fatal train crash in Belgium, the company has announced.
Investigators remain at the scene of the head-on collision on Monday, which killed 18 and injured about 150. Eurostar is running a reduced timetable between its UK stations and Lille, France, and there are no services in the immediate area of the accident. Services between London and Paris have been unaffected. Some of the Thalys services to France, Germany and the Netherlands are also being affected. The services from Brussels to Cologne resumed on Wednesday, but the high-speed Amsterdam service remained suspended and there were a "handful" of trains travelling to and from Paris, a Thalys spokeswoman said. Stop signal
Eurostar said passengers due to travel from London to Brussels were "strongly advised to postpone or cancel their journeys" and that passengers could exchange their tickets or get a refund. Lille services normally run to and from Brussels. Eurostar said a "very limited" capacity shuttle bus had been used to transfer passengers between the two cities. Its website also listed alternative rail routes. The crash at Halle, near Brussels, was at the point where commuter and high-speed lines meet, preventing Eurostar and other train companies from being able to operate in the area. An investigation has been launched into the rush-hour train collision in which the trains' front carriages smashed into each other and were forced up into the air, damaging overhead power lines. One train had been going from Leuven to Braine-le-Comte, while the second train had been travelling from Quievrain to Liege. The cause of the crash is unknown, but the governor of Flemish Brabant province, Lodewijk De Witte, said one of the trains seemed to have missed a stop signal. The crashed trains may not be completely removed from the tracks for two or three days, the Brussels public prosecutor's office said, according to Associated Press news agency. | Train collisions | February 2010 | ['(BBC)'] |
Italian President Sergio Mattarella says either fresh elections must be held or a neutral caretaker government installed following the collapse of a third round of talks aiming to form a coalition after March's general election failed to produce a clear winner. | Italy's coalition-building talks have failed, leaving the country facing fresh elections or a neutral caretaker government until the end of the year.
President Sergio Mattarella said on Monday that those were the only two options left after a third round of negotiations were unsuccessful.
No single party or alliance won a majority in the March general election.
The most influential parties, Five Star and The League, favour a new vote in July. Mr Mattarella has the final say.
Following the latest round of talks aimed at forming a coalition, the biggest single party, the anti-establishment Five Star movement, could not agree on joining forces either with the right-wing alliance of Forza Italia and The League or with the centre-left Democratic Party.
Previous attempts to break the deadlock since the inconclusive result on 4 March also came to nothing, with the parties' starting positions reportedly remaining unchanged.
In a televised public statement on Monday, Mr Mattarella urged party leaders to rally behind a "neutral government" after conceding that there would be no coalition deal.
"We can't wait any longer," he said.
"Let the parties decide of their own free will if they should give full powers to a government... or else new elections in the month of July or the autumn."
A caretaker administration would be made up of policy experts appointed by the president.
It would have the responsibility of drawing up a 2019 budget with the aim of avoiding the possible "recessionary effects" of a scheduled increase in sales taxes later in the year, Mr Marrarella said.
Such a government would run until the end of the year and would then dissolve ahead of elections to be held at the start of 2019, Mr Mattarella added.
However, neither the Five Star movement nor The League have yet shown any interest in supporting the move.
| Famous Person - Give a speech | May 2018 | ['(BBC)'] |
U.S. president Barack Obama visits a favela and delivers a speech in Rio de Janeiro as part of his five–day Latin American journey. | US President Barack Obama has praised Brazil as a model of democracy, during a visit to the country.
Mr Obama - on a five-day Latin American tour - said Brazil's flourishing economy and growing democracy were a model for countries in the Middle East.
Earlier, the US president visited the City of God, one of Rio de Janeiro's shantytowns, where he met local people. The visit to Rio follow talks in Brasilia with Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff that focused on trade. Mr Obama, whose visit is being partly overshadowed by events in Libya, is to travel on to Chile and El Salvador.
In his speech, Mr Obama referred to Libya, saying "a new generation" was demanding the right to determine its own future.
"From the beginning, we have made clear that the change they seek must be driven by their own people. But as two nations who have struggled over many generations to perfect our own democracies, the United States and Brazil know that the future of the Arab World will be determined by its people."
Mr Obama arrived in Rio de Janeiro after a day of talks in the capital, Brasilia, with Ms Rousseff and business leaders. In a joint news conference, he and Ms Rousseff emphasised Brazil's growing economic power and the opportunities to work more closely together. However, there was no direct US endorsement of Brazil's bid to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council, a move that left Ms Rousseff clearly frustrated at the lack of stronger support. Ahead of Mr Obama's arrival in Rio, authorities stepped up security and closed a number of streets in preparation.
Mr Obama and his wife, Michelle, visited the City of God (Cidade de Deus) favela, one of several hundred shantytowns that dot Rio's hills. The shantytown is one of several "pacified" under a programme to reduce violence in the city, which is set to be in the international limelight with the World Cup in 2014 and the Olympic Games two years later. The programme involves the deployment of a permanent police presence, known as the Police Pacification Units (UPP), that aim to drive out the drug traffickers who control the slums. People here told the BBC that they hoped President Obama would see that their favela was a far cry from the crime-ridden slum made famous by the movie City of God.
"We are not animals here but lovely people who welcome everybody," said nurse Tamara Rubia. During his tour, Mr Obama watched a performance by children of capoeira, which brings together martial arts, dance and music. He also had a quick kickabout with local youngsters playing football. Mr Obama delivered his speech at the Rio de Janeiro Municipal Theatre. His speech was originally planned to be an outdoor event but was moved inside due to a "number of concerns", US officials said. Mr Obama ended his Rio visit with a tour of the famed Christ the Redeemer hilltop statue. The visit was rescheduled from morning to evening to allow Mr Obama time to be briefed on the situation in Libya, where US, UK and French aircraft have been in action against the forces of Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi. Brazil is the eighth largest importer of US goods, and the amount it buys from the US is growing rapidly, White House aides say.
In Chile, Mr Obama will make a speech laying out goals on energy co-operation, security, economic growth and development, and democracy and human rights, White House aides said.
He then heads to El Salvador for talks with President Mauricio Funes.
| Famous Person - Give a speech | March 2011 | ['(BBC)'] |
Pro-European Union parties achieve a majority in the Parliament of Moldova. | MOSCOW — Three pro-European political parties appeared to have won enough votes in a weekend election to control Moldova’s Parliament, despite a surprising first-place finish by the pro-Russian Socialist Party, according to preliminary results on Monday.
Shadowed by the continuing violence in neighboring Ukraine, the election in Moldova, one of Europe’s smallest and poorest nations, became another fierce contest between the West and Russia for influence in a former Soviet republic.
Moldova, like Ukraine, has moved steadily toward greater political and economic integration with the European Union. But it has come under severe pressure from Russia to change course. Russia banned the import of Moldovan wine last year, and in recent months, it followed up with bans on apples, meat and other food products — brutal blows to the nation’s economy, which depends heavily on agriculture.
Russia already plays a significant role in Moldova because of the pro-Russian breakaway region of Transnistria, which declared independence in 1990 and was the subject of a military conflict in 1992. Russian troops have long been stationed in Transnistria as peacekeeping forces.
Advertisement
Senior Russian officials, including a deputy prime minister, Dmitri O. Rogozin, said the election results were rigged by Moldova’s current, pro-European government. On Wednesday, just four days before the vote, the country’s Central Election Commission barred the participation of another pro-Russian party, Patria, saying it had received illegal foreign financing.
Mr. Rogozin, commenting on Twitter, said pro-Russian parties would have secured control of Parliament if Patria had been allowed on the ballot, and if it had been easier for thousands of Moldovan migrant workers in Russia to vote.
According to preliminary results, with more than 97 percent of ballots counted, the pro-Russian Socialist Party was ahead with 20.7 percent, followed by the strongly pro-European Liberal Democratic Party, which is led by Prime Minister Iurie Leanca, with 20 percent.
The country’s Communist Party, perhaps the most resilient in the former Soviet Union, was in third place, with 17.8 percent, followed by two pro-Western parties: the Democratic Party, with 16 percent, and the Liberal Party, with 9.5 percent.
Taken together, the pro-Western parties had about 45 percent of the vote, while the pro-Russian parties secured about 39 percent. Because other parties are not expected to clear the 6 percent threshold to enter Parliament, the pro-Western parties are likely to emerge with a slim, controlling majority.
That said, forming a government is expected to be extremely difficult and to entail intense negotiations in the coming weeks. Although the Supreme Court of Justice upheld the ban on Patria in a ruling on Saturday, the late disqualification gave further ammunition to Russian officials who have complained of European meddling aimed at undercutting the Kremlin’s influence in the former Soviet Union.
Mr. Rogozin has forcefully conveyed Russia’s view. Last year, on a visit to Chisinau, the Moldovan capital, he noted the country’s reliance on Russian natural gas to heat homes in winter, and warned, “We hope that you will not freeze.”
On Monday, he said again that Moldovan officials should rethink their pro-Western stance given the election results.
“Add to this, the votes of supporters of the Patria party, withdrawn from the election on the eve of the vote, plus 700,000 Moldovan migrant workers in Russia whom the Chisinau authorities did not allow to vote, and you get the real weight of the Eurointegrators in this country,” he wrote in his commentary. “For Chisinau, it’s worth thinking about: Are you going on the correct path/road, comrades?”
Patria was created by Renato Usatii, a wealthy businessman with strong ties to Russia. Mr. Usatii is president of VPT-NN, a tool-and-die company that is an official supplier to Russian Railways, the national railroad. Russian Railways is controlled by one of President Vladimir V. Putin’s closest allies.
Since Russia’s annexation of Crimea this spring, some officials in Transnistria have called for Russia to annex their territory as well, reflecting the results of a referendum held in 2006 in which voters overwhelmingly expressed support for joining Russia. | Government Job change - Election | November 2014 | ['(The New York Times)'] |
Thousands of people take to the streets of Jordan for the third consecutive Friday of protests over inflation, unemployment and rising prices, amid demands for the resignation of Prime Minister Samir Rifai. |
Thousands of Jordanians have taken part in anti-government protests in Amman and other towns, demanding political reform, better economic conditions and the resignation of the country's unpopular prime minister.
The demonstrations were supported by a large number of political and social groups, including the Jordanian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s main opposition party.
The protests have so far remained largely peaceful, and have yet to reach the same scale of mass unrest witnessed recently in Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen. Crucially, the protesters have also refrained from openly challenging Abdullah II, the Jordanian king.
However, local analysts said discontent was now spreading to smaller cities across the country, suggesting the situation may yet escalate. While the biggest demonstration was once again held in the capital Amman, there were also reports of protests in a large number of provincial cities, including Zarqa, Irbid and Kerak.
According to agency reports from Amman, protesters called on Abdullah II to sack Samir Rifai, the current prime minister, and replace his cabinet with a “national salvation” government. Mr Rifai is blamed by many Jordanians for the country's economic woes, which include high unemployment and soaring prices for fuel, electricity and food staples.
Christoph Wilcke, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch who covers Jordan, said the demonstrations were motivated largely by domestic economic issues. “The clear message is for the king to get rid of the current government.”
However, there was also a political edge to the Jordanian protests, with several reports saying that demonstrators in Amman chanted support for their fellow protesters in Tunisia and Egypt. There were repeated calls for the downfall of Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president.
"Egypt, the Arab nation salutes you. We urge your men to get rid of Mubarak," the crowd shouted at one point, according to a report by AFP, the French news agency.
| Protest_Online Condemnation | January 2011 | ['(Al Jazeera)', '(The Jerusalem Post)', '(The Financial Times)'] |
Moldovan President Maia Sandu arrives in Ukraine for her first foreign visit as president. Both countries said that they are willing to join the Three Seas Initiative and European Union. | “We put emphasis upon the willingness to strengthen cooperation with partner countries in Southeastern Europe and the Black Sea region. In this context, we reaffirm our interest in being part of the Three Seas Initiative,” reads the joint statement by President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky and President of the Republic of Moldova Maia Sandu.
In addition, the presidents reaffirmed their interest in deepening regional cooperation in order to achieve the strategic goals of the two states as regards full membership in the European Union, including through the implementation of the Association Agreements with the EU.
Ukraine and Moldova also reaffirmed their readiness to continue efforts and joint coordination in order to strengthen the strategic importance of the Eastern Partnership initiative based on the principle of differentiation and taking into account the European ambitions of partner countries, especially in the context of preparations for the 2021 Eastern Partnership Summit.
“We consider it necessary to further develop the EU + 3 Associated Partners cooperation format and call on the EU to intensify the dialogue on the DCFTA and extend it to other aspects of cooperation and gradual sectoral integration, including in the areas of justice, digital economy, energy, transport and environment,” reads the statement. | Diplomatic Visit | January 2021 | ['(UAWire.org)', '(Ukrinform)', '(Republic TV)'] |
Paraguayan President Mario Abdo Benítez is confirmed to have dengue fever amid a nationwide pandemic. | ASUNCION (Reuters) - A dengue fever outbreak that has affected thousands of Paraguayans in recent weeks has reached as far as the presidential palace, with the country’s leader Mario Abdo confirmed as having been struck by the disease.
The country’s Health Minister Julio Mazzoleni said on Wednesday that the 48-year-old president fell unwell during an trip to the east of the country and returned to the capital Asunción where the diagnosis was confirmed. He has been ordered to rest.
“The result of the blood test effectively confirms that the President has dengue,” Mazzoleni said at a press conference.
“He will fulfill his agenda in Mburuvicha Roga (the presidential residence) with some restrictions,” he said, adding the President was in a “good general condition”.
The diagnosis underscores the potential severity of the outbreak of the disease in Paraguay, which has the second highest incidence of dengue in South American after Brazil. A severe outbreak in 2013 led to 250 deaths in the country.
Abdo, in a post on Twitter, thanked people for their messages of support. “I am fine, thank god. Getting some rest. We must be conscious that dengue can attack us all.”
The World Health Organization says the incidence of dengue, which causes high fever and joint pain, has been growing rapidly in recent decades. There is no specific treatment, but early detection and care reduces risks associated with the disease.
The minister said Abdo must complete a rest period of at least 48 hours and will be evaluated day by day in order “to discharge him when appropriate”. He added that the rest time could last three to seven days.
Dengue is an endemic disease in Paraguay, with cases peaking in the summer months when the transmitting Aedes Aegypti mosquito proliferates. The government announced days ago that it is preparing for a strong epidemic that would peak in February.
The health ministry has also confirmed that so far this year two people have died due to the disease and another 14 deaths are being investigated. In addition 1,800 cases of dengue have been confirmed and about 10,000 suspected cases reported.
Reporting by Mariel Cristaldo; Writing by Adam Jourdan; | Famous Person - Sick | January 2020 | ['(Reuters)'] |
One day after peace talks between the Taliban and the United States ended with no resolution, Taliban militants attack government outposts in northwestern Afghanistan, killing at least twelve Afghan soldiers. | KABUL, Afghanistan Taliban militants overran a cluster of government outposts in northwestern Afghanistan on Friday, leaving more than a dozen Afghan soldiers dead, including several troops from an elite police unit, officials said.
The brutal fighting came a day after the United States and the Taliban ended their sixth round of peace negotiations and the militant group said that it would continue to mount attacks, including ones like the car bomb directed at two Western aid organizations in Kabul on Wednesday that killed nine and wounded at least 20.
Col. Qais Mangal, a spokesman for Afghanistan’s Defense Ministry, said the Taliban had attacked two outposts in the Murghab district of Badghis Province that are shared by the army, the police and the National Directorate of Security. He said the Afghan military had sent reinforcements as the fighting continued.
“Unfortunately, the Afghan forces suffered casualties, but there isn’t any information about the exact number,” Colonel Mangal said.
Saleh Mohammad Mubarez, the district’s police commander, said that officers had recovered the bodies of 15 soldiers but that five were missing. Five police officers from the elite 444 Afghan Territorial Force were killed, he added. An official from the province said that several soldiers had been captured by the Taliban.
Murghab, one of the largest districts in Badghis, has been a battleground for Taliban and Afghan forces since early this year as both sides vie for control of the province’s main east-west road. In March, Taliban fighters nearly breached the district center before being repelled by government forces.
While the Taliban are unlikely to hold ground for long, Friday’s loss of roughly two dozen Afghan troops highlights the seesaw effect of the peace talks, with both sides undertaking brutal campaigns of violence to maintain leverage. On Friday, the American military launched more than a dozen airstrikes across the country, according to a Defense Department official.
Afghan security forces have lost more than 40,000 members since 2014, and American officials have long cautioned that the current rate of Afghan casualties is unsustainable.
It was unclear whether the round of talks that ended Thursday were successful, despite assurances of progress from the lead American negotiator, Zalmay Khalilzad. The talks, which began May 1, were shorter than those in March, which lasted roughly 20 days.
“We are getting into the ‘nitty-gritty,’” Mr. Khalilzad said in a tweet on Thursday. “The devil is always in the details.”
The American and Taliban negotiators agreed in principle on the withdrawal of American and NATO troops from Afghanistan. But in exchange, the Taliban will be required to cut ties with extremist groups like Al Qaeda.
Mr. Khalilzad has been unable to persuade the Taliban to allow a cease-fire or talk to the Afghan government. | Armed Conflict | May 2019 | ['(The New York Times)'] |
Danish inventor Peter Madsen appeals his life sentence for murdering Swedish journalist Kim Wall onboard his homemade submarine. He has not appealed his conviction. | Danish inventor Peter Madsen is contesting his life sentence imposed for murdering Swedish journalist Kim Wall on his submarine but not the guilty verdict, prosecutors say.
Madsen, 47, was convicted last month of the premeditated murder of Ms Wall, 30, and dismembering her body.
His appeal relates "solely" to his sentence and "not the issue of guilt", the Danish prosecutor's office tweeted.
In Denmark, the sentence range for murder is between five years and life.
The prosecutor's office added that Madsen's appeal could not be interpreted as an admission of guilt. Theoretically it can mean just that, but in reality life-term prisoners serve an average of about 16 years. Police killer Palle Sorensen, paroled in 1998 after 32 years, and Naum Conevski, jailed in 1984 for killing two young men, are unusual in having served considerably longer. Sorensen died earlier this year. Conevski is still in jail.
One study shows the number of life-termers in Danish prisons increased from 10 in 1997 to 25 in 2013. The 2015 study said only every fifth or sixth murder convict was serving life.
Madsen was found guilty of the premeditated murder and sexual assault of Ms Wall on 25 April this year after previously admitting to dismembering Ms Wall's body on the submarine and throwing her remains overboard.
Her remains were found by Danish police at sea 11 days after she interviewed him on board his homemade vessel.
The case was heard by Copenhagen City Court Judge Anette Burkoe and two jurors. Judge Burkoe described the incident as the "cynical and planned sexual assault and brutal murder of a random woman". She said Madsen had "failed to give trustworthy explanations" and had "shown an interest for the killing and maiming of people and has shown an interest for impaling".
Ms Wall had been researching a story about Madsen's venture and was last seen on the evening of 10 August as she departed with him on his self-built 40-tonne submarine, UC3 Nautilus, into waters off Copenhagen.
Her boyfriend raised the alarm the next day when she did not return from the trip. Madsen was rescued at sea after his submarine sank the same day. Police believe he deliberately scuttled the vessel.
Ms Wall's mutilated torso was spotted by a passing cyclist on 21 August but her head, legs and clothing, placed in weighted-down bags, were not discovered by police divers until 6 October.
After his arrest, Madsen gave differing accounts of what had happened on board his submarine.
During the opening session of his trial, prosecutors said there was a suspicion that he had "psychopathic tendencies" after investigators discovered films on his computer showing women being tortured and mutilated.
| Famous Person - Commit Crime - Sentence | May 2018 | ['(BBC)'] |
The Nepalese Parliament elects the country's first female president, Communist Party of Nepal vice-chairperson Bidhya Devi Bhandari, by a vote of 327 to 214. | Bidhya Devi Bhandari is deputy leader of the ruling Communist party and campaigned to secure women’s rights under the new constitution
Last modified on Tue 8 Aug 2017 19.54 BST
A communist politician who has long campaigned for women’s rights has become Nepal’s first female president.
Bidhya Devi Bhandari of the Communist party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) received 327 votes against her opponent’s 214 in parliament on Wednesday, the speaker, Onsari Gharti Magar, announced.
The president is Nepal’s ceremonial head, while the prime minister is the nation’s leader.
Bhandari, 54, is deputy leader of the party led by the prime minister, Khadga Prasad Oli, who was elected earlier this month and leads a coalition government. The new constitution adopted last month required Nepal to name a new president.
Bhandari is a campaigner for women’s rights in Nepal and was among the politicians who pushed to secure their rights under the new constitution. The document says one-third of the members of parliament have to be women and either the president or vice-president must be a woman.
She has been a leading political figure since her husband, Madan Bhandari, who was then leader of the party, was killed in a car accident in 1993. The circumstances surrounding the accident remain unexplained. She also led many demonstrations against the then Nepalese monarch, King Gyanendra, that eventually ended his authoritarian rule and restored democracy.
Bhandari is Nepal’s second president since the Himalayan nation became a republic after abolishing the centuries-old monarchy.
The first president, Ram Baran Yadav, was elected in 2008 and was supposed to be in office for two years. But preparing and adopting the constitution took seven years because of differences between political parties. | Government Job change - Election | October 2015 | ['(Unified Marxist–Leninist)', '(The Guardian)'] |
In figure skating, Patrick Chan of Canada wins his third world title at the 2013 World Figure Skating Championships in London, Ontario, Canada. | Meryl Davis and Charlie White won their second world title on Saturday afternoon, adding even more spice to a rivalry with Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir that is already the best thing going in figure skating.
Not only did the five-time U.S. champions complete a perfect season, which included victories over the Canadians at the Grand Prix Final and Four Continents, they beat the Olympic champions in their hometown, where Virtue and Moir are, as the public address announcer said, "local skating icons."
"It's certainly special for us to be a part of, being able to go back and forth like we have since the last Olympics," White said. "Without them, I definitely wouldn't be to the point I'm at. Having such talented rivals as them at the rink every day and seeing how great they are has pushed us, and I'd like to think in return we've pushed them back.
"It's a lot of fun, and a great story line for next year."
And don't think this won't motivate Virtue and Moir, the reigning Olympic champions.
With 189.56 points, Davis and White beat Virtue and Moir by 4½ points. That score also was a point higher than the world record the Americans had set at last season's Grand Prix Final.
"This rivalry between the two of us seems to have heated up now," Moir said. "It should be fun going into the Olympics."
It is the second world title in three seasons for Davis and White, whose victory in 2011 was the first by an American dance team.
"We try to celebrate these moments because we know there aren't an infinite amount of them," White said.
European champions Ekaterina Bobrova and Dmitri Soloviev of Russia won the bronze medal.
Madison Chock and Evan Bates were seventh in their worlds debut while Maia and Alex Shibutani were eighth. The United States will be able to send three dance teams to Sochi, the third straight Olympics the Americans have qualified the maximum spots.
The women's free skate is later Saturday.
Davis-White and Virtue-Moir have been trading titles since the Vancouver Olympics, where the Americans were runners-up. Either couple would dominate the sport if the other wasn't around.
But the fact they are has made both better, as anyone watching Saturday's free skate could see.
Unlike many couples, who trick up their programs with stunts and funky music and costumes, Davis and White let their dancing speak for them. Every second of their program was simply magnificent, so breathtaking you didn't dare blink for fear of missing something.
Pairs skaters ought to take note of their first spin, which was far better than anything done in the pairs competition.
It's a wonder Davis was able to stand up after their first lift. White flipped her up and around his back like a baton until she was in his arms, whirling feverishly the entire time.
And anyone who wants to learn how to skate should simply watch their programs. Their edge quality is better than that of any master craftsman, and there wasn't a spot on the rink that they didn't visit at least once during their program.
Most impressive? While most couples can only skate in one direction, Davis and White turn, travel and venture off in all kinds of different directions and patterns. Think walking and texting at the same time, and you get the idea.
When they finished, White knelt on the ice for several minutes, spent. But he had recovered by the time their marks were posted, jumping up to wave to the cheering fans.
"This has to be close to the top," White said. "Obviously, the first time we won worlds, being the first-ever American world championship, that has a special place. But our growth this season and how far we've come to win this gold medal, that's what makes this one really special."
Virtue and Moir grew up just outside of London, and the entire city seems to be on a first-name basis with them. The arena was filled with hundreds of their family and friends -- easily identifiable by their canary-yellow T-shirts -- and Canada's governor general was on hand to watch them.
No pressure there or anything.
"To have those people in the venue with us, it was special," Moir said. "Obviously there was a little bit of added pressure today. ... We wanted to go out and have a moment, like Charlie talked about. We all chase that."
Errors in their short dance left them trailing by 3.25 points, a sizeable gap by ice dance standards. But they weren't going to give up their title without a fight, especially not in front of all their fans.
Their "Carmen" was steamy and colorful, so much so you could practically see the blood pouring from her by the end of the program. They were always in time with the music and, as it grew, so did their movements.
The last 40 seconds of their program was downright frenetic, highlighted by their final lift sequence. Gymnasts would have been impressed with the backflip she did into his arms before he boosted her onto his shoulders and then spun her around.
Without even a second to catch their breaths, they immediately went into another lift, where she appeared to die in his arms.
"These are performances to build off of," Moir said. "We're looking forward to a big year next year and coming out on top." | Sports Competition | March 2013 | ['(USA Today)', '(AP via ESPN)'] |
Conflict in Iraq: At least 47 people have died following an apparent suicide bombing at a Shia funeral in the Iraqi city of Mosul. | Medical officials said at least 90 people were also wounded in the attack, which happened in a poor neighbourhood.
The bomber struck as mourners crowded into a hall next to the mosque.
Iraqi officials have accused Sunni Muslim insurgents of attacking Shia targets in order to spark a civil war in the religiously divided country.
After the cloud of smoke and dust dispersed we saw the scattered bodies of the fallen
Adnan al-Bayati
In pictures: Funeral attack
The attack was at the Shahidain mosque which is surrounded by cheap housing in Mosul's central Tameem neighbourhood. Witnesses described seeing a ball of fire and hearing a huge explosion inside the courtyard of the mosque, which is still under construction.
"After the cloud of smoke and dust dispersed we saw the scattered bodies of the fallen and smelled gunpowder," Adnan al-Bayati, a 45-year-old witness, is quoted as saying.
The force of the blast shattered car windows and left pools of blood on the ground. Upsurge in violence
Mosul, an Arab-majority city in the mainly Kurdish northern region, has been the scene of fierce clashes between insurgents and US forces and Iraqi government forces since November.
Tensions have risen between the three main groups in the area - Sunni Arabs, Shias and Kurds.
The attack in Mosul comes at the end of two days of violence in which a several were killed and dozens of dead bodies found. Gunmen shot dead the chief of a central Baghdad police station and at least two other Iraqi policemen during ambushes earlier on Thursday. On Wednesday a suicide car bomb attack reportedly carried out by a group linked to al-Qaeda killed at least three people and injured more than 20 people in the capital.
The BBC's Jim Muir in Baghdad says recent months have seen many provocative attacks on Shia targets and gatherings by the insurgents, who have their roots in the Sunni community. He says one of the aims is clearly to trigger sectarian clashes, but Shia religious leaders have called on their followers not to be drawn into communal conflict. So far they have been remarkably successful in restraining them, our correspondent adds.
In a separate development, reports from Baghdad say the Shia grouping that won the majority vote in Iraq's elections is poised to form the next government after striking a deal with Kurdish parties.
The United Iraqi Alliance, backed by the Shia clergy, is likely to name a new cabinet next week, according to officials on both sides quoted by Associated Press. | Armed Conflict | March 2005 | ['(BBC)'] |
The Chinese national oil company CNOOC has withdrawn a bid for Unocal quelling the fears that the deal would give a foreign government too much control over American oil reserves. Chevron is now expected to acquire Unocal. | SHANGHAI, Aug. 2 - The giant Chinese oil company Cnooc said today that it had withdrawn its $18.5 billion takeover offer for Unocal, a California-based energy company, acknowledging that its bid had created broad antagonisms in the United States and had little chance of being completed.
The decision ended a hotly contested takeover battle between Cnooc and Chevron, the huge American energy company, which were both vying to acquire Unocal's valuable oil and natural gas assets, much of it in Asia.
| Organization Merge | August 2005 | ['(NY Times)'] |
Kenyan runner David Lekuta Rudisha breaks a 13–year–old world record in the 800 metres at the ISTAF IAAF World Challenge meeting in Berlin, overshadowing Caster Semenya's return to the venue of her triumph. | Caster Semenya's return to the scene of her World Athletics Championships triumph was overshadowed today by a world record-breaking run from David Rudisha in the men's 800 metres.
Rudisha, of Kenya, clocked a time of 1min 41.09sec, taking 0.02 off the mark set by Denmark's Wilson Kipketer almost exactly 13 years ago. Rudisha's run came at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, where he was a semi-finalist in last year's world championships.
