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As he arrives in Cuba to begin a three day visit there, Pope Benedict XVI offers a prescription for change. | Pope Benedict XVI offered a prescription for change in Cuba as he arrived on Monday afternoon, March 26, to begin a 3-day visit there. The Pope—who had said last week that Marxism has failed in Cuba—said that he was convinced “that Cuba, at this moment of particular importance in its history, is already looking to the future.” He said the future of the island nation should be shaped by “the fine patrimony of spiritual and moral values which fashioned the nation’s true identity, and he mentioned Cuban heroes like José Marti and Felix Varela. Conspicuously missing from his list of great Cuban leaders was Fidel Castro. As he arrived in Cuba, Pope Benedict recalled the historic visit by Pope John Paul II in 1998, saying that it “left an indelible mark on the soul of all Cubans.” That papal visit was “like a gentle breath of fresh air which gave new strength to the Church in Cuba,” he said. Gently alluding to the contentious issue of Church-state relations in Cuba, the Pope said that his predecessor’s visit ushered in “a new phase in the relationship between Church and State,” and welcomed a “new spirit of cooperation and trust,” while noting that there were many areas still in need of improvement. In greeting the Pontiff, Raul Castro had asserted that the government welcomes the activity of the Catholic Church; the Pope’s words seemed design to convey that the Church would continue to press for greater freedom. Pope Benedict also made it clear that he would speak for change in Cuba generally. He said “we can no longer continue in the same cultural and moral direction which has caused the painful situation that many suffer.” A revival of the Cuban nation must be a moral revival, he said, noting: “In the hearts and minds of many, the way is thus opening to an ever greater certainty that the rebirth of society demands upright men and women of firm moral convictions.” “I carry in my heart the just aspirations and legitimate desires of all Cubans,” the Pope said. Without spelling out the political implications of those words, he issued an unmistakable call for change.
| Diplomatic Visit | March 2012 | ['(Catholic World News)'] |
Armed men kill at least six Mayangna Indians and kidnap another ten in the Bosawás Biosphere Reserve, Nicaragua. | Armed men have attacked an indigenous community in Nicaragua, killing at least six people and kidnapping another 10, rights groups say. Police confirmed two deaths and said they were investigating. The reason for the difference in the toll is unclear. The attack on the Mayagna group took place in a protected nature reserve in the north of the country. The Bosawás Biosphere Reserve has been the focus of land disputes between indigenous groups and new settlers.
A Mayagna leader last year accused the government of doing nothing while his community was gradually "exterminated".
The men reportedly attacked the Mayagna commune deep inside the Bosawás Biosphere Reserve, the second-largest rainforest in the Americas after the Amazon.
Mayagna lawyer Larry Salomon told the Reuters news agency that the raiders were part of a group of non-indigenous "settlers" in the area.
"This is a land conflict. They want our lands for cattle farming and to destroy our forests," he added.
Environmental group the Rio Foundation called the attack a "massacre". Tensions have been rising in recent years between Nicaragua's indigenous communities and newcomers who move to the region in search of fertile land, timber and gold. There have been reports of armed groups seizing indigenous land. Gustavo Lino, the highest-ranking Mayagna leader, said last year: "They're exterminating us little by little and the state is doing nothing." The 30,000-strong Mayagna make up around 0.5% of Nicaragua's population. Nicaragua cloud forest 'under siege' | Riot | January 2020 | ['(BBC)'] |
South Korean fighter jets fire warning shots at three Russian planes as a reaction to an alleged violation of the country's national airspace. | The fighter jets "took tactical action" against Russian and Chinese warplanes for violating South Korean airspace. But Russia has denied the allegations, saying the joint patrol was operating in international airspace.
South Korea's Defense Ministry on Tuesday said its fighter jets fired hundreds of warning shots after Russian and Chinese planes entered the country's airspace.
The Russian and Chinese warplanes were flying in the first joint operation of its kind, according to Moscow. South Korea scrambled F-16 fighters to intercept the Russian and Chinese warplanes, saying they were not authorized to enter its airspace.
"The South Korean military took tactical action including dropping flares and firing warning shots," the South Korean ministry said.
The alleged airspace violation occurred over the Dokdo islets, which are occupied by South Korea but also claimed by Japan. Tokyo also lodged complaints with South Korea and Russia.
'Perfecting' joint actions
Meanwhile, the Russian Defense Ministry denied that its aircraft had illegally entered South Korean airspace. It said the joint operation was part of a new air patrol between Russia and China.
"The joint patrol was carried out with the aim of deepening Russian-Chinese relations within our all-encompassing partnership, of further increasing cooperation between our armed forces, and of perfecting their capabilities to carry out joint actions, and of strengthening global strategic security," the ministry said.
From the Sea of Japan to the South China Sea, tensions between regional military powers have risen over the past decade.
South Korea said the incident was the first time sincefighting ended in the1950-53 Korean War that a foreign military aircraft had entered its airspace without permission. | Armed Conflict | July 2019 | ['(DW)'] |
Palestinian prisoners stage protests in Israeli jails as the Palestinian Authority accuses Israel of deliberately delaying the treatment of Maysara Abu Hamdiya, a prisoner who died of throat cancer. | JERUSALEM — Hundreds of Palestinian prisoners staged protests in Israeli jails on Tuesday as the Palestinian leadership accused Israel of deliberately delaying the treatment of a fellow prisoner who died that morning of cancer.
Maysara Abu Hamdiya, 64, a retired general in the Palestinian Authority security services, died in a hospital in southern Israel two months after receiving a diagnosis of throat cancer. Mr. Hamdiya was detained by Israel in 2002, at the height of the second Palestinian uprising, and was serving a life term for attempted murder after sending a suicide bomber to a cafe in Jerusalem, Israeli officials said. The bomb failed to detonate.
| Protest_Online Condemnation | April 2013 | ['(The New York Times)'] |
President of Brazil Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva sends to Congress a bill proposing that corporal punishment, including spanking, be outlawed. | Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has sent a bill to Congress which would ban the use of corporal punishment on children. The bill would outlaw any cruel or degrading treatment that humiliates or seriously threatens children, including spanking. Lula said it was not meant to prevent parents educating their children.
But he said everyone knew that spanking didn't educate children any better than talking to them. Under current legislation in Brazil, child abuse is illegal, but the proposed law would for the first time explicitly ban spanking and smacking by parents and guardians. Parents who ignored the law would be given a warning, and repeat offenders could be ordered to attend child protection classes, or even undergo psychiatric treatment.
Ultimately, Brazil's child protection services would intervene in households where the problem persisted.
Anticipating some resistance to the bill, President Lula said critics would say the government was trying to prevent parents from educating their children.
"No-one wants to prevent a mother being a mother, or a father being a father, " he said. "We just want to show that it is possible to do things in a different way."
The Brazilian president, who was one of eight children in a poor migrant family, said he felt fortunate because his mother never struck any of her children, and that the had followed her example with his own.
"If punishment and whipping solved things, we wouldn't have so much corruption or banditry in this country," he said.
President Lula said there should be a more open dialogue between Brazilian parents and children about matters such as sex and drugs.
The bill, which draws on the experiences of more than twenty countries where the use of corporal punishment on children is illegal, still needs approval by both houses of Congress to be passed into law. | Government Policy Changes | July 2010 | ['(BBC)'] |
Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards declares a state of emergency as over 17 inches of rain causes unprecedented flooding across the region and takes at least three lives in his state, with more rain expected through Sunday. , | BATON ROUGE, La. (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama issued a disaster declaration on Sunday for flood-ravaged Louisiana, where at least five people have died and emergency crews have rescued more than 20,000 people stranded by unprecedented flooding.
Governor John Bel Edwards said residents had been pulled from swamped cars, flooded homes and threatened hospitals across the southern part of the state. The already soaked region is expected to get more rain from a storm system stretching from the Gulf Coast to the Ohio Valley.
While the brunt of the storm that brought torrential rains was moving west toward Texas, Louisiana residents should remain cautious, the governor said at a news conference.
“Even with the sunshine out today intermittently, the waters are going to continue to rise in many areas, so this is no time to let the guard down,” Edwards said, calling the flooding unprecedented.
Obama issued the disaster declaration after speaking with Edwards, the White House said in a statement.
The initial declaration makes federal aid available in the parishes of East Baton Rouge, Livingston, St. Helena and Tangipahoa. Edwards said in a statement that other parishes could be added to the list.
Edwards told a later news conference that more than 20,000 people had been rescued from flood waters in southern Louisiana.
In Livingston Parish, phone service was spotty due to the high waters and most shelters were full. A Greyhound Bus traveling from Memphis, Tennessee, to Baton Rouge was diverted to a shelter because of flooded roadways.
About 5,000 people had been forced to sleep in shelters overnight around the state, said Marketa Walters, head of Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services.
Louisiana State Police Colonel Michael Edmonson said helicopters were transporting food and water to those still trapped by floods. Helicopters were also transporting some seriously ill people to areas outside the high waters.
Some 1,700 members of the Louisiana National Guard have been deployed for rescue efforts.
Even as the state grappled with high waters, the National Weather Service forecast heavy rain from the Gulf Coast as far north as the Ohio Valley through Monday, with a threat of flash flooding.
A flash flood watch was in place until Monday morning for Houston, where rains killed at least eight people in late April.
At least five people had died in Louisiana from the high water. Ronda Durbin, a spokeswoman for Tangipahoa Parish, said by telephone that searchers on Sunday recovered the body of a man reported swept away on Friday.
The body of a woman was also recovered from a submerged vehicle in the parish, she said.
On Saturday, the body of a woman was recovered from the Tickfaw River, in St. Helena Parish northeast of Baton Rouge, after a car in which she was riding was swept away.
A 54-year-old man in Greensburg in the northern part of the state died when his vehicle was swept off the road, state police said.
The body of a 68-year-old man was recovered on Friday near Baker after he drowned, said William “Beau” Clark, the coroner in East Baton Rouge Parish.
Another person is also believed missing in St. Helena Parish, Edwards said.
Additional reporting by Ian Simpson in Washington and Laila Kearney and Chris Prentice in New York; Editing by Bill Trott, Richard Chang and Paul Tait
| Floods | August 2016 | ['(43 cm)', '(Reuters)', '(AP)'] |
A 6.2 magnitude earthquake strikes southern Alaska, causing minor damage and affecting the state's largest city, Anchorage. | Kara Gately was working as senior watchstander at the National Tsunami Warning Center in Palmer when the earthquake began -- a jolt, a pause, and then "you felt the rolling."
"We knew it was deep and we knew it was big," Gately said from the center, which was quiet again by noon Thursday. "People were already calling in."
The quake, which struck at 9:51 a.m., was originally reported at magnitude 6.1, although the Alaska Earthquake Information Center later upgraded that to 6.24. In the hour after the ground stopped moving, reports from the National Weather Service and the Alaska Earthquake Information Center put the epicenter 60 miles southwest of Talkeetna at a depth of 103 kilometers, or 64 miles.
Seismologist Natalia Ruppert at the Alaska Earthquake Information Center said the quake was caused by the Pacific plate diving under the North American plate; its depth, she said, will have minimized its impact.
"This was quite deep, so I wouldn't expect any serious damage," Ruppert said in an interview Thursday morning. "Deep earthquakes normally don't produce as many aftershocks as shallow earthquakes, so there will be some aftershocks, but I don't expect there to be too many."
Estimates of the earthquake's duration varied. A retired seismologist who called the National Tsunami Warning Center from Chickaloon pegged it at 75 seconds. While Anchorage residents felt multiple jolts, and buildings shook for long after the earth stopped moving, Ruppert said the quake officially lasted just 10 seconds.
It was felt in Fairbanks, where her office is located, Ruppert said, and as far south as Kodiak, Valdez and Seward. Chickaloon resident Kendra Zamzow said in an email that she felt it from her hillside yurt. In a Carrs grocery store in West Anchorage, jars of spaghetti sauce and bottles of shampoo were shaken off shelves, leaving the floor splattered with spilled product.
At Romig Middle School, tiles fell from the library ceiling, according to Anchorage School District spokesperson Heather Roach, while Service High School senior Brennan Baumgartner said he and his classmates stayed under their desks for about three minutes after an administrator came over the intercom with a take-cover order.
In South Anchorage, more than 80 miles from the quake's epicenter, resident Connie Beemer said she and some of her neighbors were frightened out of their houses.
"I grabbed my 5-month-old daughter and ran outside without shoes," Beemer said in an email. "There were a handful of other neighbors who also chose to rather risk the sky falling than our houses."
On the fifth floor of a downtown Anchorage law office, lawyer Allen Clendaniel felt the shaking start slowly and build in intensity.
Out of the corner of his eye, Clendaniel saw bookcases come crashing down in his partner John Wendlandt's office across the hall. Legal volumes, case briefs and files tumbled onto a pair of sofas and spilled over the floor.
Clendaniel said he ran into the office to see if Wendlandt had been pinned under the shelves.
"Luckily, he hadn't come in yet," said Clendaniel, whose office was mostly spared from falling objects.
Clendaniel said he's lived in Anchorage since 1987, and this was the strongest earthquake he's felt.
Elsewhere downtown, Side Street Espresso co-owner George Gee said he has grown callous to rumbling. His shop was shaken repeatedly this summer as construction workers drove piles into the ground next door at the site of the renovated Anchorage Legislative Information Office.
"This building has been pre-tested," he quipped. So when the quake hit, the photos stayed on the walls and the syrups remained on the shelves. "Everyone kind of looked at each other," he said. And then, business resumed to normal. At Urban Greens nearby, employee Andrea Nashalook said while she has grown up in Alaska, she will never grow accustomed to the quakes. "I'm not used to it," she said of Thursday's earthquake. "I don't like it. It makes me nervous."
On Thursday morning, the 20-year-old and a few other employees at the sandwich and salad shop watched out the window as parked cars rolled slowly back and forth. The group exchanged wide-eyed looks, she said. By midafternoon, talk from most customers revolved around the earlier shaking, some inserting "quake" into their food selections. She got a few orders for "quake salads," she said. In Midtown, the quake interrupted a press conference for Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dan Sullivan, who had to briefly evacuate the training center where the event was being held.
"Welcome to Alaska," he said to the officials affiliated with the U.S. Chamber of a Commerce who were in the state to deliver the group's endorsement -- one that he joked was "earth-shaking."
The earthquake hit just before the start of morning Rosh Hashanah services at the Lubavitch Jewish Center of Alaska. People were setting up chairs and tables for worshipers to use for the Jewish New Year event, and then "everything stopped," said Esty Greenberg, head of the center's school programs and the rabbi's wife.
"Everyone ran to see that everyone was OK," she said. At the time, she was in the kitchen, where the earthquake rocked the freezer, knocked boxes of noodles from a shelf and shook the congregation's brand-new challah dough mixer, a machine capable of making dough for 50 loaves at a time, Greenberg said.
And at the Alaska Zoo, a playful group of wolves scattered as the quake began. They let out howls, deep, long and loud. As leaves shook from the trees and fences began rattling and clanking, some wolves hunched over in the corners of the enclosure while others ran to higher ground, still howling. By the temblor's end, the animals regrouped, tails between their legs, whimpering.
The science curator at the Anchorage Museum, Greg Danner, said he and a co-worker were in the museum's planetarium previewing a new show when the earthquake hit. Danner was leaning up against a wall and sheltered in place.
Once the shaking subsided, Danner walked through the museum to check for impacts. The exhibitions are bolted down, he said, and he and other museum staff found no major damage.
Then, Danner whipped out a calculator. He curated the museum's exhibition on the 1964 earthquake, which recently came down.
Using the calculator, he figured out that Thursday's 6.2 earthquake was 32,000 times less powerful than the Good Friday earthquake.
Also doing the math were students at Wasilla High School, where, according to principal Amy Spargo, along with a real-time lesson in earthquake response, students got to learn about "exponential scale" when comparing Thursday's quake to the 9.2-magnitude monster that struck Alaska in 1964.
Like their contemporaries at Wasilla High, students at Palmer and Houston high schools hunkered under desks and doorways and kept clear of windows when the shaking started. But despite the epicenter's proximity to Matanuska-Susitna Borough communities, there were no reports of damage "other than books and knickknacks falling off shelves" and no quake-related 911 calls, said borough emergency manager Casey Cook.
"We've had reports that things are fine and there are no new lakes or crevices in the Willow area," Cook said after talking with a Susitna Valley fire chief.
The Big Lake IGA closed for an hour or so Thursday morning to clean up the mess all over the floor -- especially the plastic detergent bottles that ruptured and oozed slick soap everywhere. "I never though that plastic bottles would break faster than pickle jars," said Diane Meckley, who answered the phone at the store. "You could just see things just dropping from the shelves. We had glass all over the floor, soap." The coolest thing about the day? "Do you know, the fire department literally called to make sure we were OK," Meckley said. For Palmer artist Michelle Hotchkiss, the temblor caused a major setback on a big project. She was in the middle of having some of her pen and ink drawings laser-engraved into a custom tabletop when the quake it.
"It caused the laser to jump around and now the swans, mountains, grass and baby moose are all blurry on the right sides," Hotchkiss wrote in an email. "We will have to sand the entire piece of wood down to erase the engraving and start all over."
Not every resident's day was disrupted by the morning shake. Two-time Iditarod champion Dallas Seavey was out mushing dogs in Willow when the earthquake hit. He said he didn't even realize there was a quake until he checked his phone and to find a handful of messages wondering if he had felt it.
"I was glad to see my house was still there," Seavey said.
And in Talkeetna, 60 miles from the quake's epicenter, Nagley's General Store lost just one bottle of wine to the shaking -- a "schnazzy bottle of Decoy," as cashier Jolene Pate put it -- while Alaska's most famous feline didn't bat an eye.
Stubbs the orange cat -- sometimes called the town's honorary mayor even though he's not -- weathered all that shaking just fine. "He's been sleeping a lot lately," Pate said. | Earthquakes | September 2014 | ['(Alaska Dispatch News)'] |
Vince Cable is acclaimed as Leader of the Liberal Democrats in the United Kingdom after running unopposed. | Sir Vince Cable is the new leader of the Liberal Democrats, after no-one stood against him.
The 74-year old Twickenham MP was the only candidate on the ballot paper when nominations closed at 16:00 BST.
The former business secretary said there should be an "exit from Brexit" and he believed the party's call for a second referendum would be vindicated.
He also said he did not intend to be a "caretaker" leader and he would "serve as long as I need to".
Sir Vince, who has been acting and deputy leader in the past, has argued that Brexit is not inevitable.
He assumes the leadership vacated by Tim Farron, who stood down after a disappointing general election in which the party increased its number of MPs from nine to 12 but saw its vote share fall to 7.4%. Sir Vince paid tribute to his predecessor as he was announced as the new leader, saying Mr Farron had taken over the leadership at a time of crisis for the party and had rebuilt its membership to record levels.
He argued that the Conservatives and Labour had been taken over by "ideologues" and British politics had lost its "basic common sense", moderation and mutual respect - his aim was for the Liberal Democrats to move into that space.
He warned that he feared the UK was "heading for a disastrous outcome" over Brexit, headed by a dysfunctional and disunited government - and said he felt there should be an "exit from Brexit". The party's main campaign pledge during the election was to give the public the final say on the terms of the UK's exit from the EU in a further referendum, ahead of the scheduled withdrawal date in March 2019. Although Sir Vince has admitted this message did not "cut through", he has argued that attitudes are beginning to change and that the public mood will come round to the party's position.
He said as the difficulties of Brexit became clearer, Mr Farron's policy would be "absolutely vindicated". He added: "I'm ambitious for this country and I'm ambitious for this party. In difficult times, we have shown enormous resilience but I believe we can fight our way back, break through and make an enormous success of our party and eventually, in government." Born: 9 May 1943, in York
Educated: Grammar school, Cambridge University
Family: Father of three grown-up children by his first wife, Olympia, who died in 2001. Remarried in 2004.
Job before politics: Economist, lecturer and adviser to the Kenyan government and senior Labour politicians. Chief economist at oil giant Shell.
Political career: A Labour councillor in Glasgow the 1970s, who joined the SDP in 1982 and then won his Twickenham seat for the Lib Dems at the second attempt in 1997. Stood in as Lib Dem leader when Sir Menzies Campbell quit in 2007, was business secretary in the coalition government between 2010 and 2015, before losing his seat. Returned to the Commons in June. Knighted in 2015.
Off duty: Ballroom dancing and writing - about to publish his first novel, a political thriller about a post-Brexit future called Open Arms
Read More: The Vince Cable story
He has said the Conservative and Labour leaderships are conspiring to negotiate a "hard Brexit" and he is willing to work with MPs from other parties to thwart this.
Sir Vince, who was knighted last year, was elected unopposed after other potential candidates, including Jo Swinson, Norman Lamb and Sir Ed Davey, said they would not be putting themselves forward.
The veteran politician, who was a Labour councillor in the 1970s before defecting to the SDP and later joining the Liberal Democrats, has never stood for the party's leadership before.
But he has become one of its most recognisable and influential figures, having served as deputy to former leaders Sir Menzies Campbell and Nick Clegg, and been a cabinet minister in the Tory-Lib Dem government for five years.
He will be the oldest leader of the party in its near 30-year history.
He has insisted he has the energy, as well as the experience, to lead the Lib Dems into the next election, which he believes will happen sooner rather than later.
Mr Farron announced his decision to quit a week after last month's poll, citing the pressures of trying to reconcile his Christian beliefs with his leadership of a progressive political party.
He later said that he had decided to step down early on in the election campaign - a campaign in which he was forced to clarify on several occasions his views on whether gay sex was a sin or not. | Government Job change - Appoint_Inauguration | July 2017 | ['(BBC)'] |
An earthquake estimated at a magnitude of 6.0 hits Kobe, Japan, injuring at least 22 people. | A strong earthquake shook Japan on Saturday near the southwestern city of Kobe, leaving 23 people injured, seven of them seriously mostly elderly tripping while trying to flee, police said. No one was killed.
The magnitude-6.3 quake left some homes with rooftop tiles broken and cracked walls, while goods fell off store shelves, according to the Meteorological Agency and Japanese TV news footage.
The earthquake was centered on Awaji Island, just south of Kobe, at a depth of 15 km.
The quake was in the area where a magnitude-7.2 temblor killed more than 6,400 people in 1995.
TV news footage showed that some areas of the island had liquefied, a common effect of strong earthquakes.
The agency warned there may be aftershocks for about a week.
Japan is among the most quake-prone nations in the world. In March 2011, northeastern Japan was struck with a giant earthquake and tsunami, killing nearly 19,000 people and setting off a nuclear disaster. | Earthquakes | April 2013 | ['(AP via The Hindu)', '(CBC News)'] |
The International Federation of Phonogram and Videogram Producers sues Yahoo! China for providing links to pirated music tracks. | "We've started the process and as far as we're concerned we're on a track to litigation," John Kennedy, chairman of the IFPI, told Bloomberg.com.
Yahoo China is the second largest search engine in the country, and is 40% owned by Yahoo Inc.
Mr Kennedy told Bloomberg he hoped that negotiation could still prevent legal proceedings from starting.
Last year the International Federation of the Phonographic Industries, whose members include EMI, Sony BMG and Warner Music, sued Baidu, the most popular search engine in China and the dispute is ongoing.
Damages
Mr Kennedy declined to say how much in damages the music industry was seeking, if its claim proved successful.
With similar cases in the US damages "would certainly run into tens of millions and perhaps even more than that,'' he said.
The IFPI has made the Chinese market a priority for future music sales.
In a speech to the China International Forum on the Audio Visual Industry last month Mr Kennedy said China was "the most exciting new market in the world for the international recording industry".
In terms of music sales China is the 20th ranked music market in the world and the fifth in Asia, behind Japan, Korea, India and Taiwan.
Mr Kennedy warned that the country had to counter a "culture of music piracy" if it were to realise its commercial potential.
Illegal sales of music in China are valued by the IFPI at about $400m (216m), with about 90% of all recordings being illegal. A simple search on Yahoo China found mp3 files of recent releases for direct download within a few clicks.
A spokesman for Yahoo China, Porter Erisman, said the search engine was acting "within the law."
"We respect intellectual property rights," he said. "If someone sees something on our site that violates intellectual property rights, there is a process for removing it."
Mr Erisman said the company is talking with music companies about creating a licensed music download system for China. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | July 2006 | ['(BBC)'] |
Florida rapper YNW Melly is arrested for allegedly murdering two friends. | MIRAMAR, Fla. -- Police have charged Florida rapper YNW Melly with killing two of his close friends who were also rising rap stars, and trying to make it appear they died in a drive-by shooting.
On Wednesday, Miramar police arrested 19-year-old YNW Melly, whose legal name is Jamell Demons, on first-degree murder charges in October deaths of 19-year-old Christopher Thomas Jr. and 21-year-old Anthony Williams.
The rapper's 20-year-old friend Cortlen Henry also was arrested, in Houston last month, and extradited to Florida on Tuesday in connection with the killings.
Demons was booked into Broward County Jail on Wednesday night.
Investigators said the victims were killed early in the morning of Oct. 26 and driven in a Jeep Compass to the emergency room entrance of Memorial Hospital Miramar, which is 20 miles (32 kilometres) west of Fort Lauderdale. Both were dead of multiple gunshot wounds, police said.
In a news release, Miramar police said Demons shot the men, who were his lifelong friends, and Henry drove the vehicle to the hospital. According to investigators, Demons and Henry staged the Jeep to make it appear as though the victims died in a drive-by shooting.
Henry's statement to investigators didn't match the evidence discovered during the preliminary investigation, police said.
The victims were last seen alive around 3:20 a.m. on Oct. 26 in Fort Lauderdale, records show.
The Sun Sentinel reports the victims had recently moved from Vero Beach to Miramar and were trying to forge their own rap careers. Thomas went by the stage name YNW Juvy while Williams was known as YNW Sakchaser. Both were featured in the "Melly" documentary video posted to YNW Melly's YouTube page. The text at the end of the video notes that four days after the film was completed, "YNW Melly and his friends were the target of a drive-by shooting..."
In a post Wednesday on YNW Melly's official Instagram, he said "a couple months ago I lost my two brothers by violence and now the system want to find justice."
YNW Melly's first official studio album "We All Shine" was released last month. He had also recently collaborated with Kanye West. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Arrest | February 2019 | ['(CTV News)'] |
Twelve people are arrested and three men are subsequently charged with terrorism offences in Belgium after dozens of raids were carried out mainly in the Brussels region. | Belgian authorities have charged three men with terrorism offences, including attempting to commit murder, following a huge overnight operation. Nine other people who had also been arrested have been released by the investigating judge, the federal prosecutor's office said.
Searches were conducted overnight in 16 municipalities, mainly around Brussels, with checks on 152 lock-up garages. PM Charles Michel said security would be stepped up at public events.
He tweeted (in French) after a meeting of the Belgian security council to say events would go ahead as planned, urging the public to remain calm.
Belgian media had earlier reported that militant Islamists may have been planning to attack the football fan zone in Brussels, where Belgium's games in the Euro 2016 tournament in France are screened. On 22 March, bombs killed 32 people at a Brussels airport and a metro station.
The three men charged on Saturday were named as Samir C, aged 27; Moustapha B, 40; and Jawad B, 29.
The charges they face include attempting to commit murder through terrorism and participating in a terrorist group.
No arms or explosives were found during the searches, which passed off without incident, the federal prosecutor said in an earlier statement.
Forty people were initially taken in for questioning.
Among the areas where searches took place was Molenbeek, a Brussels district which has become notorious because of its associations with jihadists. Officials said the operation had been launched after investigations which "necessitated an immediate intervention".
The country is under a level three terror alert, one below maximum.
There were several warnings of further attacks in recent days.
On Friday evening, four federal ministers including Mr Michel were placed under heightened police protection along with their families, Belgian media report. Belgian police are said to have recently received a warning that a group of militants from the so-called Islamic State (IS) group had left Syria en route for Europe, planning new attacks in Belgium and France.
An unnamed security source was quoted by Belgian newspaper DH (in French) on Wednesday as saying the group had "left Syria about a week-and-a-half ago aiming to reach Europe via Turkey and Greece by boat without passports".
Meanwhile, a Belgian national named as Youssef EA was arrested on Friday and charged on suspicion of terrorist activities in connection with the March attacks, which were claimed by IS.
Belgian media report that he is the eighth person to have been charged over the attacks, which were carried out by three suicide bombers.
Investigators have established connections between the Brussels bombers and the IS attacks on Paris on 13 November, in which 130 people were killed. Several of the Paris bombers came from Belgium and some of the bombs were made in a flat in Brussels. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | June 2016 | ['(BBC)'] |
Torrential rain causes flooding in parts of the United Kingdom, with Cornwall, West Devon, Pembrokeshire and Northern Ireland most affected. | Parts of south-west England, Northern Ireland and Wales that suffered flooding because of torrential rain on Monday have been returning to normal.
The wettest place was Cardinham, in Cornwall, which received about half a month's rain - 2.7in (68.4mm).
Flood alerts remain in place on the North Sea coast, and around the Upper River Tamar in south-west England.
A flood warning and alerts are in place in north-east Scotland, as forecasts suggest heavy rain is due there.
The flood warning applies to the River Isla in Tayside, from Bridge of Ruthven to Leitfie, with the alerts for the whole of Tayside, Aberdeenshire and Aberdeen City, and Dundee and Angus, said the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa).
Some 24 flood warnings and alerts that had been issued for north-east and south-west England and Wales on Monday have now been lifted by the Environment Agency. In Northern Ireland, the Met Office issued a weather warning for heavy rain in counties Fermanagh, Tyrone and Armagh on Tuesday afternoon. In south-west England on Monday, more than 80 people were involved in a major search operation for a 13-year-old girl who went missing during a storm near St Agnes, Cornwall.
Annie Thomas was found with a head injury, having slipped down an embankment, more than seven hours after going out for a walk with the family dog.
Residents in the Cornish village of Par are demanding action after sewage washed into the streets at the height of floods on Monday.
South West Water apologised for delays in dealing with the incident as heavy rain overwhelmed drains and lifted off manholes.
Elsewhere in the region, Torquay seafront was shut to traffic. Several roads in Torbay were also closed.
Eighteen people, including two children, had to be rescued by boat in County Tyrone as flooding affected many parts of Northern Ireland.
A river burst its banks in Beragh, leaving some residents trapped in their homes. The worst-hit areas included north and west Belfast, Ballyclare and Cushendall.
Northern Ireland Environment Minister Alex Attwood has pledged assistance for people whose homes have been flooded.
In the Republic of Ireland, search teams trying to locate a missing policeman have discovered a body close to where he was swept into a river in County Wicklow on Monday night.
Ciaran Jones, 25, had been off duty but got out of his car to direct traffic as rising waters in the River Liffey threatened to collapse a bridge. The body of a woman was found by firefighters when water was pumped from the basement of a flooded building in Dublin.
A number of major roads, houses and one of Dublin's main shopping centres flooded. The city council has activated its major emergency plan.
There is heavy rain again in Dublin on Tuesday after a brief lull overnight. With major traffic disruption across the city, jury court sittings have been cancelled for the day.
The BBC's Ireland correspondent Mark Simpson says there were three-hour delays on some major routes out of the city on Monday, and the Dublin Dart train service was suspended.
In Wales, homeowners in Pembrokeshire have been hit by flooding after Monday's heavy rain.
Pembroke Dock and Milford Haven were worst hit as fire crews attended 30 flooding incidents on Monday evening.
Environment Agency Wales spokesman Curig Jones told BBC Radio Wales: "We do ask that people take care when they're out and about - if they do see any flooding on the roads, not to walk or drive on them as they could be dangerous."
BBC weather forecaster Chris Fawkes said: "It's certainly going to become much drier in Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, Wales and south-west England, but the front is going to become slow-moving across north-east England and eastern Scotland now.
"Across eastern Scotland the Met Office have warnings of between 30mm (1.2in) and 50mm (2in) of rain to fall over the coast and hills, and that could still cause some problems there." | Floods | October 2011 | ['(BBC)'] |
A firefight in GuineaBissau kills six people. | At least six people have been killed in a firefight after gunmen attacked an army barracks in Guinea-Bissau, military sources say.
They say the army repelled the pre-dawn attack just outside the capital Bissau, killing six "rebels".
The raid is likely to further heighten tensions in the West African nation, where the military seized power in a coup in April. Instability has turned the country into a prime drug smuggling spot.
Gangs use the country to smuggle cocaine from Latin America to Europe, allegedly in collusion with top army officers.
The UN Security Council has recently demanded that Guinea-Bissau's rulers restore constitutional rule. Communications Minister Fernando Vaz accused Portugal of being behind the attack - an accusation which the former colonial power declined to address, reports the AFP news agency.
"Portugal calls for calm and an end to the violence," the Portuguese foreign ministry said in a statement.
It also called for "a new phase in the history of Guinea-Bissau, which will be marked by peace, the consolidation of democratic institutions, by the submission of the military to civilian powers and by an effective fight against drug trafficking," AFP reports.
Guinea-Bissau has a long history of coups since independence from Portugal in 1974, and no elected leader has finished their time in office since.
| Armed Conflict | October 2012 | ['(BBC)'] |
A fire in a low–rent apartment in a suburb of Beijing kills 19 people and injures 8. The Beijing municipal government then launches a fire safety crackdown in which thousands of migrant workers are evicted from their homes within days. |
Thousands of Beijing tenants, mostly migrant workers, are being evicted from their homes in a crackdown on unlicensed developments after a fatal fire last week.
Nineteen people — including eight children — were killed in the blaze at a residential-industrial compound in Daxing, a south Beijing suburb, on November 18.
Investigators said Tuesday that the fire started in a refrigerated warehouse in the basement of a two-story building, which housed an industrial plant and residential apartments. Most of the tenants who lived in these apartments were rural migrants working as factory hands or deliverymen.
Shortly after the incident, the municipal authorities ordered a 40-day crackdown targeting buildings with potential fire hazards, according to a directive issued Monday by the Beijing Work Safety Committee.
The committee is an inter-departmental municipal agency responsible for coordinating work safety enforcement.
Authorities say they have identified three types of buildings prone to potential safety hazards for “inspection, cleanups, upgrades or closure.” These include industrial and logistics warehouses in areas near the city’s two airports, the new city government compound in Tongzhou district, restaurants, antique stores, street-front shops and old residential buildings in certain downtown areas. Inspection teams will specifically target buildings and refurbished farm facilities that have been turned into rental homes and wholesale markets on the outskirts of Beijing.
Residents were evicted from some buildings on short notice ranging from two days to a week, leaving many in limbo, several tenants told Caixin.
