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The presence of the dangerous H5N1 avian influenza virus is confirmed in dead birds found in Turkey, marking the first cases of the disease in Europe. | The European Union should be ready for a potential flu pandemic, said Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou.
The warning came after tests on dead birds in north-west Turkey confirmed the H5N1 strain. An outbreak in Romania is assumed to be the same, the EU said.
The H5N1 strain has killed more than 60 people in South East Asia since 2003.
However, of those only one is suspected to have died after catching the virus from another human.
It is a highly pathogenic and aggressive virus and we in the European Union have to deal with that
Markos KyprianouEU Health Commissioner
Your say: Cause for concern?
Those who have been in the presence of dead or dying birds are most likely to become infected, and the chances of human-to-human transmission are still seen as very slim.
Speaking at a news conference, Mr Kyprianou advised seasonal flu vaccination for populations considered to be at risk and said governments should focus on stockpiling anti-viral drugs.
"What is important is that it does become a priority for all member states and that they make an investment for preparing for this event," he said.
Standard flu vaccines, normally given to young children, the elderly and sick, are unlikely to protect against bird flu.
However, scientists fear that the bird flu virus could mutate into a human pandemic strain if people suffering normal human flu are also infected with the H5N1 type.
QUICK GUIDE
Bird flu
Mr Kyprianou said an emergency meeting would be held on Thursday to discuss what measures to take.
The commissioner confirmed the virus found in the Turkish village of Kiziksa was the deadly strain, adding: "There is a direct relationship with viruses found in Russia, Mongolia and China."
He went on: "It is a highly pathogenic and aggressive virus and we in the European Union have to deal with that."
A 3km (two-mile) quarantine zone is to remain in place around Kiziksa for the next three weeks. Thousands of birds in the area have been culled.
'Under control'
Turkish authorities have urged calm, amid reports of people flocking to pharmacies to buy Tamiflu, the anti-viral believed to be most effective against bird flu.
Health Minister Recep Akdag said the situation was "under control", adding that Ankara was prepared for any possible flu pandemic.
Pharmacies in Romania have also reported a big surge in demand for vaccines against common flu.
The EU moved to ban all bird and poultry products from Romania on Thursday after tests on three ducks which died last week in the Danube delta confirmed the presence of the weaker H5 strain of bird flu.
Tests for the H5N1 strain are expected to be completed on the ducks on Friday.
The EU has also banned the import of live birds and feathers from Turkey until April.
BIRD FLU OUTBREAKS IN 2005 (H5N1 STRAIN)
The H5N1 strain remained largely in South-East Asia until this summer, when Russia and Kazakhstan both reported outbreaks
Scientists fear it may be carried by migrating birds to Europe and Africa but say it is hard to prove a direct link with bird migration | Disease Outbreaks | October 2005 | ['(BBC)'] |
An article published in Nature reports high levels of molecular oxygen found by the Rosetta space probe on comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. This discovery could have implications for theories of the origin of the solar system. | By Pallab GhoshScience correspondent, BBC News The Rosetta spacecraft has discovered molecular oxygen in the cloud of gas surrounding the comet it is tracking.
The discovery has come as a complete surprise to scientists who thought that oxygen would have reacted with other elements as planets were forming.
The results indicate that current ideas about how our Solar System formed may be wrong.
The study has been published in the journal, Nature.
Researchers used Rosetta's Rosina instrument to "sniff" the atmosphere around Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, as the probe trailed the icy body over a six-month period.
They found that free oxygen was the fourth most common gas around the comet, after water vapour, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide.
One of the scientists involved, Professor Kathrin Altwegg of Bern University said that the scientists involved in the study thought the result was a mistake when they first saw the data
"When we first saw it, we went a little bit into denial because it is not what you would expect to find on a comet," she said.
That is because oxygen reacts very easily with other elements to form compounds, rather than stay in its unique form. The researchers suggest that oxygen must have been frozen very quickly and became trapped in clumps of material early on in the formation of the Solar System.
"It was the most surprising discovery we have made so far (about the comet)," said Prof Altwegg. "The big question was how it got there".
Many current theories of how the planets and comets formed around the Sun suggest a violent process that would have heated up the frozen oxygen - which would then have reacted with other elements.
The suggestion is that the Solar System formation must have been an altogether quieter affair. "If we have O2 at the beginning of the formation of the comet, how did it survive so long?" said the study's author Andre Bieler, from the University of Michigan. "All the models say it shouldn't survive for so long, which tells us something about the building of our Solar System - it has to be very gentle to build these ice grains, it seems it is a pretty pristine material still.
"Now we have evidence that this significant part of this comet has in fact survived the formation of our Solar System."
BBC iWonder: Did comets kick start life on Earth?
In November last year, the Rosetta mission made history by orbiting a comet and landing a small probe on its surface. Contact with the probe was lost a few days after a crash-landing, but the orbiting spacecraft has continued to send back a wealth of data.
| New achievements in aerospace | October 2015 | ['(Radio New Zealand Online)', '(BBC Online)', '(Nature Press Release)', '(Nature Article Synopsis)'] |
Palestinians clash with Israeli police in East Jerusalem over archaeological excavations near the alAqsa mosque. | Palestinians throw stones towards Israeli troops during a protest against Israeli excavations in Jerusalem. (Reuters) Israeli police clashed with stone-throwing Palestinians in Arab East Jerusalem after prayers, as hundreds protested against excavations and planned construction work near Islam's third holiest site. A police spokesman says officers fired stun grenades at stone throwers and arrested 15 protesters after Friday prayers. He says some of the demonstrators tried to break into restricted areas. "The police dispersed a number of disturbances in the Ras al-Amud neighbourhood (of East Jerusalem)," spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. In a number of towns and checkpoints throughout the occupied West Bank, Israeli troops used tear gas to disperse stone-throwing Palestinian youths, local witnesses say. Two Israeli soldiers were shot and lightly wounded by Palestinian gunmen in clashes at a checkpoint near Jerusalem, an army spokeswoman says. The dig is intended to salvage ancient artefacts before construction can begin on a new walkway leading to the holy complex known to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif and to Jews as Temple Mount. Muslims say they fear the mosque could be harmed. Israel denies any harm would come to al-Aqsa mosque or to the golden Dome of the Rock that stand on the site of two destroyed biblical Jewish Temples. The dig sparked violent protests after prayers last Friday. Israeli officials have said the dig, about 50 metres from the compound overlooking the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest site, would last at least eight months and that no work on a walkway would start before it is completed. The existing ramp leading to the complex was damaged in a snowstorm and in an earthquake in 2004 and officials say the structure is dangerous and must be replaced. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says during a visit to Ankara on Thursday that a Turkish team would visit Jerusalem to survey the site. "We have nothing to hide," he said. Israel is also showing live pictures from the excavation on the website of its antiquities authority in a bid to show that the work is doing no structural harm.
- Reuters
| Armed Conflict | February 2007 | ['(Reuters via ABC Australia Online)'] |
Malaysia launches a search and rescue operation as 24 Rohingya are feared dead off the coast of Langkawi. According to the authorities, the people tried to swim to the coast when their boats could not make it to land. | KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysian authorities launched a search on Sunday for 24 Rohingya refugees who went missing while trying to swim to shore from a boat off the resort island of Langkawi.
Muslim-majority Malaysia has long been a favoured destination for Rohingya Muslims seeking a better life after escaping a 2017 military crackdown in Myanmar and, more recently, refugee camps in Bangladesh.
Malaysia’s coastguard said 25 people had tried to swim to shore late on Saturday when their boat was near the west coast of the island but only one reached land.
Two boats and one aircraft were sent out on Sunday to scour an area of more than 100 square nautical miles, according to Mohd Zawawi Abdullah, provincial director for the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency.
“We have relayed information to other rescue agencies and local fishing communities and will also inform the Thai authorities ... to assist in the search,” Zawawi said in a statement.
Police detained the person who reached shore for questioning. They did not say what happened to the boat.
Last month, 269 Rohingya were detained on arrival in Langkawi.
At the time, the head of the MMEA said the 269 were transferred from a larger “motherboat” on which dozens of people were believed to have died and were thrown into the sea over a four-month voyage.
Malaysia does not recognise refugee status. Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said last month the country could not take in any more Rohingya, citing a struggling economy battered by the coronavirus pandemic.
| Shipwreck | July 2020 | ['(Reuters)'] |
Scores missing as migrant vessel sinks off the coast of northern Morocco in a route used by illegal migrants trying to reach Europe. | Scores are missing after a boat laden with some 50 migrants capsized in rough seas off the coast of Morocco.
The boat was reportedly attempting a dangerous open-sea journey from Morocco to Spain, often used by migrants trying to reach Europe.
The body of one man has been found on a beach near the northern city of Kenitra and at least one male survivor has been rescued. Both were Moroccan.
The fate and nationalities of the other passengers remains unknown.
Helicopters were being used to scour the ocean for survivors, Morocco's MAP state news agency reported.
Thousands of migrants attempt the difficult sea crossing every year but many do not make it, says the BBC's James Copnall in Rabat.
Rickety boats
The survivor told authorities the boat had capsized half an hour after setting off on Tuesday night from Kenitra, 40km (25 miles) east of Rabat.
Kenitra was an unusual starting point for a trip to Spain, our correspondent notes, as the boat would have had to cross more than 250km of open sea.
In the past, most people attempting the sea crossing came from sub-Saharan Africa.
But a report by the International Office of Migration shows that in more recent times the majority have had North African origins.
The most desperate among those intent on reaching Europe pay hundreds of dollars for a passage on a rickety and dangerous boats. | Shipwreck | October 2008 | ['(BBC News)'] |
An earthquake strikes the Democratic Republic of the Congo . Many people are feared dead after an earthquake measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale struck Lake Tanganyika near the town of Kalemie. | The United States Geological Survey said its 6.8 measurement was preliminary and was located in the area of Lake Tanganyika, between Congo and Tanzania. Quakes of magnitude 7 can cause widespread and heavy damage.
The quake was felt across the region at about 1320GMT, a time when people were working or at school.
"We felt the tremor in our offices. People fled their buildings to save their lives, but so far we have no reports of casualties," said Elmon Mahawa, the regional commissioner for Kigoma, a Tanzanian town on the shores of Lake Tanganyika that the USGS said was 150 kilometres from the centre of the quake.
Henri Burgard, UN spokesman in the Congolese town of Uvira, said the quake lasted 30 seconds.
"The buildings shook quiet strongly. We have no reports of deaths so far," he said.
In Bujumbura, the capital of the central African nation of Burundi, an Associated Press reporter felt the three-story building he was in swing and he felt two shocks.
Workers in buildings in downtown Nairobi left their offices in panic. The quake was also felt in Mombasa, on Kenya's coast.
| Earthquakes | December 2005 | ['(formerly Zaire)', '(TimesOnLine)', '(News24)', '(The Independent)', '(BBC)'] |
The Turkish Armed Forces launches joint military exercises with the Security Forces Command of Northern Cyprus amid ongoing territorial disputes in the eastern Mediterranean. |
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan delivers a speech during a ceremony in Ankara, Turkey, September 4, 2020. /Reuters
Turkey's armed forces on Sunday began annual exercises in the republic of Northern Cyprus, an entity only recognized by Ankara, amid rising tension in the eastern Mediterranean.
The Turkish military began its exercises called " Mediterranean storm" with the Turkish Cypriot Security Command, Vice President Fuat Oktay said on Twitter. "The security priorities of our country and the TRNC [Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus] are indispensable, along with diplomatic solutions in the eastern Mediterranean," Oktay said.
He added that the military exercises, which last until Thursday, continued "successfully."
Related readings:
Turkey extends exploration work in disputed E Mediterranean area
Erdogan raises rhetoric in Greece standoff in Mediterranean
The two NATO members, Turkey and Greece, have been locked in a dispute over hydrocarbon exploration in the sea's disputed waters and the extent of their continental shelves.
Cyprus, which is divided between the Greek Cypriot-run south – an EU member state – and the Turkish Cypriot north, is at the center of the confrontation between the two sides.
Turkey has stationed tens of thousands of troops in the north of the island since 1974, which followed a coup engineered by military rulers in Greece. Provocative comments and steps by European politicians on regional matters would not help achieve a solution, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan was cited as saying by his office on Sunday.
"President Erdogan said the attitude shown by the EU in the eastern Mediterranean will be a test of sincerity from the perspective of international law and regional peace," the statement said.
"President Erdogan called on EU institutions and member countries to behave responsibly and remain just, impartial and objective on all regional issues, notably the eastern Mediterranean," it added.
European Council President Charles Michel had said on Friday that European Union leaders will decide on a "carrot and stick" approach to Turkey when they meet on September 24-25, proposing a conference to defuse tensions in the eastern Mediterranean.
Last month Turkey sent a seismic survey vessel for hydrocarbon exploration in disputed waters in the region after a maritime deal between Greece and Egypt.
According to data provided by the U.S. Geological Survey, the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean – which includes Syrian coasts – holds a reserve of 1.7 billion barrels of oil and 3.5 trillion cubic meters of natural gas.
In 2019, the total consumption of natural gas in Europe was 554.1 billion cubic meters, according to BP. Whoever controls the marine resources of the eastern Mediterranean could become a potential powerhouse among European countries. | Military Exercise | September 2020 | ['(CGTN)'] |
At least 36 people die during combat between the Transitional Federal Government and Islamist militants in Webho, Somalia. | At least 36 people were killed and dozens more wounded in the clashes in the town of Webho, according to local elders and medical sources. The fighting came after the Sufi Ahlu Sunnah Wal Jama sect pledged to defend President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed at a meeting of moderate Islamic leaders. A hardline Islamist alliance controls much of southern and central Somalia. Correspondents say the Sufi sect has been angered recently by the desecration of the graves of revered Sufi leaders by the al-Shabab group which follows the strict Saudi Arabian-inspired Wahabi branch of Islam. A spokesman for al-Shabab, which is accused of links to al-Qaeda, said its forces were in control of Webho - but this was denied by Ahlu Sunnah Wal Jama. The town has changed hands several times in recent weeks. President Ahmed is a moderate Islamist, who was installed in January after a UN-brokered peace deal. Somalia has not had a functioning national government for 18 years. | Armed Conflict | June 2009 | ['(BBC)'] |
At least 27 people, a majority of them children, are killed in a fire caused by an electrical problem at a boarding school in a suburb near the Liberian capital of Monrovia. | At least 27 people, many of them children, have been killed in a fire at a boarding school in a suburb of the Liberian capital Monrovia.
The fire is believed to have broken out in the early hours of the morning, when Koranic school students were sleeping in a building near their mosque. Police have told the BBC they are still looking for bodies in the building, in the Paynesville area.
President George Weah has visited the scene and expressed his condolences.
My prayers go out to the families of the children that died last night in Paynesville City; as a result of a deadly fire that engulfed their school building. This is a tough time for the families of the victims and all of Liberia. Deepest condolences go out to the bereaved
Police spokesman Moses Carter told Reuters news agency that the fire was caused by an electrical problem, but investigations are continuing.
Eyewitness Pastor Emmanuel Herbert told the BBC that he woke up to sounds of the fire and raised the alarm.
"When I looked through the window, I saw the whole place blazing with fire," he told the BBC.
But he said he could not get into the building because there was only one entrance, which was blocked.
Officials told AFP news agency that the victims were 10 years old and above.
By Jonathan Paye-Layleh, in Paynesville, Liberia
Hundreds of people stood in shock as Red Cross ambulances evacuated the bodies of the children from their boarding house in Paynesville, seven miles (11.3km) east of Monrovia. People wailed and wept.
So many curious onlookers had made their way to the scene that the police had to grapple with the crowd to make way for ambulances to pass through.
One of the visitors in the morning was President Weah. He was due to attend the funeral at mosque in Monrovia in the afternoon. The plan was for the burial to follow shortly after, in keeping with Islamic law which says a person must be buried as soon as possible after death, usually within 24 hours. Meanwhile, more people were still heading to the school half way through the day. | Fire | September 2019 | ['(BBC)'] |
Twin explosions in Idlib, Syria, kill 24 people and injure more than 20. | At least 24 people, including 16 civilians, were killed and more than 25 others were injured after two bomb-laden vehicles exploded on a busy street in Syria's northwestern Idlib city center during rush hour, reports said Monday.
Both explosions reportedly took place on Al-Qusoor Street, reports said. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the blasts killed 24 people. The Edlib Media Center, an activist collective, said the bombings killed 10 and wounded dozens.
Sixteen civilians, including four children, are among those killed, while the identities of four others remain unclear, said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Social media footage showed aid workers carrying away bodies and rescuing wounded civilians amid smoldering wreckage.
The first blast occurred in the early afternoon and another followed seconds later. While the first explosion did not cause major harm, the second one caused the death of a large number of people as well as other heavy damages. No group has claimed responsibility for the bombing as yet.
The opposition's Syrian Civil Defense, a group of volunteer first responders, said one of its members was wounded.
The Syrian Civil Defense group, which arrived at the scene of the incident as response units, noted that the second explosion resulted in numerous casualties as it took place near an area with many civilians.
The province of Idlib, which occupies most of the remaining area controlled by groups fighting against the Syrian regime, is largely controlled by al-Qaida-linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which has wide influence in northern Syria. The region falls within the de-escalation zone agreed as part of the Sochi Agreement reached on Sept. 17 by President Recep Tayyip Erdoan and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
According to the Sochi agreement, a cease-fire in the Idlib region will be preserved, with the withdrawal of heavy arms and radicals from the region. Prior to the agreement, the Assad regime was signaling a grand operation toward Idlib, sparking deep fears in the international community of a new humanitarian crisis.
The city has been hit with bombings in recent months that killed or wounded scores of people.
Alliance commanders say they hundreds of people have been rounded up for suspected links to Bashar al Assad's intelligence services or Daesh sleeper cells who they blame for some of the bombings.
They say the wave of blasts in the densely populated region, a haven for tens of thousands of civilians opposed to Assad's rule, aims to destabilize the last opposition bastion remaining after almost eight years of civil war.
Idlib, which borders Turkey, has also seen an escalation in artillery fire from the Syrian army and allied Iranian-backed militias on rebel-held towns, witnesses said.
Damascus has vowed to retake every last inch of Syria to cap a string of military gains in the last two years that have recovered almost all rebel-controlled regions with the key assistance of Russian air power. Russia is keen to help Assad regain the entire country, including eventually Idlib, but Tukey, which wants the Syrian leader to leave power, has so far successfully pushed back.
Last week President Vladimir Putin said Russia, Turkey and Iran had agreed to take unspecified extra steps to clear Idlib of what he called "a hotbed of terrorists," but the Kremlin said there would be no military operation there.
Yet the regime and its supporters have violated the agreement. Since the Sochi agreement in September, more than two dozen civilians have lost their lives in attacks by the regime with many injured.
Speaking on the issue last week, Erdoan said that it is important to make a distinction between the moderate opposition and terrorist organizations within the province, emphasizing the delicacy of the situation. "Our intelligence agency is also working on the issue," Erdoan said, adding that the Turkish military observation points in the region also have a key duty. "They will not give any chance to the terrorist organizations [to manipulate the situation in the region]," he said.
| Armed Conflict | February 2019 | ['(Daily Sabah)'] |
An explosion at a coal mine near Azadshahr, Iran, kills at least 35 miners and traps 39 others, according to state media. | The bodies of at least 21 miners trying to help colleagues trapped after an explosion in a coal mine in northern Iran have been recovered, state media has reported.
A local official in the area said that nearly 70 people were injured.
The officials said that those killed were miners in a tunnel trying to reach 32 miners trapped underground in the northern province of Golestan.
The mine blast is thought to have been caused by a gas leak.
Emergency crews are at work at the scene of the disaster, and have so far cleared about 600m (1,960ft) of the tunnel leading to the mine, officials say.
But there has so far been no news about the condition of the trapped miners.
They are believed to be at least 1,300m (4,265ft) underground at the Zemestan-Yurt mine, near Azadshahr.
The men are said to have limited space and to be in danger from volatile gasses. Earlier reports said that at least 50 miners were buried by the blast.
It remains unclear exactly how many miners are affected - with the authorities issuing different numbers throughout Wednesday.
Two people were reported to have been killed earlier on Wednesday, with 25 others wounded by the blast.
One emergency services spokesman said that 16 people had managed to escape.
There are some reports that the gas explosion may have been caused by someone attempting to start a lorry engine. President Hassan Rouhani meanwhile has been criticised by conservative rivals and the media for what they describe as his government's "slow response" to the disaster.
He has sent Labour Minister Ali Rabei to the scene. The incident could have political consequences for the government - coming less than a month before the 19 May presidential election in which Mr Rouhani is facing a strong challenge from conservative candidate Ebrahim Raisi.
The rescue operation has reportedly been hampered by concerns about gas in the tunnels.
Hamidreza Montazeri, deputy head of the provincial emergency services, told PressTV earlier on Wednesday that 25 people involved in the rescue had been taken for treatment after inhaling gas.
State media reported that the mine employed some 500 workers and that the explosion - which took place at about 12:45 (09:45 GMT) - happened during a change of shift.
Iran, which extracted 1.68 million tonnes of coal in 2016, mostly uses coal for domestic steel production rather than exporting it.
| Mine Collapses | May 2017 | ['(BBC)'] |
An Israeli air strike on Gaza City kills Hitham Maskhal, a well known Palestinian militant and injures another in the first such attack since the November ceasefire. Both suspected Palestinian militants were part of the militant group which fired rockets at the southern Israeli city of Eilat two weeks ago. | Haytham al-Mishal, 29, was hit while riding a motorcycle. At least one other person was reportedly also injured.
A militant group which fired rockets at the southern Israeli city of Eilat two weeks ago said Mishal had been one of its members. It is the first deadly air strike in Gaza since a ceasefire ended eight days of fighting between Israel and militants there in November.
The incident comes after a rise in violence across the Israeli-Gaza border in recent days. Militants have fired several rockets across the border into Israel and Israel has carried out air strikes, with neither causing injuries.
A spokesman for Hamas, which governs Gaza, said it considered the air strike and the killing of Mishal as "a serious violation of the ceasefire". An Israeli government official said the ceasefire was "based on mutual quiet". "Attacks on Israel from Gaza are a breach of the ceasefire and Israel cannot be expected not to act". The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said Mishal was a weapons expert who had made rockets and bombs for different militant groups.
It said Mishal had been involved in "extensive terror activity against Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers", including the attack on Eilat, a popular tourist destination on Israel's southern Red Sea coast.
In that incident, two rockets fired from the Egyptian Sinai by Gaza-based militants landed in open areas, without causing damage or injury.
The Mujahedeen Shura Council said Misshal had been one of its members.
In a statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: "Today, we took down one of those involved in the criminal act of firing rockets against the town of Eilat. I had said that we would not sit quietly while this happened, and this is a clear result of our policy."
Israel and militants in Gaza fought an eight-day war in November, which ended with both sides agreeing to desist from air strikes and rocket attacks. The truce has largely upheld since then, despite several incidents of cross-border fire.
| Armed Conflict | April 2013 | ['(BBC)'] |
Gregory and Travis McMichael are arrested for murder and aggravated assault in relation to the February shooting of an African American man in Brunswick, Georgia. | Two men have been arrested and charged with murder and aggravated assault for the February shooting of 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI).
Gregory McMichael, 64, and his son, Travis McMichael, 34, were arrested on Thursday evening and were booked into the Glynn County Jail.
"Based on our involvement in this case...within 36 hours we secured warrants, that speaks volumes for itself to the probable cause in this case," said GBI's Director Vic Reynolds at a press conference on Friday morning.
Cellphone video showing the moment Arbery was killed has prompted national outrage since surfacing online on Tuesday afternoon, but his mother said she can't bring herself to watch it.
"I don't think I'll ever be in a mental state where I can actually watch the video. I had others that watched it that shared what they saw and that just was enough," Wanda Cooper-Jones told ABC News in an interview that aired Thursday morning on "Good Morning America."
In the 28-second video, Arbery, who is black, can be seen jogging around a neighborhood just outside the port city of Brunswick on a sunny afternoon on February 23. The footage ends with three loud gunshots.
Gregory McMichael and Travis McMichael, who are both white, told police they grabbed their guns and hopped in their truck to pursue Arbery after seeing him running in their neighborhood, because they believed he was responsible for several recent burglaries. The father claimed his son got out of the truck holding a shotgun and was attacked by Arbery, according to a police report obtained by ABC News.
The two men tussled over the firearm before Arbery was shot, as seen in the cellphone video, which was allegedly taken by a bystander.
Two prosecutors recused themselves from investigating Arbery's murder citing conflicts of interest since Gregory McMichaels is a retired Glynn County police officer and investigator with Brunswick's district attorney's office.
Tom Durden, the district attorney for the Atlantic Judicial Circuit, was assigned the case in the middle of April by the state's attorney general. Durden brought in the GBI to investigate on Tuesday evening, Reynolds said.
The McMichaels were charged with felony murder and aggregated assault charges.
Reynolds said on Friday there will be no hate crime charges. "There is no hate crime in Georgia," Reynolds said, adding, "Georgia is one of I think four or five states left in the union that doesn't have any hate crime."
The GBI is also investigating who leaked the cellphone video onto social media and threats against the Glynn County Police Department.
Arbery, who lived in Brunswick, one town over from where the McMichaels reside, was pronounced dead at the scene by the Glynn County coroner. No weapons were found on him, according to the police report.
"I'm managing, it's really hard," Arbery's mother told ABC News Thursday. "It's really been hard."
"It’s outrageous that it has taken more than two months for Ahmaud Arbery’s executioners to be arrested, but better late than never," Ben Crump, an attorney representing the family, said in a statement. "This is the first step to justice. This murderous father and son duo took the law into their own hands."
Prior to the pair's arrest, Cooper-Jones told ABC News she believed authorities hadn't taken them into custody because Gregory McMichael had a lengthy career as an investigator in the Brunswick district attorney’s office before recently retiring.
"I think that they don't feel like he was wrong because he was one of them," she said.
After the video circulated on social media Tuesday, a large crowd of protesters marched through the neighborhood where Arbery was killed. The Georgia Bureau of Investigations announced Wednesday that it was opening its own probe into the Feb. 23 incident.
S. Lee Merritt, one of the attorneys representing Arbery's family, demanded answers Thursday morning and had asked for the immediate arrests of Gregory and Travis McMichael.
"Prosecutors will need a grand jury in order to formally indict these men, but that has nothing to do with actually going out and arresting the men seen on camera murdering a 25-year-old unarmed black man," Merritt told ABC News in an interview that aired Thursday on "GMA."
"The prosecutors actually have the option, if they so chose to, to directly indictment and skip the entire grand jury process," he added. "It's something that happens all the time in our legal system, and this would certainly be an appropriate moment."
The McMichaels' attorney did not immediately respond to ABC News' request for comment Wednesday, and the McMichaels themselves did not return phone calls.
Arbery would have turned 26 years old on Friday. Cooper-Jones described her late son as humble, kind, well-mannered and beloved by his family and peers. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Arrest | May 2020 | ['(ABC News)'] |
Anti-regime protests occur in the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq. | BAGHDAD - At least two protesters were killed Thursday when soldiers opened fire on stone-throwing demonstrators in the Kurdish city of Sulaymaniyah as the unrest triggered by turmoil elsewhere in the Middle East reached the normally placid enclave of Kurdistan in northern Iraq.
Forty-three people were injured when the Kurdish pesh merga fighters fired live ammunition at youths throwing stones at the headquarters of the region's dominant political party, the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP), witnesses said.
The shootings brought to five the number of deaths in two days of violent protests in Iraq, where long-standing grievances about inadequate services, unemployment and corruption have erupted on the streets, inspired at least in part by the successes of the recent revolts in Tunisia and Egypt.
Also Thursday, the premises of a local council were burned by a mob near the southern city of Nasiriyah, and there were demonstrations in the oil-rich cities of Basra in the south and Kirkuk in the north.
Protesters also took to the streets for a second day in Kut, about 60 miles southeast of Baghdad, where three people were shot dead by police Wednesday during protests targeting the headquarters of the provincial governor.
The violence in Sulaymaniyah came shortly after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announced that he had instructed the Iraqi security forces to act with restraint.
"It is prohibited for the security forces to use any kind of force against even one of the demonstrations," he told journalists. He also urged demonstrators not to set fire to buildings and to secure permission for their protests.
Maliki sought to portray himself as a supporter of the demonstrators and described their demands as "legitimate."
"We are especially happy when people take to the streets and talk, discuss and argue," he said, contrasting his government with that of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein. "Abusing me is better than their silence."
But it is clear that the unrest has rattled his newly formed government, which includes all the major political factions that competed in the March elections. Maliki has rushed to offer concessions to aggrieved Iraqis, including legislation slashing politicians' salaries and a promise not to seek a third term.
The unrest in Sulaymaniyah, however, was a bigger threat to the stability of the quasi-autonomous Kurdish region, which has long promoted itself as an oasis of tranquillity in an otherwise violent Iraq. Foreign investors have flocked there, and the economy is booming.
But the new prosperity has not been evenly distributed, and many Kurds resent the apparent accumulation of wealth by members of the KDP, headed by the region's president, Massoud Barzani.
The shootings immediately exacerbated tensions between the KDP and a new opposition movement called Change, which originated in Sulaymaniyah. In the regional capital, Irbil, and at least two other KDP strongholds, mobs attacked and burned Change offices.
The Sulaymaniyah demonstration was organized by independent activists and initially was peaceful. But after most of the protesters dispersed, a smaller, breakaway group marched to the KDP headquarters and began throwing stones, witnesses said.
Farhad Omar, head of the emergency department at Sulaymaniyah Hospital, confirmed that two bodies had been brought to the emergency room and that 43 people were hospitalized with gunshot wounds, six of them in critical condition.
Two hours later, a car bomb killed 13 people and injured more than 50 in the Muqdadiyah area of Diyala province, according to police spokesman Lt. Col. Ghaleb Attiyah. The attack illustrated the potential for the growing unrest to become entangled in the insurgency that still kills Iraqis daily.
| Protest_Online Condemnation | February 2011 | ['(Al Jazeera)', '(Press TV)', '(The Washington Post)'] |
Former Estonian Police Chief Herman Simm is jailed for 12.5 years for selling classified information on NATO to Russia. | A former Estonian defence ministry official who sold Nato secrets to Russia has been sent to jail for 12 and a half years after a closed trial.