Semenya won the women's 800m in the same championships in a stunning time of 1:55.45, finishing well clear of the field. However, the South African then missed 11 months of competition while undergoing gender tests, the 19-year-old eventually being cleared to run again on 6 July this year.
She won her first two races back in low-key meetings in Finland, clocking 2:04.22 and 2:02.41, but improved significantly today to dip under two minutes with a time of 1:59.90.
| Break historical records | August 2010 | ['(Press Association via The Guardian)', '(BBC Sport)', '(AFP via Qatar Tribune)', '(The Daily Telegraph)'] |
Miro Cerar is appointed Prime minister–designate by the Slovenian National Assembly. | Endorsed by the emerging coalition of his SMC party, Pensioners' Party (DeSUS) and the SocDems (SD), plus the ZaAB party of outgoing PM Alenka Bratušek and ethnic minority MPs, Cerar pledged to seek to restore public trust in state institutions and the rule of law and work to overcome divisions, thus paving the way out of the crisis.
Immediately taking the oath of office, Cerar pledged to work for the benefit of Slovenia while calling for cooperation between his future cabinet and the parliament. "I hope that even in the cases where we don't see eye-to-eye we can lead a normal and respectful dialogue."
ZaAB was the only opposition party to announce support, as three others – the Democrats (SDS), United Left (ZL) and New Slovenia (NSi) – said that Cerar had not won them over with his programme. The SDS and NSi criticised a lack of concrete plan of measures from him, while the ZL said that his government appears headed on a neo-liberal footing.
In the debate preceding the vote, SDS head Janez Janša, who came to Ljubljana from prison, where he is serving a two-year prison sentence in the Patria bribery case, reiterated that the election, in which the SMC got 34.5%, was illegitimate.
However, Cerar responded that the situation that arose after Janša was found guilty was complex but this could not mean that the 13 July election "was questionable in any way".
Janša, who served as prime minister between 2004 and 2008 and between 2012 and 2013, also told Cerar that the job of prime minister was "brutal". "From the first moment on you deal with numbers, the harsh reality and you must decide about numbers and deadlines."
ZL deputy group head Luka Mesec said in the debate that he expected the new government to "question the iron laws of the past". His party colleague Violeta Tomić said the ZL would "be a reminder when the government will turn away from the goals that aim to help the people."
Cerar, a constitutional expert, who turned 51 today, is a newcomer to the Slovenian political scene although he has been well known as a public interpreter of constitutional issues. The party bearing his name won the 13 July snap election with 34.5% of the vote just over a month after its inception.
Cerar now has 15 days to nominate his ministerial team; he told the press after swearing in that he will look for competent ministerial candidates within the party but also outside if necessary.
The new prime minister designate underlined that he wishes a government team capable of successful and hard work. He said that he would now intensify staffing talks with potential coalition partners. If possible, Cerar will nominate ministerial candidates sooner than in 15 days.
Information from the would-be coalition partners has indicated that a new cabinet, which would become Slovenia's third in 30 months, is expected to have 15 ministers, eight of which are to fall to the SMC, four to DeSUS and three to the SD.
The posts are thought to have been distributed already with economics professor Dušan Mramor confirming he has consented to take the post of finance minister, which he held already in 2002-2004, for the SMC. Security expert Bojan Dobovšek, a member of the SMC, is tipped to become interior minister.
DeSUS leader Karl Erjavec confirmed he would continue to serve as foreign minister and his party colleague Gorazd Žmavc would continue as diaspora minister. The party is also eyeing the culture and the environment and the spatial planning departments with Julijana Bizjak Mlakar and Tomaž Gantar tipped for the posts.
Meanwhile, SD has indicated it wanted to keep the Ministry of Labour, Family and Social Affairs, which is currently headed by Anja Kopač Mrak, and the Agriculture Ministry, where SD leader Dejan Židan is minister.
The party of outgoing Prime Minister Alenka Bratušek, which supported Cerar in the PM-designate vote today, announced that it would not endorse his government team. | Government Job change - Appoint_Inauguration | August 2014 | ['(Slovenia Times)'] |
An Air China Airbus A330 preparing to takeoff as Flight 183 catches fire during boarding at Beijing International Airport. Passengers and crew successfully evacuate, but the aircraft is severely damaged. | Emergency services were scrambled at Beijing International Airport (PEK) after smoke started billowing out of an Air China A330.
Huge plumes of smoke were seen coming out of the aircraft during a turnaround of flight number CA976 between Singapore and Beijing. While passengers were starting to board the aircraft, believed to be registered B-5958, smoke suddenly started coming out of the cargo compartment.
As emergency services rushed to the scene, passengers and crew members safely evacuated the aircraft using the jetway.
Passengers who were supposed to fly on the A330 to Tokyo Haneda immediately took to social media, posting shocking videos of the fire on Twitter.
Having had a look at the videos and photos of the incident, it would appear as if the plane may be beyond repair. It looks to have suffered severe damage to the fuselage.
Beijing Airport authorities issued a statement confirming that it was a storage unit aboard the aircraft that was on fire.
The statement reads: “After discussions with the airport staff, it is understood that there are no flames detected on the plane.
“There are no passengers on board.
“We have activated certain protocols to handle the situation. The airport is now running on a normal schedule.”
Air China also confirmed the incident on the Chinese version of Twitter called Weibo that said the following: “Smoke was detected during boarding in the storage unit of flight CA183, which is set to fly from Beijing to Tokyo.”
“Crew members and airport staff have successfully put out the smoke. We are investigating the cause of the incident.”
This remains a breaking story which we will update as soon as we receive more news.
Journalist - Mark is an experienced travel journalist having published work in the industry for more than seven years. His enthusiasm for aviation news and wealth of experience lends itself to some excellent insight, with his work cited in Forbes amongst other publications. Based in Alicante, Spain. | Air crash | August 2019 | ['(Simple Flying)'] |
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern wins a second term in a historic landslide. Ardern's Labour Party becomes the first party to win a majority since the proportional system was introduced in 1996. | Labour has taken election 2020 in a landslide – coming in with 49 per cent of votes (64 seats) to National’s 26.9 per cent (35 seats).
Jacinda Ardern will remain New Zealand's Prime Minister, with almost all of the preliminary votes counted.
The Labour tide swept through New Zealand, pulling many traditionally strong National electorate seats into Labour Party hands.
It has slashed the previous number of National MPs in Parliament down to just 35 - only nine candidates will come in as list MPs.
Preliminary results for election 2020:
Labour - 64 seats - 49% National - 35 seats - 26.9% ACT - 10 seats - 8% Green - 10 seats - 7.6% Māori Party - 1 seat - 1%
Ardern walked into the Auckland Town Hall tonight to the sound of screaming supporters.
This is a modal window.
Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window.
End of dialog window.
Your playlist will load after this ad
“Thank you,” she told the jubilant crowd.
“Tonight, New Zealand has shown the Labour Party the greatest support in at least 50 years.”
This is a modal window.
Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window.
End of dialog window.
Your playlist will load after this ad
She said the party now has a mandate to "accelerate", pledging to rebuild New Zealand stronger following the Covid-19 pandemic.
Talking to National Party supporters, leader Judith Collins thanked her voters.
This is a modal window.
Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window.
End of dialog window.
Your playlist will load after this ad
“Boy – we knew this was going to be tough, but you kept the faith.
"National will re-emerge a stronger, disciplined and more connected party.
“Congratulations on your result,” Collins said Ardern.
Winston Peters’ NZ First was knocked out of Parliament, potentially ending the former Deputy Prime Minister’s political career, which saw him first enter Parliament in 1978.
This is a modal window.
Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window.
End of dialog window.
Your playlist will load after this ad
ACT has pulled in a total of 10 MPs, giving leader David Seymour colleagues after years of being a lone MP.
The Green Party and Māori Party both won an electorate seat, the first for the Greens since 1999 and the second ever in the party’s history.
Labour held 43 electorates, up from 29 in the previous Parliamentary term, and National won 26, down from 40 in the previous term (not including Botany).
Labour did lose a seat to the Māori Party, with Waiariki taken from Labour, bringing the party back into Parliament.
Nelson – the seat held by National’s Nick Smith since 1996 - has seen Labour’s Rachel Boyack win the seat.
"National has had a king tide against it," Smith said tonight. He said there were some "big questions for National", but he would deal with that another day.
Rangitata, the once strong National seat held by disgraced former MP Andrew Falloon, saw a swift shift to Labour, with Jo Luxton gliding in ahead of National’s Megan Hands.
Auckland Central turned Green, the party had only previously held an electorate seat for one term, with the late Jeanette Fitzsimmons holding Coromandel in 1999. Chlöe Swarbrick has narrowly defeated Labour’s Helen White, taking Auckland Central from National, who held it previously under Nikki Kaye.
“This is the campaign we always dreamed of. I’m so proud of everyone who is here. We’ve put our heart and our soul into it,” Swarbrick told 1 NEWS early on.
One win for National has been the return of the Botany electorate after former MP Jami-Lee Ross left the party and was an independent MP, with former Air New Zealand CEO Christopher Luxon set to come into Parliament.
Ilam’s swing to Labour has taken it from National deputy leader Gerry Brownlee.
Ginny Anderson took the tight seat of Hutt South back from National’s Chris Bishop, who held it for a term.
Paula Bennett’s old seat Upper Harbour went red.
Hamilton East and West, East Coast, New Plymouth, Northcote, Tukituki, Wairarapa and Whanganui also were lost to Labour candidates. The new electorate seat of Takanini was also won by Labour.
Former National leader Simon Bridges said the results were “grim”.
“I can’t think of a worse night except for possibly 2002 - but look, it’s grim."
The results are the preliminary count, with special votes to be released in the next 10 days.
It has been a long election, with New Zealand’s second Covid-19 resurgence pushing back the election from September 19 to October 17.
Collins has said she intends to stay on as Opposition leader.
Voting booths closed at 7pm today – however almost two million people cast their vote before election day. In 2017, 2.6 million people voted, with 1.2 million voting early.
The advance votes were counted from 9am today.
Ballots cast on election day are counted from 7pm and results released by the Electoral Commission as they come in.
Only the party and electorate votes were counted today, not the referendum ballots. Instead, the preliminary referendum results will be released by the Electoral Commission on Friday, October 30. | Government Job change - Appoint_Inauguration | October 2020 | ['(TVNZ)', '(NBC News)'] |
A small plane crashes at Mount Airy, North Carolina, resulting in the death of six passengers. | A small plane crashes near the Virginia North Carolina border, near Mt. Airy, NC. The plane was carrying people to a hunting trip in Patrick County, Virginia, at the Primland resort.
Picture from video taken by our CNN Newsource affiliate News 14 Carolina
A small plane crashes near the Virginia North Carolina border, near Mt. Airy, NC. The plane was carrying people to a hunting trip in Patrick County, Virginia, at the Primland resort.
Advertisement
WSLS News Staff
Published: February 1, 2008
A small plane crashes in a neighborhood near the Virginia North Carolina border, killing everyone onboard.
North Carolina investigators say the plane was carrying people from Polk County, Georgia to Patrick County, Virginia for a hunting trip at Primland resort. The plane crashed as it was trying to land at the Mount Airy, NC airport.
Officials have released the names of the six victims. Wesley Rakestraw is believed to have been the pilot. Steve Simpson was also in the cockpit and has a pilot’s license. The other four passengers were Hal Echols, Robert Butler, Tony Gunter, and Frank Ruggiero. They say all six were prominent businessmen from Polk Co., GA.
Map of crash site.
Our NBC affiliate WXII was one of the first news crews on the scene. They say the crash sight is off of Route 52, east of the Mount Airy Airport, in a neighborhood.
Investigators say the plane crashed into the front yard of a home. No one from the neighborhood is hurt.
The plane is described as a twin engine, King Air C90A, and could carry up to six people. Investigators say six people were onboard.
Investigators believe the weather may have played a factor in the crash. Witnesses told investigators that the plane made an approach to the airport, and was about 100 feet off the ground before the crash. Kelvin Boyette, the airport’s manager says the plane was attempting to land when it missed on its approach, and may have been trying to circle back for another attempt before it crashed. “There was a really low fog, it was raining a little bit and an occasional sleet pellet. But visibility was more than a 2½ miles,” Boyette said. “The hunting resort van was actually waiting for them, and (the driver) was the only person who saw the plane come out of the clouds, “ Boyette added.
The plane is registered to Blue Sky Airways in Dallas, Ga., according to FAA records. One of the men on board was identified by his cousin, Ronald Rakestraw, as John Rakestraw, a pilot who owned a construction company that had the same address listed on the plane’s registration.
Bert Brantley, a spokesman for Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue, said that Rakestraw held a fundraiser for Perdue at his home during the governor’s re-election campaign.
Also on board were Paulding County, Ga., Commissioner Hal Echols and developer Steve Simpson, said Jeff Ragsdale, a son of Paulding County Commissioner Larry Ragsdale.
Boyette said resort-bound hunters often fly though the airport, and the plane was the only in-bound flight expected at the airport Friday. A woman who identified herself as a Primland resort manager but declined to give her name said the company had no comment. | Air crash | February 2008 | ['(WSLS)'] |
At least 73 people are killed in a collision between two buses and a fuel tanker in Ghazni Province, Afghanistan. | KABUL, Afghanistan - Two buses and a fuel tanker collided Sunday on a major highway in Afghanistan, killing 52 people, officials said.
Records show the two buses were carrying a total of 125 passengers, Salangi said. “With 73 survivors out of the 125, 52 people are dead,” he said, adding that the survivors had been transferred to hospitals.Another 73 people who had been on the buses were wounded in the accident, which set all three vehicles ablaze, said Jawed Salangi, spokesman for the governor of the eastern Ghazni province.
The collision happened at 7 a.m. on the main highway linking the capital, Kabul, to the southern city of Kandahar. Salangi said the road had been cleared and re-opened early afternoon.
The buses were traveling one behind the other from Kabul to Kandahar when the accident happened, according to Mohammadullah Ahmadi, director of the provincial traffic department. He blamed the crash on reckless driving.
He said local residents helped firefighters and first responders pull survivors from the wreckage.
Road accidents are common in Afghanistan, where roads are often in poor condition and traffic laws are rarely enforced. | Road Crash | May 2016 | ['(BBC)', '(USA Today)'] |
President Barack Obama accepts the resignation of Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel. | Chuck Hagel has resigned as US defence secretary after less than two years in the top post.
President Barack Obama confirmed his resignation and paid tribute to his "class and integrity".
Mr Hagel, 68, a Vietnam war veteran and former Republican senator, said it had been his life's "greatest privilege".
Last month, it was reported that he was sharply critical of the US strategy against Islamic State and in relation to the Syria regime.
He will stay on as secretary until his successor is confirmed.
An unnamed official told the Associated Press news agency that Mr Hagel and Mr Obama both "determined that it was time for new leadership in the Pentagon" and had been discussing the move for weeks.
Mr Obama said Mr Hagel had come to him to discuss the "appropriate time to complete his service".
The US president said he was "extraordinary lucky" to have Mr Hagel by his side as defence secretary and praised him for forging a strong bond with US troops.
Mr Hagel is the first enlisted combat veteran to serve in the role.
In a brief statement, Mr Hagel said it had been the "great privilege of my life to lead and most importantly to serve the men and women of the defence department".
Analysis, Jon Sopel, North America Editor
Chuck Hagel is a friendly, no-nonsense defence secretary. He was also the one Republican in the White House national security set-up. But that may be of lesser importance than him being appointed to do one task in the Pentagon, only to find that the job description has changed fundamentally. He was the man appointed to bring the troops home and pare back the huge defence budget. But then Islamic State came along and all the calculations changed, and Mr Obama and his defence chief found themselves at odds. There was a lack of clear strategy, perhaps because Mr Obama and Mr Hagel didn't agree on what it should be. And after mid-term political defeats, the president needs a military win. So a change at the top will be an important symbol of that determination. Which of course leaves the question, did he jump or was he pushed? Probably a bit of both.
Mr Hagel, who served as Republican senator for his home state of Nebraska for 12 years, became critical of US involvement in Iraq despite voting to authorise the war.
He replaced Leon Panetta as defence secretary in Mr Obama's second term, taking on the task of winding down the Afghanistan war and making a military shift towards Asia.
But the future of US military policy has changed amid air strikes against IS in Iraq and Syria.
"The next couple of years will demand a different kind of focus," an unnamed White House official told the New York Times, which first broke the story. US media report there was increasing tension between Mr Hagel and the administration over decisions in Syria and working styles, citing Hagel confidantes and senior defence officials. Republican Senator John McCain said he knew the defence secretary "was frustrated with aspects of the administration's national security policy and decision-making process".
Mr McCain said Mr Obama needed to realise "current failures on national security more often lie with his administration's misguided policies".
Mr Obama did not name a replacement for Mr Hagel on Monday. Once named, the nominee would have to be confirmed by the Senate.
Among those being considered as replacements for Mr Hagel is Michele Flournoy, the former Pentagon policy chief during Mr Obama's first term. If nominated and confirmed Ms Flournoy would be the first female US defence secretary. | Government Job change - Resignation_Dismissal | November 2014 | ['(BBC)'] |
The Secretary–General of the United Nations Ban Ki–moon visits Pakistan to inspect the relief effort for the 2010 Pakistan floods. | Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) -- United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon met Sunday with Pakistan's president, and both men urged the international community to step up efforts to help the millions affected by flooding in Pakistan. Ban, who arrived in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, and President Asif Ali Zardari held talks before visiting some of the areas affected by floodwaters responsible for nearly 1,400 deaths.
"I am here ... to share my sympathy and solidarity of the United Nations together with the people and government of Pakistan," Ban said. "I am here also to urge the world community to speed up their assistance to Pakistani people."
He said he has visited scenes of natural disasters worldwide, but has seen "nothing like this. The scale of the disaster is so large -- so many people and in so many places, in so much need."
One in 10 Pakistanis -- up to 20 million people -- has been directly or indirectly affected by the floodwaters, he said.
"Thousands of towns and villages have simply been washed away," Ban said. "Roads, buildings, bridges, crops -- millions of livelihoods have been lost. People are marooned on tiny islands with the floodwaters all around them. They are drinking dirty water. They are living in the mud and ruins of their lives. Many have lost family and friends. Many more are afraid their children and loved ones will not survive in these conditions."
Zardari said his nation needs more international help to deal with the immediate recovery efforts as well as longer-term reconstruction and infrastructure development, according to his spokesman, Farhatullah Babar.
The president told Ban that flooding hit 71 districts so far, destroying more than 720,000 dwellings, Babar said. Zardari also said that the total destruction in terms of human life, property, cattle and infrastructure may be far worse than initial estimates, the spokesman told reporters.
Zardari thanked Ban for the U.N. appeal to the world community for $460 million so far in emergency aid, Babar said. However, Zardari added that his government was assessing the need for further resources and plans to approach other international bodies including the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank for further assistance, according to Babar.
Ban said he has decided to allocate an additional $10 million from the U.N.'s Central Emergency Response Fund. A total of $27 million has been allocated since the crisis began, he said. In particular, Zardari noted that the flooding further burdened the Pakistani economy, which already was strained by the fight against terrorism, Babar said.
Earlier, a spokesman for Ban said the "enormous disaster" would require a huge international response.
"By visiting, by speaking to the authorities and by speaking to the world from Pakistan, the secretary-general can underscore the need for immediate assistance, and also that this is really going to be a long haul," said Martin Nesirky, a spokesman for the U.N. chief.
As the flooding continues to disrupt lives, the threat of cholera is now a serious concern.
A U.N. official said the group has heard of suspected cases of cholera but has not received reports of any confirmed cases. The World Health Organization said in a Sunday bulletin, "Rumors of confirmed cholera cases are pouring in."
"However, cholera is endemic in the region, and in the current emergency situation, it is expected that cholera cases might occur in the affected areas," said Maurizio Giuliano, spokesman for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Islamabad. "The threat from cholera in the flood-affected communities remains high," Giuliano said. "In order to avoid excess mortality, it is important that all acute watery diarrhea cases with severe dehydration have easy and rapid access to standardized treatment covering waterborne diseases, including cholera."
Giuliano said at least 36,000 cases of acute watery diarrhea have been reported. U.N. agencies and NGOs are expanding their capacity on the ground as quickly as possible, Ban said, as the Pakistani people need food, emergency shelters, medicine and clean water. "We are all deeply concerned about the spread of diarrhea and other water-borne diseases," he said. He pledged that clean water would be distributed to at least 6 million people, with food assistance given to a similar number, and emergency health care would be provided for 14 million people, with a special program for children and pregnant women. "To do this, we need more support from the international community," he said. One-fifth of Pakistan -- or an area about the size of Florida -- has been flooded in relentless monsoon rains, according to the United Nations.
Millions of people are still at peril as the bloated Indus River is cresting this weekend in parts of Sindh province. In some areas, the Indus has expanded from its usual width of one mile to as much as 12 miles. Homes, crops, trees, livestock, entire villages and towns have been transformed into vast lakes, forcing thousands of flood victims to huddle in sludgy camps or in jam-packed public buildings. Others are sleeping under the stars next to the cows, sheep and goats they rescued from rising waters.
But when they might be able to return home remains a big question. Pakistan's monsoon season is only halfway over and more rain is on the way. | Floods | August 2010 | ['(CNN)', '(BBC)', '(Aljazeera)'] |
Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha asks people "not to create chaos at this time" as protests grow amid demands to rewrite the constitution, dissolve parliament, hold new elections and reform the monarchy. | BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand’s prime minister on Tuesday asked increasingly bold student-led protesters “not to create chaos” after some broke longstanding taboos by openly calling for reform of the constitutional monarchy.
Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, a former army chief who staged a coup six years ago and has led military-backed governments ever since, also promised that parliament would consider protesters’ demands to amend the constitution.
“I beg people not to create chaos at this time. We are solving these problems together,” Prayuth told reporters after a cabinet meeting.
He said he was “worried” about the young protesters who have been gathering in small groups in different parts of the country calling for the dissolution of parliament and new elections.
Prayuth said a committee has been formed in parliament to discuss possible changes to a 2017 constitution drafted under military auspices and a mechanism to gauge the views of young people would be set up this month.
Opposition activists say that under the constitution, Prayuth was virtually assured of staying on a prime minister after a disputed 2019 general election by the creation of a junta-appointed Senate.
“I support changes that are needed and I am not in conflict,” he said.
He did not say what changes would be considered in parliament, where his ruling coalition holds a comfortable majority after a main opposition party was dissolved in February.
A court ban of the opposition Future Forward Party sparked campus demonstrations and student protesters took to the streets last month with some 2,500 rallying at Bangkok’s Democracy Monument. Since then, protests have spread.
Related Coverage
Prayuth has previously warned protesters not to insult the monarchy, which is illegal in Thailand, though he said King Maha Vajiralongkorn had asked that people no longer be prosecuted under that law.
On Monday night, student protesters issued a statement calling for changes in laws “that expand the power of the monarch and that could impinge on democracy where the king is the head of state”.
Officials at the Royal Palace on Tuesday said they had no comment when asked about the protest demands.
The constitution says the king is to be “revered” and insulting the monarchy is a crime punishable by up to 15 years in prison under “lese majeste” laws.
After the king took the throne in 2016, the palace required revisions to the new constitution that gave him greater emergency powers. He has since taken personal control over some army units and palace assets worth tens of billions of dollars.
Asked about the protesters openly discussing the king, Prayuth said it was a matter of law enforcement.
“I won’t stop it from happening. This issue is for authorities to follow the law,” he said.
“Protests are a right under the law, but they have to respect the law and rules. I am not threatening, but I am worried.”
| Protest_Online Condemnation | August 2020 | ['(Reuters)'] |
Greek journalist Kostas Vaxevanis is arrested over the publication of a list of Greeks with Swiss bank accounts. | A Greek journalist has been arrested after publishing a list of about 2,000 Greeks who hold accounts with the HSBC bank in Switzerland.
Kostas Vaxevanis has been charged with breach of privacy.
Mr Vaxevanis says the list he published is the same one that was given by the then French finance minister Christine Lagarde to her Greek counterpart.
Some of those named, said to include many prominent Greeks, are suspected of using the accounts for tax evasion.
The list was originally leaked by an HSBC employee and then handed over by Ms Lagarde to Greek authorities two years ago, according the the AFP news agency.
Since then, successive Greek governments have been accused of trying to cover it up.
"Instead of arresting the tax evaders and the ministers who had the list in their hands, they're trying to arrest the truth and freedom of the press," Mr Vaxevanis said.
He is due in court this coming week to answer the charges after publishing the names in his Hot Doc magazine.
"The prosecutor issued a warrant for Vaxevanis's arrest because he published a list of names without special permission and violated the law on personal data," a police official told Reuters.
"There is no proof that the persons or companies included in that list have violated the law. There is no evidence that they violated the law on tax evasion or money laundering."
The names on the list are said to include politicians, businessmen and others, sparking fury among ordinary Greeks as they are hit by deep austerity measures, says the BBC's Mark Lowen in Athens.
The issue has reignited claims that tax evasion remains rife in Greece, and that the authorities still are not serious about tackling it, our correspondent adds.
| Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | October 2012 | ['(BBC)'] |
A suicide car bomber strikes outside the Indian embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, with at least 41 people killed. | A suicide bomber has rammed a car full of explosives into the gates of the Indian embassy in the Afghan capital, killing 41 people and injuring 141.
Five embassy personnel were killed - India's defence attache, a senior diplomat and two security guards - as well as an Afghan man. Five Afghans died at Indonesia's embassy nearby. No-one has admitted being behind the attack, the deadliest in Kabul since the overthrow of the Taleban in 2001. Afghanistan has seen a sharp increase in violence, particularly in the south and east - and Taleban militants recently vowed to step up their attacks in the capital. But the latest blast - in what was supposed to be a secure area of Kabul - will greatly concern Afghan government officials, says the BBC's Martin Patience in Kabul. Afghan President Hamid Karzai said the attackers wanted to rupture good relations between Afghanistan and India, while the Afghan interior ministry said it believed the attack was carried out "in co-ordination and consultation with an active intelligence service in the region". It did not specify which intelligence service it suspected of involvement. But in the past, Afghanistan has accused Pakistani agents of being behind a number of attacks on its soil. In a statement, Pakistan's foreign minister said his country "condemns terrorism in all its forms and manifestations". India also condemned the "cowardly terrorists' attack", but vowed it would not be deterred from fulfilling its commitment to the government and people of Afghanistan. India has close ties with Afghanistan and is involved in aid and reconstruction work, including the building of Afghanistan's new parliament. The US condemned the "needless act of violence", as did the European Union, which described it as a "terrorist attack targeting innocent civilians". The United Nations envoy to Afghanistan, Kai Eide, said that "in no culture, no country, and no religion is there any excuse or justification for such acts". 'Very afraid' The bomb exploded as people were queuing for visas at the embassy. "We were standing in a line to get visas, the police told us to stand on one side, the women were in another line, then suddenly I heard a huge bang and I sat down. I was very afraid," Khan Zaman said. Ali Hassan Fahimi said shrapnel had landed in his office, which is close to the site of the blast. "It was so strong... and our staff were shocked," he said. A spokesman for the Afghan defence ministry, Gen Zaher Azimi, told the BBC the attack was "the deadliest since the fall of Taleban" in Kabul. Another Afghan government spokesman, Zamari Bashari, told the BBC he thought the embassy had been attacked because of India's involvement in the reconstruction of Afghanistan. He said that the terrorist enemies of Afghanistan wanted such work to stop. Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta visited the Indian embassy shortly after the attack, his spokesman said. "India and Afghanistan have a deep relationship between each other. Such attacks of the enemy will not harm our relations," Mr Spanta told the personnel at the embassy, the spokesman said. | Armed Conflict | July 2008 | ['(Reuters)', '(AFP via The Melbourne Age)', '(BBC News)'] |
Goldman Sachs banker Jim Donovan withdraws from consideration as Deputy Treasury Secretary in order to have time for his family. | Updated 05/19/2017 05:28 PM EDT
NEW YORK — Jim Donovan is dropping out as President Donald Trump’s nominee to serve as deputy Treasury secretary.
The Goldman Sachs executive, nominated in March to serve as Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s No. 2, informed the White House this week that he could not take the job due to family concerns. He was expected to play a critical role in helping shape the administration’s tax reform policy through Capitol Hill.
"I am deeply honored by President Trump's decision to nominate me as Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Treasury,” Donovan said in a statement. “However, at this time I want to focus on my family, and I can no longer accept it. I hope to be able to serve this administration in the future and fully support President Trump and Secretary Steven Mnuchin's ongoing work to reform the tax system and grow the U.S. economy.”
Donovan’s departure will come as the administration struggles to push the focus back to its major policy initiatives and away from a series of revelations about the administration and Russia.