Firefighters deployed by the government were seen on Tuesday going door to door in the Aiwo Residence in Dongba area, in the city’s eastern suburbs, ordering tenants to leave before lunchtime the next day, according a former tenant who wished to remain anonymous.
The source said nearly 200 people lived in the building, and many had come to the city looking for work. She said she was a Beijing local and had rented the place because it was close to her workplace.
“Many tenants from outside Beijing could become homeless and some didn’t even get a chance to retrieve their ID card from their rooms,” she said.
The main entrance to the building has been sealed off since Wednesday, but tenants were allowed to enter via other doors to retrieve their belongings, the woman said.
En masse evictions following orders from city authorities is also underway in in several suburban districts including Tongzhou, Changping and Daxing, several tenants told Caixin.
A resident who earlier lived in the Tuqiao area in Tongzhou said he was woken up by several firefighters and police officers who knocked on his door at about 7:30 a.m. Wednesday and he was told to move out in two days. Water and electricity supply to the building was cut off, according to the tenant who asked not to be named. “You feel helpless, but this is life,” said the man who came from central China’s Hunan province and works for an IT firm in Beijing.
Many low-income, rural migrants said they were jittery because the government was vague over the types of residential builds that are being investigated.
Industrial and office buildings refurbished as rental homes, living quarters rented out in slum areas and residential homes partitioned to accommodate multiple tenants would be affected most by the clampdown because they lack basic fire prevention facilities, said Zhang Dawei, chief analyst of Centaline Property.
Some tenants could also face losing money if landlords refuse to return their deposits or charge penalties for breaking contact, said Zhang. Rents might also go up as a result of price-gouging by new landlords.
A resident from Xibeiwang area, in Beijing’s Haidian district, said he began to look for a new place after he was served an eviction order on Tuesday. He said he wanted to rent a smaller bedroom in a two-bedroom unit in an apartment in the same area, but the landlord suddenly pushed up the price to 2,500 yuan ($380)a month, 500 yuan more than what was charged from the previous tenant.
“It’s really beyond what I can afford because 2,000 yuan a month is already very high for me,” said the source who was still hunting for an affordable home as of Friday.
Contact reporter Li Rongde (rongdeli@caixin.com)
| Fire | November 2017 | ['(Xinhua net)', '(Caixin)'] |
Tens of thousands of Palestinians protest on the border of Gaza. The Israel Defense Forces reports some in the crowds were planting or hurling explosives, and that many were flying flaming kites into Israel. The Gaza Health Ministry reports at least 58 killed and over 2,400 wounded by Israeli forces using live fire and tear gas. | Right Now: Palestinian officials say at least 58 people have been killed in the latest round of protests. • More than 2,700 Palestinian demonstrators were injured on Monday — at least 1,350 by gunfire — along the border fence with Gaza, the Health Ministry reported. The mass protests began on March 30 and had already left dozens dead. • The latest protests took place as the United States Embassy was formally relocated to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, on the 70th anniversary of the formation of Israel. The formality and celebration created an almost surreal contrast to the violence raging barely 40 miles away.
“Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and senior adviser Ivanka Trump.” “The embassy of the United States, here in Jerusalem, the capital of Israel. Thank you.” “Hallelujah.” “As we have seen from the protests of the last month and even today, those provoking violence are part of the problem and not part of the solution.” “God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. We gather here today to thank you for the joy of living and seeing this glorious and historic day.” “What a glorious day. Remember this moment.”
A mass attempt by Palestinians to cross the border fence separating Israel from Gaza turned violent, as Israeli soldiers responded with rifle fire. Monday became the bloodiest day since the campaign of demonstrations began seven weeks ago to protest Israel’s economic blockade of Gaza. [Here are contrasting images from the protests and the embassy opening]
Tens of thousands of Palestinians took part in the Gaza protests. Protests also took place on the West Bank, where the focus was the embassy move. By late in the evening, 58 Palestinians, including several teenagers, had been killed and more than 1,350 wounded by gun fire, the Health Ministry said. Israeli soldiers and snipers used barrages of tear gas as well as live gunfire to keep protesters from entering Israeli territory. The Israeli military said that some in the crowds were planting or hurling explosives, and that many were flying flaming kites into Israel; at least one kite outside the Nahal Oz kibbutz, near Gaza City, ignited a wildfire. By midafternoon, the protest nearest to Gaza City had turned into a pitched battle — a chaotic panorama of smoke, sirens and tear gas that stretched along the fence. Emergency workers with stretchers carried off a stream of injured protesters, many with leg wounds but some having been shot in the abdomen. A number were teenagers. The Health Ministry said that more than 2,700 people were injured overall but did not provide a full breakdown. A spokesman for the Israeli Defense Forces, Lt. Colonel Jonathan Conricus, cast doubt on the casualty numbers from the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry; he said a large number of those listed as injured had suffered only tear-gas inhalation. Even as Palestinians’ anger erupted, American and Israeli officials celebrated President Trump’s move of the embassy to Jerusalem. Previous administrations in Washington, like the governments of most American allies, had been unwilling to make the transfer, insisting that the status of Jerusalem needed to be resolved in a peace agreement with the Palestinians. In a recorded video message played to some 800 people gathered at the new embassy, Mr. Trump said the United States “remains fully committed to facilitating a lasting peace agreement.”
In a speech at the ceremony, Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, also spoke of a resolution to generations of conflict. “When there is peace in this region, we will look back upon this day and will remember that the journey to peace started with a strong America recognizing the truth,” he said. But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel sounded more triumphant and defiant than conciliatory. “What a glorious day,” Mr. Netanyahu exulted. “Remember this moment! This is history! President Trump, by recognizing history, you have made history.”
“We are in Jerusalem and we are here to stay,” he said. “We are here in Jerusalem protected by the great soldiers of the army of Israel and our brave soldiers are protecting the border of Israel as we speak today.”
Near Gaza City, a voice on a loudspeaker urged the crowd forward: “Get closer! Get closer!”
The charge was often led by women dressed in black, waving Palestinian flags and urging others to follow. “We don’t want just one or two people to get closer,” said an elderly woman clutching a shoulder bag and a flag. “We want a big group.”
The atmosphere grew more charged after midday prayers, when more than 1,000 men gathered under a large blue awning. Officials from Hamas and other militant factions addressed the worshipers, urging them into the fray and claiming — falsely, to all appearances — that the fence had been breached and that Palestinians were flooding into Israel. Several speakers reserved their harshest words for the United States and its decision to move the embassy to Jerusalem. “America is the greatest Satan,” said a cleric, holding his index finger in the air as hundreds of people did the same. “Now we are heading to Jerusalem with millions of martyrs. We may die but Palestine will live.” The crowd repeated the chant. As the cleric spoke, more smoke rose in the sky behind him, and worshipers peeled away and began to walk toward the fence. At 5:30 p.m., shortly after an Israeli airstrike in Gaza, organizers who had been urging people toward the fence all day suddenly began shooing them away, and the day’s action quickly subsided. Hamas officials promised that the protests would continue. Khalil al-Hayya, deputy chief of Hamas in Gaza, said at a news conference that the purpose of Monday’s demonstrations was to “powerfully confront the embassy deal” and to “draw the map of return in blood.”
“The American administration bears responsibility for all consequences following the implementation of this unjust decision,” Mr. Hayyah said. “This crime will not pass.”
Hamas officials also hinted at the possibility of a military strike at Israel by the group’s military wing, the Qassam brigades. The shift of the United States Embassy to Jerusalem reflects the close alliance that has developed between Mr. Trump and Mr. Netanyahu, which Palestinian leaders say has worsened prospects for peace. Many Israelis see the relocation of the embassy as simply acknowledging that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital. But Palestinians, who hope to see the eastern part of Jerusalem become the capital of a Palestinian state, see the move as an abdication of any vestige of American impartiality in determining the region’s future. [Here are nine things to know about Jerusalem and the controversy over the American Embassy.] “Today is a day of sadness,” said Sabri Saidam, the Palestinian minister of education. “It’s a manifestation of the power of America and President Trump in upsetting the Palestinian people and the people who have been awaiting the independence of Palestine for 70 years.”
The embassy opening began at 4 p.m., with the Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, and President Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, and her husband, Mr. Kushner, whom the president has tapped as his chief Middle East peace negotiator. They were joined by a small contingent of Republican lawmakers. In Washington, a White House spokesman faulted Hamas for the violence. “The responsibility for these tragic deaths rest squarely with Hamas,” said the official, Raj Shah, at a regular press briefing. “Hamas is intentionally and cynically provoking this response. And as the secretary of state said, Israel has the right to defend itself.”
He said he had no answer on whether the White House would be in touch with the Palestinians but said a peace plan would be brought forward “at the appropriate time.” Mr. Shah added that Monday’s events would not have an impact on it. While Hamas has led the protests in Gaza — and helped to revive international interest in the Palestinian cause in the process — the rival Palestinian Authority, which governs the West Bank, made a more subdued show of support. Palestinians marched at midday in West Bank cities from Hebron to Nablus. In Ramallah, a small crowd gathered before noon and marched south toward the Qalandiya checkpoint into Jerusalem, a longstanding hot spot for clashes with Israeli security forces. At the front of the march were leaders of the Palestinian Authority, the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Fatah movement, including Jibril Rajoub, general secretary of Fatah, and Mr. Saidam, the education minister. “Palestine is on the map,” Mr. Rajoub said. “This is a right. This is a must. The emergence of the Palestinian independent state with Jerusalem as its capital is the only way to achieve security, regional stability and contribute to global peace.”
Outside the Qalandiya refugee camp north of Jerusalem, youths released bunches of black balloons that carried aloft black Palestinian flags, showing their disdain for the American move. Even before marchers arrived there from Ramallah, clashes pitted demonstrators throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails against Israeli security forces firing tear gas and rubber bullets. Clashes were also reported in Bethlehem, Jericho, Hebron and Nablus. But one usual site of conflict was relatively quiet: the checkpoint near Beit El. A possible reason: Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, returned on Monday from a trip overseas, and security officials ensured that his path home to Ramallah was clear. Israel has stirred widespread international anger over the use of lethal force against mostly unarmed Palestinian protesters, which on Monday produced the biggest one-day toll of Palestinians killed by Israelis since Israel’s 2014 invasion of Gaza. Israel said its soldiers had exercised restraint and that many more protesters would die if they tried to cross into Israeli territory. But Doctors Without Borders, the international medical charity, said on Friday that it had treated more Palestinians at its Gaza clinics in the past month than during the 2014 conflict and that some of the exit wounds from Israeli ammunition were “fist-size.”
The Israeli military fires tear gas canisters to repel crowds. Shifting winds and gas masks worn by some protesters can render the gas ineffective, however, and Palestinians have become adept at flinging the canisters back or quickly burying them. Israel has used rubber bullets as a deterrent, but military officials say they are effective only at short range. Israel says its soldiers are allowed to use live ammunition as a last resort and are instructed to aim at people’s ankles or legs. On Friday, B’Tselem, a leading Israeli human rights organization, criticized the military’s use of lethal force, saying that the demonstrations were no surprise and that Israel had “plenty of time to come up with alternate approaches.”
“The fact that live gunfire is once again the sole measure that the Israeli military is using in the field evinces appalling indifference towards human life on the part of senior Israeli government and military officials,” the group said. But the leader of the center-left opposition in the Israeli Parliament faulted Hamas for what he called its self-destructive actions. “Events in Gaza are very serious, painful and difficult but I must say one thing, in all fairness,” the leader, Isaac Herzog, said in a radio interview. “To whoever is sending them to these protests — violence and force will not help you. Look at 70 years of history: You have not achieved anything from violence.”
Israel’s use of force on Monday included not only infantry with rifles, but also fighter jets and a tank, as it repulsed what it said were unsuccessful attempts by Hamas to have armed fighters slip across the Gaza border. At least three separate squads of armed Hamas fighters “tried to use the commotion and smoke and dynamics of the riots as concealment, and then launched an attack on the fence,” said Colonel Conricus, a spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces. Though he said the Palestinian fighters were carrying firearms, he acknowledged that there had been no reports of Israeli troops coming under gunfire. An Israeli soldier was wounded by shrapnel from what was believed to be an explosive device, he added. The attempts to breach the fence expanded from five locations in previous protests to 13 on Monday, Colonel Conricus said, calling it an “unprecedented level of violence.”
In retaliation, he said, Israeli jets struck five targets in a Hamas military training facility in the northern Gaza Strip, and two other Hamas military positions in the area were hit by an aircraft and a tank. Israel has made clear throughout the protests that it holds Hamas responsible for any violence emanating from Gaza, and Colonel Conricus made no apologies for the one-sided body count. “Hamas is killing Gaza,” he said. “We, on the other hand, are defending our homes.”
He said the Palestinians involved in the violence did not deserve to be called protesters. “Whatever comes close to the fence are rioters, with one purpose, of crossing the fence — nothing else.”
The mass protests in Gaza were expected to peak on Tuesday with an effort by thousands of people to cross the fence, despite warnings from Israel, possibly setting the stage for more bloodshed. The demonstrations were originally meant to protest the economic blockade by Israel of Gaza, the impoverished region governed by Hamas. Egypt and the Palestinian Authority, based in the West Bank, have joined in the economic squeeze that has left Gazans increasingly desperate. The timing is no accident — May 15 is observed by Palestinians as the anniversary of what they call the nakba, or catastrophe. It marks the expulsion or flight from the newly formed Jewish state of hundreds of thousands of Arabs in 1948, who have been unable to return or reclaim property they left behind. The demonstrations at the Gaza fence have taken place primarily on Fridays since March 30, and before Monday had already left dozens of people dead and thousands injured. In those protests, demonstrators have thrown gasoline bombs or rolled burning tires toward Israeli soldiers, and Israeli security forces have said that some of the Palestinians who were killed had been armed with semiautomatic rifles. Palestinian officials demanded international action against Israel and vowed no letup in the demonstrations. “We are asking the world and especially the Arab World to intervene immediately to end the massacre of our people,” Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, said at a news conference in Ramallah. The new United States Embassy, he said, “is not an embassy but a new outpost in East Jerusalem,” which the Palestinians claim. Mr. Abbas was unusually succinct, speaking for barely eight minutes, saying that protests would go on and that there would be a general strike on Tuesday. Kuwait, a member of the United Nations Security Council, said it had requested a meeting of the council on Tuesday, “in light of the developments on the ground and the killing of innocent civilians.”
The Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations, Riyad H. Mansour, said his government might refer the matter to the International Criminal Court for prosecution. “Israel, the occupying power, has abdicated its international responsibility,” he told reporters. “On the contrary, it is the source of killing.”
Mr. Mansour drew a direct link between the protests and the embassy celebrations in Jerusalem. “It is very tragic they’re celebrating an illegal action while Israel is killing civilians,” he said. “Let them look at what is really happening, in the Gaza Strip.”
Turkey declared a three-day national mourning period over the killings and recalled its ambassadors from Israel and the United States for consultations. Turkey has long criticized Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians and strongly opposed the American Embassy relocation to Jerusalem. “We all know that the blood of Palestinians is on the hands of Israel,” Turkey’s deputy prime minister, Bekir Bozdag, said in a televised speech. “Now the blood of Palestinians is on the hands of the U.S. too.”
When I stumbled across a high school graduation in Gaza City, it was disorienting. I could have been in Southern California or suburban New Jersey. Eager, excited kids in their caps and gowns. And then, a big dance party. But these graduates of Gaza’s American International School are the privileged few, the sons and daughters of the elite. They’ve come of age in a place that’s been under blockade since they were 7 years old. And even they can’t be sure that they’ll ever get out. The other 99 percent of Gazans are far worse off. They’re stuck here in one of the most densely populated places on earth, with little or no work, sporadic electricity, filthy water and worsening public health. The most acute shortage is of hope. Since March, thousands have gathered in protests demanding a right of return to their ancestral homes in what is now Israel. The protests were the idea of a young activist. He imagined masses of people camping out peacefully along the Israeli fence that hems in Gaza, then knocking it over and walking across, making a point if nothing else. But he lost control of what he had started. Hamas, the militant group that has run Gaza since 2007, took over. | Riot | May 2018 | ['(The New York Times)', '(The Guardian)'] |
A Vietnamese cargo ship sinks in the South China Sea, killing three people. | SHANGHAI, March 14 (Reuters) - Three people were killed when a Vietnamese ship sank in a gale in the South China Sea late on Friday, the Xinhua news agency reported on Saturday.
The coal transport vessel with seven crew members on board sank around 9:30 p.m. (1330 GMT) on Friday about 22 nautical miles southwest of Fangcheng Port, in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, the official news agency said.
The South China Sea Rescue Bureau under China's Ministry of Transport sent a vessel to the site where the ship sank in winds of up to 90 km per hour. Rescuers found three bodies, four crew remain missing, Xinhua said. | Shipwreck | March 2009 | ['(Reuters)'] |
The death toll of a magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck Haiti rises to 15. At least 333 others are injured. | A 5.9-magnitude earthquake that struck off the northwest coast of Haiti at the weekend has killed at least 15 people, authorities said on Monday, increasing the previous toll by three.
Centered 12 miles (19 kilometres) northwest of the city of Port-de-Paix, it rattled communities across the impoverished country on Saturday, sparking fear among residents still reeling from the massive 2010 earthquake that left at least 200,000 people dead.
“The new toll from the earthquake of October 6, 2018, is up to 15 dead and 333 injured … More than 7,000 houses have been destroyed or damaged,” the Caribbean nation’s civil protection agency said.
A strong aftershock sent panicked residents fleeing into the streets on Sunday in Port-de-Paix, where most of the victims died.
The Nord-Ouest department which includes the coastal city is the poorest part of Haiti, with many areas isolated due to the dire state of the roads. | Earthquakes | October 2018 | ['(The Punch)'] |
13 people are killed and 10 injured in a suicide car bomb attack at a military checkpoint near the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi. | BENGHAZI, Libya -- A suicide car bombing at a security checkpoint in eastern Libya on Sunday killed at least 13 people, the government said -- a gruesome attack that left body parts strewn across a roadway. Officials declared three days of mourning.
The powerful explosion took place in Bersis, about 30 miles from the increasingly restive city of Benghazi. An American schoolteacher was killed in the city earlier this month, and it was the scene of the September 2012 attack on the American consulate that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya, J. Christopher Stevens.
Several heavily armed groups operate in the city and its environs, and have been battling one another and the security forces. Assassinations and bombings are favored tactics; Benghazi’s military chief was assassinated last week. However, until now, suicide attacks have not been a feature of the fighting.
A number of diplomatic missions in Benghazi have closed as a result of the recent bout of violence, which has wreaked havoc in the country’s oil industry. The rival militias sprang up in the wake of the 2011 fighting that toppled and killed longtime leader Moammar Kadafi, with the country’s oil-rich east a key prize.
Militias have seized control of ports and oilfields in and near Benghazi in an effort to win concessions from the weak central government of Prime Minister Ali Zidan. The government has made little headway in efforts to rein in the armed groups, whose influence has spread to the capital Tripoli as well.
The government postponed independence-day commemorations that had been scheduled for this Tuesday, because they would have fallen within the official mourning period for Sunday’s attack.
| Armed Conflict | December 2013 | ['(Financial Times)', '(Los Angeles Times)'] |
Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall wins the 2009 Man Booker Prize. | Hilary Mantel's acceptance speech after winning the Man Booker Prize
Author Hilary Mantel has been named 2009 Man Booker Prize winner for her historical novel Wolf Hall.
Mantel, 57, beat five other shortlisted authors, including Sarah Waters and JM Coetzee, with her book based on Henry VIII's adviser Thomas Cromwell. Judges praised the "extraordinary story-telling" of Mantel. The author, who received the £50,000 prize at a ceremony at London's Guildhall, said it had taken her about 20 years to decide to write the book. "I couldn't begin until I felt secure enough to say to my publisher - just what a publisher always wants to hear - 'this will take me several years you know'. But they took it on the chin," she said. Mantel, who is now working on a sequel, also beat AS Byatt with the novel The Children's Book, Adam Foulds for The Quickening Maze and Simon Mawer for The Glass Room. Waters was shortlisted for her book, The Little Stranger, and Coetzee had been in the running for his fictionalised memoir, Summertime. "When I began the book I knew I had to do something very difficult, I had to interest the historians, I had to amuse the jaded palate of the critical establishment and most of all I had to capture the imagination of the general reader," Mantel said.
Chairman of judges James Naughtie said: "Our decision was based on the sheer bigness of the book. The boldness of its narrative, its scene setting. "The extraordinary way that Hilary Mantel has created what one of the judges has said was a contemporary novel, a modern novel, which happens to be set in the 16th Century. "We thought it was an extraordinary piece of story-telling." Despite that, he revealed it had not been an "unanimous decision, but it was a decision with which we were all content". Bookmakers favourite
Mantel, who was made CBE in 2006, saw her first novel, Every Day is Mother's Day, published in 1985. Its sequel, Vacant Possession, followed a year later. Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play. In 1989 she won the Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize for Fludd, then A Place of Greater Safety scooped the Sunday Express Book Of The Year award in 1993. Three years later Mantel was presented with the Hawthornden Prize for An Experiment in Love. She was also shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize and the Orange Prize for Fiction, both in 2006, for the novel Beyond Black. Mantel had been the bookmaker's favourite to win the award. William Hill had offered odds at 10/11 - the shortest odds it has ever given a book to win the prize. Ion Trewin, literary director of the Booker Prizes, said the last time a favourite walked off with the prize was Yann Martel's Life of Pi in 2002. Naughtie was joined on the judging panel by biographer and critic Lucasta Miller; Michael Prodger, literary editor of the Sunday Telegraph; Professor John Mullan, academic, journalist and broadcaster; and Sue Perkins, comedian, journalist and broadcaster. The Man Booker Prize for Fiction, first awarded in 1969, aims to promote the finest in fiction by rewarding what its judges believe is the best book of the year. | Awards ceremony | October 2009 | ['(BBC)', '(The Guardian)'] |
Thousands, including some from Australia, protest in London, England, against the renewal of the United Kingdom's Trident nuclear deterrent system, the largest anti–nuclear rally since 1983. Leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn, Scottish National Party leader and First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon, the Welsh Plaid Cymru Party, and the Green Party participated in the march. A parliamentary vote on renewing Trident is expected this year. | Thousands of protesters including Jeremy Corbyn and other party leaders gather in London for CND march and rally
Thousands of protesters have assembled in central London for Britain’s biggest anti-nuclear weapons rally in a generation.
Campaigners gathered from across the world: some said they had travelled from Australia to protest against the renewal of Trident. Others had come from the west coast of Scotland, where Britain’s nuclear deterrent submarines are based.
As the huge column of people began moving from Marble Arch after 1pm, the mood was buoyant and spirited despite the cold.
Naomi Young, 34, from Southampton said: “You can’t use nuclear weapons. You would destroy the environment and kill hundreds of thousands of people. Why spend £100bn to buy a weapon unless you want to destroy the earth?”
Many waved placards with phrases including “Books Not Bombs”, “Cut War Not Welfare” and “NHS Not Trident”.
A common theme among protesters was the cost of renewing Trident during a period of austerity.
Andy Pomphrey, 67, from Hampshire, said: “It’s such an excessive amount of money for a weapons system when the NHS and junior doctors, are struggling.”
Kai Carrwright, 17, from Exeter said: “We are having to pay to go to university and yet they want to spend £100bn on something that can only lead to the destruction of life on Earth.”
The campaigners headed for Trafalgar Square where were addressed by the leaders of the SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Green party. The true draw – cited as an inspiration by many of those assembled – was the leader of the Labour party, Jeremy Corbyn, whose unswerving unilateralist stance has electrified the nuclear deterrent debate in a manner few could have foreseen.
As crowds built from midday close to the assembly point at Marble Arch, it quickly became evident that the event would mark the biggest anti-nuclear demonstration since 1983, when 300,000 gathered in London’s Hyde Park to demonstrate against the deployment of Cruise missiles at Greenham Common, Berkshire. Union officials, faith leaders, anti-nuclear activists and anti-war campaigners were evident. Stewards estimated the numbers ran into “many tens of thousands”.
Organisers of the march, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, were confident the turnout would send a robust message of growing support against renewing the nuclear weapons system – at an estimated cost of least £41bn – and argued that worries about job losses were a red herring.
Corbyn’s decision to address the rally later on Saturday has further exposed a faultline through the party, and he has been criticised by some for highlighting party splits on a key debate. Entering the stage to rapturous applause, he said that no one should forget the “absolute mass destruction on both sides” that would follow a nuclear attack and reiterated his “total horror of nuclear weapons, should they ever be used by anybody”. Corbyn said he was elected Labour leader on a manifesto in which standing against the renewal of Trident was a key component.
He acknowledged the party’s role in the 1968 nuclear non-proliferation treaty and urged: “I want to see a Labour government that would adhere to all the articles of the non-proliferation treaty.”
The treaty had worked, given that most countries that did not have nuclear weapons at that time had not subsequently acquired them, Corbyn told the crowd. It was a credit to countries such as Argentina, South Africa and Brazil that both Africa and South America remained free of such weapons, he added.
The US, Russia and the UK signed the treaty, pledging their cooperation in stemming the spread of nuclear technology.
Corbyn, who said he joined the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament when he was 16, also made reference to those who questioned whether he should be attending the protest: “A lot of people said that maybe it was utterly relevant maybe you shouldn’t be there, but I want to be here because of my belief in a nuclear-free future.”
He said he chose to address the demonstration because he believed in a “different kind of politics in a different kind of world, a world that emphasises dealing with the crying needs of the poor and homeless in this country. Those that are going short and suffering public spending cuts.”
Earlier this week, union activists from the GMB attacked Corbyn over his stance on Trident, warning that tens of thousands of skilled jobs were dependent on parliamentary backing for renewal of the nuclear submarine programme.
He advocated re-investing some of the money allocated for Trident on keeping jobs in the affected areas.
Actor Vanessa Redgrave, Rou Reynolds of rock band Enter Shikari, and comedian Francesca Martinez also addressed the rally. Other high-profile speakers include writer and priest Giles Fraser, and the writer Tariq Ali.
The rally received support from a number of cultural figures including bands Young Fathers and Massive Attack. Fashion designer Katharine Hamnett recently unveiled a new Stop Trident T-shirt range while Portishead’s Geoff Barrow is currently mixing a single in support of the campaign.
The event also received significant international support with campaigners from Japan, the only country to have suffered an attack by an atomic bomb, urging Britain to work towards disarmament.
Gensuikyo, the Japan Council against A and H Bombs, joined similar organisations from France, Switzerland, Italy, New Zealand and the US in sending messages of support and solidarity to the CND, the organisers of Saturday’s demonstration.
The Successor programme to replace the four Vanguard nuclear armed submarines currently carrying Trident missiles is now priced at £31bn, with a further £10bn set aside for unforeseen risks. A parliamentary vote on renewing Trident is expected later in the year. | Protest_Online Condemnation | February 2016 | ['(International Business Times)', '(The Guardian)'] |
Iranian human–rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh is sentenced to 11 years in prison and banned from practicing law or traveling for 20 years; France condemns the punishment as "deeply shocking" and called for the release of Sotoudeh and another activist, Shiva Nazar–Ahari, who was sentenced to four years in prison and 74 lashes. | TEHRAN (Reuters) - An Iranian human rights lawyer who has worked with Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, has been jailed for 11 years for actions deemed “detrimental to national security,” the activist’s lawyer said Monday.
Nasrin Sotoudeh, who has worked to defend people accused of political crimes, was arrested in September and charged with undermining national security.
“My client has been handed an 11-year compulsory prison term, banned from practicing law for 20 years and given a 20-year ban on leaving the country,” Mahnaz Parakandeh, Sotoudeh’s attorney, told Reuters by telephone.
She was convicted of taking “hostile actions,” involvement in propaganda activities and colluding against national security, said the lawyer.
Sotoudeh was also found guilty of being a member of the Defenders of Human Rights Center, a banned rights association founded by Nobel laureate Ebadi, Parakandeh said.
Shortly after her detention, Sotoudeh, a mother of two, went on a hunger strike, declining all liquids and food. She stopped the protest in early November.
The reformist website Kaleme quoted Sotoudeh’s husband, Reza Khandan, as saying that he had expected a much lighter one. “We will have 20 days to appeal,” he said.
Khandan said he and his wife’s lawyer had also been summoned to court. “In the written summons the term ‘accused’ was used against me. In previous summons I had to defend myself for talking to the press,” he said.
Since Iran’s 2009 presidential election hundreds of reformists have been detained and put on trial in a crackdown on the pro-reform opposition.
The vote was followed by street protests, the most serious unrest since the Islamic Republic was founded in 1979. The state quashed the turmoil, blaming it on “seditionists” backed by its foreign enemies.
Mass detentions and trials followed the vote and two people were executed. The opposition says the vote was rigged but the authorities have strongly denied allegations of fraud.
| Famous Person - Commit Crime - Sentence | January 2011 | ['(Los Angeles Times)', '(The New York Times)', '(Reuters)'] |
The Supreme Court of Canada strikes down a ban on assisted suicide meaning doctors can now assist mentally competent patients with severe and incurable conditions to die. | Canada’s Supreme Court has struck down the country’s 1993 ban on assisted suicide, meaning doctors there can now help mentally competent patients with severe and incurable medical conditions to die. The ruling puts Canada among the few Western countries to permit the practice.
In a unanimous judgement, the court decided that clearly consenting adults who are suffering intolerably could choose to die, though their illness would not have to be terminal to qualify. The country’s federal government had argued for maintaining the ban and the Parliament in Ottawa has the power to overturn the court’s decision, but that eventuality is considered unlikely.
Instead, the court suspended its ruling for 12 months while Parliament and Canada’s medical establishment draft new legislation to address assisted suicide. The ban will then be lifted next year.
Under current law, the court said in its judgement, “People who are grievously and irremediably ill cannot seek a physician’s assistance in dying and may be condemned to a life of severe and intolerable suffering. A person facing this prospect has two options: she can take her own life prematurely, often by violent or dangerous means, or she can suffer until she dies from natural causes. The choice is cruel.”
The case was brought to the Supreme Court by the families of two Canadian women backed by a civil rights group. Gloria Taylor, who suffered from the neurodegenerative disease Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), won an exemption for a physician-assisted death from a lower court in 2012, but that decision was overturned on appeal. She died from an infection later that year.
Kay Carter, who was 89, suffered from spinal stenosis, a degenerative disease that left her incapacitated and forced to lie, she said, “flat as an ironing board.” In 2010 she underwent an assisted suicide in Switzerland. In overturning its ban, Canada joins several European countries and US states including Oregon, Washington and Vermont, where the practice is permitted.
The Canadian Supreme Court previously ruled on assisted suicide in 1993, when ALS sufferer Sue Rodriguez argued for her right to die. The court narrowly rejected her plea, but the case made her a household name in Canada. Rodriguez ultimately took her own life with the help of an anonymous doctor the following year.
“This is one incredible day,” Grace Pastine, of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, the group that brought the case on behalf of Taylor and Carter, told Reuters today. “Physician-assisted dying is now recognized for what it is: a medical service that brings an end, for some individuals, to unbearable suffering.”
| Government Policy Changes | February 2015 | ['(The Independent)'] |
Jonathan May-Bowles is jailed for six weeks for throwing a foam pie into the face of Rupert Murdoch at a House of Commons Select Committee hearing. | A man who threw a plate of shaving foam at News Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch has been jailed for six weeks.
Jonathan May-Bowles, of Edinburgh Gardens, Windsor, Berkshire, admitted attacking the media tycoon on 19 July at a Commons hearing on phone hacking.
The 26-year-old, who calls himself Jonnie Marbles, admitted assault and causing harassment, alarm or distress.
The comic said he would appeal against the sentence, which was passed at City of Westminster Magistrates' Court.
He was told he would serve three weeks in prison, and must pay a £15 victim surcharge and £250 costs.
Mr Murdoch and his son James were giving evidence before MPs at the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee when May-Bowles rushed forward from the public gallery.
He threw a paper plate full of foam, which hit Mr Murdoch's skin and clothes.
The 80-year-old's wife, Wendi Deng, jumped up and appeared to slap May-Bowles on the head as several people tackled him.
Father-of-one May-Bowles smuggled the foam in an old shirt and appeared to show little interest in the proceedings, even dozing off at one stage, said prosecutor Malachy Pakenham.
But defence solicitor Tim Greaves said May-Bowles was trying to "make a statement" through a form of slapstick.
He said: "He intended to express how he was feeling and how he believed the British public were feeling, and he sought to do that in the least harmful way he could."
District judge Daphne Wickham said the aim of the attack was to disrupt proceedings, which were "of huge importance". She said she had also taken into account the fear of injury Mr Murdoch would have experienced, as he did not know what was in the pie.
The judge said: "This is a parliamentary process, which as you know conducts itself with dignity and in a civilised fashion.
"Everybody else in the room expected that, with one exception - you.
"You attended those proceedings with only one intention, to disrupt them."
The jail term was described as "excessive" by Mr Greaves, who argued his client should be bailed while an appeal was launched.
But Mrs Wickham refused to grant bail and ordered May-Bowles to stay behind bars.
After pleading guilty last week, the part-time comic told reporters: "I would just like to say this has been the most humble day of my life", mimicking Mr Murdoch's statement to MPs.
The tycoon had not supported the assault charge, the court heard, but prosecutors proceeded with the case.
| Famous Person - Commit Crime - Sentence | August 2011 | ['(BBC)'] |
150 million workers go on strike in India to oppose Prime Minister Narendra Modi's labour market reforms. | Millions of workers in India held a one-day nationwide strike Wednesday to protest government plans for sweeping labor reforms that protesters say will put jobs at risk and hurt ordinary people. The shutdown highlights the hurdles the government is encountering in implementing economic reforms.
About 150 million workers shut down several industries, coal and mining operations, and state-run banks. They demanded the government roll back plans to implement stricter labor laws and scrap its program to sell stakes in some state-owned industries.
As taxi and autorickshaw drivers joined the strike, transport also went off the roads in major cities like New Delhi and Mumbai. Schools and colleges shut down in several cities.
Sporadic clashes between police and activists were reported in the eastern city of Kolkata.
Job security
The strike was spearheaded by 10 major trade unions, who say the government’s planned overhaul of labor laws will risk the welfare of millions of workers in the country and lessen job security.
Sanjeeva Reddy, president of the Indian National Trade Union Congress, told VOA they are protesting what he called the government’s pro-business policies.