Herman Simm, a former head of security, pleaded guilty to treason on Wednesday. The court where he was tried did not reveal which country he spied for, but investigators said Mr Simm passed nearly 3,000 documents to Russia. They said he received 1.3m kroons (£73,000; $106,000) for the data. The Kremlin denied any involvement. Nato made no comment, but the case, which is Estonia's biggest spy scandal since the Cold War, is seen as an embarrassment for the former Soviet state. Estonia joined Nato in 2004, angering Russia. 'Russian contacts'
Investigators said Mr Simm, who used to be Estonia's police chief, had been working for the Russian intelligence service (known as SVR) since 1995, when he joined the Estonian defence ministry. He became head of security at the ministry in 2000, handling classified information regarding Nato's communications and surveillance systems. The investigators added Mr Simm met his SVR handlers, named as Valery Zemtsov and Sergei Yakovlev, three or four times a year in different European countries. Mr Simm, 61, was arrested last September. An international arrest warrant has been issued for Mr Yakovlev, who also uses a fake Portuguese identity. Jaanus Rahumagi, the head of the Estonian parliament's security affairs committee, said: "I believe Simm was happy to be involved with such a big game. He liked to be undercover and secretive." Mr Simm, who co-operated with the investigation, has been ordered to pay 20.2m kroons in damages to the Estonian defence ministry. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Sentence | February 2009 | ['(BBC)'] |
Entertainer Bill Cosby, in an appearance with Jesse Jackson, criticizes the African American community, saying illiterate blacks are "going nowhere" and advising unemployed black men to "stop beating up your women". | CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- Bill Cosby went off on another tirade against the black community Thursday, telling a room full of activists that black children are running around not knowing how to read or write and "going nowhere."
He also had harsh words for struggling black men, telling them: "Stop beating up your women because you can't find a job."
Cosby made headlines in May when he upbraided some poor blacks for their grammar and accused them of squandering opportunities the civil rights movement gave them. He shot back Thursday, saying his detractors were trying in vain to hide the black community's "dirty laundry."
"Let me tell you something, your dirty laundry gets out of school at 2:30 every day, it's cursing and calling each other n------ as they're walking up and down the street," Cosby said during an appearance at the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition & Citizenship Education Fund's annual conference.
"They think they're hip," the entertainer said. "They can't read; they can't write. They're laughing and giggling, and they're going nowhere."
In his remarks in May at a commemoration of the anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education desegregation decision, Cosby denounced some blacks' grammar and said those who commit crimes and wind up behind bars "are not political prisoners."
"I can't even talk the way these people talk, 'Why you ain't,' 'Where you is' ... and I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk," Cosby said then. "And then I heard the father talk ... Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth."
Cosby elaborated Thursday on his previous comments in a talk interrupted several times by applause. He castigated some blacks, saying that they cannot simply blame whites for problems such as teen pregnancy and high school dropout rates.
"For me there is a time ... when we have to turn the mirror around," he said. "Because for me it is almost analgesic to talk about what the white man is doing against us. And it keeps a person frozen in their seat, it keeps you frozen in your hole you're sitting in."
Cosby lamented that the racial slurs once used by those who lynched blacks are now a favorite expression of black children. And he blamed parents.
"When you put on a record and that record is yelling 'n----- this and n----- that' and you've got your little 6-year-old, 7-year-old sitting in the back seat of the car, those children hear that," he said.
He also condemned black men who missed out on opportunities and are now angry about their lives.
"You've got to stop beating up your women because you can't find a job, because you didn't want to get an education and now you're (earning) minimum wage," Cosby said. "You should have thought more of yourself when you were in high school, when you had an opportunity."
Cosby appeared Thursday with the Rev. Jesse Jackson, founder and president of the education fund, who defended the entertainer's statements.
"Bill is saying let's fight the right fight, let's level the playing field," Jackson said. "Drunk people can't do that. Illiterate people can't do that."
Cosby also said many young people are failing to honor the sacrifices made by those who struggled and died during the civil rights movement.
"Dogs, water hoses that tear the bark off trees, Emmett Till," he said, naming the black youth who was tortured and murdered in Mississippi in 1955, allegedly for whistling at a white woman. "And you're going to tell me you're going to drop out of school? You're going to tell me you're going to steal from a store?"
Cosby also said he wasn't concerned that some whites took his comments and turned them "against our people." | Famous Person - Give a speech | July 2004 | ['(CNN/archive.org)'] |
Whiting Petroleum Corporation declares bankruptcy. Whiting was once the largest oil producer in the Bakken shale region. | (Reuters) - Whiting Petroleum Corp filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the U.S. shale producer said on Wednesday, the first publicly traded casualty of crashing crude oil prices that are expected to bite into record U.S. output.
Whiting was once the largest oil producer in North Dakota, now the second-biggest oil-producing state in the country. It has agreed with creditors to cut its debt by about $2.2 billion through an exchange of some of its notes for 97% of new equity. Existing shareholders will own 3% of the reorganized company.
Notably, Whiting said in a regulatory filing that on March 26, in response to the circumstances affecting the oil industry, it revised its compensation program to pay out more than $13 million bonuses to several executives, including $6.4 million to CEO Brad Holly.
Numerous shale oil and gas producers, faced with burdensome debt loads, have cut spending aggressively as oil prices have plunged by about two-thirds this year with the coronavirus pandemic slamming fuel demand and Russia and Saudi Arabia flooding markets with extra crude.
A U.S. drilling boom over the last three years lifted national oil production to a record of roughly 13 million barrels per day, but investors have grown frustrated with poor returns. Callon Petroleum and other companies have hired advisors to restructure debt.
Shares of Whiting fell 32 cents, or 47%, to 36 cents each on Tuesday.
The company’s market valuation has shrunk to $32 million from as much as $15 billion at its peak in 2011, when investors were discovering the burgeoning shale sector. As of Dec. 31, Whiting had $2.8 billion in debt and more than $585 million in cash on its balance sheet.
Whiting is among the most shorted oil and gas stocks, with more than 60% of its outstanding shares borrowed for short selling, according to FIS Astec Analytics data.
Analysts believe the energy sector is primed for more defaults in coming months. Whiting’s bankruptcy brings the trailing 12-month high-yield energy default rate to more than 11%, and the year-end figure could ultimately surpass the 19.7% level set in January 2017, according to Fitch Ratings.
Energy producers Chesapeake Energy Corp and Chaparral Energy Inc as well as natural gas producer Gulfport Energy Corp are working with debt restructuring advisers or investment banks to shore up cash reserves.
SunTrust Robinson Humphrey analyst Neal Dingmann said filing for bankruptcy “was more of a temporary solution than a long-term sustainable plan.”
“We believe this financial demise was due to a combination of difficult macro conditions combined with sub-par operations for several quarters,” Dingmann said.
The company was also hampered by debt after purchasing rival Kodiak Oil & gas in mid-2014, just before shale’s 2015-2016 crash, for $6 billion, which included $2.2 billion in debt.
Whiting was expected to produce about 42 million barrels of oil equivalent in 2020. It said it would continue to operate without material disruption to vendors, partners or employees.
Moelis & Co is Whiting’s financial adviser, while Alvarez & Marsal is its restructuring adviser. PJT Partners is acting as financial adviser for creditors.
| Organization Closed | April 2020 | ['(Reuters)'] |
John F. Kelly is selected as Secretary of Homeland Security. | President-elect Donald Trump has chosen retired Marine Gen. John F. Kelly to run the Department of Homeland Security, turning to a blunt-spoken border-security hawk who clashed with the Obama administration over women in combat and plans to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, according to people familiar with the decision.
Kelly, who retired in February as chief of the U.S. Southern Command, would inherit a massive and often troubled department responsible for overseeing perhaps the most controversial part of Trump’s agenda: his proposed crackdown on illegal immigration. DHS is the third-largest Cabinet department, with more than 240,000 employees whose jobs include fighting terrorism, protecting the president and enforcing immigration laws.
[What Trump may not know about the generals he’s eyeing for top positions] Kelly, 66, is a widely respected military officer who served for more than 40 years, and he is not expected to face difficulty winning Senate confirmation. Trump’s team was drawn to him because of his Southwest border expertise, people familiar with the transition said. Like the president-elect, Kelly has sounded the alarm about drugs, terrorism and other cross-border threats that he sees as emanating from Mexico and Central and South America.
Yet Kelly’s nomination could raise questions about what critics see as Trump’s tendency to surround himself with too many military figures. Trump has also selected retired Marine Gen. James N. Mattis for defense secretary and retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn as national security adviser, while retired Army Gen. David H. Petraeus is under consideration for secretary of state.
Kelly, a Boston native, was chosen over an array of other candidates who also met with Trump after his election victory last month. Those in contention included Frances Townsend, a top homeland security and counterterrorism official in the George W. Bush administration; Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke; and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach. Clarke and Kobach are vocal Trump backers, and Kobach is nationally known for his strong views on restricting illegal immigration.
[Trump picks Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad as ambassador to China] Trump’s selection of Kelly for DHS was first reported by CBS News. The Washington Post reported last month that he was the leading candidate for the job.
In the end, people familiar with the transition said, the choice came down to Kelly and Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. McCaul was considered an early favorite, but his chances were hurt by opposition from some conservatives who found him insufficiently tough on border security, the people said.
Known inside the Pentagon as a thoughtful man who continued serving his country even after his son was killed in combat, Kelly has talked in stark terms — much like Trump — about the threats the United States faces in the Middle East and beyond. In speeches, he has expressed frustration with what he calls the “bureaucrats” in Washington, and he described the military’s counterterrorism operations abroad as a war against a “savage” enemy who would gladly launch more deadly attacks.
“Given the opportunity to do another 9/11, our vicious enemy would do it today, tomorrow and everyday thereafter,” Kelly said in a 2013 Memorial Day address in Texas. “I don’t know why they hate us, and I frankly don’t care, but they do hate us and are driven irrationally to our destruction.”
His blunt manner led to conflicts within the Obama administration, where he served more than three years as Southern Command chief — overseeing military operations across Central and South America — and as senior military adviser to Defense Secretaries Robert M. Gates and Leon E. Panetta.
Kelly opposed Obama’s failed plans to close Guantanamo, people familiar with his views said, and he has strongly defended how the military handles detainees. In a 2014 interview, he told The Washington Post that criticism of their treatment by human rights groups and others was “foolishness.’’
He also publicly expressed concerns over the Pentagon’s order in December that opened all jobs in combat units to women, including the most elite forces such as the Navy SEALs. “They’re saying we are not going to change any standards,” Kelly told reporters at the Pentagon. “There will be great pressure, whether it’s 12 months from now, four years from now, because the question will be asked whether we’ve let women into these other roles, why aren’t they staying in those other roles?’’
[What Obama’s executive actions mean for President Trump] On the personal side, Kelly learned firsthand the pain and loss suffered by many military families. His son, 2nd Lt. Robert M. Kelly, died in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban in 2010. Four days later, the general delivered a passionate and at times angry speech about the military’s sacrifices and its troops’ growing sense of isolation from society.
“Their struggle is your struggle,” he told a crowd of former Marines and business people in St. Louis. “If anyone thinks you can somehow thank them for their service, and not support the cause for which they fight — our country — these people are lying to themselves. . . . More important, they are slighting our warriors and mocking their commitment to this nation.”
He never mentioned his son by name. The speech has been passed around the Internet ever since.
As DHS secretary, Kelly would take on what is considered to be one of Washington’s most challenging jobs, in part because of the agency’s persistent management problems and employee morale that is among the federal government’s lowest.
Although DHS was created after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks primarily to coordinate the battle against terrorism, it is now perhaps equally known for its immigration role. Trump has pledged a crackdown on illegal immigration that would require an expensive and logistically difficult operation to remove millions of people from the country.
That work would be overseen by DHS components such as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which Trump has proposed to beef up by tripling the number of agents. And U.S. Customs and Border Protection, also part of DHS, is likely to come under increased pressure in the Trump administration to better secure the Southwest border.
Perhaps Kelly’s most visible role would be to help oversee Trump’s signature campaign promise: a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border to keep out illegal immigrants. Trump has said the construction would be easy, but experts say the structure would face numerous obstacles, such as environmental and engineering problems and fights with ranchers and others who would resist giving up their land.
Trump and his homeland security secretary appear to be in sync on cross-border threats.
[Trump takes advice from Obama, but not responsibility for U.S. divisions] In congressional testimony last year, Kelly said the Southern Command was “just barely” able to keep on the “pilot light of U.S. military engagement” in the border region, and he warned that existing smuggling routes into the United States could be used by terrorist groups.
“Despite the heroic efforts of our law-enforcement colleagues, criminal organizations are constantly adapting their methods for trafficking across our borders,” Kelly told the Senate Armed Services Committee. “While there is not yet any indication that the criminal networks involved in human and drug trafficking are interested in supporting the efforts of terrorist groups, these networks could unwittingly, or even wittingly, facilitate the movement of terrorist operatives or weapons of mass destruction toward our borders.’’
But Kelly’s thoughts on other controversial issues have been markedly more measured than Trump’s. While the president-elect once called for a ban on all Muslims entering the United States, Kelly has said U.S. troops “respect and even fight for the right of your neighbor to venerate any God he or she damn well pleases.”
He also has stressed the importance of enforcing human rights and has told Latin American military commanders that they revert to the past when they overthrow civilian leaders with whom they disagree.
“Since 1945, no one in the U.S. military has liked the end result of the military conflicts we’ve been in: Vietnam, Korea, certainly Iraq, and probably Afghanistan,” Kelly said in a 2015 discussion at the Pacific Council on International Policy. “But in a democracy, you salute. You suck it up. . . . You cannot act.’’
Earlier in his career, Kelly served as the assistant commander of the 1st Marine Division under Mattis during the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003. He returned there again in 2004, and a third time in 2008, when he was named the top U.S. commander in western Iraq. Before becoming a general, Kelly served as a special assistant to NATO’s supreme allied commander for Europe, working from Belgium. Read more: Homeland Security finally shows employee morale improvement, though still rates low Donald Trump plans to immediately deport 2 million to 3 million undocumented immigrants One of Trump’s policies could spark a boom in immigration from Mexico
| Government Job change - Appoint_Inauguration | December 2016 | ['(The Washington Post)'] |
One person is killed and five are injured during a shooting in an office building in Orlando, Florida, USA. , | ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - An ex-employee of an engineering consulting firm who was laid off in 2007 opened fire at his former workplace in Orlando, Florida, on Friday, killing one person and wounding five others, police said.
The suspected gunman, who caused panic for several hours at the Gateway Center building in downtown Orlando, was arrested at his mother’s home after fleeing the scene, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer and Police Chief Val Demings told reporters.
Police named the suspect as 40-year-old Jason Rodriguez, who had worked for 11 months as an engineer at the Orlando office of the Reynolds, Smith & Hill consulting company before being laid off for “deficient” performance, a company spokesman said.
CNN showed footage of Rodriguez being led away in handcuffs and said he replied “They left me to rot”, when asked by reporters why he had opened fire.
The shooting occurred a day after a mass shooting at a U.S. army base in Texas which killed 13 people.
| Armed Conflict | November 2009 | ['(CNN)', '(Reuters)'] |
Category 3 Cyclone Cook hits Grand Terre, the main island of New Caledonia. | A powerful cyclone that hit New Caledonia late on Monday has moved offshore, allowing authorities to lift warnings on the French South Pacific territory.
Four people received minor injuries in the storm and a search is being conducted for missing people, New Caledonia's Civil Defence and Risk Management agency said in a statement. According to Radio NZ, a 73-year-old has been found dead.
Resident Gael Toukio said electricity and telephone services had been cut as Cyclone Cook came ashore.
"Every gust of wind made my house tremble," Toukio said by text message from the capital city of Noumea.
The main island was hit by winds of up to 180kmh and more than 400mm of rain on Monday, the meteorological service said in a statement.
At least 4 injured as Tropical Cyclone Cook makes landfall on the main island of New Caledonia. *Tropical Cyclone Cook set to hit Pacific Islands, NZ could be next * Cyclone Cook set to hammer Pacific, could bring further floods to NZ
Roads were blocked by uprooted coconut trees and conditions brought a halt to the country's large nickel mining industry.
The bureau lifted a general warning on Tuesday, while the Civil Defence agency said around 70,000 people were without electricity.
Vale suspended nickel operations and evacuated staff on Monday. It is restarting on Tuesday, a spokesman said.
The New Caledonia weather bureau said the weather system - which peaked at a category-three event - has since weakened.
TVNZ reported that a New Zealander was stranded in New Caledonia after an Air New Zealand flight was cancelled.
An Air Calin flight from Noumea due to arrive in Auckland at 12.35pm on Tuesday and the return flight, due to depart at 2.30pm, werecancelled.
Cook hit the main island at almost the same time as high tide, with floods, and waves as tall as 10 metres forecast by weather authorities.
"The threat to New Caledonia is very serious," the meteorological service said in a cyclone alert.
The storm hit land late on Monday afternoon as a Category Three storm, said Virgil Cavarero, a forecaster at Meteo New Caledonia, below the destructive Category 4 predicted earlier, which would have been a level off the most dangerous wind speed.
Eyes now turn to New Zealand as the tracking system could bring heavy rain, high surf and gusty winds later in the week, along with renewed flooding concerns following the aftermath of Cyclone Debbie last week.
The North Island's flood-stricken regions were bracing for heavy rain thanks to a low from the Tasman Sea, and the tropical cyclone could make matters worse.
MetService meteorologist Lisa Murray said Tropical Cyclone Cook could affect New Zealand later in the week adding to the low that will move across the country from Tuesday.
Cook developed into a tropical cyclone while crossing the islands of southern Vanuatu on Saturday | Hurricanes_Tornado_Storm_Blizzard | April 2017 | ['(ABC)', '(Stuff.co.nz)'] |
A South African court sentences Oscar Pistorius to five years in prison for killing his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. , | Both sides presented their closing arguments on Friday at sentencing proceedings at high court in Pretoria for the paralympian, who was convicted of culpable homicide for the Valentine’s Day 2013 shooting of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.
Thanking both sides for their “assistance”, Judge Thokozile Masipa scheduled sentencing for Tuesday October 21.
State prosecutor Gerrie Nel called for Pistorius to receive a minimum 10-year prison sentence for the killing.
Slapping down claims from the defence that the “broken” athlete had already suffered enough, Nel said “the minimum that society will be happy with is 10 years’ imprisonment.”
If Pistorius had acted like a reasonable person, Steenkamp would still be alive, he said.
If he had asked Steenkamp when he heard a noise from his bathroom, “did you hear something?”, or if he had established whether she had heard him before went to the bathroom, gun in hand, she would still be alive.
“If he wasn’t negligent, or over-hasty, she would still be alive,” Nel said.
‘Blood money’Nel previously accused Pistorius of trying to influence his sentence by giving money to Steenkamp’s parents, and questioned why an offer was made between judgment and sentencing proceedings.
“If I heard that after this case was finalised Mr Pistorius donated money … it would be different,” he said.
It emerged in court this week that Pistorius offered Barry and June Steenkamp R375 000 and made monthly payments of R6 000 between March 2013 and September this year. June Steenkamp had rejected the lump sum offered as “blood money”, said Nel, and would pay back the R6 000-a-month payments.
Using disability as an excuseNel argued Pistorius had tried to use his disability as an excuse for not going to prison. “I find it disturbing that a man with a disability, that competed with able-body athletes would now shamelessly use this as an argument,” he said.
Nel said social worker and probation officer Annette Vergeer had testified for the defence that prison facilities could not cater for Pistorius’s disability because of slippery floors and no shower railings – yet the shower at the athlete’s home had no railings.
Nel said Steenkamp’s cousin Kim Martin’s testimony had painted a picture of a family that still could not cope with the loss of a daughter.
“They will never be able to cope,” continued Nel, who said Martin reflected the voice of society. “Every other mother who heard her evidence felt the pain, I felt the pain.”
‘Wrongly labelled’Arguing he should be kept out of prison, defence lawyer Barry Roux said he had been wrongly labelled in the media as a cold-blooded murderer.
“Let people understand that the initial understanding of a cold-blooded murder was not correct,” said Roux. “We have a vulnerable person that used excessive force … He never ever entertained the thought that the deceased was in the toilet … he thought she was in the bedroom.”
He said he understood from evidence given by acting national commissioner of correctional services Zach Modise that if Pistorius was sent to jail, he would go into the hospital section.
“It can never be a suitable punishment by locking a person up in hospital. Is there really a dominating factor to lock him up?” he asked.
The pain caused by the death of Steenkamp at his hands was far worse than any punishment for the athlete, Roux said.
“Of course when you caused the death [of a loved one] by negligence … there is the grief of the loss, there is something far worse. There is that excruciating pain that you caused that death,” he said.
He said Pistorius disclosed his version in his bail application because he wanted to tell his story early on and not later so people would think he made up a story.
‘Lost everything’His payments to the Steenkamps were to show he wanted to do more to make up for his crime, Roux said.
Pistorius had lost everything as a result of the crime and was now broke, revealed Roux.”He was on the rise. He’s lost his immovable property. He’s lost his moveable property. He’s lost his sponsors. It’s a person that’s down and out. He’s broke.”
He said Pistorius acted negligently when he shot four shots into the door but that his frame of mind should be taken into account because it was a “compromised person” acting.
Roux said that the spirit of Ubuntu should be taken into account when sentencing the athlethe. The basic principle of Ubuntu was to do something good in society, coupled with an apology, to pay back society and the victim.
The test for sentencing should be what is in the interest of society, Roux said.
CrimesPistorius was convicted of culpable homicide for killing Steenkamp in his Pretoria townhouse, and even though he was on trial for premeditated murder, the court found him not guilty on this charge.
Pistorius shot Steenkamp through the locked door of the toilet, apparently thinking she was an intruder about to emerge and attack him. She was hit in the hip, arm, and head.
Pistorius was found guilty of firing a pistol under a table at Tasha’s restaurant in Johannesburg in January 2013. He was found not guilty of shooting through the open sunroof of a car in Modderfontein on September 30 2012, and of illegal possession of ammunition.
In South African law, culpable homicide is considered to be the killing of a human being through negligence, as opposed to intention.
Sentencing options are broad, ranging from being fined, to receiving a suspended sentence or being placed under correctional supervision such as house arrest.
Imprisonment is not mandatory but jail time of up to 15 years can be stipulated in the sentence. – Sapa, Staff reporter
Thanks for enjoying the Mail & Guardian, we’re proud of our 36 year history, throughout which we have delivered to readers the most important, unbiased stories in South Africa. Good journalism costs, though, and right from our very first edition we’ve relied on reader subscriptions to protect our independence. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Sentence | October 2014 | ['(Mail and Guardian)', '(NBC)'] |
Anders Behring Breivik, a convicted mass murderer in the 2011 Norway attacks, wins a human rights case against the government of Norway. | Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik has won part of a human rights case against the Norwegian state.
The court upheld his claim that some of his treatment amounted to "inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment".
After the judgement, Breivik's lawyer, Oystein Storrvik, called for his solitary confinement to be repealed.
Breivik, a right-wing extremist, killed 69 people at a summer camp for young centre-left political activists on the island of Utoeya in July 2011.
Earlier that day, he set off a car bomb in the capital, Oslo, killing eight people. In her ruling, judge Helen Andenaes Sekulic said the right not to be subjected to inhuman treatment represented "a fundamental value in a democratic society" and also applied to "terrorists and killers".
Breivik had challenged the government over his solitary confinement, which saw him kept alone in his cell for 22 to 23 hours a day, denied contact with other inmates and only communicating with prison staff through a thick glass barrier.
His prison regime deviated so markedly from that enforced upon any other prisoner in Norway, regardless of the severity of their crimes, that it had to be considered an extra punishment, the judge said.
However, article three of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) required that prisoners be detained in conditions that did not exceed the unavoidable level of suffering inherent in detention, given the practical requirements of the particular case, she said.
The prison authorities had also not done enough to counteract the damage he had suffered from being in isolation, she said.
Judge Sekulic also noted that Breivik had been woken up every half hour at night over a long period of time and on some occasions subjected to strip searches with female officers present, which he found particularly difficult.
"Taken together with the other stringent restrictions which he was subject, this was regarded as degrading treatment in the Convention sense," said the judge, Norwegian national broadcaster NRK reported.
State lawyer Marius Emberland said the government was surprised by the verdict but had not decided whether to appeal.
If neither side appeals within four weeks, the prison is obliged to make Breivik's regime more lenient in line with the judge's remarks, NRK reported.
The prison must work to bring in other prisoners and "facilitate a community", the judge said.
However, the judge ruled that strict controls on Breivik's correspondence were justified and his right to a private and family life under article eight of the ECHR had not been violated.
The court also ordered the Norwegian state to pay Breivik's legal costs of 330,000 kroner ($40,000; 28,000).
Eskil Pedersen, a survivor of the shootings on Utoeya island, said he was "surprised, and then angry and upset" by the ruling.
"It was like being punched in the gut that the perpetrator won such a public victory," he told NRK.
Another survivor, Bjorn Ihler, tweeted that the judgement in Breivik's favour showed Norway had a "working court system, respecting human rights even under extreme conditions".
Lisbeth Kristine Roeyneland, who runs a support group for the victims' families, told NRK she was surprised and "a little disappointed", but also relieved that the ruling prevented him making contact with other extremists.
| Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | April 2016 | ['(BBC)'] |
Close to 8,000 protesters rally in Hamilton, Ontario to support workers locked out from Stelco after disagreeing against pension changes made by U.S. Steel. Analysts predict that similar protests may spread across the country. | As Dennis Van Meer sees it, thousands of protesters that jammed downtown Hamilton on Saturday sent a charged message.
"This brought public awareness about these pensions," said Van Meer. "And that they're not for sale.
"And corporations also have to live up to the Investment Canada Act when they buy a Canadian company."
"It was a fantastic turnout of what I'd say is probably 7,000 to 8,000," added the 45-year-old, one of at least 200 from Niagara to attend the Hamilton Day of Action.
Others at the scene pegged the total at 10,000 people or more.
Van Meer, a St. Catharines resident and United Steelworkers member, is also among those locked out at U.S. Steel in Hamilton— one of several reasons for the protest.
Three buses left from CAW Hall on Bunting Rd. on Saturday and many others from Niagara drove down to the Steel City.
The mass demonstration was organized by the Ontario Federation of Labour.
Its theme was the condemnation of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's foreign investment policies and the actions of foreign-owned companies that cut jobs and benefits of Canadian-owned companies they take over.
In this case, the particular target is U.S. Steel, which bought Hamilton's Stelco in August 2007.
The company is criticized by union officials for reducing its workforce by 2,200 employees from 3,100 since the purchase.
Protestors are also angry at the company changing its pension plan and locking out its remaining 900 workers in November.
It's the first lock out in the union's 65-year history.
Ontario Federation of Labour President Sid Ryan said Saturday's protest, which started at Hamilton City Hall, was expected to be among the largest labour demonstrations since Harper was elected in 2006.
"We're on the cusp of a federal election and we'll be sending Harper a signal to take to Conservatives across the country," Ryan said previously.
"We're fighting to say no to foreign acquisitions of Canadian companies without protection of Canadian workers."
"Workers have been beaten down for too long and workers are frightened of losing their jobs. We want a different future for ourselves and for our children," Ryan said.
He said union workers and supporters are angered by U.S. Steel's failure to live up to its employment obligations and steel production targets, which was part of the original deal made with the Canadian government to secure the purchase of Stelco.
"Considering how cold it was today, the turnout was very good," said Bruce Allen, who coordinated the Canadian Auto Workers Local 199 convoy, and spoke after the protest.
Many other Niagara unions and groups were represented, including the Canadian Union of Public Employees and the Niagara Regional Labour Council.
"This was a pretty cohesive crowd in terms of what people were thinking and what their priorities are," said Allen, vice-president of CAW Local 199 and the Labour Council.
"People really identify with the issues in this lockout.
"But it's going to take a lot more than this for these (locked-out) guys to hold out and protect their pensions."
Topic guidelines: We welcome your thoughts, stories and information related to this article.
Please stay on topic and be respectful of others. Keep the conversation appropriate for interested readers. | Protest_Online Condemnation | January 2011 | ['(CTV)', '(Niagara Falls Review)'] |
Tajikistan President Emomali Rahmonov began a state visit to India. | Tajik President Emomali Sharifovich Rahmonov will arrive in the capital today on a five-day State visit, two days after the two countries agreed to jointly combat terrorism.
The Tajikistan President will hold talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and other Indian leaders on issues including energy cooperation and counter-terrorism.
Beginning his State visit on Monday with a ceremonial reception at Rashtrapati Bhavan, Rahmonov will be in the capital till Tuesday and then travel to Jaipur and Hyderabad.
He will meet Dr Singh Monday morning, followed by delegation-level talks between the two countries.
The two countries will also sign several agreements for stepping up bilateral cooperation.
This will be followed by a business meeting organized by the CII, FICCI and ASSOCHAM.
Vice President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat and UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi will call on him on Sunday evening.
He will also meet former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee at the latter's Krishna Menon Marg residence and will later call on President A P J Abdul Kalam who will host a banquet in his honour.
On Tuesday, the visiting President will give an address at the Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA) on 'Tajikistan and the Vision of Central Asia'. In the afternoon he will leave for Jaipur and later to Hyderabad. | Diplomatic Visit | August 2006 | ['(IRNA)'] |
Gunmen kill at least twenty students at a hostel away from the Federal Polytechnic campus in the northeastern Nigerian town of Mubi. | Some 25 people, mostly students, have been killed by unknown gunmen in Mubi, north-eastern Nigeria, police say.
Twenty-two of the dead were students whom attackers had called out by name, a police spokesman told the BBC.
A local resident said at least 40 people had been shot dead or stabbed. The killings come days after a major operation against the Boko Haram militant group in the town, while others have linked them to a dispute over student union elections.
Rivalries over student elections have turned violent before but have never reached this level, says the BBC's Nigeria correspondent Will Ross.
Mobile phone masts in the area were recently attacked by Boko Haram militants, so getting information from Mubi is difficult, adds our correspondent.
Investigations were under way, said Adamawa state police spokesman Mohammed Ibrahim, who had just visited the scene, adding that the motive for the attack was not yet clear. But he said the attackers had inside knowledge: "The attackers called the victims by name and killed them."
Two of the dead were security guards and the other an elderly resident, said Mr Ibrahim.
One resident who did not want his name to be used, told the BBC's Hausa service that men in military uniform went to a hall of residence away from the Federal Polytechnic Mubi campus just before midnight, got the students out of their rooms and ordered them to say their names. Some were then shot dead and others stabbed with knives, and their bodies left in lines outside the buildings. He said it was not clear why some were killed and others spared - some of the dead were Muslim while others were Christian.
"Everybody is scared," he said, adding that the shooting lasted for about two hours.
He added that students were now leaving the town, many with tree branches over their cars - a traditional sign of neutrality in Nigeria.
The authorities have imposed an indefinite curfew in the town and ordered residents to stay indoors. The university has been temporarily closed.
Last week, the Nigerian military carried out an operation in Mubi and arrested dozens of people over suspected links to Boko Haram. Mubi is in Adamawa state, which has a mixed Muslim and Christian population and borders Borno state, where Boko Haram came to prominence in 2009, staging an uprising in the state capital, Maiduguri.
Boko Haram has not yet commented on the Mubi attacks.
It is fighting to establish Islamic law in Nigeria and has killed more than 1,000 people in numerous attacks across northern and central areas this year. | Armed Conflict | October 2012 | ['(BBC)'] |
Kurdish forces, supported by U.S. airstrikes, retake control of the Mosul Dam after its capture by IS militants. | Kurdish forces in northern Iraq are in near complete control of Iraq's largest dam after ousting Islamic State (IS) militants, Kurdish officials say.