“Secretary Mnuchin offers Jim his support and friendship as he focuses his attention on his family,” Treasury spokesman Tony Sayegh said in a statement Friday. “Jim has been an enormous asset to the department helping recruit and fill many of the senior jobs at Treasury. He appreciates Jim’s continued support of the President and his administration.”
Donovan, a Goldman partner and managing director, is close to Mitt Romney and served as one of the 2012 GOP nominee’s top fundraisers. He was also a top fundraiser and economic adviser for Jeb Bush in the 2016 campaign. He joined Goldman in 1993 and covered major clients in both investment banking and investment management. Donovan’s loss will be keenly felt inside the Treasury building, since he helped hire all of the political appointees. He was also seen throughout Washington as one of the administration's incoming “grown-ups” meant to bring order and management skills to the department's staff, many of whom have no government or economic policy expertise, said one lobbyist close to the administration. “His job was going to involve breaking down the secrecy and walls currently in place in the building and to help forge a team that could advocate for the best policies,” the lobbyist added. Mnuchin now must fill his slot, as well as the key position of the undersecretary for domestic finance, at a time when the administration is weighed down by multiple investigations and scandals. Nancy Cook contributed to this report. | Government Job change - Resignation_Dismissal | May 2017 | ['(Politico)'] |
The Houston Astros beat the Atlanta Braves 7–6 in the 18th inning of the longest post–season game in Major League Baseball history. | Under siege from teammates, Roger Clemens put his hands over his head and ducked as champagne showered him from all directions Sunday evening.
Astros just kept coming at him, using the same determination and perseverance they had displayed earlier at Minute Maid Park against the Atlanta Braves.
"I can't believe it," Clemens told his teammates as they celebrated their berth in the National League Championship Series. "I thought you guys didn't have any left. I thought we had already used the last bullets."
Thanks to Clemens' gritty three innings of relief, the Astros had enough to win the historic Game 4 of the National League Division Series 7-6 on Chris Burke's walkoff home run in the 18th inning.
"I'm just real proud of those guys," said Clemens, who earned the win in the first postseason relief outing of his career and his first relief appearance of any kind since he was a Boston Red Sox rookie 21 years ago. "We always talk about playing nine innings. This time, we had to play a few more than nine — double that. What can I say?"
A sellout crowd of 43,413 was treated to the longest postseason game in major-league history as the Astros earned the right to face the NL Central champion St. Louis Cardinals in the best-of-seven NLCS, which starts Wednesday at Busch Stadium.
In a microcosm of their season, the Astros fell behind early and seemed all but done as the Braves carried a 6-1 lead into the eighth inning. Lance Berkman cut the deficit to one run with a grand slam off Kyle Farnsworth in the bottom of the eighth.
Still, the Braves nursed a one-run lead as Farnsworth retired the first two batters in the ninth. With the Astros an out away from having to travel back to Atlanta for Game 5, Brad Ausmus tied the score at 6 by ripping a 2-0 fastball just above the yellow line in left-center field for a homer.
That's when it really got interesting. Manager Phil Garner mixed and matched his 25-man roster, shifting several players from one position to another until finally moving starting catcher Ausmus back behind the plate from first base after using Clemens to pinch-hit for Dan Wheeler in the 15th.
Clemens was literally the Astros' last line of defense. The only two pitchers remaining were Roy Oswalt, who started and won Game 3 on Saturday, and Andy Pettitte, who was in line to start Game 5.
Even Berkman had to watch from the dugout. He had been replaced by pinch runner Burke after a two-out double in the 10th.
"I don't know how to explain it," Garner said after the Astros won the best-of-five series 3-1 over the NL East champions. "It's been the darnedest thing I've ever seen. It looked like it was over. It looked like we were down and out. We came back. How do you explain that game? It's like the Sunday afternoon softball game where everybody on your block gets to play."
After going 42 seasons without winning a postseason series, the Astros have now carried the wild card into the Division Series and eliminated the Braves in consecutive seasons.
The Astros set a Division Series record by using 23 players. The 5 hours and 50 minutes of action also set a postseason record, surpassing the 5:49 the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox needed last year to decide Game 5 of the American League Championship Series.
The 42 combined players marked the most used in a Division Series game, and the 14 total pitchers tied the DS record for most in a game.
The grand slam Adam LaRoche hit off Brandon Backe to give the Braves a 4-0 lead in the third was the first allowed by the Astros in the postseason.
"To be honest with you, I think they were just down to the last straw," said Braves starter Tim Hudson, who settled for the no-decision after holding the Astros to six hits and three runs in seven-plus innings. "They really didn't have anybody else to get it to. I don't think they really wanted (Clemens) to come back on two days' rest.
"Regardless who you are, I don't care what kind of warrior you are, what kind of Hall of Famer you are, you're not going to pitch on two days' rest unless they desperately need you to. But he was able to come in, step up, get the job done and make some good pitches."
It wasn't easy, but little has been easy for an Astros club that fell to 15-30 on May 24 before going 74-43 the rest of the way and becoming the first team to go from 15 games under .500 to the postseason in the same year since the 1914 Boston Braves.
After Berkman's double in the 10th, the Astros did not collect a hit until Burke's homer with one out in the 18th.
"Yeah, the game turned into a little bit of a three-ring circus," Burke said. "Things were going on. Rocket coming out of the bullpen, (Raul) Chavez played first base, and (Eric) Bruntlett played like 12 positions. It was just a crazy game. When they posted it was the longest game in postseason history, I didn't realize it. So once you see that, you realize you're going to be part of history."
Chavez, who had not played anywhere other than behind the plate this season, moved to first base after Clemens took the mound in the 16th.
"When I came out of the game, I almost felt guilty," Berkman said. "I've never seen a game like that, playoffs or anything. For the bullpen to come through like that and for Roger to suck up those innings, that was unbelievable. That's all we got. He had to pitch."
"Two tired old men walking out there," a proud Biggio said. "We were letting all the kids have a good time jumping on top of each other. We were holding each other up."
Biggio was right. The Astros all held each other up, and now they get another shot at the Cardinals, the team that ended their season last year a victory away from the World Series.
"Maybe this game was the perfect example of our entire season, that battle, that grind," Ensberg said. "Then all of a sudden, you've got Rocket going into the bullpen, getting ready, coming back out to sacrifice bunt before going out on the mound. The guy's a flat-out gamer."
jesus.ortiz@chron.com
"And if Roger had done that," Berkman said, "they'd have just shut the game of baseball down. We wouldn't even have bothered to play the World Series, because you couldn't have topped it."
Clemens pinch-hit for the first time in his career in his first previous plate appearance and laid down a perfect sacrifice bunt, moving Craig Biggio to second, where he stayed when Morgan Ensberg grounded into a double play.
In the 18th, batting right before Chris Burke ended the game with a homer, Clemens swung from the heels on the first pitch — "I almost fell down," he said — and wound up striking out on a checked swing.
Adam LaRoche's 415-foot grand slam off Brandon Backe in the third inning of Game 4 was the third Division Series slam in Braves history.
The other two occurred in 1998, when the Braves swept the Chicago Cubs 3-0. Ryan Klesko, who is now with the San Diego Padres, hit one in Game 1; Eddie Perez got one in the eighth inning of the series clincher.
"I knew I wasn't going to be able to go more than one inning," said Oswalt, who went 7 1/3 innings Saturday. "Hopefully I could have gotten some slow curveballs up there and get them to roll over quick."
Oswalt and Andy Pettitte were the only players on the Astros' playoff roster not to appear in Sunday's game.
" Jason Lane," manager Phil Garner said. "He's a former pitcher. He pitched at USC."
Garner never expected to play an 18-inning game Sunday, but he made it clear he's aware of his players' abilities and has discussed scenarios in which he might put players drastically out of position.
"I talked to (Lane about it) over the course of the season," Garner said. "I do have a habit of using all the players, and if we get into a situation where you have to do that, you always like to know who you might be able to use in a situation.
"For example, once I use all my players, I'd feel very comfortable having (pitcher) Brandon Backe as a position player."
He had reached base on a single off reliever Russ Springer but while later trying to score from second on a double by Jeff Francoeur was thrown out at home plate.
LaRoche hesitated as he rounded third base and said failed communication between himself and third-base coach Fredi Gonzalez was to blame.
"Yeah, there was a little miscommunication," LaRoche said. "I was planning on staying, with the ball (hit by Francouer) in the left-field corner. I was watching it, and I was planning on holding up at third. "He (Gonzalez) waved me around; I turned it on (too late). It was my fault. I've got to be looking at him, I guess, on a play like that."
"We had our opportunities," Jones said. "We've got nobody to blame but ourselves. But it's heartbreaking. It really is."
"That game was as gut-wrenching as anything I've been in," he said. "That 16-inning game was as good as anything I've ever witnessed, but this one topped it." | Sports Competition | October 2005 | ['(Houston Chronicle)'] |
Peruvian–Spanish writer Mario Vargas Llosa is announced as the winner of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature. | The awarding committee said Vargas Llosa received the award "for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt and defeat".
The prize of 10 million Swedish krona (€1.07 million) was the fourth of this year's Nobel prizes, following awards for medicine on Monday, physics on Tuesday and chemistry yesterday.
Vargas Llosa (74) ran for president of Peru in 1990 and lost to Alberto Fujimori.
He has written more than 30 novels, plays and essays, including Conversation in the Cathedral and The Green House. In 1995, he was awarded the Cervantes Prize, the Spanish-speaking world’s most distinguished literary honour.
He began chronicling his country's ills with the publication of his first novel in 1963, The City and the Dogs, which told the tale of adolescents confronting the corruption of a military school.
His latest novel El Sueño del Celta (“The Dream of the Celt”) is based on the life of Irish-born British diplomat and Irish nationalist Roger Casement. It will be published in Spanish this November.
The book involved four years of research, including trips to Congo and Banna Strand, in Co Kerry, where Casement was arrested in 1916.
Last year's Nobel literature prize went to Romanian-born novelist Herta Mueller, who escaped Nicolae Ceausescu's police state two years before the Berlin Wall fell and has become one of reunified Germany's best-known writers.
Winners in the last decade have included Turkish author Orhan Pamuk in 2006 and John M. Coetzee of South Africa in 2003.
The Nobel literature prize was created in the will of Alfred Nobel and first awarded in 1901. | Awards ceremony | October 2010 | ['(The Guardian)', '(Al Jazeera)', '(The Irish Times)', '(BBC)', '(Huffington Post)'] |
The first trial of former President Nicolas Sarkozy, on charges of corruption and influence peddling in 2014, starts. | The trial of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy for corruption and influence peddling has been suspended Monday less than two hours after it started, to allow a medical report on one of the defendants
PARIS -- The trial of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy for corruption and influence peddling was suspended Monday less than two hours after it started, to allow a medical report on one of the defendants.
Sarkozy is accused of having tried to illegally obtain information from a magistrate about an investigation involving him in 2014.
This is the first trial for the 65-year-old politician, who has faced several other judicial investigations since leaving office in 2012.
He stands trial in a Paris court along with his lawyer Thierry Herzog, 65, and the magistrate, Gilbert Azibert, 73. They face a prison sentence of up to 10 years and a maximum fine of 1 million euros ($1.2 million.) They deny any wrongdoing.
Sarkozy and Herzog are suspected of promising Azibert a job in Monaco in exchange for leaking information about an investigation into suspected illegal financing of the 2007 presidential campaign by France’s richest woman, L’Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt.
Sarkozy arrived at the court surrounded by his lawyers and bodyguards, in the presence of dozens of journalists. The Paris court has been placed under high security as hearings in the case, scheduled until Dec. 10, are taking place at the same time as another key trial that of the 2015 attacks at the Charlie Hebdo offices and a kosher supermarket.
The trial started Monday in the absence of Azibert, whose lawyer requested the hearings to be postponed. He argued his client's bad health makes it risky for him to travel and appear in court amid the coronavirus pandemic, leading the court to suspend proceedings pending an expert medical report. The trial will resume on Thursday.
In 2014, Sarkozy and Herzog used secret mobile phones registered to the alias name of “Paul Bismuth” to be be able to have private talks as they feared their conversations were being tapped.
Sarkozy and Herzog explained that they bought the phones to avoid being targeted by illegal phone tapping. Investigative judges, however, suspect they actually wanted to avoid being tapped by investigators.
Judges have found that discussions between Sarkozy and his lawyer suggested they had knowledge that judicial investigators at the time tapped their conversations on their official phones they mentioned “judges listening.”
Sarkozy argued that he never intervened to help Azibert, who never got the job and retired in 2014.
Investigative judges consider that as soon as a deal has been offered, it constitutes a criminal offence even if the promises haven't been fulfilled.
Legal proceedings against Sarkozy have been dropped in the Bettencourt case.
Sarkozy, a lawyer by training, pointed at judicial harassment, accusing judges of breaching lawyer-client privilege via wiretapping.
“I don't want things that I didn't do to be held against me. The French need to know... that I'm not a rotten person,” he told BFM TV earlier this month.
He said he was facing the trial in a “combative” mood.
Sarkozy's predecessor, Jacques Chirac, was found guilty in 2011 of misuse of public money, breach of trust and conflict of interest and given a two-year suspended prison sentence for actions during his time as Paris mayor, before he was president from 1995 to 2007.
Sarkozy’s name has appeared for years in several other judicial investigations.
Allegations, which include illegal financing of his 2007 campaign by then-Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, cast a shadow over Sarkozy's comeback attempt for the 2017 presidential election.
After failing to be chosen as candidate by his conservative party, he withdrew from active politics.
Sarkozy remained the most popular figure amid French right-wing voters in recent years. His memoirs published this summer, “The Time of Storms,” was a bestseller for weeks.
Sarkozy was handed preliminary charges including “illegal campaign financing” in the Libyan investigation, which has been underway since 2013 and prompted the wiretapping of his phones.
Earlier this month, French-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine retracted his previous statements that he delivered suitcases from Libya containing 5 million euros ($5.9 million) in cash to Sarkozy and his former chief of staff, Claude Gueant.
Instead, he told news broadcaster BFM and magazine Paris-Match that there were “no Libyan financing.”
Sarkozy said that the truth “finally comes out.”
Financial prosecutors said in a statement that charges in the Libyan case are based “on strong or corroborated evidence that are not limited to one person’s statement only.”
Meanwhile, the former president will stand another trial in spring 2021 along with 13 other people on charges of illegal financing of his 2012 presidential campaign.
His conservative party and a company named Bygmalion are accused of using a special invoice system to conceal unauthorized overspending.
They are suspected of having spent 42.8 million euros ($50.7 million), almost twice the maximum authorized, to finance the campaign, which ended up in victory for Socialist rival Francois Hollande. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | November 2020 | ['(ABC News)'] |
Ten thousand survivors of the Black Saturday bushfires in the Australian state of Victoria in February 2009 win a settlement of A$497.4 million against utility company SP AusNet, its maintenance contractor and the Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment for poor inadequate maintenance and protection measures. | Survivors of one of the worst bushfires in Australia have won a payout of almost A$500m ($470m), in the country's largest class action settlement. Some 10,000 plaintiffs sued a power company for negligence over the fire.
The case centred on the most deadly blaze on Black Saturday, on 7 February 2009, when wildfires swept across several areas in the state of Victoria. This fire, in the Kilmore East area north of Melbourne, killed 119 people and destroyed more than 1,000 homes. A 2009 Royal Commission found that the fire began when an electricity line failed between two poles. Contact between the live conductor and a cable stay supporting the pole caused arcing that ignited vegetation, the report said. The plaintiffs accused SP AusNet of failing to adequately maintain its power lines. They also sued Utility Services Corporation Ltd, the line maintenance contractor, and the Department of Sustainability and Environment for inadequate prevention measures.
The group were awarded a settlement of A$497.4m ($467m, £274m), of which SP AusNet will pay A$378.6m. | Fire | July 2014 | ['(BBC)'] |
British activists with the Black Lives Matter movement from America block the road to Heathrow Airport and to streets in Manchester, Birmingham, and Nottingham, marking the fifth anniversary of the deadly police shooting of Mark Duggan in north London. Ten protestors are arrested. | LONDON (Reuters) - Ten people were arrested on Friday after protesters from the British arm of the “Black Lives Matter” movement blocked the main road to London’s Heathrow Airport, police said.
Four people were in custody while the other six were being disentangled having locked themselves together across the five-lane slip road leading to the airport, causing traffic congestion at the Europe’s busiest hub.
One lane of the road, a spur off a motorway which connects London to western England, remained closed at midday on Friday, police said, adding that the airport and road network were otherwise open and operating as normal.
Black Lives Matter started in the United States as a reaction to fatal shootings of black people by white U.S. police officers.
The British arm is protesting against what it says is a disproportionate number of black people among those who die in police custody in Britain.
“To be stuck in traffic is an irritation. To be denied justice for decades is a crisis,” Black Lives Matter UK said on its Twitter feed.
Other demonstrations were being held in Birmingham, Manchester and Nottingham on Friday to mark the anniversary of the death of Mark Duggan, whose shooting by police five years ago helped spark several days of rioting in Britain.
| Protest_Online Condemnation | August 2016 | ['(NBC News)', '(Reuters)'] |
At least 32 people are killed in bomb blasts detonated during Christmas Eve celebrations near the city of Jos, Nigeria, while at least six people die in attacks on churches by suspected Islamists in the north–eastern city of Maiduguri. | The bombs were detonated during Christmas Eve celebrations near the city of Jos. No group has said it carried out the attacks.
The blasts happened in an area that has seen up to 1,000 people killed this year in sectarian clashes.
In a separate development, at least six people have died in attacks on churches by suspected Islamists in the north-eastern city of Maiduguri.
Gregory Yenlong, a spokesman for Nigeria's Plateau state, said there had been long-standing threats against the region's Christian community.
"For the past two weeks there have been threats to disrupt Christmas celebrations in Jos," Mr Yenlong told Bloomberg news agency.
About 74 people were wounded in the bomb blasts. Some are in a critical condition.
Jos lies on the fault-line between Nigeria's mainly Muslim north and its largely Christian and animist south.
Although clashes take place between rivals gangs of Muslims and Christians, observers say the underlying causes are economic and political.
Muslims are generally from the Hausa- or Fulani-speaking communities. They are often nomadic people who live from rearing animals or petty trade. The mainly Christian Berom, Anaguta and Afisare groups have traditionally been farmers.
Some Christian farmers feel they are under threat, as Hausa-speaking Muslims come down from the north looking for pasture for their animals.
In Maiduguri, suspected Islamist sect members attacked at least two churches late on Friday.
In one incident, petrol bombs killed five people including a Baptist pastor, Reuters news agency reported.
A security guard at a nearby church died in a similar assault, Reuters added.
| Riot | December 2010 | ['(BBC)'] |
Croatia resumes membership talks with the European Union after Slovenia lifts its 10–month embargo. | Croatia has resumed EU membership talks, after neighbour Slovenia lifted an embargo on furthering the matter.
The two countries have been locked in a bitter border dispute for years, but now seem close to settling the issue. The EU says the resumption of talks in Brussels was of "critical" importance to Croatia's EU membership ambitions. Slovenia and Croatia have been involved in an argument over disputed borders since 1991, when both decided to declare independence from Yugoslavia. Croatia's chances of becoming the 28th member of the European Union looks to be back on track, with the resumption of talks in Brussels. It marks the end of a 10-month embargo imposed by neighbouring Slovenia. This was a critical day for Croatia's ambition to join the EU, according to the Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, whose country holds the EU's presidency. He said very substantial progress had been made with negotiations on five policy areas - or chapters in EU jargon - which had been completed, with a further six having been opened. It is certainly a big leap forward for Croatia after months in which talks had stalled, thanks to the veto by Slovenia. Now that the joint border dispute appears to be close to a resolution, talks are once again under way. Croatia still has some work to do though - its fight against corruption, the efficiency of its courts and public administration bodies, and co-operation with The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia all present considerable challenges. | Government Policy Changes | October 2009 | ['(BBC)'] |
Austria’s highest court orders a repeat of the presidential elections narrowly lost in May by right-wing populist Freedom Party of Austria candidate Norbert Hofer. The margin of votes was less than 1%. | Europe was plunged into fresh crisis on Friday as Austria’s courts ordered a re-run of the country’s presidential election.
The constitutional court ruled the election, in which a far-Right candidate was narrowly defeated, would have to be held again because of irregularities in counting postal votes.
The ruling means the far-Right may seize the presidency of a European Union member state for the first time.
Norbert Hofer, the gun-toting candidate of the far-Right Freedom Party (FPÖ) lost the election in May by just 31,000 votes.
He was defeated by Alexander van der Bellen, a soft-spoken former economics professor endorsed by the Green Party.
"Confidence in the rule of law is the foundation of a democracy," Mr van der Bellen said. "I will stand in the rerun, and I intend to win it. I urge all citizens to exercise they right to vote. This is no game. For me it is about the unity of Austria."
Mr Hofer’s supporters will hope Friday's ruling means he can seize the presidency after all.
"I am pleased the constitutional court has taken this very important decision objectively," Mr Hofer said.
The decision will send shockwaves through EU governments already grappling with the consequences of Britain’s vote to leave the bloc.
Mr Hofer campaigned on an openly anti-immigrant platform and carried a Glock pistol on the election trail.
While his party does not want Austria to follow Britain out of the EU, it is calling for radical reform of the bloc and has threatened to hold an “Auxit” referendum if it doesn’t get its way.
The FPÖ wants powers returned to national parliaments and an end to EU control over immigration policy — in other words, the most powerful far-Right party in Europe’s shopping list is much the same as the British Leave campaign’s.
The Austrian presidency is largely ceremonial, and would not give the FPÖ the power to force through its policies.
But the party is leading in the polls ahead of general elections due in 2018, and Mr Hofer has said he will use the full powers of the presidency if elected — including the right to dismiss the government and call elections.
Mr Hofer initially called on his supporters to accept the results of May’s election, but the FPÖ later made a U-turn and filed the complaint over voting irregularities which led to Friday’s ruling.
Wolfgang Sobotka, the interior minister, said a date would be announced for the re-run of the election next week, after he had consulted with cabinet colleagues. The re-run is not expected to be held before September or October.
The decision means Mr van der Bellen cannot be sworn in as president when Heinz Fischer, the incumbent's term ends next week.
Instead, the presidency will pass to an temporary acting triumvirate made up of the speaker of the Austrian parliament and his two deputies. Mr Hofer will be a member of this triumvirate, as the junior of the two deputy speakers.
"The result was overturned because of technical errors, not vote manipulation," Christian Kern, the Austrian chancellor said, calling for calm.
"The decision should not be a cause for emotion."
He called for a short campaign and said he hoped turnout would be high, although he acknowledged there was a likelihood of voter fatigue.
| Government Job change - Election | July 2016 | ['(The Telegraph)'] |
An Egyptian court sentences former acting Muslim Brotherhood leader Mahmoud Ezzat to life imprisonment for murder and terror offences connected to 2013 clashes in Cairo. | CAIRO — Egypt on Thursday sentenced Mahmud Ezzat, the 76-year-old top leader of the banned Muslim Brotherhood, to life imprisonment after he was found guilty of “terrorism,” the state-run Al-Ahram newspaper reported.
“The Cairo Criminal Court on Thursday sentenced Mahmoud Ezzat, the acting supreme guide of the Muslim Brotherhood designated as a terrorist, to life for murder and terrorism charges,” according to the newspaper.
Ezzat was arrested in August 2020 in Cairo, after being on the run for several years.
He was found guilty of “incitement to murder” and of having “supplied weapons” during clashes between demonstrators outside the headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood in 2013, said a judicial source, who also confirmed the sentence.
In 2015, Ezzat was handed a death sentence in absentia, as well as given life imprisonment, after having been found guilty for having supervised the assassination of soldiers and government officials. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Sentence | April 2021 | ['(The Times of Israel)'] |
Elena Kagan is sworn in as the fourth woman to sit on the Supreme Court of the United States. | WASHINGTON Elena Kagan was sworn in on Saturday as the 112th person, and fourth woman, to serve on the Supreme Court, continuing a generational and demographic transformation of the nation’s highest bench.
In keeping with tradition, Ms. Kagan first took the constitutional oath given to a wide array of officials and then the judicial oath administered to those wearing the robe. Joined by family and friends in the Supreme Court building, she swore to “administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich.”
| Government Job change - Appoint_Inauguration | August 2010 | ['(The New York Times)'] |
1,427 gold coins from the mid–19th century that were buried in eight cans are discovered by an anonymous couple while walking their dog in Gold Country, California. The find dubbed the Saddle Ridge Hoard is expected to be worth over $10 million dollars and is the largest known hoard of gold coins ever found in the United States. | For a lucky California couple, their $10 million pot of backyard gold came with a shadow, not a rainbow.
While walking the dog last February, the couple stumbled across a treasure of 1,427 gold coins from the mid- to late-19th century buried in eight cans in the shade of a tree on their property in the state's famous Gold Country, according to Kagin's, the numismatic firm representing the anonymous finders.
Dubbed the Saddle Ridge Hoard, it is believed to be "one of the greatest buried treasures ever unearthed in the United States," the trade journal Coin Update writes.
The $5-, $10- and $20-denomination coins — uncirculated and in mint condition — have a total face value of $27,000 and date from 1847 to 1894. The majority are $20-denomination Liberty Double Eagles struck at the San Francisco Mint between 1855 and 1894, though one $5 piece came from Georgia. Experts said some might sell at auction for about $1 million.
The Professional Coin Grading Service, which certified the little mother lode, rates more than a dozen as either the finest or tied for the finest known examples of the coins, said firm co-founder David Hall.
He called the discovery "a literal time capsule" of gold coins circulating in the late 19th century.
In an interview with Kagin's, the finders, identified only as John and Mary, described how they came across their Gold Rush fortune on what they call Saddle Ridge:
Who buried them remains a mystery.
"I don't like to say once-in-a-lifetime for anything, but you don't get an opportunity to handle this kind of material, a treasure like this, ever," numismatist Don Kagin told the Associated Press.
It's rare to find such coins older than 1870, because until then paper money was illegal in California.
"It wasn't really until the 1880s that you start seeing coins struck in California that were kept in real high grades of preservation," David McCarthy, Kagin's chief numismatist, told AP.
Some of the coins will be on display this weekend in Atlanta at the American Numismatic Association's National Money Show, which runs Thursday through Saturday.
The couple, who are in their 40s and had dabbled in panning for gold, plan to keep a few coins but intend to sell most on Amazon. Mary said they'll use the proceeds to retire debts and help "people in our community who are hungry and don't have enough to eat," along with the arts and "other overlooked causes." They don't plan to change their lifestyle and hope everyone will treat them the same as always.
Mary offered one priceless piece of wisdom.
"Whatever answers you seek, they might be right at home!" she said. "Don't be above bending over to check on a rusty can!!!!" | New archeological discoveries | February 2014 | ['(USD)', '(USA Today)'] |
A suicide bomber attacks a convoy in Afghanistan's Kabul province, killing a Georgian soldier and three civilians and wounding 13 others, including six Resolute Support personnel. | A suicide bomber has attacked a military convoy in Kabul province, killing a Georgian soldier and wounding several others, officials say.
Five soldiers and an interpreter were injured, a Nato statement said. Three civilians also died in the incident in Qarabagh district, Kabul police told the BBC. The bomber was wearing female clothes, according to an Afghan official. The Taliban said it was behind the deadly blast on Thursday evening.
Qarabagh district is near Bagram Airbase, about 50km (30 miles) north of the Afghan capital, Kabul.
A Nato statement said a joint patrol between its forces and the Afghan army was attacked by a "personnel-borne improvised explosive device".
The statement added that all of those injured were in a stable condition and were being treated at the US military hospital at Bagram Airbase. Georgia is not a Nato member - but as a partner of the organisation it has deployed 870 people to the Resolute Support Mission, which trains and supports Afghan security forces. The bombing is the latest violence to have hit Afghanistan this month. On Tuesday more than 30 people were killed in a mosque blast in Herat.
On Monday a suicide bomber killed two people near the Iraqi embassy in Kabul.
Correspondents say the growing strength of the Taliban and the group known as so-called Islamic State (IS) in Qarabagh is a major source of concern to Nato forces based in nearby Bagram. According to the United Nations, Afghanistan saw at least 1,662 civilian deaths in the first half of 2017, with about 20% of those in the capital.
At the end of July, a suicide car bomb killed at least 30 people as it struck a bus carrying government employees in a mainly Shia district of Kabul. The Taliban said they had carried out that attack.
On 31 May, a huge bombing in the centre of the city killed more than 150 people, the deadliest militant attack in the country since US-led forces ousted the Taliban from power in 2001.