“Without any consultation and any discussion they want to bring new legislation against the laborers and against the trade unions, which is one-sided just to support employers and the capitalists,” said Reddy.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has mounted a huge campaign to implement business-friendly reforms to attract foreign investment and turn India into a manufacturing hub.
Two bills relating to labor have been drafted, but they have not yet been introduced in parliament.
Discussions with trade unions have stalled on issues such as retrenchment, closure of factories, formation of unions and a hike in minimum wage to $250 a month.
Seeking consensus
The most contentious clause relates to permitting companies employing less than 300 workers to lay them off without government approval. The current cap is 100.
The strike demonstrated that bringing trade unions and opposition parties on board to change labor laws will be extremely tough. The opposition already has stalled key tax and land reforms in the upper house of parliament, where the government lacks a majority.
Satish Misra at the Observer Research Foundation said the government faces a tough task ahead. “Problem is labor reforms need a lot more consensus and the government has not been able to bring different stakeholders on board.”
The World Bank says India has one of the world’s most rigid labor markets. That has discouraged manufacturing, which accounts for 16 percent of the country’s gross domestic product. | Strike | September 2015 | ['(Voice of America)'] |
Iranian Para-cyclist Bahman Golbarnezhad dies after being involved in a crash during the men's C4-5 road race. | Last updated on 18 September 201618 September 2016.From the section Disability Sport
An Iranian Para-cyclist has died after a crash during the men's C4-5 road race at the Rio Paralympics.
The International Paralympic Committee said Bahman Golbarnezhad, 48, suffered cardiac arrest after the incident on a "mountainous stretch" of circuit.
"The ambulance then diverted to the nearby Unimed Rio Hospital in Barra where he passed away soon after arrival," a statement added.
Golbarnezhad also competed at the London Paralympics in 2012.
An investigation into the circumstances of the accident has been launched. "We're looking to gather as much information as we can and as quickly as possible - it should take a matter of days," said Piers Jones, sports director of cycling's governing body UCI.
The Iranian flag has been lowered to half-mast in the Paralympic Village and a period of silence will be observed during Sunday's closing ceremony.
Masoud Ashrafi, the secretary general of Iran's National Paralympic Committee, said it had requested the body of Golbarnezhad be flown to Iran on Sunday. The Committee also asked for a full report of the incident from the IPC.
Ashrafi added: "He had been cycling for 12 years and he was our best cyclist. He was married and has a wife and one son. "He was the kind of man who was a family man. He loved his family."
Golbarnezhad's death is the first in competition at a summer Olympics or Paralympics since Danish cyclist Knud Enemark Jensen in the 100km team time trial at the 1960 Rome Olympics.
Saturday's race began at Pontal and included the Grumari circuit used in the Rio Olympics road races.
The Vista Chinesa circuit, which included a treacherous descent where Annemiek van Vleuten of the Netherlands crashed and sustained concussion during the Olympics, was not part of the Paralympic course.
According to the IPC, Golbarnezhad was involved in a crash at around 10:35 local time on the first section of the Grumari loop, a mountainous stretch of the course, on a curved descent.
The BBC's South America Correspondent Wyre Davies said reporters were told Golbarnezhad suffered "catastrophic head injuries after falling from his bike at speed on a steep, tight part" of the course.
He received treatment at the scene and was in the process of being taken to the athlete hospital when he suffered cardiac arrest.
IPC president Sir Philip Craven said: "This is truly heartbreaking news and the thoughts and condolences of the whole Paralympic movement are with Bahman's family, friends, and team-mates as well as the whole of the National Paralympic Committee of Iran.
"The Paralympic family is united in grief at this horrendous tragedy, which casts a shadow over what have been great Paralympic Games here in Rio."
The race was Golbarnezhad's second at the Rio Paralympics, after he finished 14th in the C4 time-trial race on Wednesday.
Golbarnezhad, from the city of Shiraz in southern Iran, also participated in the London 2012 Paralympics.
He lost his left leg in a land mine explosion and took up the sport in 2002, competing in events for athletes with lower limb impairments or amputations.
Iranian Paralympic Committee: "He was an exemplary Paralympic sportsman who, with love and energy, tried his best to promote the name of Iran and to make all of us proud and at the end he gave his life for this.
"All members of the Iranian cultural and sports camp here express condolences to his family and the Iranian nation. The name of Bahman Golbarnezhad will be inscribed in the proud history of Iranian Paralympics."
Carlos Nuzman, president of Rio 2016: "This is very sad news for sport and for the Paralympic movement. Our hearts and prayers are with Bahman's family, his team-mates and all the people of Iran."
Brian Cookson, president of the UCI, cycling's governing body: "I am devastated to hear about the death of Iranian rider Bahman Golbarnezhad. Our thoughts are with his family and friends, and the NPC of Iran to whom we offer our most sincere condolences."
ParalympicsGB: "We are devastated by the news of Bahman Golbarnezhad's passing. Our thoughts are with our friends and colleagues from NPC Iran."
United States Olympic Team: "Our thoughts are with the friends, family and team-mates of Team Iran's inspirational cyclist Bahman Golbarnezhad."
Dame Sarah Storey, Britain's most decorated female Paralympian, also paid tribute to Golbarnezhad in an interview with BBC Sport.
"I'm absolutely devastated to hear of a colleague who hasn't made it home from the Games," said Storey, who had earlier won Britain's 60th gold medal in Rio.
"Everyone expects to come home from a Games and it's no real condolence that he died doing something he loved.
"It's just an horrendous thing. It couldn't be any worse. There are no words that can make it feel better.
"When you lose someone you don't even know but they are in the same world... I was sat opposite him in the pits this morning. I know who he is but I've never spoken to him. It still hits you really, really hard." | Famous Person - Death | September 2016 | ['(BBC)', '(The Sun)'] |
At least 43 people die after a bus collides with a truck near the French town of Puisseguin. | Coach carrying pensioners on a day trip collides with truck, causing ‘gigantic blaze’ near town 40 miles east of Bordeaux
First published on Fri 23 Oct 2015 08.19 BST
At least 43 people have been killed in France’s worst road accident in more than 30 years after a coach carrying pensioners on a day trip collided with a lorry and caught fire in the south-west of the country.
The crash happened at about 7.30am on the bend of a narrow, winding country road near the village of Puisseguin among the vineyards of the Saint-Émilion region, east of Bordeaux. The coach hit a lorry carrying wood and burst into flames.
“France and the French are in mourning today,” said the prime minister, Manuel Valls, who arrived at the scene with the interior and transport ministers to “express the nation’s emotion” after what he called an appalling catastrophe. “People died in atrocious conditions inside a bus in flames after a very violent head-on collision,” he said.
The interior ministry said firefighters had faced a “gigantic blaze” when they arrived at the scene. French television showed aerial images of the coach’s charred shell. Most of the victims were thought to have been killed by the fire. The death toll stood at 43 on Friday evening – 41 coach passengers, the lorry driver, and his son, who was sitting beside him. Eight people, including the coach driver, managed to escape the burning wreckage. Four of the survivors were seriously injured with burns or head injuries.
An investigation has been launched into the circumstances of the crash. Xavier Sublett, the mayor of Puisseguin, told reporters: “The driver of the lorry appears to have lost control of his vehicle, leaving him stranded in the middle of the road. The bus driver was unable to avoid the accident.”
Gérard Dupuy, a town hall official in Puisseguin, told France Info radio the crash had happened on a hazardous bend, where there had been other accidents in the past. Local resident Yvette Seguy told France’s i-Tele TV station the bend is known to be dangerous.
Some reports suggested the coach driver, unable to avoid the collision, had opened the doors with the vehicle still in motion.
“The bus driver was slightly injured,” Xavier Stubblet, the mayor of Puisseguin, told the newspaper Sud Ouest: “He had the commendable reaction of opening the doors to allow the maximum [number] of passengers to get off the bus.”
The coach had set off early in the morning from the small village of Petit-Palais-et-Cornemps in the Gironde region and was less than 10 minutes into its journey. The passengers were members of a pensioners’ social club from Petit-Palais-et-Cornemps and several surrounding villages.
The group was on its way south to the Béarn region to hear a talk and eat lunch at a traditional restaurant serving the local speciality garbure, a ham and cabbage soup, Sud Ouest reported.
Pierre-Henry Brandet, an interior ministry spokesman, said he believed all of the crash victims were French nationals. “It’s an incredible tragedy with an extremely heavy toll,” Brandet said. “It’s a catastrophe. They were retired people, elderly people, who were going on a day out.”
The French president, François Hollande, on an official visit to Athens, said he and France had been “plunged into sadness”. “The French government has fully mobilised after this terrible tragedy,” he said. The crash is the deadliest in France since August 1982, when 53 people including more than 40 children died in a motorway collision. | Road Crash | October 2015 | ['(The Guardian)'] |
Frank Scott Jr. is elected Mayor of Little Rock, Arkansas, defeating Baker Kurrus in the runoff. Scott will become the city's first African–American mayor. | LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — A banking executive and former highway commissioner won Tuesday's runoff for Little Rock mayor, becoming the first African-American elected to lead Arkansas' capital six decades after it was the center of a school desegregation crisis.
Frank Scott, 35, defeated Baker Kurrus in the runoff election for the nonpartisan, open seat. He'll succeed outgoing Mayor Mark Stodola, who announced earlier this year he wouldn't seek re-election.
Scott served as an adviser to former Gov. Mike Beebe and on the state Highway Commission, and he assembled a coalition that crossed racial and political lines. His supporters included Democratic state legislators from the area and prominent Republicans such as Will Rockefeller, grandson of Arkansas' first Republican governor since Reconstruction. He also was endorsed by New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, a Democrat who's considering running for president in 2020.
Scott had said he wasn't running to be Little Rock's first elected black mayor , but had sought to bridge some of the city's biggest divides: race, income and geography.
"If you believe it's time to unify this city, let's do it," Scott told supporters Tuesday night.
Little Rock has had two black mayors, but they were elected city directors chosen for the job by fellow board members and not by voters. Some voters Tuesday said they hoped electing Scott would send a message about Little Rock.
"I just thought maybe it would help race relations in our town, which is not very good right now," said Mary Leckie, a 73-year-old white retiree who voted for Scott.
Scott's election comes as race remains a dividing line in Little Rock, long after nine black students were escorted past an angry white mob into Little Rock Central High School in 1957. The city's police department has faced questions about its tactics, including its use of "no-knock" warrants . The state took over the Little Rock School District three years ago, and community leaders have compared the takeover to Gov. Orval Faubus' efforts to block integration.
Kurrus, a 64-year-old attorney and businessman, had been appointed superintendent of the district after the takeover. His contract wasn't renewed after he opposed the expansion of charter schools in the district, a move that rallied Democratic lawmakers and community leaders to his defense. Kurrus, who is white, had also called unifying the city one of his goals in the campaign.
"Let's don't give in to the things that divide us. Let's get together, work hard and make this a better place," Kurrus told supporters after conceding the race.
Scott's election makes him the highest-profile black official in a state that hasn't elected an African-American to Congress or statewide office since Reconstruction. Blacks make up about 42 percent of the city's population, compared to nearly 16 percent statewide.
Scott and Kurrus advanced to a runoff last month after Scott won a plurality of votes in a five-person race but a few percentage points shy of the 40 percent needed to win outright. Both Scott and Kurrus ran on a promise of change. Stodola, the outgoing mayor, was first elected mayor in 2006.
"It's not a black or white thing with me," said Lula Binns, a 75-year-old black retiree who voted for Scott. "It's just time for some younger blood."
Scott's election comes after a year where African-Americans have made gains elsewhere in Arkansas. Pulaski County, where Little Rock is located, this year elected its first black sheriff and clerk. Several other Arkansas cities have also elected their first black mayors this year. | Government Job change - Appoint_Inauguration | December 2018 | ['(USA Today)'] |
The European Union hosts the President of Russia Vladimir Putin in a summit. Poland has vetoed the launch of EU–Russia partnership talks. | The European Union hosts Russian President Vladimir Putin at a summit on Friday, with efforts to present a united front to Moscow in disarray after Poland vetoed the launch of EU-Russia partnership talks.
The death of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko in London on Thursday night - three weeks after he was poisoned in what friends said was a plot orchestrated by the Kremlin - was likely to become a major issue at the Helsinki summit.
Russia has dismissed the accusations of Kremlin involvement as nonsense, but Putin was still likely to face tough media questioning about Litvinenko, a critic of the president.
The start of EU-Russia partnership talks was to have been the main set-piece for the summit but it was scrapped because Poland, in a dispute with Moscow over a Russian ban on meat imports, blocked consensus on a negotiating mandate.
It was an embarrassing setback for the EU as it tries to work together to bridge differences with Russia - its biggest energy supplier - over how to ensure future oil and gas supplies and over issues of democracy and human rights.
EU officials said even without the launch of talks on a new partnership agreement - designed to map out the broad principles of EU-Russian relations - there were other weighty issues on the summit agenda.
"I am sure this will be overcome and that we will continue to work in a very normalised manner with Russia," said EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.
Russian officials also played down the fallout, saying the existing 10-year-old partnership agreement with the EU, due to expire at the end of the year, could be extended indefinitely.
But a source in the Russian delegation took a swipe at the EU's internal divisions, especially between established members and newer entrants from formerly communist Eastern Europe.
"The only thing we wish is to hear a more united voice," said the source, asking not to be identified. "We know that the EU is living through a very difficult part of its life after the recent enlargement."
Putin was to meet EU chiefs in the 19th century House of the Estates, a former parliament building near Helsinki's Baltic sea front. They were to hold a joint news conference at the close of the summit at 3.30pm (030 AEDT).
Russian officials said if EU chiefs challenged Putin over his human rights record he would counter by pointing to the treatment of ethnic Russians in new EU members Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. Moscow says they suffer discrimination.
Poland was the first new member state to use its veto to block talks with a third country, and diplomats said many EU governments were exasperated by Warsaw's tactics.
Russia says it has legitimate concerns about the origins of meat supplied via Poland but Warsaw says the import ban was punishment for turning its back on its former imperial master Russia and embracing the West.
On Thursday, Russian officials played down an earlier threat to ban all EU meat imports from January, saying the problem should be resolved before then. | Diplomatic Talks _ Diplomatic_Negotiation_ Summit Meeting | November 2006 | ['(EU)', '(Reuters via Melbourne Age)'] |
The British ambassador to Iran, Robert Macaire, is arrested during anti-government protests, after attending a vigil and then, according to BBC, getting his hair cut. According to Tasnim News Agency he was arrested "on suspicion of organising, provoking and directing radical actions". U.K. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab states the arrest is in "flagrant violation" of international law. More than an hour later, Macaire is released from custody. | Dominic Raab has warned Iran it risks becoming an international “pariah” after the British ambassador was arrested during anti-government protests in Tehran.
The foreign secretary said the detention of Rob Macaire, without any grounds or explanation, was a “flagrant violation” of international law. He said Tehran was at a crossroads, with the prospect of continuing political and economic isolation unless it engages diplomatically with the west.
Macaire was said to be “safe and well” in the British embassy after he was released after more than an hour in custody. His arrest came as a wave of anti-government demonstrations broke out across the country following the admission Iranian forces had accidentally brought down a Ukrainian airliner killing all 176 people on board.
It is understood that the ambassador had been attending what had been billed as a vigil for the victims of the crash at the Amir Kabir University. However the event quickly turned into an anti-government protest at which point he was said to have left.
According to Iran’s Tasnim news agency, as he tried to make his way back to the embassy he was one of the people arrested outside the university on suspicion of organising, provoking and directing radical actions. It is unclear who he was arrested by. In a statement, Raab said: “The arrest of our ambassador in Tehran without grounds or explanation is a flagrant violation of international law.
“The Iranian government is at a crossroads moment. It can continue its march towards pariah status with all the political and economic isolation that entails, or take steps to de-escalate tensions and engage in a diplomatic path forwards.”
The incident threatened to reignite tensions in the region just as they appeared to be easing.Raab’s intervention came after the Iranians admitted they had brought down the Ukrainian Airlines flight 752 shortly after takeoff, killing all 176 people on board, in a “disastrous mistake”.
The crash happened hours after Iran launched a series of ballistic missile strikes on US bases in Iraq in retaliation for the killing of its top commander, Gen Qassem Suleimani, by an American drone.
The missile strikes failed to cause any casualties and the US president, Donald Trump, indicated he would respond by tightening sanctions rather than with further military action. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Arrest | January 2020 | ['(The Guardian)'] |
An unofficial strike by ground staff at Heathrow forces British Airways to cancel over 100 flights. Flights have resumed. | About 1,000 ground staff walked out in sympathy with workers sacked by BA's in-flight meals supplier Gate Gourmet.
It led to all BA Heathrow flights being cancelled until 2000 BST. Thirty one flights will take off later on Friday.
Talks are under way at conciliation service Acas as passengers await news of exactly when flights will leave.
Wed: Gate Gourmet's afternoon shift is sacked after workers miss a deadline to report to work. BA cancel four flights due to a lack of food
Thurs: Some BA staff stop work in sympathy with sacked staff. BA cancels all flights into and out of Heathrow until at least 1800 BST on Friday, after talks with unions break down
Fri: BA extends its flight cancellations until 2000 BST. Acas announces talks are to take place between TGWU and Gate Gourmet. BA staff start returning to work
Passengers tell of disruption
Martin George, a BA director, told BBC News the firm was doing everything in its power to get planes back in the air from 2000 BST. BBC correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones said 31 flights would get away after 2000 BST on Friday, but only those people who had reserved tickets on those flights would be allowed on.
Nearly 100 BA aircraft and 1,000 pilots and cabin crew are still in the wrong place at sites around the world.
And there is still a huge backlog of passengers from Thursday and Friday's cancelled flights, which could mean disruption for days to come.
Two unofficial strikes lie at the heart of the travel chaos. The first, by about 600 Gate Gourmet employees over the firm's restructuring plans, led to them being dismissed. Acas talks between Transport and General Workers' Union (TGWU) bosses and catering firm Gate Gourmet have begun.
But it is the second walk-out by BA baggage handlers and other ground staff, in sympathy with the catering workers, that caused the airline to cancel hundreds of flights on Friday.
It would usually run about 550 flights a day from Heathrow during the busy holiday season, involving 70,000 passengers. The dispute is thought to have cost BA £10m a day.
BA Chief Executive Rod Eddington said: "This is not our dispute. Our customers must come first and everyone involved in creating this chaotic situation must come to their senses."
British Airways:0800 727 800
Qantas:0870 000 0123 Sri Lankan Airlines:0208 538 2000 Finnair:08705 997711 GB Airways:0870 850 9850 British Med Airlines:0870 850 9850
Advice for stranded passengers
Many disgruntled BA passengers, 1,000 of whom spent the night in the airport, have blamed airport staff for poor communication and say the advice line is constantly engaged.
BA said they had extra staff on duty and were trying to answer people's calls as quickly as possible, but recommended people visit the BA website. Qantas, Sri Lankan, Finnair, GB and British Mediterranean, also serviced by BA ground staff, were also affected.
Gate Gourmet director Richard Wells denied being heavy-handed over the sacking of staff, saying they were spoken to and given written warnings before being dismissed.
Gate Gourmet has said it will not reinstate its sacked employees, but will look at "other alternatives".
Staff at Heathrow - regarded as the world's busiest international airport - are trying to book travellers on flights with other airlines, while other services including Eurostar have reported a surge in business. Passengers due to travel on Friday were urged not to turn up at the airport, but to contact the airline or their travel agent for more information. | Strike | August 2005 | ['(BBC)'] |
Volodymyr Zelensky, Vladimir Putin, Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel meet in Paris for Ukraine peace talks. It is the first time Putin and Zelensky meet and the first such four-way leaders' meeting since 2016. | - Russian President Vladimir Putin met his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskiy for the first time on Monday at a summit in Paris aimed at advancing efforts to restore peace to eastern Ukraine.
Zelenskiy and Putin are holding talks together with the leaders of France and Germany in a renewed effort to end a conflict that has killed more than 13,000 people since 2014. (nL8N28F2Y1]
Diplomats however caution that the prospects for peace are bleak, with Zelenskiy, a comedian-turned-president, politically constrained at home and wary of conceding too much, and Putin showing little interest in bending to outside pressure.
After a series of bilateral meetings at the Elysee Palace, Putin and Zelenskiy entered the room for a meeting of the four leaders making little eye contact with one another and with no smiles. They did not shake hands for the cameras.
“The main issue is a question of confidence-building so that we can move toward the objective of restoring Ukraine’s sovereignty,” said a French diplomatic source.
There has been scant sign of a peaceful solution to the crisis despite a 2015 ceasefire deal in Minsk. Monday’s summit is the first time the four leaders have met under the so-called Normandy format since 2016.
Many Ukrainians are concerned about compromising with Russia. They see Putin as an aggressor seeking to restore the Kremlin’s influence on the former Soviet republic and ruin Ukraine’s aspiration for closer European ties.
Kiev wants to seal a lasting ceasefire in the Donbass region, the exchange of all prisoners, and a timeline for the withdrawal of all illegal armed forces from regions under the control of Russia-backed separatists, Ukrainian officials said.
The summit comes at a time Macron’s overtures to Putin for a reset of relations have unnerved European allies, in particular former communist countries in eastern and central European countries who cherish their European Union membership and rely heavily on NATO for their security.
French officials say the Paris summit is a test for Macron’s strategy.
“As much as I am skeptical of Macron’s view of Russia, it would have been a mistake not to try unblocking the Donbass deadlock through a Normandy summit. Now let’s see what gives (or does not),” said Brune Tertrais, Deputy Director of the Paris-based Strategic Research Foundation.
Key to the Minsk accords succeeding are elections in the disputed eastern Donbass region of Ukraine, diplomats say. But both sides accuse each other of failing to stick to the 2015 deal, which includes restoring Ukrainian state control over the entire border with Russia and the withdrawal of heavy weaponry from the conflict zone.
| Diplomatic Talks _ Diplomatic_Negotiation_ Summit Meeting | December 2019 | ['(Reuters)'] |
Chalk's Ocean Airways Flight 101 flying from Miami, Florida to Bimini, Bahamas, crashes in Miami Beach, killing 18 passengers and two crew members. | MIAMI, Florida (CNN) -- The right wing detached from a vintage seaplane before it plunged into the sea off Miami Beach and killed 20 people, but it was unclear what caused the wing to break off, investigators said Tuesday.
Amateur video obtained by CNN showed the fuselage slam into the water Monday, followed by the wing falling through the sky on fire and leaving a trail of black smoke.
Mark Rosenker, the acting chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said investigators had video from the U.S. Coast Guard and CNN, and will be getting video from a New York tourist who witnessed the crash. (Watch amateur video of the crash -- 0:26)
"All of this video will be sent back to Washington for analysis enhancement, if necessary, to ... help us understand what happened," he told reporters Tuesday night.
Rosenker refused to speculate on what might have caused the wing to separate, saying "a number of things could tear the wing off" the aircraft.
"What I've seen is a separation of a wing from the aircraft and, as a result, the aircraft crashing. I can't tell you why," he said. "Ultimately, we will be able to tell you why."
Rosenker said the video that captured the plane's final seconds will likely yield "great information." "It's rare that you get an opportunity to see an accident while it is going on," the veteran crash investigator said.
Investigators were able to retrieve the right wing Tuesday, and the engine and propeller were still attached to it, Rosenker said. Investigators hope to retrieve the fuselage on Wednesday.
The vintage seaplane, operated by Chalk's Ocean Airways, crashed Monday afternoon shortly after takeoff near Miami Beach with 18 passengers, including three children under the age of 2, and two crew members. (Map)
It was en route to the Bahamian island of Bimini when it went down.
Rosenker said 17 of the 20 people aboard have been identified. Among those killed, he said, was a standby passenger who got on the plane at the last minute after another woman didn't make the flight.
The victims also included Sergio Danguillecourt -- a member of the board of directors of Bacardi Ltd. and a great-great grandson of the rum distiller's founder, Don Facundo Bacardi -- and his wife, Jacqueline Kriz Danguillecourt, the company said Tuesday.
Danguillecourt, 42, and his wife lived in Miami.
Investigators have begun interviewing the small airline's employees, and they also have begun reviewing the seaplane's maintenance and flight records, Rosenker said. A salvage team will continue working Wednesday to lift the wreckage from about 35 feet of water.
"This is a delicate operation," Rosenker said at a news conference earlier Tuesday. "There's a great deal of science to this type of recovery."
The wreckage will be placed aboard a barge and taken to a secure location, where investigators will pore over it for clues. (Watch the investigation into the crash -- 1:19)
The salvage company -- Atlanta Air Recovery of Griffin, Georgia -- has sent three representatives to Miami to oversee the work, said recovery manager Todd Thaxton.
A cockpit voice recorder had not been recovered from the tail, Rosenker said. "Unfortunately, the way the wreckage is situated, it does not lend itself to access very easily," he said.
The Grumman G-73 Mallard, which also is capable of taking off and landing on land, was not required to have a flight data recorder and did not, Rosenker said.
Divers mapped the crash site Tuesday morning and documented the debris field through photographs, Coast Guard Capt. James Maes told CNN.
Referring to the pictures, Rosenker said, "What we've seen is a fairly mangled aircraft, unfortunately."
The plane, built in 1947, was retrofitted in the mid-1980s, Rosenker said. The company's Web site says its fleet "is undergoing an extensive refurbishment program which includes complete mechanical overhaul and cosmetic renovation."
The Web site says the previous "modernization" that took place in the 1980s included "converting the piston-engine aircraft to Pratt & Whitney PT6 turboprop engines, as well as complete avionics upgrade."
Reviewing the company's records on its planes, Rosenker said, "will tell us when they have been maintained, and at what level of maintenance."
The Federal Aviation Administration mandates that aircraft carrying passengers undergo an annual airworthiness inspection.
Investigators said they are treating the crash as an accident and that one factor might have been the plane's age.
"We'll be looking at operations. We'll be looking at human factors," Rosenker told CNN, as well as the plane's structure and engines. Asked whether collision with birds could have caused the accident, Rosenker said, "At this point, nothing is off the table." | Air crash | December 2005 | ['(CNN)'] |
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki fills the last open posts of his Council of Ministers, appointing Qadir Obeidi as defense minister and Jawad Bulani as interior minister. | The two posts had remained vacant for nearly three weeks due to wrangling between the main parties in the governing Shia alliance.
Jawad Bulani, a Shia, is the new interior minister and Abdul Qadir Obeidi, a Sunni, the defence minister.
Shirwan Waili has also been approved as minister of national security.
The nominees were approved by an overwhelming majority and sworn in by the parliamentary speaker after brief questioning by members of parliament.
Filling the posts was seen as vital in furthering the government's efforts to fight the insurgency. For the first time since the parliamentary elections in December 2005, Iraq now has a complete government.
Saddam opponent
Lt Gen Obeidi, a general in the Iraqi army under Saddam Hussein, told parliament that he had been demoted for opposing the 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
He said that he was forced to retire in 1992 and detained two years later. He faced a military court which ordered the confiscation of his house and other assets. "All my properties were confiscated. In 2003, my only house was returned. Then I joined the new Iraqi army as the commander of operations room and then commander of military operations in western Iraq, and finally the commando units of the infantry."
Gen Obeidi says he has no links to any Iraqi political faction.
"As a defence minister, I will work for all Iraqis and will not work according to my tribal, religious and ethnic background. I will be only an Iraqi and will spare no effort. If I find myself unqualified I will be the first one to quit."
Difficult task
Mr Bulani was a member of Iraq's interim Governing Council in 2004. He became a member of the Iraqi parliament in 2005.
During the rule of Saddam Hussein he was an air force engineer, but left the armed forces in 1999.
"I promise [the Iraqi people] that the interior ministry will be neutral, independent and will not be under the influence of anyone," he said after he won parliament's endorsement.
"The interior ministry will preserve Iraqi blood."
The extent of his security experience is not clear, but he has a tough job on his hands - to clean up a ministry which stands accused of involvement in a string of mysterious killings of Sunnis, says the BBC's Middle East analyst Roger Hardy. Mr Waili, also a Shia, is a member of the Dawa party. | Government Job change - Appoint_Inauguration | June 2006 | ['(BBC)'] |
Yoshihide Suga is elected Prime Minister of Japan, following the resignation of his predecessor Shinzo Abe over health concerns. | Japan's parliament has elected Yoshihide Suga as the country's new prime minister, following the surprise resignation of Shinzo Abe.
After winning the leadership of the governing party earlier this week, Wednesday's vote confirms the former chief cabinet secretary's new position.
A close ally of Mr Abe, the new prime minister is expected to continue his predecessor's policies.
Shinzo Abe announced his resignation last month citing ill health. Earlier on Wednesday, Mr Abe held his final cabinet meeting and told reporters he was proud of his achievements during his nearly eight years in power. Mr Suga then easily won a poll for prime minister in the Diet, Japan's lower house, receiving 314 out of 462 votes.
Given that a coalition headed by his conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) holds the majority in the house, his win was widely expected. Along with his new cabinet he will later be ceremonially endorsed by the emperor at the Imperial Palace.
A veteran politician and long-time cabinet member he takes the lead at a difficult time for the world's third-largest economy.
Like many other nations, Japan is struggling with the coronavirus pandemic which has caused the biggest economic slump on record following years of economic stagnations.
The country is also dealing with a rapidly ageing society, with nearly a third of the population older than 65.
Mr Suga has served for years as chief cabinet secretary, the most senior role in government after the prime minister.
He has already promised to carry on much of the previous administration's agenda, including the economic reform programme dubbed Abenomics. "Mr Suga's election assures the continuity in all the major policy initiatives launched by Shinzo Abe," Yuki Tatsumi, director of the Washington-based Stimson Center's Japan programme, told the BBC. "What will be the greatest test for him is how well he fares as the public face of the Japanese government," she cautions.
"While his ability as Mr Abe's right hand man and his chief cabinet secretary has been amply proven, his ability to lead the country as the top leader is largely untested, particularly in the area of foreign policy. How Suga can transition from supporting to the main actor will determine how well the leadership transition can be managed."
Born the son of strawberry farmers, the veteran politician comes from a humble background that sets him apart from much of Japan's political elite. The 71-year rose only slowly within the political ranks. He first worked as a secretary for an LDP lawmaker before eventually embarking on his own political career, from city council elections to becoming a member of the Diet in 1996. In 2005 he became a cabinet minister under Junichiro Koizumi and gained further influence in the subsequent Abe cabinet. As Mr Abe's right-hand man, he gained a reputation for being efficient and practical and the outgoing prime minister strongly supported his ally's bid for the leadership. One of his most prominent public appearances was when he unveiled the name of the new Reiwa era during the transition from Emperor Akihito, who abdicated, to his son Naruhito in 2019.
Yet as he takes over mid-term, many observers expect him to only serve out the remainder of that until a general election late next year. When he won his landslide within the LPD on Monday, all he needed was support from his own party. Next year's election, however, will put him in front of a general electorate - and the low-key veteran politician might not be the LDP's first choice for that, observers say. | Government Job change - Appoint_Inauguration | September 2020 | ['(BBC)'] |
Massoud Barzani, the president of the Kurdistan Region in Iraq since 2005, announces that he will step down after November 1. The Iraqi Kurdistan Parliament now has to redistribute the authorities of the presidency. |
Massud Barzani, the president of the autonomous Kurdish region in Iraq, told a closed-door session of parliament Sunday he was stepping down amid the fallout from a controversial independence referendum. Also Sunday, the Kurds agreed to surrender to Iraqi forces the strategic border post of Fishkhabur, through which pass oil export pipelines to Ceyhan in Turkey.
"After November 1, I will no longer exercise my functions, and I reject any extension of my mandate," the 71-year-old said in a letter read out to parliament in the Kurdish capital Arbil, a copy of which was obtained by AFP.
"Changing the law on the presidency of Kurdistan or prolonging the presidential term is not acceptable," said the architect of the September 25 independence vote, which led to the Kurds losing to Baghdad's forces disputed territory and oilfields to which they had laid claim.
"I ask parliament to meet to fill the vacancy in power, to fulfil the mission and to assume the powers of the presidency of Kurdistan", said the letter.
Barzani said he would "remain a peshmerga (Kurdish fighter) among the ranks of the people of Kurdistan and I will continue to defend the achievements of the people of Kurdistan".
Sunday's parliamentary session was held behind closed doors because of "sensitive questions" to be discussed, deputies said.
Officials from Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) had already told journalists that the letter to be read out would announce he was stepping aside.
Barzani's letter was sent to parliament to decide on the provisional redistribution of the presidency's powers until a presidential election, for which a date has yet to be fixed.
November 1 had originally been slated for both presidential and legislative elections in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, but these were postponed in the political and military chaos that followed the referendum -- which returned a massive "yes" to independence.
Sunday's parliamentary session was postponed several times amid political tensions.
The opposition Goran party which had sought Barzani's resignation and a "government of national salvation" opposes the redistribution of the presidency's powers proposed by the major Kurdish parties, the KDP and its rival Kurdish Patriotic Union (PUK), deputies said.
Barzani "symbolises the failure of Kurdish politics, and the only thing left for him to do is to issue a public apology," Goran MP Rabun Maarouf said before the session began.
KDP deputy Ari Harin spoke of an "international plot".
Barzani had come under growing opposition from his detractors after he organised the referendum on Kurdish independence that triggered a deep crisis with Baghdad.
The federal government deemed the vote unconstitutional, and its forces have since seized a swathe of disputed territory in the north from Kurdish fighters.
Territory reclaimed from the Kurds in the sweeping operation included key oilfields in and around the disputed province of Kirkuk.
For the past two days peshmerga and Iraqi commanders have also been trying to hammer out a deal that would see Kurdish fighters withdraw peacefully after a truce in clashes over the Fishkhabur border post with Turkey.
The loss of the oilfields, which provided income that would have been critical to an independent Kurdish state, sparked recriminations among the Kurds.
Political life in Kurdistan is dominated by the KDP and PUK of Iraq's late president Jalal Talabani.
Iraq's current president, Fuad Masum, is also a PUK member and had backed a push for dialogue between the Kurds and Baghdad before the referendum.
After the vote, Masum said the referendum had triggered the assault on Kirkuk.
Iraq's neighbours Turkey and Iran, which have their own Kurdish minorities, also strongly opposed the non-binding vote, and Ankara on Thursday said the Iraqi Kurdish offer for the referendum to be frozen was "not enough", instead urging the Arbil government to cancel it.
French President Emmanuel Macron has urged dialogue between Baghdad and the Kurds, telling Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi in a phone call Saturday that "everything possible should be done to avoid fighting between Iraqis", the presidency in Paris said.