Ground forces supported by US air strikes launched the operation to take Mosul dam on Sunday morning.
Kurdish sources said they were still trying to clear mines and booby traps from the area round the dam, a process which could take several hours.
The strategically important facility was seized by IS militants on 7 August.
It supplies water and electricity to northern Iraq and there had been fears the IS militants could use it to flood areas downstream. IS, formerly known as Isis, has seized a swathe of territory in recent months in Iraq and Syria.
If the recapture of the dam is confirmed, it will be the biggest reverse for IS since they launched their offensive in Iraq in June.
The US said it had destroyed or damaged 19 vehicles belonging to IS militants as well as a checkpoint in strikes round the dam on Sunday.
Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurd who until last month was Iraq's foreign minister, told the BBC that Peshmerga troops had encountered "fierce resistance" in the battle for the dam.
He said the next objective was to clear IS fighters from the Nineveh plain "to ensure the return of minorities". Thousands of Christians and Yazidis have fled their homes there in the face of the IS advance. The past 48 hours have seen some significant developments in the growing push-back against the jihadist forces of Islamic State. With no air force of its own, Islamic State has found its newly acquired vehicles and military hardware to be vulnerable to precision missile strikes by US aircraft. It's now moving them into residential areas.
At the same time but without any apparent coordination, Syria has also reportedly carried out air strikes on Islamic State militants around their base in Raqqa. This could be a cynical move by President Assad to try to show he is on the same side as the Americans against extremism.
Then thirdly, in Iraq's Anbar province there are reports that Sunni tribesmen are once more moving against the jihadists, in the same way as they did in 2007.
However, it will take far more than this to unravel the enormous recent gains Islamic State has made across so much of the Middle East.
US special forces were on the ground helping to co-ordinate air strikes, Kurdish officials said.
Ali Awni, an official from Iraq's main Kurdish party, told AFP news agency that fighting was now taking place in the nearby Tal Kayf area.
An unnamed Peshmerga officer explained the importance of the dam for AP news agency: "It is very important for the life in this area, for drinking water, for agriculture and other things. "The other important thing, which is more important, is that if ISIS [IS] blows up this dam, then Mosul, Baghdad and other places will be damaged and will no longer exist." While US aircraft support the battle against IS militarily, Western states have been airlifting humanitarian aid to refugees, many of whom have found shelter in the Kurdish region. IS militants have been accused of massacring hundreds of people in areas under their control in northern Iraq and eastern Syria.
At least 80 men from the Yazidi religious minority are believed to have been killed, and women and children abducted, in a village in Iraq on Friday.
IS is also accused of killing 700 tribesmen opposing them in Syria's Deir Ezzor province, over a two-week period.
The violence has displaced an estimated 1.2 million people in Iraq alone.
Pursuing an extreme interpretation of Sunni Islam, IS has persecuted non-Muslims such as Yazidis and Christians, as well as Shia Muslims, whom it regards as heretics.
Iraq's new Prime Minister, Haider al-Abadi, who is from the Shia majority, is grappling with the challenge of uniting the country against IS and winning back the trust of alienated Sunni Iraqis.
'Abandoned in the desert'
| Armed Conflict | August 2014 | ['(BBC)'] |
Millions of people in the Mid-Atlantic states brace for a winter storm. | A massive blizzard bringing more than 2ft (60cm) of snow and punishing winds is advancing up the US East Coast.
More than 50 million people across more than a dozen states have been warned to stay at home as it moves north.
The nation's capital, Washington, could lie under a record 30in (76cm) of snow by the time the storm passes on Sunday.
At least nine people have been killed and a state of emergency declared in 10 states. Transport services have been cancelled, and homes are without power.
The weather system affects a huge swathe of the country, from Arkansas in the south to Massachusetts in the north-east.
Supermarkets ran out of food amid a rush for supplies before the first snowflakes fell on Friday.
In summary:
The US federal government closed down at noon on Friday as Washington's mayor, Muriel Bowser, warned this was a major storm with "life and death implications". President Obama is remaining at the White House.
The National Weather Service (NWS) warned that the worst of the snow would fall in the Washington area from the early hours of Saturday to the early afternoon, with winds of more than 50mph (80kph).
In a warning at 02:17 (07:17 GMT), the NWS tweeted that an "intense snow band" was moving through the area, "expect rapid accumulations and near-whiteout conditions". Residents in the capital and surrounding suburbs in Virginia and Maryland have been warned the snowfall could eclipse the district's record of 28in that fell during a two-day period in 1922.
The BBC's Laura Bicker, in Washington DC, says it feels as though the city is in hiding - the streets are empty and restaurants, bars and supermarkets remain closed. Residents have been told to find a safe place and stay there until the storm has passed. Some tips on surviving a snowstorm:
1.Make sure you have at least three gallons of drinking water per person, per day
2.Tape the windows with bubble wrap to keep the heat in
3.Use your dog to measure the snowfall
How to prepare for a snowstorm
Why do so many people die shovelling snow?
Throughout the night, people were taking to Twitter to post updates on snow levels and pictures under the hashtag #Snowmaggedon2016.
In Kentucky, the Red Cross erected shelters along Interstate 75 for the more than 3,000 people who became stranded after multiple crashes forced the closure of the highway.
Kentucky State Police tweeted that officers were taking water, fuel and snacks to the motorists, some of whom had been stuck for more than 12 hours.
Local TV reporter Caitlin Centner was one of those stranded. She told her station WKYT-TV: "Every time it looks like there's light at the end of the tunnel, more accidents and slide-offs are occurring."
In Baltimore, teams of mental health specialists were working to bring some of the estimated 3,000 homeless people to shelter, the New York Times reported.
Supermarket shelves in many areas were bare. In Baltimore, shopper Sharon Brewington remembered how she and her daughter were left with just noodles and water when the last big snowstorm struck in 2010.
"I'm not going to make that mistake again," she said.
| Hurricanes_Tornado_Storm_Blizzard | January 2016 | ['(BBC)', '(CNN)'] |
The 91st Academy Awards are presented in Hollywood. Bohemian Rhapsody wins a leading four awards, followed by Black Panther, Green Book, which won Best Picture, and Roma, with three awards each. , | Surprise wins for Green Book and Olivia Colman, as best actor goes to Rami Malek for Bohemian Rhapsody, and a duet between the Star Is Born leads gets tongues wagging
| Awards ceremony | February 2019 | ['(The Guardian)', '(The New York Times)'] |
Vanuatu begins evacuating 11,000 islanders from the island of Ambae because of the erupting volcano Manaro Voui which pollutes the water. | SYDNEY (Reuters) - Vanuatu has launched a Dunkirk-style evacuation on the northern island of Ambae as a flotilla of boats rescues islanders from an erupting volcano that has polluted many of the island’s sources of drinking water.
Crowds of islanders from at least three evacuation points on the island have begun boarding ferries, canoes and commercial vessels for the safety of surrounding islands Maewo, Pentecost and Santo.
Reuters reporter Ben Bohane, on location in Ambae, said he saw people camping on a hillside at the town of Lolowai waiting calmly for ships to ferry them to safety.
“There were big sacks of rice and boxes of tinned fish,” he said.
The eruption has polluted many of the island’s water sources leaving thousands of people in need of safe drinking water, Red Cross delegate Joe Cropp told Reuters by phone on Sunday.
“Water is crucial,” he said. “It’s important to get on top of it right away.”
The Manaro Voui volcano, the nation’s largest, was seen hurling steam and rocks into the air by New Zealand vulcanologist Brad Scott who flew over the volcano on Saturday.
“Maybe about every 8 to 10 seconds there was an explosion, throwing lava bombs up maybe 50 to 100 meters above the crater and there’s also two small lava flows that are flowing across the island into the lake as well,” he said in an interview with Radio NZ published on Sunday.
About 1000 people were moved off the island over the 24 hours to Sunday evening with another 900 expected to leave tomorrow, Vanuatu’s National Disaster Management Office told Reuters in Ambae.
The Vanuatu Government wants all 11,000 islanders evacuated by Oct. 6.
Australia sent amphibious Bay Class landing ship HMAS Choules on Saturday to help move the population, and it is expected to arrive by the middle of the week.
Some islanders are flying out while others have already moved to stay with friends or relatives in the capital, Port Vila.
More than 6000 people have gone to emergency shelters on the South Pacific island in preparation for the total evacuation.
Manaro Voui stirred to life in September, threatening island residents with burning ash, toxic gas and acid rain.
The volcano is crowned by crater lakes. One of them, Lake Voui, is directly on top of the eruption making it dangerously explosive and posing the deadly threat of a lahar: a boiling mud flow down the side of the mountain, Macquarie University vulcanologist Christopher Firth told Reuters by telephone on Saturday.
Additional reporting by Ben Bohane
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.
| Volcano Eruption | October 2017 | ['(Reuters)'] |
Children's TV presenter Holly Walsh breaks bones and dislocates a shoulder whilst leaping from a pier during a festival in Worthing, West Sussex, England, UK; the festival is briefly halted. | The aim was to raise money for a good cause while leaping from a pier in a comedy flying machine. But the seaside stunt by former children’s TV presenter Holly Walsh ended in disaster yesterday. The 30-year-old plunged awkwardly into the water, fracturing her elbow and dislocating her shoulder. Worried crowds at the annual International Worthing Birdman contest looked on as she was taken from the sea by a lifeboat crew, strapped to a spinal board and driven to hospital in an ambulance.
Holly Walsh and Jonathan Hicks leap off Worthing Pier during the International Birdman competition
Their 'helicopter' crashes into the sea off the resort
The 30-year- old plunged awkwardly into the water, fracturing her elbow and dislocating her shoulder
Carried to the ambulance: Miss Walsh is strapped to a spinal board after being rescued from the water by divers
Miss Walsh, a one-time Children’s BBC host turned comedian who has appeared on Never Mind The Buzzcocks, had been taking part in the competition with world gravy wrestling champion Jonathan Hicks. The pair, who were raising money for the Rainbow Children’s Hospice, jumped off the West Sussex town’s pier in a bright green mock helicopter with the slogan ‘Always With A Smile’ emblazoned on one side. Miss Walsh, a one-time Children's BBC host turned comedian who has appeared on Never Mind The Buzzcocks
But after they crash-landed in the sea it quickly became apparent that Miss Walsh was in trouble. The competition had to be stopped for around 20 minutes while the lifeboat crew went to the rescue. Shoreham lifeboat spokesman Dave Cassan said: ‘It appears she entered the water wrongly. It is thought she has a serious fracture above her elbow and a dislocated shoulder. ‘The inshore lifeboat brought her to the shore at Worthing and she was transferred to hospital by ambulance.’ Around 10,000 spectators had been attending the second day of the event yesterday, where fun flyers dress up in elaborate costumes and try to fly the furthest off the pier. Many raise money for charity while others design complex machines to aim for the distance prizes – £30,000 for the furthest flight over 100 metres. On Saturday, former Olympic skier Eddie the Eagle Edwards took part in the more serious side of the competition, where entrants launch themselves off the pier in gliders and other makeshift flying contraptions. He managed only a few yards before ending up in the sea. On Saturday Eddie 'The Eagle' Edwards took part in the more seriously-taken competition, where entrants launch themselves off the pier in gliders
'Fun flyers' dress up in elaborate costumes and attempt to 'fly' the furthest off the West Sussex town's pier, costumes included Penelope Pitstop, right
A competitor tumbles from his flying 'car' and another participant dressed as a swan 'flies' | Famous Person - Sick | August 2010 | ['(BBC)', '(Press Association via Google News)', '(Daily Mail)'] |
The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress passes its first law on the People's Armed Police, giving it statutory authority to respond to riots, terrorist attacks or other emergencies. | BEIJING: China's top legislature Thursday passed the country's first law on the armed police, giving the force new duties and statutory authority to respond to security emergencies.
The Law on the People's Armed Police Force (PAPF) of the People's Republic of China mandates the mobilization of the 660,000-strong PAPF to deal with riots, disruptions, serious violent crimes, terrorist attacks and other emergencies.
Armed PAPF officers will patrol China's municipalities, provincial and regional capitals during periods of unrest, and take responsibility for the security of major transport lines and important public facilities.
Without defining the times when such activities would be authorized, the law says the PAPF will also have a duty to assist other law enforcement forces in arrest, pursuit and escort operations.
The law was passed by legislators after its second reading at the 10th session of the Standing Committee of the 11th National People's Congress (NPC), and endorsed by President Hu Jintao on Thursday to make it effective.
Under the 38-article law, PAPF troops can establish security checkpoints to examine all personnel and vehicles entering and departing an area under their authority. PAPF personnel can interrogate suspicious persons and check their identification documents, belongings and vehicles.
They are also authorized to "take necessary measures" to dispel large assemblies of people that compromise social order and the security of facilities the PAPF protects.
However, the law prohibits PAPF troops from restricting individual freedom by detention or body searches as well as raiding individual residences without a legal warrant.
PAPF troops on duty or operations should wear their olive green uniforms and bear their credentials, the law says.
Although governments above county-level can request the engagement of the PAPF in security operations, the law strictly limits the authority to mobilize and deploy the PAPF to the State Council, the Cabinet, and the Central Military Commission (CMC).
The PAPF -- drawn from China's police force -- was founded in 1982 as an internal security force to provide services ranging from protecting important political figures to urban firefighting.
Under the dual command of the CMC and the State Council, the armed police played a major role in quelling riots in Lhasa on March 14 last year and in Urumqi on July 5. | Government Policy Changes | August 2009 | ['(China Daily)', '(IOL)', '(The New York Times)'] |
Peter James Bethune, a New Zealand antiwhaling campaigner, pleads guilty to four charges over his alleged attacks on the Japanese whaling vessel MV Shōnan Maru 2 in February. |
A New Zealand anti-whaling campaigner has pleaded guilty to four charges at the start of his trial in Japan but denies the most serious charge of assault.
Peter Bethune, a member of the United States-based Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, has been detained since February this year and faces five charges in the Tokyo District Court that could see him jailed for up to 15 years.
Mr Bethune told the court on Thursday he had good reason to board the Japanese whaling ship.
The 45-year-old was the captain of the kevlar powerboat the Ady Gil, which was sliced in two in a collision with the Japanese fleet's security ship the Shonan Maru II on 6 January in the Southern Ocean and sank soon after.
On 11 February, he boarded a Japanese whaling vessel and attempted to make a citizen's arrest of its captain.
Mr Bethune has pleaded guilty to trespass, vandalism, obstructing commercial activities and carrying a knife. However, he denies the most serious charge of assault on a crewman using a rancid butter bomb.
A specimen of such a projectile was bought into the court on Thursday, causing many in the gallery, including the bench to gag, the ABC reports.
Outside court, Mr Bethune's lawyer Dan Harris said his client wants the world to know he is glad to have done what he did to stop the slaughter of whales and would do it again if he had the chance.
Mr Harris said there was no last-minute plea bargaining and prosecutors will be pushing hard for a jail term. The defence argues that, at worst, Mr Bethune should be handed a suspended sentence and released.
The trial is expected to last three days. Summing up will be on Monday and the court is expected to reserve its decision.
Japan defends whaling as part of its culture and carries it out under a loophole to an international ban that allows lethal "scientific research".
About 20 ultra-nationalist protesters gathered outside the court on Thursday denouncing the New Zealander as a terrorist and calling for him to be jailed. One placard said he should be hanged.
Mr Harris says the three presiding judges are fair-minded and will act appropriately, and it is possible for Mr Bethune to get a fair trial. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | May 2010 | ['(ABC)', '(Radio New Zealand)', '(The Jakarta Post)'] |
The Israeli Military stations troops and artillery on the edge of Gaza and seals the borders of the Gaza Strip and West Bank. | Overnight Israeli aircraft launched a series of air raids, injuring several people, and arrested more than 200 suspected militants in the West Bank.
Israel has also taken the unprecedented step of posting artillery pieces on the border with Gaza, and practice-firing.
Palestinians warned the moves could force a ceasefire to collapse.
Amid threats of revenge attacks from militants, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat called on US President George W Bush to step in to calm the conflict "so we can sustain the cessation of violence".
All options are open, including striking inside the Zionist entity
Hamas spokesman
Middle East media reacts
However, the US ambassador in Israel said: "We all know that the terrorists are trying to provoke Israel at a very sensitive time and we understand exactly what the government's position is and the response it has taken."
The EU and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged restraint on both sides.
Mr Sharon told his cabinet that after dozens of rockets were fired into Israel from Gaza, there would be "no restrictions regarding the use of all means to strike at the terrorists".
"We don't intend here to stage a one-time action, but intend to carry out a continued action, whose aim is to hurt the terrorists and not to let up," he said.
Leader arrested
The Palestinian parliament has said it will postpone a vote of no-confidence in the prime minister and his cabinet scheduled for Monday because of the surge in violence. The deputy speaker of parliament said the travel restrictions imposed by Israel meant that many MPs would not be able to reach Ramallah. The escalation of violence comes only a fortnight after Israel's military withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
In the latest activity, Israeli forces launched air strikes early on Sunday against alleged weapon storage sites, and a school linked to the militant group Hamas. At least 19 people were reported injured in the strikes.
They are part of a cycle of violence over several days:
Hamas said Hassan Yousef, its leader in the West Bank, was among them.
Israel says Akram school, Gaza, raised funds for Hamas
With reports that the Israeli cabinet had also agreed to resume the targeted killings of militants, Hamas issued a warning that it would step up its own attacks.
"This escalation and return to a policy of assassinations and arrests and attacking innocent people's homes brings us back to Square One," said Mushir al-Masri, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza. "All options are open, including striking inside the Zionist entity."
Sharon challenged
The BBC's Lucy Williamson in Jerusalem says the increased tension comes at a sensitive time for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
He faces a party leadership challenge, with his Likud party's central committee due to vote on Monday whether to back his rival and former prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Mr Netanyahu opposed Mr Sharon's decision to pull settlers out of Gaza, saying it would encourage Islamic militants to attack Israel. He is seeking the Likud leadership, with national elections a little over a year away. If Mr Sharon loses the vote, it is thought he might leave the party and set up a new centrist alliance that polls suggest would be popular with voters. | Armed Conflict | September 2005 | ['(BBC)'] |
The Rio Tinto Group announces plans to cut 14,000 jobs worldwide. | One of the world's biggest miners, Rio Tinto, will slash more than 14,000 jobs globally as part of an aggressive cost cutting exercise to reduce its debt.
The company wants to cut its debt by $10 billion by the end of next year.
It is also planning to halve capital works expenditure next year and it will put more of its assets up for sale.
Iron ore shipments from the Pilbara in Western Australia will be reduced by 10 per cent next year to 200 million tonnes.
Rio Tinto has a global workforce of 97,000 with 15,000 based in Western Australia.
A Rio-Tinto spokesman says some of the jobs will go in Australia but the company is unlikely to reveal how many until the first quarter of next year.
In a statement the company says the measures are aimed at preserving value for shareholders.
It says the economic uncertainty has caused sharp falls in commodity prices and generated a significantly weaker outlook for the business.
The W-A Premier Colin Barnett says it was only a matter of time before Western Australia was hit by the global economic slowdown.
However, Mr Barnett says the state's economy is resilient and he is confident of recovery within the next 18 months.
"Western Australia, we are a mining based economy, we are driven by commodity prices," he said.
"In a sense, this is nothing new for us, we do get cyclical sharp rises and sharp declines.
"But I don't believe this is going to cause long term damage to our economy."
Rio shares closed 12 per cent higher today to close at $37.40.
Resource analyst James Wilson says he expects the company to cut costs by putting some of its expansion and international exploration projects on hold.
"I think it positions Rio Tinto very well in that they're reducing costs in a very difficult market at the moment," he said.
"They have to service a very large amount of debt, in the order of about US $40 billion, and they have to meet those obligations."
Earlier, Mincor Resources announced it was suspending operations at its main nickel mine near Kambalda in Western Australia because of falling resource prices.
In an investor briefing, the Perth-based miner said the Miitel operation would be temporarily shut down from Christmas because of the poor price of nickel.
We acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Australians and Traditional Custodians of the lands where we live, learn, and work.
AEST = Australian Eastern Standard Time which is 10 hours ahead of GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) | Government Job change - Resignation_Dismissal | December 2008 | ['(ABC News Online)'] |
The second round of the latest presidential election in Poland takes place. Incumbent President Andrzej Duda faces Mayor of Warsaw Rafał Trzaskowski. | Voting is under way in Poland’s presidential runoff, which pits the populist incumbent, Andrzej Duda, against the liberal mayor of Warsaw, Rafał Trzaskowski. The outcome will have a huge bearing on the country’s future political trajectory, and polls suggest the result could go either way.
Duda is allied to the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS), and a win for him will give PiS control of most of the levers of power for several more years, allowing it to continue an agenda that has eroded the rule of law and judicial independence, putting Poland on a collision course with the EU.
Duda’s campaign has been laced with homophobic rhetoric, as he turned the fight against so-called “LGBT ideology” into one of his main talking points.
If Trzaskowski wins, he would be able to use the presidential veto to stymie the PiS legislative agenda, as well as portray a more liberal and pro-EU face of Poland to the outside world.
The two 48-year-olds emerged from a first-round field of 11 candidates, all of them male. Duda won 43.5% of the vote while Trzaskowski got 30.5%, but the challenger is expected to win more votes that originally went to other candidates, potentially leading to a tight run-off. Most recent polls have put the two within a percentage point of each other, well within the margin of error.
The race is so close that small margins could be decisive. There have been concerns that many Poles living abroad have not been able to vote because postal ballots arrived too late. In the first round, Trzaskowski won 48.1% of votes cast by Poles abroad, while Duda won 20.9%.
Trzaskowski has claimed this is the last chance to reverse the democratic backsliding that has taken place during the last five years of PiS government. “It’s now or never,” he said earlier this week. The ruling party will either “continue to destroy independent institutions, further try to politicise courts, destroy local governments and threaten the freedom of the media, or we will have a democratic state where the president restores the balance”, he said.
Duda has portrayed himself as a president who has improved the country’s economy as well as one who would defend “family values” at the expense of LGBT rights. PiS has combined rightwing social and cultural policies with increased state disbursal of money in recent years, which has proved a winning combination in small towns and villages.
“This election will decide Poland’s development in the future, whether it will continue on the path to development,” Duda said earlier this week.
In Otwock, a town of 35,000 inhabitants outside Warsaw where Duda won a plurality of votes in the first round, it was clear that Duda’s anti-LGBT campaign had resonated with some voters.
“I voted for Andrzej Duda because he supports families”, said Kamila, 37, a mother-of-one who said she had not taken any interest in politics before the birth of her young son. “It’s not about finances, it’s about family values, I am not one of these rainbow flag people and I don’t want our children to be forced to learn about ‘genderism’ and these strange kinds of things – I really don’t like it.”
In the small town of Karczew, there were similar sentiments from some voters, who had just finished Mass and were heading to polling stations. “My candidate is the current president,” said Marcin, 39, the church organist. “I’m against the promotion of homosexual unions and these kinds of things because family is the bedrock of this country.”
However Ewa, a pensioner who had also just been to Mass, said that although she did not identify as a liberal, she would be voting for Trzaskowski out of concern about the ruling party’s dramatic accumulation of power since it was first elected in 2015. “I am against all of the power in this country being concentrated in the hands of one party. I survived communism, when one party had all the power,” she said.
Distaste for PiS was a common theme among Trzaskowski supporters. “We want to have peace, to be governed by cultured people, not by the boorish thieves that we have now,” said Barbara, a pensioner in Otwock.
The election was meant to take place in May, when Duda was riding high in the polls and was expected to win easily. However, with coronavirus restrictions in place, plans for a fully postal vote were abandoned by the government a few days before the election as impossible to implement. Instead, a new date was set in late June.
Poland has had 37,000 confirmed coronavirus infections and 1,600 deaths, but restrictions have been largely eased in recent weeks, with bars and restaurants reopening. Voters will have to wear masks and gloves and maintain social distancing.
The prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, said this week coronavirus was “retreating” and urged everyone to vote, with people over 60 told they can vote without queueing. | Government Job change - Election | July 2020 | ['(The Guardian)'] |
A proposed match between Tottenham Hotspur and Fulham F.C. at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium that would have taken place in the evening is postponed due to a significant rise of COVID-19 cases in the clubs across the league. | Fulham were due to play Spurs at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Wednesday evening; game becomes third Premier League fixture to be postponed because of coronavirus this season; 18 positive cases confirmed across the league on Tuesday
Thursday 31 December 2020 06:10, UK
Fulham's Premier League match at Tottenham on Wednesday evening has been postponed because of an outbreak of coronavirus at the club.
The Premier League made the decision to call off the fixture at a board meeting on Wednesday morning. It said Fulham asked for the game to be rearranged following "a significant rise in positive COVID-19 cases, as well as a number of players showing symptoms today".
The league said the move was made following consultation with its medical advisors, adding "the decision to postpone the game has been taken as a precaution and with the health of players and staff as the priority".
In their statement, the Premier League also said: "With low numbers of positive tests across the overwhelming majority of clubs, the Premier League continues to have full confidence in its COVID-19 protocols and being able to continue to play our fixtures as scheduled.
A post shared by Jose Mourinho (@josemourinho)
"The league wishes those with COVID-19 a safe and speedy recovery and will rearrange the postponed fixture between Tottenham Hotspur and Fulham in due course."
The game at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium becomes the second in the English top-flight to be called off this week.
On Tuesday, the Premier League revealed there were 18 positive coronavirus cases across the league - the highest figure recorded this season - following the latest round of testing.
Manchester City's trip to Everton on Monday was postponed hours before kick-off due to multiple positive cases within the City camp.
Newcastle's match against Aston Villa, scheduled for December 4 at Villa Park, was postponed earlier this month after the Magpies were hit by the virus.
Sheffield United announced they had recorded "a number of positive coronavirus tests after the latest round of testing" but fulfilled their fixture away to Burnley on Tuesday evening.
Fulham's trip to Spurs would have seen Scott Parker return to the dugout after being forced to miss their 0-0 home draw with Southampton on Boxing Day due to a member of his household testing positive for coronavirus.
Do not miss your chance to land the £250,000 in Saturday's Super 6 round. Play for free, entries by 3:00pm. | Sports Competition | December 2020 | ['(Sky Sports)'] |
Former world number one and 2008 French Open champion Ana Ivanovic defeats reigning world number one, five–time Australian Open champion and tournament favourite Serena Williams in the fourth round of the 2014 Australian Open. | Serbia's Ana Ivanovic stunned world number one Serena Williams at the Australian Open on Sunday with a 4-6, 6-3, 6-3 fourth-round upset at Rod Laver Arena.
Ivanovic ended the American's 25-match winning streak to reach her first grand slam quarter-final since the 2012 US Open with an inspired display of clean hitting.
"It's amazing. I just tried to play the best I could," a thrilled Ivanovic said in a courtside interview.
"You guys have been amazing. I'm so thrilled," she told the crowd.
Ivanovic, a former world number one, had never taken a set off Williams in their four previous encounters.
AAP: Joe Castro
A winner at Roland Garros at 2008, she was aggressive from the outset, breaking Williams at 2-2 in each of the first two sets and holding firm in the second to draw level.
A shell-shocked Williams was then broken at 1-0 in the deciding set when the Serbian laced a brilliant return down the line.
With the Rod Laver Arena crowd roaring their support for the underdog, Ivanovic coolly raised three match points and sealed the tournament's biggest upset when Williams missed a return.
Ivanovic will play the winner of Australia's Casey Dellacqua match against Canada's Eugenie Bouchard for a place in the semi-finals.
"It was not easy playing such a champion and I had never beaten her before, but she is just a human and I know that she has pressure on her too," she added.
"So I just went out there and was swinging at the ball and I did that really well."
| Sports Competition | January 2014 | ['(ABC News Australia)'] |
The clothing retailer Wet Seal announces the closing of all 148 of its brick–and–mortar stores after filing for bankruptcy in 2015. The news comes on the heels of recent announcements of the closings of other major clothing chains, such as The Limited. | Teen clothing retailer Wet Seal will abruptly close all of its 148 brick-and-mortar stores.
According to a letter obtained by The Wall Street Journal, the retailer is permanently shutting down and will lay off all of its workers. The company is headquartered in California.
Back in 2015, Wet Seal closed 338 of its 511 stores and filed for bankruptcy protection. Versa Capital then acquired the brand for $7.5 million in April 2015.
Local stores at the Dayton Mall and the Mall at Fairfield Commons in Beavercreek shut down in January 2015. The only store in Ohio that remained open was the location at Easton Town Center in Columbus.
Wet Seal isn’t the only retailer closing locations and laying off employees this month.
On Wednesday, Abercrombie & Fitch eliminated 150 positions at the corporate level. The clothing retail chain is headquartered in New Albany, just outside of Columbus. In August, Abercrombie & Fitch Co. announced 60 stores in the U.S. would shut down.
There is one store location at the Mall at Fairfield Commons in Beavercreek, and another location at Kenwood Towne Center in Cincinnati. A location at the Dayton Mall also closed several years ago.
Several retailers — including The Limited, Macy’s, Sears and Kmart — have already announced layoffs or store closures in recent months, and experts predict more businesses will continue to downsize.
“All retailers see a bump in sales during the holiday season. Announcements of store closings would have hurt their sales during the holiday shopping season because it would have sent the wrong message to customers,” said Serdar Durmusoglu, marketing professor at the University of Dayton. “So, even if they might have made a closing decision months in advance, they might have held of announcing after the New Year.”
By:
Tom Gnau
-
Staff Writer
| Organization Closed | January 2017 | ['(WHIO–TV)'] |
Belgian police arrest two leaders of the Vlaams Belang party, Frank Vanhecke and Filip Dewinter, as well as dozens of party supporters during a banned march in Brussels against the "Islamisation of Europe". | Police in the Belgian capital, Brussels, have arrested two far-right political leaders at a protest against the "Islamisation of Europe".
Police clashed with some of the 200 demonstrators and dozens more people were reported to have been arrested. The mayor of Brussels had banned the protest, held on the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the US. Frank Vanhecke and Filip Dewinter of the Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest) party were arrested. Vlaams Belang has been critical of Muslim immigration to Belgium. The mayor of Brussels, Freddy Thielemans, banned the protest last month for fear it would cause problems with the city's immigrant population. The protest organisers had promised a large turn-out, but the approximately 200 protesters were nearly outnumbered by police and reporters. | Protest_Online Condemnation | September 2007 | ['(BBC)'] |
A court in Bangladesh sentences Riaz Uddin Fakir to death for war crimes during the 1971 Liberation War. | Updated: 10 May 2018 01:03 PM BdST
He has been convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity in Fulbaria.
A three-member bench of the International Crimes Tribunal headed by Justice Md Shahinur Islam passed the judgement on Thursday after wrapping up a hearing from prosecutors and the defendant on Mar 21.
It is the 32nd verdict in war crimes cases since the tribunal was formed in 2010.
According to the verdict, four allegations brought against Fakir have been proved. He was sentenced to death on two charges and jailed for life for the other two.
Fakir has been behind bars since the trial began on Dec 11, 2016.