The violence underlines the precarious security situation in Afghanistan as US President Donald Trump weighs up whether to increase the number of US troops aiding the military and police in the country. Correspondents say the suicide bombings in Kabul in recent weeks have also created a crisis of public confidence in the government, its policies and in particular the reputation of President Ashraf Ghani. | Armed Conflict | August 2017 | ['(BBC News)'] |
Protestors in Cairo condemn a film promoted by controversial American pastor Terry Jones as a "humiliation of Muhammad under the pretext of freedom of speech". They climb over the walls of the US Embassy and tear down an American flag, replacing it with a black flag inscribed with Islamic emblems. Egyptian police have surrounded the compound to block further incursions. | Roughly 2000 Salafist activists answered a call on Tuesday by Wesam Abdel-Wareth, a Salafist leader and president of Egypt's Hekma television channel, to protest 'Muhammad's Trial' – a US-made film which, critics say, insults Islam's Prophet Mohammed – at 5pm in front of the US embassy in Cairo.
The protest began to deviate from its peaceful nature when some demonstrators began setting off fireworks, the sound of which resembled gunfire. Other demonstrators at the scene chanted "Peaceful, Peaceful," urging their fellow protesters to restrain themselves.
Some protesters managed to scale the embassy walls, remove the American flag and replace it with a black flag on which was written: "There's no God but God and Muhammad is the prophet of God."
At one point, the Egyptian Army intervened, surrounding the embassy grounds in an effort to control the situation.
The controversial film is reportedly being produced by US-based Coptic-Christian Egyptians, including Esmat Zaklama and Morees Sadek, with the support of the Terry Jones Church in the United States.
Various local churches in Egypt have condemned the film in recent days, asserting that those responsible for it were merely carrying out their own agendas and did not represent Egypt's Christian community. | Protest_Online Condemnation | September 2012 | ['(CNN)', '(BBC)', '(The Atlantic)', '(Ahram)'] |
Typhoon Saomai kills 111 people and leaves 4 missing in eastern China, according to the Chinese government. | The typhoon, which has now been downgraded to a tropical storm, was continuing to batter coastal regions with heavy rain and winds. More than a million people were evacuated from their homes to temporary shelters before its arrival.
Official media said that more than 50,000 houses had been destroyed in the storm.
Collapsed house
The typhoon claimed its largest number of casualties in Wenzhou, in Zhejiang province, where it made landfall early on Thursday evening. In the nearby town of Jinxiang, the bodies of 41 villagers, including eight children, were found in the ruins of a collapsed house.
They had been sheltering in the concrete structure because they thought it would withstand the storm better than their own houses, state news agency Xinhua said. "The wind was so strong that whole windows were slammed into rooms," an official in Jinxiang told Reuters news agency.
"Lots of people were hurt here but my family are all okay," said Wu Yelian, a local resident. "I haven't seen a typhoon this strong in years."
On a local highway, trees had been blown over and debris from buildings was strewn around.
Heavy rain
Neighbouring Fujian province was also hard-hit, with at least 17 people killed and 138 missing, according to Xinhua.
Fifty thousand houses had been destroyed across the two provinces and 3.5 million people were affected, the agency said. Power had been cut in parts of the region, where more than 30cm of rain fell within a twelve hour period in some areas. Soldiers and officials were being sent to the region to help emergency rescue efforts. Saomai has now been downgraded to a tropical storm as it moves inland, but the authorities warn that there is still the risk of landslides and flooding. It was moving towards Anhui and Jiangxi provinces, but continuing to lose force, Xinhua said.
Saomai, which is the Vietnamese for morning star, is the eighth powerful storm to hit China this year. Just last week, Typhoon Prapiroon killed about 80 people. Tropical Storm Bilis killed more than 600 in July. Typhoons and tropical storms are common in the region between July and October, but this year they have been unusually frequent. | Hurricanes_Tornado_Storm_Blizzard | August 2006 | ['(BBC)'] |
Cuba announces it will release more than 3,500 prisoners in a goodwill gesture ahead of next week's visit by Pope Francis. | Cuba has said it will release more than 3,500 prisoners in a goodwill gesture ahead of a visit by Pope Francis.
The government in Havana says those to be freed include inmates due for conditional release next year, as well as a number of foreign prisoners. Those found guilty of crimes against state security will not be eligible, seemingly ruling out several high-profile political prisoners.
The Pope will make a three-day visit to the island next week.
According to Cuba's state-run newspaper Granma, prisoners were chosen for early release depending on the severity of their crimes, amount of time served, and good behaviour.
Among those to be freed are a number of inmates over 60, prisoners under 20 years old with no prior criminal records and inmates with chronic health conditions.
No prisoners with sentences for murder, other violent crimes or drug trafficking will be released, the paper said.
Pope Francis is expected to meet with Fidel Castro if the former Cuban leader's health allows. The 78-year-old Argentine pontiff is credited with helping bring about last December's diplomatic thaw after the decades-old enmity between communist Cuba and the US.
He was directly involved in organising a series of secret diplomatic meetings between the two sides.
The Roman Catholic Church has maintained relations with Havana since the revolution and Pope Francis himself is no stranger to Cuba. He was there during Pope Benedict XVI's visit in 2012 and is the author of a book on Cuba.
| Famous Person - Commit Crime - Release | September 2015 | ['(BBC)'] |
President of Cuba Raúl Castro announces he will not seek another term as president when his current one expires in 2018. He also states he will seek to put term limits and age caps for political offices in Cuba, including the presidency. | MEXICO CITY — President Raúl Castro of Cuba announced Sunday that the five-year term he has just begun will be his last, giving the Castro era an official expiration date of 2018. The race to succeed Mr. Castro, who is 81, now has a front-runner: Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, 52, an electrical engineer and former minister of higher education, whom Mr. Castro selected as his top vice president on Sunday, making him first in the line of succession.
“It represents a definitive step in the configuration of the future leadership of the nation,” Mr. Castro told lawmakers at a conference of legislative leaders in Havana on Sunday. He added that Cuba is at a moment of “historic transcendence.”
Indeed, Mr. Castro’s speech — attended by his brother Fidel, 86, who made a rare public appearance — had the tone of an unsentimental goodbye. Just as Mr. Castro has inched the island toward free market reforms since taking over from his brother in 2006, his plan for a transition amounts to a slow fade, or, as Mr. Castro put it, the “gradual transfer” of “key roles to new generations.” And yet, on an island where a Castro has been in charge since 1959, he also seemed intent on changing how his successors will rule. In an announcement more surprising than his retirement plan, Mr. Castro said he hoped to establish term limits and age caps for political offices, including the presidency. Some broad constitutional changes, he said, will even require a referendum.
Not that the country’s controlled socialism is on the way out, he insisted. The leaders he has elevated are all loyalists, including Mr. Díaz-Canel, who came up through the army and then served in provincial leadership before being elevated within the Communist Party. He is widely seen inside Cuba as a technocrat — a “regional czar whose power is discrete but tangible,” said Arturo López Levy, a former analyst with the Cuban government — who earned Mr. Castro’s favor not only with youth and loyalty, but also by being a good manager. “He was a senior Communist Party official for Villa Clara and Holguin provinces, where there were important openings with foreign investment in tourism,” said Mr. López Levy. He added that Mr. Díaz-Canel often worked as an intermediary between the central government and the military, which has taken an expanded role in tourism under Raúl Castro. “In that sense,” Mr. López Levy said, “he will face the challenge and opportunity to prepare a smooth landing for a new type of civil-military relationship in the future.”
Mr. Díaz-Canel’s rise has been closely watched over the past year. He has appeared on Cuban television more often; in June 2012 he accompanied Raúl Castro to the Rio+20 meeting in Brazil and led the Cuban delegation to the London Olympics in July. He has also recently played a central role in meetings with officials from Venezuela, Cuba’s most important ally, which supplies it with subsidized oil.
But even as the meeting on Sunday projected an image of complete unity, there was no guarantee that Mr. Díaz-Canel will be Cuba’s next president. Many other young leaders have been pushed out of power over the years for reasons of scandal or disloyalty, and among the rising ranks, there are other leaders in their 50s who have recently been given more significant roles. Experts say that a power struggle is likely behind the Communist Party curtain, and in front of it as well, over the final five years of Mr. Castro’s presidency. “Much could happen between now and then, both within the government and in various sectors of Cuba’s emergent civil society,” said Ted Henken, president of the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy, a research group.
The choice of Mr. Díaz-Canel nonetheless signals a major change. Even with a five-year transition, Mr. Castro’s decision to move Cuba publicly toward a new leader means that the island is now a heartbeat away from being ruled by a person who did not fight in the revolution that brought the Communists to power. The Castros, after aligning themselves for decades with the fighters whom they knew as young guerrillas, appear to have accepted that Cuba will be ruled next by someone whose career developed after the cold war. “This is the first time the younger generation has a figure who is first in line,” said Philip Peters, a veteran Cuba scholar and vice president of the Lexington Institute, which tracks relations between the United States and Cuba. In an interview from Havana, he said: “It is the first time the older generation admitted the possibility of someone in the younger generation becoming president. We’ll see.” | Government Job change - Resignation_Dismissal | February 2013 | ['(The New York Times)'] |
Tens of thousands take part in a church–sponsored demonstration against same–sex marriage outside Congress in Buenos Aires, as senators prepare to vote on a bill which would make Argentina the first South American country to legalize same–sex marriage. | AFP - Tens of thousands of people have taken part in a church-sponsored, anti-gay marriage demonstration outside Congress in Buenos Aires, as senators prepared to vote on a bill already approved by the lower chamber.
"We want a daddy and a mommy," "Say yes to the real family," read some of the signs scattered among the protesters decrying what Roman Catholic church officials have branded "the devil's project."
Argentina, where 91 percent of the population says it is Catholic, could become the first Latin American country to pass a law legalizing marriage between same-sex couples if the Senate adopts the bill on Wednesday.
The measure, which would grant the same rights to homosexual couples as heterosexual ones, cleared a first hurdle on May 5 in the lower chamber, but the Senate is gearing for a tougher battle.
Buenos Aires Archbishop Jorge Bergoglio read a message at the demonstration saying a marriage between a man and a woman "is the only natural path to procreation."
"If they approve this bill it would mean a real and serious reversal for anthropology," he told his cheering followers.
Some 200 pro-gay marriage demonstrators gathered at Buenos Aires' iconic Obelisco monument, banging pots and blowing vuvuzelas, in the "Make Noise for Equality" campaign of Argentina's Anti-discrimination Institute, Inadi. | Protest_Online Condemnation | July 2010 | ['(France 24)', '(BBC)'] |
Sathya Sai Baba is reported to be in a critical condition as thousands of followers gather outside the hospital. | One of India's most revered spiritual leaders, Satya Sai Baba, is in a critical condition, doctors say.
Thousands of devotees in the state of Andhra Pradesh have gathered outside a hospital where he was admitted last week with breathing problems. State security forces have increased their presence around the hospital in Puttaparthi as devotees prayed for his wellbeing there.
The 85-year-old guru is thought to have millions of followers around the world. His distinctive orange robes and his hair have made him one of the most recognisable of India's spiritual gurus. He professes to be the reincarnation of a Hindu godman --a human being who declares himself divine - from the 19th Century. Sai Baba counts former Indian prime ministers, prominent businessmen and India's cricketers among his followers.
He commands huge audiences at the local ashram (religious retreat), where devotees say he performs countless "miracles". But his career has also been dogged by controversy. He has been accused of faking some of the "miracles" attributed to him. And some former followers levelled accusations of sexual abuse against him and other members of his ashram - a charge that he has denied.
He has never been charged by police in connection with these allegations.
Sai Baba was admitted to a hospital in Puttaparthi, where he is based, last week with lung and chest congestion, doctors say.
A health bulletin issued by the hospital said that his condition had deteriorated and he is now on a ventilator and receiving kidney dialysis.
"The vital systems are not adequately responding. The condition of Baba is critical. The panel of doctors treating him are doing their best to make the systems respond," hospital director AN Safaya said in a statement.
| Famous Person - Sick | April 2011 | ['(BBC)', '(The Times of India)', '(AFP via The Asian Age)', '(news.com.au)'] |
Cardinal Keith O'Brien, the leader of the Catholic Church in Scotland and Britain's most senior Roman Catholic cleric, criticises government plans to allow Same–sex marriage in the United Kingdom. | The government's plans for gay marriage have been criticised by the most senior Roman Catholic cleric in Britain.
Cardinal Keith O'Brien, the leader of the Catholic Church in Scotland, said the plans were a "grotesque subversion of a universally accepted human right".
He said the idea of redefining marriage, which David Cameron has said he supports, would "shame the United Kingdom in the eyes of the world".
He said it was wrong to deliberately deprive a child of a mother or father.
Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Cardinal O'Brien said: "Since all the legal rights of marriage are already available to homosexual couples, it is clear that this proposal is not about rights, but rather is an attempt to redefine marriage for the whole of society at the behest of a small minority of activists.
"Same-sex marriage would eliminate entirely in law the basic idea of a mother and a father for every child. It would create a society which deliberately chooses to deprive a child of either a mother or a father."
He added: "Imagine for a moment that the government had decided to legalise slavery but assured us that 'no one will be forced to keep a slave'.
"Would such worthless assurances calm our fury? Would they justify dismantling a fundamental human right?"
Cardinal O'Brien has become the latest of several senior clergy to denounce what he calls the "madness" of the government's backing for marriage to include homosexual couples.
He accused ministers of attempting to "redefine reality" and "dismantle the universally understood meaning of marriage".
In January the Anglican Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, also insisted governments did not have the moral authority to redefine marriage.
Scottish Secretary Michael Moore said the government's consultation on gay marriage was not aimed at forcing religious groups to endorse same-sex marriages.
He told BBC One's Andrew Marr Show: "We're not seeking to change religious marriage and we're not seeking to impose it on religious groups.
"What we are saying is that where a couple love each other and they wish to commit to each other for their life then they should be able to have a civil marriage irrespective of their sexual orientation."
Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman, a former equalities minister, said she thought it was right to have same-sex marriages.
She added: "I don't want anybody to feel that this is a licence for whipping up prejudice.
"What you're talking about is individual people and their personal relationships, their love for each other and their wanting to be in a partnership or getting married. I think we should support that."
Margot James, the first openly lesbian Conservative MP, accused the cardinal of "scaremongering".
She said: "I think it is a completely unacceptable way for a prelate to talk.
"I think that the government is not trying to force Catholic churches to perform gay marriages at all. It is a purely civil matter."
Ben Summerskill, chief executive of gay rights organisation Stonewall, said: "When you read the insulting tone to which Cardinal O'Brien descends on marriage you sense an argument already lost.
"If Roman Catholics don't approve of same-sex marriage, they should make sure they don't get married to someone of the same sex."
But back-bench Conservative MP Peter Bone said he did not know where the government's mandate to pursue the issue came from.
"It wasn't in our manifesto. It wasn't in Labour's manifesto. It wasn't in the Liberal manifesto.
"Nobody in my constituency before this row has ever come up to me and said this is an important issue that needs to be dealt with.
"It came completely out of the blue and it should certainly not be put before the next general election."
Mr Bone said he believed marriage could not be anything other than the union of a man and a woman.
"It's rather like saying a pear is an apple - it just can't be. It's just really the definition," he said.
"I'm in favour of civil partnerships and equality. But, you can not in my view redefine marriage on a whim."
Mr Cameron publicly supported gay marriage at last year's Conservative Party conference, and the Home Office said last week the government believed a loving and committed couple should "have the option of a civil marriage irrespective of their sexual orientation".
Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone will launch a consultation later this month on how to make civil marriage available to same-sex couples.
She has said she wants to challenge the view that the government does not have the right to change marriage traditions.
"It is the government's fundamental job to reflect society and to shape the future, not stay silent where it has the power to act and change things for the better," she said.
The Scottish government has held a consultation process north of the border and received more than 50,000 responses.
Many church leaders believe gay marriage would represent a further significant step in marginalising traditional religious values in society.
Civil partnerships were introduced in 2005 to give same-sex couples the same legal rights as married couples, but the law does not allow such unions to be referred to as marriages.
A new law allowing civil partnership ceremonies to be conducted in places of worship in England and Wales came into effect last year.
The Church of England has said it will not allow its churches to be used for civil partnership ceremonies unless the full general synod gives its consent. | Protest_Online Condemnation | March 2012 | ['(BBC)'] |
In a public speech in Southaven, Mississippi, U.S. President Donald Trump claims that Salman of Saudi Arabia's power wouldn't last "for two weeks" without the support of the U.S. military. | SOUTHAVEN, Miss. (Reuters) - President Donald Trump made an undiplomatic remark about close ally Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, saying he warned Saudi Arabia’s King Salman he would not last in power “for two weeks” without the backing of the U.S. military.
“We protect Saudi Arabia. Would you say they’re rich. And I love the King, King Salman. But I said ‘King - we’re protecting you - you might not be there for two weeks without us - you have to pay for your military,’” Trump said to cheers at a rally in Southaven, Mississippi.
Trump did not say when he made those remarks to the Saudi monarch.
Despite the harsh words, the Trump administration has had a close relationship with Saudi Arabia, which it views as a bulwark against Iran’s ambitions in the region.
Trump made Saudi Arabia his first stop on his maiden international trip as president last year.
Trump called King Salman on Saturday and they discussed efforts being made to maintain supplies to ensure oil market stability and global economic growth, according to Saudi state news agency SPA.
Saudi Arabia is the world’s top oil exporter and the de facto leader of OPEC, which has been criticized by Trump for high oil prices.
Speaking at the United Nations General Assembly in New York last month, Trump said OPEC members were “as usual ripping off the rest of the world.”
“We defend many of these nations for nothing, and then they take advantage of us by giving us high oil prices. Not good. We want them to stop raising prices, we want them to start lowering prices,” Trump said.
He has also pressed other U.S. allies, such as Japan, South Korea and Germany, to take more of the financial burden of their defense.
Reporting by Roberta Rampton; Writing by Eric Beech; Editing by Darren Schuettler
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. | Famous Person - Give a speech | October 2018 | ['(Reuters)'] |
Two Metro–North commuter trains collide near Bridgeport, Connecticut injuring at least 72 people and resulting in the cancellation of Amtrak services between New York City and Boston. | Sixty people were transported to hospitals and five people were hurt critically, one very critically, Friday night near Bridgeport, Conn., after an eastbound commuter train derailed and was hit by a westbound train, Conn. Gov. Dan Malloy said in a news conference.
No fatalities were reported in the collision, The (Westchester County, N.Y.) Journal News reported.
Metro-North Railroad called the collision a "major derailment."
The collision prompted Amtrak, which sent out notification via Twitter, to suspend service indefinitely between New York and Boston. Metro-North Railroad, which serves commuters in the greater New York area, issued a service alert saying service had been suspended between New Haven and South Norwalk, Conn.
According to the Twitter feed of the Metropolitan Transit Authority, the parent of Metro-North, service will not return to normal on the line until "a full investigation is complete and repairs are made," the Journal News reports.
Malloy said that most people were not seriously hurt. He said there was extensive damage to the train cars and the track, and it could take until Monday for normal service to be restored.
He said the area where the accident happened was down to two tracks because of repair work and that the accident will have a "big impact on the Northeast corridor."
"We're most concerned about the injured and ultimately reopening the system," Malloy said from the scene about three hours after the crash. He said there was no reason to believe it was anything other than an accident.
Lola Oliver, 49, of Bridgeport, was riding one of the trains when the crash threw her from her seat.
"All I know was I was in the air, hitting seats, bouncing around, flying down the aisle and finally I came to a stop on one seat. And I just gripped it because I felt the train sliding," Oliver told The Associated Press. "It happened so fast I had no idea what was going on. All I know is we crashed."
Oliver, a cardiology technician, was treated at a hospital for cuts and bruises and released.
The National Transportation Safety Board will head up an investigation into the crash, Malloy said.
The crash happened after a 5:30 p.m. train out of Grand Central Station in New York bound for New Haven, Conn., derailed near Bridgeport, Conn., TheJournal News reported. A train heading in the opposite direction from New Haven to Grand Central struck the first train.
"The eastbound train derailed, which is what caused the trains to collide," said Aaron Donovan, a Metro-North spokesman. "It derailed in such a way that it went into the path of the westbound train on an adjacent track."
An estimated 700 people were aboard the two trains, AP reports.
Passenger Bradley Agar of Westport, Conn., said he was in the first car of the westbound train when he heard screaming and the window smash behind him.
"I saw the first hit, the bump, bump, bump all the way down," he said.
Agar had returned to work this week for the first time since breaking his shoulder in January. And since he was still healing, he thought it would be safer to take the train than drive.
Police and emergency medical responders were on the scene Friday night and bus service was arranged for those who were unharmed in the crash, Donovan told TheJournal News .
By late evening, Bridgeport Police Chief Joseph Gaudett said everybody who needed treatment had been attended to.
The nursing supervisor at St. Vincent Medical Center said early Saturday that more than 40 people had been seen and that five patients were admitted, including one in critical condition.
Bridgeport Hospital spokesman John Cappiello said that as of 2 a.m. Saturday about 14 people were still being seen and that two patients had been admitted in critical condition.
The cause of the initial derailment was not clear and Donovan said authorities will investigate.
Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch said the disruption caused by the train accident could cost the region's economy millions of dollars.
"A lot of people rely on this, and we've got to get this reconnected as soon as possible," Finch said. | Train collisions | May 2013 | ['(USA Today)', '(CNN)'] |
The Solomon Islands Cabinet passes a ban on the use of social media platform Facebook in the country, citing public misuse of the platform, and a need for stricter cybercrime legislation and regulation. Communications Minister Peter Shannel Agovaka says the ban does not require parliament's approval, and will be enforced once operators "establish a firewall" to block Facebook. | Solomon Islands' Cabinet has agreed to ban Facebook, citing a need for stricter cybercrime legislation and regulation.
Facebook logo Photo: Pixaby
Communications minister Peter Shanel Agovaka confirmed the decision to Solomon Times Online, saying public misuse of the platform was the main concern.
"Abusive languages against ministers, prime minister, character assasination, defamation of character - all these are issues of concerns," Agovaka said.
The country was lacking legislation on internet usage and cybercrime, which was particularly worrying when it came to what children were accessing and being exposed to, he said.
"The use of the internet now in Solomon Islands needs to be properly regulated to safeguard our young people from harmful content."
It was not an attack on freedom of expression, pointing out that freedom of the press was still protected, he said.
Agovaka also said the decision would not require Parliament's approval.
"The government is still in discussion with the operators to work out how this can be done. The operators shall need to establish a firewall to block Facebook."
However, Agovaka said the initial decision, made last week, did not take into consideration the economic impacts of the decision, which would be investigated fully before the ban was imposed.
There are only four countries in the world where Facebook is banned around the clock - they are China, Iran, Syria and North Korea.
However, North Korea's ban is indirect because it is a complete internet ban.
| Government Policy Changes | November 2020 | ['(RNZ)'] |
Boko Haram militants open fire on civilians, killing 15 and wounding five others in a fishing village in Chad. 13 others were missing after the attack. | Attack in the western region of the country left five injured and 13 missing, government official says.
More than a dozen people were killed in a Boko Haram attack on a fishing village in western Chad on Tuesday, a government official has said.
“There were 14 dead, five wounded and 13 missing in the attack” near the village of Kaiga on the shores of Lake Chad, Imouya Souabebe, the prefect of the region, told AFP news agency on Wednesday.
Kaiga lies in marshland in a remote, sprawling region where the borders of four countries Cameroon, Chad, Nigeria and Nigeria meet.
The village is about 60km (35 miles) from the border with northeast Nigeria, the springboard for Boko Haram raids and kidnappings in neighbouring countries.
“We know that there are always Boko Haram elements moving around the (border) area, so they are behind this attack,” Souabebe said.
“The attackers first came in a small group and then brought in reinforcements to attack the fishermen,” he added.
The region’s governor, Noki Charfadine, gave a toll of at least nine dead.
He said the attack had taken place in a “red zone, where fishing is forbidden”.
Boko Haram launched its armed campaign in northeastern Nigeria in 2009, killing tens of thousands of people and causing millions to flee.
The spread of violence to Chad, Cameroon and Niger has prompted the formation of a regional military coalition, the G5 Sahel force, to fight the armed group.
French President Emmanuel Macron recently postponed a key summit focusing on France’s military operation in the Sahel region until the beginning of next year,after rebel fighters killed at least 71 soldiers in Niger last week.
The summit had initially been scheduled for December 16 in the French southern town of Pau with the participation of the heads of state of Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad, Niger and Mauritania.
France has a 4,500-strong force dubbed Barkhane supporting the five countries fighting against the armed group.
| Armed Conflict | December 2019 | ['(Al Jazeera)'] |
The Sinaloa cartel drug lord Joaquín Guzmán Loera, also known as "El Chapo", is arrested in Mexico. | One of the world's most wanted drug barons, Joaquin Guzman, known as El Chapo or "Shorty", has been arrested in Mexico.
He was the leader of the Sinaloa cartel, which smuggles huge amounts of illegal drugs into the US. "Shorty" Guzman had been on the run since escaping a high-security prison in a laundry basket in 2001. He was arrested in Sinaloa state, in a joint operation with US anti-drugs forces.
Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto used his Twitter account to praise the forces involved in the arrest in the north-western resort of Mazatlan, in Sinaloa state.
Guzman was taken to Mexico City and paraded before the media, before boarding a helicopter surrounded by heavily armed troops.
He was taken straight to prison, Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam said.
The US state department had offered a reward of up to $5m (£3.2m) for information leading to his arrest.
US Attorney General Eric Holder described Guzman's arrest as "a landmark achievement" for Mexico and "a victory for the citizens of both Mexico and the United States". "Shorty" Guzman has been indicted in the US on federal trafficking charges.
The Sinaloa cartel controls much of the flow of cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamine to the US.
Guzman's arrest is a big boost for the administration of Enrique Pena Nieto, says the BBC's Will Grant in Mexico City.
Mr Pena Nieto, who took office just over two years ago, said he intended to change the "war on drugs" policy of his predecessor, Felipe Calderon, which critics say led to a rise in violence throughout Mexico.
But Mexican police and troops have killed or arrested key figures in the drugs cartels since Mr Pena Nieto came to power.
The US has also arrested several associates and relatives of "Shorty" Guzman.
In May 2012, the US Treasury Department put two of his sons - Ivan Archivaldo Guzman Salazar and Ovidio Guzman Lopez - on its blacklist of drugs kingpins.
Their assets were frozen and US nationals and companies were prevented from doing business with them.
Guzman's father-in-law, Ines Coronel, was arrested nearly a year ago. He was accused of smuggling drugs into the US.
Guzman was born in the town of Badiraguato, probably 56 years ago, and became an important figure in the drug cartels in the 1980s.
He was arrested in Guatemala in 1993 and handed over to the Mexican authorities. He was sentenced to more than 20 years in jail, but he bribed officers and escaped a maximum security jail in Mexico in 2001. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Arrest | February 2014 | ['(BBC)'] |
Canadian prime minister Paul Martin promises in a televised address to call for an early general election once the Gomery inquiry into the current corruption scandal is over. , , , | Investigators in the cash-for-contracts scandal are expected to report their findings in mid-December, meaning a poll would be held in January.
But there are doubts Mr Martin will be able to hold on to power until then. The three opposition parties are threatening to force a confidence motion in May.
Opposition anger
An inquiry into the affair has heard that Liberals in Quebec demanded kickbacks for rewarding advertising contracts.
Money earmarked for a programme to counter separatism in French-speaking Quebec was allegedly paid to Liberal-friendly advertising firms, who did little work in return.
On Thursday, Mr Martin apologised for his party's misdemeanours, calling the situation an "unjustifiable mess".
"Those who are in power are to be held responsible, and that includes me," he said on national television.
I am sorry that I was not more vigilant
Paul MartinCanadian prime minister
Profile: Paul Martin
"I was the minister of finance and knowing what I have learned in the past year, I am sorry that I was not more vigilant."
He said those who had "violated the public trust" would be "identified and will pay the consequences".
He said the poll would be called within 30 days of the judicial inquiry issuing its final report. Mr Martin runs a minority government, having lost his majority in the Canadian House of Commons in last June's election because of public anger at the scandal.
If the parties - the Conservatives, Bloc Quebecois and New Democrats - remain united, Mr Martin may have to go to the polls in June.
BBC correspondent in Toronto Lee Carter said the opposition was angry that the prime minister had used the public airwaves to argue his case. Mr Martin has not been personally implicated in the affair, though he was the finance minister at the time. | Famous Person - Give a speech | April 2005 | ['(CTV)', '(Globe and Mail)', '(Reuters)', '(BBC)'] |
Flooding in Chile kills at least five people, displaces at least 15,000 people and closes the Pan American Highway south of Santiago. | Heavy rain and flooding in Chile have displaced 15,000 people and shut down the world's largest copper mine, according to the government.
So far, five people are known to have died in the floods - described by some as the worst in at least two decades.
Road and railway bridges have collapsed, and at least seven rivers have burst their banks.
There is also a shortage of drinking water after floodwaters churned up sediment at water treatment plants.