Barzani's move on Sunday comes with Abadi's forces engaged in battles in the west with holdout jihadists of the Islamic State group, assaulting what the premier called "the last den of terrorism in Iraq", Al-Qaim on the border with Syria.
The mandate of Barzani, the first and only elected president of the autonomous Kurdish region, expired in 2013.
It was extended for two years and then continued in the chaos that followed the sweeping IS offensive across Iraq in 2014. | Government Job change - Resignation_Dismissal | October 2017 | ['(AFP via SBS)'] |
Student activist Parit Chiwarak is released on bail after being arrested on Friday for co-organising a rally in July. He was charged with violating the COVID-19 measures and breaching internal security. Protests have been taking place in Thailand since July against the government. Parit Chiwarak has said he will continue to protest against the government and for reforms in the Thai monarchy. | BANGKOK (Reuters) - A Thai student activist vowed on Saturday to continue to protest against the government and demand reform of the monarchy after being detained overnight on charges related to a demonstration last month and released on bail.
Parit “Penguin” Chiwarak, 22, was arrested on Friday and charged with breaching internal security rules and breaking regulations to stop the spread of coronavirus among other charges, by co-organising a protest on July 18.
Since that protest in July, university and high school student groups around Thailand have rallied almost daily, demanding for the removal of Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, who first took power in a 2014 military coup, and an end to the military domination of politics.
Some students have also demanded reforms to the powerful monarchy, once a taboo subject.
Parit told reporters at the court that he had been ordered not to re-offend as a condition of his bail, but that the director-general of the court had agreed that he could take part in a major protest planned for Sunday.
“My arrest must not be wasted, people must talk more publicly about the monarchy,” Parit said after reciting a 10-point call for monarchy reform issued earlier this week by one of the student group.
“We have lifted the ceiling, there is no lowering it now.”
The monarchy is protected by a strict lese majeste law that punishes anyone who offends King Maha Vajiralongkorn or his family, but Prime Minister Prayuth said earlier this year that the king had asked for it not be used.
Prayuth appealed for national unity earlier this week but also said some of the student activist demands on the monarchy “went too far.”
Last week two other activists were arrested and later released on similar charges to Parit, and Human Rights Watch said the criminal court has issued arrest warrants for 12 others for organising the July 18 protest.
Reporting by Panu Wongcha-um, Editing by Matthew Tostevin & Shri Navaratnam
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
| Famous Person - Commit Crime - Arrest | August 2020 | ['(Reuters)'] |
Nigel Evans, Deputy Speaker of the UK House of Commons, is arrested on suspicion of three counts of indecent assault. | Commons Deputy Speaker Nigel Evans has said he "refutes all allegations" after being arrested on suspicion of three counts of indecent assault. The 55-year-old answered bail following his arrest in May on suspicion of rape and sexual assault, and was told that he faced the additional allegations.
All the allegations involve men in their 20s.
Mr Evans, Conservative MP for Ribble Valley, will not resume his Speaker duties while inquiries continue.
He has previously denied any wrongdoing.
The original rape and sexual assault allegations are said to have happened in Pendleton between July 2009 and March 2013.
The new indecent assault allegations are claimed to have occurred in Blackpool and London between 2003 and 2011.
A Lancashire Police spokesman said: "A 55-year-old man from Pendleton in Lancashire has today answered his bail following his arrest in May on suspicion of rape and sexual assault.
"He has subsequently been further arrested on suspicion of three further offences of indecent assault. He will be interviewed about these allegations at a police station in Lancashire during the course of the day." He added: "We take all allegations of a sexual nature extremely seriously and understand how difficult it can be for victims to have the confidence to come forward.
"As a constabulary, we are committed to investigating sexual offences sensitively but robustly, recognising the impact that these types of crimes have on victims."
Mr Evans spoke to the media as he left Preston police station on Wednesday afternoon after being released on police bail until 10 September.
He said: "Clearly we want closure of this as soon as possible and I carry on assisting this inquiry fully and openly. "I continue to refute all allegations and in the meantime can I say that I'm extremely grateful for the huge amount of support and love I've received from my family, my friends and my constituents and indeed people throughout the country who have contacted me. So thanks very much, thank you."
Last month Mr Evans dismissed the original allegations against him as "completely false", and said they had been made by two people he had "regarded as friends". Elected as one of three Commons Deputy Speakers in 2010, he has stepped aside from his duties in that role since his arrest, but has continued to work as an MP. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | June 2013 | ['(BBC)'] |
A shooting in the food court of the Eaton Centre mall in Toronto, Canada kills at least one man and injures seven other people. | TORONTO - Pandemonium erupted at the largest shopping mall in downtown Toronto Saturday after a shooter let off a string of bullets in a food court packed with weekend shoppers.
The hail of bullets killed a 25-year-old man, injured seven other people and sparked a frenzied mass exodus of the sprawling multi-level shopping centre around 6:30 p.m.
The shooting appears to have been a targeted one that left innocent bystanders caught in the middle, and police vowed to track the suspect down.
“It was unbelievable ... It was out of the blue,” said 19-year-old Marcus Neves-Polonio who was working in the mall’s food court when he saw a man pull out a gun and start firing.
“As soon as I heard the gunshots, I ducked under the table.”
Others who saw the shooting scrambled for cover behind chairs, in washrooms and nearby stores. Still more sprinted for the exits.
Erica Solmes, who manages the McDonald’s in the mall’s food court, didn’t see the shooter, but witnessed the chaos he triggered.
“There was probably 15 bullet shots,” she said. “And then a whole stampede of people.”
That mad dash resulted in thousands of people pouring into the streets of the downtown core.
“All of a sudden a herd of people were just running toward us, a massive crowd of people screaming, running, freaking out,” said Hannah Stewart, 21, who was shopping in the mall at the time. “We saw this girl, sitting on the ground, and she had blood on her toes.”
That girl appeared to have been one of the victims and told Stewart she had just been shot. At that point, police poured into the centre and began herding people outside.
“All these cops came running up and they started screaming at us to back off,” Stewart said. “They were screaming at us to run and get out.”
Toronto Blue Jays third baseman Brett Lawrie was also in the mall when the shooting took place and was one of the first to take to Twitter to break the news.
“Pretty sure someone just let off a round bullets in eaton center mall .. Wow just sprinted out of the mall,” he tweeted. “People sprinting up the stairs right from where we just were ... Wow wow wow.”
Among those injured in the incident, police said a 20-year-old man and a 13-year-old boy were in critical condition, and a woman and a man had serious injuries. A pregnant woman who was trampled in the rush to get out of the mall went into labour and another woman was grazed by a bullet.
Toronto Mayor Rob Ford called the crime a devastating one.
“It’s a tragedy, it’s absolutely terrible,” he said. “We have to apprehend this shooter.
Police chief Bill Blair said everything is being done to bring the shooter to justice.
“Any place for discharging a fire arm in the city of Toronto is dangerous. In the food court of the Eaton centre on a Saturday evening, it’s not only dangerous, it’s outrageous,” he said.
“The wanton disregard for the lives and safety of fellow citizens are shocking to us.”
In a statement issued late Saturday, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty called it a case of “senseless, tragic violence” and expressed his condolences to the victims and their families. He said the tragedy would inspire Ontarians to work even harder to make their communities safer.
“We will respond as we always have with strength, determination and a desire to work together, and work even harder, to build communities that are safe, secure and free of gun violence,” the statement said.
Police are now going through video surveillance and cross referencing witness statements as they try to pull together a clear picture of the shooting and the person who was holding the gun.
A homicide team remained in the centre combing the area for clues Saturday night and officers asked anyone with information on the shooter to contact police.
The coroner arrived on scene early Sunday to remove the body of the man who was killed.
Officials said the mall and its parking garages would remain closed Sunday while police pressed on with their investigation.
The evening incident triggered multiple street closures and a partial shutdown of the subway line which runs beneath the mall. Yellow police tape marking a perimeter outside the centre remained in place late Saturday night.
It’s not the first time the area has seen gunfire.
In 2005, a 15-year-old girl was killed and six others were wounded on Boxing Day, 2005 when shots rang out just north of the shopping centre.
In that case, Toronto teen Jane Creba was shopping with family on busy Yonge Street when she was caught in the crossfire of a shootout between rival gangs.
“Today certainly harkens back to that terrible moment. This is a very serious thing that has happened in a very public place, an important place in the city of Toronto,” said Blair.
“When violence like this takes place in our city, we all have to stand up and say we won’t tolerate it.” | Armed Conflict | June 2012 | ['(BBC)', '(The Canadian Press via Canada.com)'] |
At least 43 people are killed and others are missing after a minibus of mourners falls from a ferry on the River Nile. | A minibus carrying some 32 mourners to a funeral fell off a ferry on the River Nile in Egypt, killing at least 17 people, officials say.
Ten of the passengers survived, but five people are still missing, after the accident in Beni Suef region, they said.
The state news agency had put the death toll at 43, but then revised it to 22.
Transport accidents are common in Egypt, often blamed on poor maintenance and a lack of regulation.
A security official told the Associated Press that the minibus had slid off the ferry because the emergency brake was not on.
Another report said the bus fell off the ferry after it crashed into the shore.
Rescuers were sent to the scene, some 70 miles (110km) south of Cairo. Egypt crash kills eight Americans | Road Crash | April 2011 | ['(BBC)'] |
The Somali Prime Minister, Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo, resigns. | Somalia's prime minister says he has resigned, following an agreement between the president and parliament to remove him from office.
Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed had initially refused to step down, but will now go "in the interest of the Somali people".
His removal was part of a UN-backed deal that extends the mandates of the president, the speaker and deputies to August 2012.
Somalia has been without an effective central government since 1991.
Islamist militants control large parts of southern and central Somalia.
Mr Mohamed, also known as "Farmajo" said: "Considering the interest of the Somali people and the current situation in Somalia, I have decided to leave my office.
"I would like to thank my cabinet who have done a lot to help improve security and standards of governance in Somalia."
Last week, Mr Mohamed told the BBC he would not quit because only parliament had the power to oust him.
He said he had the support of the Somali people to stay in office.
There were protests in the capital, Mogadishu, rejecting the deal to remove the prime minister.
Under the deal signed in Uganda, the mandates of President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, speaker Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden and the deputies were extended until 20 August 2012, when new elections will be organised.
The president and the speaker had been in conflict over what would happen when the current administration's mandate runs out in August.
Mr Aden had said he could not work with Mr Mohamed and his departure was a condition of the deal.
Somalia has been without an effective central government since the fall of the Siad Bare regime in 1991, as rival factions constantly fight for power. Foreign donors have been pushing rival factions to resolve their differences, and focus on defeating the Islamist threat. The US believes that Somalia is a haven for al-Qaeda activists in East Africa, and has carried out several air strikes in the country to kill militants. BBC Africa podcasts | Government Job change - Resignation_Dismissal | June 2011 | ['(BBC)'] |
Prince and Prime Minister Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa dies at the age of 84 after holding the office since 1970. He is succeeded by Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa. | At 84, Sheikh Khalifa was one of the world’s longest-serving prime ministers who held the post since Bahrain’s independence in 1971.
Bahrain’s long-serving Prime Minister Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa has died, the state media reported. He was 84.
“The Royal Court mourns His Royal Highness … who passed away this morning at Mayo Clinic Hospital in the United States of America,” the Bahrain News Agency said on Wednesday, without elaborating.
Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa named crown prince Salman al-Khalifa as the new prime minister, the state news agency reported, citing a royal decree. The decree takes effect immediately.
The king announced official mourning for a week during which flags will be flown at half-mast, the agency said.
The burial ceremony will take place upon the repatriation of his body and the funeral will be limited to a specific number of relatives, it said.
Sheikh Khalifa was one of the world’s longest-serving prime ministers who led his island nation’s government for decades and survived the 2011 Arab Spring protests that demanded his removal over corruption allegations.
His stern response to the pro-democracy protests and criticism of similar unrest across the Arab world underlined what for many was the defining characteristic of his career, namely a stalwart defence of dynastic rule. The Al Khalifa family has ruled Bahrain since 1783.
In August, Sheikh Khalifa left the kingdom for what official media called at the time “a private visit abroad”. Earlier this year, he spent time in Germany for unspecified medical treatment, returning to Bahrain in March.
Bahrain, a staunch ally of neighbouring Saudi Arabia and the United States, is also the home base of the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet.
Sheikh Khalifa’s power and wealth could be seen everywhere in Bahrain. His official portrait hung for decades on walls alongside the country’s ruler.
He had his own private island where he met foreign dignitaries, complete with a marina and a park that had peacocks and gazelle roam its grounds.
“He represented an old social understanding rooted in royal privilege and expressed through personal patronage.”
The son of Bahrain’s former ruler, Sheikh Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, who ruled from 1942 to 1961, Sheikh Khalifa learned governance at his father’s side as the island remained a British protectorate.
His brother, Sheikh Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa, took power in 1961 and served as monarch when Bahrain gained its independence from Britain in 1971. Under an informal arrangement, Sheikh Isa handled the island’s diplomacy and ceremonial duties while Sheikh Khalifa ran the government and economy.
The years that followed saw Bahrain develop rapidly as it sought to move beyond its dependence on dwindling oil reserves. Manama at that time served as what Dubai in the United Arab Emirates ultimately became, a regional financial, service and tourism hub.
The opening of the King Fahd Causeway in 1986 gave the island nation its first land link with its rich and powerful neighbour, Saudi Arabia, and offered an escape for Westerners in the kingdom who wanted to enjoy Bahrain’s alcohol-soaked nightclubs and beaches.
But Sheikh Khalifa increasingly saw his name entangled in corruption allegations, such as a major foreign corruption practices case against aluminium producer Alcoa over using a London-based middleman to facilitate bribes for Bahraini officials. Alcoa agreed to pay $384m in fines to the US government to settle the case in 2014.
The US embassy in Manama similarly had its own suspicions about Sheikh Khalifa, writing in cables that the prince had “off-the-books access to income from the state-owned enterprises” such as the Bahrain Petroleum Co and Aluminium Bahrain, the country’s aluminium producer.
“I believe that Shaikh Khalifa is not wholly a negative influence,” wrote former US Ambassador Ronald E Neumann in 2004 in a cable released by WikiLeaks. “While certainly corrupt, he has built much of modern Bahrain.”
Those corruption allegations fuelled discontent, particularly among Bahrain’s Shia majority. In February 2011, protesters inspired by the Arab Spring demonstrations across the Middle East filled the streets and occupied the capital Manama’s Pearl Roundabout to demand political reforms and a greater say in the country’s future.
While some called for a constitutional monarchy, many others pressed for the removal of the long-ruling prime minister and other members of the Sunni royal family altogether, including King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa.
At one point during the height of the unrest in March 2011, thousands of protesters besieged the prime minister’s office while officials met inside, demanding Sheikh Khalifa step down.
Protesters also took to waving one Bahraini dinar notes over allegations the prime minister bought the land on which Bahrain’s Financial Harbour development sits for just a single dinar.
Bahraini officials soon crushed the protests with the backing of troops from neighbouring Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Low-level unrest continued in the years that followed, with Shia protesters frequently clashing with riot police.
In recent years, Sheikh Khalifa’s influence waned as he faced unexplained health problems.
The Israeli delegation, accompanied by US treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin, will travel to the UAE next.
Bahrain moves to please the US, deter perceived regional threats by following in the UAE’s footsteps, analysts say.
‘This is a stab in the back of the Palestinians’: Bahrain joins the UAE as it agrees to normalise ties with Israel.
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We understand that your online privacy is very important and consenting to our collection of some personal information takes great trust. We ask for this consent because it allows Al Jazeera to provide an experience that truly gives a voice to the voiceless. | Famous Person - Death | November 2020 | ['(Al-Jazeera)'] |
Iraqi authorities ban Qatar–based satellite television network Al Jazeera from broadcasting in the country and closes its offices in Baghdad, accusing it of violating government guidelines issued in 2014 to regulate media “during the war on terror". | DOHA (Reuters) - Iraqi authorities have revoked the operating licence of the pan-Arab satellite network Al Jazeera and closed its offices in Baghdad, accusing it of violating government guidelines issued in 2014 to regulate media “during the war on terror.”
Al Jazeera, based in Qatar, said it was dismayed by the action.
“We remain committed to broadcasting news on Iraq to Iraqi people, our viewers in the Arab world and across the world,” the channel said in an emailed statement.
Rights groups have criticized Iraq’s media guidelines, which restrict journalists from covering insurgent movements and require them to report in favorable terms on government forces.
In 2013, Iraq’s government accused Al Jazeera and nine other satellite television channels of fostering sectarian sentiment that was fuelling violence.
Founded by Qatar’s ruling family in 1996, Al Jazeera aggressively covered the Arab spring uprisings and has broadcast extensively on the civil war in Syria.
Qatar itself is a harsh critic of the Syrian regime and a leading backer of the rebels, and has been accused by many supporters of Iraq’s government of backing dissent in Iraq.
| Organization Closed | April 2016 | ['(Reuters)'] |
In tennis, Stan Wawrinka of Switzerland defeats Novak Djokovic of Serbia 4–6, 6–4, 6–3, 6–4 in the men's singles final for his first win at Roland Garros and his second Grand Slam singles title. Wawrinka's victory also denies Djokovic a career Grand Slam. , | French Open 2015 men's final, Novak Djokovic vs Stan Wawrinka - Latest score, news update, live match report and result from the final at Roland Garros on Sunday June 7, 2015
WAWRINKA BEATS DJOKOVIC IN FOUR SETS TO WIN FRENCH OPEN
The wait goes on for Djokovic to complete a career grand slam while Wawrinka basks in the glory of adding to his 2014 Australian Open title with victory in Paris. Having lost the opening set, the Swiss chipped away at the Djokovic serve during the second and made the pressure tell by breaking to seal the second set and level the match. Djokovic's concentration levels and focused dipped during the third set as Wawrinka sustained his aggressive, powerful and creative play. A key game in the fourth set at four-all when Wawrinka saved three break points to hold proved telling and the Swiss broke in the next to ensure he would serve for the title. I don't know about you but I'm still blown away by his display. He will have won over a number of fans with his positive performance. Thanks for joining us today. If F1 is your thing, please join me for coverage of the Canadian GP. Bye. Here's Djokovic's response: I want to say congratulations to Stan and it is not very easy for me to speak now, there are things that are more important in life than victories and that is character and respect - Stan you are a great champion with big heart. I want to say thank you to my team, my wife and the French public. I will be back next year to try again to win the title." And Stan's... I want to say thank you to the crowd. It was an incredible atmosphere on court and I felt emotion like I never have before. I would also like to thank Magnus Norman my coach you played in the final twice without winning but this victory is yours as well as mine." Nice touch from Federer. CHAMP @stanwawrinka Djokovic takes to the presentation stage for the first time and receives a fantastic ovation from the crown. He's smiling, he's smiling, oh know the smile is changing to tears. What a reation from the Parisians, fair play to them for that. It is after all, only the third time he has lost this year. Stan almost looks embarrassed as he watches on from the side of the court. He finally takes to the stage to accept his applause and have his deserved moment in the sun. Well played, Stan, well played. Wow. Who saw that coming? Wawrinka briefly accepts the applauds and handshakes from his camp in the stands before heading down the tunnel to take a toilet break - wouldn't you? Wawrinka deserves his second grand slam title after powering his way past Djokovic. The world No 1 had some sticky moments, but a drop in his service level from the second set onwards allowed the Swiss an opportunity, and he didn't look back. Well deserved .... Went out and beat him. Wow
Wawrinka picks up the opening point but drills a backhand into the tramlines as the crowd crank up the volume once more. He can't get under and over a regulation forehand to hand a slight advantage to Djokovic at 15-30 but then draws level and lets the fist-pumping action begin. Djokovic flashes a backhand past Wawrinka, but it's wide and Wawrinka has a match point. He sends down an ace, but the umpire is out of his seat in a flash to call it long. He scoops up a deep return from Djokovic on the baseline, and is taken to deuce. Djokovic strikes a return which loops up off the net. Wawrinka sends a reply back but it's bread and butter for Djokovic who sets up his own break point. A nervous forehand from Djokovic takes the game back to deuce and a solid first service moves Wawrinka back to match point. He secures the win with a forehand which flashes straight past Djokovic. GAME, SET, MATCH WAWRINKA. It's tippy-tappy stuff from both players at the net as their little exchange ends in Wawrinka's fashion when Djokovic cuts his return wide. Wawrinka lets fly with a backhand winner which takes him to 15-30 and then almost pulls off an cracking winner off the other wing but it lands the wrong side of the line. He's all over him on the next rally and hits through a beautiful backhand which passes an outstretched Djokovic at the net. He has another break point. A fizzing first serve shoots off the line and is just what Djokovic needed to save the danger and take his rival to deuce. Djokovic rushes the net on the next, but he can't get low enough to Wawrinka's return and the Swiss has a second break point this game. A first serve is slapped into the tape but Wawrinka incredibly makes the break when he swings and strikes a perfect backhand which lands flush on the line. Wawrinka will be serving to win the French Open? Crazy scenes. WAWRINKA BREAKS. Oh dear. The heat is on Wawrinka now as Djokovic turns the screw and has a mini-break at 0-30. Djokovic is turning up the volume on every wail as he strikes every ball. An unforced error gifts Djokovic three break points. The first is saved with some good aggressive play from Wawrinka, working the opening and hitting a volley to win the point. A drilled backhand inside the line saves a second. And with the clock approaching nearly three hours, he saves a third with a strong first serve down the T which the umpire has to come down to double check. Fantastic play from Wawrinka pins Djokovic behind the baseline and the world No 1 sends a hopeful lob back, but it's not good enough. Ditto on the next point as Wawrinka digs himself out of real trouble to secure an almighty hold. Phew. Wawrinka unleashes his big guns again and is bullying Djokovic from the back of the court as he moves 15-30 up. A couple of booming forehands, the second which flashes past Djokovic who is caught in no-man's land brings up two break points. He scampers down a drop shot but Djokovic easily strikes a volley into the empty court. He looks like he's snatched the break when he flashes a backhand past Djokovic, but the world No 1 isn't world No 1 for nothing and at full stretch he makes a volley which his coach Boris Becker would've been proud of. A third straight point takes him to game point and a fourth one with a forehand out wide secures an all-important hold. You have to hand it to Djokovic, he showed real nerves of steel. Wawrinka is winning the majority of the baseline rallies but Djokovic proves he's not going to go down without a fight as he swings and hits a superb service return down the line. It's only a consolation point as Wawrinka holds quite comfortably. He retreats to his chair to change his racket. Wawrinka gives his thigh a good slap or two as allows one forehand return go right past him. He'll have bruises in the morning, no doubt about that. A blistering backhand takes him to 15-30 and puts the pressure back on Djokovic's serve. Djokovic is leaning back as he hits through a forehand, and it's called long - Wawrinka has two break points to his name. Wawrinka is being pulled side-to-side, but he stays toe-to-toe with Djokovic and finally forces the world No 1 into an error. WAWRINKA BREAKS. A great service return low to Wawrinka's feet is too good for the Swiss but he steadies himself to two game points with a couple of unforced errors from Djokovic. The world No 1 hands the game to Wawrinka when he strikes an easy volley into the net and this match is seemingly heading to a five set as both players appear to be conserving their energy. Wawrinka continues his rush-net approach and it pays dividends as he bats away a return off the opening service point. Djokovic draws Wawrinka in and sends a half-hearted lob back which Wawrinka deals with easily but then he lets out a massive cry when he strikes into the net to allow Novak back at 30-all. Djokovic patiently bides his time before running round and loading a forehand with topspin down the line for game point. It's a third straight game when Wawrinka hits long. Djokovic is stretched to the limit but spins and gets a backhand back which Wawrinka should easily deal with. He doesn't, he sends it into the tramlines and then over-strikes a forehand to allow Djokovic in at 15-30. He rushes the net on the next point, but need not have used up the energy as Djokovic can't get a return back over. Another rush to the net sees him push the ball into the net and allow Djokovic a break point. He's rushing things and needs to slow down. He can't get a first serve in but slaps a second serve return into the tape. DJOKOVIC BREAKS. Wawrinka takes a more conservative approach this game as Djokovic dictates the rallies and points to move 40-15. It's game when Wawrinka slaps into the net. Wawrinka sends down his ninth ace of the match to edge closer to the set and three straight points later present him with three set points. Djokovic sends long and that's the set to Wawrinka. WAWRINKA WINS THIRD SET TO TAKE TWO SETS TO ONE LEAD. Djokovic has to wait for a Mexican wave to come to its conclusion before he shapes to serve. He's rushing his shots and serves now (if that can ever be the case for Novak). But Wawrinka is loving life on Chatrier as he runs round the post to send a sublime backhand past Djokovic. The world No 1 seems to have lost most of his concentration which is just not like Novak. Yes, this is the third day in a row he's been forced to play, but it doesn't usually appear to fluster him. Djokovic hangs in to quell Wawrinka's resolve and edges to 40-30 and makes the Swiss serve for the set. Incredible composure from Wawrinka as he stays focused on the job in hand and concentrates on every point. Djokovic flashes a passing winner back for 30-15 but then allows Djokovic back to 30-all when he fizzes a forehand inches long. Djokovic can't make the most of a little opening as he strikes long but then Wawrinka tightens up as he serves a third double fault of the match to allow the world No 1 back at deuce. The Swiss gifts Djokovic a second straight point to stare at break point, the first time in a long time that Novak has been in this position. A booming first serve down the T does the job as he dispatches a volleyed winner. And three straight points later, he digs deep to cement the break. Wawrinka thought about a medical time-out during that interval to have a hand problem looked at but thought better of it. He doesn't want his momentum disrupted. The issue doesn't appear to be anything visible as he matches Djokovic shot-for-shot and then forces Djokovic into an error after a short 24-stroke rally. Wawrinka has a mini-break when he pushes a forehand inside the line and Djokovic looks to his corner muttering something or other. That's now 20 forehand winners for Stan, who really is the man. He flicks a backhand inside the line to bring up THREE break points and the walls are coming in on Djokovic as a tame drop shot is easily dispatched by the No 8 seed. WAWRINKA BREAKS. It's a sublime service game from Wawrinka as he races to 40-0 and when Djokovic hits his service return long, it's a game to love. The Swiss is looking comfortable and strong in his surroundings. The same can't be said of Djokovic. Crafty stuff from Djokovic at the start of the game as he sends a well-disguised drop shot over to the net to perfection. But his confidence takes a knock on the next as he attempts a similar shot only to see it loop and drop at the base of the net. Djokovic stays toe-to-toe with Wawrinka on the next point and forces the Swiss out wide and he can't quite get his racket head around a forehand return. But he's soon back level at 30-all when Djokovic gets his footwork all wrong. | Sports Competition | June 2015 | ['(ATP World Tour)', '(The Telegraph)'] |
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announces sanctions on five Iranian ship captains who delivered fuel to Venezuela and reaffirms support for disputed President Juan Guaidó over Nicolás Maduro. | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Wednesday imposed sanctions on five Iranian ship captains who delivered oil to Venezuela, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reaffirmed Washington’s backing for Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido.
Speaking at a news conference, Pompeo said the ships delivered about 1.5 million barrels of Iranian gasoline and related components, and warned mariners against doing business with the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whose ouster Washington seeks.
“As a result of today’s sanctions, these captains’ assets will be blocked. Their careers and prospects will suffer from this designation,” Pompeo said in a statement later.
“We will continue to support the National Assembly, interim President Guaido, and the Venezuelan people in their quest to restore democracy,” Pompeo added to reporters.
President Donald Trump’s administration is seeking to block Iran’s energy trade and also bring down Maduro. It has threatened reprisals and warned ports, shipping companies and insurers against assisting the tankers.
Venezuela’s exports are hovering near their lowest levels in more than 70 years and the OPEC member’s economy has collapsed. Yet Maduro has held on, frustrating the Trump administration.
In a statement on Twitter, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza called the sanctions “an excess of arrogance” and “more proof of the Trump hawks’ hatred of all Venezuelans.”
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi wrote in a tweet that Washington’s action signaled the failure of its pressure campaign and said Iran and Venezuela “remain steadfast in countering unlawful American sanctions.”
Iran has sent five tankers since April to the socialist government of fuel-starved Venezuela. The shipments have done little to alleviate hours-long lines at gas stations.
In an interview with news site Axios published on Sunday, Trump played down his January 2019 decision to recognize Guaido, speaker of the opposition-held National Assembly, as rightful leader. Trump has been disappointed by the inability of his policy to oust Maduro, U.S. officials have said privately.
The United States and most other Western countries have recognized Guaido as the OPEC nation’s interim president since January 2019, regarding Maduro’s 2018 re-election as a sham.
But Maduro has retained the support of the military as well as the backing of Russia, Cuba, China and Iran.
The White House said on Monday that Trump had not lost confidence in Guaido.
Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk, Matt Spetalnick, Arshad Mohammed and David Brunnstrom; Additional reporting by Babak Dehghanpisheh, Vivian Sequera and Luc Cohen; Editing by David Gregorio and Peter Cooney
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
. | Government Policy Changes | June 2020 | ['(Reuters)'] |
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. , | Ex-prime minister guilty of unlawfully accepting money from an American supporter and follows six-year sentence last year on separate bribery charge
Last modified on Fri 14 Jul 2017 22.06 BST
Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert has been sentenced to eight months in prison for unlawfully accepting money from a US supporter, capping the dramatic downfall of a man who only years earlier led the country and hoped to bring about a historic peace agreement with the Palestinians.
Olmert was convicted in March in a retrial at Jerusalem district court. The sentencing on Monday comes in addition to a six-year prison sentence he received last year in a separate bribery conviction, ensuring the end of the former premier’s political career.
Olmert’s lawyer, Eyal Rozovsky, said his legal team was “very disappointed” by the ruling and would appeal to Israel’s supreme court. They were granted a 45-day stay, meaning the former Israeli leader will avoid incarceration for now.
Olmert also was given a suspended sentence of an additional eight months and fined $25,000.
Character witnesses who had vouched for Olmert included former British prime minister Tony Blair and former Israeli Mossad chief Meir Dagan. The verdict stated that it recognised Olmert’s vast contributions to Israeli society and sentenced him to less than the prosecution had demanded. Still, it ruled that “a black flag hovers over his conduct”. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Sentence | May 2015 | ['(BBC)', '(AP via The Guardian)'] |
Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is convicted of arranging an illegal wiretap and is sentenced to a year in jail. | Italy's former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has been convicted and sentenced to a year in jail over an illegal wiretap.
He was accused of arranging for a police wiretap concerning a political rival to be leaked and published in a newspaper run by his brother.
Mr Berlusconi is likely to appeal and will remain free in the meantime.
He is presently appealing against a tax-fraud conviction and also faces a verdict in a sex trial later in March.
The tax fraud conviction stems from a trial last October that saw him sentenced to a year in jail.
The sex trial concerns allegations that the 76-year-old paid for sex with an underage prostitute.
The BBC's Alan Johnston in Rome says there is no real prospect of Mr Berlusconi going to jail over the wiretap case, but the conviction is another very serious blow to his reputation.
Under Italian law, prison sentences handed down to those over the age of 75 can be commuted to house arrest.
It comes weeks after his right-wing coalition did better than expected in a general election that provided no clear winner.
However, his coalition looks to be on the margins of efforts to form a new government, and the outcome of this court case is unlikely to have any direct bearing on those negotiations.
The other faction leaders have long had utter contempt for everything Mr Berlusconi stands for, and this verdict will only serve to entrench their views, our correspondent adds. Prosecutors brought the wiretap case after a transcript of a phone conversation intercepted by the authorities was published in the newspaper Il Giornale, owned by Mr Berlusconi's brother Paolo.
The conversation took place between the head of insurer Unipol and Piero Fassino, who was the leader of the biggest centre-left party and Mr Berlusconi's biggest political rival at the time.
Unipol was trying to take over BNL bank in 2005. Magistrates had ordered the wiretap as part of an investigation into inappropriate interference in the takeover.
The publication of the transcript in a national newspaper broke secrecy rules, and Mr Berlusconi was accused of obtaining the transcript from the wiretap company used by magistrates.
He was convicted of breaching confidentiality.
His brother Paolo was convicted of the same charge and jailed for two years and three months.
Analysts say wiretapped conversations are widely published in Italian media, despite the risks of prosecution. In numerous trials over the years, Mr Berlusconi has been accused of charges including accounting fraud, perjury, bribery, corruption, having unlawful sex with a minor, and fraud over the sale of film rights.
Mr Berlusconi says he is the target of a vendetta by politically biased prosecutors. He has denied all the accusations against him and has either been acquitted or let off under statutes of limitations. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Sentence | March 2013 | ['(BBC)'] |
Guinean soldiers riot in the capital Conakry after the President of Guinea Lansana Conté fails to attend a meeting to discuss grievances over their pay and conditions. | They are angry that President Lansana Conte failed to turn up to a meeting to hear grievances over pay and housing.
A brief calm had returned to the capital, Conakry, after President Lansana Conte sacked the defence minister and army chief of staff.
The sackings followed days of rioting by soldiers seeking improved working conditions and the re-instatement of military leaders sacked after a coup.
Six people have been killed in two days of protests in Conakry and other towns.
Gunshots heard
Soldiers flooded the streets around Conakry's main army base and broke out in cheers when it was announced that Mr Conte had sacked Defence Minister Arafan Camara and army chief Gen Kerfalla Camara.
But the celebrations turned to anger when the president failed to turn up to a promised meeting to discuss the soldiers' other demands, which include better pay and housing. Gunfire was heard throughout the capital, as soldiers shot into the air.
Correspondents say the soldiers are not yet in a mood to be pacified.
Army mutiny
General Bailo Diallo, a retired former head of Guinea's ground forces, has been named as the new defence minister.
A total of five top army commanders have been replaced. "Conte has responded to an important demand of the Guinean army," said Lt Ibrahima Bah, one of the soldiers involved in the mutiny, said as the sackings were announced.
"General Bailo is a high-ranking officer who is worthy of our respect. He has integrity and is responsible."
Rioting began 10 days ago when the soldiers alleged Mr Conte had gone back on his pledge to increase their wages after an army mutiny in 1996.
The army has supported Mr Conte's rule since he seized power in a bloodless coup in 1984 and keeping the military content is seen as key to his bid to stay in power. Guinea was the scene of violent protests earlier this year as people called for the ailing president to step down. | Riot | May 2007 | ['(BBC)'] |
In Angers, France, 66 people go into trial for sexual child abuse and child prostitution of 45 victims of various ages. | The trial, which involves 66 defendants and is expected to last four months, is taking place in a specially built hall in the town of Angers, western France.