According to the investigation agency, Fakir was a member of Al-Badr, a paramilitary force responsible for mass killings during Bangladesh’s Liberation War against Pakistan in 1971. He was involved with Jamaat-e-Islami that openly opposed the liberation struggle.
Charges submitted to the tribunal in 2016 linked Fakir to five war crimes. The 69-year-old man was in the dock during the verdict.
Initially three persons were accused in the case but later Amjad Ali’s name had been dropped from the list as he fell sick after being arrested and died in jail.
The tribunal removed the name of another suspect Wajuddin after he had died while on the run.
Of the 74 people accused in 32 cases in war crimes so far, five died during trials.
Of them, 69 people were punished, with 42 sentenced to death.
. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Sentence | May 2018 | ['(Bangladesh Daily News 24)'] |
UK retail giant Tesco opens its first own–brand supermarket branch in China, in the capital, Beijing. | The UK giant already has investments in 46 Chinese stores under the name of its Chinese partner, Le Gou, which translates as "Happy Shopping".
Tesco's new store in Beijing is competing with other international chains that are well established in China, such as Wal-Mart and Carrefour.
Analysts said that Tesco's challenges included offering products that Chinese people would buy.
AT Kearney retail consultant, Hana Ben-Shabat, told the BBC that opening under its own brand was a good move for Tesco.
"Chinese consumers are very open to foreign brands," she said.
"They won't think of Tesco as British - but as another Western chain.
"The Western supermarket chains are starting in the main cities, like Beijing, Shanghai and some others. "I think the biggest challenge, in terms of gaining market share, is going to be how quickly all of them can move into the second-and-third-tiered cities."
Another challenge was understanding local consumers and their tastes, she added.
Separately, Chinese state media has reported that one of the country's biggest retailers, Beijing Wangfujing Department Store Group, has attracted the interest of two American investors.
Private equity groups Warburg Pincus and the Carlyle Group are among around 20 foreign firms vying for a stake in the company, the China Daily said. | Organization Established | January 2007 | ['(BBC)'] |
The entire government of Kyrgyzstan resigns as President Kurmanbek Bakiyev announces a new reform campaign. | Kyrgyzstan's Cabinet has resigned as part of a government reform campaign the president says will save money and make the Central Asian nation's leadership more effective.
Opposition leaders in the poor and politically turbulent country dismissed President Kurmanbek Bakiyev's reform push as a bid to increase his own power.
Bakiyev announced what he said would be sweeping reforms Tuesday. He said they would start with a reorganization of the presidential administration and other state institutions.
He accepted the Cabinet's resignation and said its ministers would serve in their posts until a new Cabinet is formed.
Prominent opposition leader Azimbek Beknazarov charged that the president's reform plans "are aimed only to strengthen his power." | Government Job change - Resignation_Dismissal | October 2009 | ['(AFP)', '(BBC)', '(Taiwan News)'] |
Former US Senator Rick Santorum announces that he has formed a committee to explore a bid for the Republican Party nomination in the presidential election. | Updated | WASHINGTON — Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum announced Wednesday night that he will explore a run for the Republican presidential nomination, making him the second Republican contender in as many days to make his intentions official.
By Alex Hicks Jr., Spartanburg Herald-Journal via AP
Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum speaks Saturday at the Spartanburg County GOP Convention in Spartanburg, S.C.
By Alex Hicks Jr., Spartanburg Herald-Journal via AP
Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum speaks Saturday at the Spartanburg County GOP Convention in Spartanburg, S.C.
“I’ve been out traveling the country, been to 25 states over the past year,” Santorum said. “Now, really the test for me is whether we can raise the money that is necessary. I’m going to set up the committee, it’s a testing the waters committee. … We are going to determine over the next few weeks as to whether the resources are going to be there to do it.”
Santorum announced the formation of the Rick Santorum Exploratory Committee on Fox News Channel, where he was a contributor before he began signaling he may launch a presidential bid earlier this year.
The cable network suspended Santorum and former House speaker Newt Gingrich for 60 days stipulating their contracts would be terminated on May 1 unless they notify Fox they would not run for president.
The announcement does not come as a surprise. Santorum has spent the past few months visiting early primary states and has committed to several Republican primary debates, including one in South Carolina on May 5.
Santorum, a favorite of social conservatives, is a staunch opponent of abortion rights and stem-cell research. He served in the U.S. Senate from 1995-2007, and was defeated for a third term by Democrat Bob Casey.
In recent speeches, Santorum has focused on social issues as well as reiterating his belief that the United States should have a strong national defense.
On April 9, Santorum won the straw poll at the Greenville Country Republican convention — South Carolina’s largest county. “We have people talking in our party that we need to go away from the moral issues,” Santorum said during a speech at the convention. “America, ladies and gentlemen, is a moral enterprise at its core.”
The victory was an important one for Santorum, showing his strength with social conservatives. But to win the competitive “First in the South” primary, one GOP operative said, candidates must be able to appeal to fiscal-minded conservatives as well.
“The distinction between South Carolina’s social and fiscal conservative voters has become blurred,” said Matt Moore, executive director of the South Carolina Club for Growth. “Candidates here can’t speak to one group and ignore the other. … What unites them is a desire to see a pro-growth, free market-oriented Republican in the White House in 2013.”
Dennis Goldford, professor of politics at Drake University in Des Moines, said candidates cannot rely solely on their social conservatism in Iowa.
“For Iowa Republicans, at least Iowa Republican activists — a huge proportion of which are social and religious conservatives — social issues are at least as important as economic issues, if not more important,” he said, adding that some will back the candidate with the best message on traditional values.
Santorum’s announcement comes two days after former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney made his GOP bid official. Former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty unveiled his exploratory committee last month. | Organization Established | April 2011 | ['(USA Today)'] |
Proposals to change the automatic trade union affiliation with the UK Labour Party are passed at a special party conference vote by 86% to 14%. | Proposals to change the link between Labour and the unions have been approved at a conference of party members by an overwhelming majority.
Leader Ed Miliband had urged a "one member, one vote" system for leadership elections and an end to the automatic affiliation of union members.
He praised the party's "courage to change" after members backed the plans by 86.29% in favour. Unite boss Len McCluskey said union members would "rise to the challenge".
Conservative Party chairman Grant Shapps dismissed Labour's reforms, insisting the balance of power remained with the unions.
Addressing the conference after the vote, Mr Miliband insisted members should be "proud of the Labour Party". He said he had taken a "big risk" in proposing reforms last July, stressing: "I did not believe we could face up to the challenges the country faced if we didn't face up to the challenges faced by our party."
Some British people felt Labour had recently lost touch, he said, adding: "You were right."
He later tweeted: "The reason we have changed our party today is so that we never lose touch again. #OneNationPolitics"
Mr McCluskey said the reforms would help to start "involving more trade unionists in the business of the party".
But he also fired a broadside at Mr Miliband, who had asked police to investigate the alleged rigging of a Labour candidate selection by Unite in Falkirk, which prompted the proposals debated on Saturday.
He repeated his assertion that "my union has done nothing wrong", declaring to loud cheers: "This is our party and we are going nowhere."
The BBC's chief political correspondent Norman Smith said it was interesting that opposition to the reforms had come from ordinary party members rather than trade unionists - perhaps underlining concern about how the changes would affect their own votes. And BBC political correspondent Iain Watson said critics had pointed out that the reforms were not as radical as Labour suggested.
Under the changes, unions would still control 50% of votes at Labour conferences; there would be no cap on union donations; and some of the changes would be phased in over five years, our correspondent reported.
Earlier, Mr Miliband received a standing ovation from union members, constituency MPs and members of local parties from around the country at London's ExCel centre, as he urged them to "seize" the chance to change Labour.
He said the changes would attract thousands of new supporters.
Historically, millions of union members have been automatically affiliated with Labour, but few take part in campaigning activities or even vote in general elections.
By being allowed to actively opt in to be a supporter, for a £3 fee, Mr Miliband has argued Labour would be transformed into a genuine "mass movement" again, in contrast to the Conservatives. Labour leadership elections have previously been decided by a complex electoral college system, with equal weight given to the votes of three groups - one third to MPs and MEPs, one third to ordinary party members and one third to trade unionists.
Mr Miliband won the last leadership election largely thanks to support from unions, but Mr McCluskey said he suspected only 10% of its one million members affiliated to Labour would opt to stay in if asked now.
But Mr Miliband said a "one-member, one-vote" system would breathe new life into the party, completing a process started by former leader John Smith more than 30 years ago.
Meanwhile, the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, which is not affiliated with Labour, demonstrated against the changes outside the centre.
Mr Miliband's proposals have already led to the GMB union reducing its affiliation funding. Unite will discuss its funding arrangements next week. Some delegates warned Labour's against diluting its union links.
One local party member, a retired postal worker, said the changes were being foisted on the party to appease right wing media and the Conservatives.
Labour ministers, the party's ruling National Executive Committee and the big trade unions had already expressed support for reform.
And former prime minister Tony Blair said Mr Miliband had shown "real courage" on the issue, which was "long overdue".
But Conservative Party chairman Grant Shapps dismissed the changes as "a big victory for the unions".
"Ed Miliband is left with a situation where the unions are now his political life support machine," he said.
"That means all Ed Miliband offers is more spending, more borrowing and more taxes. It's the same old Labour Party."
Labour grandee John Prescott welcomed the "big change".
"The movement's got together, it's took a risk... That's what you expect from leaders, they look ahead and they've got the courage to make a decision."
Unison general secretary Dave Prentis urged members to turn their attention to the next election.
"Our money will remain, they will get our affiliation fees and we will move forward to win this election for Labour," he said. | Government Job change - Election | March 2014 | ['(BBC)'] |
Five workers are trapped underground in an Xcel Energy hydroelectric plant near Georgetown, Colorado, United States due to a chemical fire. They are later found dead. | DENVER (Reuters) - Five workers were trapped deep underground at a hydroelectric plant near Georgetown, Colorado, after a fire broke out, power company Xcel Energy Inc said on Tuesday.
Five contractors were working in an underground penstock, or pipeline, at the Cabin Creek Station, where the fire broke out. Xcel said the workers climbed to a safe distance from the blaze and were communicating with plant operators by radio.
The 48-inch diameter pipe was opened to get air into the pipe, Xcel spokeswoman Ethnie Groves told reporters at a news conference.
There was no information available on when the workers might be rescued.
Firefighters from the Clear Creek County Fire Authority were battling the blaze. The plant was shut down for routine maintenance at the time, the company said. The cause of the fire was not immediately known.
The pipeline is between 1,500 and 2,000 feet (460 and 610 meters) below ground and carries water from a reservoir to power turbines inside the plant.
The power station, which is west of Denver, has two turbines and a generating capacity of 324 megawatts.
Reporting by Keith Coffman, writing by Leonard Anderson, editing by Marguerita Choy
| Fire | October 2007 | ['(Reuters)', '(Fox News)'] |
A 6.9 magnitude earthquake strikes 51 kilometres south–west of the city of Ica in Peru at a depth of 35 km. No reports of casualties are issued. News.com.au | A MAJOR 6.9-magnitude quake hit Peru's Pacific coast overnight, sparking panic in the cities but no known casualties.
A MAJOR 6.9-magnitude quake hit Peru's Pacific coast overnight, sparking panic among residents in the capital Lima and several other cities but no known casualties.
The epicentre of the quake was about 288km southeast of Lima, the US Geological Survey reported.Thousands of people evacuated buildings in Lima and other cities, but there were no immediate reports of damage.The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre did not issue a widespread tsunami warning, but cautioned that quakes of this magnitude "sometimes generate local tsunamis that can be destructive".The epicentre was located 51km southwest of the city of Ica, capital of the province of the same name, at a depth of 35km, the USGS said.On August 15, 2007, an earthquake of magnitude 7.9 with an epicentre close to that of Friday's quake devastated Ica province, killing about 600 people and causing extensive damage to area buildings and infrastructure.Today's quake was felt most acutely in the coastal area around Ica and south of Lima.But it was also felt in the high Andes "in cities like Cusco, Arequipa and Ayacucho, though it was less intense there", said Hernan Tavera, head of Peru's Geophysical Institute, which monitors earthquakes locally.Some phone lines were cut, but most appeared to have been quickly restored.In 2009, more than 140 earthquakes with magnitudes of 4.0 and above were felt in Peru, located on what geologists call the Pacific Ring of Fire due to its intense seismic activity.
Originally published asLocals flee as major quake hits coast of Peru
| Earthquakes | October 2011 | [] |
A Palestinian terrorist stabs an 80–year–old woman and two men in the Israeli town of Rishon Letzion, and another Palestinian attacks a 71–year–old man and critically wounds him in Netanya. | Three people were wounded Monday afternoon in a stabbing attack by a Palestinian in the central city of Rishon Lezion, a southern suburb of Tel Aviv.
Two people — a man in his 40s and a woman in her 80s — were in serious condition, the Magen David Adom rescue service said. The third victim, 26, was lightly hurt.
The attacker, identified by authorities as a 19-year-old Palestinian man from Hebron, stabbed the 40-year-old man from behind on a bus on Tarmab Street, got off the bus and ran to the adjacent Herzl Street, where he stabbed the elderly woman and the young man.
As he ran down Herzl, locals realized what was happening and surrounded the man. He entered a beauty products store and stabbed one of the victims inside, then was locked in when a woman fled from the store and closed the door behind her.
Bystanders converged on the store just as police motorcycle units arrived. Police said they prevented the crowd from hurting or even killing the terrorist. | Riot | November 2015 | ['(Times of Israel)'] |
Ethiopia's ruling party EPRDF states it has won general elections when the opposition claims a victory. Voter turnout was over 90%. | Addis Ababa - Ethiopia's opposition on Monday backed off a threat to reject nationwide results from hotly contested weekend elections it says were marred by fraud, saying their complaints were limited to key areas.
Instead, opposition leaders said they would protest irregularities and ask national election authorities to conduct new votes in specific places where they believe problems were particularly egregious.
The boycott threat, prompted by angry claims of widespread vote rigging, mass arrests of activists and other abuses, led Prime Minister Meles Zenawi late on Sunday to ban all post-election demonstrations for one month.
But as preliminary results began to be posted outside some of the country's more than 30 000 polling stations after massive voter turnout, estimated at 90 percent, opposition leaders toned down their rhetoric.
Reaching a compromise "I think the decision will come to a compromise to complain around certain areas around Ethiopia," said Hailu Shawl, head of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD), who had urged his group to consider a blanket boycott.
"It is not a right out rejection of all the election results around the whole country, it is in specific areas where we will complain," he said. "I think we should focus more on the areas where we had problems."
"We have specific areas where the elections have to be redone," Hailu said, citing the eastern region of Afar as being one such place.
The leader of the other main opposition coalition, the United Ethiopian Democratic Forces (UEDF), said his group, which had also threatened to reject the election results, was still considering its options.
Tallying the votes The first unofficial compilation of local polling station results is not expected to be released until Tuesday as election authorities wade through millions of ballots to consider challenges and protests.
By most accounts, Meles' Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) was likely to have won majority backing from the estimated 90 percent of the country's 26 million voters who cast ballots in the election.
Election officials estimated turnout to be about 95 percent in the capital and at between 80 and 90 percent in the rest of the country, where the EPRDF is particularly strong.
Meles, 50, who has run the country since the 1991 ouster of a Soviet-backed dictatorship, believes the vote will affirm the policies of his west-leaning centre-left policies and showcase Ethiopia's burgeoning democracy. | Government Job change - Election | May 2005 | ['(Reuters SA)', '(News24)', '(News24)', '(BBC)'] |
Makhosi Khoza, leader of South Africa's African Democratic Change party, resigns just five months after the party formed. | Only five months after starting a new political party‚ African Democratic Change ( ADeC) leader Makhosi Khoza has resigned from politics.
The former ANC MP on Saturday announced her decision to leave the party she had started on Facebook.
“I thought I should make my announcement public about retirement from politics.
“As the leading founder of ADeC and its director of its Non-Profit Organisation (NPO)‚ I therefore resign from both structures and authorise the ADeC National Board under the chairmanship of Moses Mayekiso to liaise with the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) and the other directors of the non-profit organisations to fill the vacant position as a result of my resignation and stepping down from politics.”
The party was launched in December and was supposed to focus on the quality of Ubuntu and unemployment. “I don’t know of any other party that has ever unpacked the philosophy of Ubuntu‚" she said in December.
In March‚ members of ADeC called for her resignation as she didn’t recognise the party’s newly elected interim leadership.
She also expelled leaders Lufuno Gogoro and Mpho Ramakatsa which angered other members.
On Saturday‚ in her resignation letter she explained she wants to work with her son‚ a computer programmer‚ to give African languages "prestige" and "prosperity".
"One’s mother tongue is not just a communication tool but‚ the engine [of] one’s logic and intelligence.... It is a calamity of despicable proportions that a black African-led government claiming to be the liberator has dismally failed to position and develop black African languages as those of prestige and prosperity."
In an unclear statement she said she was working with Zulu and maths‚ and with her son who had developed an algorithm.
"Retiring from politics means I will work with all citizens irrespective of their political affiliations. As made explicitly clear‚ my mission is apolitical. It will therefore be an antithesis if I was to be associated with a particular political party."
She had been an outspoken member of the ANC - in 2017 asking members to join a vote of no confidence in Jacob Zuma. | Government Job change - Resignation_Dismissal | April 2018 | ['(Herald Live)'] |
Five people are killed and dozens injured when a train slams into a bus carrying school students in Niš, Serbia. | A train has slammed into a bus carrying school students in southern Serbia, cutting it in half and killing five people, police say. Dozens of people were injured and two teenagers were fighting for their lives after the accident, which happened early on Friday near the city of Nis.
A child and two adults were killed instantly, while two other adults died later in hospital, reports said.
Images from the scene showed one of the train's carriages had derailed.
All the casualties in Friday's accident were reportedly on board the bus, which was left twisted and wrecked following the impact at the railway crossing.
The bus was carrying passengers from surrounding villages to the centre of Nis at the time.
Serbian Health Minister Zlatibor Loncar said 13 of the injured were in a critical condition, including eight teenagers. A boy and girl aged 16 had life-threatening injuries, he said.
One eyewitness, Stevan Jocic, told reporters that he "heard a big bang" and immediately "knew it was bad", Serbian daily Kurir reported. "The bus was cut down the middle, with passengers inside... high school kids. It was horrific," he said. Police and ambulance crews reportedly arrived quickly at the scene.
The cause of the collision was unclear, but police said early indications suggested the bus driver was at fault.
| Road Crash | December 2018 | ['(BBC)'] |
The European Union narrowly votes to recommend that its 28 member nations drop criminal charges against Edward Snowden and protect him from U.S. extradition and to recognize him as a defender of human rights because of his revelations regarding U.S. and British spying. | The European Parliament voted narrowly on Thursday to urge its 28 member states to protect NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden from prosecution and extradition and to recognize him as a defender of human rights because of his revelations regarding U.S. and British spying. Though Snowden’s disclosures caused a firestorm of public controversy in Europe, few nations have been willing to provoke a confrontation with Washington, which has demanded that he be returned to the United States to face espionage charges. And it’s far from certain that Thursday’s non-binding resolution, approved by a vote of 285 to 281, will cause any other European states to step up and protect Snowden from the long arm of the U.S. Justice Department. The former NSA contractor has been living in Russia since 2013.
Asylum protection for Snowden would surely provoke a diplomatic crisis with the United States, and on Thursday the White House reiterated its intention of putting Snowden on trial. “Our position has not changed,” National Security Council spokesman Ned Price said in a statement. “Mr. Snowden is accused of leaking classified information and faces felony charges here in the United States. As such, he should be returned to the U.S. as soon as possible, where he will be accorded full due process.”
Though it is unlikely to pave an immediate path out of Russia for Snowden, the resolution represents yet another milestone in Snowden’s efforts to bolster the legitimacy of his actions and lay the legal groundwork for his eventual departure from Russia, where he has taken refuge for the last two years. Writing on Twitter, Snowden called the resolution a “game-changer” and said that it “is not a blow against the US Government, but an open hand extended by friends. It is a chance to move forward.”
The resolution calls on EU states “to drop any criminal charges against Edward Snowden, grant him protection and consequently prevent extradition or rendition by third parties, in recognition of his status as whistleblower and international human rights defender.”
Snowden has repeatedly said that he would like to leave Russia. Several Latin American nations have offered him legal protection, but the whistleblower is reportedly skeptical that he would be able to reach Venezuela, Nicaragua, or Bolivia without being arrested by U.S. authorities. Several European states have made non-committal statements as to whether they would grant Snowden asylum, saying that he would have to physically make it to their countries in order to lodge an asylum request. Others, including Poland, have been outright hostile to the notion of granting Snowden legal protection. The resolution gives Snowden’s defenders a potent argument to fight back against such resistance, but not much more. He probably won’t be leaving Russia any time soon. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | October 2015 | ['(285281)', '(UPI)', '(Foreign Policy)'] |
Thailand authorities investigate what could be the first cases of Zika virus-linked microcephaly in Southeast Asia. | BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand is investigating four suspected cases of Zika-related microcephaly in three babies and a 36-week old unborn baby, the public health minister said on Tuesday, in what could be the first cases of Zika-linked microcephaly in Southeast Asia.
Several countries in Southeast Asia have reported increasing cases of infection from the mosquito-borne Zika virus but Thailand has one of the highest numbers in the region, with 349 confirmed since January, including 25 pregnant women.
Public Health Minister Piyasakon Sakolsatayadorn said authorities needed to be thorough in their investigation of the cases as confirmation would be sensitive.
The lab results will take at least two days because we have to be thorough with this as it is a big deal and a link hasnt been detected before, Piyasakon told Reuters.
This is a sensitive matter for Thailand, he said.
U.S. health officials have concluded that Zika infections in pregnant women can cause microcephaly, a birth defect marked by small head size that can lead to severe developmental problems in babies.
Piyasakon said the three babies were born with small heads and an ultrasound appeared to indicate the unborn baby had a small head.
Of the four mothers, two were diagnosed with Zika when they were pregnant but two were not confirmed to have had Zika, said Apichai Mongkol, director-general of the ministrys Department of Medical Sciences.
If a Thai case were confirmed, it would be the first in Southeast Asia, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a statement emailed to Reuters.
The connection between Zika and microcephaly first came to light last year in Brazil, which has confirmed more than 1,600 cases of microcephaly that it considers to be related to Zika infections in the mothers.
Some health experts have accused Thailand, which has a thriving tourist industry, of playing down the risk from Zika.
But officials dismiss that saying the response has been adequate and another mosquito-born disease, dengue, which can be deadly, is a bigger threat.
The director-general of Thailands Disease Control Department, Amnuay Gajeena, said the four cases were being monitored but he declined to say exactly where they were suspected of contracting the virus.
It is not in Bangkok, Amnuay told Reuters. Both the mothers and babies are being tested and we have sent the tests to several labs.
There are no specific tests to determine if a baby will be born with microcephaly, but ultrasound scans in the third trimester of pregnancy can identify the problem, according to the WHO.
The World Health Organization lists Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam as countries reporting new cases of Zika.
Singapore has recorded 393 cases since diagnosing its first in August. It has confirmed 16 pregnant women with the virus.
The WHO has also said there is strong scientific consensus that Zika can also cause Guillain-Barre, a rare neurological syndrome that causes temporary paralysis in adults.
According to the WHO, there are two major lineages of Zika - an African lineage, which has only been reported in Africa, where the virus was first discovered in 1947, and an Asian lineage of strains.
There is no vaccine or treatment for Zika, which is a close cousin of dengue and chikungunya and causes mild fever, rash and red eyes. An estimated 80 percent of people infected have no symptoms, making it difficult for pregnant women to know whether they have been infected.
Additional reporting by Cod Satrusayang and Panarat Thepgumpanat in BANGKOK, Marius Zaharia in SINGAPORE; Writing by Amy Sawitta Lefevre; Editing by Robert Birsel
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
| Disease Outbreaks | September 2016 | ['(Reuters)'] |
Alabama Governor Robert J. Bentley resigns as the Alabama House Judiciary Committee began impeachment proceedings against him over a relationship with a former aide. In addition, Bentley pleads guilty to two "failure to disclose" misdemeanors. Kay Ivey is sworn in as Alabama Governor. Under terms of the plea bargain, Bentley is forbidden from ever running for elected office in Alabama again. | On Monday morning, state lawmakers began hearings to decide whether to impeach Bentley for allegedly using state resources and campaign funds to conceal an affair with a top member of his staff.
By Monday evening, with mounting calls for Bentley to resign, the two sides agreed that Bentley would plead guilty to two "failure to disclose" misdemeanors, repay the misused funds, and never hold public office again.
"I have decided that it is time for me to step down as Alabama's governor," Bentley said at a press conference Monday evening. "The time has come for me to look for new ways to serve the people of our great state."
AL.com also reported Monday evening that the governor was booked into Montgomery County Jail for the misdemeanors, though the booking later seemed to disappear:
On Friday, Jack Sharman, special counsel to the state's House Judiciary Committee, submitted a 130-page report alleging that Bentley intimidated members of his office into keeping quiet about an affair with his adviser Rebekah Caldwell Mason.
"Governor Bentley directed law enforcement to advance his personal interests and, in a process characterized by increasing obsession and paranoia, subjected career law enforcement officers to tasks intended to protect his reputation," the report concluded.
On Monday, district attorney Daryl Bailey had referred the criminal investigation to Alabama's acting attorney general. The report authors also specified that they considered Bentley's attempts to obstruct the investigation by withholding messages as an "independent ground for impeachment."
"Impeachment is a remedy, not a punishment," the report added.
Before the report was released, Bentley stood on the steps of the state Capitol on Friday and declared he did "not plan to resign."
The investigation began after Spencer Collier, the recently fired head of the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, confirmed he was looking into text messages "of a sexual nature" between Bentley and Mason in March 2016.
The governor's ex-wife, Dianne Bentley, provided the messages to the House Judiciary Committee. She discovered them on a state-issued iPad her husband gave her that synced his accounts.
"I sure miss you. I need you. I want you. You are the only one," Bentley said in one text to Mason.
In the report, witnesses also accused Bentley of getting a law enforcement officer to retrieve a recording of his phone conversation with Mason, threatening his wife's chief of staff, and taking Mason on state aircraft although she wasn't an employee at the time. | Government Job change - Resignation_Dismissal | April 2017 | ['(NBC News)', '(Business Insider)', '(WHNT)'] |
A roadside bomb kills five Iraqi policemen in the western city of Fallujah. | A roadside bomb killed five Iraqi policemen today in the once turbulent but recently secure western city of Falluja, police said, a day after at least 72 people died in a market bombing in Baghdad.
A string of attacks has cast doubt on the ability of Iraqi forces to keep the lid on a stubborn insurgency after US combat troops withdraw from towns and cities at the end of this month.
Police in Falluja in Anbar province, once the heartland of the rebellion against US troops and government forces, said Thursday's blast destroyed a police vehicle and killed all five policemen inside, including a lieutenant.
It came hours after an explosion tore through a busy second-hand market in eastern Baghdad's Sadr City slum, killing 72 people just four days after US forces handed security of the Shi'ite Muslim area to Iraqi troops and police.
On Saturday, a massive truck bomb killed 73 people near the northern city of Kirkuk. That and the Sadr City market bombing were the bloodiest attacks in the country for more than a year.
Violence has dropped sharply across Iraq over the past year, but militants including Sunni Islamist al-Qaeda continue to launch car and suicide bombings aimed at undermining the Shi'ite Muslim-led government and reigniting sectarian conflict.
Prime minister Nuri al-Maliki, a member of Iraq's Shi'ite majority, has urged Iraqis not to lose heart if insurgents take advantage of the US military drawdown to step up attacks.
Analysts say attacks are also likely to intensify ahead of a parliamentary election in January that will be a test of whether the country's feuding factions can live together after years of sectarian slaughter unleashed by the 2003 US invasion. | Armed Conflict | June 2009 | ['(The Irish Times)'] |
Juan Antonio Samaranch, the 7th president of the International Olympic Committee , dies at the age of 89. | Last October, Juan Antonio Samaranch stood before the members of the International Olympic Committee for one final time.
He'd come to Copenhagen to support Madrid's bid to host the 2016 Games. Madrid was an outsider in a contest that had been expected to end in a showdown between Rio and Chicago. "I know that I am very near the end of my time," Samaranch said. "I am, as you know 89 years old. May I ask you to consider granting my country the honour and also the duty to organise the Games in 2016. Thank you." A few hours later Madrid defied the odds to beat Chicago and Tokyo and reach a final vote against Rio. Samaranch's emotional intervention was credited with being the main reason for the late surge in support for the Spanish capital. No individual commanded greater respect within the IOC than Juan Antonio Samaranch, the man who had led the organisation for 21 years from 1980 to 2001. The voting demonstrated that once more. The endearment is perhaps surprising considering that Samaranch had led the IOC through its greatest crisis. The Salt Lake City scandal rocked the whole Olympic movement. In 1998 a Swiss IOC member, Marc Hodler, blew the whistle on the corruption in the bidding process. An internal inquiry found that as many as 20 of the IOC's 110 members had been bribed to back Salt Lake's bid to host the 2002 Winter Olympics. Some had been given holidays, others jobs or university places for their relatives. One member's wife had even received free cosmetic surgery - 13 IOC members ended up losing their positions. Samaranch was never found guilty of any wrongdoing, but some blamed him for having turned a blind eye to all the corruption. By the time that Samaranch stepped down as IOC President in 2001 it was inevitable that his reputation had been tainted. So why then did the IOC's members stay so loyal to their former president? A cynic would say that they were simply sticking by a man who had enabled them to line their pockets for so many years. For one or two of them maybe that was the case, but the truth is that there is a genuine belief within the Olympic movement that the modern Olympics simply wouldn't be the same if it hadn't been for Samaranch, and the Spaniard's supporters have a point. In the 1970's the Olympics were facing financial meltdown. Montreal has only just finished off repaying the debt it stacked up from hosting the 1976 Games. There was a real possibility that no city would come forward to offer to host a future Olympics. Contrast that with the situation 30 years on. The 2012 Games were contested by five of the world's biggest cities - London, New York, Madrid, Moscow and Paris. Juan Antonio Samaranch can take much of the credit for this. After Los Angeles had been elected unopposed as the host city for the 1984 Olympics everything changed. The Games made a profit of $235 million - the first to finish with a surplus since 1932. The following year, under Samaranch's leadership, the IOC set up The Olympic Programme (TOP), an exclusive club for major global sponsors. It still exists now and brings in hundreds of millions of pounds. At the same time television companies were persuaded to part with large sums of cash. Suddenly the Olympic rings had become one of the world's most marketable symbols. The Olympic movement had been saved. Of course Samaranch cannot take all of the credit for the financial revival of the Olympics. Similarly he certainly cannot take all of the blame for the consequences of what happened when the money started to flow too freely into the wrong people's hands. It is, though, fair to say that the modern day IOC wouldn't be the same if it had not been for Juan Antonio Samaranch. It could well be the case that future Olympic historians will treat the corruption scandals as a minor blip, while the turning of the Games from loss to profit is viewed as the action that saved the type of Olympics that we see today. | Famous Person - Death | April 2010 | ['(1980 – 2001)', '(BBC)', '(CNN)', '(ESPN)'] |
Arizona Senator John McCain wins the Republican primary. | (CNN) -- Sen. John McCain claimed victory in Florida's Republican primary, and Sen. Hillary Clinton took the state's Democratic contest Tuesday night.