The rains started in the middle of this week and have hardly stopped since. The hardest-hit region has been the central valley, immediately south of the capital, Santiago. A railway bridge collapsed under the weight of a raging torrent of water and a road bridge fell apart on the Pan American Highway, in effect cutting the country in two. Those who have died were either swept away by rising rivers or killed by mudslides and falling trees. In the capital, five months worth of rain fell in the space of eight hours, turning streets into rivers and forcing residents out of their homes. The rain is forecast to ease over the weekend but more storms are expected on Monday. | Floods | May 2008 | ['(BBC News)'] |
All is set for the local council elections in Malta which shall take place tomorrow. The results are expected to be in favour of the Malta Labour Party, the current opposition party. | PN Secretary General says withdrawing from Marsa and Zejtun was not intended to avoid a major defeat, but he refuses to elaborate...
As Labour-led councils score high on MLP graded performance, Labour secretary-general Jason Micallef says he does not know of one single PN-led council that is doing a good job
Secretary-general of Alternattiva Demokratika Stephen Cachia says people are eager to send a message to a government that is showing an uncaring face...The elections the PN never wanted James Debono
The PN never wanted this mid-term electoral test. After winning the watershed 2003 general election and ensuring Malta’s place in the European Union, the PN suffered its worst electoral setback since 1953 when it was pushed below the 40 per cent mark in last June’s local elections. It is public knowledge that negotiations were held between the MLP and the PN in which the PN proposed the postponement of these elections. Back in November, MaltaToday revealed that backdoor meetings were held between the two parties in which the PN offered a change in the setup of the Local Councils Association in return for an agreement on extending councils’ terms of office from three to four years. Had Labour accepted the PN’s offer, no elections would have been held this year.
After failing to persuading the MLP to accept the cancellation of elections in all 23 localities, the PN, on its own steam, succeeded in aborting elections in Zejtun and Marsa, two Labour strongholds, by withdrawing its candidates five minutes before the electoral commission’s closing time for nominations. The PN’s benchmark
The withdrawal of candidates from Zejtun and Marsa and the cancellation of elections in these localities will inevitably complicate the interpretation of the final results. In the last elections the MLP had won an absolute majority of 52 per cent. The PN gained just 44.8 per cent of the vote. Yet if one removes the votes cast in Zejtun and Marsa, the PN would have got a total of 23,697 votes, ie 48.1 per cent of the vote while the MLP would have gained 23,907 votes ie 48.5 per cent of the vote. Therefore the PN’s most accurate benchmark in these elections will be the 48.1 per cent it had gained in all localities contested in 2002 minus Zejtun and Marsa. Anything less than 48.1 per cent in all localities minus Fontana, where no election were held in 2002, would mean that the PN has decreased its share of the vote. The margin between the PN and the MLP in these localities in 2002 was one of 0.4 per cent. A greater margin than 0.4 per cent would be interpreted as a defeat for the PN.
By recurring to the so-called “intelligent strategy” of its Secretary General and its strategy group, the PN cannot attribute a possible defeat to the fact that this round of elections includes more Labour oriented localities than Nationalist oriented areas. Back in 2002 in an interview with MaltaToday PN General Secretary pre-empted possible defeat by stating “This is an MLP group of councils”. This time, the two major political parties will start the race from a position of complete equivalence. During the same TV programme in which Saliba described the PN’s tactical withdrawal from Zejtun and Marsa as an “intelligent” one, Saliba insisted there was more to this strategy than simply playing with percentages, raising questions as to the real motive behind the decision of the PN strategy group’s decision. In February 2002 in an interview with MaltaToday Joe Saliba declared that the abstention level “is too high in local elections and the winner will probably be the party which manages to get the most voters out.” Saliba could possibly blame a poor result on a very low turnout. Is the PN doing its best to get voters out in this round of elections? Many Nationalist supporters are asking themselves whether they should bother voting if the party is not even contesting in Zejtun and Marsa. In 2002 only 69.10 per cent of the electorate bothered to vote. During the past two rounds of local elections, turnout has increased to over 80 per cent but one has to consider that the last two elections coincided with two major electoral appointments, namely the EU referendum and Malta’s first European elections. A really low turnout would be one less than the more typical 65 to 70 per cent. In that case, it would be possible for the PN’s leadership to devalue the importance of this round of elections by attributing the defeat to a very low turn out in Nationalist-leaning areas. The PN would argue that those who abstained did not even dare vote for the MLP or AD in a mid-term local election when the government’s popularity is at its lowest ebb due to unpopular decisions taken in the national interest.
Another benchmark for all three parties is their performance in different localities. In 2002 the PN had won in 10 out of 23 localities. Anything less than would be interpreted as a major setback at local level. Judging by results in 2002, the closest election this year will be fought in Qrendi, Mqabba, Mellieha and St Paul’s Bay. The positive record of the MLP-led Mellieha local council dampens hopes of a PN recovery in this locality. In St Paul’s Bay the possible election of an AD councillor would result in an evenly split council. From all the localities contested in 2002 AD was closest to electing a councillor in that locality. In Qrendi last year’s controversy on landfills will not help the PN but the emergence of a Labour-oriented independent could decrease the MLP’s share of the vote. In Mqabba, where the difference between the two parties is minimal, the most popular PN candidate in 2002 was Emanuel Buttigieg, who will not be contesting again as he resigned from the council last March. Contacted by MaltaToday, 71-year old Buttigieg declared that he took his decision because of his age. In Zebbug, where the difference between the two parties is also minimal, the most popular PN candidate at the 2002 local elections will also be absent from the PN’s list. On the other hand ex-mayor and ex-Labour councillor Dominic Zammit will be contesting as an independent. The PN’s intensive campaign in 2002, in particular localities like Zebbug, completely contrasts with the low-key campaign this year. The MLP’s benchmarks
Anything more than 48.5 per cent will be interpreted as a positive result by the MLP. Yet winning an absolute majority in these circumstances will be the cherry in the cake. If the MLP succeeds in winning a relative or a less plausible absolute majority in these elections it could end up being a victim of its own success. It could become even more over confident and thus more prone to delusions of grandeur. One consequence of the MLP’s victory last June was to kill any debate on the MLP’s leadership. With the exception of Anna Mallia, nobody from a Labour background has dared to call for a leadership change since last June’s success. The PN could be hoping that disgruntled Nationalists are venting their frustrations by abstaining or voting AD in local elections while returning to the fold at the next general elections. The MLP’s victories in local elections in 2001 and 2003 will go down in history as ephemeral ones as the party went on to lose the watershed 2003 elections. The Green’s benchmark
As regards AD, these elections will serve to confirm whether the party has kept the support it had gained in last June’s European elections. Back in 2002, AD gained a respectable percentage of nearly six per-cent but failed to elect any local councillor in the five localities it had contested. In 2003 and 2004 the Greens managed to elect a total of four local councillors. Failing to elect a councillor this time will demoralise the Greens. This is no easy feat considering that in the past AD failed to elect councillors in localities like Attard, despite gaining 10 per cent of the vote. The size of AD’s vote will also have a significant bearing on the final results especially in the Nationalist leaning localities like Iklin and St Paul’s Bay where AD will be contesting. But does it make any sense to use local elections as a benchmark for gauging the support of the three political parties at national level? Well all over Europe local council elections are always seen as barometer for the midterm popularity of the party in power. While in the UK the Conservative Party has made inroads at a local level it has so far failed to make the same inroads at a national level. It is still too early to say whether the MLP will suffer the same fate. | Government Job change - Election | March 2005 | ['(di–ve)', '(MaltaToday)', '(Independent Online)'] |
In women's road cycling, Ellen van Dijk wins the Tour of Flanders World Cup race. | Last updated on 6 April 20146 April 2014.From the section Cycling
Britain's Lizzie Armitstead retained her lead in the World Cup by finishing second in the women's Tour of Flanders.
Armitstead's Dutch team-mate Ellen van Dijk, who broke clear on the final climb of the Paterberg, won the race.
Armitstead beat Sweden's Emma Johansson in a sprint finish to ensure her Boels-Dolmans team were first and second.
The Olympic silver medallist's second place is her third podium from three World Cup races in 2014 and she will keep her lead in the competition.
The Yorkshire-born rider won the opening race of the season, the Ronde van Drenthe and finished second in last week's Trofeo Alfredo Binda. | Sports Competition | April 2014 | ['(BBC)'] |
An 8.2 magnitude earthquake occurs in the Pacific Ocean near Chile causing landslides and killing at least five people. A tsunami warning is issued. , , | The April 3, 2014, M 7.7 earthquake off the west coast of northern Chile occurred as the result of thrust faulting at shallow depths, approximately 23 km south of the city of Iquique. At the location of the event, the Nazca plate subducts eastward beneath the South America plate at a velocity of about 73 mm/yr. The location and mechanism of the earthquake are consistent with slip on the plate boundary interface, or megathrust, between these two major plates. Subduction along the Peru-Chile Trench to the west of Chile has led to uplift of the Andes Mountain Range and has produced some of the largest earthquakes in the world, including the damaging M 8.8 Maule earthquake in central Chile in 2010, and the largest earthquake on record, the M 9.5 earthquake in southern Chile in 1960.
The April 3rd earthquake is an aftershock of the M 8.2 Iquique earthquake that occurred on April 1, 2014, approximately 110 km to the north of the April 3rd event. The M 8.2 event triggered a tsunami with measured heights near 2 m along the northern Chile and southern Peru coasts. Since the M 8.2 event, 47 aftershocks ranging from M 4.2 to this M 7.7 event have occurred, including a M 6.4 earthquake on April 2. The current seismic sequence was preceded by a foreshock sequence that began on March 16, 2014, with a M 6.7 earthquake close to the epicenter of the April 1st M 8.2 event. This segment of the subduction zone, known as the Iquique or northern Chile seismic gap, last ruptured during an earthquake of about M 8.8 in 1877. Other recent large plate boundary ruptures bound this seismic gap, including the 2001 M 8.4 Peru earthquake adjacent to the south coast of Peru to the north, and the 2007 M 7.7 Tocopilla, Chile, and 1995 M 8.1 Antofagasta, Chile, earthquakes to the south.
While commonly plotted as points on maps, earthquakes of this size are more appropriately described as slip over a larger fault area. Thrust-faulting events of the size of the April 3, 2014, earthquake are typically about 100x50 km (length x width); modeling of this earthquake implies dimensions of about 70x60 km, predominantly down-dip of the hypocenter, and immediately south of the M 8.2 rupture 2 days earlier. These two ruptures have not filled the seismic gap; a substantial section remains unruptured, particularly to the south of the April 3rd event.
Hayes et al. (2016) Tectonic summaries of magnitude 7 and greater earthquakes from 2000 to 2015, USGS Open-File Report 2016-1192. (5.2 MB PDF) | Earthquakes | April 2014 | ['(USGS)', '(AP via The Australian)', '(Fox News)'] |
Warren Buffett and Jorge Paulo Lemann announce that they are allying to buy H. J. Heinz Company for $28 billion. | US billionaire Warren Buffett is set to buy food giant Heinz in a deal worth $28bn (£18bn). Mr Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway company and private equity firm 3G have agreed to take over the food company, famous for its ketchup and baked beans.
In a statement, Heinz called the deal "historic", and the largest to date in the food industry.
Shares in Heinz soared nearly 20% in New York to hit the $72.50 price being offered.
And Class A shares in Berkshire Hathaway rose 1% to $149,240 a share - a record closing high.
The takeover has been approved by the company's board, but still needs to be voted on by shareholders.
"The Heinz brand is one of the most respected brands in the global food industry and this historic transaction provides tremendous value to Heinz shareholders," said Heinz chairman, president and chief executive William Johnson. "We look forward to partnering with Berkshire Hathaway and 3G Capital, both greatly respected investors, in what will be an exciting new chapter in the history of Heinz."
The deal will marry one of the best-known brands in the food industry with one of the US's most famous businessmen. Mr Buffett is one of the richest men in the world, having amassed a multi-billion-dollar fortune over decades of investing. His investment expertise has earned him the nickname "the sage of Omaha".
"It is our kind of company," Mr Buffett told CNBC. "I've sampled it many times."
"Anytime we see a deal is attractive and it's our kind of business and we've got the money, I'm ready to go," he said.
3G Capital also owns the fast-food chain Burger King.
The deal will offer shareholders $72.50 a share, a 20% premium on the company's previous all-time high share price. Berkshire Hathaway will contribute $12-$13bn in cash to the deal. In total around $23bn of the deal will be in cash, with the rest in debt.
Heinz has been operating in the US market since it was founded in Pittsburgh in the late 19th Century.
Heinz says it sells 650 million bottles of its ketchup worldwide every year, and it is the biggest seller of baked beans in the UK.
The BBC's Mark Gregory said the deal was not just for old times' sake, and that Heinz now does much of its business in fast growing, developing economies.
Emerging markets make up around a quarter of its global sales, Heinz said.
In the UK and Ireland it employs around 2,500 people, with its headquarters in Hayes, Middlesex and food factories around the country.
Unite, Britain's biggest union, has called for a meeting with Heinz for assurances over jobs in the UK.
At a press conference following the announcement of the deal, 3G Capital's co-founder Alex Behring assured Heinz employees the 144-year-old business would continue to be headquartered in Pittsburgh. But he said it was too soon to discuss potential cost-cutting measures.
If agreed, the deal would be the latest in a string of big deals announced recently, after merger activity suffered during the global financial crisis.
Earlier American Airlines and US Airways confirmed plans to merge, in an $11bn deal to create the world's biggest airline, and last week computer maker Dell announced a planned $24bn takeover by its founder Michael Dell.
The UK's Virgin Media is also set to be bought by Liberty Global for $23.3bn.
| Organization Merge | February 2013 | ['(Reuters)', '(BBC)'] |
United States-supported Somali forces shoot and kill 10 Somalis, including three children, in Lower Shebelle's Bariire village near Mogadishu. While the Somalia government reports the other dead were members of the al Shabaab militia, Lower Shabelle deputy governor Ali Nur Mohamed says the victims were all civilians, farm owners, workers and their children. The U.S. Africa Command says they are investigating these civilian casualties reports. | MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Somali forces supported by U.S. troops shot dead 10 Somalis, including three children, in a village near the capital Mogadishu on Friday, a witness and local officials told Reuters.
The involvement of U.S. troops was confirmed by U.S. Africa Command, which said it was investigating reports of civilian casualties.
The Somali army initially said no civilians were killed and all the dead were members of the al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab militia, which is fighting to overthrow the weak U.N.-backed government and impose strict Islamic law.
It later issued a second statement saying some civilian casualties had been reported.
“We also understand that there are civilian casualties in which the Federal Government is investigating to find out the truth about this. We urge Somali people to cooperate fully with the Government on this matter,” the Somali army said.
The incident is likely to provoke questions in Washington about the growing U.S. footprint in the Horn of Africa nation, which has been torn apart by civil war since 1991. A U.S. Navy Seal was killed in Somalia in May, the first U.S. combat death there since 1993.
The White House has granted the U.S. military broader authority to carry out strikes in Somalia against al Shabaab, in the latest sign President Donald Trump is increasing U.S. military engagement in the region.
But local elders said the keenness to engage left the U.S. open to being unwittingly drawn into clan feuds, stoking tensions between Somalis and the United States.
The village attacked, Bariire in Lower Shabelle, about 50 km (30 miles) from the capital, is at the center of a feud between two powerful and well-armed clans, lawmaker Dahir Amin Jesow said.
He said those killed were farmers who had armed themselves to defend themselves against the rival group.
“The two clans who fought misinformed the U.S. forces,” he said, adding that one group may have tipped off security forces that the other side were insurgents.
Witness Warsame Wador told Reuters the dead were farmers who had been asleep when the raid began just before sunrise.
“It was this morning when white and Somali forces entered the farm. All the 10 people were asleep and I ran for my life,” he said. “As I ran away I could see four armored vehicles parked outside.”
Reuters viewed nine bodies at Madina hospital. An injured man later died, medical staff said. The dead children were eight, nine and 10 years old, said clan elder Abukar Osman Sheikh.
“They were sleeping in their farm when U.S. and Somali forces came into their farm and opened fire. Last year, the U.S. killed my people in Galkayo in a deliberate strike. We shall not bury them. We shall no longer tolerate it,” he said.
A September 2016 air strike in Galkayo killed at least 10 pro-government fighters, the U.S. has acknowledged.
Madina hospital was packed with people who said they were relatives of the dead. Insurgents do not typically accompany their dead to hospitals in the capital, which is controlled by the government.
“These dead bodies were innocent farmers,” Ali Nur, deputy governor of lower Shabelle region, told Reuters.
But the Somali National Army (SNA) issued a statement saying that eight insurgents had been killed in an operation carried out with “international partners”.
“The SNA carried out an operation this morning against a farm in Bariire with known al-Shabaab presence,” the statement quoted General Sheegow, commander of the 20th Brigade, as saying.
“Al Shabaab started shooting at SNA forces after our soldiers entered the farm. The individuals shooting at the SNA were al Shabaab fighters, they were not farmers.”
| Armed Conflict | August 2017 | ['(Reuters)', '(Garowe Online)'] |
The wreckage of Air France Flight 447, which crashed in June 2009, killing 228 people, is found in the Atlantic Ocean. , | Wreckage from an Air France jet lost over the Atlantic nearly two years ago with 228 people on board has been found, French investigators say.
With the cause of the crash still unknown, a fourth attempt to locate the plane's voice and data recorders got under way last month.
Searchers located wreckage during the past 24 hours, investigators in Paris said, without giving details.
Flight 447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris came down in a storm on 1 June 2009.
A French judge recently filed preliminary manslaughter charges against Air France over the crash.
Airbus, the maker of the jet, says no one can know for sure how the crash occurred unless the so-called "black boxes" are found.
The search has been financed jointly by Air France and Airbus. It involves dives to depths of up to 4,000m (13,120ft) with the use of special robots to examine the ocean floor between Brazil and West Africa.
France's Bureau of Investigations and Analysis (BEA) said that parts of the plane had been located by the searchers, led by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
"These parts have been identified by BEA investigators as belonging to the wreck of the A330-203, Flight AF 447," it added.
The bureau promised to release further information later.
An initial search found 50 bodies and hundreds of pieces of the plane, including its torn-off tail, while the last search ended in failure in May 2010.
The latest search was planned as a "systematic exploration" of an area of some 10,000 sq km (3,900 sq miles).
Officials have previously said there can be no guarantee that the flight recorders will ever be found.
Those who died included more than 30 nationalities. Most were French, Brazilian or German.
The crash has been partially blamed on malfunctioning speed sensors but officials believe other factors must also have contributed.
| Air crash | April 2011 | ['(BBC)', '(AP via MSNBC)'] |
Retired Croatian Army general Slobodan Praljak, upon hearing at a UN tribunal that the international tribunal upheld his war crime conviction, drinks a small vial that apparently contained poison, and later dies in a hospital in The Hague. | PARIS — The court session in The Hague was meant to be the final act of a decades-long legal process over the atrocities of the Bosnian and Croatian wars. Instead, it descended into confusion and, ultimately, death.
As judges at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia were delivering rulings on Wednesday on appeals related to Croatia’s involvement in the 1992-95 Bosnian conflict, one of the six defendants, Slobodan Praljak, who was standing, addressed the court.
“Slobodan Praljak is not a war criminal,” he declared slowly and deliberately in Croatian, just moments after judges upheld Mr. Praljak’s 20-year jail sentence for war crimes and crimes against humanity. “I reject your judgment with contempt.”
In a scene befitting the theater director Mr. Praljak had been before the Bosnian war erupted, he pulled out a small container, raised it to his lips and ostentatiously swallowed the contents. He then said, “I have taken poison.”
Mr. Praljak, a tall, distinguished-looking man with silver hair and a goatee, was taken from the courtroom, and the hearing was suspended. Guards seized the container. The curtains that divide the court from the public gallery were drawn.
It was an exceptional moment in a room that has been the scene of ritual courtesy among robed lawyers, of witnesses choking on stories of torture and rape, and of once powerful men hurling insults at judges. But never a staged suicide.
Mr. Praljak, a former general, 72, later died in a Dutch hospital, according to Nenad Golcevski, a tribunal spokesman. “Mr. Praljak drank a liquid while in court, and quickly fell ill,” the court said in a statement.
Many questions, however, remained unanswered, including the most significant one: How did Mr. Praljak obtain poison and smuggle it into the tightly secured courthouse?
As is typical, the defendants were transferred to the courtroom from a detention center within a high-security Dutch jail compound near The Hague on Wednesday morning. They are driven into the tribunal building through an underground parking lot, escorted by guards. Detainees have no contact with the public gallery, and any visitors who meet with them in jail — including lawyers, family and friends — pass through a security check.
Dutch investigators and police officers declared the courtroom a crime scene and are carrying out an independent inquiry. Mr. Praljak’s suicide is the third by a defendant facing the tribunal, but the previous two had taken their lives in the court’s detention cells.
Judges upheld the sentences against all of the six defendants, but the suicide of Mr. Praljak — the most senior member of the group — quickly overshadowed those decisions.
Before the Bosnian and Croatian wars, Mr. Praljak had been a theater and film director and a writer. He joined the Croatian Army as a senior official when it was formed after the country achieved independence in 1991. He was eventually named commander of the Croatian forces fighting in Bosnia.
He was a key figure, in particular, during the long siege and shelling of the ethnically mixed city of Mostar. The siege was the most widely publicized Croatian military action during the war and included the destruction of the town’s 16th century stone bridge. At the time, he was the main liaison between political and military leaders in Croatia and the Croatian force fighting in Bosnia.
Mr. Praljak had been convicted of a number of crimes, and while the appeals judges on Wednesday overturned some parts of his conviction, they did not reduce his sentence.
The hearing also drew attention to Croatia’s often-overlooked role in the Bosnian war.
The tribunal has for the past 24 years largely focused on the dominant Serbian role in the conflict, most recently sentencing Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb military commander, to life in prison for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
But Croatia, trials at the tribunal have shown, also orchestrated brutal ethnic cleansing to seize Bosnian lands once the Yugoslav federation began to disintegrate in 1991.
Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia and Franjo Tudjman of Croatia held secret talks early in 1991 to divide Bosnia. Mr. Mladic, court records showed, had at least two subsequent meetings to discuss the partition with his Croatian counterparts.
Forces led by Mr. Mladic moved first, in 1992. But the next year, Mr. Tudjman’s campaign to occupy lands that he claimed were historically Croatian kicked into gear. Croatia used militia forces to terrorize non-Croats and force them to flee, tactics similar to Mr. Mladic’s, though there was less coldblooded killing, and the numbers of prisoners and refugees were smaller. Mr. Tudjman died in 1999, before the tribunal had completed his indictment.
Prosecutors said militias that were funded and staffed by the Croatian government, and following its orders, rounded up non-Croatian men, imprisoning up to 10,000. Women and the older people were abused, raped and, in some cases, killed. Tens of thousands fled. Most of the victims were Bosnian Muslims, also called Bosniaks, but Serbs and Roma people also suffered.
Though none of the trials involving Croatia concerned the killings on the scale carried out by Bosnian Serb forces in Srebrenica or Sarajevo, a dozen ethnic Croats have been convicted by the tribunal for crimes related to their campaign of violent ethnic cleansing.
The session on Wednesday delivered a judgment that was much anticipated in Zagreb: it involved six Croats sentenced to prison terms of 10 to 25 years for their roles as military or political leaders during the Bosnian campaign. The judges threw out some parts of the convictions but said all six “remained convicted of numerous and very serious crimes.” They affirmed all the sentences.
Both the prosecution and the defense had brought appeals against the judgments handed down against the men.
Prosecutors had sought longer sentences and affirmation from the tribunal that the Croatian government funded and controlled the militias inside Bosnia, following direct orders from Mr. Tudjman.
They offered evidence that included extensive records kept by Mr. Tudjman of his conversations, meetings and telephone calls, released to prosecutors after his death, and documents showing that his government sent funds, vehicles, weapons and senior military commanders to run the operations in Bosnia.
The defense sought the release of the accused or reductions in their sentences.
But the main objective of the Croatian government appeared to be to clear the name of Mr. Tudjman, his defense minister, Gojko Susak, and the commander of the army at the time, Janko Bobetko. Croatian authorities have contended that the three, who have all since died, played no role in the Bosnian violence and were not, as an earlier judgment found, part of a “joint criminal enterprise.” But the appeal did not clear them and upheld the existence of a “criminal enterprise.” Both within Bosnia and in neighboring Croatia, Croatian officials have characterized their actions as defensive.
Their reaction to the appeals and the drama on Wednesday indicated, however, that many of the wounds from the conflict remain fresh.
Croatia’s prime minister, Andrej Plenkovic, denounced the ruling, promising to seek ways to challenge it, and expressed sympathy for Mr. Praljak’s family. Dragan Covic, the Croatian member of Bosnia’s tripartite presidency, declared that Mr. Praljak’s suicide had been “most honorable.”
The tribunal’s chief prosecutor, Serge Brammertz, expressed satisfaction, however, that the judges upheld rulings that the six men in court, “together with senior Croatian officials including President Franjo Tudjman, wanted to seize territory in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in order to establish a Croatian entity and facilitate the reunification of the Croatian people.”
The Dayton Peace Accord, which officially marked the end of the war in Bosnia, created a complex political structure devised to share power between the country’s Serb, Bosniak and Croat ethnic groups.
The timing of the latest ruling was unrelated to last week’s sentencing of Mr. Mladic. But the pair of decisions amounted to a historic moment for the tribunal, with the Croatia judgment expected to be its final act before it closes at the end of the year. It was established by the United Nations Security Council in 1993. A small appellate court will handle pending appeals and the retrial of Serbia’s former intelligence chiefs. | Famous Person - Death | November 2017 | ['(The New York Times)', '(The Guardian)'] |
Queen Elizabeth II returns to Buckingham Palace after spending one night in hospital. | The Queen has left hospital in central London after being assessed for gastroenteritis symptoms. She had been at London's King Edward VII's Hospital since Sunday - her first hospital stay in 10 years.
All official engagements for this week, including a visit to Rome, were either cancelled or postponed. She also missed St David's Day celebrations in Swansea.
Buckingham Palace said the Queen, 86, was admitted as a precaution and was otherwise in "good health".
On Monday afternoon, a Bentley took the Queen to Buckingham Palace, where she will spend the night.
Dressed in a red coat and smiling, she shook hands with hospital staff on the steps outside.
BBC correspondent Daniela Relph said the Queen looked "in pretty good condition and pretty healthy" as she left.
But a Palace spokeswoman confirmed the Queen's diary for this week would remain suspended.
She said: "Engagements cancelled or postponed this week remain so. "Next week, we'll have to see, as she has only just been released from hospital."
On Saturday, the Queen had missed the military ceremony in Wales due to the stomach bug. On Sunday, she was driven from Windsor Castle, where she had been resting, after carrying out a private medal presentation earlier in the day.
A spokesman for the Queen said she was in "good spirits" and her admission was "a precautionary measure".
Gastroenteritis causes inflammation of the stomach lining and intestines.
The infection can be transmitted through contact with an infected person or contaminated food and drink. Symptoms can include vomiting, fever and stomach ache.
The Queen's treatment, which has not been disclosed, may have included rehydration and tests to establish if the illness was caused by an infection or an underlying problem.
The Queen last received treatment 10 years ago, again at the King Edward VII's hospital, for a minor knee operation. At the same time, surgeons removed minor, non-cancerous lesions from her face.
Next weekend, she had been due to spend two days in Rome with the Duke of Edinburgh, at the invitation of Italy's President Giorgio Napolitano.
It is not clear whether the visit will be re-scheduled.
| Famous Person - Recovered | March 2013 | ['(BBC)'] |
The National Assembly of Mauritius elects and sworns in Prithvirajsing Roopun as nation's President. | Last Updated at December 2, 2019 16:55 IST
Lawmakers in Mauritius on Monday picked former arts and culture minister Pritivirajsing Roopun as president of the island nation, a largely ceremonial post.
His predecessor Ameenah Gurib-Fakim resigned in March 2018 after being embroiled in a scandal over her use of a credit card to buy luxury personal items. She denied wrongdoing.
In Mauritius, the prime minister is head of the government and holds most political power while the president is head of state but has no executive role and is considered the guardian of the constitution.
Roopun, 61, is a lawyer who was first elected to the National Assembly in 2000 and has been minister of regional administration, social integration, and arts and culture.
In November, Mauritius held elections which saw incumbent Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth win a new five-year term.
Since attaining independence from Britain in 1968, Mauritius has become one of the most stable democracies in Africa.
It developed from a poor, agriculture-based economy into a prosperous economy striving to reach high-income status by 2025.
Driven by tourism -- the islands boast pristine beaches and coral reefs -- a textile industry and booming financial sector, the economy expanded at close to four percent in 2018.
| Government Job change - Appoint_Inauguration | December 2019 | ['(Business Standard)'] |
Dozens of people are injured in a petrol bomb attack on a bank in Gansu, northwest China. | Dozens of people have been injured in China in a petrol bomb attack on a bank, state news agency Xinhua reports.