Some 60 lawyers are taking part and the prosecution case runs to 430 pages, AFP news agency reports.
There are 45 alleged child victims whose ages range from 12 to six months.
France has been horrified by the case, wondering how such widespread abuse could have gone on for so long unnoticed by social workers or the police, says the BBC's Caroline Wyatt in Paris. Children 'bartered'
Of the 66 defendants, 39 face charges of raping children under 15 and of pimping. A total of 39 men and 27 women are going on trial. The crimes could incur jail terms of up to 30 years.
ANGERS TRIAL
Expected to last 4 months
66 people - 39 men, 27 women - on trial for allegedly abusing 45 children
25,000 pages of evidence stored on CD-Rom
Prosecution case: 430 pages
More than 200 witnesses
60 lawyers - 51 for the defence, 9 for the prosecution
Trial cost: 1m euros (700,000) In the shadow of Outreau
In Thursday's hearing, the accused were asked to stand in turn and give their age, profession and home address. The court is also expected to rule on a request for the proceedings to be heard behind closed doors.
The victims are not expected to appear in court - their testimony has been videotaped.
The evidence being presented in court suggests a cycle of abuse down the generations, our correspondent says. The couple at the centre of the trial were themselves both sexually abused as children. They in turn allegedly raped and abused their own children, and allowed family members, neighbours and friends to do the same. Almost all the defendants come from deeply deprived backgrounds; few have jobs or training. Some are illiterate and almost all lived in the same rundown council estate on welfare benefits.
The prosecution says most crimes were perpetrated in the flat of a former convicted sex offender and in sheds on garden allotments.
"Parents of one kid sold her for a new car tyre," said lawyer Philippe Cosnard, quoted by the AFP news agency. Other children were allegedly bartered for small sums of money, food or cigarettes.
A girl of 10 was allegedly raped by more than 30 adults.
Outreau case
The alleged crimes reportedly came to light when investigators monitored the activities of another convicted sex offender released in 1999. The two men are said to have run the paedophile ring.
The crimes allegedly took place between January 1999 and February 2002 in Angers' Saint-Leonard district. Prosecutors say about half of the accused have admitted their guilt. But the prosecution hopes to avoid any repetition of the errors that plagued a previous high-profile paedophile trial - the Outreau case in northern France last year.
In that case, the accused spent months in prison awaiting trial and 13 people were implicated on the testimony of a woman who later admitted she had been lying. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | March 2005 | ['(Reuters)', '(Guardian)', '(BBC)'] |
U.S. President Donald Trump officially announces that the summit will resume as scheduled following a White House meeting with North Korean general Kim Yong-chol. | Donald Trump's summit with Kim Jong-un in Singapore on 12 June is back on, the US president says, a week after it was scrapped.
Mr Trump made the announcement after talks with a senior North Korean envoy at the White House.
The envoy, General Kim Yong-chol, hand-delivered a letter from the North Korean leader to President Trump.
Mr Trump at first said the letter was "very interesting" but later said he had not yet opened it.
He also said the issue of formally ending the Korean War would be on the table in Singapore.
The 1950-53 conflict only ended with a truce, not a final peace treaty.
"We'll be meeting on June 12th in Singapore. It went very well," President Trump told reporters on the White House lawn.
"We've got to know their people very well," he added.
Mr Trump cautioned that the summit might not achieve a final deal on the North's controversial nuclear programme.
"I never said it goes in one meeting. I think it's going to be a process, but the relationships are building and that's very positive," he said.
The historic meeting between Mr Trump and Kim Jong-un would be the first between sitting US and North Korean leaders. President Trump has offered to help rebuild the North's economy if it scraps its nuclear weapons. Kim Jong-un says he is committed to "denuclearisation" in some form but his precise demands are unclear.
16 May: North Korea says it may pull out of the summit, accusing the US of reckless statements and sinister intentions
24 May: Donald Trump cancels the summit, blaming "tremendous anger and open hostility" from the North
26 May: Kim Jong-un and South Korea's Moon Jae-in meet for surprise talks at the demilitarised border between the two countries
1 June: Senior North Korean envoy General Kim Yong-chol delivers a letter from Mr Kim in person at the White House. Mr Trump says the summit on 12 June is back on
Gen Kim Yong-chol's visit to Washington came a day after he met US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in New York.
Mr Pompeo described their talks about denuclearisation "substantive".
"President Trump and I believe Chairman Kim is the kind of leader who can make those kinds of decisions. And that in the coming weeks and months, we will have the opportunity to test whether or not this is the case," he said.
Mr Kim's letter reportedly expresses his interest in meeting without making any significant concessions or threats in regards to denuclearisation, the Wall Street Journal reports, citing a foreign government official who was briefed on the contents. | Diplomatic Talks _ Diplomatic_Negotiation_ Summit Meeting | June 2018 | ['(BBC)'] |
Hundreds of thousands of houses in Maine, Massachusetts, New York, and New Hampshire are left without electricity after an ice storm. | Ms. Bergeron, 40, has been without electricity, save a short burst, since a ferocious ice storm swept through northern New England on Thursday night. The storm felled power lines, turned trees into huge icicles, destroyed roads and left about a million people in the dark. Power had not been restored to more than 300,000 customers in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and New York as of Monday evening. Officials are telling some of those customers they may not get their power back until the weekend. | Hurricanes_Tornado_Storm_Blizzard | December 2008 | ['(New York Times)'] |
Baldwin Lonsdale, the President of Vanuatu, dies suddenly of a heart attack at age 67. Parliament Speaker Esmon Saimon takes his post as acting president. | Vanuatu was in a state of mourning on Saturday after its revered president, Baldwin Lonsdale, died unexpectedly. He was 67.
He was rushed to Vila Central Hospital late on Friday night after a suspected heart attack, but died just after midnight.
"Vanuatu has lost one of its greatest leaders," said Sela Molisa, a former long-time parliamentarian who described the late president as a humble, gentle man. "Vanuatu was lucky to have had him."
Flags around the country were lowered to half mast, and hundreds of family, friends and members of the public gathered outside the hospital to stand vigil on Saturday.
The Council of Ministers met to discuss mourning plans, which are likely to include a state funeral, and the late president's body was taken to lie at State House on Saturday night.
Baldwin Jacobson Lonsdale was born on Mota Lava, in the northern Banks islands, in 1950. He grew up to become a senior civil servant and the secretary general of the Torba provincial government before becoming an Anglican priest.
In September 2014, Father Lonsdale was elected to the presidency by an electoral college in the eighth round of voting, when he finally achieved a two thirds majority of MPs and provincial chairs.
Father Lonsdale promised to uphold the constitution and asked the people of Vanuatu to stand united: "I know that there is a big responsibility in the office of the head of state," he said on his appointment.
"But my first and foremost priority is to make sure that the constitution of the nation is upheld at all times and that peace, unity, justice and harmony prevail at all times," he said.
That commitment would come to be tested in a turbulent year in 2015, when the largely ceremonial role would become a pillar of stability through a destructive cyclone and a political crisis.
In March 2015, the country was devastated by Cyclone Pam, a category five storm that swept its way down the archipelago, leaving thousands homeless and much of the country's crops and infrastructure destroyed.
At the time, Father Lonsdale was in Japan at a conference on disaster risk reduction, where he made a tearful appeal for international assistance. "As a nation, as the head of my nation, my heart is for the people," he said in an address that was beamed around the world. "Everyone has that same feeling, because we don't know what happened to our family.
"There's a breakdown of communications that we cannot reach our families and we do not know whether our families are safe or not," he said.
Father Lonsdale described the cyclone as a monster that had wiped out the country's developments, and blamed climate change for contributing to the disaster.
Then, six months later, with the country still rebuilding from the cyclone, another crisis descended upon Port Vila.
In October 2015, 15 MPs -- half the government of Prime Minster Sato Kilman -- was convicted of corruption, making them ineligible for office.
But while Father Lonsdale was overseas, one of the convicted MPs, then-speaker of parliament Marcellino Pipite, pardoned himself and 13 of this colleagues in his capacity as acting president.
A furious Father Lonsdale returned to Vanuatu and rescinded the pardons, before addressing the nation to express his "shame and sorrow" at Pipite's actions.
"I will clean this dirt from my backyard," a visibly shaken president swore in his televised address. "We as a nation have to stop these crooked ways."
Following a failed appeal against the pardons, Father Lonsdale moved to dissolve parliament and called snap elections for January 2016, which saw Mr Kilman's government ousted and a new government formed that promised widespread reforms.
At the opening of the new parliament, Father Lonsdale said "the corruption we have seen is an abuse of public trust for private gain," describing the new legislature as a "new chart for Vanuatu's destiny."
"He was firm and wouldn't be swayed," said Mr Molisa, who said Father Lonsdale's unwavering commitment to the rule of law enshrined him as one of the country's greatest leaders. "History will remember him for this."
"I'm sure the government and every other - especially at the political level - people would recognise that Vanuatu has lost a very outstanding leader," he said.
That was a sentiment shared across Vanuatu. As the news director of the Vanuatu Daily Post, Dan McGarry, said in a post on Facebook: "By shouldering the burden of office, even when others had abused it so, he reasserted the integrity of an office that the Constitutions says embodies 'the unity of the nation'."
"And now, we're all united in mourning. His gift to the nation was immense, and will not be forgotten."
The Prime Minister, Charlot Salwai, was due to address the nation on Saturday evening to announce the nation's plans for a period of mourning. However, government officials said these would likely include a state funeral before the burial of the president's body on Mota Lava.
Under the constitution, the speaker of parliament, Esmon Saimon, is currently the acting president, and a new head of state will need to be elected by another electoral college within three weeks. | Famous Person - Death | June 2017 | ['(BBC)', '(Radio New Zealand)'] |
Archaeologists uncover what they believe to be the oldest Roman temple ever discovered. | Archaeologists excavating a site in central Rome say they've uncovered what may be oldest known temple from Roman antiquity.
Along the way, they've also discovered how much the early Romans intervened to shape their urban environment.
And the dig has been particularly challenging because the temple lies below the water table.
At the foot Capitoline Hill in the center of Rome, stands the Medieval Sant'Omobono church.
Today, the Tiber River is about a hundred yards away. But when the city was being created, around the 7th century B.C., it flowed close to where the church now stands, where a bend in the river provided a natural harbor for merchant ships.
"And here they decide to create a temple," says Nic Terrenato, who teaches classical archaeology at the University of Michigan and is co-director of the Sant'Omobono excavation project.
"At this point Rome is trading already as far afield as Cyprus, Lebanon, Egypt," he says. "So they build this temple, which is going to be one of the first things the traders see when they pull into the harbor of Rome."
The temple – the foundations of which are below the water line — was probably dedicated to the goddess Fortuna. The archaeological team discovered large quantities of votive offerings such as miniature versions of drinking vessels, left not by locals but by foreign traders.
In antiquity, Terrenato says, temples built on harbors had the function of fostering mutual trust between locals and traders.
"It's like a free trade zone and the goddess is supposed to guarantee the fairness of the trade," he says.
The discovery of the archaic temple's existence came after years of fundraising in Italy and in the U.S., and it required sophisticated technological know-how.
Last summer, an ambitious joint project of the University of Michigan and Rome archaeology officials finally got under way.
Archaeologist Albert Ammerman, who has excavated numerous sites in Rome, calls it a "mission impossible."
"They're digging at the very bottom of this trench, at about 7 and a half feet below the water," he says.
The team used heavy machinery to drill a rectangular hole 15 feet deep. A crane lowered large sheets of metal to keep back the soggy soil.
Terrenato says the archaeologists had to fight claustrophobia to be able to spend as much as 8 hours a day at the bottom of that trench.
"You're in a very deep hole, and although you know in theory that the sheeting is going to hold everything up, there is a primal part of your brain that tells you to get out of there, if the walls come closing in there's not going to be any way out for you," he says.
The foundations of the temple of Fortuna were visible for only three days — for security reasons, the team could not leave the trench open and it had to be filled up again.
But digging through the city's many layers, archaeologists have learned a lot: Early Rome — a city of high hills and deep valleys prone to flooding — soon became one large landfill as the founders chopped off hilltops, and dumped them into lowlands to try to make the city flatter and drier. And as the city grew layer by layer and more temples were built, Ammerman, the archaeologist says, the Romans encroached on their river, diverting the original waterway.
"It's actually not totally natural, it's the humans are actually changing the river to the way it is here," he says. "They had the ability to realize that to make their city go, they have to transform the landscape."
As they figured how to cope with their surroundings, the early Romans developed sophisticated engineering and administrative skills and a collective ability to deal with their challenging environment.
It's discoveries like these, Ammerman says, that debunk the idealized image of ancient Rome — the immutable and eternal city — as a place that never changed. | New archeological discoveries | January 2014 | ['(Southern California Public Radio)'] |
A passenger bus carrying 46 people, mostly school groups from Tonga, crashes in the Gisborne Region of New Zealand, approximately 30 kilometers south of the city of Gisborne. Two people died while several were injured, with some still hospitalized. |
Photos have been posted to a public Facebook page showing the school group at the scene of the crash. Photo / Facebook A woman has described the terror at the scene of a bus crash that claimed the lives of two people and injured 44 others south of Gisborne last night.
The bus, carrying a school group from Tonga, went through a barrier and 100m down a bank on State Highway 2, 30km south of Gisborne near Wharerata, about 10.30pm last night.
Kristina Williams lives near the scene, and was alerted to the crash when a man drove to her home.
"He was absolutely distraught when he turned up to our house. He had a couple of the patients in the car with him.
"We raised the alarm by calling the emergency services and then my brother-in-law and father-in-law and I jumped in our car and went to the scene."
She said it was completely pitch black, apart from the interior bus lights illuminating the wreckage at the bottom of the bank.
"From the edge of the road you could just see the inside of the bus lit up and you couldn't see the people from the top of the road but you knew people were down there.
"There was already a few cars at the scene but everyone was pretty ill-prepared. We managed to bring some head torches with us knowing what the terrain is like and that is densely thick bush."
Williams said the injuries were horrible, and she was surprised there was not more fatalities.
"They were all scrambling out in their traditional Tongan attire, the men were wearing skirts [taʻovala] and they all had bare feet and t-shirts on."
Williams was in the process of starting a Givealitte page to raise money for the group - who were here fundraising for their church.
"Their belongings were all strewn down the bank and they were just the loveliest group of people. They were all so thankful for everyone's help, it was just a shame we couldn't do more.
"Some couldn't speak English but they were all comforting each other and were very quiet and calm and thankful."
Williams said she was told that the bus had taken a wrong turn on the road into Gisborne from Hamilton, and ended coming up from the south instead of the Northwest.
The man who raised the alarm at her house was sent by the church to meet the bus in his car and lead them the correct way into town, she said.
It is understood one of the deceased people was a woman accompanying the brass band team from Mailefihi Siulikutapu College on Vavau Island.
The body of the second person was recovered this morning.
A St John spokeswoman said there was 41 patients treated in total, and 27 were transported to hospitals.
One person was critically injured, two people were seriously injured and three people were moderately injured, she said.
The rest of the patients had minor injuries, she said.
Some of the patients were airlifted to hospitals in Gisborne and Hastings and rest were transported to Gisborne by ambulance and a second bus that came to assist.
A statement from Gisborne Hospital said that 27 people were taken there.
"Eight people have been admitted to Gisborne Hospital and a further two were airlifted direct to [Hawke's Bay] Hospital."
Police officers are in the process of identifying next of kin.
They were on their way to Gisborne for a fundraising event and were being hosted in the homes of ex-students and other members of the Tongan community in Gisborne, said the statement.
They were due to perform at Christmas church services, it is understood.
Photos have been posted to a public Facebook page showing the school group at the scene of the crash and in Hawke's Bay Hospital.
Many people are sending their condolences and prayers to the group.
Michelle Lama said: "Our prayers and thoughts are with you all."
Evelini Ahosivi said: "Love to all those kids."
Aleki Tuipulotu said: "May God be with you all and may his healing hand be upon all of yous [sic]."
Members from the group not requiring hospitalisation or further medical treatment are now being accommodated by the local Tongan community, Methodist Church, and Victim Support who are caring for and comforting these people.
A police spokeswoman said: "Serious Crash Unit have attended and report that the extraction of the bus is likely to be challenging and may take a number of days to complete due to the terrain and availability of the necessary heavy equipment during the Christmas period." | Road Crash | December 2016 | ['(New Zealand Herald)'] |
An estimated 150,000 people rally against gay marriage in Paris, France, with 100 people arrested. , | Tens of thousands of people have rallied in Paris against a new French law allowing same-sex marriage.
Police estimate that up to 150,000 people joined marches that converged on the city centre, but organisers put the figure close to one million.
Clashes erupted after the rally finished between far-right activists and riot police. The authorities said nearly 100 people were arrested. On Saturday 50 people were detained for blocking the Champs-Elysees.
The same-sex marriage bill, which also legalises gay adoption, was signed into law by President Francois Hollande last week, after months of heated debate. French people have been bitterly divided over the issue. On Tuesday, a far-right historian shot himself dead in Notre Dame cathedral, leaving messages in which he denounced gay marriage.
During Sunday's protests, demonstrators headed in columns from a number of points in Paris to the Invalides complex.
Some marchers drove donkeys, one of which bore a placard which read: "I am an ass. I voted Hollande".
The leader of the UMP conservative opposition party, Jean-Francois Cope, headed one of the processions.
Despite some 4,500 police deployed in Paris, clashes broke out at the end of the day between far-right activists and police, filling the Invalides complex with tear gas. The interior ministry said 96 people were arrested. Leading activist Virginie Tellen - better known as Frigide Barjot - earlier in the day greeted protesters arriving to Paris from across France at a Paris train station.
But she did not take part in the march, citing threats from far-right groups.
"Those people are playing God, because they want to marry, but it won't stop at this stage. Then they will adopt, and then we will have children in families where there is no father or no mother."
One UMP member of parliament, Jacques Myard, told BBC News that the law had been passed by the governing party "by force" and his party would review it if re-elected.
Mr Myard told the BBC there was a "huge gap between this government and the citizens" over the marriage issue.
"This is something we cannot accept because of the fate of the children," he said.
"Those people are playing God, because they want to marry, but it won't stop at this stage. Then they will adopt, and then we will have children in families where there is no father or no mother."
The leader of France's far-right National Front, Marine Le Pen, was also among the marchers.
On Saturday evening, a group of protesters chained themselves to metal barriers they had placed in the middle of the Champs-Elysees.
Some released smoke bombs before police moved in and arrested them. Nobody was hurt.
Opposition to gay marriage has become conflated with all sorts of other anti-government grievances coming from the right and the atmosphere in the country is particularly volatile, the BBC's Hugh Schofield says.
France is now the ninth country in Europe, and 14th globally, to legalise gay marriage.
| Protest_Online Condemnation | May 2013 | ['(BBC)', '(Sky News)'] |
Tokyo Electric Power Co. announces new plans to tackle the ongoing Fukushima I nuclear crisis, after it is discovered that the problems with the number 1 reactor at the Fukushima I plant are worse than thought. | TOKYO (Nikkei)--In light of indications that damage to the No. 1 reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is worse than expected, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (9501) is expected to take a fresh approach to cooling down the fuel rods by installing equipment to circulate water that has been pumped inside.
The utility is scheduled to release on Tuesday a revised road map for bringing the reactors damaged by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami under control.
The amount of water being pumped in has already been increased to 10 tons per hour. But the water that leaks out and builds up inside the reactor building is a concern.
"Heat exchangers and equipment for removing radioactive substances are necessary for pumping in and circulating water," said Takashi Sawada, vice president of the Atomic Energy Society of Japan. "Unless there is removal (of radioactive substances), the contamination will spread and the ensuing work will become impossible to perform."
If the fuel rods have breached the pressure vessel and reached the bottom of the containment vessel, installing the equipment will become more difficult. Bringing the situation under control could take longer than the initially envisioned six to nine months.
Some have suggested pinpointing areas of the containment vessel that have sustained damage and making repairs with cement or other materials, but the radiation is so strong that workers cannot get close. Another proposal calls for circulating the contaminated water that has gathered in the basement, but this is also not possible because workers cannot enter the area. | Government Policy Changes | May 2011 | ['(TEPCO)', '(Nikkei)'] |
The Swedish prosecutor files an arrest warrant against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange over a rape allegation. Assange is serving a 50–week prison sentence in the United Kingdom for skipping bail. | STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - The Swedish prosecutor heading an investigation into a rape allegation against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange filed a request with a local court on Monday for him to be detained in absentia.
If granted, the court order would be the first step in a process to have Assange extradited from Britain, where he is serving a 50-week sentence for skipping bail.
Sweden reopened the rape investigation last week. It was begun in 2010 but dropped in 2017 after Assange took refuge in the Ecuadorean embassy in London.
Assange, who denies the accusation, was arrested in London last month after spending seven years inside the embassy.
“I request the District Court to detain Assange in his absence, on probable cause suspected for rape,” Deputy Chief Prosecutor Eva-Marie Persson said in a statement on Monday.
She said she would issue a European arrest warrant for Assange to be surrendered to Sweden if the court decided to detain him.
Sweden’s decision to reopen the rape investigation casts doubt on where Assange may eventually end up, with U.S. authorities already seeking his extradition over conspiracy charges relating to one of the biggest ever leaks of classified information.
A lawyer representing Assange in Sweden said he would tell the District Court it could not investigate the prosecutor’s request until he had conferred with his client and learned whether or not he wished to oppose a detention order.
“Since he is in prison in England, it has so far not been possible even to speak to him by telephone,” Per Samuelson told Reuters.
Assange, an Australian national, took refuge in the embassy after fighting unsuccessfully through the British courts to avoid extradition to Sweden.
The British courts will have to rule on the Swedish and U.S. extradition requests, with interior minister Sajid Javid having the final say on which one takes precedence.
“The outcome of this process is impossible to predict,” Persson said. Citing information from UK authorities, she said Assange would serve 25 weeks of his UK sentence before he could be released.
A British judge has given the U.S. government a deadline of June 12 to outline its case against Assange.
Reporting by Helena Soderpalm and Esha Vaish; editing by John Stonestreet and Niklas Pollard
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
| Famous Person - Commit Crime - Arrest | May 2019 | ['(Reuters)'] |
Israeli forces fire gas agents and rubbercoated bullets against Palestinian protesters in Silwan, injuring dozens. | West Bank, (Pal Telegraph) -Dozens of Palestinians were injured yesterday following Friday prayer after inhaling poisonous gas fired by Israeli soldiers during clashes erupted in Al-Bustan protest tent in Silwan, southern occupied Jerusalem.
During Friday prayer, Yousif Salama, who is the Speaker (Khatib) of Al-Aqsa mosque, condemned Israeli policy of demolishing mosques in Al-shaik Jarah neighborhood to be replaced by settlement units for Jewish inhabitants. Al-Aqsa imam also denounced Israeli measures to prevent Adhan from Al-Quds mosques as those actions contradicted religious principals and confiscated their freedom of worship. As a result, the Imam’s speech pushed Palestinians to held protests against Israeli violations to their holy places.
Israeli forces intensified their military troops and vehicles in Silwan as well as erected barriers and checkpoints at the main entrances hindering a number of Palestinians to pray in Al-Aqsa mosque, witnesses told.
According to local sources,Israeli forces tightened their security measures and completely isolated the town for the second Friday, causing crowd at both Kalndia crossing and Shufat main entrance.
Israelclaimed that those measures were taken as being informed about the prayers’ intentions to organize protests lunched from Al-Aqsa mosque toward ancient streets of Jerusalem. | Armed Conflict | February 2011 | ['(Muslim News)', '(The Palestine Telegraph)'] |
BP reports that no oil is leaking into the Gulf of Mexico from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill for the first time since it began in April. | HOUSTON, July 15 (Reuters) - BP Plc BP.LBP.N said on Thursday no oil was leaking into the Gulf of Mexico for the first time since its huge spill began in April as it conducted pressure tests on its blown-out deep-sea well.
For the test, BP closed valves and vents on a tight-sealing containment cap installed atop its ruptured well earlier this week. Initial results early in the test showed the cap had completely contained the flow of oil, BP said. [ID:nN15196767]
“It’s a great sight but it’s far from the finish line,” Doug Suttles, a senior BP executive, told reporters.
BP’s U.S. shares initially jumped 10 percent after the company announced that its test had shut off the flow of oil.
President Barack Obama called the end of the flow of oil into the ocean a “positive sign,” but cautioned that the latest effort was still in the testing phase. The spill has caused an economic and environmental disaster along the U.S. Gulf Coast.
As the company pushed ahead on the spill-control effort, U.S. energy company Apache Corp APA.N was moving forward on a possible $10 billion deal for some BP properties, including major assets in Alaska, CNBC reported. [ID:nN15217650]
After a delay to fix a leak, BP began the test on Thursday afternoon on the cap that could stop all or most of the flow of crude that has been polluting the ocean and coastline since April 20 in the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.
The test, which could last between six to 48 hours, gauges pressure in the well -- which extends 2.5 miles (4 km) under the seabed -- to assess its condition. Officials said it will show whether the cap can safely shut off the flow from the well if oil-capture vessels at the surface must disconnect.
The U.S. Coast Guard has described the containment cap as at best a temporary fix to the leak while BP finishes two relief wells that it is drilling that are intended to intersect the blown-out well and permanently seal it next month.
The test is intended to determine whether the structure of the lengthy well is damaged or intact. Retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, the U.S. government’s point man on the spill, compared the test to placing one’s thumb over the end of a garden hose -- if the pressure does not increase that means there is a leak somewhere.
Regarding the BP well, a build-up of pressure would signal that the well is intact, which would make it easier to seal it with the relief wells.
The cap is a crucial step toward a multi-vessel oil-capture system that is hurricane-ready and can collect up to 80,000 barrels (3.34 million gallons/12.7 million liters) per day.
That should be more than enough to capture the whole well output, as estimates put the spill rate between 35,000 barrels (1.47 million gallons/5.56 million liters) and 60,000 barrels (2.5 million gallons/9.5 million liters) a day.
Allen backed away from earlier assurances that the new cap would be used to completely seal the well until the relief wells eventually kill it with heavy mud and cement.
Allen said the cap could shut the well, but might be used only to block the flow during emergency situations like a hurricane when BP’s surface containment effort would be suspended. “The intention of the capping stack was never to close in the well per se,” Allen said in New Orleans.
Reports that Apache was seeking $6 billion to $7 billion for the purchase helped boost BP’s U.S. shares from midday. The shares then rose further on the initial test results and ended up 7.6 percent at $38.92.
“It’s been one of those headline things we’ve heard for 87 days, lots of people waiting for some good news,” said John Massey, portfolio manager at Sunamerica Asset Management in Jersey City, New Jersey.
Analysts surveyed by Reuters Insider predict that BP will spend between $63 billion to $100 billion over the next 15 years in fines, cleanup costs and legal costs.
BP’s shares have been ravaged since the well rupture, with $100 billion in market value being knocked off at one stage, before a three-week rally sparked by takeover talk, speculation about investment by a sovereign wealth fund and hopes that the well would be capped.
The news that it had finally stopped the leak -- at least during the test -- was a bit of good news for the British company, which has seen its share value plummet and reputation battered since the April 20 rig explosion that killed 11 workers and led to the spill of millions of gallons of oil.
BP also faced new measures in the U.S. Congress. Lawmakers are mulling a range of new laws that could require tougher safety regulations on offshore drilling or bar companies like BP from new offshore exploration leases. [ID:nN15210454]
The U.S. government, which has vowed to make BP pay for fixing the well and all cleanup efforts, told the oil giant that it was responsible for paying all royalties on the oil it is collecting from the ruptured well. [ID:nN15220646]
Currently, energy companies pay the government a royalty rate of up to 18.75 percent of the value of the oil and gas drilled in offshore tracts.
Through its containment systems, BP has collected or burned more than 800,000 barrels of oil.
The Gulf spill has soiled hundreds of miles/kilometres of shoreline, shut down about a third of Gulf fisheries and hurt tourism and fishing in all five U.S. Gulf states. It has also created problems for Obama as the government works to respond to the crisis while area residents struggle financially.
“It’s a great thing, it’s a wonderful thing,” said Jerome DeGree in Larose, Louisiana when he heard that BP had at least temporarily stopped the oil from gushing into the ocean.
“This has been hurting this whole area,” the shallow-water oil driller said. “I couldn’t buy my shrimp, I couldn’t buy my oysters, I couldn’t take my boat out.”
In an issue unrelated to the spill, but illustrating the pressure BP faces in the United States, the company confirmed on Thursday that it had lobbied the British government to speed up a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya in late 2007.
In August 2009, Britain released a Libyan convicted of blowing up a U.S. plane, angering the United States. Many of the 270 dead in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing were American.
The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee said it would hold a hearing on the issue on July 29. (Additional reporting by Chris Baltimore in Houston, Alexandria Sage in Louisiana, Matthew Lynley in New York and Ayesha Rascoe, Tom Doggett and Andrew Quinn in Washington; Writing by Deborah Charles; Editing by Simon Denyer)
. | Environment Pollution | July 2010 | ['(Reuters)'] |
Voters in Mexico go to the polls for a general election with Institutional Revolutionary Party presidential candidate Enrique Pena Nieto claiming victory. | With a mix of trepidation and optimism, Texas lawmakers are closely watching Mexico’s election on Sunday. The expected outcome would return the Institutional Revolutionary Party to power.
Polls show that Enrique Peña Nieto, a PRI member and former governor of the state of Mexico, is in line to become the country’s next president. That would swing power back to the center-left party after 12 years of rule by the more moderate National Action Party, whose legacy has been stained by six years of grueling war against drug traffickers.
An article last Sunday about the presidential election in Mexico included a quotation from a Texas lawmaker who misstated the amount of aid to countries like Egypt and Israel. It is about $3 billion, not $300 billion. | Government Job change - Election | July 2012 | ['(The New York Times)', '(Reuters)'] |
Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement gets a boost with Umbrella Soldiers winning at least four seats in Sunday's election although the distribution of political power over the district council seats remains broadly the same vis-a-vis the Hong Kong local elections, 2011. | Hong Kong (AFP) - Young supporters of Hong Kong's democracy movement, known as 'Umbrella Soldiers', took seats in the city's first vote since mass street protests -- but pro-Beijing forces dominated the polls in a key test of public sentiment.
The spotlight was on Sunday's district elections to gauge whether support for the democracy movement could translate into votes.
While a new generation of pro-democracy campaigners unexpectedly won a handful of seats, the balance of power remained largely the same, thanks to a better-funded and better organised pro-Beijing camp, analysts said.
Established democratic parties also struggled to come up with a new message, analysts added, with two veteran incumbents losing their seats.
It was the first time Hong Kongers had gone to the polls since tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets last year demanding fully free elections for the city's next leader, in what became known as the "Umbrella Movement".
The rallies were sparked after Beijing insisted candidates for the planned first public vote for Hong Kong's leader in 2017 would have to be vetted by a loyalist committee.
Hong Kong is semi-autonomous after being handed back by Britain to China in 1997, but there are fears that Beijing's influence is growing.
The democracy movement has splintered and stalled since the protests failed to win concessions on political reform, with younger candidates pulling away from the old guard.
Dozens of 'Umbrella Soldiers' stood for election Sunday. At least four won seats in an election that saw a record 47 percent turnout of more than 1.4 million.
"It's a total surprise. I feel the Umbrella Movement definitely woke up many people who never cared about the district council and politics to give their first vote," Clarisse Yeung Suet-ying, 28, who won against a pro-Beijing candidate, told local news channel TVB.
"We will prove we're serious," added Kwong Po-yin, 29, of new pro-democracy group Youngspiration, who also won.
- Surprise defeat -
The pro-establishment camp acknowledged the inroads made by new candidates.
"I'm a little surprised by the defeat," said Chris Chung of the pro-Beijing Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB), who lost to Chui Chi-kin, 46. Chui said he was running for the first time inspired by last year's rallies.
"Since Occupy, many youngsters registered as first-time voters. They showed their power," added Chung.
There are 431 representatives on the 18 district councils, which advise the government on local issues.
Pro-Beijing groups retained a significant majority as analysts had expected.
The DAB, the main pro-establishment party, won 119 seats.
The Democratic Party, the largest pro-democracy party, dropped four seats from 47 to 43.
However, the Neo Democrats, who broke away from the Democratic Party in 2010 and promote a more Hong Kong-centric approach to reform, won 15 of a possible 16 seats.
Youngspiration garnered 12,000 votes, although only one of its nine candidates won.
"Our battle to get back Hong Kong has just begun," said the group's spokesman Baggio Leung.
"To some extent, the Umbrella Movement has galvanised a new generation of voters," said Willy Lam of the Chinese University of Hong Kong's Centre for China Studies.
"But the overall result is pretty much unchanged... Beijing should be reassured."