The results in the Republican race might have delivered a fatal blow to the campaign of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who was a distant third as results came in Tuesday night.
Two GOP sources with direct knowledge of Giuliani's plans said he will drop out of the race and endorse McCain at an event in California on Wednesday.
While Giuliani didn't say he was withdrawing from the race, he did speak of his campaign in the past tense at one point.
"I'm proud I ran a positive campaign," he told supporters. "I ran a campaign that was uplifting." Watch how Giuliani reacted to the results »
With 97 percent of Republican precincts reporting, McCain held a 36-31 percent lead over former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Giuliani had 15 percent of the vote, followed closely by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee who held 14 percent. See what the results mean »
A top campaign official from McCain's camp has been in "ongoing discussions" with Giuliani's campaign about endorsing McCain's candidacy, a GOP official familiar with talks told CNN Tuesday. Watch what happened to Giuliani's campaign »
A source close to Giuliani confirmed that discussions were taking place and said there is talk among the staff that an endorsement could come Wednesday in California. The source said McCain and Giuliani need to talk, but "we are working to make it happen." "Tonight, my friends, we celebrate. Tomorrow, it's back to work," McCain said as he claimed victory. "We have a ways to go, but we're getting close, and for that, you all have my profound thanks." Watch McCain claim victory »
A Florida win gives McCain all 57 of the delegates at stake.
Romney took aim at McCain Tuesday night, putting the Arizona senator on the hot seat for failures in Washington, his criticisms of President Bush and for going from the military directly into Congress. "Washington is fundamentally broken," Romney said. "We're not going to change Washington just by sending the same people back just to sit in different chairs." Watch Romney thank his supporters »
McCain, who cultivates an image as a maverick, has been in the senate for four terms after two terms as a U.S. congressman. Huckabee told his supporters he was "playing all nine innings of this ball game." Audio slideshow: Candidates react to the Florida results »
"Even the Cardinals occasionally have a rough inning, but they know how to win championships," he told a crowd in Missouri. Watch Huckabee say he's just getting started »
With about 97 percent of Democratic precincts reporting, Clinton had 50 percent of the vote. Illinois Sen. Barack Obama was in second with 33 percent, and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards was in third with 14 percent.
The Democratic vote may have little impact on the presidential race, however, because the party's national leadership said it would not allow Florida's delegates to participate in the national convention because of a squabble over scheduling.
Republicans penalized the state as well, but took away only half of their 114 delegates. CNN political analyst Bill Schneider said earlier a Florida victory for McCain would be significant because it would be a way for him to prove he has the support of his party's base. Florida is a closed primary, which means that only registered party members may vote in their own party's primary. McCain won primary contests in New Hampshire and South Carolina, thanks in part to the backing of independent voters who cast ballots in the Republican contests. Clinton claimed victory despite party sanctions stripping the state of its convention delegates, thanking supporters even though she and other candidates did not campaign there. "I am thrilled to have had this vote of confidence that you have given me today," Clinton told supporters. "I promise you I will do everything I can to make sure not only are Florida's Democratic delegates seated, but Florida is in the winning column for the Democrats in 2008." Watch how Clinton won in Florida »
Clinton has called on the Democratic Party to formally lift sanctions on the state.
Robert Gibbs, communications director for Obama campaign, downplayed the Florida results and got a dig in at Clinton. "Mike Gravel is going to get the same number of delegates as Clinton," Gibbs said, referring to the former Alaska senator who has yet to earn a single percentage point in earlier contests. Gibbs said he thought the results would have little effect on the race heading into Super Tuesday. "You can't gain momentum in a state that everyone but Hillary Clinton pledged not to campaign in," Gibbs said.
Turnout was high for the Democratic race even though no delegates were at stake. Florida Sen. Bill Nelson said about 2.5 million voters cast ballots, and nearly 400,000 people cast early or absentee ballots ahead of the primary. See scenes from Florida's Republican race »
Donna Brazile, who managed former Vice President Al Gore's presidential bid, said many Democrats were likely to turn out to vote on a state constitutional amendment that would limit property tax increases and expand homestead exemptions. "People are very afraid this will cut public services, cut back education," said Brazile, a CNN analyst. "So the Florida Education Association and all of the unions are spending millions of dollars to get voters to turn out." The economy is overwhelmingly the top issue for voters in Florida's primary, according to early exit polls.
Among Republicans and Democrats, the economy dwarfed other issues affecting their vote. Forty-seven percent of Republicans said the economy is the most pressing issue, as did 55 percent of Democrats.
The primary calendar played in Florida's favor. Other than Republican caucuses in Maine this weekend, Florida is the last contest before the coast-to-coast primaries and caucuses on February 5, known as Super Tuesday. McCain, Romney and the three other candidates engaged in a civil debate in Florida on Thursday night. But since Friday, the McCain and Romney camps, and the candidates themselves, have fired away at each other over the war in Iraq, the economy, illegal immigration and border security, campaign finance reform and the environment. Watch scenes from the 2008 battle for the White House »
And the negative attacks are not just occurring at campaign events and being reported by the media. "It's also raging in paid advertising on TV and radio. Romney has spent $30 million on TV ads in Florida this year," said CNN political correspondent Dana Bash. That's five times as much as the McCain campaign, which is now using less expensive radio commercials to directly question Romney's credibility on the economy.
Huckabee has campaigned in Florida, but he's also spent time stumping in some of the Southern states that will vote on Super Tuesday.
Rep. Ron Paul of Texas is also concentrating on the February 5 states. | Government Job change - Election | January 2008 | ['(CNN)', '(The New York Times)'] |
The British Secretary of State for Defence, Liam Fox, resigns amid allegations over his working relationship with lobbyist Adam Werritty. | Defence Secretary Liam Fox has resigned after a week of pressure over his working relationship with friend and self-styled adviser Adam Werritty.
Mr Fox was being investigated amid claims he broke the ministerial code. In a letter to David Cameron, Mr Fox said he had "mistakenly allowed" personal and professional responsibilities to be "blurred".
Mr Cameron said he was very sorry to see him go. Transport Secretary Philip Hammond will replace Mr Fox.
Labour said Mr Fox had not upheld the standards expected of ministers and his departure had been "inevitable".
The defence secretary has been under pressure since it emerged that Mr Werritty, a lobbyist, had met him on 18 foreign trips despite having no official role.
Mr Werritty, a former flatmate of Mr Fox and the best man at his wedding, handed out business cards suggesting he was his adviser and was present at meetings Mr Fox had with military figures, diplomats and defence contractors.
Questions were also raised about who paid for Mr Werritty's business activities and whether he had personally benefited from his frequent access to the defence secretary. No 10 sources said that the prime minister had been willing to give Mr Fox time to stay in his job - at least until the details of a report by Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell into his conduct were published early next week.
Mr Fox has been replaced by Transport Secretary Mr Hammond. In a mini-reshuffle caused by Mr Fox's departure, Treasury minister Justine Greening has replaced Mr Hammond - becoming the fifth woman in the Cabinet.
In a statement released on Friday night, Mr Hammond said his predecessor had done a "brilliant job".
"I look forward to picking up the baton from Liam and working closely with the prime minister, foreign secretary and international development secretary to ensure that our defences are robust and that the finances that lie behind them are equally robust," he added.
In his resignation letter, Mr Fox said he had "mistakenly allowed the distinction between my personal interest and my government activities to become blurred".
"The consequences of this have become clearer in recent days," he added. "I am very sorry for this.
"I have also repeatedly said that the national interest must always come before personal interest. "I now have to hold myself to my own standard. I have therefore decided, with great sadness, to resign from my post as secretary of state for defence."
Responding to Mr Fox's resignation, Mr Cameron said: "I understand your reasons for deciding to resign as defence secretary, although I am very sorry to see you go.
"We have worked closely for these last six years, and you have been a key member of my team throughout that time."
He said Mr Fox, MP for North Somerset for 19 years, had "done a superb job in the 17 months since the election, and as shadow defence secretary before that" and had overseen changes that would allow the armed forces to "meet the challenges of the modern era".
The BBC's political editor Nick Robinson said the prime minister had given Mr Fox time to defend himself but the defence secretary had struggled to stem the tide of questions about his dealings with Mr Werritty. No 10 had come to the conclusion on Thursday that Mr Fox's position was becoming untenable, he added, and Mr Fox had reluctantly reached the same view.
Mr Fox apologised to MPs earlier this week about how his links with Mr Werritty had been perceived but he maintained there had been no impropriety. Labour said Mr Fox had "fallen foul of the standards expected of ministers and broken the rules".
"The facts have caught up with Liam Fox and he had to resign," shadow defence secretary Jim Murphy said. "It was inconceivable that once a minister had been seen to break their own code of conduct on so many occasions that he could survive."
And former Lib Dem leader Sir Menzies Campbell said recent events had undermined Mr Fox's authority and morale at his department.
"Mr Fox has bowed to the inevitable," he said. "It had become impossible for him to draw a line under the story."
But Conservative MPs rallied behind Mr Fox, saying he had made a major contribution in his time at the Ministry of Defence and some suggested he could, one day, return to government.
Sir Malcolm Rifkind, a former defence secretary, said Mr Fox had done an "extremely good" job and his departure was "very, very distressing" as it would lead to further upheaval at the MoD. Conservative backbencher Peter Bone told the BBC Mr Fox had made errors but they did not constitute a "hanging offence".
"He said he made mistakes and with hindsight he wouldn't have done it but I didn't think that was enough to require him to resign," he said.
"But when the story, every news item, isn't about what's happening in Afghanistan and what's happening in Libya but who said what to who then he put his country first and resigned."
David Pasley, a Tory councillor in Mr Fox's North Somerset constituency, described the MP as "hard working" and "diligent", and said he was "deeply saddened" by Friday's events.
But he added: "He's someone who you can't keep down. "He has got such experience in his political career that I'm sure it will just be a question of time before he's back, and I hope he's back very soon in a high profile position."
Fox leaves unfinished business
| Government Job change - Resignation_Dismissal | October 2011 | ['(BBC)'] |
Bill Gwatney, the current state Chairman of the Democratic Party of Arkansas is shot and killed at the Party headquarters in Little Rock, Arkansas. The man who shot Gwatney is later shot dead by police during a pursuit. | (CNN) -- The chairman of the Arkansas Democratic Party died Wednesday, about four hours after a shooting at the party's headquarters, police said.
Police block off the streets surrounding the state Democratic Party headquarters Wednesday in Little Rock.
Chairman Bill Gwatney died at 3:59 Wednesday afternoon after a gunman entered his Little Rock office and shot him several times in the upper body, Little Rock Police Lt. Terry Hastings said. Authorities confirmed the news shortly after former President Clinton and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton released a statement expressing their condolences.
"We are deeply saddened by the news that Bill Gwatney has passed away," the former governor and first lady of Arkansas said. "His leadership and commitment to Arkansas and this country have always inspired us and those who had the opportunity to know him." The shooting suspect, a white male in his fifties, also died Wednesday afternoon after a police chase ended in gunfire, Hastings said.
Authorities are working to confirm his identity, but Hastings said there was no indication that he was a former employee. He said police were investigating possible motives, as well as why the suspect went into the Arkansas Baptist State Convention brandishing a gun.
CNN affilliates KARK and KTHV identified the gunman as Timothy Dale Johnson, 50, of Searcy, Arkansas.
The suspect walked into the downtown headquarters, near the state Capitol building, before noon.
The gunman said he was interested in volunteering, said Sam Higginbotham, a 17-year-old volunteer at the headquarters, The Associated Press reported.
"That was obviously a lie," Higginbotham said, the AP reported. The man asked for Gwatney and spoke with another employee before pushing his way into his office and pulling a gun on Gwatney, Hastings said.
A woman in a nearby business told KTHV that Gwatney's assistant came in and asked her to call police. Watch witnesses describe the incident »
"I thought maybe someone had gotten hit by a car," said Sarah Lee, who works at a florist's shop. "She was just shaking really bad." But then the woman said that Gwatney had been shot and that three shots had been fired, Lee said.
After the shooting, the suspect entered a nearby Arkansas Baptist State Convention and pointed a gun at an employee.
The man was "white as a sheet," convention official Dan Jordan said. "I've heard he said something do to about losing a job. ... He didn't threaten anyone." The man left through the front door shortly afterward, he said.
A vehicle description was provided to police, Hastings said, and officers found it. A chase involving Little Rock police, Arkansas State Police and the Grant County Sheriff's Office ended about 20 miles south of Little Rock, where the suspect was shot and taken into custody, he said. See a map of where the suspect was shot »
Police said the suspect drove into a ditch and around a set of spike strips in an attempt to evade police.
Grant County authorities used a squad car to hit the suspect's vehicle from behind and ram it into another unit.
The man then got out of his vehicle and began shooting at officers, who returned fire.
In Sheridan, Arkansas, where the chase ended, a crowd gathered near the suspect's blue pickup as police cordoned off the area with yellow crime-scene tape. What appeared to be bullet holes could be seen in the truck's windshield.
Police did not confirm Gwatney's identity until he died, but the Clintons released a statement earlier Wednesday that suggested Gwatney was involved.
"We are stunned and shaken by today's shooting at the Arkansas Democratic Party where our good friend and fellow Democrat Bill Gwatney was critically wounded," they said.
"Bill is not only a strong chairman of Arkansas' Democratic Party, but he is also a cherished friend and confidante. Our thoughts and prayers are with Bill and his family today and we wish him a quick recovery," they said.
The Democratic National Committee also issued a statement Wednesday that identified Gwatney.
"This senseless tragedy comes as a shock to all of us," Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said in a written statement. "Our thoughts and prayers go out to Chairman Gwatney and his family and we pray for his full and speedy recovery."
CNN's Mary Lynn Ryan contributed to this report. All About Little Rock • Democratic Party of Arkansas | Famous Person - Death | August 2008 | ['(CNN)'] |
In Peru, two trains collide en route to Machu Picchu, injuring 15. | About 15 tourists have been injured near Machu Picchu in Peru after two passenger trains collided on Tuesday, local authorities say.
The trains, owned by rival companies, crashed en route to the country's most visited tourist attraction - the ancient Inca citadel.
It is still not clear what caused the collision. Police said investigations were under way.
Machu Picchu attracts more than a million visitors a year.
The passenger trains belonged to competing local operators, Peru Rail and Inca Rail.
Peru Rail confirmed the collision on Twitter and released a statement in Spanish saying that emergency protocol had been followed to evacuate those affected.
One of the passengers on the Inca Rail train told local media that the accident occurred due to a protest on the tracks that forced the train to halt for an hour. Police and the train operators are yet to confirm this allegation.
The citadel of Machu Picchu, located 2,500m (8,200ft) above sea level, is the most famous monument of the Inca empire, which ruled Peru until the 15th-Century Spanish conquest.
Often referred to as the "lost city of the Incas", the World Heritage Site is thought to have been built around 1450 AD.
| Train collisions | July 2018 | ['(BBC)'] |
Evacuations continue from the area surrounding the Mayon Volcano in the Philippines as lava flows down the mountain ahead of a possible eruption. | Philippines authorities say they have evacuated thousands of people from the edges of a volcano that's on the verge of erupting.
Albay province governor Joey Salceda says almost 7,000 families living around Mayon volcano have been evacuated.
About 400 families still need to be moved to safer ground.
Security forces will set up checkpoints to prevent people from breaching the danger zone around the volcano.
Evacuation sites, however, have been crowded, with people facing problems such as a lack of water supply and health and sanitation issues.
Lava cascaded down the Philippines' most active volcano on Wednesday, two days after authorities raised the third highest alert in a five-step scale, meaning a full-scale eruption is possible "within weeks".
The volcano's world-renowned perfect cone appeared to have been deformed and swollen with lava that had risen from the Earth's core.
| Volcano Eruption | September 2014 | ['(AFP via ABC News Australia)'] |
Sir Norman Bettison resigns as Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police as his role in the aftermath of the 1989 Hillsborough disaster is being investigated. | Sir Norman Bettison has resigned as chief constable of West Yorkshire Police, saying an inquiry into his role after the Hillsborough tragedy was "a distraction" to the force. At the time of the disaster he was a South Yorkshire Police inspector who attended the match as a spectator and later took part in an internal inquiry.
Sir Norman has denied claims he helped "concoct" a false version of events.
He had been due to retire in March but had faced calls for him to go early.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), which is undertaking two investigations into Sir Norman, issued a statement saying: "Retirement or resignation does not prevent criminal prosecution should the investigation identify criminal offences, including misconduct in a public office."
Margaret Aspinall, chairwoman of the Hillsborough Families Support Group, said: "I'm absolutely delighted he's gone but as far as I am concerned he should have been sacked.
"I would now like to know what payments and pension he's going to get.
"Any financial benefits should be frozen until the outcome of the investigation into the cover-up."
West Yorkshire Police Authority said media attention and the investigations by the IPCC were "proving to be a huge distraction for the force".
Sir Norman has been referred to the IPCC over allegations he provided misleading information after the disaster, in which 96 Liverpool fans died.
Last month, a report by the Independent Hillsborough Panel revealed 164 police statements by South Yorkshire Police were altered - 116 of them to remove or change negative comments about the policing of the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at the Sheffield stadium.
It revealed a cover-up took place to shift the blame on to the victims, and that 41 of the 96 who died could have potentially been saved if they had received treatment earlier.
In a statement last month, Sir Norman said: "Fans' behaviour, to the extent that it was relevant at all, made the job of the police, in the crush outside Leppings Lane turnstiles, harder than it needed to be."
He apologised a day later saying Liverpool fans were "in no way to blame" for the disaster and that he was sorry if he had "caused any further upset". Sir Norman's resignation comes after candidates bidding to become West Yorkshire's police and crime commissioner called for him to stand down now rather than retire in March as planned.
In a statement, he said: "The police authority, and some of the candidates in the forthcoming PCC elections, have made it clear that they wish me to go sooner.
"I do so, not because of any allegations about the past, but because I share the view that this has become a distraction to policing in West Yorkshire now and in the future."
The police authority said Deputy Chief Constable John Parkinson would take up the role of acting chief constable.
A Home Office spokesperson said Sir Norman's resignation was "a matter for the police authority".
Policing minister Damian Green said it was important that the West Yorkshire force was able to get on with the job of policing. "If the inevitable deep concerns surrounding all of this - which, clearly, would be very, very understandable - were getting in the way of doing that job, then it is clearly sensible to allow West Yorkshire Police to get on with their important work."
| Government Job change - Resignation_Dismissal | October 2012 | ['(BBC)'] |
Iran's finance minister Masoud Karbasian is sacked after an impeachment attempt by parliament. This is the second impeachment this month, after Ali Rabiei's on 8 August. | Iran's parliament impeached Economy Minister Masoud Karbasian on Sunday in the latest blow to embattled President Hassan Rouhani as he struggles to face down a mounting economic crisis.
Karbasian is the second cabinet minister to be sacked this month, following the impeachment of Labour Minister Ali Rabiei on August 8.
He lost a vote of confidence, which was carried live on state radio, by 137 votes to 121, with two abstentions.
The outcome sees him stripped of his post with immediate effect, leaving Rouhani to pick a replacement.
Critics say the government squandered the opportunities presented by the 2015 nuclear deal and have failed to tackle high rates of inflation and joblessness.
With the United States abandoning the nuclear deal in May and reimposing sanctions, Rouhani's hopes of attracting vast sums of foreign investment appear dead in the water.
Major European firms, including France's Total, Peugeot and Renault, and Germany's Siemens and Daimler, have all announced their departure since the US announcement.
Rouhani's conservative opponents - who long-opposed his outreach to the West and efforts to improve civil liberties - say the primary blame lies with government corruption and mismanagement.
"Inefficiency and lack of planning have nothing to do with sanctions," said one lawmaker, Abbas Payizadeh, in a speech ahead of the vote.
"Wrong decisions have harmed the people and led to individuals looting public assets," he added.
Rouhani, a political moderate, can still count on the support of a sizeable reformist bloc in parliament, but even some of its key figures have grown disillusioned.
"What have we done with this nation? We made them miserable and wretched," said Elias Hazrati, of the reformist Hope faction in parliament.
"The middle class are moving towards poverty," added Hazrati, who broke ranks to vote in favour of the impeachment.
Hazrati said the government had failed to plan for the real pain of sanctions, which will hit when a second phase of US measures is reintroduced in November targeting Iran's crucial oil sector.
"We haven't been prepared and we are not prepared now," said Hazrati.
"The only person we could get our hands on was the economy minister. Otherwise, the president should have been impeached," he added.
For now, Rouhani remains protected by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who said this month that removing the president would "play into the hands of the enemy".
But parliament has summoned the president for the first time to answer questions on the crisis, and he is expected to appear on Tuesday.
One of the key markers of Iran's economic crisis has been the collapse in the currency, which has lost around half its value since April.
That was partly owing to US hostility, but also due to a disastrous decision to fix the value of the rial and shut down currency traders. The move triggered a boom in the black market and widespread corruption, before the decision was finally reversed this month.
Business people in Iran point to other deep-rooted problems, from the debt-ridden banking sector to the outsized and opaque role of military-linked organisations in the economy.
Rouhani has taken small steps to resolve these issues, but most Iranians are dissatisfied with his progress.
There have been persistent, low-level strikes and demonstrations across the country for months over high prices and unpaid wages that have occasionally turned into violent protests against the system as a whole.
Figures released by the central bank on Saturday showed huge jumps in the cost of essential goods compared with a year ago.
Dairy products are up by a third, chicken by more than 20 percent and fresh fruit by 71 percent.
| Government Job change - Resignation_Dismissal | August 2018 | ['(Telegraph)'] |
A fire at the Monte Carlo Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada causes the entire building to be evacuated. | LAS VEGAS, Nevada (CNN) -- A fire charred the top of two of three wings of the Monte Carlo Resort and Casino on Friday, causing no major injuries but forcing visitors and employees to evacuate, authorities said. The recently remodeled Monte Carlo Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, is shown after and before the fire.
A bit over an hour after it began, the fire was fully contained, according to the fire departments in Las Vegas and Clark County. Firefighters would remain at the hotel until "the fire is completely knocked out," said Clark County Fire Chief Steven M. Smith. Watch the fire chief explain the situation »
That would be at least through the afternoon, he said. It was mainly an exterior fire, although there might have been slight damage to some rooms, he told CNN after a news conference. The cause of the fire was unknown. Welders had been working on the roof. See where the hotel is located »
No one was trapped, and there were no reports of major injuries, said Ed Cagalo of the Clark County Fire Department. The 32-floor building was completely evacuated.
The blaze was reported about 11 a.m.
Black smoke and flames poured from the fire, which roared through the building's exterior stucco and foam until firefighters were able to get on the roof and knock down the flames. Watch the fire burn »
Most of the damage was to the top floor of the building. Falling debris ignited parts of an exterior ledge four floors below. "High-rise fires are never easy to fight. As you can see with it being outside, our firefighters actually had to hang out the windows to try and cut the fire off. We directed our fire streams at an angle so we could make contact with the fire. ... It wasn't an easy fire at all," Smith said. Watch the chief talk about the firefighting efforts »
He urged motorists and pedestrians to avoid the area.
Earlier, the smoke was visible from more than a mile away, CNN producer Darian Billington said. Billington said traffic was backed up on the Strip, and crowds of people were gathering to watch the blaze.
"It was horrible, there was fire everywhere," a hotel worker who watched the flames from a parking lot told CNN affiliate KVBC.
Four U.S. Air Force HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopters with rescue crews were put on standby at Nellis Air Force Base during the afternoon to assist in any rescue efforts, but were not needed, a Nellis spokeswoman said.
The hotel has more than 3,000 rooms, including 211 penthouse suites, and conference rooms. The more expensive rooms are on the top floors. The hotel was built in 1996 for $344 million. It is in the heart of the resort corridor. The Monte Carlo, a subsidiary of MGM Mirage, has about 3,000 employees.
In 1980, a fire across the street at the MGM Grand Hotel, now Ballys, killed 84 people and injured nearly 700. | Fire | January 2008 | ['(CNN)'] |
Hurricane Lane weakens to a Category 3 storm and is expected to pass south of Hawaii throughout the next few days. | Updated on: August 19, 2018 / 5:45 PM
Hurricane Lane grew to a Category 4 storm on Saturday, but then weakened Sunday morning to a Category 3 as it moved closer to the Central Pacific basin, the National Hurricane Center said. As of 11 a.m. ET Sunday, Lane was located 885 miles east-southeast of Hilo, Hawaii.
The storm's maximum sustained winds are 120 mph, and it's moving west at about 15 mph. Forecasters say Lane is expected to lose power as it continues west-northwest over the next few days.
The current forecast track has it passing south of Hawaii's Big Island, CBS Honolulu affiliate KGMB reports.
There have already been strong storms in the Pacific Ocean in 2018, and water temperatures in the Pacific Ocean off San Diego hit a record high this month. While hurricanes are virtually unheard of in California, conditions could potentially raise the threat.
"It could happen, especially if the ocean temperatures continue to stay in this anomalously warm state," said Art Miller, an oceanographer.
Scientists at the Scripps Pier have been recording historic temperatures in the Pacific Ocean as high as 79.5 degrees. That's about 10 degrees above normal. | Hurricanes_Tornado_Storm_Blizzard | August 2018 | ['(CBS News)', '(Honolulu Star-Advertiser)'] |
The cities of Yafran and al-Qalaa in the Nafusa Mountains are in critical condition following ongoing attacks by Muammar Gaddafi's forces, with heavy artillery shelling continuing, water supplies shut off, and no food or medical supplies coming into the towns for weeks. | By Daily Mail Reporter Updated: 19:57 BST, 26 May 2011 10
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Thousands of Libyans in a town under siege by Gaddafi militiamen are surviving on rainwater and canned food, after being trapped for nearly eight weeks.
One resident in Yefren, where around 10,000 live, told The Times by satellite phone that his hometown and nearby Algalaa had not had access to the outside world since April 3.
The man, known only as Sefao, said the town would only survive for another week without help since Gaddafi's men captured the wells and damaged the water tank that the two towns shared with rockets.
Battle: Rebel fighters take part in training as Gaddafi stepped up his bombardment of cities under rebel control
'We have been under complete siege since April 3,' he told The Times. 'There is almost daily bombardment and we have no hospital because it is in Gaddafi hands.
'We were expecting that we could not survive more than a week [longer] because of the water situation but it rained the day before yesterday and people collected some water.
'When the people see the eyes in the sky [NATO aircraft] they have hope but when the aircraft leave they are desperate.'
The plea came as forces loyal to Gaddafi mounted their most intensive bombardment for days in the rebel-held city of Misrata.
No end in sight: Rebels now control the east of the country, around their main stronghold of Benghazi, and pockets of land in the West
Fighting continues: A rebel fighter points his gun as other comrades cross the front line between them, 25 km west from Misrata
A Reuters reporter in the city, which is about 200 km (130 miles) east of Tripoli, said he could hear mortars landing every few minutes in the western outskirts of Misrata.
He said there was a steady flow of ambulances going to and from the front line.
Peace horizon? Gaddafi has contacted foreign states offering an immediate ceasefire, but there was scepticism that the proposal could end the three-month-old conflict
'The bombing started at about 7 a.m. (0500 GMT). Today's mortar fire is quite fierce and sustained. The mortars are coming closer to the front line than they have for several days,' said Abdellatif Sueihy, a 56-year-old rebel fighter.
Gaddafi's security forces cracked down ferociously when thousands of Libyans rebelled against his rule. NATO missiles and warplanes have been bombing targets in Libya for two months under a U.N. mandate to protect civilians from attack.
Rebels now control the east of the country, around their main stronghold of Benghazi, and pockets of land in the West.
But the conflict has reached stalemate on the ground, with the rebels unable to advance towards Tripoli and NATO powers -- wary of getting sucked into new conflicts after their experience in Iraq and Afghanistan -- refusing to put troops on the ground.
Meanwhile it emerged today that Gaddafi has contacted foreign states offering an immediate ceasefire, but there was scepticism that the proposal could end the three-month-old conflict.
The ceasefire offer was unlikely to deflect Western leaders, meeting for a Group of Eight summit in the French seaside resort of Deauville, who say they are steadily moving closer to their goal of forcing Gaddafi from power.
Spain said it was one of several European governments to have received a proposal from Libyan Prime Minister Al-Baghdadi Ali Al-Mahmoudi for an immediate ceasefire.
'We've received the message and our position lies with the rest of Europe,' a spokesman for the Spanish prime minister's office said.
'Everyone is anxious for there to be an agreement ... but certain steps have to be taken first and so far they haven't been taken,' he said.
No sway: The ceasefire offer was unlikely to deflect Western leaders, meeting for a Group of Eight summit in the French seaside resort of Deauville, who say they are steadily moving closer to their goal of forcing Gaddafi from power
Bombs: Men stand next to a Libyan army tank destroyed by NATO air strikes a short distance from the east front line near Misrata
Gaddafi's government has offered ceasefires before. Each time, these have been rejected by rebels who say they will accept nothing short of the Libyan leader's departure.
It also emerged today that Gaddafi's government lost up to 3 billion in financial investments with some of the biggest banks and hedge funds in the world, under the auspices of France's Societe Generale.
A secret Libyan document uncovered by Global Witness campaign group and leaked to the Financial Times revealed that some of the investments by the Libyan Investment Authority made huge losses by mid-way through last year.
Loss: Mohamed El Taleb holds the portraits of his two sons, Salim, 17, and Adel, 27, who he claims were abducted in Misrata by Gaddafi forces
Destruction: A Libyan carrying a child looks at a building damaged during clashes between rebel forces and Libyan Army in Misrata
One even resulted in a 98.5 per cent fall in the value of the sovereign wealth fund's 1.2 billion equity and currency derivatives portfolio.
Global Witness campaigner Robert Palmer told the Financial Times: 'It is striking how many top financial institutions were prepared to do business with the Libyan regime, given the obvious concerns over the potential of state assets for personal gain.'
Among the names on the document that did business with the oil-rich nation were JP Morgan, Credite Suisse and BNP Paribas.
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The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline. | Armed Conflict | May 2011 | ['(Dailymail)', '(CNN)'] |
A court in France sentences five women to prison terms for their roles in the failed bombing. A Syrian man, thought to have been killed in Iraq in 2017, is sentenced to life in absentia. | Five French women have been sentenced to between five and 30 years in jail for trying to detonate a car bomb near Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris in 2016. The case is said to be the first to involve a group of women attempting to stage an Islamist attack in France.
They failed to ignite half a dozen gas canisters placed in the vehicle. Inès Madani, Ornella Gilligmann, Sarah Hervouët, Amel Sakaou and Samia Chalel, now aged between 22 and 42, are all converts to Islam.
Madani, who posed as a male Islamist militant to recruit women for the Islamic State (IS) group, was given 30 years, while Gilligmann, a married mother of three, was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Hervouët and Sakaou were given 20 years each, while Chalel received five years for helping Madani hide after the failed attack.