A disgruntled ex-employee at a rural bank in north-west Gansu province is said to have thrown the bomb into the building, reports say. Staff were holding a morning meeting in the bank at the time of the attack.
Initial reports spoke of dozens having been killed - but later reports described no deaths. The government has said the attack was "arson".
The attack took place at about 0800 local time (0000 GMT) at the bank in Wuwei city in Tianzhu Tibetan Autonomous County, local authorities said. The perpetrator was identified as former cashier Yang Xianwen, 39, who was fired last month for "embezzling bank money", reports quoted a government statement as saying.
He fled the scene and a police hunt was reported to be under way. An eyewitness quoted by Xinhua said he saw some people throw themselves out of a fourth-floor window after the blast.
Several people with burns were carried out of the building on stretchers.
Xinhua said police and medical workers were at the scene and the street had been cordoned off.
Xinhua initially said the blast had caused "significant deaths and injuries" but later issued a report saying the fire had led to dozens of injuries but no deaths. About a third of the 210,000 residents in Tianzhu are said to be Tibetan.
China country profile
Deadly blast hits Xinjiang city
Xinjiang man stabs six in street
Xinhua news agency | Riot | May 2011 | ['(BBC)', '(Xinhua)', '(Times of India)'] |
Indian Wells CEO and tennis tournament director Raymond Moore resigns following reactions of outrage, including by top–ranked Serena Williams and retired legend Martina Navratilova, to his comment that top–level women's players rode "on the coattails of the men" and were "very, very lucky" to have equal prize money. This is the event's second controversy involving female players. Serena and her sister Venus boycotted the tournament until 2015 following verbal abuse directed toward the sisters in the 2001 open. | (Reuters) - Raymond Moore has stepped down as CEO and tournament director of the BNP Paribas Open following comments he made about women’s tennis in a move welcomed by the women’s tour.
Moore provoked outrage at the weekend when he said top-level women’s players rode “on the coattails of the men” and were “very, very lucky” to have equal prize money. The tennis world reacted strongly as world number one Serena Williams and all-time great Martina Navratilova rebuffed the statements and the ATP men’s tour formally denounced them. Tournament owner Larry Ellison revealed the departure with a statement that both announced Moore’s resignation and championed the sport’s efforts toward equality. “Nearly half a century ago, Billie Jean King began her historic campaign for the equal treatment of women in tennis,” Ellison said.
“What followed is an ongoing, multi-generational, progressive movement to treat women and men in sports equally. “I’m proud to say that it is now a decade long tradition at our tournament at Indian Wells, and all the major tennis tournaments, to pay equal prize money to both the women and the men.” Among his comments, the 69-year-old South African also highlighted Canada’s Eugenie Bouchard and Spaniard Garbine Muguruza as being among the “very attractive prospects” on the WTA circuit, before explaining that they were “physically attractive and competitively attractive”. “If I was a lady player, I’d go down every night on my knees and thank God that Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal were born, because they have carried this sport,” he said. When reaction to his remarks flooded in, the former ATP Tour player quickly offered an apology but the damage had already been done. Moore had only taken over as tournament director late last year when Steve Simon resigned to become chief executive of the WTA Tour.
Simon said on Tuesday that Moore stepping down was the right decision.
“The BNP Paribas Open has supported the payment of equal prize money to all players since 2009,” he said.
“The WTA looks forward to working with Mr Ellison and the Indian Wells team on continued efforts in making the sport better and equal for all players.”
.
. | Government Job change - Resignation_Dismissal | March 2016 | ['(California)', '(also known as the BNP Paribas Open)', '(Reuters)', '(AFP via The Economic Times)', '(Time)'] |
Saudi police open fire on protesters in Qatif. | CAIRO -- Saudi police opened fire Thursday to disperse a protest in the section where minority Shiites live, leaving at least one man injured, as the government toughened its efforts to prevent a wave of unrest sweeping the Arab world from reaching the kingdom.
The rare violence raised concern about a crackdown ahead of planned protests after Friday prayers in different cities throughout the oil-rich kingdom. Violence there could reverberate through the world's markets because of the importance of Saudi oil exports.
Discord is common between authorities and the country's Shiites, who make up 10 percent of the kingdom's 23 million citizens. They have long complained of discrimination, saying they are barred from key positions in the military and government and are not given an equal share of the country's wealth.
Eyeing rising discontent across the Middle East and North Africa, Saudi authorities are increasingly determined to prevent the unrest from spreading to other cities.
Saudi security forces have deployed around the capital of Riyadh on the eve of planned protests calling for democratic reforms.
Witnesses reported Thursday seeing riot police and special forces with batons and tear gas canisters, particularly around shopping malls and main roads.
The pro-Western monarchy is concerned protests could open footholds for Shiite powerhouse Iran and has accused foreigners of stoking the protests, which are officially forbidden.
Despite the ban and a warning that security forces will act against them, protesters demanding the release of political prisoners took to the streets for a second day in the eastern city of Qatif.
Several hundred protesters, some wearing masks to avoid being identified, marched after dark asking for "Freedom for prisoners."
Police, who were lined up opposite the protesters, fired percussion bombs followed by gunfire, causing the crowd to scatter, a witness said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of government retaliation.
The witness said at least one protester was injured and lifted by others to a car for treatment. It was not clear how the protester was hurt.
A resident, contacting The Associated Press by e-mail, said the Saudi authorities also beat some protesters with clubs. The resident said up to 12 protesters were injured, and some were arrested at the local hospital. | Armed Conflict | March 2011 | ['(AP via The Washington Post)'] |
Model and fashion designer L'Wren Scott is found dead in her New York City apartment. | L'Wren Scott, a designer and the girlfriend of Sir Mick Jagger, has been found dead in her New York City flat.
Scott, 49, was found at 10:00 local time (14:00 GMT) by her assistant.
Police are treating it as a suicide, although the medical examiner has yet to determine an official cause of death.
A spokesman for Sir Mick said the Rolling Stones singer was "completely shocked and devastated" by Scott's death.
The band is currently on tour in Australia.
Scott, born Luann Bambrough, was raised by adoptive parents in the US state of Utah.
She began her career as a model in Paris, then moved to Los Angeles to become a fashion stylist, according to a biography on her company's website.
She and Sir Mick began dating in 2001. She founded her own fashion label in 2006.
Scott's death comes a month after she cancelled a show at London Fashion Week, saying production delays had left key pieces unready for the show.
As news of her death spread, tributes rolled in from around the fashion world.
Fashion website Style.com praised her as "skilled in costume design" and said she was responsible for Sir Mick's performance outfits on the Rolling Stones' current tour.
"Rest in peace, L'Wren Scott. You'll forever be missed," wrote designer Marc Jacobs on Twitter.
Steven Colb, chief executive officer of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, wrote, "So very sad today. L'Wren Scott was such a great talent and beautiful person. My thoughts are with her loved ones." | Famous Person - Death | March 2014 | ['(BBC)'] |
100 people die in anti-government protests in Kyrgyzstan, according to opposition activist Toktoim Umetalieva. |
Thousands of protesters furious over corruption and spiraling utility bills seized government buildings and clashed with police Wednesday in Kyrgyzstan, throwing control of the Central Asian nation into doubt. Police opened fire on demonstrators, killing dozens and wounding hundreds. The eruption of violence shattered the relative stability of this mountainous former Soviet republic, which houses a US military base that is a key supply center in the fight against the Taleban in nearby Afghanistan. The unrest in Kyrgyzstan did not appear likely to spread across former Soviet Central Asia, however. The chaos erupted after elite police at government headquarters in the capital, Bishkek, began shooting to drive back crowds of demonstrators called onto the streets by opposition parties for a day of protest. The crowds took control of the state TV building and looted it, then marched toward the Interior Ministry, according to Associated Press reporters on the scene, before changing direction and attacking a national security building nearby. They were repelled by security forces. The leader of the main opposition party said on the former state television channel that he had formed a new government and was negotiating with the president and demanding he step down. Government officials could not immediately be reached for comment on the claim. Dozens of wounded demonstrators lined the corridors of one of Bishkek's main hospitals, a block away from the main square, where doctors were unable to cope with the flood of patients. Weeping nurses slumped over dead bodies, doctors shouted at each other and the floors were covered in blood. Kyrgyzstan's Health Ministry said 40 people had died and more than 400 were wounded in clashes with police. Opposition activist Toktoim Umetalieva said at least 100 people had died after police opened fire with live ammunition. Opposition activist Shamil Murat told the AP that Interior Minister Moldomusa Kongatiyev had been beaten to death by a mob in the western town of Talas where the unrest began a day ago. The respected Fergana.ru Web site reported later that Kongatiyev was badly beaten but had not died, saying its own reporter had witnessed the beating. The unrest began Tuesday in the western city of Talas, where demonstrators stormed a government office and held a governor hostage, prompting a government warning of “severe” repercussions for continuing unrest. The opposition called nationwide protests for Wednesday, vowing to defy increasingly authoritarian President Kurmanbek Bakiyev. Since coming to power in 2005 on a wave of street protests known as the Tulip Revolution, Bakiyev has ensured a measure of stability, but many observers say he has done so at the expense of democratic standards while enriching himself and his family. Over the past two years, Kyrgyz authorities have clamped down on free media, and opposition activists say they have routinely been subjected to physical intimidation and targeted by politically motivated criminal investigations. Many of the opposition leaders once were allies of Bakiyev. Anti-government forces have been in disarray until recently, but widespread anger over a 200 percent hike in electricity and heating gas bills has galvanized the fractious opposition. Police in Bishkek at first used rubber bullets, tear gas, water cannons and concussion grenades Wednesday to try to control crowds of young men clad in black who were chasing police officers, beating them up and seizing their arms, trucks and armored personnel carriers. Some protesters then tried to use a personnel carrier to ram the gates of the government headquarters, known as the White House. Many of the protesters threw rocks, but about a half dozen young protesters shot Kalashnikovs into the air from the square in front of the building. “We don't want this rotten power!” protester Makhsat Talbadyev said, as he and others in Bishkek waved opposition party flags and chanted: “Bakiyev out!” Some 200 elite police began firing, pushing the crowd back from the government headquarters. The president was not seen in public Wednesday and his whereabouts were unclear. Protesters set fire to the prosecutor general's office in the city center, and a giant plume of black smoke billowed into the sky. Groups of protesters then set out across Bishkek, attacking more government buildings. At least 10 opposition leaders were arrested overnight and were being held at the security headquarters in Bishkek, opposition lawmaker Irina Karamushkina said. One of them, Temir Sariyev, was freed Wednesday by protesters. The US State Department called for peace and restraint on both sides. The prime minister, meanwhile, accused the opposition of provoking the violence in the country of 5 million people. “What kind of opposition is this? They are just bandits,” Prime Minister Daniyar Usenov said. Unrest also broke out for a second day in the western town of Talas and spread to the southern city of Naryn. Some 5,000 protesters seized Naryn's regional administration building and installed a new governor, opposition activist Adilet Eshenov said. At least four people were wounded in clashes, including the regional police chief, he said. Another 10,000 protesters stormed police headquarters Wednesday in Talas, where on Tuesday protesters had held the regional governor hostage in his office. The protesters beat up the interior minister, Kongatiyev, and forced him to call his subordinates in Bishkek and call off the crackdown on protesters, a correspondent for the local affiliate of US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty said. Witnesses said the crowd in Talas looted police headquarters Wednesday, removing computers and furniture. Dozens of police officers left the building and mingled with protesters. In the eastern region of Issyk-Kul, protesters seized the regional administration building and declared they installed their governor, the Ata-Meken opposition party said on its Web site. Hundreds of protesters overran the government building Tuesday on Talas' main square. They were initially dispersed by baton-wielding police, but then fought through tear gas and flash grenades to regroup, burning police cars and hurling stones and Molotov cocktails. Usenov said Tuesday's violence in Talas had left 85 officers injured and 15 unaccounted for. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who met with Bakiyev in Kyrgyzstan on Sunday, arrived in Moscow on Wednesday at the end of a trip to several Central Asian nations. “The secretary-general is shocked by the reported deaths and injuries that have occurred today in Kyrgyzstan,” UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said. “He once again calls on all concerned to show restraint. He urgently appeals for dialogue and calm to avoid further bloodshed.” The leaders of the four other former Soviet republics in the region were certain to be watching events in Bishkek with concern, but the authoritarian, and in some cases dictatorial, natures of their governments would likely allow them to squash any attempts to challenge their rules. In Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, people have been too terrified to challenge Stalinist-style governments. In Tajikistan, the legacy of a 1990s civil war has made people wary of conflict. Immediate unrest also appeared unlikely in energy-rich Kazakhstan, where politically apathy is combined with a weak opposition. After the March 2005 protests that brought Bakiyev to power, some hoped that the democracy he then promised to bring to Kyrgyzstan would spread to the other former Soviet republics in the region. But those countries responded by clamping down further, equating democracy with regime change. Just two months later, in May 2005, the Uzbek government brutally suppressed an uprising in the city of Andijan. | Protest_Online Condemnation | April 2010 | ['(Arab News)'] |
Somalia: 8 men were sentenced to death today for the murder of British Aid workers Richard and Enid Eyeington in Somaliland in October 2003. SOS | A judge in Somaliland has sentenced 8 people to death for the murder of SOS workers, Dick and Enid Eyeington. The British couple, who had spent forty years teaching in Africa but had been working at the SOS School in Sheikh for just under a year, were murdered in their own home in an unprovoked attack in October 2003. The couple moved from County Durham to Swaziland in 1963 and began working at the Waterford Kamhlaba School in 1971. They joined SOS Children in Swaziland in 1995, where Dick was National Coordinator and Enid worked on community outreach projects for AIDS sufferers. In 2003 they moved to the organisation’s school in Sheik, Somaliland, where they were working on developing a new library for the school. Throughout their teaching in Africa the Eyeingtons had fostered an ethos of egalitarianism, creating a school environment that encouraged tolerance and vigorous debate; ANC and United Democratic Front speakers were brought from South Africa. 20 October marked the second anniversary of the couple’s deaths and a memorial service was held at the SOS School in Sheikh, attended by school staff and students, members of the local community and representatives of the Somaliland government. Led by dignitaries from the Somaliland government including the Minister of State for the Interior, those present observed a minute's silence before speaker after speaker condemned the murders of Dick and Enid Eyeington. School principal, Mohammed Omer, read the eulogy while elders from the Sheikh community gave speeches, describing the Eyeingtons as generous and kind people who were conscious of community development. The power generator and the clean piped water supply are just two examples of the projects they undertook for the benefit of the community. The Mayor of Sheikh closed the ceremony with a passionate appeal to well wishers to help the school in honour of the late Eyeingtons, so that the developments they had initiated could be realised. In the evening, a football match in honour of Dick and Enid was played in the school playground between a community team and students from the Sheikh school. The 'Eyeingtons Cup' was presented to the winning community team. On presenting the cup, the principal, Mohamed Omer said, "Dick being a great footballer and coach deserves a football match in his honour and this will be our tradition from now on." Eight men were convicted and sentenced to death and seven others given life sentences for their part in the murder of the Eyeingtons at the court in Hargeisa, capital of Somaliland on Monday.
. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Sentence | November 2005 | ['(BBC)'] |
Following treatment, a 2–year–old Mississippi girl born with the HIV/AIDS virus is pronounced to be HIV negative. | Doctors in the US have made medical history by effectively curing a child born with HIV, the first time such a case has been documented.
The infant, who is now two and a half, needs no medication for HIV, has a normal life expectancy and is highly unlikely to be infectious to others, doctors believe.
Though medical staff and scientists are unclear why the treatment was effective, the surprise success has raised hopes that the therapy might ultimately help doctors eradicate the virus among newborns.
Doctors did not release the name or sex of the child to protect the patient's identity, but said the infant was born, and lived, in Mississippi state. Details of the case were unveiled on Sunday at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Atlanta.
Dr Hannah Gay, who cared for the child at the University of Mississippi medical centre, told the Guardian the case amounted to the first "functional cure" of an HIV-infected child. A patient is functionally cured of HIV when standard tests are negative for the virus, but it is likely that a tiny amount remains in their body.
"Now, after at least one year of taking no medicine, this child's blood remains free of virus even on the most sensitive tests available," Gay said.
"We expect that this baby has great chances for a long, healthy life. We are certainly hoping that this approach could lead to the same outcome in many other high-risk babies," she added.
The number of babies born with HIV in developed countries has fallen dramatically with the advent of better drugs and prevention strategies. Typically, women with HIV are given antiretroviral drugs during pregnancy to minimise the amount of virus in their blood. Their newborns go on courses of drugs too, to reduce their risk of infection further. The strategy can stop around 98% of HIV transmission from mother to child.
In the UK and Ireland, around 1,200 children are living with HIV they picked up in the womb, during birth, or while being breastfed. If an infected mother's placenta is healthy, the virus tends not to cross into the child earlier in pregnancy, but can in labour and delivery.
The problem is far more serious in developing countries. In sub-Saharan Africa, around 387,500 children aged 14 and under were receiving antiretroviral therapy in 2010. Many were born with the infection. Nearly 2 million more children of the same age in the region are in need of the drugs.
In the latest case, the mother was unaware she had HIV until after a standard test came back positive while she was in labour. "She was too near delivery to give even the dose of medicine that we routinely use in labour. So the baby's risk of infection was significantly higher than we usually see," said Gay.
Doctors began treating the baby 30 hours after birth. Unusually, they put the child on a course of three antiretroviral drugs, given as liquids through a syringe. The traditional treatment to try to prevent transmission after birth is a course of a single antiretroviral drug. The doctor opted for the more aggressive treatment because the mother had not received any during her pregnancy.
Several days later, blood drawn from the baby before treatment started showed the child was infected, probably shortly before birth. The doctors continued with the drugs and expected the child to take them for life.
However, within a month of starting therapy, the level of HIV in the baby's blood had fallen so low that routine lab tests failed to detect it.
The mother and baby continued regular clinic visits to the clinic for the next year, but then began to miss appointments, and eventually stopped attending all together. The child had no medication from the age of 18 months, and did not see doctors again until it was nearly two years old.
"We did not see this child at all for a period of about five months," Gay told the Guardian. "When they did return to care aged 23 months, I fully expected that the baby would have a high viral load."
When the mother and child arrived back at the clinic, Gay ordered several HIV tests, and expected the virus to have returned to high levels. But she was stunned by the results. "All of the tests came back negative, very much to my surprise," she said.
The case was so extraordinary, Dr Gay called a colleague, Katherine Luzuriaga, an immunologist at Massachusetts Medical School, who with another scientist, Deborah Persaud at Johns Hopkins Children's Centre in Baltimore, had far more sensitive blood tests to hand. They checked the baby's blood and found traces of HIV, but no viruses that were capable of multiplying.
The team believe the child was cured because the treatment was so potent and given swiftly after birth. The drugs stopped the virus from replicating in short-lived, active immune cells, but another effect was crucial. The drugs also blocked the infection of other, long-lived white blood cells, called CD4, which can harbour HIV for years. These CD4 cells behave like hideouts, and can replace HIV that is lost when active immune cells die.
The treatment would not work in older children or adults because the virus will have already infected their CD4 cells.
"Prompt antiviral therapy in newborns that begins within days of exposure may help infants clear the virus and achieve long-term remission without lifelong treatment by preventing such viral hideouts from forming in the first place," said Dr Persaud. "Our next step is to find out if this is a highly unusual response to very early antiretroviral therapy or something we can actually replicate in other high-risk newborns."
Children infected with HIV are given antiretroviral drugs with the intent to treat them for life, and Gay warned that anyone who takes the drugs must remain on them.
"It is far too early for anyone to try stopping effective therapy just to see if the virus comes back," she said.
Until scientists better understand how they cured the child, Gay emphasised that prevention is the most reliable way to stop babies contracting the virus from infected mothers. "Prevention really is the best cure, and we already have proven strategies that can prevent 98% of newborn infections by identifying and treating HIV-positive women," she said.
Genevieve Edwards, a spokesperson for the Terrence Higgins Trust HIV/Aids charity, said: "This is an interesting case, but I don't think it has implications for the antenatal screening programme in the UK, because it already takes steps to ensure that 98% to 99% of babies born to HIV-positive mothers are born without HIV." | Famous Person - Sick | March 2013 | ['(CBS)', '(The Guardian)', '(BBC)', '(CNN)'] |
Flooding in Indonesia's Aceh and North Sumatra provinces has killed up to 80 people. More than 100,000 people have been forced out of their homes. | At least 80 people have died following heavy rains in recent days and hundreds more are still missing.
In the worst-affected districts of Aceh and North Sumatra, whole villages have been inundated, with residents left stranded on higher ground. About 1,000 soldiers have been sent, along with food, blankets, tents and other emergency supplies.
The BBC's Lucy Williamson in Jakarta says the focus is now on evacuating those still trapped.
The governor of Aceh province said military ships and helicopters have been deployed to deliver aid and rescue people from remote areas.
More than 100,000 people have been forced from their homes across northern Sumatra.
Tens of thousands are now living in government shelters.
Others are camping out in mosques or with friends.
Rain has now stopped falling over the affected regions.
Heavy flooding is an annual problem in Indonesia.
However, officials say the damage has been made worse by illegal logging which leaves the country's coastline exposed. | Floods | December 2006 | ['(BBC)'] |
Mikheil Saakashvili is arrested again by the National Police of Ukraine. He was on the run since December 5. He has been leading anti-corruption rallies against Petro Poroshenko. | Former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has been detained in Ukraine's capital Kiev, days after his supporters freed him from a police van.
Mr Saakashvili, who in 2015-16 served as regional governor in Ukraine under President Petro Poroshenko, has been leading anti-corruption rallies against his former ally. On Tuesday, he was dragged from his home in Kiev and arrested.
He has been calling for Mr Poroshenko's impeachment since his first arrest.
The authorities responded by giving him a deadline of 24 hours to hand himself in.
Mr Saakashvili is accused of receiving financing from a criminal group linked to ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.
His detention was part of an operation "to disrupt a plan of revenge of pro-Kremlin forces in Ukraine", Ukraine's Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko said on Tuesday.
Prosecutors released audio and video recordings which they say proved he had received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the criminal group.
Mr Saakashvili said the recordings were fake.
If found guilty, he could face up to five years in jail.
Mr Saakashvili also faces the threat of extradition to Georgia, where he is wanted on corruption charges. He says the accusations are politically motivated.
He was governor of the southern Odessa region for 18 months after being appointed by Mr Poroshenko in 2015. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | December 2017 | ['(RTL Nieuws)', '(BBC)'] |
Authorities in Mumbai investigate the sudden death last weekend of the renowned Bollywood film–maker Yash Chopra, who was earlier thought to have died from dengue fever. | Authorities in the Indian city of Mumbai have announced a probe into whether top Bollywood filmmaker, Yash Chopra, died from dengue fever.
Chopra, 80, died on Sunday at Lilavati hospital and doctors blamed the death on the disease.
Top Bollywood stars and film-makers attended Yash Chopra's cremation on Monday.
Over five decades, Chopra, dubbed the King of Romance, gave Bollywood some of its biggest blockbusters. Senior officials of the city municipal corporation are reviewing Chopra's death "to ascertain the exact cause", the Press Trust of India quoted an official as saying.
The civic authorities have also asked to see the records at the Lilavati hospital in suburban Bandra, where Chopra was admitted on 13 October after being diagnosed with dengue, the official said.
Health officials say October is the worst month for the spread of the dengue virus and recently India's Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said that every dengue death should be audited.
Chopra's film studios, Yash Raj Films, helped establish some of Indian cinema's biggest names, including Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan.
Both Bachchan and Khan attended the private funeral held at a crematorium in the city.
Chopra's body had earlier been kept for public viewing in a studio at the production house he set up in the 1970s. Almost all the big names from the industry and hundreds of fans were allowed to pay their last respects.
Tributes have poured in from within and outside the film industry.
In his tribute, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh described Chopra as an "icon of Indian cinema" and said that he had entertained many generations "with his rare creativity". Chopra started his film career working for his brother before establishing Yash Raj Films and going on to produce more than 40 movies - 22 of them as director. He was behind major hits including Waqt (Time), Deewar (Wall), Dil to pagal hai (Heart is mad) and Chandni (Moonlight).
Dilwale dulhaniya le jayenge (The big hearted will take the bride), which Chopra produced and his son Aditya directed, is the longest-running movie in India and is still packing in the crowds in Mumbai cinema halls after more than 18 years.
On his birthday last month, he said Jab tak hai jaan (Till I am alive) - being released next month - would be his last film as a director. In pictures: Bollywood legend Yash Chopra
Bollywood icon Yash Chopra dies, aged 80
Bollywood romcom still showing
Yash Raj Films
UN calls for end of arms sales to Myanmar
In a rare move, the UN condemns the overthrowing of Aung San Suu Kyi and calls for an arms embargo.
The ethnic armies training Myanmar's protesters. VideoThe ethnic armies training Myanmar's protesters
Tokyo Olympics: No fans is 'least risky' option
Asia's Covid stars struggle with exit strategies
Why residents of these paradise islands are furious
The Gurkha veterans fighting for Covid care. VideoThe Gurkha veterans fighting for Covid care
Troubled US teens left traumatised by tough love camps
Why doesn't North Korea have enough food?
Le Pen set for regional power with eye on presidency
How the Delta variant took hold in the UK. VideoHow the Delta variant took hold in the UK | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Investigate | October 2012 | ['(BBC)'] |
Acting on a tipoff about a planned attack, authorities in Shariff Aguak detain two suspected would-be bombers and disable an improvised explosive device. | MAGUINDANAO, Philippines A group of vigilant residents in Shariff Aguak shall receive incentives for preventing what could have been a bloody bomb attack in the municipality on Friday night.
Two of the four men who were to carry out the plot were arrested immediately by civilian volunteers led by Shariff Aguak Vice Mayor Hadji Akmad Ampatuan, acting on a tip by watchful constituents.
Esmael Abdulkarim, 44and his 52-year-old accomplice, Boy Kamid, are now in the custody of the Shariff Aguak municipal police, undergoing tactical questioning on their group affiliation and their real motive for the botched bombing.
Major Gen. Arnel Dela Vega of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division saidSaturdaybomb disposal experts had promptly deactivated the improvised explosive device the two men and their companions laid near a roadside security outpost of volunteer community watchmen helping authorities guard the municipality from Islamic State-Inspired militants.
Shariff Aguak’s vice mayor and barangay tanods who cornered the fleeing Abdulkarim and Kamid after a brief chase recovered from them a .45 caliber pistol and a fragmentation grenade.
More than a dozen police and Army personnel have been wounded in recent roadside bombings by the outlawed Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters in Shariff Aguak and nearby towns in the second district of Maguindanao.
Ampatuan, a first-termer vice mayor, said he will provide the villagers who informed him about the plan to set off an IED in Shariff Aguak with earnest cash incentives as a reward.
“They are not asking for anything in exchange for the good work. What they did was something first ever in the history of this municipality. We have to reciprocate,” he said in Filipinoon Saturdaymorning.
Ampatuan declined to identify the informants for security reasons.
Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu, chairman of the inter-agency provincial peace and order council, said he is ready to give monetary incentives to them too.
“That was a noble act that deserves recognition from me too. I am a survivor of several attempts on my life using IED,” Mangudadatu said.
He said he wants the now detained Abdulkarim and Kamid prosecuted to the fullest extent of law.
It is fear of getting locked in a rido, which means vendetta feud, that discourages residents of Maguindanao’s 36 towns to openly help in government efforts to address the spread of misguided Islamic militancy in conflict flashpoint areas in the province. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | April 2018 | ['(Philstar Global)'] |
At least five people are killed and 21 others injured in a stampede at a rap concert in Algiers, Algeria. | At least five people have been killed in a stampede at a rap concert in the Algerian capital.
Thousands had gathered at a stadium in Algiers to see rapper Abderraouf Derradji, better known as Soolking, perform when a stampede is said to have broken out at one of the entrances. Twenty-one people were injured in the stampede and taken to hospital, medical sources told local media outlets.
The concert then went ahead and was carried live on Algerian TV.
Local news site TSA reported that of the five young people killed, three were male and two female. Video footage posted on social media showed medics carrying a person believed to be a victim of the stampede on a stretcher outside the stadium. A journalist who was at the concert, Linda Chebbah, told BBC Newsday that from the beginning it looked like something was wrong. "There were way too many people for this stadium. On the pitch, people were jostling for space. There were so many people at the concert, that I'm not surprised an accident happened."
| Riot | August 2019 | ['(BBC)'] |
Prosecutor General of Tajikistan, Yusuf Rakhmon, announces the arrest of 113 alleged members of the Muslim Brotherhood. | DUSHANBE (Reuters) - Tajikistan has arrested 113 people charged with being members of Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist organization outlawed in the Central Asian nation, Prosecutor General Yusuf Rakhmon said on Tuesday.