Pro-government parties had succeeded in drawing support from key groups including recent arrivals from the mainland and elderly constituents, he said.
| Government Job change - Election | November 2015 | ['(Reuters)', '(AFP via Yahoo)'] |
Tropical Cyclone Lam intensifies to Category 3 as it moves towards the Northern Territory's Arnhem Land. |
Schools and even a mechanical workshop have become temporary cyclone shelters in remote Indigenous communities ahead of the arrival of the category three Cyclone Lam, which is strengthening off the coast of Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory.The Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) expects the cyclone, which is gusting at 165kph, to intensify as it moves slowly parallel to the coast, and then make landfall on Friday morning.At 11:00pm (CST) on Wednesday, the cyclone was about 165 kilometres north-north-east of Elcho Island and 165 kilometres north-north-west of Nhulunbuy, about 600km east of Darwin.It was moving north-west at around 6 kph, and was expected to start moving south-west towards the coast during Thursday.Residents of Nhulunbuy, Elcho Island and Gapuwiyak have been advised to immediately find shelter.Coastal residents between Millingimbi and Nhulunbuy have been warned a storm tide will cause flooding.Residents on Elcho Island were sheltering in a school hall and mechanical workshop in Galiwin'ku, in the south of the island, while northern communities such as Gawa had been evacuated."Gawa's the first northern point on the island so the roads are sort of flooded all the way up to there at the moment," Elcho Island resident Ewen Nettleton said."There's pretty limited access. The town itself, people are starting to move into the shelter at the school. "There's about a hundred people up there now and everyone else is filling up with fuel and stocking up with groceries."In far east Arnhem Land, staff at the Gapuwiyak Culture and Arts centre were trying to protect irreplaceable Aboriginal artefacts ahead of the weather."We've got a collection here of woven artefacts so they've been put into a cabinet and locked up, some of the larger carvings that are in the collection we've wrapped in plastic ... basically just in case the roof goes," manager Leon Stainer said."I mean the stock can be replaced or is covered by insurance but this stuff is a special collection."West of Gapuwiyak, on the coast and in the path of Lam, manager of the One-Six-Eight general store Terry Chiang said people had stocked up."It looks like very busy today, everybody is coming to do shopping ... yeah, today the business is better than the normal day," he said.Wind gusts over 170kph expected: BoMA category three cyclone is powerful enough to cause roof and structural damage to homes, with power failures likely and some caravans destroyed.On Wednesday night the BoM said destructive winds with gusts greater than 170 kilometres per hour would likely continue the Wessel islands overnight, and were expected to extend onto the mainland coast between Milingimbi and Gapuwiyak late on Thursday. "Very destructive winds may extend further east towards Nhulunbuy overnight Thursday and into early Friday if the cyclone takes a more southward track," it said."Winds with gusts to 130 kilometres per hour should develop about the mainland coast between Maningrida and Nhulunbuy during Thursday before possibly extending over adjacent inland areas on Friday."Gales with gusts to 110 kilometres per hour may develop in coastal areas between Elcho Island and Nhulunbuy overnight or during early Thursday before possibly extending to Goulburn Island and Cape Shield and over adjacent inland areas during Thursday. "Gales may extend further west to Croker Island or south to Port Roper and over inland areas towards Bulman and Gunbalanya on Friday depending on the track the cyclone takes."Storm surge dangerThe BoM warned coastal residents tides would rise significantly above the normal high mark, with damaging waves and very dangerous flooding. "If you do have accommodation constructed to the Building Code or are unsure of your present accommodation you should proceed immediately to shelter with family, friends, or one of the local emergency shelters," it said.At 11:00pm on Wednesday the warning zone, in which gales are expected within 24 hours, included Goulburn Island to Cape Shield, including Nhulunbuy.The watch zone, in which gales are expected within 24 to 48 hours, included Croker Island to Goulburn Island and Cape Shield to Port Roper, including Groote Eylandt.Cape Shield to Alyangula, including Groote Eylandt were no longer under warning, but remained under watch status. - ABC | Hurricanes_Tornado_Storm_Blizzard | February 2015 | ['(Weatherzone)'] |
Sudan's President Omar alBashir could still face charges of genocide in Darfur. | Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir and the main rebel group in Darfur, the Justice and Equality Movement (Jem), are about to sign a ceasefire.
It is being seen as an important step to achieving peace before a national election in April. Some 2.7 million people have fled their homes since the conflict began in the arid western region, and the UN says about 300,000 have died - mostly from disease. How did the conflict start?
The Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and Justice and Equality Movement (Jem) began attacking government targets in early 2003, accusing Khartoum of oppressing black Africans in favour of Arabs. Darfur, which means land of the Fur, has faced many years of tension over land and grazing rights between the mostly nomadic Arabs, and farmers from the Fur, Massaleet and Zaghawa communities. How did the government respond to the rebellion?
It admits mobilising "self-defence militias" following rebel attacks. But it denies any links to the Arab Janjaweed militia - who are accused of trying to drive out black Africans from large swathes of territory. President Omar al-Bashir has called the Janjaweed "thieves and gangsters". But refugees say air raids by government aircraft would be followed by attacks from the Janjaweed, who would ride into villages on horses and camels, slaughtering men, raping women and stealing whatever they could find. The US and some human rights groups have said genocide is taking place - though a UN investigation team in 2005 concluded that war crimes had been committed but there had been no intent to commit genocide. Trials have been announced in Khartoum of some members of the security forces suspected of abuses - but this is viewed as part of a campaign against attempts to get suspects tried at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. What has happened to Darfur's civilians?
The United Nations says more than 2.7 million people have fled their homes and now live in camps near Darfur's main towns. Darfuris say the Janjaweed patrol outside the camps and men are killed and women raped if they venture too far in search of firewood or water. Some 200,000 people have also sought safety in neighbouring Chad. Many of these are camped along a 600km (372 mile) stretch of the border and remain vulnerable to attacks from the Sudan side. Chad's eastern areas have a similar ethnic make-up to Darfur and the violence has spilled over the border area, with the neighbours accusing one another of supporting each other's rebel groups. Many aid agencies have been working in Darfur but they are unable to get access to vast areas because of the insecurity. Several were banned from northern Sudan after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for President Bashir in 2009 for alleged war crimes. How many have died?
The United Nations says up to 300,000 people have died from the combined effects of war, hunger and disease. President Bashir puts the death toll at 10,000. Accurate figures are difficult to research and have made no distinction between those dying as a result of violence and those dying as a result of starvation or disease in the camps. The numbers are crucial in determining whether the deaths in Darfur are genocide or - as the Sudanese government says - the situation is being exaggerated. Is anyone trying to stop the fighting?
Yes. There are thousands of peacekeepers in the region under the auspices of a joint African Union-UN peacekeeping mission, Unamid. Last August, the UN's outgoing military commander General Martin Agwai said the conflict was effectively over and isolated attacks and banditry were the region's main problems now. There was a peace deal in 2006, but only one of many rebel factions signed up to it. Qatar, the United Nations, the African Union, Arab League and Chad have all helped to arrange peace talks between Khartoum and Jem over the past few years. The US envoy to Darfur, Scott Gration, has also been involved in talks aimed at getting the rebel groups to agree a common position so they can take part in broader peace talks. It is hoped that the ceasefire with Jem will see other rebels sit down at the negotiating table. Who is to blame?
The international community lays much of the blame on Mr Bashir. He has frequently been accused of supporting the pro-government militias. The International Criminal Court in The Hague issued an arrest warrant last year for war crimes and crimes against humanity. An attempt to add genocide to the charge was initially refused - but prosecutors appealed and the court's pre-trial chamber has now been ordered to reconsider genocide charges. Rebel groups have also been held responsible for some atrocities. But the case against rebel leader Bahar Idriss Abu Garda, accused of planning the killing of 12 African Union peacekeepers in 2007, was dropped this year as the ICC ruled there was not enough evidence to support a trial. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | February 2010 | ['(BBC)'] |
The fire on USS Bonhomme Richard continues for a third consecutive day. The United States Navy says its crews have made significant progress fighting flames and reducing smoke, but it is still unclear when the fire will be extinguished. There have been 61 injuries; 38 sailors and 23 civilians have been treated mostly for minor injuries related to firefighting. |
As fire on the amphibious assault ship Bonhomme Richard continued for a third day, the Navy said its crews have made significant progress fighting flames and reducing smoke, but it is still unclear when the fire will be out. Rear Adm. Philip Sobeck, commander of Expeditionary Strike Group 3, said the ship docked at San Diego Naval Base so far is stable and the structure is safe. “We still have an active fire, which we are combating both from within and externally from multiple access points,” he said. He said it’s too early to tell how much damage the fire has done to the ship and whether the ship will survive.
“When you look at the outside of the ship, you don’t get the full picture,” he said. “We haven’t been inside of the ship well enough to get a full picture. It looks cleaner from the outside (but) inside, again, we’re still fighting a major fire.”
There are still two main fires burning, he said, one in the forward part of the ship and one aft. In the forward section, crews haven’t been able to get to the fire because it was too hot, he said. Both fires appear to be in the upper part of the ship. Crews have been trying to cool the metal in the ship since the fire broke out Sunday morning. More than 400 sailors and fire crews from across the San Diego waterfront have been fighting the blaze, including sailors from the Bonhomme Richard, the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln and the guided-missile destroyer Fitzgerald and eight other ships.
Federal firefighters from bases throughout Southern California also came, some from as far away as Ventura County.
There have been 61 injuries; 38 sailors and 23 civilians have been treated mostly for minor injuries related to firefighting, the Navy said. The last five at the hospital left by Monday afternoon.
Navy helicopters from Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 3 have made about 1,200 water bucket dumps, Sobeck said.
The Navy has been able to investigate the four main engineering spaces on the ship, and there’s no major damage there, he said. Also the fire is still far away from the 1 million gallons of fuel the ship is carrying, he said.
Sobeck said the cause of the fire will be investigated once the flames are out. There were a number of events that made the fire difficult to contain.
Sobeck said the ship was undergoing maintenance, and the cabling and ductwork for it were fed through doors, hatches and scuttles, preventing them from closing and contributing to the fire’s spread. Also, cabling and ductwork created fuel for the fire and more debris that had to be removed before crews could get to the fire, he said.
Sobeck said on Monday that a shipboard firefighting system that uses Halon gas to suffocate fires was inoperable due to the maintenance.
Another system that uses aqueous film-forming foam to fight fires was operational Sunday when the fire broke out, but before sailors could activate it, there was an explosion and they had to abandon the effort, Sobeck said.
Once the fire started below in a lower vehicle storage area, it traveled upward to the “well deck,” which is a hangar-like open area with a lot of oxygen to fuel the fire, he said.
“Once the fire hit that amount of oxygen, it then found other ways to go up some ventilation ... and then went off to the races,” Sobeck said.
Water from firefighting had caused the ship to list on its starboard side Monday, but by that evening the list eased as crews continued pumping firefighting water out of the ship.
A photo recently posted on Reddit taken by someone on a Navy helicopter appeared to show holes on the ship’s island superstructure, which includes the forward and main masts, the bridge and the air traffic control center.
The photo offers a peek into the extensive damage suffered on the island, where the forward mast collapsed Monday.
Navy officials declined to comment on the damage visible in the photo, saying the photo’s release was not authorized.
Sobeck said Tuesday he does not know when the fire on the Bonhomme Richard will be out, but it’s possible within the next 24 hours. Smoke from the ship had abated significantly. Smoke and fumes from the ship had polluted the skyline and air throughout San Diego since the fire began at 8:30 a.m. Sunday. As of Tuesday morning, smoke had substantially dissipated. The Navy is working with the San Diego Pollution Control District, Sobeck said. He recommended people continue following the county’s cautions about outdoor activities.
Capt. Timothy Barelli, of Coast Guard Sector San Diego, said his organization is taking precautions to minimize chances of water pollution by putting booms in the water, but so far there is no sheen in the water to indicate an oil spill.
Some observers, including former sailors and Naval experts, have questioned whether the Navy will scuttle or scrap the ship, but Sobeck said Monday he believes the Navy will ultimately repair it. This is one of the biggest fires on a Navy ship outside of combat.
The Navy uses amphibious assault ships to deploy Marines in amphibious landings. During operations, the ships conduct flight operations with helicopters and jet aircraft, such as the AV-8B Harrier and its replacement, the F-35 B Lightning.
The Bonhomme Richard has been undergoing retrofitting in San Diego both in drydock and pier-side for extensive upgrades for F-35B fighter capability. The ship cost $761 million, according to estimates by the Federation of American Scientists, and was at the end of its two-year, $250 million upgrade. While deployed, these ships carry more than 2,000 sailors and Marines, but only 160 sailors were on the ship when the fire broke out.
Updates
4:44 PM, Jul. 14, 2020: This story was updated with more information about ongoing firefighting efforts.
| Fire | July 2020 | ['(The San Diego Union–Tribune)'] |
A police dispersal occurs between combined minority groups and anti–U.S. activists and the Philippine National Police in front of the U.S. Embassy in Manila. Police arrest 30 protesters with 60 people injured, several rammed by a police van driven during the dispersal. , , | Almost 1,000 people had gathered in the capital supporting President Duterte’s comments on loosening ties with the US.
A Philippine police van rammed and ran over baton-wielding protesters outside the US embassy in the capital, Manila.
Police also used tear gas and truncheons on Wednesday to try to disperse about 1,000 people who had gathered in support of President Rodrigo Duterte’s recent comments that he wanted to loosen his nation’s alliance with the United States.
Police made at least 23 arrests, said Chief Inspector Arsenio Riparip, one of the officers overseeing the incident, adding demonstrators broke through the line of police securing the embassy’s gates.
The van’s driver, police officer Franklin Kho, told reporters he was driving the van away from the protesters because he feared they would try to seize it and use it to attack the police.
Photos showed a grey-haired man trapped underneath the stationary van with his leg and hips under one of the back tyres. The rally came as Duterte visits Beijing to strengthen relations with the world’s second-largest economy amid deteriorating ties with former colonial power, the US. “We had to disperse them. They started it. They were trying to enter the embassy,” Riparip told AFP news agency.
“We had to use tear gas. They overpowered our policemen.”
A police van reversed quickly back into a crowd of dozens of protesters and then forward, running over at least two people and banging into others, footage broadcast by local television network ABS CBN showed.
Some screamed in surprise, others hurled stones at the van and yelled invectives. A speaker called the police “puppies of imperialists” on a loudspeaker.
A fire truck doused the rowdy protesters with water to push them back, but they took hold of the water hose and confronted the outnumbered police with rocks and red paint. After breaking through the police corridor, they scribbled “US troops out now” and other slogans on the embassy’s tall fence with red paint.
Manila police chief Oscar Albayalde confirmed that the van hit protesters but insisted the driver was not at fault.
“They weren’t really run over,” Albayalde said in a statement, referring to the protesters.
“The rallyists were trying to flip over the patrol car. In the process, the driver extricated the patrol car and inadvertently hit some unruly protesters who sustained minor injuries.”
The protesters were calling for the removal of US troops in the southern island of Mindanao.
“There was absolutely no justification [for the police violence],” Renato Reyes, secretary general of left-wing activist group Bayan, said. “Even as the president avowed an independent foreign policy, Philippine police forces still act as running dogs of the US.”
One of the protest leaders, Amirah Lidasan, accused the police of starting the violence.
“It was the police who attacked the protesters. First they rammed the police vehicle against the people. Then they released tear gas and hit us with truncheons,” she said.
While the Philippines is a defence ally of the US, Duterte – elected president in May on a ruthless anti-crime platform – has said he wants to distance the country from the United States.
He has launched abusive tirades against US President Barack Obama and warned that he may eventually cut ties altogether, after the US government raised alarm over thousands of people killed in Duterte’s anti-drug campaign.
| Protest_Online Condemnation | October 2016 | ['(Rappler)', '(The Manila Bulletin)', '(Al Jazeera)'] |
Former Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi, who was ousted in a coup in 2013 and has been detained in jail since then, dies after fainting during an espionage court hearing. | Egypt's former President Mohammed Morsi, ousted by the military in 2013 after one year in office, has collapsed in a courtroom and died, officials say.
A top figure in the now-banned Islamist movement Muslim Brotherhood, Morsi had just spoken from a cage at a hearing on charges of espionage. State TV said the cause of death was a heart attack.
Morsi, who was 67, had been in custody since his removal after mass protests.
The Muslim Brotherhood said the death was a "full-fledged murder".
Activists and his family had long said Morsi was not receiving treatment for serious health problems such as high blood pressure and diabetes, and was constantly being held in solitary confinement.
Morsi collapsed moments after addressing the court in Cairo over charges of espionage related to suspected contacts with the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, which had close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. He spoke for some five minutes from a soundproof glass cage which officials said was designed to prevent him from disrupting proceedings. Morsi was pronounced dead in hospital at 16:50 local time (14:50 GMT) and an initial report showed no signs of recent injuries on the body, Egypt's public prosecutor said.
Last month, his family said authorities had repeatedly denied access to him and that they knew little about the state of his health. During his time in prison, Morsi was allowed only three visits from relatives and was denied access to his lawyers or a doctor, according to human rights group Amnesty International. His son Abdullah told the Reuters news agency he did not know the location of the body and that authorities were refusing to allow Morsi to be buried in his native Nile Delta province of Sharqiya.
Morsi, who became Egypt's first democratically elected leader in 2012, had already been sentenced to more than 45 years in prison in three separate trials, including for leading an outlawed group, detention and torture of anti-government protesters and leaking state secrets. He had always rejected the authority of the courts, and his supporters denounced the trials as politically motivated and attempts to give legal cover to a coup based on unreliable witnesses and scant evidence.
The death of a leader, remembered by many as Egypt's first democratically elected president, is certain to inflame passions among his supporters and allies in Egypt and beyond. Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been quick to describe him as a martyr. Others are certain to do the same.
There has long been concern about the politicised trials which have kept him in prison, as well as his conditions of confinement. Morsi had a history of ill-health.
But last year, a British parliamentary panel reported he was being kept in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day, which they concluded could be classified as torture. They warned this could lead to premature death.
His sudden collapse comes at a time when the United States, reportedly at the request of Egyptian President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi, is working to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organisation. The death of one its most senior figures will deepen the anger and anxiety in this global Islamist movement. The Muslim Brotherhood's political arm, the Freedom and Justice party, said Morsi's death amounted to an "assassination", and urged supporters to gather at the funeral and demonstrate outside Egyptian embassies around the world.
"They placed him in [solitary] confinement throughout his detention which exceeded five years, prevented medicine and provided poor food... They prevented doctors and lawyers and even communicating with his family. They deprived him from the simplest human rights."
Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was a close ally, blamed Egypt's "tyrants" for the death while the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, another ally, expressed his "deep sorrow".
Crispin Blunt MP, who led a panel of British MPs who had warned about Morsi's health, called for a "reputable independent international investigation", and said Egypt's government had a "duty to explain his unfortunate death". Amnesty's deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa Magdalena Mughrabi said: "[Morsi] was held in solitary confinement for almost six years, placing a considerable strain on his mental and physical wellbeing... [H]e was effectively cut off from the outside world." Human Rights Watch Middle East director Sarah Leah Whitson said Morsi's death was "terrible but entirely predictable".
Born in the village of El-Adwah in 1951, Morsi studied Engineering at Cairo University in the 1970s before moving to the US to complete a PhD.
He was chosen as the Muslim Brotherhood's presidential candidate for the 2012 election after the movement's preferred choice was forced to pull out. During his turbulent year in office, Morsi was accused of mounting an Islamist coup and mishandling the economy. Public opposition to his government grew and millions of anti-government protesters took to the streets across Egypt to mark the first anniversary of the day he took office, on 30 June 2013.
Three days later, the army suspended the constitution, announced an interim government ahead of new elections and detained Morsi, who denounced the move as a coup. Abdul Fattah al-Sisi, then army chief, was elected president in 2014 and re-elected last year in polls rights groups called "farcical".
After Morsi's removal, authorities launched a crackdown on his supporters and other dissent, and hundreds of people have been killed and tens of thousands others detained in conditions often described as being in violation of their human rights. Morsi: A turbulent presidency cut short by the army | Regime Change | June 2019 | ['(CNN)', '(KNIF)', '(BBC)'] |
A Mediterranean tropical–like cyclone (also known as a "Medicane") strikes Greece near Kalamata, causing power outages and gale force winds near the capital Athens. In the storm's formative stages, heavy rains killed four people in Tunisia. , | A deep area of low pressure with tropical storm-like characteristics that formed in the eastern Mediterranean Sea on Thursday night made landfall in the southwest Peloponnese of Greece on Saturday, with the center crossing just west of Kalamata. The pressure fell as low as 989.3 mb in Kalamata near 12Z Saturday as the center passed, with sustained 10-minute average winds of 34 mph and a peak wind gust of 55 mph recorded at 12:20Z. In the Greek islands, sustained tropical storm-force winds of 41 mph (10-minute average) with gusts as high as 55 mph were measured at Strofades between 9Z – 9:30Z, and sustained 10-minute average winds of 46 mph were measured at Rodos at 7:20Z. The meteo.gr twitter feed is showing a video of a waterspout that moved over land from the Medicane. A PWS in Pylos recorded 2.54” of rain and a peak wind gust of 54 mph. A PWS in Voutsaras recorded 4.35” of rain and a peak wind gust of 65 mph.
The Mesoscale discussion from Estofex, the European Storm Forecast Experiment, had this to say about the storm:
The intensity estimate now suggests a Dvorak T4.0 number of 4.0 and a central pressure of 987 mb, as well as marginal hurricane wind speed of 33 m/s (65 kt). At 12 UTC Kalamata, a little north of the centre, reported a pressure of 989 mb, which corroborates this intensity estimate. Near hurricane-force winds are affecting the far southern Peleponnese and the Cyclades. Torrential rainfall is expected to be the most important hazard though. Severe flash floods with possible landslides are possible, particular in Southeastern Peloponnese, Attica, Euboia, and Eastern Thessaly where 100-300 mm storm totals are expected. These amounts are forecast for other regions:Central and Eastern Makedonia: 80-160 mmWestern and Central Peloponnese, Central Greece, Southern and Western Crete, Turkish coastal regions from Kash until Canakkale: 30-100 mmCyclades: 30-60 mmAdditionally, storm surge of 1 to 1.5 m are likely on the Peloponnese coast.Finally, there is a risk of tornadoes in the northeast quadrant of the cyclone, where long curved low-level hodographs are present, primarily affecting southern Peloponnese and Attica.
This storm formed over waters with sea surface temperatures (SSTs) of around 27°C (81°F), and was classifiable as an extratropical storm initially. The system spent enough time over warm waters, though, that it developed a warm core and began using the heat energy of the ocean as its primary energy source, becoming a hybrid storm that was not fully tropical nor extratropical (phase space diagrams from Florida State University suggest that the Medicane was not fully tropical). These type of storms in the Mediterranean are called “Medicanes” due to their hurricane-like structure, but they are weaker than a hurricane.
The Medicane is expected to move east-northeast along the south shore Greece’s Peloponnese on Saturday, bringing sustained winds near 30 - 35 mph over the ocean and 20 - 25 mph inland. By Sunday, the storm will weaken due to land interaction and cooler SSTs, and turn more to the northeast, affecting western Turkey. The greatest danger from the storm is heavy rain. According to Severe Weather Europe, recent model runs predict 4 – 6” of rain along the track of the storm, through southern Greece and into extreme western Turkey.
T | Hurricanes_Tornado_Storm_Blizzard | September 2018 | ['(Weather Underground)', '(The Weather Channel)'] |
A three–year–old girl is decapitated in an apparently random killing by a man with a cleaver in Taipei, Taiwan. The man was arrested shortly afterwards. | Police arrest man following Monday’s apparently random attack outside subway station in Taipei, according to local media
Last modified on Mon 28 Mar 2016 15.58 BST
A three-year-old girl has been decapitated in an apparently random killing by a man with a cleaver in the capital of Taiwan, according to reports.
Local media say police arrested a man following Monday’s attack outside a metro station in Taipei.
According to the reports, the man, identified by his surname, Wang, grabbed the girl from behind and decapitated her with a cleaver shortly before noon. The girl was with her mother, who was unable to prevent the attack.
Hours later, an angry crowd gathered outside the police station where Wang had been taken, some brandishing baseball bats in apparent preparation for an attack on the suspect.
The government-run Central News Agency said the 33-year-old Wang had an arrest record for drug crimes and had been treated for mental illness. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Arrest | March 2016 | ['(The Guardian)'] |
MP Margaret Ferrier is arrested after breaching COVID-19 restrictions. | Margaret Ferrier, the MP who travelled between Glasgow and London after testing positive for coronavirus, has been charged with culpable and reckless conduct.
Officers in Glasgow arrested Ms Ferrier, 60, last night, months after her case was referred to prosecutors. A report had been made in November to the procurator fiscal’s office, which investigated before deciding to prosecute.
Ms Ferrier disclosed in early October that she had taken a test on a Saturday before travelling to Westminster that Monday while awaiting the results.
During a debate on the virus she thanked NHS staff and other key workers then learnt of her positive result that night. She returned to her constituency by train on the Tuesday morning. She was suspended by the SNP and has since | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Arrest | January 2021 | ['(The Times)'] |
Ernest Bai Koroma is sworn in as the President of Sierra Leone after winning a run–off election held 10 days ago. | Sierra Leone's Opposition leader has been sworn in as the country's new President after being declared the victor 10 days after a run-off election.
Opposition leader Ernest Bai Koroma is an insurance broker and has vowed to run Sierra Leone like a business.
He won a decisive 55 per cent of the vote over his rival, the current Vice-President Solomon Berewa.
However, the ruling party has challenged the result suspecting there have been voting irregularities.
Ironically, it was the issue of corruption which convinced voters that the country needed a change of leadership. | Government Job change - Election | September 2007 | ['(ABC News Australia)'] |
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signs a decree ordering a 20% cut of staff at the Interior Ministry after a series of scandals involving the police. | MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday ordered a one fifth cut to the staff of the 1.4 million strong Interior Ministry after a series of scandals involving the police.
Graduates from the Ministry of the Interior Academy throw coins as they march after getting their diplomas in Minsk, June 26, 2009. REUTERS/Vladimir Nikolsky
If implemented, the reform could affect at least 280,000 people and would amount to one of the most ambitious reforms of Russia’s bloated bureaucracy since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union.
In a presidential decree, Medvedev ordered a 20 percent cut to the Interior Ministry’s staff -- which includes the police, interior ministry troops, investigators and civilian officials -- by Jan 1, 2012, the Kremlin said.
“A huge amount of complaints from our citizens have been piling up about the work of the Interior Ministry,” Medvedev told an interview with three state-controlled television stations. “We need rather tough and serious changes.”
Medvedev said in the decree that disciplinary problems and law breaking by police officers had provoked widespread concerns in society and were undermining the authority of the state, making the reform essential.
The decree enters force immediately, though it was unclear what compensation those laid off would receive.
The move comes after a series of scandals involving the Russian police, including one case when a police major went on a shooting spree in a Moscow supermarket, killing at least two people.
Endemic bribe-taking and documented cases of torture while in custody have earned the police a fearful reputation in Russian society and many crimes are simply not reported for fear of coming into contact with the force.
“People want to be protected by policemen who are flawless morally and, what is more important, impeccable from the legal point of view, people who can be trusted,” Medvedev said. “I am confident we will be able to create such a structure.”
Under the plans, Medvedev ordered a reform of the ministry and better procedures to root out corruption and to vet candidates.
previous attempts to reform Russia’s notorious bureaucracy have failed and opponents of the Kremlin have criticized Medvedev for failing to root out corruption, as he promised after becoming president in 2008.
| Government Policy Changes | December 2009 | ['(RIA Novosti)', '(Reuters)'] |
Precious wins the People's Choice Award at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival. | A raw film about an abused teen named Precious has won the audience choice award at the Toronto International Film Festival, stoking predictions that the harrowing, Oprah Winfrey-backed tale is Oscar-bound.
"Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire," snagged the coveted award at a luncheon on Saturday that also named "Cairo Time," from Toronto director Ruba Nadda, the best Canadian feature.
The win for "Precious" follows a sensational debut earlier this year at Sundance, where the film claimed the grand jury and audience awards.
Piers Handling, co-director of the Toronto festival, said the movie's remarkable success is not unlike last year's surprise sensation, "Slumdog Millionaire".
"I think people want to see real stories about real people who are being tested in some kind of way and at the end of the day, hopefully, come out ahead of the game," said Handling. "As I think about it, it probably bears a lot of resemblance to last year's 'Slumdog Millionaire."'
The film revolves around an obese teen who has been impregnated for the second time by her father, and stars Gabourey (Gabby) Sidibe, Mo'Nique, Lenny Kravitz and Mariah Carey. Tyler Perry and Winfrey serve as executive producers.
"Slumdog Millionaire," an indie film set in the slums of Mumbai, came from virtually nowhere to claim the audience choice award at the Toronto Film Fest and went on to sweep the big categories at the Oscars.
The People's Choice award includes a 15,000 Canadian dollar ($A16,000) prize, which was accepted for "Precious" on behalf by Laurie May, co-president of production company Maple Pictures.
"So far, we're two for two," boasted May, referring to the two-time audience win.
Other prizes handed out Saturday included the award for best Canadian first feature film, which went to Quebec's Alexandre Franchi for "The Wild Hunt," set in the fantasy-reality of a large role-playing game. The award for best Canadian short film went to Pedro Pires for "Danse Macabre," which was based on a concept by Robert Lepage.
Nadda, who gets CA$30,000 as part of the best Canadian feature prize for "Cairo Time," said her film very nearly didn't get made.
She noted that roughly CA$1.5 million in funding fell through just two weeks before filming was to start in Egypt. She recalled getting the news from her producer saying the production, starring Patricia Clarkson and Tom McCamus, was dead.
"I went into shock and called him back and I was crying and I was like, 'I'm begging you, I'm begging you, I'm begging you - please figure this out," recalled Nadda, who also wrote the screenplay.
In 48 hours, they were back on track with the help of Telefilm.
"This is why I feel like I've won the lottery, I really have," said Nadda, who has made 18 films, but makes her debut appearance at the fest with her tale about a married magazine editor who flirts with having an affair.
New award categories this year included a midnight madness prize, which went to Australian Sean Byrne's horror "The Loved Ones," and a people's choice award for documentary films, which went to "The Topp Twins" from Winnipeg's Leanne Pooley, about New Zealand lesbian country-and-western singers.
The awards wrapped up 10 days of movie madness that included more than 300 projects and megastars including George Clooney, Matt Damon, Julianne Moore, Penelope Cruz and Nicolas Cage.
Saturday's closing night film was to be "The Young Victoria" starring Emily Blunt and directed by Quebec's Jean-Marc Vallee, who helmed 2005's "C.R.A.Z.Y". | Awards ceremony | September 2009 | ['(BBC)', '(Cape Times)', '(CBC)', '(The Sydney Morning Herald)', '(CNN)', '[permanent dead link]'] |
18 countries, including the United States, deploy naval troops in joint exercises which they say are an attempt to defend the Panama Canal against terrorism. | More than 2,000 civilian and military personnel from 18 countries began a 12-day exercise in Panama City Tuesday to train in a joint, multinational effort to defend the Panama Canal.
The purpose of the exercise, called PANAMAX 2010, is to enhance regional cooperation and exercise participating nations' ground, naval, air and special operators' ability to respond to threats to the Panama Canal and plan for a major humanitarian assistance and disaster relief event in the region.
Co-sponsored by the Government of Panama and U.S. Southern Command, PANAMAX 2010 is one of the largest multinational maritime training exercises in the world, and is taking place in the waters off the coasts of Panama until August 27.
Participants will conduct naval operations as a multinational task force responding to exercise scenarios ranging from a stabilization mission to disaster relief; scripted scenarios will address maritime operations skills essential to successfully countering 21st Century threats potentially encountered in today's maritime environment.
Nations participating in PANAMAX 2010 include: Argentina, Belize, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, United States and Uruguay.
PANAMAX began in 2003 with the participation of three countries: Panama, Chile and the United States. Since then, exercise participation has grown significantly, peaking during PANAMAX 2009 with 20 nations.
This year’s exercise simulates a “terrorist organization” attack against the Panama Canal plus the control of several countries of the area with the purpose of destabilizing the global economy, according to Jesus Rodriguez Panamanian coordinator of the PANAMAX 2010.
The United Nations Security Council in response to a request from Panama instructs the US to lead a multinational force to protect the Canal to ensure shipping traffic and free maritime access.
Last Sunday the Panama Canal celebrated its 96 anniversary. It is estimated that 5% of world trade makes use of the waterway.
“We have seen the great activity of the drugs cartels in the region and along the Panamanian coastline, which is closely connected to terrorism and the weapons trade. Drugs have become synonymous of terrorism”, said Rodríguez.
The Panama Canal also provides an estimated 800 million US dollars in annual revenue for the Panamanian Treasury. Since its inauguration in 1914, almost a million vessels have used the canal.
| Military Exercise | August 2010 | ['(UPI)', '(Dominican Today)', '(MercoPress)', '(United States Department of Defense)'] |
Clashes break out in Alexandria, Egypt, on the evening of the second leg of voting in the constitutional referendum. | Clashes have broken out in the Egyptian city of Alexandria on the eve of the second leg of voting in the country's constitutional referendum.
Police fired tear gas as thousands of Islamists were met by a smaller group of protesters near a large mosque.
The Islamists back President Mohammed Morsi and his draft constitution. Opponents say the document has been rushed and does not protect minorities.
Alexandria voted in the first leg of a referendum that has split the nation.
The capital, Cairo, has also voted. Seventeen of the 27 provinces will cast ballots on Saturday.
Islamists in favour of the draft had called for a large rally outside the Qaed Ibrahim mosque in the centre of Alexandria.
They chanted "God is Great" and "With blood and soul, we redeem Islam".
A smaller group of opponents chanted anti-constitution slogans and the two sides threw stones at each other.
Police formed lines to keep the groups apart and fired tear gas, with the unrest subsiding after about 90 minutes.
The state news agency Mena quoted the health ministry as saying that 32 people had been injured.
Last week an ultraconservative cleric was trapped in a mosque in Alexandria for 12 hours as his supporters battled opponents outside.
Some 250,000 security personnel have been deployed nationwide to try to keep order during the referendum.
Turnout for the first round of voting was reported to be low - just above 30%. Unofficial counts suggested some 56% of those who cast ballots voted "yes" to the draft.
The opposition has complained of a number of cases of fraud.
Analysts believe Saturday's leg will favour a "yes" vote as the areas to vote are considered in general to be more conservative.
Egypt's latest crisis began on 22 November, when Mr Morsi adopted sweeping new powers in a decree, stripping the judiciary of any power to challenge his decisions.
The decree spurred protests and clashes between Mr Morsi's supporters and opponents.
Under pressure, the president revoked much of the decree but only after a constituent assembly had voted through the draft constitution and it had been put to the referendum.
The opposition had demanded the referendum be postponed, saying the assembly had approved the draft despite a boycott by liberals, secularists and Christians, who believe it does not adequately protect women, freedom of expression or religion.
The opposition did not, however, call a boycott, instead urging its members to vote "no".
If the constitution passes, elections must take place within three months. In the meantime, legislative powers would remain with Mr Morsi.
Setback for EU in legal fight with AstraZeneca
But the drug-maker faces hefty fines if it fails to supply doses of Covid-19 vaccine over the summer. | Riot | December 2012 | ['(BBC)'] |
A 17yearold male opens fire on a man at the Monroeville Mall in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area, striking his intended target as well as two bystanders hospitalizing three people. | Three people were wounded two critically when gunfire broke out Saturday at Monroeville Mall around 7:35 p.m. The mall was evacuated, store by store, and placed on lockdown while police scoured the complex in a fruitless search for the shooter.
The shootings took place inside the ground floor of Macy’s. “It was a targeted shooting,” said Monroeville Police Chief Doug Cole at a news conference Saturday night. “We have many leads and we are following them up.” He said one gun was involved and that probably two shots were fired.
Two of the victims, both males, ages 20 and 60, were in critical condition at Forbes Hospital in Monroeville. The third victim, a 47-year-old woman, was at the hospital with non-life-threatening wounds.