Madani's lawyer described the sentence as "an excessively harsh punishment", given there had been no deaths nor injuries as a result of the failed attack.
Prosecutors had requested life imprisonment for four of the women. On 4 September 2016, police were alerted to an abandoned grey Peugeot 607 vehicle parked near the cathedral, which is located in one of Paris's busiest tourist locations. The car's licence plates had been removed and its hazard lights were flashing.
Inside, officers found half a dozen gas canisters, three jerry cans of diesel and a half-smoked cigarette. The contents of the vehicle had been doused in fuel, but the cigarette had failed to ignite it, police said.
Investigators said the bomb attempt would probably have been successful had it not been for "the wrong choice of fuel", which was difficult to light.
The discovery prompted an urgent police search. The car was found to belong to Madani's father and fingerprints belonging to Madani and Gilligmann were collected from the inside. Madani, 22, was arrested a few days later at an apartment in a Paris suburb along with two other defendants, Hervouët and Sakaou.
The trio put up a fight, brandishing knives. Hervouët stabbed one officer in the shoulder, and Madani was shot in the leg while charging at another.
Gilligmann was arrested in southern France on 6 September.
Police said they found a handwritten pledge of allegiance to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi inside Madani's purse.
The women are suspected of planning the bomb attack on the instructions of Rashid Kassim, a so-called handler for IS who was based in Syria at the time. Kassim is thought to have been killed in Iraq in 2017 and was sentenced in absentia to life in jail by the French court that convicted the women. France has suffered a series of attacks in recent years by jihadists who have declared allegiance to IS.
In November 2015, 130 people were killed and many more were injured in co-ordinated suicide bombings and mass shootings around Paris. On 14 July 2016, dozens of people were killed, including children, when a lorry ploughed into a large crowd watching a fireworks display in Nice, southern France, to mark the Bastille Day holiday. Five women in court over Notre-Dame car bomb plot | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Sentence | October 2019 | ['(BBC)'] |
ABC World News Tonight coanchor Bob Woodruff and cameraman Doug Vogt are seriously injured by an improvised explosive device near Taji, Iraq. | Jan. 29, 2006 -- "World News Tonight" co-anchor Bob Woodruff and cameraman Doug Vogt are recovering from injuries suffered when their convoy was hit by an improvised explosive devise in Iraq today.
They remain in serious but stable condition following surgery at a U.S. military hospital in Iraq and will be treated at a medical facility in Germany.
The two and an Iraqi soldier were seriously injured when their convoy was attacked near Taji, Iraq, about 12 miles north of Baghdad. Woodruff and Vogt suffered shrapnel wounds and underwent surgery at the U.S. military hospital in Balad.
Both suffered head injuries and Woodruff also suffered wounds to his upper body. They were flown to the U.S. military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, and doctors there will assess their condition and monitor their recovery in the coming days.
"We take this as good news, but the next few days will be critical," ABC News President David Westin said in a statement.
Woodruff, Vogt and their four-man team were in the lead vehicle traveling in a convoy with Iraqi security forces in Taji, Iraq. Woodruff and Vogt were standing up in the back hatch of their vehicle taping a video log of the patrol at the time of the attack.
"He wanted to get out and report the story and not be locked in and taking information from someone else who was experiencing it," said ABC senior producer Kate Felsen, who had been working with Woodruff for the past two weeks.
"I spoke with both of them," Felsen continued. "Doug was conscious, and I was able to reassure him we were getting them care. I spoke to Bob also and walked with them to the helicopter."
Woodruff and Vogt had been embedded with the 4th Infantry Division and were in a mechanized vehicle on a combined operation with Iraqi Army and Coalition forces when the explosive went off.
"This is very common over there now," said White House correspondent Martha Raddatz on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos." "These attacks are planned, and this [the small arms fire] is a secondary attack.
"Sometimes when the medical personnel come in, they have small arms fire following up on that," said Raddatz, who also has covered the Pentagon for years and has had extensive experience filing reports from Iraq.
The ambush of the convoy was complex. The explosion was followed by small arms fire from three different directions. Iraqi security forces spread out looking for the triggermen while U.S. troops tended to Woodruff and Vogt. The convoy was equipped with improvised explosive device (IED) jammers, which would interfere with the signals from a remote-controlled device using wireless signals.
Officials believe the IED was detonated through a hard wire in the ground. The attack on the convoy occurred in the same area where a U.S. Apache helicopter was shot down earlier this month.
The U.S. military said it was conducting an investigation into the attack. The White House released a statement extending its condolences to Woodruff and Vogt.
"Our thoughts and prayers are with Mr. Woodruff and Mr. Vogt. We are praying for their full and speedy recovery," the statement said. "Our thoughts are with their families and their loved ones. The White House is offering to help in any way as the government does when any American is injured in the line of work."
Woodruff and his crew had been traveling in a U.S. armored Humvee, but then transferred into an Iraqi vehicle -- which was believed to be a much softer target for attacks.
"It was a mechanized vehicle," Raddatz said. "At least it wasn't one of the pickup trucks they usually drive around in. They were in the lead vehicle, and they were up in the hatch, so they were exposed."
Raddatz said both Woodruff and Vogt were protected. They were wearing body armor, helmets and ballistic glasses. Woodruff and Vogt were taken by medevac to the Green Zone to receive treatment within 37 minutes of the blast. They were then flown by helicopter to Balad which is about a 20-minute ride from Baghdad, said Raddatz.
"There are very good doctors, the best medical care you can possibly get, in Balad," said Raddatz.
Training Iraq forces to deter insurgent attacks has become a central focus of U.S. strategy toward ultimate troop reduction and withdrawl. Journalists must travel with Iraqi troops to truly cover the conflict in Iraq, but doing so makes them more vulnerable to attack.
"If you're going to cover the Iraqi military forces, you have to be with them," Raddatz said. "You have to see how they live. I will tell you one thing, a fewmonths ago when I was there and we wanted to get into an Iraqi pickup truck, one of the American soldiers said, 'You can't do that. It's way too dangerous.' "
Iraqi security forces, Raddatz said, are a softer target for insurgents.
"It's become a primary target. It's a softer target, as you know, but it is a primary target to attack these forces," Raddatz said. "There have been hundreds and hundreds -- thousands, probably -- of Iraqi security forces killed. Sometimes they're attacked by suicide bombers, but they have become a primary target. It is very dangerous business training these troops, for that reason alone."
But Woodruff and Vogt knew this and were very careful.
"I have worked with Doug Vogt so many times. He is no hot dog. Bob Woodruff would not take risks that were -- without his body armor or anything else. They are both very careful. Doug, as a matter of fact, when he was with Terry Moran a few months ago, they hit a very small IED, and one of the Iraqi forces was killed. Doug was also in that convoy, but he was in an armored humvee at that time."
IEDs have accounted for more than half of all U.S. military injuries in Iraq and are the single greatest cause of death of service members.
As of January 21, 2006: 9,282 of 16,548 injuries were caused by IEDs. At least 894 of the 2,242 deaths in Iraq have been from IEDs.
The number of IED attacks on U.S. and coalition forces on Iraq has nearly doubled since 2004. But there have been fewer overall IED-related deaths and injuries.
Each deployment of soldiers has learned how to become more aware of IEDs, protective quipment has become more hardened, and commanders. In addition, commanders have learned how to best move troops around a battle space in ways intended to limit the effectiveness of IEDs.
Along with Elizabeth Vargas, Woodruff, 44, was named co-anchor of "World News Tonight" last month, replacing the late Peter Jennings, who died of lung cancer last year. Woodruff has been on assignment in Iraq and planned to broadcast from the war-torn country this week for the State of the Union address.
A father of four children, he was one of the first Western reporters in Pakistan following the Sept. 11 attacks.
Woodruff's overseas reporting of the fallout from Sept. 11 was part of ABC News coverage recognized with the Alfred I. DuPont Award and the George Foster Peabody Award, the two highest honors in broadcast journalism.
He has also covered the Iraq conflict in Baghdad, Najaf, Nassariya and Basra. During the initial invasion, Woodruff reported from the front lines as an embedded journalist with the First Marine Division, 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion.
Vogt, a 46-year-old father of three daughters, has been with ABC News for more than 15 years, and has extensive experience in war-torn regions. He was sitting next to ABC News producer David Kaplan when the producer was shot and killed in Bosnia. Earlier this month, he was with Woodruff in Iran and was recently in another convoy in which someone was killed by an IED.
"They've covered all the wars, the hot spots," said ABC News' Jim Sciutto, who is covering the war in Iraq. "[Vogt] is the cameraman we all request when we go to the field because he's so good, a fantastic eye. He's won so many awards for ABC." | Armed Conflict | January 2006 | ['(ABC News)'] |
German scientist Gerhard Ertl is announced as the winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his work on chemical processes on solid surfaces. | His work has enhanced areas as diverse as the process used to make fertiliser, the production of catalytic converters and hydrogen fuel cell technology.
The Nobel Prize is an international award administered by the Nobel Foundation in Stockholm, Sweden.
The award was announced at the Swedish Academy of Sciences on Wednesday.
Speaking on a telephone to the Academy, Gerhard Ertl, who is 71 today, said: "This is the best birthday present you can give to somebody." This is the greatest honour you can think of in the life of a scientist
Gerhard Ertl, Max Planck Society
On his reaction to hearing the news, Professor Ertl said he was "speechless".
"When a German took the Nobel in physics yesterday, it was clear to me another German would not be awarded the Nobel in chemistry.
"This is the greatest honour you can think of in the life of a scientist."
The professor of physical chemistry is based at the Fritz-Haber Institute at the Max-Planck Society in Berlin. Interesting and practical
Professor Geoff Thornton, professor of physical chemistry at University College London, called Professor Ertl "one of the pioneers of surface science".
Gunnar von Heijne, chairman of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, said: "We tend to think of chemistry as something like liquid or gas. No doubt there will be disappointment in some quarters that the prize was not more widely shared
Prof Andrea Sella, UCL
"But surface chemistry is scientifically very interesting and practically very important. Chemistry happens on solid surfaces.
"Think of iron rust, think of catalytic converters on the exhaust pipes of our cars, think of technologies such as fuel cells. In all these cases, we are talking about surface chemistry."
The modern science of surface chemistry began to emerge in the 1960s, out of processes used in the semiconductor industry.
The Nobel Committee said that Professor Ertl was one of the first to see the potential of these new techniques.
High precision
Step-by-step, Professor Ertl created a methodology for surface chemistry by demonstrating how different experimental procedures could be used to provide a complete picture of a surface reaction.
This field of science requires advanced equipment to observe how individual layers of atoms and molecules behave on the extremely pure surface of a metal, for instance. Fuel cell technology is one area that owes much to surface chemistry
Contamination could jeopardise all the measurements, so acquiring a complete picture of the reaction requires great precision and a combination of many different experimental techniques.
The Nobel Committee said Professor Ertl had "founded an experimental school of thought by showing how reliable results can be attained in this difficult area of research". The statement continued: "His insights have provided the scientific basis of modern surface chemistry. His methodology is used in both academic research and the industrial development of chemical processes."
Professor Andrea Sella, from the department of chemistry at University College London, UK, commented: "Over the years [Gerhard Ertl] has gone on to look at a wide number of reactions on all kinds of surfaces."
'Noteworthy' award
But he added: "It is noteworthy that this year's prize was awarded to Prof Ertl alone. "There have been many key players in this area... no doubt there will be disappointment in some quarters that the prize was not more widely shared."
Geoff Thornton added: "One of Ertl's great successes was achieving a detailed understanding of ammonia formation from nitrogen and hydrogen over an iron catalyst, in the so-called Haber process."
In the Haber-Bosch process, nitrogen is extracted from the air for inclusion in artificial fertilisers. This reaction, which functions using an iron surface as its catalyst, has huge economic importance.
Professor Ertl has also studied the oxidation of carbon monoxide on platinum, a reaction that takes place in cars to clean exhaust emissions.
Every year since 1901, the Nobel Prize has been awarded for achievements in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and for peace. | Awards ceremony | October 2007 | ['(BBC)'] |
Wildfires in central Portugal kill at least 24 people and several firefighters are among 20 injured. The death toll so far is the largest due to a wildfire in Portugal since 1966. | A catastrophic forest fire in Portugal has claimed at least 62 lives, including four children, officials say.
Most died while trying to flee the Pedrógão Grande area, 50 km (30 miles) south-east of Coimbra, in their cars, according to the government. Hundreds of firefighters are continuing to tackle the blaze, which has spread across several fronts. Prime Minister Antonio Costa called it "the greatest tragedy we have seen in recent years in terms of forest fires".
The death toll could rise further as many people remain missing, he warned. The authorities have declared three days of national mourning, starting on Sunday.
Secretary of State for the Interior Jorge Gomes said that the majority of the victims died from smoke inhalation and burns, while two died in a road accident related to the fires.
He earlier said 30 bodies were found inside cars, with another 17 next to the vehicles, on one road leading on to the IC8 motorway. Another 11 died in a village next to the motorway.
Media in Portugal say the fire is no closer to being contained despite hundreds of firefighters and 300 vehicles working to put it out.
Among the dozens of people injured was an eight-year-old girl with burns found wandering alone close to the fire, the Correio do Manhã newspaper reported.
In pictures: Portugal forest fire
Six firefighters are seriously wounded, national broadcaster RTP said, and two who went missing overnight turned up injured.
The Correio do Manhã warned that many areas hit by the fire had not yet been reached by authorities, so the death toll was likely to increase.
About 60 forest fires broke out across the country overnight, with close to 1,700 firefighters battling them across Portugal.
The flames spread "with great violence" on four fronts near Pedrógão Grande, Mr Gomes said.
Spain has sent two water-bombing planes to help tackle the fires, and the European Union is co-ordinating an international firefighting and relief effort. It is not yet known what caused the fire, however Mr Costa said thunderstorms could have been one possible cause.
Portugal has been experiencing a heatwave, with temperatures of more than 40C (104F) in some areas.
"This is a region that has had fires because of its forests, but we cannot remember a tragedy of these proportions," Valdemar Alves, the mayor of Pedrógão Grande, was quoted as saying by the Associated Press agency.
"I am completely stunned by the number of deaths."
We have had large-scale fires before over the past couple of decades - this year is not unusual in that respect - but it is certainly unusual to have so many fatalities in one place. Portuguese officials are visibly shocked.
There were very particular circumstances with the lightning strikes here - this fire started with a dry lightning strike. There has been rainfall elsewhere but there was no rain there, and this is a heavily-forested area.
Getting it under control depends not only on temperatures, which do seem as though they will be high, but on the wind above all. It is very much in the hands of Mother Nature.
In pictures: Portugal forest fire
Portugal profile
Wildfires rage in central Portugal
Wildfires sweep across dry Portugal | Fire | June 2017 | ['(BBC)'] |
Japan and numerous other countries evacuate coastal residents as a tsunami approaches. Some Japanese homes are flooded by the tsunami. | Footage of the aftermath of the tsunami Japan has lifted all tsunami alerts throughout the country, almost two days after a powerful earthquake hit Chile.
A tsunami more than one metre (3ft) high hit the country's northern Pacific coast on Sunday, although bigger waves were expected. Other Pacific nations were hit by tsunamis but no major damage or casualties were reported. In Chile itself, however, areas affected by both the quake and the resulting tsunami saw hundreds dead. In the fishing village of Concepcion, 350 bodies were found and in the port of Talcahuano more than 20 boats were swept ashore and dumped in the streets by the waves. Large waves struck Chile's Juan Fernandez island group, reaching halfway into one inhabited area and killing five people. Several more are missing. Well prepared
Warning systems across the Pacific have improved since the 2004 Indonesia quake sparked a tsunami that killed nearly 250,000 people. Nations and regions affected by the Pacific "Ring of Fire" all sounded alerts, trying to estimate the anticipated time of arrival of any tsunami following the earthquake, which struck on Saturday at 0634 GMT.
The first tsunami waves to reach Japan were reported to be just 10cm (4in) high, with a wave of 90cm (35.5in) following. The BBC's Roland Buerk in Tokyo says Japan has experienced many earthquakes of its own and was well prepared. People in areas at risk were ordered to move to higher ground, train services running along the coast were suspended and steel gates across fishing harbours were shut. In 1960 about 140 people were killed by a tsunami in Japan after a major earthquake in Chile. Thousands of people also left coastal areas of the Philippines after warnings of a possible tsunami were spread by text message. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center had warned of "widespread damage" across the region following Saturday's quake, but later said waves were not as high as predicted. A geophysicist at the centre, Gerard Fryer, told the BBC that the tsunami's impact was small because the earthquake occurred in shallow water. The earthquake was "big enough to do significant damage, but not big enough to do anything large in the far field", he said. 'Ordinary stormy day'
Part of the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia were hit by a 4m (13ft) wave, but no casualties were reported. In Tahiti, the tsunami waves were smaller, causing little damage.
New Zealand's Chatham Islands were hit by a wave of 1.5m (5ft) and areas along the main North and South Islands experienced small surges with no reports of casualties or serious damage. Sirens were sounded in Hawaii to alert residents to the tsunami threat several hours before waves were expected. The first waves hit about 2200 GMT on Saturday, after water began moving away from the shore at Hilo Bay on the Big Island before returning. But correspondents say that, although 8ft (2.5m) waves had been predicted, the islands experienced nothing noticeably different from an ordinary stormy day. Hawaiian officials later lifted the tsunami warning. Despite Australian warnings of "possible dangerous waves, strong ocean currents and foreshore flooding" on the east coast, swimmers and surfers flocked to Sydney's Bondi beach. | Tsunamis | February 2010 | ['(BBC)', '(Sky News)', '(The New Zealand Herald)'] |
An Egyptian court sentences three al–Jazeera journalists Peter Greste, Mohammed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed, accused of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, to seven years in jail. | Three al-Jazeera journalists accused of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood have been jailed for seven years in Egypt.
A court in Cairo convicted Peter Greste, Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed of spreading false news and supporting the now banned Islamist group. The trio had denied the charges.
Eleven defendants tried in absentia, including three foreign journalists, received 10-year sentences.
The trial has caused an international outcry amid claims it was politicised.
Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop told reporters on Monday she was "bitterly disappointed" by the outcome. Greste, a former BBC journalist, is an Australian citizen.
British Prime Minister David Cameron said he was "completely appalled" and the UK Foreign Office has summoned the Egyptian ambassador over the guilty verdicts. Two of the journalists convicted in absentia are British.
Correspondents say evidence put forward earlier in court did nothing to support the serious charges brought. The judge was shown photographs from Mr Greste's family holiday, a Sky Arabia report on cruelty to horses and a video of a news conference in Nairobi.
Baher Mohamed was sentenced to a further three years in jail on a separate charge involving possession of "unlicensed ammunition".
Peter Greste has spent six months in a 4m (13ft) cell with his two al-Jazeera colleagues, locked down for 23 hours a day with only a small window for light. The Tora prison is a "hell hole" says Greste's brother, Michael. "But he is strong and he will survive."
That resilience was on show when the prisoners came into court. They waved at friends and family and hugged each other, hoping their ordeal was now ending. The judge, wearing sunglasses, looked unmoved by the scores of cameras there to record the verdict. Last week he sentenced 14 people to death, including the father of one of the students now standing in the cage. As he heard the verdict, Peter Greste punched the cage in frustration. Mohamed Fahmy screamed in defiance. "He needs surgery, he has done nothing wrong," his mother wailed. Fahmy spent the first few weeks of his detention sleeping on the floor with a dislocated shoulder. In a statement, al-Jazeera English's managing director Al Anstey said the sentence "defies logic, sense, and any semblance of justice".
The three men are expected to appeal.
Al-Jazeera has said only nine of the 20 defendants are its employees. The others are reportedly students and activists, two of whom were acquitted in Monday's verdict.
It comes amid concerns over growing media restrictions in Egypt.
Al-Jazeera verdicts: Twitter reaction
UK reporter's shock at sentence
Andrew Harding: Peter Greste represents all journalists
Peter Greste's brother Andrew said he was "surprised" by the verdict, and that he had been assured all along by the authorities that the Egyptian judiciary is independent.
Fahmy and Mohamed were among 16 Egyptians charged with belonging to a terrorist organisation and "harming national unity".
Greste and three other journalists who have left the country - British al-Jazeera reporters Dominic Kane and Sue Turton and the Dutch newspaper and radio journalist Rena Netjes - were accused of "collaborating with the Egyptians [the defendants] by providing them with money, equipment, information", and "airing false news".
Al-Jazeera, which is based in Qatar, was banned from operating inside Egypt after the authorities accused it of broadcasting reports sympathetic to former President Mohammed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood. Al-Jazeera has consistently denied the allegations.
Qatar has supported the Brotherhood and is unpopular with Egypt's government.
Earlier this month, Fahmy shouted from the dock that the trial was a "vendetta against al-Jazeera". He complained that they were "hostages" in a political battle between Egypt and Qatar.
Who are the al-Jazeera journalists on trial in Egypt?
Earlier, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott made a direct appeal to Egyptian President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi for Greste's release.
US Secretary of State John Kerry, visiting Cairo over the weekend, said he spoke to Egyptian officials about "the essential role of a vibrant civil society, free press, rule of law and due process in a democracy".
Human rights group Amnesty International has condemned the verdicts.
"This is a devastating verdict for the men and their families, and a dark day for media freedom in Egypt, when journalists are being locked up and branded criminals or 'terrorists' simply for doing their job," said the groups' Middle East and North Africa director Philip Luther.
Egypt's authorities have cracked down harshly on Islamists and secular activists since Mr Morsi was removed by the military in July 2013. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Sentence | June 2014 | ['(BBC)'] |
Mary Keitany of Kenya and Ghirmay Ghebreslassie of Eritrea win the 2016 New York City marathon. It is Keitany's third victory in the event and Ghebreslassie's first. | by: Associated Press, Talia Tirella NEW YORK (AP) — Mary Keitany and Ghirmay Ghebreslassie came in first place in the women’s and men’s heats, respectively, of the 2016 TCS New York City Marathon.
Presenting your top three #TCSNYCMarathon finishers! pic.twitter.com/xb9L0Zjer4
— TCS NYC Marathon (@nycmarathon) November 6, 2016
Keitany, 34, is from Kenya and this win is her third consecutive TCS New York City Marathon title.
Her time was 2:24:26 according to the NYC Marathon Twitter account.
Ghebreslassie, 20, from Eritrea, is a decorated runner with several wins under his belt. This is his first time winning the NYC Marathon.
He became the youngest ever world marathon winner at age 19 when he won gold at the IAAF World Championships.
Ghebreslassie’s time was 2:07:51 according to the NYC Marathon Twitter account.
The five-borough marathon, the world’s largest, is marking its milestone 40th anniversary with Sunday’s race.
About 50,000 runners from more than 120 countries started the 26.2-mile race Sunday morning on Staten Island and crossed the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.
It all began in 1970 when 126 men and one woman circled Central Park. Six years later, 2,000 amateurs took to the streets of New York, touching all five boroughs for the first time. | Sports Competition | November 2016 | ['(Pix)'] |
Mexican law enforcement launches a corruption inquiry into former President Enrique Peña Nieto, as part of a larger investigation into bribery and money laundering by former Pemex CEO Emilio Lozoya Austin involving Brazilian conglomerate Odebrecht. | MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican law enforcement authorities are investigating a former president, Enrique Pena Nieto, as part of an inquiry into corruption, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.
Pena Nieto has become embroiled in the investigation of Emilio Lozoya, the former chief executive of Mexico’s state oil firm Petróleos Mexicanos, or Pemex.
Lozoya is accused of corruption related to a wide-ranging bribery and money-laundering case involving Brazilian construction firm Odebrecht SA. Lozoya, who was arrested in Spain last week, has denied wrongdoing.
The Mexican attorney general’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Pena Nieto, who completed a six-year term in 2018, could not immediately be reached for comment. He has previously denied receiving bribes from Odebrecht.
President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has said he does not want to pursue former presidents in court, though he has suggested the possibility of holding a referendum on whether former presidents should face trial.
Lozoya’s detention was a major success for Lopez Obrador, a leftist who won power on an anti-graft platform and who has sought to paint former administration officials as members of a corrupt elite since taking office in December 2018.
Reporting by Mexico City Newsroom; Editing by Richard Chang
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
All quotes delayed a minimum of 15 minutes. See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Investigate | February 2020 | ['(Reuters)'] |
War in Afghanistan: Gunmen attack a Kabul guesthouse used by both foreigners and locals sparking a gun battle with police. At least eight people including the three gunmen are killed with 16 rescued and 100 still inside. , | Follow NBC News Gunman stormed a guesthouse in Kabul, Afghanistan, during a party for foreigners on Wednesday, killing five, including an American citizen, officials said.
All three attackers were also killed, and more than 70 guests at the Park Palace Hotel were rescued, a police official said. Five other people were injured, officials said.
A State Department official confirmed the American's death, but would not provide any more details. "Our thoughts are with the families of the victims at this time," the official said.
Amin Habi, a U.S. citizen from Los Angeles, told The Associated Press that a party was going on at the hotel to honor a Canadian when the gunmen stormed the guesthouse.
The hotel has both guest rooms for visitors and a residential area for those who live full time in Kabul, including foreign aid workers, according to the AP.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, though the Taliban have attacked guesthouses before in Kabul, the AP reported. | Armed Conflict | May 2015 | ['(Thomson Reuters Foundation)', '(NBC News)'] |
American singer Taylor Swift wins four trophies, including Artist of the Year, and holds 23 American Music Awards, beating Whitney Houston. | Taylor Swift not only opened the American Music Awards with a fiery performance of I Did Something Bad, but she went on to dominate the show.
The star won four trophies, including artist of the year, making her the ceremony's most-decorated female ever.
She now holds 23 AMAs, beating a record previously held by Whitney Houston.
Swift, who recently broke years of political silence to declare support for two Democrats, again urged fans to take part in the US mid-term elections.
Accepting artist of the year, she said: "This award, and every single award given out tonight, were voted on by the people. "And you know what else is voted on by the people? The midterm elections on November 6. Get out and vote. I love you guys."
Swift's touring partner Camila Cabello also won four awards at the ceremony; while British singers Ella Mai and Dua Lipa gave show-stopping performances.
Here are some of the best bits.
Resembling nothing less than an explosion in a branch of Claire's Accessories; Cardi B's vibrant, multicoloured performance was stunning even before she wheeled Bad Bunny on stage in a shopping trolley.
She went on to flex her leg over her head and ride a bicycle across the stage (sadly not at the same time) - leaving SNL star Taran Killam somewhat lost for words.
Taran Killam’s face during Cardi B’a killer performace is the best thing to come from this show #amas pic.twitter.com/uTeZZaMq35
They multiple award winners, but touring partners and BFFs Taylor Swift and Camila Cabello seemed to be more excited to spend a night in each other's company. Who says women in music have to be at each other's throats all the time?
Meanwhile, Swift hinted she'd started work on the follow-up to Reputation.
"I always look at albums as chapters in my life," she said on stage. "To the fans, I'm so happy that you like this one - but I have to be really honest with you about something: I'm even more excited about the next chapter."
Setting out her stall for next year's Grammy Awards, Dua Lipa performed two massive house hits - One Kiss and Electricity - while being doused in UV fluorescent paint by a troupe of dancers.
The stage recreated the warehouse setting of her Electricity video - itself a callback to Janet Jackson's Pleasure Principle - while Dua prompted gasps from the audience by falling backwards from a 10-foot-high metal staircase. Luckily, there were some dancers ready to catch her.
Rapper XXXTentacion, who was shot dead in June, was a pothumous winner in the best soul and R&B album category.
His mother, Cleopatra Bernard, choked back tears as she accepted the award on his behalf.
"I'm so nervous, you guys," she admitted as she reached the stage. "I am honoured to accept this award on behalf of my son. I would like to thank the AMAs, his fans, and to everyone who made this possible. Thank you guys so much, I appreciate it." VIDEO: @Ciara performs #LevelUp/#Dose Medley at #AMAs pic.twitter.com/KIP7Nafhr2
The R&B star has scored a viral hit with her new single - and she effortlessly kept up with the song's frenetic pace with a pin-sharp, Rhythm-Nation-style performance.
Backed by an army of dancers, it gave the show's third hour a much-needed injection of energy; ramping up even further when Missy Elliot crashed the stage to deliver her verse from the song's remix.
Ciara then segued into another hit single, Dose, managing to incorporate a segment of BlocBoy JB's "shoot" dance as she was surrounded by a marching band.
"Now that's how you do it," said host Tracee Ellis Ross, as the singer received a standing ovation from Khalid, Camila Cabello, and Cardi B.
With their third album poised to enter the charts at number one this week, Twenty One Pilots didn't pull any punches with their performance of Jumpsuit.
Singer Tyler Joseph remained uncharacteristically still for the song's opening minute before throwing himself around the stage as the crunching bass riff kicked in.
By the climax, the stage was ablaze, with a car behind the band bursting into flames.
In a night crammed full of pop, it provided a rare opportunity for the moshpit to kick into action.
Aretha Franklin was a regular guest at the AMAs, as a host, performer, and winner - so it seemed fitting that the ceremony would close with a tribute to the star.
Eschewing hits like Respect and Dr Feelgood, the performance focused on her gospel roots and her favourite hymns, including several from her best-selling 1972 live album, Amazing Grace. Gladys Knight opened the segment with a heartfelt rendition of Amazing Grace, before being joined by Mary Mary, Ce Ce Winans, Ledisi and Donnie McClurkins for a medley that included How I Got Over, Mary Don't You Weep and Climb Higher Mountains," which was used as the recessional song at Franklin's funeral. During the performance, the cameras panned around to the audience, where Franklin's granddaughter Victoria was watching in tears.