Among those arrested over the course of this month were two foreigners, one municipal official, and more than 20 university professors, he told a briefing.
The government of the predominantly Muslim ex-Soviet republic has been cracking down on Islamist opposition in recent years, banning the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan and accusing its leadership of plotting a coup.
Tajikistan has also blamed Islamists, and the ultra hardline Islamic State militant group in particular, for a series of deadly attack on foreign tourists and local prison staff and border guards.
The Brotherhood, founded more than 90 years ago in Egypt, has survived repeated crackdowns at home and has a network of groups across the Middle East and beyond, some directly linked to the Egyptian organization and others more loosely affiliated.
Its founder Hassan al-Banna called for a religious revival and the establishment of a caliphate under sharia law.
The Brotherhood’s opponents, including several autocratic Arab states, say it is a dangerous terrorist group which must be crushed. The movement says it publicly renounced violence decades ago and pursues an Islamist vision using peaceful means.
Reporting by Nazarali Pirnazarov; Writing by Olzhas Auyezov, Editing by William Maclean
| Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | January 2020 | ['(Reuters)'] |
UEFA postpones the Euro 2020 association football tournament until summer 2021 in response to the coronavirus pandemic in Europe. | UEFA postpones flagship tournament, scheduled to begin on June 12, to "help domestic competitions, currently on hold due to the COVID-19 emergency, to be completed"
Wednesday 18 March 2020 16:40, UK
UEFA has postponed Euro 2020 until the summer of 2021 amid the coronavirus pandemic, with a commitment to complete European leagues and UEFA competitions by June 30.
The news was first confirmed by the Norwegian FA on social media, with UEFA later proposing the competition will be played between June 11 and July 11, 2021.
Those dates were unanimously confirmed during a FIFA Council conference call on Wednesday and included on the 2021 calendar along with new dates for Copa America. A decision over the FIFA Club World Cup, scheduled to take place during that window, will be taken at a later date.
The playoffs for Euro 2020, which will include the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, have also been postponed.
The semi-finals were originally set to take place on March 26 with the finals on March 31. Those fixtures have instead now been postponed until June.
UEFA said in a statement: "UEFA today announced the postponement of its flagship national team competition, UEFA Euro 2020, due to be played in June and July this year.
"The health of all those involved in the game is the priority, as well as to avoid placing any unnecessary pressure on national public services involved in staging matches. The move will help all domestic competitions, currently on hold due to the COVID-19 emergency, to be completed.
"All UEFA competitions and matches (including friendlies) for clubs and national teams for both men and women have been put on hold until further notice.
"The UEFA Euro 2020 Play-off matches and international friendlies, scheduled for the end of March, will now be played in the international window at the start of June, subject to a review of the situation.
"A working group has been set up with the participation of leagues and club representatives to examine calendar solutions that would allow for the completion of the current season and any other consequence of the decisions made today."
A subsequent statement from UEFA also included a "commitment to complete all domestic and European club competitions by the end of the current sporting season, i.e. 30 June 2020 at the latest, should the situation improve and resuming playing be appropriate and prudent enough."
Other changes could also see the scheduling of domestic league matches in midweek, with UEFA club competitions matches being played on weekends.
The statement also referenced possible "adaptations of the 2020/21 UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League qualifying rounds in case of late completion of the 2019/20 sporting season, i.e. after 30 June 2020. "
Opt in and bet £25 or more before 23:59 on Sunday. Free bets credited by 7pm on Monday.
Domestic competitions across Europe were due to be finished before Euro 2020, which was to be held in 12 different cities, began on June 12.
However, leagues across the continent have been halted in response to the coronavirus outbreak, which has seen more than 169,000 people become infected around the world.
The World Health Organisation says Europe is now the epicentre of the pandemic, which originated in China.
UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin admitted the decision to postpone Euro 2020 by 12 months would be costly for UEFA but said he is determined that funding for grassroots football in its 55 member nations would not be affected by it.
"The health of fans, staff and players has to be our number one priority and in that spirit, UEFA tabled a range of options so that competitions can finish this season safely and I am proud of the response of my colleagues across European football," Ceferin said.
"There was a real spirit of co-operation, with everyone recognising that they had to sacrifice something in order to achieve the best result.
"It was important that, as the governing body of European football, UEFA led the process and made the biggest sacrifice.
"Moving EURO 2020 comes at a huge cost for UEFA but we will do our best to ensure that the vital funding for grassroots, women's football and the development of the game in our 55 countries is not affected. Purpose over profit has been our guiding principle in taking this decision for the good of European football as a whole."
Also on Tuesday, the 2020 Copa America was postponed until the summer of 2021 due to the coronavirus. The tournament had been due to take place in Colombia and Argentina between June 12 and July 12 of this year.
Sky Sports News chief reporter Bryan Swanson...
The scale and speed of the spread of coronavirus has stunned European football administrators. Only two weeks ago it was barely discussed as all 55 associations gathered in Amsterdam for UEFA Congress and the Nations League draw.
The virus was referenced "in minutes" by UEFA's top committee, as some officials in hotels joked about whether to shake people's hands.
"The focus was obviously not on coronavirus," said UEFA executive Alexey Sorokin bluntly, as St Petersburg continued its preparations to host four games including a quarter-final.
"We already reserved the hotels, it would be a problem if it doesn't happen," smiled UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin, in an interview with Sky Sports News, when asked about the semi-finals at final at Wembley.
Ceferin acknowledged his organisation was "taking it seriously" and stressed the need for a calm approach.
"The situation is stable" was the reassuring tone from organisers. But how could officials be so optimistic? Even medical experts had no idea exactly what would happen.
Rapid, deadly, developments forced the game to seriously reconsider its approach. Suddenly, players and coaches tested positive, teams were affected, competitions were suspended, travel restrictions were put in place and European countries were placed into lockdown.
The postponement of Euro 2020 is no surprise - it was impossible to provide any certainty on venues in such an uncertain climate. Financial penalties, logistical challenges and fixture congestion are conversations for another day.
This is a seismic moment in the history of football but the game knows, and understands, that public health must always remain the number one priority in these extraordinary times. | Sports Competition | March 2020 | ['(Sky Sports)'] |
The death toll from the suicide bombing of a cafe in the Diyala Governorate near Baghdad, Iraq reaches 22. | BAGHDAD, Oct 29 (Reuters) - The number of people killed when a suicide bomber attacked an Iraqi cafe northeast of Baghdad on Friday reached 22, with more than 45 injured, a provincial official said.
Muthana al-Timimi, head of the security committee of the Diyala provincial council, said there might have been a second attack by another suicide bomber on the hospital where the wounded from the cafe blast were taken. Other officials could not confirm the second explosion. | Armed Conflict | October 2010 | ['(Reuters)'] |
Former Lesotho First Lady Maesiah Thabane is arrested on charges of murder. Her husband, former Lesotho Prime Minister Tom Thabane, is also accused of murder but not formally charged. | MASERU (Reuters) - Lesotho’s former first lady, Maesaiah Thabane, was arrested on Wednesday over the murder of the previous wife of her husband and former prime minister, Thomas Thabane, police said.
Lesotho’s Appeal Court revoked her bail last week on suspicion that procedure was not followed correctly when her bail was granted.
Thabane was transferred to court, where she wore a fur coat and black protective anti-coronavirus mask, a Reuters witness said.
The date for a new bail application was set as June 6.
Maesaiah Thabane has been charged with ordering the killing of Lipolelo Thabane, her love rival, who was shot dead near her home in Lesotho’s capital, Maseru, in June, 2017. Maesaiah Thabane was released on bail in February.
Lipolelo was estranged from Thomas Thabane at the time of the murder.
The case had been causing growing political instability in the independent mountain kingdom of 2 million people encircled by South Africa before Thomas Thabane resigned as prime minister last month.
He is also a suspect in the murder. He denies any involvement and has yet to be formally charged.
Writing by Tim Cocks; Editing by Toby Chopra and Timothy Heritage
. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | June 2020 | ['(Reuters)'] |
At least six Britons from Manchester and Glasgow are killed in a bus crash in Saudi Arabia while they were on pilgrimage. | At least six people from Manchester and Glasgow, including a baby aged about two months, killed on pilgrimage
First published on Thu 19 Jan 2017 13.43 GMT
At least six British citizens have been killed in a minibus crash in Saudi Arabia, the Foreign Office has said.
Reports that a seventh person was also killed have not been confirmed. It is understood the dead include four people from Manchester and a married couple from Glasgow. A baby aged about two months is thought to be one of the victims from Manchester.
Glasgow central mosque named the Scottish victims as 72-year-old Mohammad Aslam and 62-year-old Talat Aslam, parents of five children, from the Newlands area of the city. The Manchester victims are thought to include a grandmother and her newborn grandson.
The bus was carrying 12 passengers, all thought to be family and friends, between Mecca and Medina when it crashed on Wednesday afternoon. The Manchester-based tour operator Haji Tours, which organised the trip, said the group was performing Umrah, a pilgrimage made by Muslims to Mecca.
The baby’s mother and her two other children are understood to have been critically injured in the accident, and were taken to Medina hospital for treatment. The driver of the minibus survived. A spokesman for Haji Tours, which is arranging for family members to travel to Saudi Arabia as soon as possible, said: “We are sharing our sorrow with the family affected. “We hope God forgives them and gives them the best place possible in paradise. We share our grief with them and give them courage at this terrible time.”
A Foreign Office spokesman said: “We are supporting the families of six British people who have sadly died following a road accident in Saudi Arabia. We are also helping several more British nationals who were injured in the crash. Our thoughts are with the victims and their families at this very difficult time.”
Mohammad Arif, director of the tour operator, said the group had been travelling in a 14-seater 2016 Toyota Hiace, operated by a Saudi company, when one of the vehicle’s tyres burst on the motorway 90 miles from Medina city.
Members of the Glasgow family said they had been informed by Saudi Arabian authorities that the driver of the bus fell asleep at the wheel.
Arif said his company – which provides package tours for Muslims wishing to go on a pilgrimage to Mecca – had arranged the whole trip, including visas, accommodation and transportation and had been in constant contact with the Saudi authorities about the accident.
The group on the tour is thought to have included four sisters and their families. Two of the sisters are understood to have died, while the other two have survived. Of the victims from Manchester, one is thought to be the baby boy, one a man aged 64, and the other two women aged 49 and 66. “We are very, very sorry for them. It is a big loss for the family. We have no words, no words. This was an accident,” said Arif.
Speaking to the Manchester Evening news, Nadesh Ikbal, whose mother was injured in the crash, said about 20 of his family members from Manchester would be travelling to Medina on Thursday night.
“My mother has lost two sisters in the crash. Her other sister, my auntie, has also been injured,” he said. “A child, who is almost two months old, has died and his mother is in hospital with her other two children.
“We are flying out to Medina as soon as we can. As a family we need as much help as possible at this terrible time.”
Glasgow central mosque released a statement paying tribute to Mohammad and Talat Aslam. “Mr Mohammad Aslam and Mrs Talat Aslam, of Glasgow, the parents of Shehla, Saba, Omar, Osman and Haroon, have returned to the mercy of Allah,” it read.
“On Wednesday 18 January they had just completed Umrah and were travelling in a minibus to visit our beloved prophet’s masjid in Medina. Tragically they were involved in a fatal accident. Four members of another family from Manchester were also killed in this tragedy.”
Stewart McDonald, the Aslam’s local MP in the Glasgow South , said he was very sorry to hear of the death of two of his constituents. “I’m in touch with the Foreign Office to ensure that their family are being given all the assistance they need,” he said.
“I’m sure fellow southsiders will want to send their sympathies and best wishes to the family at this incredibly sad and difficult time.”
The Aslams are listed as directors of Universal Investments (Scotland) Limited, which rents and operates Housing Association real estate. One relative, thought to be a niece of the couple, wrote on Facebook that the couple had been “so full of life”. “Sadly Aunty Talat Aslam and Uncle Aslam have left this world,” she said. | Road Crash | January 2017 | ['(The Guardian)'] |
Englishman Neil Entwistle is appealing his murder conviction of his wife and daughter in Massachusetts, USA. | A British man serving a life sentence in the US for murdering his wife and baby daughter at their Massachusetts home has filed an appeal against his conviction.
Neil Entwistle, 32, was jailed in June 2008 for shooting Rachel, 27, and nine-month-old Lillian in Hopkinton on 20 January 2006.
He is now arguing he should receive a new trial because police searched his home without a warrant when they came to check on the wellbeing of his family.
In his appeal brief filed at the state's supreme judicial court, his lawyer Stephen Paul Maidman argued that evidence taken from the home was seized illegally.
Maidman argues in the appeal that two searches were done without warrants and that the evidence seized as a result should have been suppressed during Entwistle's trial.
"The two warrantless entries into the defendant's house by the police violated the federal and state constitutions," he wrote in the brief.
But prosecutors have said police were justified in entering the home because they were responding to the pleas of concerned relatives and friends.
They say Entwistle had become despondent after accumulating tens of thousands of dollars in debt and had complained about his sex life with his wife.
Entwistle's lawyer also argues that judge Diane Kottmyer did not thoroughly question potential jurors to determine whether they were biased against Entwistle after the case received intense local and international news coverage.
"That there was extraordinary prejudicial pre-trial publicity in this case that was both saturating and inflammatory, by Massachusetts and even national standards, cannot be legitimately disputed," Maidman wrote in the appeal.
Kottmyer denied Entwistle's request to move the trial out of Middlesex county.
"The defendant is entitled to a new trial utilising a jury selection process where there can be no question that the seated jurors are fair and impartial," Maidman wrote.
Middlesex district attorney Gerry Leone, whose office prosecuted Entwistle, said he received a "true and just" trial however.
"The crimes committed by Neil Entwistle against his wife Rachel and daughter Lillian Rose are to be condemned as horrific and unspeakable acts," Leone said in a statement.
"He received a commendable defence and a fair and just trial under our laws."
Entwistle, a former IT consultant from Kilton, Worksop, left the US the day after the killings and later told police he had departed because he wanted to be consoled by his parents in the UK.
He said he found his wife and daughter cuddled together in bed, dead of apparent gunshot wounds, after he returned home from running errands.
Friends giving evidence said that the couple appeared to have had a happy marriage and were both thrilled with their daughter.
Entwistle was sentenced at Middlesex county superior court in Woburn, Massachusetts, for what Kottmyer described as "incomprehensible" crimes.
She imposed a 10-year probation sentence for two firearms offences and ordered that Entwistle should not profit from his crimes by writing a book. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | June 2011 | ['(Guardian.co.uk)'] |
Incumbent Governor Neil Abercrombie loses to challenger David Ige, becoming the first sitting Governor to be defeated in a primary election. Ige, a Democrat, will face Republican Duke Aiona and independent Mufi Hannemann in the gubernatorial general election. | HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - For the first time in Hawaii history, a sitting governor has lost a primary election to a challenger from within their own party.
By 9:45 p.m., the Neil Abercrombie banner was coming down and the cleanup crew was hard at work packing up the campaign party at Ward Warehouse. The incumbent lost by more than 37 percent of the vote by the third printout. In his concession speech, he said despite his shortcomings, he always gave it his best.
"Faith and trust has been placed in me, and I've tried to honor that faith and trust. Whatever shortcomings I have, whatever faults I have, I can guarantee you one has never been a failure to give all I can every day I can for Hawaii," said Gov. Neil Abercrombie.
In his first term as Governor, he made a lot of tough decisions and in the process upset quite a few groups including the religious right, teachers, nurses and the elderly.
He now becomes the first Governor in Hawaii history to lose his bid for reelection in the primary.
At 76 years old, his future career remains unclear. He says he will take some time to reflect on his past 40 years of public service.
Ige and Shan Tsutsui will run together in high-profile general election that will feature former lieutenant governor Duke Aiona and Elwin Ahu on the Republican ticket, as well as Mufi Hannemann and Les Chang as Independents. | Government Job change - Election | August 2014 | ['(Hawaii News Now)'] |
Former Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Olmert is sentenced to eight months in jail following a conviction on corruption charges for unlawfully accepting multiple envelopes with cash from an American supporter. There are 3 more criminals prosecutions against him. , | A court in Jerusalem has sentenced the former Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, to eight months in prison for fraud and breach of trust. He was convicted at a retrial in March of accepting illegal payments from an American businessman while he served as mayor of Jerusalem and trade minister. Last year, he was sentenced to six years in prison for accepting bribes.
Olmert has denied any wrongdoing and will remain free until his appeals against both convictions are heard. A Supreme Court decision on the first appeal is expected in the next couple of months.
If he is unsuccessful OImert will become the first former head of government in Israel to be jailed.
Olmert served as prime minister from 2006 to 2009. He was forced to resign amid a flurry corruption allegations, which ended his political career and disrupted the peace process with the Palestinians. In 2012, Olmert was acquitted of fraud, concealing fraudulent earnings and breach of trust in connection with donations received from a New York-based financier, Morris Talansky between 1997 and 2005.
However, a retrial was ordered after a former aide, Shula Zaken, accepted a plea bargain and testified against Olmert. Ms Zaken gave prosecutors diary entries and tape recordings of conversations in which Olmert referred to receiving the money.
Olmert was found guilty of fraud and breach of trust in March and on Monday was sentenced to eight months in jail. He was also given a suspended sentence of an additional eight months and fined 100,000 shekels ($25,000; £16,000).
The Jerusalem District Court said the sentence recognised Olmert's contributions to Israeli society, but noted that "a black flag hovers over his conduct".
Olmert's lawyer Eyal Rozovsky said they were "very disappointed" by the sentence.
The former prime minister has always insisted that he is innocent and has described the allegations against him as "a brutal, ruthless witch-hunt".
The 69-year-old is also appealing against the six-year sentence he was given in May 2014 in connection with a real estate deal at took place when he was mayor of Jerusalem in the 1990s. He was convicted of accepting bribes in return for speeding up a controversial residential development, known as Holyland, in the heart of the city.
| Famous Person - Commit Crime - Sentence | May 2015 | ['(BBC)', '(AP via The Guardian)'] |
The death toll from heavy floods that triggered landislides in Kerala, India, which started on 8 July, rises to 37. | Kerala, Aug 12: The death toll, following unprecedented rains in Kerala, climbed to 37 on Saturday evening. With the state facing incessant rain havoc, a total of eight districts — Idukki, Wayanad, Malappuram, Kozhikode, Palakkad, Kottayam, Alappuzha and Ernakulam — have been put on high alert. The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) said that heavy to very heavy rains are expected in most places in the next two days.
The rains have left nearly 54,000 people homeless and 31,000 in relief camps. More than 500 relief camps have been set up and over 15,600 people have been evacuated from the affected areas. 14 teams of NDRF have been set up and deployed in various parts to carry out the rescue work. “Besides the NDRF, adequate columns of Army, Navy and Coast Guard, Helicopters of Indian Air Force, Navy and Coast Guard are deployed…for assisting the state administration in lifting and dropping of essential commodities,” a statement said.
By the Saturday evening, however, thousands living around the Idukki dam and in Ernakulam and Thrissur heaved a sigh of relief as the heavy rains predicted in Kerala did not pour and as a result, the Idukki dam waters ravaging the area subsided.
“The rains have slowed down in and around the Idukki dam since last night and hence the water level in the dam has also come down. So far things are fine and everything is going as planned. The water that came down the five floodgates, barring at Cheruthoni, has not caused any major crisis,” State Power Minister M.M. Mani was quoted as saying by IANS.
Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh will conduct an aerial survey of flood-affected areas in Kerala on Sunday. Rajnath Singh will be accompanied by Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Tourism K. J. Alphons and other senior officers from the Ministry. The Union Minister is expected to review the search, rescue and relief measures that have been taken by the state government over the last few days.
Earlier on Saturday, Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan had conducted an aerial survey of flood-affected areas in Kerala along with the leader of Opposition Ramesh Chennithala. Vijayan also met the people affected due to flood in Wayanad and announced ex-gratia Rs 4 Lakh to the next of the kin of the deceased. He also announced Rs 10 Lakh compensation to those who lost their houses and land, news agency ANI reported. | Floods | August 2018 | ['(India.com)'] |
Representatives from 17 world governments and various U.S. technology companies meet in Paris to support a set of anti-terrorism guidelines called the "Christchurch Call to Action" drafted by the governments of France and New Zealand. The White House expressed support for the "overall goals reflected" in this pledge, but refused to back it, citing freedom of speech concerns. |
Jacinda Ardern's 'Christchurch Call' has been signed by world leaders and tech companies in Paris. Major tech firms on Wednesday pledged to come up with new measures for stamping out violent extremist content on the internet, amid growing pressure from governments pushing for action in the wake of the massacres at two New Zealand mosques in March.
Executives from Google, Twitter, Facebook and Microsoft met with the leaders of 18 countries in Paris to unveil the "Christchurch Call" of voluntary commitments for online platforms.
It was named for the city where a gunman killed 51 people at two New Zealand mosques two months ago while broadcasting his rampage live on Facebook via a head-mounted camera.
The social networking giant has faced withering criticism since the attack, after the horrific footage was uploaded and shared millions of times despite efforts to remove it.
"The call is a roadmap to action," New Zealand Premier Jacinda Ardern said at a press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron.
"It commits us all to build a more humane internet which cannot be misused by terrorists for their hateful purposes," she said.
Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter and Amazon later released a nine-point plan for jointly putting the Christchurch pledges in motion, in particular for addressing the threat posed by livestreaming.
They promised investments in "digital fingerprinting" to track and remove harmful pictures and videos, and easy-to-use methods for users to report illicit content.
"This is leading to real action, and I think real action can play an important role in at least preventing a number of these kinds of attacks," Microsoft's president and chief legal officer Brad Smith told AFP in Paris.
"No one wants to see the internet used as the staging ground for these kinds of terrorist atrocities," he said.
Facebook had already promised Wednesday to tighten access to Facebook Live, in particular by denying the service to users who have shared extremist content.
The largely symbolic initiative is intended to keep up the pressure on social media companies, which face growing calls from politicians across the world to prevent their platforms from becoming stages for broadcasting extremist violence.
"Our goal is to never again see the internet transformed into a crazy propaganda machine, a goal sought by both terrorists on the far right and Islamic terrorists," Macron said.
A total of 18 governments signed the call: Australia, Canada, the European Commission, France, Germany, Indonesia, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Jordan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Senegal, Spain, Sweden, and the UK.
But despite the endorsement from the biggest US tech firms, Washington will not join for now, even though "we continue to support the overall goals reflected," the White House said in a statement.
"We continue to be proactive in our efforts to counter terrorist content online while also continuing to respect freedom of expression and freedom of the press," it said.
Macron appeared to take the refusal in stride, saying "The American administration has expressed its support for our effort, which I already consider progress."
The companies said they would cooperate on finding new tools to identify and quickly remove extremist content, such as sharing databases of violent posts or images to ensure they don't spread across multiple platforms.
They also said they would explore tweaking their algorithms to prevent violent or hateful content from going viral, while making it easier for users to report harmful posts.
But it will be up to companies to develop specific tools or policies.
Many countries have already tightened legislation to introduce penalties for companies that fail to take down offensive content once it is flagged, by either users or the authorities.
But analysts say the tighter controls pledged Wednesday will go only so far in preventing people from circumventing rules and policies already in place against disseminating violence and hate speech.
"You can't prevent content from being uploaded: it would require the resources for tracking everything put online by all internet users," said Marc Rees, editor in chief of the technology site Next INpact.
"Can you imagine trying to get TV or radio to prevent libellous, abusive or violent speech that someone might say?" he asked.
The "Christchurch Call" meeting ran in parallel to an initiative launched by Macron called "Tech for Good" which brought together 80 tech executives to discuss how to harness technologies for the common good.
But the US government was represented only at a junior level at a meeting of G7 digital ministers which also took place Wednesday in Paris.
| Diplomatic Talks _ Diplomatic_Negotiation_ Summit Meeting | May 2019 | ['(SBS)'] |
Thousands of Iranians are forced to spend a second night outdoors in near-freezing temperatures after an earthquake hit the country's western border with Iraq. | Iranians living outdoors in bitterly cold temperatures after an earthquake are making desperate pleas for help.
About 540 people were killed and close to 8,000 injured when the quake hit near the Iran-Iraq border on Sunday.
The government is scrambling to get aid to the worst-hit Kermanshah province, where hundreds of homes were destroyed.
President Hassan Rouhani, visiting the region, said state-built houses suffered more damage, and those responsible would be held accountable.
Night-time temperatures in Kermanshah province fell close to freezing for the second night in succession.
Ali Gulani, 42, lives in the province's badly-hit town of Qasr-e-Shirin, and told BBC Persian people were burning crates to try to stay warm.
"We are living in a tent and we don't have enough food or water," he said. "You can hear children crying, it's too cold. They are holding on to their parents to warm themselves - it's pretty bad."
Mr Gulani said there were an average of three strong aftershocks an hour, provoking panic.
Close to 200 aftershocks have hit the region since the magnitude-7.3 earthquake on Sunday night. It was one of the strongest on earth this year, as well as the deadliest.
Mr Gulani said he understood aid had been despatched within the province, but that people in his town had not yet received help. Instead, people were having to trek to the other side of town to get water from a tank.
Iranian state TV said thousands of survivors had spent another night in makeshift camps or in the open. "It is a very cold night... we need help. We need everything. The authorities should speed up their help," one homeless young woman in Sarpol-e-Zahab, where most of the victims died, told Reuters news agency.
One aid agency said 70,000 people needed shelter and the UN said it was "ready to assist if required".
While visiting the region on Tuesday, a national day of mourning, President Hassan Rouhani pointed out that many privately-built homes appeared to have been spared damage.
In Sarpol-e Zahab, he asked: "Who is to be blamed for this? Our engineers?" He said the government would hold accountable anyone found not to have upheld building standards. Iranian state news agency Irna said 530 people had died in Iran alone. In the more sparsely populated areas across the border in Iraq, 10 people died and several hundred were injured.
Mansoureh Bagheri, an Iran-based official with the Red Crescent Society, told the BBC about 12,000 residential buildings had "totally collapsed".
She said now that rescue operations had ended, the priority was getting people into shelters as quickly as possible, and that the delivery of aid was on track.
Maj Gen Mohammad Ali Jafari, head of the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), said that the immediate needs were tents, water and food.
"Newly constructed buildings... held up well, but the old houses built with earth were totally destroyed," he told state TV while visiting the affected region.
The Iranian Red Crescent said many areas lacked water and electricity and that aid supplies were being hampered by roads blocked by landslides. Iranian army helicopters are taking part in the relief effort.
About 30 Red Crescent teams are working in the earthquake zone, Irna reported.
The earthquake struck at 21:18 local time (18:18 GMT) on Sunday, about 30km (19 miles) south of Darbandikhan in Iraq, near the north-eastern border with Iran.
Tremors were felt as far away as Turkey, Israel and Kuwait.
'My aunt, cousin and my cousin's children died'
| Earthquakes | November 2017 | ['(BBC)'] |
Morgan Tsvangarai, the Leader of the Movement for Democratic Change in Zimbabwe, announces that he will contest a runoff election in the Zimbabwean presidential election, 2008. | Zimbabwe's opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has said he will contest a presidential run-off, despite fears of widespread poll violence.
Speaking in South Africa, he said people would feel "betrayed" if he did not run, and vowed to return shortly. Mr Tsvangirai called for an end to violence, as well as full access by international monitors and media. Official first-round results put him ahead of President Robert Mugabe, but not by enough votes to win outright.
Mr Tsvangirai had earlier insisted he had secured more than 50% of the vote, and that there was therefore no need for a second round. On Saturday, he told reporters that his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) had faced a "very difficult" decision but that after consulting supporters in Zimbabwe, it had decided to take part. "I am ready, and the people are ready for the final round," he said. The opposition leader went on to demand "unfettered access of all international observers" and journalists covering the vote. He also called for the deployment of southern African peacekeepers to curtail any violence. The BBC's Peter Greste in Johannesburg says the announcement was not a big surprise, as boycotting the poll would have meant handing victory to President Mugabe by default. Our correspondent says Mr Tsvangirai has to get home soon - as long as he remains outside Zimbabwe, it will be hard to maintain the support he needs to win the run-off. The MDC leader said he expected to return to Zimbabwe in the next two days. Beatings
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission has not yet set a date for the run-off. Mr Tsvangirai said it should take place by 23 May - within three weeks of the first-round results being declared. Although the first round was largely peaceful, the results were not announced until 2 May. The MDC says the delay gave the authorities time to rig the counting and carry out attacks on its supporters in anticipation of a run-off. A trade union official on Thursday said that 40,000 farm-workers and their relatives had fled their homes because of violent attacks The MDC says at least 25 of its supporters have been killed since the first round, and hundreds have been forced from their homes in rural areas. But police and officials from Mr Mugabe's Zanu-PF party have accused the MDC of staging attacks, while accusing the MDC of exaggerating the scale of the violence. Mr Mugabe has been in office since independence in 1980. | Government Job change - Election | May 2008 | ['(BBC News)'] |
The President of the United States Barack Obama names lawyer and former political operative Ron Klain as "ebola czar" to coordinate US response to the Ebola outbreak. | Washington (AFP) - President Barack Obama on Friday named attorney Ron Klain to coordinate the US response to the Ebola outbreak, amid growing anxiety over its spread beyond West Africa.