The 20-year-old was the target of the shooter; the second man and the woman were bystanders in Macy’s, Chief Cole said.
No one had been taken into custody, but police said they had a detailed description of a male suspect. They planned to review security camera images in the “hope they’ll be a big help” in tracking down the shooter, said Lt. Andrew Schurman, head of the Allegheny County police homicide unit.
Jesse Miller, a spokesman at Forbes Hospital, said the trauma unit there was on lockdown while the suspect was at large.
A hostess at Winghart’s, a restaurant beside Macy’s, said that a man later identified as the 60-year-old’s brother, came rushing into the bar, saying that his brother had been shot inside Macy’s. The man said his brother had been shot in the knee and thigh.
The incident brought a heavy police response, including state police, Allegheny County sheriff’s deputies and about a dozen other police departments from around the region. Police had completed a search of the entire mall by about 9 p.m. and heavily armed officers were seen leaving the mall shortly later.
Lt. Schurman described the shooter as a light-skinned black male in his late teens, between 5 feet 7 inches and 5 feet 9 inches tall, wearing dark clothing with writing on his shirt.
The shooting is the third incident at Monroeville Mall within the past two months. A brawl broke out Dec. 26 at the mall when a mob of more than 1,000 teens and young adults swarmed the shopping center and multiple fights broke out. The incident reportedly was spurred by social media.
Monroeville Mall management deemed the chaos “an isolated incident,” but decided in the ensuing days to heighten mall security, with an increase in the number of off-duty police officers.
A week later, a robbery occurred at Harbor Freight Tools in the mall annex, and a suspect was taken into custody by Monroeville police.
In light of Saturday’s shooting, Monroeville Mayor Greg Erosenko said he planned to meet with mall management by Monday to talk about future security measures. He couldn’t speak to details of the plans and said because the mall is private property, he can only advise, not mandate security changes. Stacey Keating, a mall spokeswoman, could not be reached for comment.
At Saturday’s news conference, Chief Cole said authorities are aware of a “pattern” of incidents at the mall and said, “We’re not sure why that’s occurring.”
Tony Norman, a columnist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette who was at Barnes & Noble outside the mall at the time of the shooting, said the store announced a lockdown at about 8 p.m. People were not allowed to come into the store, but were able to leave, though strongly advised against it.
“People were running toward the bookstore trying to get in, and they wouldn’t let people in,” he said.
Jeannette native and ex-NFL quarterback Terrelle Pryor tweeted that he was at the mall when the shooting occurred.
“. . . Was just in monroeville mall and just saw 2 ppl get shot,” he tweeted. “They are letting guns go in there.”
In the mall movie theater, patrons reported that at first they were advised on the public address system that fire had broken out at the mall, then they were told there had been a police incident. | Armed Conflict | February 2015 | ['(AP via News24)', '(Pittsburgh PostGazette)'] |
Former Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky is found guilty of embezzlement in a second trial, which he described as politically motivated. | Mikhail Khodorkovsky stands behind bars at a court room in Moscow on Monday. A Russian judge has found oil tycoon Khodorkovsky guilty in a second trial.
The former oil tycoon, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who is serving an eight-year prison term, was found guilty in his second trial, which would keep him behind bars for several more years.
A judge who started reading his verdict on Monday said Mr. Khodorkovsky (47) was guilty of stealing oil from his own company and laundering the proceeds.
Prosecution has demanded a six-year prison term, which would be added to an eight-year sentence Russia's former richest man has been serving since 2003.
He was convicted of tax fraud — a charge that could be levelled against any big businessman in the 1990s.
However, Mr. Khodorkovsky was the only Russian tycoon to be put behind bars in what many thought was a warning then President Vladimir Putin sent to all Russian oligarchs not to meddle in politics.
In the second trial, Mr. Khodorkovsky stands accused of stealing 218 million tonnes of oil worth $27 billion from Yukos, the company he owned before it was taken over by the government in 2004.
Many independent lawyers said the charges were absurd and contradicted the previous court verdict which found Mr. Khodorkovsky guilty of failing to pay taxes for the oil prosecutors now say he stole.
Russia's current and former Economy Ministers who testified in court said they were not aware of any large-scale oil theft in Yukos.
Kremlin critics said the guilty verdict to Mr. Khodorkovsky would be a personal revenge from Mr. Putin, currently Prime Minister, for airing corruption charges and funding opposition parties.
It would also show that President Dmitry Medvedev, who has championed the rule of law and independent judiciary, has little real power in his tandem with Mr. Putin. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Sentence | December 2010 | ['(RIA Novosti)', '(The Hindu)', '(RTHK)'] |
Steve Hasker, former company president of American data firm Nielsen Holdings, is appointed CEO of Thomson Reuters effective March 15. | NEW YORK (Reuters) - Thomson Reuters Corp TRI.NTRI.TO said on Tuesday it had appointed former Nielsen Holdings Plc NLSN.N president Steve Hasker as its new chief executive officer, succeeding Jim Smith.
The parent of Reuters News also announced higher-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings, reporting a 60% year-on-year rise in operating profit, helped by lower costs and investments following the sale of a controlling stake in the Financial and Risk (F&R) business.
The company’s shares reached a new intra-day high and traded up 2% to C$108.82 on the Toronto Stock Exchange, and 2% to $81.76 on the New York Stock Exchange.
Hasker, 50, most recently a top executive at Hollywood talent agency CAA and a senior adviser to TPG Capital, will assume his new role on March 15, Thomson Reuters said. Smith, a former journalist who oversaw a period of major change at the company, will stay on for a transition period and become chairman of the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Stephane Bello, Chief Financial Officer, will also step down from his role and will be succeeded by Mike Eastwood, current Senior Vice President of Corporate Finance. Bello will oversee strategy and business development into 2021, the company said.
Neil Masterson and Brian Peccarelli will continue in their roles as joint chief operating officers at the company.
Thomson Reuters maintained its organic revenue growth target of 4% to 4.5% in 2020 and said its margins will be a little higher than it forecast in October and also above 2019 levels.
Operating profit in the quarter rose 60 percent to $216 million. On an adjusted basis, earnings in the fourth quarter rose to $185 million, or 37 cents per share, from $102 million, or 19 cents a share a year ago. Analysts, on average, expected 33 cents a share, according to IBES from Refinitiv.
The news and information provider posted a 4% rise in revenues to $1.58 billion and showed higher sales in each of its three largest divisions: Legal Professionals, Corporates and Tax & Accounting Professionals. The Reuters News division saw revenue of $164 million, up 5 percent.
“If you ask me what I am most proud of is the people in Thomson Reuters, and what we do every day and the difference that we make in the world,” Smith said in an interview. Regarding Hasker, Smith added, “He’s going to focus on ... accelerating the growth rate and new plans, and I think he’ll be able to do that.”
The company, controlled by Canada’s Thomson family, said the board of directors approved an 8-cent per share hike in the annual dividend, to $1.52 per share.
In recent years, Thomson Reuters had cut costs and shed some businesses as it recovered from the fallout of the financial crisis in 2008.
Smith’s defining accomplishment was the sale he engineered of a 55% stake in the company's financial division in 2018 to Blackstone Group Inc BX.N, valuing the business at $20 billion. Blackstone subsequently struck a deal to sell the unit, now called Refinitiv, to the London Stock Exchange Group Plc LSE.L.
Shares of Thomson Reuters have more than doubled since the Refinitiv deal, and have tripled since Smith took over as CEO in 2012.
European competition authorities are expected to rule on the London Stock Exchange's LSE.L $27-billion takeover of data and analytics company Refinitiv in coming months.
With Thomson Reuters back on strong footing under Smith’s leadership, the board wanted to recruit an executive who would chart a long-term growth strategy for the company, two sources familiar with the matter said.
“The biggest challenge moving forward will be continuing trying to accelerate growth and acquire assets that are congruent with Thomson Reuters’ existing operations,” said Colin Plunkett, an equity research analyst at Morningstar Research Services LLC.
On a call with analysts following the financial report, Smith reaffirmed the company’s commitment to the news business which now contributes about 10% of total annual revenue.
“There’s a lot for us in addition to the tradition and the emotional attachment to the news business that many of us in leadership share,” Smith said. “What we’ve tried to explore ... is more corporate verticals. I see no reason why we can’t have newsfeeds and integrate Reuters News into our professional products as successfully as we have in our financial products.”
Hasker, who also worked at McKinsey & Co as a media consultant earlier in his career, was selected by Thomson Reuters’ board based on his experience in building platforms and running businesses that collect and analyze data, two sources familiar with the matter said.
“We have to see ourselves, before too long, to be true global leaders in the advanced analytics space and in the software and AI space,” Hasker told employees in a staff conference call on Tuesday morning.
At Nielsen, which is primarily known for its TV ratings measurement business, Hasker helped accelerate the company’s transformation into a data and analytics firm tracking media consumption and consumer purchases, former colleagues said.
He negotiated partnerships with Facebook Inc FB.O and others to develop measurement tools at Nielsen to help advertisers identify the age, gender and location of people across the internet, one of the former colleagues said.
Writing by Nick Zieminski; editing by Edward Tobin
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
All quotes delayed a minimum of 15 minutes. See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays. | Government Job change - Appoint_Inauguration | February 2020 | ['(Reuters)', '(The Wall Street Journal)'] |
Pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine push their way into the port of Novoazovsk, threatening to open up a new front in the war. | Pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine have pushed their way into the port of Novoazovsk, threatening to open up a new front in the war. The mayor of the town on the Sea of Azov confirmed rebels had entered, as jubilant rebel supporters shared photos of advancing tanks on social media.
Ukrainian forces said they were still in "total control" of the town. The rebels have been trying for weeks to break out of a near-encirclement further north in Donetsk.
Russia denies it is covertly supporting them on the ground.
The fighting came hours after Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko promised a "roadmap" for peace in the east. He was speaking in Belarus late on Tuesday after holding his first direct talks on the crisis since June with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Mr Putin said Russia, which denies supplying the rebels with weapons and covert forces, would assist with a dialogue, but he insisted that stopping the fighting was a matter for Ukraine alone.
In other developments
In phone calls, mayor Oleg Sidorkin told AP news agency the rebels had penetrated into Novoazovsk. He was quoted as saying he had seen "dozens" of tanks and armoured vehicles roll in. Earlier on Wednesday, rebel forces fired at least ten shells into Novoazovsk, a town of 12,700 people, AP reported from the scene. Four people were wounded in shelling on Tuesday, according to the mayor. The New York Times reported that day that some Ukrainian forces were making a "full, chaotic retreat" from the town.
Heavy weapons are routinely used by both sides in the fighting which has raged since mid-April, when Kiev sent in security forces to put down the rebellions in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
Insisting that they still controlled Novoazovsk, officials in Kiev confirmed that seven villages to the north of the town had been captured by the separatists.
Novoazovsk lies far to the south of Donetsk region, near the port city of Mariupol, where Ukrainian security forces dislodged rebels in June.
Closer to the city of Donetsk itself on Wednesday, Ukrainian security forces said a column of 100 vehicles had been seen travelling in a southerly direction from Starobesheve to Telmanove. These vehicles, which included tanks, armoured troop carriers, Grad multiple and rocket launchers systems, were marked only with "white circles or triangles", the Anti-Terrorist Operation press centre said.
An unnamed Ukrainian defence source told AFP news agency that the vehicles had to be Russian.
Seeking to verify the report, an AFP journalist found traces of caterpillar tracks pointing south on the road between Starobesheve and Telmanove.
The journalist also heard explosions in the area and was told by a local resident that there had been fighting at Starobesheve overnight.
Rebel commanders in Donetsk told Russian media that 129 Ukrainian soldiers had surrendered at Starobesheve on Wednesday, in a claim that could not be verified independently.
According to the rebels, a further 94 soldiers surrendered to them on Wednesday further east, in the town of Kuteinykove.
Meanwhile, the two sides are still battling for control of the town of Ilovaisk, amid claim and counter-claim over its capture and the number of casualties.
Accusations that Russia is sending both weapons and men into eastern Ukraine gathered force this week when 10 Russian paratroopers were captured on Ukrainian territory, near the Russian border. President Putin sought to play down the incident when he spoke to reporters in the Belarusian capital Minsk on Wednesday, where he met Mr Poroshenko.
"From what I have heard, they were patrolling the border and could have ended up on Ukrainian territory," he said.
However, liberal Russian business newspaper Vedomosti raised concern on Wednesday that Russia was waging a covert war on the rebel side in eastern Ukraine. In an editorial (in Russian) headlined, "Are we fighting?", it pointed to the case of the captured paratroopers as well as mysterious funerals for Russian soldiers, some of whom were said officially to have died on training exercises.
| Armed Conflict | August 2014 | ['(Miami Herald)', '(BBC)'] |
Two CRH bullet trains collide in near Wenzhou, Zhejiang province, China, killing at least 35. | BEIJING — -At least 35 people died and 210 were injured Saturday night in a train accident on a high-speed line in coastal China. It was the most serious blow yet to the country’s beleaguered rail-modernization program. The accident occurred when a train traveling near Wenzhou lost power after it was struck by lightning, according to the official Xinhua news agency. Signals apparently also malfunctioned, causing another train to rear-end the stationary train. Six cars derailed; photographs and television news reports showed that at least two of the cars were thrown off a bridge 50 feet above the ground.
The disaster prompted President Hu Jintao to declare that the rescue work was a national priority. Xinhua had graphic photos of the injured being treated in hospitals and locals lining up to donate blood.
China’s railway minister, Sheng Guangzu, was reported to have rushed to the scene. Mr. Sheng took control of the powerful ministry earlier this year after his predecessor and several associates were fired and investigated for corruption.
China plans to invest more than $100 billion a year for the next three years in high-speed rail. But the speed of the expansion has raised eyebrows. Foreign companies contend that state-run Chinese firms have stolen some of their technology. Revelations of shoddy construction also have surfaced in the state-run news media since the firings at the Railway Ministry, a sign that the government is concerned that its huge investment has been at least partially squandered.
Construction on new lines has slowed since the new team leading the ministry began focusing efforts on improving safety. A high-speed line between Kunming and Shanghai is months behind schedule because officials are now making safety a high priority, according to interviews with subcontractors working on the project. In addition, the newly opened Beijing-Shanghai line has been plagued by delays and shutdowns. That prompted the Railway Ministry to announce Saturday that it was reducing service on the flagship line as a result of low ridership.
News of the accident near Wenzhou quickly become a hot topic on Sina Weibo, China’s version of Twitter. | Train collisions | July 2011 | ['(AFP via Google News)', '(VoA)', '(Xinhuanet.com)', '(New York Times)'] |
A 70-year-old bystander dies after being hit by a brick while filming a clash between protesters and residents. Police is treating the act as a murder. | A man has died in Hong Kong after being hit on the head during clashes between government supporters and protesters.
The government said the 70-year-old cleaner was on a lunch break on Wednesday when he was struck by "hard objects hurled by masked rioters".
In London, Hong Kong's Justice Secretary Teresa Cheng was hurt after being jostled by anti-government protesters, the Chinese embassy said.
Protests have rocked Hong Kong for months and violence is escalating.
Ms Cheng is seen as having played a key role in promoting an unpopular bill allowing extradition to mainland China, which triggered the protests. China strongly condemned the incident and called for a thorough investigation. Chinese President Xi Jinping issued a strong warning to protesters. Speaking at a summit of BRICS countries in Brazil, he said "radical violent activities" in Hong Kong "seriously challenged the [principle of] 'one country, two systems'". The 70-year-old was hit in the head during a protest in the Hong Kong border town of Sheung Shui.
Video purported to be of the incident shows two groups throwing bricks at each other before the man falls to the ground after being struck on the head.
A police superintendent told news outlet SCMP that the cleaner was not involved, and was "only taking pictures at the scene". He died in hospital on Thursday. The Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD) said the man was an outsourced worker of theirs who had been on his lunch break.
The FEHD also condemned the protesters, calling them "extremely dangerous".
"[They] conducted violent acts in various districts three days in a row, where they wantonly assaulted other members of the public," the statement added. "The acts are outrageous."
Hong Kong has seen an escalation in violence this week, with intense street battles, violent clashes at universities, and flashmob lunchtime protests. On Monday, a police officer shot an activist in the torso with a live bullet, and a man was set on fire while arguing with anti-government protesters.
A week ago, Alex Chow, a 22-year-old student, died after falling from a building during a police operation.
Ms Cheng was in London to promote Hong Kong as a dispute resolution and deal-making hub.
Video showed her walking towards a lecture at the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators when she was surrounded by a group of protesters. Some held signs and shouted "murderer" and in the melee, Ms Cheng fell to the ground. She regained her feet and was escorted away with no visible signs of injury, AFP reported.
A statement from the Chinese embassy in the UK said Ms Cheng had been pushed to the ground and sustained a hand injury.
It said the incident showed "violent and lawless perpetrators" were now taking their violence abroad.
London's Metropolitan Police told the BBC they were investigating an allegation of assault and no arrests had been made.
"A woman was taken to hospital by London Ambulance Service suffering an injury to her arm. Enquiries are ongoing to establish the full circumstances," a statement said.
Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam also condemned the protesters, saying "the savage act breached the bottom line of any civilised society".
Hong Kong - a British colony until 1997 - is part of China under a model known as "one country, two systems". Under this model, Hong Kong has a high degree of autonomy and people have freedoms unseen in mainland China. The protests started in June after the government planned to pass a bill that would allow suspects to be extradited to mainland China.
Many feared this bill would undermine the city's freedoms and judicial independence. The bill was eventually withdrawn but the protests continued, having evolved into a broader revolt against the police, and the way Hong Kong is administered by Beijing.
Protests have taken place every weekend over the past few months, causing widespread disruption.
Hong Kong protests explained in 100 and 500 words
Hong Kong to close schools amid tense protests
Hong Kong pushed to 'brink of total collapse'
| Famous Person - Death | November 2019 | ['(BBC News)', '(South China Morning Post)'] |
The European Court of Human Rights rules that Khalid El–Masri, a German citizen, was an innocent victim of extraordinary rendition by the Central Intelligence Agency and orders Macedonia to pay him €60,000 after it arrested him and sent him to the CIA. CIA agents then transferred him to a detention facility in Afghanistan. | European Court of Human Rights rules that German citizen was an innocent victim of extraordinary rendition by US agents.
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The European Court of Human Rights has ruled in favour of a German citizen, after finding he was an innocent victim of extraordinary rendition by the CIA.
Macedonia was ordered to pay Khaled el-Masri $78,000 on Thursday for arresting him and handing him over to the US in December 2003.
El-Masri spent five months in secret CIA jails for suspected links to armed Islamist groups.
The decision is a victory for El-Masri who has been trying in the US and Europe to get authorities to recognise him as a victim.
El-Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese origin, was arrested, held in isolation, questioned and ill-treated in a hotel in the Macedonian capital Skopje for 23 days, the court’s press service said.
He was then transferred to CIA agents who brought him to a detention facility in Afghanistan, where he was further badly treated for over four months.
The European court, based in Strasbourg, France, ruled that El-Masri’s account was “established beyond reasonable doubt” and that Macedonia “had been responsible for his torture and ill-treatment both in the country itself and after his transfer to the US authorities in the context of an extra-judicial rendition”.
Macedonian authorities said they would not comment until they are formally notified of the ruling. The Macedonian government has denied involvement in kidnapping.
‘Milestone’
El-Masri claimed during the flight to Afghanistan, he was stripped, beaten and drugged.
His ordeal ended when he was eventually dumped on a road in Albania after the US realised they had got the wrong man.
Though the case focused on Macedonia, it drew broader attention because of how sensitive the CIA extraordinary renditions were for Europe.
The operations involved abducting and interrogating “terrorist” suspects without court sanction in the years following the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US, under former President George W Bush.
A 2007 Council of Europe investigation accused 14 European governments of permitting the CIA to run detention centres, or carry out rendition flights, between 2002 and 2005.
Amnesty International said the verdict was historic because “for the first time it holds a European state accountable for its involvement in the secret US-led programmes and is a milestone in the fight against impunity”.
“Macedonia is not alone,” it said, in a joint statement with the International Committee of Jurists.
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We understand that your online privacy is very important and consenting to our collection of some personal information takes great trust. We ask for this consent because it allows Al Jazeera to provide an experience that truly gives a voice to the voiceless. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Arrest | December 2012 | ['(Al Jazeera)', '(The Guardian)', '(ECHR)'] |
A shooting spree in Moscow, Idaho, U.S., leaves three dead and one injured. After a highspeed chase on Highway 195 ten miles away in the neighboring state of Washington, Pullman police arrest the suspect, John Lee. | Investigators found five guns and a laptop computer in the vehicle of a man suspected of killing three people in a shooting spree, a police chief said Sunday, but they hadn't yet uncovered any motive for the rampage.
John Lee, 29, was arrested following a high-speed chase in nearby Washington state after the shootings Saturday. Police believe he opened fire at three locations in the western Idaho city of Moscow, killing his landlord, his adoptive mother and a manager at a restaurant his parents frequented. A Seattle man was also critically injured.
Investigators searched Lee's car and apartment late Saturday night, Moscow Police Chief David Duke said. They found two semi-automatic pistols, a revolver, a shotgun and a rifle in the vehicle, along with a laptop, he said. Ballistics tests were expected to help determine which weapons might have been used in the shootings.
Authorities were seeking a warrant to search the computer, he said.
"There's still nothing to identify a specific motive as to why Mr. Lee took these actions," Duke said.
The first death was that of Lee's adoptive mother, Terri Grzebielski, 61, at her home. Police said Lee then headed to Northwest Mutual life insurance, where he shot his landlord, David Trail, 76, who was a local businessman and the brother of a former state representative, as well as Michael Chin, 39, of Seattle.
Duke said Chin had no link to Lee, but he was discussing business with Trail when the gunman arrived. Duke said Chin was shot in the arm and leg. Authorities initially said he was being flown to a hospital in Seattle in critical condition, but Duke said Sunday he was flown to one in Spokane. It wasn't immediately clear which hospital he was in; a supervisor at Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center said Sunday the hospital would not confirm whether he was a patient there.
There were "some issues" regarding Lee's apartment, Duke said, but no eviction proceedings that police were aware of.
Upon leaving the insurance office, the shooter drove to an Arby's restaurant and asked for the manager. When she appeared, he pulled out a gun and opened fire. The manager, Belinda Niebuhr, 47, died at the Moscow hospital.
Duke told The Associated Press that Lee's parents ate at the restaurant and knew the manager well, but it's not clear whether Lee did as well. He did not work at the restaurant as far as police knew, and workers who witnessed the attack didn't recognize him, Duke said.
Kelsey Stemrich said she was working at a cafe near Arby's when she and a customer heard three gunshots and then saw people running from the restaurant. She says they took down the license-plate number of a car seen pulling away from the Arby's and called it into police.
Police in Washington spotted the suspect's black Honda, and a chase involving multiple agencies ensued. Pullman Police Chief Gary Jenkins said the pursuit lasted nearly 25 miles, and Lee's vehicle at times topped 100 mph before crashing off Highway 195 north of Colfax and rolling to a stop.
Few details were available on Lee's background. Duke said he had been adopted at birth, and he recently returned to Moscow after living for a few years in the Midwest.
Lee was taken to a Colfax hospital for treatment of minor injuries before he was booked into the Whitman County Jail on a charge of felony eluding. Duke said Idaho authorities had issued an arrest warrant for Lee for investigation of three counts of first-degree murder and one of attempted murder, and he said they could take Lee into custody from Washington state by Monday unless he fights extradition.
Moscow is a city of about 25,000 people in northern Idaho. It's about 10 miles from Pullman, Washington. | Armed Conflict | January 2015 | ['(AP)'] |
The Democratic Republic of the Congo launches a campaign against Hutu rebels. | Addis Ababa (AFP) - Congolese government troops have started their long-awaited offensive against Rwandan Hutu rebels in the east of the country, the DR Congo's foreign minister said Saturday.
The Kinshasa government and the international community had given the FDLR -- the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda -- an ultimatum to lay down their arms and surrender by January 2 or face attacks and forcible disarmament.
Older members of the FDLR are held responsible for taking part in the 1994 genocide in neighbouring Rwanda, when at least 800,000 people, mainly from the Tutsi minority, were massacred, and the rebel group has continued to fight in the mineral-rich eastern provinces of DR Congo.
"The action has started and will not stop until we have neutralised these negative forces," Raymond Tshibanda told AFP on the sidelines of an African Union summit being held in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.
"The determination of the government is such that there will be no let up until we have finished this group," he said.
The African Union's commissioner for peace and security, Smail Chergui, welcomed the announcement, and said the FDLR has continued to recruit fighters despite their promise to disarm.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, also attending a meeting on Africa's Great Lakes region on the sidelines of the AU summit, said the UN's Monusco based in the country force stood ready to help DR Congo troops to eliminate the FDLR "once and for all".
Several diplomats and observers, however, have questioned Kinshasa's resolve to fight the rebels, given that no action appeared to be taking place on the ground.
"I have not been informed of the slightest thing," a European military official said in Kinshasa, adding that DR Congo troops only appeared to be advancing into areas that have already been abandoned by the FDLR.
Dealing with the FDLR is seen as a key step to ending decades of conflict in the Great Lakes region. Rwanda has described the FDLR as a major threat to its national security, and has in turn been accused of sponsoring rival rebel groups to fight them.
About 84 million years ago, Earth's crust and the mantle below it rotated around the planet's inner core - causing the Earth to tip over.
Vice reported that the woman, who works at Amazon's JFK8 facility on Staten Island, lives in her car in the warehouse parking lot.
Chris Craven’s widow says he was complying with police orders when they shot him at least 15 times. The officers say they feared for their lives.
Daredevil Alex Harvill, 28, crashed his motorcycle while practicing to perform a 351-foot jump at an airshow in Washington state on June 17.
A federal judge threw out U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention safety rules for cruise companies operating in Florida during the COVID-19 pandemic Friday, handing a victory to Gov. Ron DeSantis.
The last 15 months haven’t been kind to our bodies. A more sedentary lifestyle and the pursuit of something to salve the fear of the deadly pandemic raging around the globe has pushed us to the biscuit tin and takeaway delivery apps. In the first three months of the pandemic, Brits reportedly saw body weight increase by between 1.6 and 6.5lbs. Recognising the potential damage that could cause, and preparing for society reopening, we’ve started to take action. Six in 10 of us have made at least o
Alexandr Kudlay and Viktoria Pustovitova's last attempt to mend their relationship involved handcuffing themselves together. It didn't work.
A growing contingent of medical experts is questioning the conventional wisdom that healthy children should get COVID-19 shots as soon as possible.
The stars met on the set of "Fargo" and recently announced their second pregnancy. Take a look at the couple's relationship since 2015.
Italy’s government is under huge pressure to staunch the arrivals of migrants from the coast of North Africa as the country recorded a nine-fold increase in the number of asylum seekers reaching its shores since 2019. Latest figures show the migration landscape shifting, with many more attempts to reach Spain and Italy than Greece, which has adopted hardline policies. On Friday, Greece’s migration minister said the government had adopted the measures so “we don’t send the wrong message of incent
Hart said in an interview with Romper that his children are aware of the "gift and a curse" that celebrity brings.
More than 100 people whose boats were moored at the marina during last year’s storm said they shouldn’t have to foot the bill on repairs.
The suspect charged with killing Aiden Leos, 6, in a suspected road rage incident told police he shot at the car, according to prosecutors.
She was surrounded by her family during the attack
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will not vote in Friday’s presidential election in Iran and warned that the outcome would produce a government without a popular mandate, in another blow to the credibility of the most restricted poll in the Islamic Republic's history. Mr Ahmadinejad, who was president of Iran from 2005 to 2013, said he would exercise his "personal right" to abstain after what he described as the disenfranchisement of voters. “I am not going to vote. And the main reason is that I am witnessin
Chris Craven’s widow says he was complying with police orders when they shot him at least 15 times. The officers say they feared for their lives.
REUTERS/Michaela RehleThe wild saga of the South African woman who claims she gave birth to a record-setting 10 babieswho have yet to be seen publiclyhas taken several more dramatic turns.Health authorities took Gosiame Sithole into custody this week, reportedly for a psychiatric examination, prompting her attorney to threaten legal action to get her released.Meanwhile, a South African media outlet is reporting an exam showed no signs that Sithole had been pregnantas a top government minister
| Armed Conflict | January 2015 | ['(AFP via Yahoo! News)'] |
A pool of citizens of the United Arab Emirates heads to the polls in the country's fourth parliamentary election. | Abu Dhabi: Emiratis will cast their ballots on Saturday to elect 20 members of the Federal National Council (FNC). The remaining 20 members will be appointed by Their Highnesses the Rulers of the Emirates. A total of 479 candidates are in the fray for the 20 seats to which voting is being held.
A total of 39 polling stations across the country will be open from 8am to 8pm to allow eligible voters to exercise their franchise.
The preliminary results will be announced immediately after the booths close. Appeals against results will be allowed for two days from October 6 and the National Election Committee (NEC) will respond to the appeals over two days on October 9 and 10.
The NEC will approve the final list of winners on October 13, if no election run-offs are required.
With early voting ending on Thursday, NEC officials said they were confident of a massive voter turnout on election day.
Abdul Rahman Bin Mohammad Al Owais, Minister of Health and Prevention, Minister of State for FNC Affairs, and Chairman of the NEC, said the early voting was a success and witnessed a significant voter turnout.
“The high participation in early voting is a testament to the keen interest of the members of the electoral college in contributing to the political development of the UAE.”
Noura Bint Mohammad Al Kaabi, Minister of Culture and Knowledge Development, Member of the National Election Committee (NEC), and Head of the NEC Media Committee, said the active participation of our citizens in the 2019 elections is the main pillar of successful parliamentary work, because it ensures the selection of the fittest representatives for the Council. The strong turnout is a testament to the high political awareness of our people and their confidence in the role of FNC in addressing issues facing Emiratis.”
She added: “The decree by the UAE President His Highness Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan that grants women 50 per cent representation in FNC is a historic milestone in the process of empowering Emirati women.”
Al Kaabi said the fourth cycle of the elections will contribute to maturing the political landscape of the UAE.
The NEC noted that members of the electoral college can vote at any of the polling stations, even if they reside in other emirates. This rule seeks to ensure seamless voting and enable more citizens to participate in the elections.
The NEC also reminded voters to carry their Emirates ID as the only identification document approved by the Committee.
The majority of the pool of voters for the FNC elections are below the age of 40, representing 61.32 per cent of the electoral rolls.
The electoral rolls include 337,738 Emiratis eligible to vote in and run for the House elections, marking a 50.58 per cent increase over the 2015 list that included 224,281 Emirati electors.
The representation of Emirati women in the electoral college for 2019 increased to 50.62 per cent, compared to 49.38 per cent for men.
The voter pool features a significant representation of electors in the 21-40 age category, reflecting the crucial role of youth in the UAE’s progress.
The pool of voters includes 101,549 members from Abu Dhabi, 60,772 from Dubai, 64,293 from Sharjah, 10,165 from Ajman, 6,653 from Umm Al Quwain, 55,289 from Ras Al Khaimah and 39,017 members from Fujairah.
The number of eligible voters, at 337,738, marks a 50 per cent increase over the previous elections in 2015 and signifies a big leap towards greater political participation in the UAE, said Tareq Lootah, Undersecretary of the Ministry of State for FNC Affairs and Chairman of the Election Management Committee. Lootah added that the move to widen the voter pool confirms the determination of the UAE to further promote political participation in the country by adopting a gradual political approach to develop a parliamentary experience that is consistent with the unique cultural traditions of the UAE.
The FNC is one of the UAE’s five federal authorities as established by the constitution. The FNC held its first session on December 2, 1972. The FNC’s official mandate is to provide for public debate of legislation. The FNC discusses proposals and plans of various federal ministries, entities and public institutions.