ARTIST OF THE YEAR - Taylor Swift BEST NEW ARTIST - Camila Cabello
COLLABORATION OF THE YEAR - Camila Cabello ft. Young Thug: Havana
TOUR OF THE YEAR - Taylor Swift: Reputation World Tour
VIDEO OF THE YEAR - Camila Cabello ft. Young Thug: Havana
FAVOURITE SOCIAL ARTIST - BTS FAVOURITE MALE ARTIST (POP/ROCK) - Post Malone FAVOURITE FEMALE ARTIST (POP/ROCK) - Taylor Swift FAVOURITE DUO OR GROUP (POP/ROCK) - Migos FAVOURITE ALBUM (POP/ROCK) - Taylor Swift: Reputation FAVOURITE SONG (POP/ROCK) - Camila Cabello ft. Young Thug: Havana
FAVOURITE MALE ARTIST (COUNTRY) - Kane Brown FAVOURITE FEMALE ARTIST (COUNTRY) - Carrie Underwood FAVOURITE DUO or GROUP (COUNTRY) - Florida Georgia Line FAVOURITE ALBUM (COUNTRY) - Kane Brown: Kane Brown FAVOURITE SONG (COUNTRY) - Kane Brown: Heaven
FAVOURITE ARTIST (RAP/HIPHOP) - Cardi B FAVOURITE ALBUM (RAP/HIPHOP) - Post Malone: Beerbongs & Bentleys FAVOURITE SONG (RAP/HIPHOP) - Cardi B: Bodak Yellow (Money Moves)
FAVOURITE MALE ARTIST (SOUL/R&B) - Khalid FAVOURITE FEMALE ARTIST (SOUL/R&B) - Rihanna FAVOURITE ALBUM (SOUL/R&B) - XXXTentacion: 17 FAVOURITE SONG (SOUL/R&B) - Bruno Mars & Cardi B: Finesse
FAVOURITE ARTIST (ALTERNATIVE ROCK) - Panic! At The Disco FAVOURITE ARTIST (ADULT CONTEMPORARY) - Shawn Mendes FAVOURITE ARTIST (LATIN) - Daddy Yankee FAVOURITE ARTIST (CONTEMPORARY INSPIRATIONAL) - Lauren Daigle FAVOURITE ARTIST (DANCE) - Marshmello FAVOURITE SOUNDTRACK - Black Panther: The Album
| Awards ceremony | October 2018 | ['(BBC News)', '(Sky News)'] |
Indonesia executes six people for drug trafficking including foreign citizens from Brazil, Malawi, the Netherlands, Nigeria, and Vietnam. Brazil and the Netherlands withdraw their ambassadors in protest. , , | Brazil and the Netherlands have recalled their ambassadors from Indonesia after the execution of two of their nationals for drug trafficking. Brazilian Marco Archer Cardoso Moreira, 53, and Dutch national Ang Kiem Soe, 52, were among six people who faced the firing squad on Sunday.
The other four convicts were from Indonesia, Malawi, Nigeria and Vietnam. Indonesia has some of the toughest drug laws in the world. It ended a four-year moratorium on executions in 2013.
President Joko Widodo has said that he will show no mercy towards drug criminals because they have ruined the lives of so many.
The six convicts were executed in Central Java province - five on the island of Nusa Kambangan and the other one, a Vietnamese woman, in the small central Javanese town of Boyolali.
Brazil says Moreira was the first Brazilian national to be executed abroad.
He was arrested in 2003 after police at Jakarta airport found 13.4 kg of cocaine hidden in his hang glider. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said in a statement that she was "outraged and dismayed".
"Relations between the two countries have been affected," said Ms Rousseff.
Ms Rousseff had made a plea for clemency on Friday, but it was rejected by Mr Widodo.
She told her Indonesian counterpart that she respected the sovereignty and judicial system of his country but as a mother and head of state she was making the appeal for humanitarian reasons. Brazil says Mr Widodo said he understood the Brazilian president's concern but said he could not commute the sentence as the full legal process had been followed. Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders said King Willem-Alexander and Prime Minister Mark Rutte had also personally contacted the Indonesian president in the case of Ang Kiem Soe. Mr Koenders called the execution "a cruel and inhumane punishment ... an unacceptable denial of human dignity and integrity".
Human rights group Amnesty International urged the Indonesian government to halt executions immediately, and eventually abolish the death penalty.
Moreira said in a video recorded by a friend that he regretted trying to smuggle cocaine into Indonesia.
"I am aware that I committed a serious offence, but I believe I deserve another chance. Everyone makes mistakes."
A second Brazilian national, Rodrigo Muxfeldt Gularte, remains on death row in Indonesia, also convicted with drug trafficking offences.
Brazil abolished the death penalty in times of peace when it became a republic in 1889.
| Armed Conflict | January 2015 | ['(News Limited)', '(ABC Australia)', '(BBC)'] |
The Republic of China conducts live–fire missile tests. | Taiwan has held live-fire missile tests, as Chinese President Hu Jintao travels to the US for a state visit. Five out of 19 missiles failed to hit their targets, at the drill attended by President Ma Ying-jeou.
Officials said the drills sent a message to the US that Taiwan still needs American help to defend itself, despite improving ties with China. Analysts say Taiwan is worried about a potential threat from Beijing after China unveiled a prototype stealth jet. China continues to claim the island as part of its territory, and has not renounced the use of force to achieve reunification. Taiwan, a democracy, has been ruled separately since the end of a civil war in 1949. The Taiwanese military said the exercises were routine, and aimed at boosting its defence capabilities. Speaking to the BBC, Taiwan's Deputy Defence Secretary Andrew Yang said the operation was not offensive in nature, but was intended to stop any attacks by China. "China still holds the option to use force against Taiwan. They have never renounced the use of force. We consider this a direct threat against us, so we need to consolidate our armed forces."
Mr Yang told the BBC the drills were also designed to send the US a clear message - that Taiwan still needs US help in defending itself, even as it builds closer economic ties with Beijing. He said that Taiwan was developing its own advanced missiles, which would be able to reach military bases and airports on China's east coast.
However, the island depends on the US for advanced weapons. The BBC's Cindy Sui in Taipei says Taiwan is still hoping to purchase advanced fighter jets and submarines, to upgrade its ageing fleet and narrow the gap with China. Washington, however, needs Beijing's help on a host of issues - from North Korea to currency appreciation, our correspondent says. The last time the US approved an arms package to Taiwan 12 months ago, China was furious, cancelling military exchanges and security talks.
US-China 'consensus' amid risks
US and China resume military ties
US defends weapons sale to Taiwan
China hits back at US-Taiwan sale
Hardliner Raisi set to be new Iran president
Vote-counting shows Ebrahim Raisi - Iran's top judge - has so far received 62% of the vote.
UN calls for end of arms sales to Myanmar
Tokyo Olympics: No fans is 'least risky' option
Asia's Covid stars struggle with exit strategies
Why residents of these paradise islands are furious
The Gurkha veterans fighting for Covid care. VideoThe Gurkha veterans fighting for Covid care
Troubled US teens left traumatised by tough love camps
Why doesn't North Korea have enough food?
Le Pen set for regional power with eye on presidency
How the Delta variant took hold in the UK. VideoHow the Delta variant took hold in the UK | Military Exercise | January 2011 | ['(Taiwan)', '(Focus Taiwan)', '(BBC)'] |
Irish Minister of Finance Paschal Donohoe is elected president of the Eurogroup, beating the candidatures of Spanish Minister Nadia Calviño and of Luxembourgish Minister Pierre Gramegna. He will succeed Mário Centeno. | Donohoe prevailed over Spain’s Nadia Calviño and Luxembourg’s Pierre Gramegna with a majority vote. That means at least 10 countries backed him for the influential post, following weeks of politicking among governments.
He will begin a two-and-a-half-year term on Sunday, succeeding Mário Centeno of Portugal.
Let’s stop chasing a European Google, said Commissioner Mariya Gabriel.
Presented by BP
‘We should act together and form an alliance which ensures a Europe which is based on sound fiscal policies and fiscal sustainability,’ the Austrian Finance Minister wrote.
Targets being discussed would end the sale of carbon-emitting cars by 2035.
| Government Job change - Election | July 2020 | ['(Politico)'] |
Alabama wide receiver DeVonta Smith wins the Heisman Trophy, making him the first receiver to do so since Desmond Howard in 1991. | On an Alabama team stacked with stars, DeVonta Smith emerged as the best player in college football. Smith became the first wide receiver to win the Heisman Trophy in 29 seasons on Tuesday night, breaking the monopoly quarterbacks have had on college football's most prestigious award by beating out three of them.
"I want to thank my teammates," Smith said during his acceptance speech. "With team success comes individual success so without you all, I wouldn't be where I'm at today, winning this award."
Smith finished with 447 first-place votes and 1,856 points to easily outdistance Clemson's Trevor Lawrence (222, 1,187), Alabama teammate Mac Jones (138, 1,130) and Florida's Kyle Trask (61, 737).
The Crimson Tide senior is the fourth receiver to win the Heisman, joining Michigan's Desmond Howard in 1991, Notre Dame's Tim Brown in 1987 and Nebraska's Johnny Rodgers in 1972.
Quarterbacks had won 17 of the previous 20 Heisman trophies, including the last four.
Smith is the third Alabama player to win the Heisman, all since 2009. Like Tide running backs Mark Ingram (2009) and Derrick Henry (2015), Smith will play in the national championship game as a Heisman winner.
No. 1 Alabama faces No. 3 Ohio State on Jan. 11 in the College Football Playoff title game in Miami Gardens, Florida.
The Heisman voting was complete on December 21, so playoff performances were not a factor. But Smith made those who supported him feel good about it with a brilliant three-touchdown game against Notre Dame in the CFP semifinals last weekend.
Smith has 105 catches for 1,641 yards and 22 total touchdowns going into the final game of his college career — which will also be his third national championship game.
Smith carved out a place in Alabama's storied history as a freshman, catching the winning 41-yard touchdown pass from Tua Tagovailoa in overtime against Georgia to give the Tide the 2017 national championship.
For the next two seasons, Smith was still often the overlooked star in the Tide's talented 2017 class of receivers that included All-American Jerry Jeudy and Henry Ruggs. Both of those players decided to skip their senior seasons and enter the draft last year. Both were selected in the first round.
Smith returned to school to complete his degree and form an explosive combination for the Tide with junior Jaylen Waddle. Then Waddle went down with a season-ending leg injury on October 24.
As the Tide's undisputed No. 1 receiver, Smith shined. The week after Waddle went out, Smith had 11 catches for 204 yards and four touchdowns against Mississippi State.
Smith's soaring one-handed TD grab against LSU was not just his signature play, but one of the 2020 season's best.
A former four-star recruit from Amite, Louisiana, Smith came to Tuscaloosa from LSU's backyard, disappointing the many Tigers fans in his hometown.
He had only seven receptions as a freshman, and while he scored the winning touchdown in the national title game, the story of the game was the guy who threw it.
Tagovailoa was Alabama's Heisman contender for the next two years.
The understated Smith quietly led the Tide in receptions and yards last year as a junior and became a second-team All-American.
Smitty — as teammates and coaches call him — didn't emerge as a Hesiman contender this season until Waddle went down.
Starting with that Mississippi State game, Smith went on a four-game tear with 35 catches for 749 yards and 11 touchdowns that solidified another nickname for the 6-foot-1, 175-pound technician: the Slim Reaper.
First published on January 5, 2021 / 8:57 PM
© 2021 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. | Awards ceremony | January 2021 | ['(CBS News)'] |
George Steinbrenner, owner of the New York Yankees, dies after suffering a massive heart attack in Florida. | NEW YORK - He was baseball's bombastic Boss. He rebuilt the New York Yankees dynasty with sky-high payrolls and accepted nothing less than World Series championships. He fired managers. Rehired them. And fired them again. He butted heads with commissioners and fellow owners, insulted his players and dominated tabloid headlines - even upstaging the All-Star game on the day of his death. George Michael Steinbrenner III, who both inspired and terrorized the Yankees in more than three decades as owner, died Tuesday of a heart attack at age 80. "He was and always will be as much of a New York Yankee as Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford and all of the other Yankee legends," baseball commissioner Bud Selig said. Once reviled by fans for his overbearing and tempestuous nature, Steinbrenner mellowed in his final decade and became beloved by employees and rivals alike for his success. Steinbrenner was taken from his home to St. Joseph's Hospital in Tampa, Fla., and died about 6:30 a.m, a person close to the owner told The Associated Press. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the team had not disclosed those details. "George was a fierce competitor who was the perfect fit for the city that never sleeps - colorful, dynamic and always reaching for the stars," former President Bill Clinton said. Yankees captain Derek Jeter added: "He expected perfection." Slideshow George Steinbrenner: 1930-2010New York Yankees owner known as "The Boss"more photos
more photos
In 37 1/2 years as owner, Steinbrenner whipped a moribund $10 million team into a $1.6 billion colossus that became the model of a modern franchise, one with its own TV network and ballpark food business. Under his often brutal but always colorful reign, the Yankees won seven World Series championships, 11 American League pennants and 16 AL East titles, going on spectacular spending sprees that caused Larry Lucchino, president of the rival Boston Red Sox, to dub Steinbrenner's Yankees the "Evil Empire." He moved the Yankees from their tradition-rich "House that Ruth Built" into a new $1.5 billion Yankee Stadium. Call it the "House the Boss Built." He appeared there just four times: the April 2009 opener, the first two games of last year's World Series and this year's home opener, when Jeter and manager Joe Girardi went to his suite and personally delivered his seventh World Series ring. "He was very emotional," son Hal Steinbrenner said then. Steinbrenner's larger-than-life outbursts transcended sports and made him a pop culture figure whose firings were parodied on the TV comedy "Seinfeld" and even by Steinbrenner himself in commercials. "George was The Boss, make no mistake," said Berra, the Hall of Famer who ended a 14-year feud with Steinbrenner in 1999. "He built the Yankees into champions, and that's something nobody can ever deny. He was a very generous, caring, passionate man. George and I had our differences, but who didn't? We became great friends over the last decade and I will miss him very much." Steinbrenner's death, about 14 hours before the first pitch of the All-Star game in Anaheim, Calif., was the second in three days to rock the Yankees. Bob Sheppard, the team's revered public address announcer from 1951-07, died Sunday at 99.
Slideshow Gone, not forgottenTake a look at notable sports deaths of 2010.NBCSports.com
NBCSports.com
A video tribute was shown and players bowed their heads during a moment of silence before the national anthem was played at Angel Stadium. Jeter and the Yankees wore black armbands, and the U.S., Canadian and California flags were lowered to half-staff.
New York was 11 years removed from its last championship when Steinbrenner, then an obscure son of an Ohio shipbuilder, headed a group that bought the team from CBS Inc. on Jan. 3, 1973, for about $8.7 million net. Forbes now values the Yankees at $1.6 billion, trailing only Manchester United ($1.8 billion) and the Dallas Cowboys ($1.65 billion). "He was an incredible and charitable man," Steinbrenner's family said in a statement. "He was a visionary and a giant in the world of sports. He took a great but struggling franchise and turned it into a champion again." He ruled with obsessive dedication to detail - from trades to the airblowers that kept his ballparks spotless. When he thought the club's parking lot was too crowded, Steinbrenner stood on the pavement - albeit behind a van, out of sight - and had a guard check every driver's credential. But he also tried to make up for his temper with good deeds and often-unpublicized charitable donations. Steinbrenner dies at 80Steinbrenner dead after massive heart attackCelizic: 'Boss' was dictator, and world championHBT: Don't whitewash what Steinbrenner wasNewsweek: The most hated man in baseballHBT: Red Sox to hold moment of silence for Boss 'A very sad day,' Darryl Strawberry says Yankee fans show their respect to late ownerClassic Steinbrenner: Witty quotes from 'Boss'Newsweek: Remembrances of the BossInteractive: Steinbrenner timeline | Images Was Steinbrenner greatest owner in sports?Mailbag: Readers react to Steinbrenner's deathTimeline: All 27 World Series titles by YankeesHis rule was interrupted by two lengthy suspensions, including a 15-month ban in 1974 after pleading guilty to illegal contributions to the re-election campaign of President Richard Nixon. Steinbrenner was fined $15,000 and later pardoned by President Ronald Reagan. He also was banned for 2 1/2 years for paying self-described gambler Howie Spira to obtain negative information on outfielder Dave Winfield, with whom Steinbrenner was feuding. Through it all, Steinbrenner lived up to his billing as "The Boss," a nickname he clearly enjoyed as he ruled with an iron fist. While he lived in Florida in his later years, he was a staple on the front pages of New York newspapers with his tirades. Steinbrenner was in fragile health for the past 6 1/2 years, resulting in fewer public appearances and pronouncements. He fainted at a memorial service for NFL great Otto Graham in December 2003, appeared weak in August 2006 when he spoke briefly at the groundbreaking for the new stadium, and became ill while watching his granddaughter in a college play in North Carolina that October. At this year's spring training, he used a wheelchair and needed aides to hold him during the national anthem. Sponsored links | Famous Person - Death | July 2010 | ['(NBC Sports/MSNBC)'] |
Azerbaijani forces shell the Artsakh capital of Stepanakert, wounding ten civilians and partially destroying several buildings, including the Artsakh Rescue Service headquarters, according to Armenian officials. | YEREVAN: Officials in Armenia said Friday the country is ready to discuss a cease-fire in the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh, where heavy fighting between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces has continued for six straight days, killing dozens and leaving scores wounded.
This week’s fighting is the biggest escalation in years in the decades-long dispute over the region, which lies within Azerbaijan but is controlled by local ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia. It prompted calls for a cease-fire from all around the globe.
On Thursday, leaders of Russia, France and the United States co-chairs of the so-called Minsk Group, which was set up by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in 1992 to resolve the conflict issued a joint statement statement calling for “immediate cessation of hostilities” and “resuming substantive negotiations ... under the auspices of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs.”
Armenia's Foreign Ministry said in a statement Friday that the country stands “ready to engage” with the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group “to reestablish a cease-fire regime based on the 1994-1995 agreements.”
“Armenia remains committed to the peaceful resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,” the statement read.
The deadly clashes in the region resumed Friday, with Armenian military officials reporting Azerbaijan carrying out strikes on Nagorno-Karabakh's capital Stepanakert, and Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry accusing Armenian forces of shelling the Agdam region.
The region's officials said more than 150 servicemen on their side have been killed so far. Azerbaijani authorities haven't provided details on its military casualties, but said 19 civilians have been killed and 55 more have been wounded.
Several journalists were wounded in shelling of the Matruni town on Thursday. Two of them were French citizens working with Le Monde newspaper.
Reporter Allan Kaval and photographer Rafael Yaghobzadeh were taken to the Stepanakert hospital and operated on there, and were being evacuated Friday morning to Yerevan. The two will be then taken to Paris, Le Monde reported.
In an article published Friday, Le Monde said they had traveled to Martuni on Thursday morning to “state for themselves the extent of the damage” from this week’s fighting. They were with several French, Armenian and other journalists when the town was attacked.
The report quotes regional human rights ombudsman Artak Beglaryan as saying four civilians were killed and 11 other people wounded in the shelling.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have been locked for decades in a conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, where a separatist war was fought in the early 1990s, ending in 1994 three years after the breakup of the Soviet Union. The 4,400-square-kilometer (1,700-square-mile) enclave in the Caucasus Mountains, roughly the size of the USstate of Delaware, lies 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the Armenian border.
Azerbaijan's president said Armenia’s withdrawal from Nagorno-Karabakh was the sole condition to end the fighting. Armenian officials claim Turkey is involved in the conflict, allegedly sending fighters from Syria to the region and deploying Turkish F-16 fighter jets to assist Azerbaijani forces.
Turkey has publicly supported Azerbaijan in the conflict and said it would provide assistance if requested, but denied sending in foreign mercenaries or weapons.
LONDON: Two Iranian warships, thought to be trafficking arms to Venezuela, have changed course and are now moving up Africa’s west coast.
The Biden administration had been pressuring Venezuela, Cuba and other countries in the region to turn the ships away, and a senior US official warned that it would take “appropriate measures” to prevent the delivery of arms to its hemisphere, which it views as a threat.
American officials believe that the diplomatic outreach can be credited for the ships’ change of course.
According to US news outlet Politico, a defense official believes that the ships are now headed for Syria via the Mediterranean, or for Russia.
The two ships are composed of a domestically manufactured destroyer, the Sahand, and the Makran, a former oil tanker fitted with a helipad and other military upgrades to make it a support vessel.
TankerTrackers.com tweeted: “We believe that the Iranian navy vessels MAKRAN and SAHAND are on their way to Syria in order to engage in navy exercises with Russia.”
Tehran has invested considerable amounts of money and manpower to prop up the Assad regime in Syria, including by providing personnel and funding, and by arming militias.
In the past, satellite imagery has shown fast attack boats on the Makran’s deck vessels regularly used by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps to harass the commercial and military vessels of Iran’s adversaries, including US Navy and Coast Guard ships.
The White House and Pentagon have refused to comment publicly on the ships’ movements, but speaking before a committee last week, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told lawmakers: “I’m absolutely concerned about the proliferation of weapons, any type of weapons, in our neighborhood.”
Former National Security Adviser John Bolton referred to the ships as “pirate ships,” saying the US“has a legitimate right of self-defense against both of them.”
The journey that the ships have undertaken is the longest of any Iranian warship in history. US Sen. Mark Rubio tweeted: “This does not look like an oil or fuel cargo delivery.This has all the markings of delivery on an arms sale (such as fast attack boats) to Venezuela coupled with the opportunity to project a message of strength to the Biden administration.”
Politico reported last year that Venezuela, also a US adversary, was considering purchasing long-range missiles from Tehran a move considered a “red line” by Washington. That sale never came to pass.
KIGALI: Prosecutors in Rwanda on Thursday sought a life sentence for “Hotel Rwanda” hero and government critic Paul Rusesabagina, who is charged with terrorism in a trial denounced as political by his supporters.
“We have showed that every act by Rusesabagina was criminal in nature with the intent to commit terrorism,” said prosecutor Jean Pierre Habarurema, during a seven-hour hearing.
“We therefore request that he is given the maximum sentence provided for by the law, which is life imprisonment.”
The former manager of Kigali’s Hotel des Mille Collines was made famous by the 2004 Hollywood film that told how he saved more than 1,000 people who sheltered in his hotel during the genocide, a decade earlier, in which an estimated 800,000 died, most of them ethnic Tutsis.
Rusesabagina, a Hutu, subsequently became a prominent and outspoken critic of President Paul Kagame and has lived in exile in the US and Belgium since 1996.
Kagame’s government accuses him of supporting the National Liberation Front (FLN) rebel group which is blamed for a series of gun, grenade and arson attacks in 2018 and 2019 that killed nine people.
Rusesabagina has denied any involvement in those attacks, but was a founder of the Rwandan Movement for Democratic Change (MRCD), an opposition group of which the FLN is seen as the armed wing. He faces nine charges, including terrorism.
“As a leader, sponsor and supporter of MRCD/FLN, he encouraged and empowered the fighters to commit those terrorist acts against Rwanda,” said Habarurema.
“Even if he did not actively take part in these attacks, he is considered as one who played a role by simply being a sponsor to these fighters.”
LONDON: A leading British scientist has said it is time to update the list of “classic” COVID-19 symptoms,after research found that a headache and sneezing are now among the most common signs of the disease.
Prof. Tim Spector is co-founder of the ZOE COVID symptom study, which draws on global contributors to report their symptoms once they test positive for the virus. It is the world’s largest study into the symptoms of COVID-19.
Spector said a headache now tops the list of most common symptoms, with 60 percent of people who test positive experiencing one.
A runny nose and sore throat are also “going up that list,” he added, and sneezing is now fourth, though it is often confused with hay fever.
Of the original “classic” symptoms, only a persistent cough remains in the top five, with fever and loss of smell dropping to ninth and seventh place respectively.
These developments, Spector said, mean governments must update their guidance.“We do need a much broader flexible approach to this as the virus changes and the populations change,” he added.
MANILA: The Philippines has increased the number of nurses and health care workers allowed to go overseas to 6,500 annually, a senior official said on Friday, amid high demand for its health professionals.
The Philippines, one of the world’s biggest sources of nurses, reached its annual cap of 5,000 health worker deployments late last month.
Those with contracts as of May 31 can take up overseas employment, presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said in a statement. That means another 1,500 nurses and health care staff can work abroad, according to the labor ministry.
The labor minister on Wednesday said he would seek approval to allow 5,000 more health care workers to be deployed abroad, but a nurses’ group said there were many more than that hoping to find jobs with better pay abroad.
Health workers under government-to-government labor deals, such as that with the United Kingdom, are exempted from the new cap.
Roughly 17,000 Filipino nurses signed overseas work contracts in 2019, but the Philippines put a temporary halt on that in 2020, to shore-up its health sector as coronavirus hospitalizations rose sharply.
Jocelyn Andamo, secretary general of the Filipino Nurses United, said the additional 1,500 was frustrating.
“It is very unrealistic compared with the huge need for nurses,” she said.
BENGALURU: A third wave of coronavirus infections is likely to hit India by October, and although it will be better controlled than the latest outbreak the pandemic will remain a public health threat for at least another year, according to a Reuters poll of medical experts.
The June 3-17 snap survey of 40 health care specialists, doctors, scientists, virologists, epidemiologists and professors from around the world showed a significant pickup in vaccinations will likely provide some cover to a fresh outbreak.
Of those who ventured a prediction, over 85 percent of respondents, or 21 of 24, said the next wave will hit by October, including three who forecast it as early as August and 12 in September. The remaining three said between November and February.
But over 70 percent of experts, or 24 of 34, said any new outbreak would be better controlled compared with the current one, which has been far more devastating with shortage of vaccines, medicines, oxygen and hospital beds than the smaller first surge in infections last year.
“It will be more controlled, as cases will be much less because more vaccinations would have been rolled out and there would be some degree of natural immunity from the second-wave,” said Dr. Randeep Guleria, director at All India Institute Of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).
So far, India has only fully vaccinated about 5 percent of its estimated 950 million eligible population, leaving many millions vulnerable to infections and deaths.
While a majority of health care experts predicted the vaccination drive would pick up significantly this year, they cautioned against an early removal of restrictions, as some states have done.
When asked if children and those under 18 years would be most at risk in a potential third wave, nearly two-thirds of experts, or 26 of 40, said yes.
“The reason being they are a completely virgin population in terms of vaccination because currently there is no vaccine available for them,” said Dr. Pradeep Banandur, head of epidemiology department at National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences.
Experts warn the situation could become severe.
“If children get infected in large numbers and we are not prepared, there is nothing you can do at the last minute,” said Dr. Devi Shetty, a cardiologist at Narayana Health and an adviser to the Karnataka state government on pandemic response planning.
“It will be a whole different problem as the country has very, very few pediatric intensive care unit beds, and that is going to be a disaster.”
But 14 experts said children were not at risk.
Earlier this week, a senior health ministry official said children were vulnerable and susceptible to infections but that analysis has shown a less severe health impact.
While 25 of 38 respondents said future coronavirus variants would not make existing vaccines ineffective, in response to a separate question, 30 of 41 experts said the coronavirus will remain a public health threat in India for at least a year.
Eleven experts said the threat would remain for under a year, 15 said for under two years, while 13 said over two years and two said the risks will never go away.
“COVID-19 is a solvable problem, as obviously it was easy to get a solvable vaccine. In two years, India likely will develop herd immunity through vaccine and exposure of the disease,” said Robert Gallo, director of the Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland and international scientific adviser, Global Virus Network. | Armed Conflict | October 2020 | ['(Arab News)', '(Sputnik)'] |
2008 United States presidential election: Illinois Senator Barack Obama wins the South Carolina Democratic primary. | COLUMBIA, S.C. Senator Barack Obama won a commanding victory over Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in the South Carolina Democratic primary on Saturday, forging a coalition of support among black and white voters in a contest that sets the stage for a state-by-state fight for the party’s presidential nomination.
In a bitter campaign here infused with discussions of race, Mr. Obama’s convincing victory puts him on equal footing with Mrs. Clinton with two wins each in early-voting states and gives him fresh momentum as the contest plunges into a nationwide battle over the next 10 days.
| Government Job change - Election | January 2008 | ['(The New York Times)'] |
Solar–powered aircraft Solar Impulse 2 lands in Mountain View, California after a 62–hour flight across the Pacific Ocean from Hawaii. | The solar-powered aeroplane Solar Impulse has landed in Silicon Valley, California, after a three-day flight over the Pacific Ocean from Hawaii.
High winds delayed the landing at Moffett Airfield, Mountain View, as pilot Bertrand Piccard flew in a holding pattern off the coast. "The Pacific is done," he declared just before landing.
The latest leg of the round-the-world flight was the riskiest yet because of the lack of emergency landing sites.
Fellow pilot Andre Borschberg hugged Mr Piccard when he stepped from the cockpit. Google boss Sergey Brin was also at the airfield to greet him. "It was a beautiful landing, we were right there watching," he said in a clip tweeted by the plane's media team. "You know there was a moment in the night, I was watching the reflection of the moon on the ocean and I was thinking, 'I'm completely alone in this tiny cockpit and I feel completely confident'," Mr Piccard told reporters afterwards.
"And I was really thankful to life for bringing me this experience; it's maybe one of the most fantastic experiences of life I've had."
He predicted that, 50 years from now, electric aeroplanes would be "transporting up to 50 people". With 17,000 photovoltaic cells on its top surfaces, the plane gets all its energy from the sun. These power the craft's propellers during the day but also charge batteries that the vehicle's motors can then call on during the night.
Solar Impulse started its journey in March of last year in Abu Dhabi, with the two pilots taking turns in the cockpit.
It crossed Oman, India, Myanmar and China before flying to Japan, from which it undertook the 8,924km (5,545-mile) passage to Hawaii. That five-day, five-night crossing set a record for the longest ever non-stop solo aeroplane journey.
However, the vehicle's batteries overheated, forcing the project to stop on the Pacific archipelago for eight months while repairs were conducted. A further 20m euros (£16m; $23m) had to be raised from supporters during the winter to keep the project going for another year.
It was Mr Borschberg who flew into Kalaeloa last July and he will take the controls on the next leg across the US mainland.
The two Swiss pilots' intention is to reach New York by the start of June, to begin preparations for an Atlantic crossing.
Assuming this is completed successfully, it should then be a relatively straightforward run back to the "finish line" in Abu Dhabi.
Mr Piccard and Mr Borschberg have been working on the Solar Impulse project for more than a decade.
A plane wider than a 747 jumbo jet but that weighs just 2.3 tonnes poses some unique challenges: LEG 1: 9 March. | New achievements in aerospace | April 2016 | ['(NBC News)', '(BBC)'] |
British neuroscientist John O'Keefe and Norwegian scientists May-Britt Moser and Edvard Moser share the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. | The 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded on Monday to American-British neuroscientist John O’Keefe, and Norwegian scientists May-Britt Moser and Edvard Moser.
The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet awards the prize annually to “the person who shall have made the most important discovery within the domain of physiology or medicine.” It is one of five Nobel Prizes established by Alfred Nobel, inventor of dynamite, in his will in 1895.
The trio received the award for their discoveries of cells that constitute a positioning system in the brain, which was described as an “inner GPS.”
O’Keefe, who holds both American and British citizenships, is a professor of cognitive neuroscience and the director of the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre in Neural Circuits and Behavior at te University College London. He discovered the first component of the positioning system in 1971.
May-Britt Moser is a professor of neuroscience and the director of the Centre for Neural Computation at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. Her husband Edvard Moser is also a professor at the university, and the director of the Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience. The Mosers are the fifth married couple to be awarded a Nobel Prize. In 2005, they discovered a type of nerve cell that generates a coordinate system and allowing for precise positioning.
Together, these discoveries explain how the brain creates a map of space and how we navigate our way through a complex environment.