The new "Ebola czar," as he was described widely in US media, will report directly to Obama's Homeland Security Advisor Lisa Monaco and National Security Advisor Susan Rice.
The longtime Democratic aide is to begin his job soon, ensuring that "efforts to protect the American people by detecting, isolating and treating Ebola patients in this country are properly integrated but don't distract from the aggressive commitment to stopping Ebola at the source in West Africa," the White House said.
Klain is a former senior aide to Obama, and served as chief of staff to both Vice President Joe Biden and former vice president Al Gore.
He currently heads Case Holdings -- a holding company founded by former AOL chief executive Steve Case -- and is general counsel at technology-oriented venture capital firm Revolution LLC.
Several Republicans swiftly savaged Obama's appointment, saying he installed a political crony with no medical experience to tackle a potential health emergency.
"This appointment is both shocking and frankly tone deaf to what the American people are concerned about," said congressman Tim Murphy, who chaired a House hearing Thursday on the fumbled US response to the crisis.
"Installing yet another political appointee who has no medical background or infectious disease control experience will do little to reassure Americans who are increasingly losing confidence with the administration's Ebola strategy."
Asked by reporters why the White House chose someone without medical experience for the job, spokesman Josh Earnest said: "What we were looking for is not an Ebola expert but rather an implementation expert."
| Government Job change - Appoint_Inauguration | October 2014 | ['(AFP via Yahoo! News)'] |
The death toll from the 2007 South Asian floods nears 1,100 in India while 120 people have died in Bangladesh and 84 in Nepal. Health officials have raised concerns about epidemics. | The death toll from raging floods in India has neared 1,100 as more people drowned in swollen rivers that have stranded millions in their homes, officials say.
Four people died overnight in Uttar Pradesh, taking the death toll to 123 in the northern state where 2,400 villages have been cut off by the floods, a government spokesman said.
"Almost all rivers are flowing above the danger mark, but what worries us is the discharge of a large amount of water from nearby Nepal," relief department spokesman Shreesh Dubey said.
The death toll in the worst-hit state of Bihar rose to 87, as seven more people drowned in the stricken region, local disaster management chief Manoj Srivastava said.
The latest figures took to at least 1,039 the number of people killed nationwide in the annual monsoon rains.
Deaths were also reported in the states of West Bengal and Assam, which borders Bangladesh.
Bihar reeled under the havoc of the floods as rivers burst their banks and inundated scores more villages.
About 10.8 million people are marooned in their homes in Bihar.
The Air Force says it is stepping up relief operations across the populous state, where floods have destroyed nearly 70,000 houses and washed away crops worth tens millions of dollars.
A flood control room official says dozens of rivers continue to rise in Bihar.
State Chief Minister Nitish Kumar says he is deploying his senior Cabinet colleagues in the flood-hit districts to speed up rescue and relief operations.
"They will camp in areas assigned to them to supervise relief operations until the situation normalises," Mr Kumar said.
- AFP
k.
| Floods | August 2007 | ['(AFP via ABC News Australia)', '(Reuters via ABC News Australia)'] |
The editor of the Myanmar Times newspaper in Burma is charged with assault. | YANGON - AN AUSTRALIAN media boss who blazed a trail into military-ruled Myanmar was charged in court with assault on Thursday in a case some observers say highlights the risks of doing business in the country. Ross Dunkley, co-founder of the Myanmar Times, the country's only newspaper with foreign investment, was handcuffed during a hearing at Yangon's Kamaryut Township court where he was accused of violence against a 29-year-old woman. The woman, Khine Sar Win, asked for the case to be dropped, saying she was pregnant and unable to travel to court, but prosecutors objected to the request and another hearing is scheduled for March 3. Afterwards Dunkley's lawyer, Min Sein, said his legal team 'will do our best for him'. Earlier Dunkley told AFP at a temporary detention building near the courtroom that he was 'fed up' but 'OK' and said he was hoping to be deported. A Myanmar home ministry official who did not want to be named said on Wednesday that deportation was likely. -- AFP | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | February 2011 | ['(Straits Times)'] |
The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, a tribunal of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, rules 2–1 to cancel several trademarks of the NFL's Washington Redskins on the basis that they were "disparaging to Native Americans." The cancellation will be stayed while the team appeals in federal court, a process likely to take years. | In what might be the most significant pressure put on Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder to change his team's name, the United States Patent and Trademark Office has canceled the team's trademarks on the basis that it is "disparaging to Native Americans."
In its 2-1 ruling issued on Wednesday, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, an independent tribunal within the USPTO, wrote that it was charged with determining only whether the trademark was offensive to the people it referenced, not the entire U.S. population. Five Native Americans, representing four tribes, brought the case against the league in 2006.
Although the Redskins name and past logos are involved in the decision, the trademarks that were canceled do not include the current Redskins logo.
"Petitioners have found a preponderance of evidence that a substantial amount of Native Americans found the term Redskins to be disparaging when used in connection with professional football," the ruling said. "While this may reveal differing opinions with the community, it does not negate the opinions of those who find it disparaging."
The ruling does not force the NFL or Snyder to change the name, but trademarks registered between 1967 and 1990 will no longer be protected under federal law if the NFL and the Redskins lose an appeal to the U.S. District Court.
Bob Raskopf, the trademark attorney for the Redskins, said the team will appeal Wednesday's ruling and is confident the court will successfully overturn it. He noted that the team's trademark registrations will remain valid while the case is appealed.
"We are confident we will prevail once again, and that the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board's divided ruling will be overturned on appeal. This case is no different than an earlier case, where the Board cancelled the Redskins' trademark registrations, and where a federal district court disagreed and reversed the Board," Raskopf said in a statement.
In 1999, a panel ruled to cancel the trademarks after a battle with Native American groups. The decision was later overturned on a technicality after the court decided that the plaintiffs were too old and should have filed their complaint soon after the Redskins registered their nickname in 1967.
"The evidence in the current claim is virtually identical to the evidence a federal judge decided was insufficient more than ten years ago. We expect the same ultimate outcome here," Raskopf said in his statement.
Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., told ESPN.com that she expects Wednesday's ruling to be upheld on appeal.
"This puts a big dent in their business model of trying to gain revenue from a disparaging term of slur," she said. "I find it very unlikely that someone is going to overrule the patent office on this. This is a huge decision by a federal agency."
Cantwell, with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, wrote a letter signed by 49 Democratic senators last month that encouraged a name change. She said that if the Redskins and the league refuse to change the name, there are many options available for the Senate, including perhaps ridding the league of its tax-exempt status.
Reid also applauded the decision.
"Daniel Snyder may be the last person in the world to realize this, but it's just a matter of time until he is forced to do the right thing and change the name," said Reid, who has said previously he will not attend Redskins home games until the team changes its name.
The new case was launched in 2006 by a younger group of Native Americans and was heard by the board in March 2013.
The group argued that the Redskins should lose their federal trademark protection based on a law that prohibits registered names that are disparaging, scandalous, contemptuous or disreputable.
"The U.S. Patent Office has now restated the obvious truth that Native Americans, civil rights leaders, athletes, religious groups, state legislative bodies, Members of Congress and the president have all echoed: taxpayer resources cannot be used to help private companies profit off the promotion of dictionary defined racial slurs," said Oneida Indian Nation representative Ray Halbritter and National Congress of American Indians executive director Jackie Pata in a joint statement.
"If the most basic sense of morality, decency and civility has not yet convinced the Washington team and the NFL to stop using this hateful slur, then hopefully today's patent ruling will, if only because it imperils the ability of the team's billionaire owner to keep profiting off the denigration and dehumanization of Native Americans.
Without protection, any fan can produce and sell Washington Redskins gear without having to pay the league or the team for royalties and wouldn't be in violation of any law for doing so. NFL teams split merchandise royalties 31 ways -- the Dallas Cowboys have their own deal -- so league owners could see losing the trademark rights as a major negative.
"This is not a death blow, but it's a good jab," said Frank Vuono, who formerly headed up the NFL's retail operations before starting his own firm, 16W Sports Marketing.
Vuono said that not only could merchandise be compromised, but if the Redskins someday lose their rights to the trademarks, non-sponsors could try to use the marks to associate with the team without affiliation. That, Vuono said, would devalue the proposition of being an official sponsor.
The Redskins are an integral part of league sales. From April 1, 2012, to March 2013, the league said more jerseys of Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III were sold than of any other player in a single year in NFL history.
"In a business like professional football, there is a huge amount of revenue in merchandising," Christine Farley, a law professor at American University who specializes in trademarks, told ABC News. "If pro football loses the ability to monopolize that market, that may convince them to change their name."
If the Redskins lose the rights to their trademarks, the question will be whether state and common laws would allow them to retain their exclusivity of use.
"The law is really unclear on this," said Sonia Katyal, the Joseph M. McLaughlin Professor of Law at Fordham who specializes in intellectual property. "We haven't really had something like this where you have a team and so many other interested parties involved, so we're treading new ground."
Suzan Shown Harjo, one of the plaintiffs who testified at last year's hearing, said she was "thrilled and delighted'' with the decision.
Redskins owner Snyder, asked by reporters Wednesday for his reaction to the trademark decision, simply waved to reporters and did not comment.
Redskins wide receiver Santana Moss called the decision "sad."
"It's sad, but like I said before, it's something that I can't control, so I'm going to leave it alone," Moss told reporters. "I hope the best for it because I feel like, as a Redskin, I don't think that we wore this name trying to bring any harm to anybody. A lot of us out here as players didn't know of the history or nothing like that, and we've been kind of privileged to get a little bit of insight on some of the history and just with that you still don't know enough."
Griffin said he and his teammates would try to keep their focus on the field.
"Our jobs as players is to focus on what we can on this field day in and day out and let the league take care of that stuff. And when it's the right time, then we can voice whatever it is that we know about the situation," he said.
Officials the NFL could not immediately be reached for comment.
Meanwhile, Miami University in Ohio, which also once used the Redskins nickname, used Wednesday's ruling as an opportunity to tweet to the NFL team. | Government Policy Changes | June 2014 | ['(ESPN)'] |
A landslide near a jade mine in northern Myanmar kills up to 60 people with more than a hundred missing. | A landslide near a jade mine in northern Myanmar killed about 100 people, most of them villagers digging for green stones in a mountain of displaced earth, a witness and a community leader said Sunday. Many other people were missing.
The collapse occurred Saturday evening in the Kachin state community of Hpakant, said Brang Seng, a jade businessman, who watched as bodies were pulled from the debris and taken to a hospital morgue.
"People were crying," he said, adding that some lost loved ones when boulders and earth ripped down the slopes. "I'm hearing that more than 100 people died. In some cases, entire families were lost."
Lamai Gum Ja, a community leader, said homes at the base of the mine dump had been flattened.
An estimated 100 to 200 people were still missing, he said. Search and rescue teams wearing bright orange uniforms combed through the rubble Sunday for survivors.
Kachin, around 950 kilometers (600 miles) northeast of Yangon, Myanmar's biggest city, is home to some of the world's highest-quality jade.
The industry generated an estimated $31 billion last year alone, with most of the wealth going to individuals and companies tied to Myanmar's former military rulers, according to Global Witness, a group that investigates misuse of resource revenues.
The jade industry's epicenter, Hpakant, remains desperately poor, with bumpy dirt roads, constant electricity blackouts and sky-high heroin addiction rates.
After Myanmar's former military rulers handed over power to a nominally civilian government five years ago, resulting in the lifting of many Western sanctions, the already rapid pace of mining turned frenetic. No scrap of ground, no part of daily life in Hpakant is left untouched by the fleets of giant yellow trucks and backhoes that have sliced apart mountains and denuded once-plush landscape.
In the last year, dozens of small-scale miners have been maimed or lost their lives picking through tailing dumps.
"Large companies, many of them owned by families of former generals, army companies, cronies and drug lords, are making tens or hundreds of millions of dollars a year through their plunder of Hpakant," said Mike Davis of Global Witness.
"Their legacy to local people is a dystopian wasteland in which scores of people at a time are buried alive in landslides," he said. | Mudslides | November 2015 | ['(AP via ABC News America)'] |
Ban Ki–Moon, the Secretary–General of the United Nations, urges the Government of Myanmar to show restraint in its treatment of students and pro–democracy activists who have been protesting against the regime. | United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-moon has expressed concern over the arrests this week of student leaders and pro-democracy activists in Burma who have been involved in protests against the military junta.
In a statement, Mr Ki-moon called for the junta to exercise maximum restraint in dealing with the demonstrations, which have been held several times this week to highlight the rapid rise in fuel prices in the isolated nation.
Pro-democracy activists have used the public protests to demand the junta recognise the outcome of the 1991 election, in which Aung Sung Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy were voted into power.
The generals overturned the election results and Ms Suu Kyi has spent many of the years since under house arrest.
Thirteen dissidents were arrested this week for their part in the protests.
Mr Ki-moon is also urging the protesters to avoid provoking the military.
| Protest_Online Condemnation | August 2007 | ['(ABC News Australia)'] |
Police tear gas people in Thessaloniki as tens of thousands of people protest against Prime Minister George Papandreou's austerity plans. | Greek unions have staged mass protests in the city of Thessaloniki against the government's austerity programme.
The protests were largely peaceful but police used tear gas on a small group which broke away from the rally.
But Prime Minister George Papandreou, who is attending a trade fair in the city, has said he is not going to give up on his government's austerity plans.
On Friday, the government said there would be further austerity measures, in addition to those already announced.
Some 20,000 people marched through Thessaloniki to protest against Mr Papandreou's swingeing cuts, which have already had a significant impact on public spending.
The country's trade unions have said they believed the government wanted to "overthrow" workers' rights, on top of cutting public sector wages and pensions. The march was largely peaceful but minor clashes were reported and police fired tear gas at a small group which broke away from the main rally.
Mr Papandreou said he would not be swayed by the demonstrations and that he was "not thinking of the political cost".
"We are fighting for the survival of Greece. Either we'll win together, or we'll sink together."
"I ask all the country's productive forces to join us, to support this great change."
Earlier on Saturday, a shoe was thrown at Mr Papandreou, although landed wide of its target. Dr Stergios Prapavezis, a respected local cancer specialist - was detained along with his 15-year-old daughter and Stavros Vitalis, a farmer with whom he set up a protest movement called the Patriotic Front.
Before the incident, Dr Prapavezis had told the BBC that the prime minister was not welcome in the northern region because he had surrendered Greece's sovereignty and subjected ordinary people to poverty.
The BBC's Malcolm Brabant in Thessaloniki says that with 3,000 police patrolling the city's streets, the fact that a single shoe thrower got so close to the prime minister will be a source of major embarrassment.
The centre-left government imposed a tough austerity programme in May in return for a 110bn-euro ($140bn; £91bn) bail-out from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Union that helped it stave off bankruptcy.
On Friday evening, Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou said it was on track to reduce its budget deficit from 13.6% of GDP in 2009 to 8.1% this year, and pledged to maintain the pace.
"We will continue as we started," he was quoted as saying by the Associated Press news agency.
"[However,] several more months must pass before we can convincingly show that what has been done was not a flash in the pan, and that we won't fall to pieces at the first sign of hardship."
Mr Papaconstantinou said he planned to overhaul several state-run corporations including the Greek Railway Company, which has 10.7bn euros of debts.
"As a society, we have shown that we understand the problem," he said.
The government also wanted to introduce reforms in the tourism, education, agriculture and energy sectors in the coming year, he added.
Official figures published earlier this week showed the contraction of the Greek economy was accelerating. It is expected to shrink by 4% this year.
Inflation has also reached 5.5% - its highest level in more than a decade - and more than half a million people were officially out of work in June.
| Protest_Online Condemnation | September 2010 | ['(BBC)', '(The Guardian)', '(Al Jazeera)'] |
China's National People's Congress passes the "decision on improving the electoral system of Hong Kong", which will rewrite the election rules in Hong Kong to ensure a system of "patriots governing Hong Kong". This is seen by many Western countries as further eroding the freedoms of the Hong Kong people. |
BEIJING, China — China's legislature is debating draft guidelines that would drastically overhaul Hong Kong's electoral system to give Beijing near total control over the region's election outcomes.
While Beijing has not publicized the details of the proposals, it has outlined broad changes that would effectively allow Beijing to vet candidates for Hong Kong's legislative council and pack an election committee which chooses the region's chief executive.
Chief among the proposed guidelines would be an increase in the size of Hong Kong's legislative council and its election committee. That committee would also vet all candidates running for legislative council positions, guaranteeing Beijing a majority in each body.
"The administrative power in Hong Kong must be maintained in the hands of patriots," Xia Baolong, China's top official in charge of Hong Kong affairs, said in a speech last week.
"You cannot say that you are patriotic but you do not love the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party or you do not respect it," added Eric Tsang, a senior Hong Kong official, the day after.
Beijing-appointed officials have been preparing to roll out these electoral changes for weeks in the run-up to China's annual political meetings.
"This need to change the electoral system and arrangements in Hong Kong...is to make sure that whoever is governing Hong Kong is patriotic," Hong Kong's current chief executive told reporters last month."
But a public announcement of the proposals came only late Thursday night by a senior Communist Party official, Zhang Yesui. Hong Kong's election system then suddenly appeared on the agenda of China's rubber stamp National People's Congress hours before it convened for a week of annual political meetings. China's parliament is expected to pass the guidelines by March 11, when the meetings end. An elite body of legislators will create more detailed implementation rules afterwards.
Two of Hong Kong's former chief executives urged the region's residents to embrace Beijing rule. Tung Chee-hwa, the city's first chief executive, released a statement Friday arguing that Hong Kong has reached a juncture when "it has to reform." Tung currently is vice chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, a political body that also meets this week.
Leung Chun-ying, who was chief executive until 2017, said in a two-part video speech that many of the region's political opposition were "separatists" who opposed Beijing's rule: "In Hong Kong the extra autonomous power that we enjoy actually comes from Beijing." Leung is currently a delegate in China's legislature.
Hong Kong has never been an electoral democracy, but under the region's Basic Law — a mini-constitution adopted after the region's handover to Chinese rule in 1997 — residents can vote for local district councilors and directly elect half of the region's 70 legislators.
Even before Beijing's proposed electoral changes, mainland China exerted significant influence over Hong Kong's government bodies.
The makeup of Hong Kong's 1,200 person-strong election committee, which chooses the region's top chief executive post, is already packed with officials who favor Beijing and the Beijing-appointed delegates to two mainland political bodies. In 2014, Beijing announced it would vet future candidates for the chief executive post, prompting large peaceful protests.
"Some of the chaos in Hong Kong shows that there exist obvious loopholes and deficiencies in the current electoral system and mechanisms which provided opportunities for anti-China and anti-Hong Kong forces to take over management in Hong Kong," Wang Chen, vice chairman of China's legislative elite standing committee, said in a speech Friday.
Wang is likely referring to a November 2019 local election in which pro-democratic forces won 17 out of 18 of the region's district councils amid record voter turnout. The landslide election gave pro-democratic politicians hope that they could work together to win enough seats on the Legislative Council, some members of which help decide Hong Kong's next chief executive.
Last July, pro-democratic activists organized an informal primary poll to pick legislative candidates with the most public support — an action Hong Kong officials called potentially a subversive. Fifty poll organizers were eventually arrested under a national security law. Hong Kong delayed legislative elections for a year, citing the coronavirus pandemic.
This week, forty seven of those arrested were formally charged with subversion for organizing last July's informal primary. All but fifteen were denied bail before their trial in May.
"Beijing is no longer prepared to tolerate an election that it cannot rig," said Alvin Cheung, a legal scholar at New York University's U.S.-Asia Law Institute | Government Policy Changes | March 2021 | ['(NPR)'] |
South Africa legalizes the recreational use of cannabis. | Pro-marijuana activists cheered in the public gallery and chanted "Weed are free now" when the Constitutional Court gave its landmark ruling. In a unanimous ruling, judges also legalised the growing of marijuana for private consumption. South Africa's government had opposed its legalisation, arguing the drug was "harmful" to people's health. It has not yet commented on the ruling, which is binding. Three cannabis users who had faced prosecution for using the drug brought the case, saying the ban "intrudes unjustifiably into their private spheres". In his judgement, Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo said: "It will not be a criminal offence for an adult person to use or be in possession of cannabis in private for his or her personal consumption." It will, however, remain illegal to use cannabis in public, and to sell and supply it. The Cannabis Development Council of South Africa welcomed the ruling, and called on the government to drop charges against people found in possession of the drug.
Jeremy Acton, the leader of the Dagga Party, which campaigns for the use of cannabis, said the ruling should have gone further to legalise the carrying of marijuana in public. Cannabis is referred to as "dagga" in South Africa. By Andrew Harding, BBC News, Johannesburg This judgement is a reminder that South Africa's hard-won constitution is among the most liberal in the world, backing individual rights, and in this case the right to grow and smoke your own marijuana in private, against the government's concerns about public health and public order.
The Constitutional Court's ruling focuses on the issue of privacy, and a person's right to do as they please in their own home. The potential implications of the binding judgment are enormous, and unpredictable - particularly in terms of the criminal justice system, which routinely locks up thousands of overwhelmingly poor South Africans for using or dealing in small amounts of cannabis.
It is possible that the ruling, by allowing users to grow their own marijuana at home, could undermine the stranglehold of powerful drug gangs that blight so many communities. But the police, who argued against this change, will worry that the ruling will create more ambiguity and send the wrong signal to criminals. The court has not approved - in any form - the trade in marijuana, meaning the government will not be able to profit from taxing a legalised industry.
In political terms, the landmark ruling emphasises the primacy of South Africa's constitution, which brushed aside the united opposition of numerous government ministries at a time when the authority and credibility of many of this young democracy's other institutions have been eroded by corruption and poor governance.
The court gave parliament 24 months to change the law to reflect its ruling. Adults who used marijuana in private would be protected by the ruling until the law was amended. The court did not specify the quantity of cannabis a person can grow or use in private. Parliament would have to decide on this, it said. In April Zimbabwe became the second country in Africa, after Lesotho, to legalise the use of marijuana for medical use. | Government Policy Changes | September 2018 | ['(BBC)'] |
At least 42 people are killed during one fire in the city of Monastir in the central east of the country, the current deadliest single incident of the month-long protests. | At least 42 people were killed Saturday in a fire at a prison in the Mediterranean coastal resort of Monastir as unrest
sweeps Tunisia after its longtime president was forced out by protests.
Some of the victims were burned to death or died of smoke inhalation, while others were shot to death while trying to escape, local media reported.
Massive street protests over corruption and unemployment forced President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to flee the country Friday night after 23 years of iron-fisted rule. In the last 24 hours, unrest, looting and arson have erupted.
According to reports, some inmates managed to escape the prison.
Violent incidents were reported in a number of other prisons across Tunisia. Local news outlets said dozens of people were killed in a prison in the southern part of the country.
"I see the prison going up in flames. There are dozens of dead people. Dozens of prisoners managed to escape," an eyewitness told Reuters.
Home of Ben Ali's brother-in-law after ransacking (Photo: AP)
According to some reports, dozens of people were killed during an attempt to escape from a prison in Mahdia, 140 km (85 miles) south of Tunis. Another fire reportedly broke out in another prison in northern Tunisia.
Meanwhile, Tunisia's constitutional authority called for presidential elections within 60 days.
The authority also said Saturday that under the constitution the speaker of parliament should be the interim president.
Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi said on Friday he was taking over as interim president after Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia following weeks of protests over poverty, unemployment and repression.
On Saturday Ghannouchi told a state-owned television station that security forces and civilians must work to "restore order and prevent looting and theft." He said Tunisia was rebuilding itself as a democratic country that respects civil rights.
The Associated Press reported of sporadic gunfire in the capital of Tunis on Saturday. Smoke billowed over a giant supermarket outside the capital as looters torched and emptied it. The army fired warning shots to scare them away, to little avail, according to the news agency. | Fire | January 2011 | ['(Ennahar)', '(Ynetnews)', '(Reuters)', '(Al Jazeera)'] |
U.S. President Donald Trump signs an executive order freezing all assets and interests of the Venezuelan government as contained within the United States, a severe escalation from recent industry sanctions and verbal rhetoric. Twenty-one exceptions are issued, for companies providing services including oil, aid, and telecommunications. The expanded sanctions are widely criticized as likely to worsen the conditions for people in Venezuela. | The UN's human rights chief has criticised the latest US sanctions against Venezuela saying they would intensify the suffering of millions.
Michelle Bachelet, a former president of Chile, said the sanctions were "extremely broad" and would hit the most vulnerable sections of society.
The unilateral measures freeze all Venezuelan government assets in the US and ban commercial transactions.
They are aimed at piling pressure on President Nicolás Maduro to step down.
The US is one of more than 50 nations that do not recognise Mr Maduro as Venezuela's legitimate president.
"I am deeply worried about the potentially severe impact on the human rights of the people of Venezuela of the new set of unilateral sanctions imposed by the US this week," the UN human rights commissioner said in a statement.
"The sanctions are extremely broad and fail to contain sufficient measures to mitigate their impact on the most vulnerable sectors of the population."
Despite some exceptions for sales linked to food, clothing and medicine, she said the measures were "still likely to significantly exacerbate the crisis for millions of ordinary Venezuelans".
Ms Bachelet has raised concern about the consequences of previous US sanctions against Venezuela. She has also criticised Mr Maduro's government, mainly over its ill-treatment of opponents.
In March she singled out Venezuela as an example of how "violations of civil and political rights" can accentuate inequality and worsening economic conditions.
On Monday US President Donald Trump signed an executive order stating that "all property and interests in property of the government of Venezuela that are in the United States... are blocked and may not be transferred, paid, exported, withdrawn, or otherwise dealt in".
The order also bars transactions with Venezuelan authorities whose assets are blocked, stating that "the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit of any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order".
"The receipt of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services from any such person," is also banned.
US National Security Adviser John Bolton said the new sanctions could be imposed on "anyone who supports" Mr Maduro's government.
The new measures, he added, would force countries and companies to choose between doing business with the US or with Venezuela.
He said America would use "every tool to end Maduro's dictatorship in Venezuela".
Venezuela's foreign ministry denounced the new sanctions and accused Washington of "arbitrary economic terrorism against the Venezuelan people".
The US, along with more than 50 other nations, has given its backing to the head of the National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, who declared himself interim president in January, arguing that Mr Maduro's re-election last year was fraudulent.
Mr Guaidó welcomed the new US sanctions arguing that they punish those "who do business with the regime".
But international pressure has so far failed to remove Mr Maduro from power.
Venezuelans have continued to flee the country's political and economic crisis in huge numbers. More than four million are now living abroad according to UN figures.
| Government Policy Changes | August 2019 | ['(Reuters)', '(BBC)'] |
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva flies from Moscow, where he met Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, to Tehran for a meeting with Iranian officials there on the nuclear issue. | Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is holding talks with Iran's leaders on the vexed nuclear issue.
The Tehran meeting is being seen as a final attempt to find a compromise. US officials have warned they are close to securing agreement on a new package of sanctions against Iran in the UN Security Council. The US and other Western powers accuse Tehran of trying to build an atomic weapon. Iran insists that its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes. President Lula arrived from Moscow, where he met Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. There, he told reporters he was "optimistic" about persuading Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to reach an agreement with the West. "I must now use everything I have learned over my long political career to convince my friend Ahmadinejad to come to an agreement with the international community," he said. President Lula's visit to Tehran has been described by both senior American and Russian officials as the last chance for a compromise before new sanctions are imposed on Iran. Mixed messages
The Brazilian president will be trying to encourage Iran to agree to a deal under which its existing stocks of enriched uranium are shipped out of the country and converted to fuel for a research reactor, says the BBC's Jon Leyne, reporting from London. This would prevent the material from being available to make a nuclear bomb. Turkey's Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has decided to join the talks amid suggestions that the country might be used as the location for the fuel swap, and is on the way to Tehran. Our correspondent says Iran has given mixed messages about a fuel swap deal, suggesting that it is still open to the idea, but then imposing conditions the West feels are unacceptable. Iran has been mounting a big diplomatic effort to prevent the new sanctions - the foreign minister has been travelling to all 15 members of the security council. But our correspondent says President Ahmadinejad is in a weak position following the dispute over his re-election last year, and it is not clear that he could deliver a compromise deal even if he wanted to. | Diplomatic Talks _ Diplomatic_Negotiation_ Summit Meeting | May 2010 | ['(BBC)'] |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.