The parliamentary process in the UAE started as early as 2006, when the first electoral pool of 6,689 Emiratis was selected to vote. The number was small compared to the Emirati population, which amounts to more than a million. But, in 2011, the second round of FNC elections saw 135,308 Emiratis granted voting rights, a 20-fold increase on the previous vote. This year’s elections saw a concerted awareness campaign to educate the people about the vital role of the FNC and to instill in them a democratic spirit. | Government Job change - Election | October 2019 | ['(Gulf News)'] |
Bones of a mammoth are found in Silicon Valley: Paleontologist Mark Goodwin said that bones discovered Saturday by Roger Castillo, an environmental activist, may be the femur, tusks and pelvic bones of a Columbian mammoth, a species of ancient elephant that roamed the area tens of thousands of years ago. | A clutch of old bones jutting from a drainage ditch in San Jose appear to be the fossilized remains of an ancient mammoth, giving tantalizing clues that a rare, intact skeleton may lie beneath the surface. UC Berkeley paleontologist Mark Goodwin said Wednesday the bones discovered Saturday by environmental watchdog Roger Castillo may be the femur, tusks and pelvic bones of a Columbian mammoth, a species of ancient elephant that roamed Silicon Valley tens of thousands of years ago. UC Berkeley's Museum of Paleontology has a mammoth pelvis and some assorted teeth and bones found at other South Bay sites, Goodwin said. But the generous scattering of bones atop the ground at the San Jose site Goodwin visited Wednesday may indicate a more complete specimen. "If these are tusks here, there's a good chance that there's a skull in the ground," Goodwin mused, after briefly examining the fossil bones. "Is it a mammoth? That's what it's looking like to me." Goodwin said he would begin assembling a team of graduate students to excavate the site, with the aim of extracting the bones before winter rains rinse more of the skeleton downstream. But the more immediate threat to the fossil find is the horde of curious visitors who have trampled the site since the discovery was made public. Photographer and amateur fossil hunter David Gurley, a teacher at Mount Eden High School in Hayward, was horrified when he hiked to the site at noon Tuesday to find a television news crew standing atop the exposed bones, looking for a good camera angle. Gurley shooed the news crew off the bones and summoned two friends to bring camping gear, stakes and yellow plastic tape to secure the area. They set up camp and were later joined by a water district security guard, Gurley said. Their vigilance paid off, Gurley said, as they were able to prevent some visitors from further trampling the area. "This morning we had a talk with one man who came here with his 8-year- old kid, carrying shovels and a pail," Gurley said. "They wanted to dig around and see what they could find." The fossil find came to light Saturday when Castillo, a truck mechanic who has monitored the Guadalupe River watershed and its salmon population for two decades, was walking a stretch of levee with his dog. The levee contains a drainage ditch connected to a Santa Clara Valley Water District pumping station and is not directly connected to the nearby Guadalupe River, according to district spokesman Mike Di Marco. Castillo stepped down the embankment to examine an eroded area when he spotted a thick, yardlong bone jutting from the mud. "I thought, 'Is this really what I think it is?' " Castillo said. "The bone was huge. I suddenly felt very alone out here. It was very quiet, and I felt very alone." A quick survey revealed dozens of other bone chunks and fragments strewn downstream from the main cache of bones, Castillo said. He notified the water district, which owns the site, and began sandbagging the site to protect his find. Castillo was furious that the location of the site was publicized before the water district could summon adequate security to protect the fragile bones. But a district security guard was at the site Wednesday afternoon, and a district spokesman said it would act quickly to divert water from the bone- littered location to allow for excavations to begin. Di Marco said the pumping station that pours water into the channel had been temporarily stuck in the on position, which probably caused the bank containing the fossils to erode and helped expose the bones. The pumping station has now been turned off and will remain off until the dig has been completed, he said. The Columbian mammoth was the less-hairy cousin to the wooly mammoth, which lived in the colder, northern regions of the continent, Goodwin said. Columbian mammoths were about the size of today's African elephants, growing to a height of 13 feet at the shoulder. The beasts that roamed the savannah-like landscape of California's inland valleys had to survive the attacks of American lions, dire wolves, saber- toothed cats, giant bears and packs of hyenas and wild dogs, Goodwin said. The creature whose remains are now coming to light apparently expired near the banks of the Guadalupe River and was quickly covered over with sediment. Paleontologist Virginia Friedman, a doctoral candidate at UC Davis who visited the site with Goodwin on Wednesday, said she would volunteer to work on the San Jose excavation this summer. "I think this one was a juvenile or possibly a female," Friedman said. "Looking at the tusks, you can see that it's not huge. But it could be a fairly complete skeleton, and that's pretty interesting." Goodwin noted that the fossils were the property of the water district and said his museum was prepared to excavate, catalog and display the finds to the public. "This is our fossil heritage, and it belongs in the museum," Goodwin said. "If these bones end up as a curio on someone's mantelpiece, they won't be doing anyone any good." | New archeological discoveries | July 2005 | ['(San Francisco Chronicle)'] |
Samina Baig becomes the first Pakistani woman to summit Mount Everest. |
Samina Baig on 19 May 2013 became the first Pakistani woman to scale Mount Everest. She did this along with Nunshi and Tashi Malik, the first Indian twin sisters to scale the Everest. After reaching to the top of Everest, all three women hoisted Indian and Pakistani flags along side, depicting a message of collaborative action, friendship and peace. The Nepal Mountaineering Department officials confirmed the feat, while at the same time, also explaining that 35 foreigners along with 29 Nepalese Sherpa guides scaled the Everest after climbing from highest camp on South Col, which is the pass between Mt. Everest and another neighbouring mountain. About Samina Baig• Samina Baig is 22 years of age. • She is a Shimshal village native. Shimshal village is situated in Karakorum Range in Upper Hunza.• While scaling Mount Everest, she was accompanied by guide and brother Mirza Ali (29). • The attempt was made to complete the summit without the use of supplementary oxygen. • She is an Arts student and began climbing at the age of 4 years. • Overall, she is the third Pakistani to reach atop Mount Everest, second one being her own brother Mirza Ali. First Pakistani to climb Mount Everest was Nazir Sabir on 17 May 2000. • Mount Everest is highest mountain of the world with peak at 8848 metres or 29029 ft above the sea level. | Break historical records | May 2013 | ['(Jagran Josh)'] |
According to a new study, more than one million people per year die prematurely due to the air pollution in China. | Men walk along a railway line in Beijing on Jan. 12, as air pollution reached hazardous levels.
Wang Zhao/AFP/Getty Images
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More than 1 million people are dying prematurely every year from air pollution in China, according to a new analysis.
"This is the highest toll in the world and it really reflects the very high levels of air pollution that exist in China today," says Robert O'Keefe of the Health Effects Institute in Boston, who presented the findings in Beijing this week.
Alarm has been growing in recent years about the air in China. On many days in many cities, it's thick with smog.
"When you get off the airplane, if you were to travel to Beijing, you would immediately feel your eyes stinging and your throat rasping," says Barbara Finamore, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's China program based in Beijing.
It's so bad that people commonly walk the streets wearing masks. Parents won't let their kids play outside.
"There are many days where we cannot see the building across the street," she says. "It's a pea soup of pollution."
O'Keefe and other researchers decided to take a closer look at a massive report about the world's health problems that was released in December by the journal The Lancet.
They found that in China, approximately 1.2 million people die prematurely from exposure to outdoor air pollution.
In fact, about two-thirds of all the deaths from air pollution are now occurring in Asia, most of them in China. And air pollution has become the fourth leading cause of death in China.
"For the most part, the air pollution effects are generally manifested in frail populations — people with asthma are generally more susceptible to the effects of air pollution," O'Keefe says. "Also the very young and children who live in highly polluted areas for extended periods of time."
These photos of Beijing's Tiananmen Square, taken just one day apart, show how stifling pollution has plagued the region.
The main reason air pollution is such a huge and growing problem is clear: China's explosive growth.
"Cars are being added and trucks are being added to the streets in major cities at record numbers. Power plants burn significant amounts of very low-grade coal, and the energy consumption in China is rising dramatically." O'Keefe says.
But he says there are hints the government is starting to take the issue more seriously. Just the fact that the government allowed O'Keefe to present his report at an open forum in the nation's capital is promising, he says.
"There was a large amount of Chinese media there. I was very encouraged by that," he says. "And I think it's another signal that the government is serious about beginning to engage on this very significant public health problem."
The government also recently started doing something else to acknowledge the problem.
"They've put in place — and this is quite remarkable — a nationwide monitoring network that is reporting, in real time, levels of air pollution," O'Keefe says. "So for the first time the Chinese government is providing transparent levels of air pollution that the public can actually see."
Others agree that the new public monitoring system is a sign of progress. Only a few years ago, people just didn't realize what was happening.
"I remember going down the street and people saying, 'Very foggy day today,' " Finamore says. "They didn't recognize that it was smog and certainly deadly smog until that information started becoming available on a real-time basis."
Finamore is encouraged by other steps the government is taking, including efforts to clean up exhaust from cars and trucks and cut sulfur dioxide from coal-fired power plants in half.
"So I think the tide has turned in China. The government recognizes that the people are demanding cleaner air, cleaner water, cleaner food. And they have at least said they are going to do something about it," she says.
But Finamore says the key will be whether the government follows through on its promises to start cleaning up China's filthy air. | Environment Pollution | April 2013 | ['(NPR)'] |
A special Gujarat state court charges 32 people with murder, including Maya Kodnani, later a minister in the Narendra Modi government, for their parts in the riots that led to the killing of 95 people in the Patia neighborhood of Naroda, India. | Former BJP minister Maya Kodnani is among 32 people who have been convicted by a special court in the 2002 Naroda Patiya massacre case. Here are some reactions to the verdict.
Former Gujarat minister Maya Kodnani of the BJP and a Bajrang Dal leader, Babu Bajrangi, are among 32 people who have been convicted by a special court almost a decade after 95 people were killed in Ahmedabad's Naroda Patiya in one of the worst incidents of mob violence in the 2002 Gujarat riots.
What the court said:
Kodnani and Bajrangi have been charged with murder under section 302 and criminal conspiracy under section 120B of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Under this section, the minimum sentence is of life term and the maximum is death.
The special court in Ahmedabad has also let off 29 others accused in the Naroda Patya case.
Quantum of punishment to be pronounced day after tomorrow.
Special Public prosecutor, Akhil Desai:
In this case, more than 90 persons have lost their lives. Most of them were children and women. Charge of conspiracy has been proved, so except death penalty there is no hope.
For all the 32 accused, I have argued for death penatly or life imprisonment. The accused cannot be pardoned for such a crime. But life imprisonment may not extend only till 14 years, it may extend to full life. Maya Kodnani has been convicted of life imrisonment.
It was an attack on minority and the victims of were difficult to even identify. This is the rarest of rare case and the rarest punishment should be awarded.
Relatives and supporters of the accused members in the Naroda Patiya case. AFP
Yatin Ozha, BJP leader and senior lawyer:
It is unfair that the entire Gujarat unit of the BJP is being questioned for the conviction of one leader.
We are going to contest elections of the good governance of Mr Modi and the progress Gujarat has done in the last 10 years and not on issues like this conviction.
Social activist Teesta Setalvad:
It is important that Babu Bajrangi and Maya Kodnani have been convicted. This is the first time that some judgement has implicated the political class. The testimony of the eyewitnesses helped in Kodnani's conviction and phone calls proved that she was at the locality.
32 is a big number, I salute the kin of the victims of Naroda Patiya massacre. Truth has won.
Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari:
What about the culpability of the sate? The state was a helpless spectator. We have always said what happened in Gujarat was premeditated. State was a willful bystander as massacre played itself out.
We do not see political opportunities in a criminal culpability. This is about justice, this is about rule of law playing itself out. Criminal justice process must not be confused with trying to score political brownie points. There is absolutely no freedom of thought in Gujarat, even Jaswant Singh's book was banned.
Congress leader Digvijaya Singh:
It is clear the minister and the others acted at the behest of the then CM Narendra Modi. No ministers would be involved in such a crime unless they had the consent of the CM.
Salman Khurshid, Union Law Minister:
It is a big victory of Indian judiciary. The judgement on Naroda Patiya raises questions over morality issue.Judiciary deserves our admiration.
| Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | August 2012 | ['(The Washington Post)', '(Firstpost)'] |
The South Korean military claims that North Korean military has launched an "unidentified projectile" into the sea, marking the second time North Korea has conducted a weapons test in a single week. | North Korea fired unidentified projectiles on Thursday, according to the South Korean military, less than a week after leader Kim Jong Un oversaw the test-firing of multiple rockets and missiles.
"We confirmed that North Korea fired two rounds of missiles towards (an) eastern direction from Northern Pyongan Province at 16:29 p.m. and 16:49 p.m. (local time). Estimated travel distances were 420 km, 270 km, respectively," a South Korean military official told NBC News. The Northern Pyongan Province is an area located to the west of the country.
The South Korean and U.S. authorities are conducting analysis for more detailed information and NBC News also said that the chief national security advisor in South Korea is monitoring the situation.
"(The) South Korea military has reinforced surveillance and vigilance for any more North Korean missile launches, and is maintaining fully preparedness by cooperating with the U.S.," the official added.
The suspected short-range missiles appear to have been launched from a location near a missile base in Sino-Ri, according to the Dow Jones news agency. This is about 130 miles north of the demilitarized zone.
The new launches come as the U.S. Special Representative for North Korea, Stephen Biegun, travels to Seoul to meet with officials and discuss denuclearization efforts.
Last week, North Korea launched a number of rockets and at least one short-range missile from its east coast into the ocean. Thursday's launch would be the third time North Korea has fired missiles since talks collapsed between President Donald Trump and Kim in February.
The two leaders met in Hanoi, Vietnam, to discuss the possibility of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula, but the talks ended abruptly without a deal. That summit had followed the historic meeting between Kim and Trump in Singapore last June. North Korea had pledged to cease its nuclear and long-range missile tests back in April 2018, but that promise was thrown into doubt when satellite images surfaced suggesting that a long-range missile test site was undergoing "rapid rebuilding."
On Wednesday, North Korea's foreign ministry commented on Saturday's launch, saying the "strike drill" was "regular and self-defensive."
"The recent drill conducted by our army is nothing more than part of the regular military training, and it has neither targeted anyone nor led to an aggravation of the situation in the region," a spokesperson said in a statement to the state-run KCNA news agency.
The two launches in quick succession will likely accentuate tensions between Washington and Pyongyang and follow a meeting between Kim and Russian President Vladimir Putin last month. The Russian leader told reporters that Kim wanted to denuclearize but needed "security guarantees" to do so. | Military Exercise | May 2019 | ['(CNBC)'] |
Hundreds of residents take to the streets in the Mexican city Tijuana, in protest of the arrival of thousands of migrants trying to get to the United States. | Hundreds of residents have taken to the streets of a Mexican border town, in protest at the arrival of thousands of migrants trying to get to the US.
They were urging the migrants to leave Tijuana, to the south of California.
The migrants are part of a large caravan of Central Americans who have been travelling though Mexico to the US, where they want to claim asylum.
In response to their arrival, the US and Mexico installed heavier security at the border crossing.
Tijuana Mayor Juan Manuel Gastelum said on Friday he expected the number of migrants arriving in the city in the coming weeks to reach 10,000, warning the city was not prepared to handle the "avalanche".
The city's shelters are already struggling to cope, and authorities have asked for government assistance.
Mr Gastelum's words were seized on by US President Donald Trump on Sunday.
"The Mayor of Tijuana, Mexico, just stated that 'the City is ill-prepared to handle this many migrants, the backlog could last 6 months,'" he tweeted. "Likewise, the U.S. is ill-prepared for this invasion, and will not stand for it. They are causing crime and big problems in Mexico. Go home!"
The anti-migrant feeling could also be seen on the streets of Tijuana.
"They are invaders! They are armed! Get out of the country," protesters shouted, according to Reuters news agency.
Esther Monroy, 58, told AFP news agency she feared the numbers of migrants gathering in the city would lead to the US closing the border crossing,
"Most of us in this depend on business from people coming and going across the border," she said.
"If they close it, it will be [the migrants'] fault." "If the government can't control all this, organised crime and drug cartels will," America Villa added. "We don't care who does it, but they have to take responsibility for these people."
However, not everyone was protesting against the migrants. A smaller demonstration was also held in support of the new arrivals, who say they are fleeing persecution, poverty and violence in their home countries of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.
And there was even understanding from the migrants themselves.
"They have the right to protest because they don't like that we're here but in spite of everything, they [Mexicans] are good people," Karina Rosales, a migrant from Honduras, told Reuters. "They are the same as us. But we're only passing through. We won't stay here." Migrants try to paddle into Mexico
| Protest_Online Condemnation | November 2018 | ['(BBC)'] |
12 Nigerian policemen are missing and presumed dead after their boat was ambushed by militants in the Niger Delta region. | Nigerian militants claiming to be from a group that has been inactive since 2009 say they carried out an attack that left 12 police officers dead.
An email purportedly from the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend) said it was responsible for the ambush in southern Nigeria on Friday.
Last week another email said Mend would resume attacks after its leader, Henry Okah, was jailed in South Africa.
Police denied Friday's attack had anything to do with the threat. They said it involved a dispute over amnesty payments.
Thousands of former militants are supposed to be receiving a monthly salary as part of the amnesty agreement. However, while some former commanders have grown extremely rich out of the deal, some of the junior militants have not received what they are owed, the BBC's Will Ross reports from Lagos.
The 12 police officers were reported missing, presumed dead, after gunmen attacked a police boat in the creeks of the Niger Delta, officials said. The boat carrying some 50 police officers was on its way to a funeral when it developed engine trouble in one of the creeks.
"The officers became soft target for some hoodlums, who we have confirmed were part of a militant group that was supposed to be enjoying an amnesty," police commissioner Kingsley Omire said.
He said the group was linked to a former Mend militant, and that the assailants alleged that the ex-militant had not been properly distributing amnesty payments.
All but the 12 officers reported missing were now safe, he added. Mend had been fighting to gain a greater share of the oil wealth from its part of southern Nigeria, but had been inactive since a 2009 amnesty was put in place. Okah, its leader, was sentences to 24 years in prison last month for masterminding bomb attacks in the capital, Abuja, in 2010.
A resumption of violence in the delta could hit Nigeria's vital oil industry.
This week, President Goodluck Jonathan ordered a committee to look into the possibility of making a peace deal with Islamist militants in northern Nigeria, where they have carried out numerous bombings and shootings in recent years. Africa Podcasts | Armed Conflict | April 2013 | ['(BBC)'] |
Anti-violence protesters take to the streets of Chicago to draw attention to the problem of gun violence in Chicago, which briefly shuts down Lake Shore Drive. Protesters also call for Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie T. Johnson and Mayor Rahm Emanuel to step down for their handling of racial incidents in communities of color. | Protesters seeking Thursday to draw attention to the problem of gun violence in Chicago briefly shut down the city's famed Lake Shore Drive, which runs along Lake Michigan.
The Chicago Tribune reported that while the protest was not large, about 200 marchers achieved their aim of disrupting traffic for thousands of motorists.
Organizers said they were marching to demand the resignations of Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson and Mayor Rahm Emanuel for failing to lower gun violence.
Organizers said they brought the protest to the heart of the city's more affluent enclaves to "redistribute the pain" of gun violence and economic blight plaguing some of Chicago's black and Latino communities.
The protest came during a busy tourism week for Chicago, with the annual Lollapalooza music festival starting Thursday. The Reverend Gregory Livingston, one of the march's lead organizers, called on the festival performers to stand with protesters and cancel their performances. But none of the artists appeared to comply.
Chicago has recorded more than 300 homicides so far in 2018, more than any other U.S. city, but a 23 percent decline in killings compared with the same time last year. | Riot | August 2018 | ['(The Grio)', '(VOA News)'] |
British Conservative Party MP Nadine Dorries is suspended from the party after her decision to become the first serving politician to appear on a reality television series. The move could take her away from Parliamentary business for up to a month. | Nadine Dorries has been suspended by the Conservative Party over her decision to appear on ITV1's I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here.
The Mid-Bedfordshire MP has had the whip withdrawn, a party source said.
Ms Dorries will be the first sitting MP to appear on the show, which could see her being away from her job in the Commons for up to a month.
The chief whip will meet her when she returns from Australia, when she will be expected to explain herself.
The Conservative Party is concerned about Ms Dorries' inability to do parliamentary and constituency business while she is taking part in the programme.
Ms Dorries said she wanted to use her appearance on the reality show to raise awareness of issues she is interested in, such as reducing the time limit on abortions from 24 weeks to 20 weeks.
"I'm doing the show because 16 million people watch it. Rather than MPs talking to other MPs about issues in Parliament, I think MPs should be going to where people go," she told the Daily Mail.
"I'm not going in there to upset people, but I have opinions. There are certain causes that I'm interested in, one of which is '20 Weeks'. "I will be talking about this issue around the campfire. I hope there will be some lively, heated debates."
But she has come in for criticism over her decision to enter the celebrity jungle, with Home Secretary Theresa May saying: "Frankly, I think an MP's job is in their constituency and in the House of Commons."
Conservative MP Sarah Wollaston said Ms Dorries should resign, telling the BBC: "I was horrified, frankly. I think it just makes her look ridiculous and it brings politics into disrepute."
Paul Duckett, chairman of the Mid-Bedforshire Conservative association, said members may consider sacking Ms Dorries over her appearance on the show, adding that he had only learned about Ms Dorries appearance when media arrived in the constituency on Tuesday morning.
Mr Duckett said Ms Dorries was a hard-working MP but the appearance might "detract from the gravitas" of her role.
Prime Minister David Cameron - who has publicly clashed with Ms Dorries in the past - earlier refused to be drawn into the row, saying: "Nadine Dorries can speak for herself on this issue."
Relations between No 10 and Ms Dorries, a former nurse, have been strained since the prime minister made a joke at her expense in the Commons, describing her as "frustrated". He subsequently apologised.
Ms Dorries grabbed headlines by describing Mr Cameron and Chancellor George Osborne as "two arrogant posh boys" who were out of touch with the real world.
Former Lib Dem MP Lembit Opik, who took part in I'm a Celebrity in 2010 after losing his seat, told the BBC the Conservative leadership was "out of touch with the zeitgeist of the nation".
He added: "I'm outraged by the fact that it thinks she's been wrong to do something that can put politics in touch with the public."
But former Tory MP Louise Mensch, who recently resigned from the Commons for family reasons and who has had a well-publicised spat with Ms Dorries over her decision, tweeted: "Nothing sadder than a politician, or ex-politician, on any of those shows."
Labour MP Steve McCabe said: "David Cameron was too weak to stop Nadine Dorries appearing on a reality TV show.
"But even after dithering over what to do all day, by suspending her he's acted more quickly over an MP who called him an 'arrogant posh boy' than he ever did over a chief whip who swore at a police officer."
In February 2010, Ms Dorries took part in the Channel 4 documentary series Tower Block of Commons, in which MPs moved in with benefit claimants on a deprived council estate.
George Galloway, the only other sitting MP to have taken part in a reality game show that took him away from the Commons, when he spent three weeks on Celebrity Big Brother in 2006, also faced criticism that he was neglecting his constituents. Politicians on reality TV | Government Job change - Resignation_Dismissal | November 2012 | ['(BBC)'] |
1.5 million people participate in nationwide street demonstrations against the policies of President of Colombia Juan Manuel Santos, with police using tear gas on protesters. | Hundreds of thousands of Colombians have joined street demonstrations against the policies of President Juan Manuel Santos. Students and lecturers protesting against proposed university reforms were joined by trade unionists demanding improved conditions. Colombia's main trade union federation, the CUT, said 1.5m people joined the demonstrations in cities nationwide. The protests are the biggest since President Santos took office in August. There were some disturbances in the capital Bogota and in the city of Pereira, where police used tear gas to disperse crowds. But otherwise the protests are reported to have been peaceful and good-natured. Colombia's intelligence agency, DAS, had warned that the Farc and ELN left-wing guerrilla groups might seek to provoke violence during the demonstrations. Defence Minister Rodrigo Rivera said the security forces would respond with "severity" to any disorder. Students groups are opposed to government plans to bring private funding into the public university system. Trade unions are demanding measures to reduce unemployment, as well as more action to protect union activists from attack.
| Protest_Online Condemnation | April 2011 | ['(BBC)'] |
Irish President Michael D. Higgins signs a bill making abortion legal in the Republic of Ireland for the first time. | Áras an Uachtaráin said on Thursday that President Michael D Higgins had signed the Bill on abortion and it had become law.
A Bill that will give women access to abortion for the first time in the history of the State has been signed into law by President Michael D Higgins. A statement released by Áras an Uachtaráin on Thursday evening said: “Having considered the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018, the President has signed the Bill and it has accordingly become law.” The Bill finished its final stage in the Seanad earlier this month after weeks of sometimes heated debate in both the Dáil and Seanad. It follows a referendum in May on the removal of the Eighth Amendment from the Constitution, which guaranteed the unborn and mother an equal right to life. Some 67 per cent of the electorate voted to repeal the amendment. Minister for Health Simon Harris will now have to sign a number of statutory instruments to give effect to the Bill now that it is signed into law by the President.
The Bill was signed by the President as the Medical Council deleted provisions from its code which will mean that no ethical guidance on performing abortions will be in place for doctors when the legislation comes into force next month.
Having considered the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018, the President has signed the Bill and it has accordingly become law.
The council took the decision to delete four of the five paragraphs dealing with abortion from its guide on professional conduct and ethics because they conflicted with the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Act.
The decision was taken at a specially convened meeting on Wednesday night. The council is updating the ethical guide but this process will not be ready in time for the introduction of abortion services on January 1st.
Two of the four deleted paragraphs state that a doctor has an ethical duty to make every reasonable effort to protect the life and health of pregnant women and their unborn babies; and that in exceptional circumstances, it may be necessary to terminate the pregnancy to protect the life of the mother while making every effort to preserve the life of the baby. The other two deal with situations where there is a real and substantial risk to the life of the woman, and the provision of information for abortions abroad.
The remaining paragraph remains in place, slightly edited to change the reference from “abortion” to “termination of pregnancy”. It states that doctors “have a duty to provide care, support and follow-up for women who have had a termination of pregnancy”.
The council plans to write to all 23,000 registered doctors in the State to inform them of the changes to the guide.
“We are currently engaging in a very comprehensive process to update the Medical Council guidelines having only recently closed a consultation with doctors and key stakeholders in which over 1,400 responses were received,” said Dr Suzanne Crowe, chair of the council’s ethics working group. “Today’s announcement ensures that our ethical guidance is not in conflict with the new legislation and provides reassurance to doctors who are involved in delivering this service.”
Aside from the paragraphs on abortions, sections of the guide dealing with “dignity of the patient”, “equality and diversity” and “conscientious objection” are being reviewed.
Once a new wording is finalised, the council will again consult with doctors and other stakeholders, but this would not happen before the legislation comes into force, Dr Crowe said.
| Sign Agreement | December 2018 | ['(Irish Times)'] |
The U.S. Department of the Treasury de-lists China as a currency manipulator. | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Treasury Department on Monday dropped its designation of China as a currency manipulator days before top officials of the world’s two largest economies were due to sign a preliminary trade agreement to ease an 18-month-old tariff war.
U.S. drops China 'currency manipulator' label
01:48
The widely expected decision came in a long-delayed semi-annual currency report, reversing an unexpected move by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin last August at the height of U.S.-China trade tensions.
Mnuchin had accused China of deliberately holding down the value of its yuan currency to create an unfair trade advantage, just hours after President Donald Trump, angered at the lack of progress in trade negotiations, had also accused China of manipulating its currency.
The Treasury Department had not labeled China a currency manipulator since 1994. Beijing had recently met just one of the department’s three criteria needed for such a designation - a large bilateral trade surplus with the United States.
In its latest currency report, the Treasury said that as part of the Phase 1 trade deal, China had made “enforceable commitments to refrain from competitive devaluation” and agreed to publish relevant data on exchange rates and external balances.
Chinese Vice Premier Liu He arrived in Washington on Monday for a White House ceremony to sign the trade deal with Trump. People familiar with the negotiations said that although the manipulator designation had no real consequences for Beijing, its removal was an important symbol of goodwill for Chinese officials.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer on Monday told Fox Business that the translation of the U.S.-China trade agreement was almost completed and the text of the deal would be made public on Wednesday before the ceremony.
The currency report said the Chinese yuan, also known as the renminbi, had depreciated as far as 7.18 per U.S. dollar in early September, but had rebounded in October and was currently trading at about 6.93 per dollar.
“In this context, Treasury has determined that China should no longer be designated as a currency manipulator at this time,” the report said.
It said, however, China should take decisive steps to avoid a persistently weak currency and allow greater market openness to strengthen its long-term growth prospects.
There was no immediate reaction from Beijing. In August, China’s central bank denied it had intervened to weaken the yuan, and said Washington’s designation of China as a currency manipulator seriously harmed international rules.
Mark Sobel, a former senior Treasury official and adviser to the London-based OMFIF economy policy think tank, said China “was errantly designated at a moment of presidential pique.”
“It should never have happened in the first place,” he said. “China manages, but does not manipulate its currency.”
Sobel said China’s current account surplus was small as a share of gross domestic product and it had not intervened in currency markets for years. The August move came at a time when the yuan had fallen against the dollar because of market apprehension over Trump’s “ratcheting up of trade tariffs,” he said.
The Treasury report also cited continued concerns about the currency practices of eight other countries - Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea and Vietnam - and added a ninth, Switzerland, to its list.
It raised particular concerns about Germany, the world’s fourth largest economy, which it said continued to have the world’s largest current account surplus and was slipping into recession. It said the German government had a responsibility to undertake tax cuts and boost domestic investment.
The Treasury report said the continued strength of the U.S. dollar was “concerning,” given the International Monetary Fund’s judgment that the dollar was overvalued on a real effective basis.
It said the real dollar remains about 8% above its 20-year average, noting that sustained dollar strength would likely exacerbate persistent trade and current account imbalances for the United States.
U.S. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, a fierce critic of China’s currency and trade practices, blasted the Trump administration for its decision to “back down” from labeling China a currency manipulator.
“China is a currency manipulator - that is a fact,” Schumer said in a statement. “Unfortunately, President Trump would rather cave to President Xi (Jinping) than stay tough on China.”
The yuan CNY=CFXS reached five-month highs earlier on Monday ahead of the expected signing of the trade deal.
| Government Policy Changes | January 2020 | ['(Reuters)'] |
UK clothing retailer Bonmarché collapses into administration. The chain employs 2,900 people and operates 318 stores. | Clothing retailer Bonmarché has become the latest high street casualty after it appointed administrators, putting 2,900 jobs at risk.
The collapse is the culmination of a long saga over the chain’s ownership and will now see the Wakefield-based business looking for a new buyer.
Administrators at FRP Advisory said it will continue trading from its 318 stores for the time being while it is put up for sale. No redundancies have been made yet.
It comes a few months after Philip Day, the owner of Edinburgh Woollen Mill Group, took control of the company with an offer that took it off the stock market.
Mr Day’s stake, which is thought to be around 95 per cent held by his vehicle Spectre, has now been wiped out.
Helen Connolly, chief executive of the brand, said it was with “deep regret and sadness” that administrators had been appointed.
She added that Bonmarché’s management team believed “that if we had had an opportunity to work with the Spectre team closely at an earlier stage, another outcome would have been possible”.
She blamed the prolonged uncertainty over Brexit and the “historic difficulty” facing the high street for the company’s woes.
Bonmarche previously considered refinancing or a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA), which would have allowed it to close stores and cut rents, but the options were considered insufficient to keep the business going.
“Our first priority is to our colleagues and their families in the face of this difficult news,” Ms Connelly said.
“This is not the outcome we had hoped for and we will work with the administrators to do all it possibly can to protect as many jobs as possible and work towards finding a buyer for the business that can secure its future going forward.”
Tony Wright, joint administrator and partner at FRP Advisory, said there were likely to be buyers keen to bid on it.
“There is every sign that we can continue trading while we market Bonmarché for sale and believe that there will be interest to take on the business,” he said. | Organization Closed | October 2019 | ['(iNews)'] |
President of the United States Barack Obama announces that the United States will pursue aggressive sanctions to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon that could potentially spark a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Wednesday the United States would pursue “aggressive sanctions” to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon that could potentially spark a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.
Obama, who had made the goal of pursuing dialogue with Iran a cornerstone of his administration’s foreign policy at the beginning of his presidency, said he had been successful in getting the international community to isolate Tehran.
“As we’ve seen, the Iranian government has been more concerned about preventing their people from exercising their democratic and human rights than trying to solve this problem diplomatically,” Obama said in an interview on Fox News Channel’s Special Report with Bret Baier.
“That’s why we’re going to go after aggressive sanctions. We haven’t taken any options off the table. We are going to keep on pushing,” Obama said.
Iran denies it is seeking to build a nuclear bomb and says its nuclear program is aimed at generating electricity.
Obama said preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon was one of his administration’s highest priorities.
“It is a hard problem but is a problem that we need to solve because if Iran gets a nuclear weapon then you could potentially see a nuclear arms race throughout the Middle East and that would be tremendously damaging to our national security interests,” he said.
U.S. officials said on Tuesday the pace of Iran’s nuclear weapons development appears to have slowed, buying time for a new round of sanctions now and potentially more sweeping measures later.
. | Armed Conflict | March 2010 | ['(Reuters)'] |
A Rwandan doctor working in a French hospital is suspended after a nurse locates an Internet Interpol arrest warrant, accusing him of a 1994 "genocide, war crimes". | PARIS (Reuters) - A Rwandan doctor working at a hospital in northern France is suspected of being a wanted war criminal, in a case that has puzzled French authorities.
Eugene Rwamucyo was suspended from his post at a hospital in the northern town of Maubeuge after a nurse did an Internet search for his name and found an Interpol arrest warrant linked to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, French media reported.
The arrest warrant, issued in 2006 on request from Rwanda, is still on the Interpol website and lists Rwamucyo’s offences as “genocide, war crimes.”
Rwamucyo said on Sunday he was innocent.
“I didn’t participate in the genocide, close up or from afar. There is nothing against me. I don’t see why the justice system wants to arrest me,” he told French television.
But he said he had attended meetings with people who took part in the genocide.
The Interpol notice is not an international arrest warrant, but a notice issued by Rwanda. The man has not been arrested so far, although Interpol said many of its member countries considered such a notice a valid request for detention.
Rwamucyo’s name also features on a list of more than a dozen suspected Rwandan war criminals living in France who are the object of a lawsuit by the Collective of Civil Plaintiffs for Rwanda, a victims’ rights association.
An estimated 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus were killed in Rwanda’s 100-day massacre.
“He was an ideologist, for us he’s one of the planners of the genocide of the Tutsis. There are testimonies from people who knew him,” Alain Gauthier, the head of the collective, told French television.
Local authorities were scratching their heads over how a suspected war criminal came to secure a French work permit and a job at a hospital.
The town’s socialist mayor, Remi Paunos, said he was dumbfounded by the fact that a person wanted by Interpol could be granted a residency permit. Rwamucyo’s employers at the hospital expressed similar perplexity.
French prosecutors opened an investigation into Rwamucyo in 2008, but did not inform or summon him at any point. He was refused status as a political refugee but nevertheless obtained a residency permit.
| Government Job change - Resignation_Dismissal | October 2009 | ['(Reuters)'] |
Explorers of a stalactite cave in Israel's Galilee region uncover a small collection of 2,300–year–old silver coins and jewelry believed to have been hidden from the time of Alexander the Great of Macedonia. The discovery could be the first of its kind to be found from that period in this area. | Coins and jewellery from the time of Alexander the Great are displayed in Jerusalem March 9. 2015. Cave explorers in Israel have uncovered a small trove of coins and jewellery from the time of Alexander the Great that archaeologists believe was hidden by refugees during an ancient war.The 2,300-year-old treasure was the first of its kind to be found from the period of the conquerer, said Eitan Klein of the Israel Antiquities Authority.
Cave explorers in Israel have uncovered a small trove of coins and jewelery from the time of Alexander the Great that archaeologists believe was hidden by refugees during an ancient war.
The 2,300-year-old treasure was the first of its kind to be found from the period of the conquerer, said Eitan Klein of the Israel Antiquities Authority.
Just last month, scuba divers off Israel's coast came upon an even larger find - about 2,000 gold coins from the 11th century that archaeologists hope will shed light on Muslim rule during that time.
Hikers discovered the latest horde in a narrow crevice of a stalactite cave in the Galilee region. It included two silver coins minted during Alexander's reign and several pieces of silver jewellery, including rings, bracelets and earrings.
"The valuables might have been hidden in the cave by local residents who fled there during the period of governmental unrest stemming from the death of Alexander," the Antiquities Authority said in a statement.
"Presumably the cache was hidden in the hope of better days."
Alexander the Great, ruler of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia, led a military campaign throughout the Middle East and parts of Asia. He died in Babylonia, the present day Iraq, in 323 B.C. (Reporting by Ari Rabinovitch; Editing by Angus MacSwan) | New archeological discoveries | March 2015 | ['(Reuters via MSN)'] |
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