Between 1901 and 2013, more than 560 Nobel Prizes have been awarded to 876 people and organizations. Nobel laureates receive the title, a diploma, a gold medal and about $1.2 million in award money. If two winners are chosen for a single category, the prize is split in half. When more than two people or organizations are selected, the prize is distributed at the judges’ discretion. | Awards ceremony | October 2014 | ['(Huffington Post)'] |
The European Parliament passes legislation to allow undocumented aliens to be held in detention centres for up to 18 months and banned from European Union territory for five years. | STRASBOURG, France European Union lawmakers voted Wednesday to allow undocumented migrants to be held in detention centers for up to 18 months and banned from European Union territory for five years. Criticized by groups like Amnesty International as “severely flawed” and an erosion of human rights standards, the so-called return directive was passed in the European Parliament here by a 369-to-197 vote, with 106 legislators abstaining. | Government Policy Changes | June 2008 | ['(The New York Times)'] |
At least 21 people have died, 180 have been injured and tens of thousands have been displaced by heavy rains that have affected Iraq. | Baghdad: At least 21 people have died and tens of thousands displaced by heavy rains that have battered Iraq over two days, the health ministry and United Nations said on Sunday. Women and children were among the dead, health ministry spokesman Seif al-Badr told AFP. Some had drowned, but others had died in car accidents, were electrocuted, or were trapped when their houses collapsed.
At least 180 more were injured, he added. Iraq and neighbouring countries have been hit by heavier-than-average rainfall in recent weeks, resulting in deaths and widespread damage. The country's north has borne the brunt of it, and the UN's Iraq office said the downpour had forced tens of thousands of people out of their homes.
An estimated 10,000 people in Salahaddin province and 15,000 people in Nineveh are in desperate need of help, including families living in displacement camps, the UN said.
In the Al-Sharqat district in Salahaddin, about 250 kilometres (150 miles) north of Baghdad, thousands of homes were left totally underwater by the rains.
And in Mosul, the Islamic State group's onetime bastion in Iraq, the heavy storms submerged two floating bridges along the Tigris river, which bisects the city.
They were the only way to move between Mosul's eastern and western halves, after its bridges were all bombed by the anti-IS fight.
Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi announced Friday he was establishing a "crisis cell" of security forces and local authorities to coordinate a response. The ministries of electricity, oil, and trade had also indicated their willingness to help.
Iraq is one of the hottest countries on earth but when heavy rains do hit, they can result in casualties because of deteriorating public infrastructure.
In 2015, 58 Iraqis were killed in floods and cases of electrocution due to intense downpours.
| Hurricanes_Tornado_Storm_Blizzard | November 2018 | ['(Times Now)'] |
The Cuban–born American arsonist who torched 87 people in March 1990 at The Bronx Happy Land fire, Julio González, dies in prison at the age of 61. | The arsonist who killed 87 people when he torched the Happy Land social club 26 years ago in the Bronx died Tuesday after suffering an apparent heart attack in prison.
Julio Gonzalez, 61, died at 11:30 a.m. at the Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital in Plattsburgh, state corrections spokesman Thomas Mailey said.
Gonzalez was locked up on a 25-year to life sentence in Clinton Correctional Facility after he was convicted of murder following the infamous March 25, 1990, fire.
At the time, it was called the largest mass murder in U.S. history.
Gonzalez went to the hospital after suffering what appeared to be a heart attack and died on the catheterization table, said David Doneh, the Clinton County coroner. His autopsy will be performed Wednesday, though formal results likely won't be released for at least two months, Doneh said.
Gonzalez torched the illegal nightclub on Southern Blvd. in West Farms after an argument with his former girlfriend, Lydia Feliciano, who was one of six people to escape the flames.
After being thrown out by a bouncer that night, he returned with $1 worth of gasoline, poured the fuel around the door and lit it with two matches. Then he watched the place go up in flames before going home.
"You know, maybe he got what he deserved," said Juan Laguna, 55, whose mother, Minerva Duprey, died in the inferno. "I'm not going to feel sad about it or anything. You know what? He had it coming to him."
Duprey was celebrated as a hero for trying to save people inside the club.
"I'm actually happy about this, and I'm sure my mom is really relieved, too. He got what he deserved, finally," Laguna said. "I'd rather him die than have him be released."
Gonzalez lost his first bid for parole last year, and would have been able to apply again in November.
The patrons of the two-story club were either overcome by smoke or trampled to death as everyone rushed for the club's lone exit, officials said.
Months before the blaze, the social club was found in violation of the city's safety code and ordered closed. | Famous Person - Death | September 2016 | ['(The New York Daily News)'] |
The government approves a proposed deal with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to restructure around $65 billion in foreign government bonds, following President Alberto Fernández's successful negotiations with creditors and the International Monetary Fund the previous week after the country defaulted in May. The government plans to submit the proposal to the SEC on August 17. | BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Argentina’s government on Sunday officially unveiled its amended bond restructuring offer in the state gazette and said creditors would have until August 28 to approve it.
It follows the issuing on Saturday night of an official decree approving a second round of amendments to the government’s initial offer made back in April, an important step to clinch a deal.
In an accompanying statement, the government said it would submit the new offer to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday.
On Sunday, the government said in the official gazette that the invitation would expire at 5pm New York City time on Aug. 28, confirming an anticipated delay to its earlier deadline of Aug. 24 to give bondholders a 10-day window after the formal SEC filing.
Argentina and its main creditor groups reached an agreement in principle on Aug. 4 to restructure about $65 billion in distressed sovereign bonds after months of talks, breaking an impasse that had threatened to derail negotiations.
In the statement on Saturday night, the government said the formalized offer aimed to “bring public finances into balance, give certainty to the private sector and provide the country with a new platform for growth”.
It added the proposal reflected the financial terms of the Aug. 4 agreement and dialogue with creditors, the International Monetary Fund and other international bodies on legal elements. It gave details of the amendments, which involved improving the net present value of the offer with earlier coupon payments but not additional cash flow.
With an already weak economy further punished by the coronavirus, the government wants to avoid the kind of messy sovereign bond default that punctuated a crisis in 2001 that tossed millions of middle class Argentines into poverty.
After the bond revamp is done, Argentina will start talks with the International Monetary Fund toward a new program to replace a defunct $57 billion standby lending deal negotiated by the previous administration two years ago.
| Sign Agreement | August 2020 | ['(SEC)', '(Reuters)'] |
At least ten people have been killed in a shootout between jailed Al-Shabaab militants and security officers at a prison in Mogadishu, Somalia. An investigation is under way into how the militants obtained weapons, with some reports suggested that an inmate disarmed a warden and then a group of them raided the armoury. | The number of people killed in a shootout between jailed militant Islamists and security officers at a prison in Somalia has risen to at least 20, officials say.
The al-Shabab militants had attempted to escape from the heavily guarded prison in the capital, Mogadishu.
An investigation is under way into how the militants obtained weapons.
Some reports suggested that an inmate managed to disarm a warden and then a group of them raided the armoury.
The BBC's Bella Sheegow in Mogadishu says Monday's incident is highly embarrassing for the government as the prison, the second biggest in Somalia, is guarded by elite forces.
The attack was repelled after reinforcements were called in.
The most dangerous al-Shabab militants are kept in the prison, including those serving life sentences or awaiting execution after being sentenced to death. Inmates had also attempted to break out of the prison in 2017, and the government was under pressure to prevent further such incidents, our reporter adds.
"We will not leave anything to chance. The government is investigating how this happened and who was responsible for what happened as well as who facilitated the inmates to get the weapons," Acting Justice Minister Hassan Hussein Haji said.
Government spokesman Ismail Mukhtar said 15 prisoners and five soldiers had been killed in the shooting.
He had earlier said that 10 people had died, including four militants. Al-Shabab, which is linked to al-Qaeda, has been waging a brutal insurgency in Somalia for more than a decade. It has been pushed out of Mogadishu by government and African Union troops, but the group still carries out bombings and assassinations in the city. | Riot | August 2020 | ['(BBC)'] |
An Italian jury finds Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito guilty in the case of the 2007 murder of Meredith Kercher in Perugia. Knox is sentenced to 26 years in prison, Sollecito to 25. | Perugia, Italy (CNN) -- An Italian jury has found American student Amanda Knox and her Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito guilty in the stabbing death of British exchange student Meredith Kercher. Knox was sentenced to 26 years in prison and Sollecito was sentenced to 25 years. Both were convicted on all charges except theft and together must pay 5 million euros ($7.4 million) to the victim's family. In addition, Knox must pay 40,000 euros ($60,000) to a man whom she falsely accused of the killing. Knox, wearing a lime jacket, her hair in a single braid, began to sob -- her sniffles and sobs punctuating the otherwise silent courtroom -- as the judge read the verdict quietly, without expression.
Few of the eight jurors looked at her. Six of the jurors were wearing red, white and green sashes -- the colors of Italy's flag.
Sollecito's stepmother cried out her stepson's name twice as he and Knox were led from the court.
Curt Knox, Amanda Knox's father, walked the four blocks from the courtroom to his hotel staring stonily ahead, holding his two tearful daughters by the hand.
He said nothing as they strode through the streets of the medieval town except "Move," when journalists got in his way.
"We are extremely disappointed in the verdict rendered today against our daughter," Knox's family said in a statement. "While we always knew this was a possibility, we find it difficult to accept this verdict when we know that she is innocent, and that the prosecution has failed to explain why there is no evidence of Amanda in the room where Meredith was so horribly and tragically murdered.
"It appears clear to us that the attacks on Amanda's character in much of the media and by the prosecution had a significant impact on the judges and jurors and apparently overshadowed the lack of evidence in the prosecution's case against her."
Knox and Sollecito will appeal the verdicts, attorneys said. After the verdict, Knox's lawyer, Carlo Della Vedova said his client was upset, but strong. He would not speculate on the reason for the verdict. "We have to see the motivation," he said, referring to legal paperwork the judge must file within 90 days to explain the jury's reasoning.
Her family was disappointed, but not surprised, by the verdict, Knox's aunt Janet Huff told CNN.com "It was terrible, it was gut-wrenching just to hear them say it," said Huff, speaking from her Seattle, Washington, home. "And to see the people outside the courtroom applauding -- that just made me sick that people can be that callous and cold."
Knox and Sollecito were charged with murder and sexual violence in the November 2007 stabbing death of Meredith Kercher. Knox and Kercher, both studying abroad, were roommates. A third suspect was found guilty in a separate trial.
Prosecutors argued Seattle, Washington, native Amanda Knox was a resentful American so angry with her British roommate that she exacted revenge during a twisted sex misadventure at their home two years ago.
They said Knox directed Sollecito and another man infatuated with her, Rudy Guede, to hold Kercher down as Knox played with a knife before slashing Kercher's throat.
Defense lawyers argued that Guede, who was convicted in a separate fast-track trial and is currently appealing his conviction, was the sole killer. On Thursday, Knox took the stand for a third time in the Perugia courtroom, telling jurors that she is not a "killer" who stabbed her former roommate.
"They say that I am calm. I am not calm," Knox said in Italian. "I fear to lose myself, to have the mask of the killer forced upon me. I fear to be defined as someone I am not."
Prosecutors touted an airtight case.
See the evidence that convicted Knox
They argued DNA on Kercher's bra clasp belonged to Sollecito. And the alleged murder weapon, a 6 ½-inch kitchen knife taken from Sollecito's home, had the DNA of Knox on the handle and Kercher on the blade, prosecutors said.
During the trial, the defense sought to cast doubt on the knife evidence, arguing it doesn't match the wounds on Kercher's body.
And they said the bra clasp with Sollecito's DNA on it was left at the crime scene for weeks and is so contaminated that the evidence can't be considered credible.
Knox's family has argued she has been the victim of character assassination.
Members of Kercher's family have declined repeated CNN requests for comment.
Prosecutor Giuliano Mignini accused the defense of "lynching" the Italian police who worked on the case.
Knox and Sollecito have been jailed for more than two years. The trial began in January in Perugia, a university town about 115 miles (185 kilometers) north of Rome. CNN's Paula Newton in Italy contributed to this report. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Sentence | December 2009 | ['(CNN)'] |
Former NFL cornerback Brandon Browner is arrested after allegedly breaking into a home of an ex–girlfriend who has a restraining order against him. | Former NFL cornerback Brandon Browner was arrested after allegedly breaking into a home of an ex-girlfriend who has a restraining order against him, multiple media outlets reported.
La Verne (Calif.) Police said in a release that Browner broke into the house through a locked window at approximately 10 a.m. on Sunday and forced the woman back into her residence. The police said that he physically harmed and threatened the woman and stole a Rolex watch valued at about $20,000 before fleeing the scene.
Browner was identified as the alleged intruder and charged with kidnapping, burglary, false imprisonment, and violation of a restraining order, according to an NBC Los Angeles report.
The 33-year-old Browner has had several run-ins with law enforcement.
Last month, Browner pleaded no contest to misdemeanor charges of battery and cruelty to a child that stemmed from an incident in Pomona (Calif.) on May 6 involving Marin Foster, the mother of two of his children.
Browner made the Denver Broncos' roster as an undrafted rookie from Oregon State in 2005. He played two seasons in Denver and four with the Calgary Stampeders in the Canadian Football League.
Then, he spent three seasons with the Seattle Seahawks, one with the New England Patriots and one with the New Orleans Saints before finishing his career with a brief stint in Seattle in 2016. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Arrest | July 2018 | ['(UPI)'] |
Hundreds of protesters take to the streets of Manhattan's financial district on the first anniversary of Occupy Wall Street. | More than 100 arrests were reported today, the first anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street movement, as protesters converged near the New York Stock Exchange and tried to block access to the exchange.
Protesters had planned to converge from several directions and form a "human wall" around the stock exchange to protest what they said was an unfair economic system that benefited the rich and corporations at the expense of ordinary citizens.
Police officers and protesters squared off at various points with protesters briefly blocking intersections and pavements before being dispersed and sometimes arrested.
The police appeared prepared to counter the protester-planned blockade with one of their own, ringing the streets and sidewalks leading toward the exchange with metal barricades and asking for identification from workers seeking to gain access.
Meanwhile, the protesters marched through the streets waving banners and were accompanied by bands playing "Happy Birthday."
Police officers repeatedly warned protesters that they could be arrested if they did not keep moving. Most of those arrested were charged with disorderly conduct, the police said.
At one point, at Broad Street and Beaver Street, a police commander grabbed a man from a crowd standing on a corner. Protesters tried to pull the man back, but officers surged into the crowd, wrestling the man free and placing him in handcuffs.
One of the more tense episodes took place as several hundred people marched slowly along Broadway. As part of the group passed Wall Street, a line of officers separated the march into two parts.
A few moments later, officers approached a man who had been loudly yelling objections about the metal police barricades that cordoned off Wall Street. The officers grabbed the man, who began shouting "I did nothing wrong," then removed him. As they were leading him away, a line of officers pushed a large crowd of people, including news photographers, away from the arrest.
One officer repeatedly shoved news photographers with a baton and a police lieutenant warned that no more photographs should be taken. "That's over with," the lieutenant said.
By midday, 124 people had been arrested. The arrests were mostly on disorderly conduct charges "for impeding vehicular or pedestrian traffic," according to Paul J. Browne, the Police Department's chief spokesman. On Saturday and Sunday, the police arrested 43 people in connection with the protests, Mr Browne said.
While most of those arrests involved charges of disorderly conduct, he said that some were on assault and resisting arrest charges. Police vans were parked on side streets throughout the financial district and helicopters buzzed overhead. Men in suits walking to work passed contingents of officers posted on corners.
One early gathering spot today was the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on Water Street, where about 400 protesters assembled. About 200 people had gathered at Zuccotti Park, which protesters took over last year and used as an encampment.
At the veterans memorial plaza Oren Goldberg (32) from Bushwick, Brooklyn, said, "It's exciting to see any group of people attempting any sort of change," adding that Occupy participants were interested in "working toward a greater good than profiteering."
Next to him, Grace de la Aguilera (27) a graduate student in Spanish who is also from Bushwick, said she had decided to join the protest out of "dissatisfaction with the economy."Soon lines of police officers wearing helmets arrived at the plaza.
They stood in ranks near Water Street as the protesters gathered in a circle and held a meeting.One organizer, Austin Guest, urged people to travel in groups for their own safety."Hey, everyone, we're going to shut down Wall Street today," he shouted as the protesters clapped and cheered. Mr Guest warned that arrests were possible."Our target is William and Wall Street," he said. "We are going to split up and assemble back there."
Near Water Street police commanders wearing white shirts consulted and officers on horseback lined up in a row. The protesters continued to discuss their plans and announced in unison a telephone number for legal help, which many of them wrote with markers on their arms.
Late in the morning the various marches disbanded and many protesters gathered between Bowling Green and the National Museum of the American Indian, where they held meetings and planned for the afternoon. | Protest_Online Condemnation | September 2012 | ['(Los Angeles Times)', '(The Irish Times)', '(The Guardian)', '(Huffington Post)'] |
Ecuador's Supreme Court orders that Vice President Jorge Glas be jailed for his alleged acceptance of bribes from the Odebrecht construction company. Prior to this, Glas had been free but barred from leaving the country. | QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — Ecuador’s Vice President Jorge Glas was jailed Monday after the Supreme Court ordered his arrest while he is investigated for allegedly taking bribes from a Brazilian construction giant involved in a sprawling regional graft scandal.
Police took Glas into custody at his residence in the city of Guayaquil and later transported him on an air force plane to the capital, Quito, where he is being held. Several supporters and former aides rushed to Guayaquil’s air force base to express solidarity with Glas, who they say was stabbed behind the back by his one-time ally, President Lenin Moreno.
Minutes before turning himself in, Glas posted online a video in which he said he would abide under protest the arrest order even while arguing that the case against him was based on lies, false testimony and procedural errors.
“Those who are innocent have no reason to flee,” said Glas in the video, in which he also urged supporters to continue fighting to defend the legacy of former President Rafael Correa, who both he and Moreno loyally served. “Don’t give up, fight for your revolution.”
Judge Miguel Jurado of Ecuador’s top court accepted a request from prosecutors that Glas be detained to guard against any attempt to escape. Until Monday’s ruling Glas was free but barred from leaving the country.
Across Latin America, once seemingly untouchable politicians, including the former leaders of Brazil and Peru, have been charged or are under investigation for purportedly taking bribes or illegal campaign contributions from Odebrecht as part of the construction company’s rapid expansion across the region the past decade.
Glas is highest-ranking official in Ecuador to be investigated and is suspected of leading a network of politicians and Correa officials who received $33 million that the construction company Odebrecht has acknowledged paying in exchange for contracts when he served as vice president from 2013 to 2017. The case is partly built on testimony by former Odebrecht executives as well as former government officials.
But Glas’ fall from grace has been compounded by the nation’s fast-shifting political landscape and a rupture in the ruling leftist coalition started by Correa.
In August, President Lenin Moreno stripped Glas of all of his duties as vice president, relegating him to a mostly ceremonial role. Glas has refused to resign and in turn accused Moreno of betraying the legacy of Correa, who also expressed outrage over his aide’s arrest.
“An honest man has lost his freedom,” Correa wrote on Twitter.
Moreno, whose toughness on corruption and efforts to repair relations with the opposition and business community have proved wildly popular with Ecuadoreans, is now looking to corner his rivals even further.
On Monday night he presented his proposal for a nationwide referendum in which voters would be asked whether they want to eliminate the possibility of indefinite re-election, something that could pave the way for Correa’s return to power in 2021. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Sentence | October 2017 | ['(AP)'] |
At the 2008 National People's Congress, Wen Jiabao is elected as Premier for another five years term. | Liang Guanglie, Chen Bingde, Li Jinai, Liao Xilong, Chang Wanquan, Jing Zhiyuan, Wu Shengli and Xu Qiliang were approved to be CMC members.
Through secret ballot, Wang Shengjun was elected president of the Supreme People's Court, while Cao Jianming was elected procurator-general of the Supreme People's Procuratorate.
China's Constitution stipulates that the candidate for premier of the State Council shall be nominated by the president of the state, and the candidates for vice-chairmen and members of the CMC shall be named by the CMC chairman. All the candidates are subject to voting at the National People's Congress (NPC), the parliament.
A total of 2,968 NPC deputies attended the sixth plenary meeting of the First Session of the 11th NPC on Sunday. | Government Job change - Election | March 2008 | ['(Xinhua)'] |
It later strengthens to Category 4 with predictions that it will hit Central America or the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico. | NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Hurricane Felix was downgraded to a Category 1 storm late Tuesday, drenching northern Nicaragua and El Salvador after thrashing the coast earlier in the day as a dangerous Category 5 storm, the National Hurricane Center said.
Felix's winds have dropped to 75 miles per hour, down from the 120-mph winds it packed at landfall. Tropical storms must sustain winds of 74 miles per hour to be classified a hurricane. As Felix moves farther inland, it is expected to dump 8 to 12 inches of rain on Nicaragua, El Salvador and neighboring Honduras, with downpours of up to 25 inches raising the threat of flash floods and mudslides in the Central American highlands. The Miami-based Hurricane Center, in a storm bulletin issued at 5 p.m. Eastern time, left in place a tropical storm warning for the entire coast of Honduras, adding that the storm would continue to plod along on a westward path for the next 24 hours, continuing to weaken as it moves away from the warm waters of the Caribbean.
The hurricane steered well clear of vital U.S. energy infrastructure in the Gulf of Mexico. In recent Nymex trading, the price on the benchmark crude-oil contract for October delivery was up $1.14 at $75.18 a barrel as energy traders turned their attention to other storm systems brewing in the Atlantic. See Futures Movers.
Felix is the second hurricane and the sixth named storm of the 2007 Atlantic season. Last month, Hurricane Dean left 20 dead after carving a destructive path from St. Lucia in the Caribbean to Mexico.
| Hurricanes_Tornado_Storm_Blizzard | September 2007 | ['(Reuters Alertnet)', '(Matket Watch)'] |
Eleven bodies have been recovered from Mount Kinabalu and 8 people remain missing following yesterday's Sabah earthquake. |
KUNDASANG, Malaysia - Nine more bodies have been found following the quake in Mount Kinabalu, bringing the death toll to 11, with eight people still unaccounted for.
"As at noon time, 11 bodies have been recovered (2 identified) and 8 people are still missing," Sabah Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Datuk Masidi Manjun posted on Twitter on Saturday. "Police forensic teams have arrived to assist," he said.
The Star also quoted him telling a media conference that the bodies would be airlifted out of the mountain. Ranau police chief Deputy Supt Farhan Lee Abdullah, who was also present at the conference, said they they were awaiting for the weather to clear for helicopters to fly out the bodies.
Malaysian rescuers had earlier on Saturday brought down to safety 137 hikers who had been stuck on the mountain for up to 18 hours, their descent blocked by damage to a key trail and the threat of continuing rockfalls, AFP reported. Photos of rescuers carrying the injured on what appeared to be makeshift stretchers also emerged on Facebook.
//
The 6.0-magnitude quake struck early Friday near the picturesque mountain, a popular tourist destination, sending landslides and huge granite boulders tumbling down from the 4,095-metre peak’s wide, jagged crown.
Mr Masidi said that the mountain would be closed for at least three weeks to enable a clean-up following serious damage to its trails, accommodation and other facilities. The closure, he said, would enable Sabah Parks to take stock of the damage and determine the necessary repairs that had to be carried out. He also praised the dedication of the mountain guides who helped with rescue efforts.
The dedication, bravery & deep commitment of #Kinabalu mountain guides are legendary. This photo says it all. pic.twitter.com/iy5Mz8svNd
— Masidi Manjun (@MasidiM) June 6, 2015
"Our overriding concern has always been the safety of the climbers," he said, adding they were planning an interfaith religious ceremony on the mountain.
Earlier, Malaysian reports cited authorities as saying most of the missing after Friday's quake were Singaporeans and Malaysians. Others missing were a national each from China, the Philippines and Japan. Those missing were among 187 tourist climbers on the mountain.
Mr Farhan had earlier on Saturday said the missing Singaporeans were among a group from the Tanjong Katong Primary School who had been trekking along the Via Ferrata when the earthquake shook.
He said the Malaysians who were missing comprised three climbers as well as two staff members of Mountain Torq, which operated the Via Ferrata, and a mountain guide.
He had added that two bodies, including that of a local tour guide and a Singaporean female, had been brought down and taken to hospital for a post mortem.
Some 20 others sustained various injuries, including broken limbs with one person said to be in a coma, The Malay Mail Online reported.
The current search and rescue operation will take place over land and air and involve 48 members from the Special Malaysia Disaster Assistance and Rescue Team (SMART) and the Fire and Rescue Department. They will trek nearly 7km from the Timpohon gate at the base of the mountain.
He said about a dozen SMART personnel would also be dropped by helicopters at the search area.
Asked about the chances of finding the missing alive, Mr Farhan said: "We can only pray for the best."
He said they hoped to find those missing by Saturday and wind up the search and rescue operation.
"We will continue the search until everyone has been accounted for," he added.
The quake, one of the strongest in the country in decades, jolted a wide area of Sabah state, shattering windows, cracking walls and sending people fleeing from buildings in the nearby state capital of Kota Kinabalu.
But no reports of major damage have emerged and no other casualties have yet been reported outside of those that occurred on the mountain.
The Johor government said it was considering sending aid, including volunteers and basic supplies, to help victims of the Sabah earthquake, The Star reported.
Chief Minister Datuk Mohamed Khaled Nordin said that Johor was looking at ways to help the victims of the disaster. | Earthquakes | June 2015 | ['(Straits Times)'] |
Russian President Vladimir Putin signs a presidential order sacking senior adviser Vladislav Surkov. Surkov was in charge of the Kremlin's policy on the Ukrainian crisis and its relations with the separatist "people's republics" in the Donbass. | MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday sacked Vladislav Surkov, one of his chief advisers and the architect of Russia's Ukraine policy who was viewed among the country's most powerful men.
The dismissal of the 55-year-old Surkin was announced on the Kremlin website but there was no indication of what his new job would be.
In recent years, Surkov was in charge of the Kremlin's Ukraine policy and cultivated close ties with the separatists who have carved out "people's republics" in the ex-Soviet country's eastern regions of Donetsk and Lugansk.
He was replaced earlier this month as the Kremlin's chief ideologue and pointman on relations with Ukraine and Moscow-backed separatists by Dmitry Kozak, a 61-year-old veteran official and a close ally of Putin.
As first deputy head of the Kremlin administration, Surkov helped transform Russian parliament into a rubber stamp, muzzle media and neuter the opposition.
The secretive strategist oversaw political parties in parliament and electoral campaigns that invariably handed victory to Putin.
Surkov saw his influence wane after he was moved to the government in a reshuffle in 2011 and served two years in the rank of deputy prime minister.
In 2013, he returned to the Kremlin where he served as Putin's advisor in charge of Russia's ties with Ukraine and other post-Soviet countries.
He found himself back in the spotlight when Moscow annexed Crimea in 2014 and supported Russian-speaking separatists in Ukraine's industrial east. | Government Job change - Resignation_Dismissal | February 2020 | ['(Voice of America)'] |
A gun battle between security forces and rebels in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh results in the deaths of 22 state paramilitary personnel and one militant. Thirty more soldiers are wounded. | Forces raided a hideout in Chhattisgarh state after receiving intelligence a large number of rebels were gathered there.
At least 22 Indian security personnel were killed and 30 injured in an ambush by Maoist rebels in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh, the deadliest incident of its kind in four years.
Officials said on Sunday that security personnel belonging to the Central Reserve Police Force’s elite CoBRA unit, the District Reserve Guard, and the Special Task Force were attacked on Saturday in the tribal-dominated Chhattisgarh state during an anti-insurgency operation.
“We can confirm that 22 of Indian force members have been killed by Maoist fighters,” said a senior government official in Raipur, the capital of mineral-rich Chhattisgarh.
They were killed in firing that lasted for four hours in the border district of Sukma, 540km (340 miles) south of Raipur.
Om Prakash Pal, a senior police official in Raipur said combing operations to trace one missing security force member was being conducted.
The death toll was the worst for Indian security forces battling the far-left guerrillas since 2017.
On Saturday, senior police officer DM Awasthi said hundreds of police and paramilitary soldiers raided a hideout in Bijapur district after receiving intelligence that a large number of rebels had gathered there. At least five security personnel were killed in the incident.
TheMaoist rebels, inspired by Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong, have been fighting the Indian government for more than 40 years, in a conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people.
More than 10,000 have been killed since the year 2000, according to data from the South Asia Terrorism Portal.
The rebels claim to defend the rights of indigenous tribes and other marginalised groups, while the government calls them India’s biggest internal security threat.
The Maoists, also known as Naxalites because their left-wing rebellion began in 1967 in the Naxalbari village of the eastern West Bengal state, have ambushed police, destroyed government offices and abducted officials.
They have also blown up train tracks, attacked prisons to free their comrades and stolen weapons from police and paramilitary warehouses to arm themselves.
Last month, a roadside bomb killed at least four policemen and wounded 14 in Narayanpur district of Chhattisgarh state as they were returning from an anti-Maoist operation.
| Armed Conflict | April 2021 | ['(Al Jazeera)'] |
USL Leader, Victor Ponta, becomes Prime Minister of Romania. | BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — Romanian lawmakers on Monday approved a new left-leaning Cabinet that is expected to continue a slate of economic reforms, but partially restore public sector wages and pensions slashed as part of austerity measures.
Parliament approved the government of Victor Ponta by 284-92 votes, making him Romania's third prime minister this year after previous two centrist governments collapsed over unpopular cuts.
Ponta had told lawmakers that if his coalition government of Social Democrats and Liberals is approved it would only remain in office until November parliamentary elections.
"I am convinced that today we begin to fundamentally change the fate of Romania," said Ponta, who has vowed to reduce the number of political appointments in state institutions and end endemic cronyism.
Pledging "stability and seriousness," he said the government would start working on Tuesday.
His government has said there will also be a moratorium on shale gas exploitation and a review of a controversial Canadian gold mine.
Romania took a €20-billion ($26-billion) bailout loan from the International Monetary Fund, the European Union and the World Bank in 2009, when its economy shrank 7 percent.
To keep to the bailout agreement, the government cut public wages by 25 percent, cut pensions and raised sales tax to 24 percent. Thousands of Romanians protested in cities around the country in bitter January weather which led to the collapse of the government of Emil Boc, who was prime minister since 2008.
Less, than three months later, another government fell in a no-confidence vote on April 27.
President Traian Basescu is expected to lead a ceremony to swear in the Cabinet.
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.
Aleksander Barkov put together the best season of his still-young career this year. Now the Florida Panthers’ captain also has recognition in the form of his first major trophy.
Clippers coach Tyronn Lue experimented all season with rotations and personnel because of injury problems. Their adaptability has paid off vs. Jazz.
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.
“Mark Cuban approached me about a role as special advisor and I am happy to support my Mavs,” the Mavs icon said.
Anyone flouting the rules faces having their drone confiscated, being fined or even imprisonment.
Stuck in India, Johannah was separated from her family in Australia because of border closures.
A man accused in a fatal crash that claimed the life of a Lawrence woman in April has been arrested, police said Thursday.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Thursday released a full list of investigations into crashes involving Tesla Autopilot.
Hendrick Motorsports is solidifying its stable of young drivers for the future.
Where does the recent baffling slaying of two prominent residents rank among these 15 unforgettable crimes? You decide.
The global cruise line industry is hoping to now recover from the pandemic, but problems remain.
The latest four-week delay to unlocking restrictions has pushed an additional 5,000 gigs into doubt.
While working her job at Starbucks, the daughter of Miami Gardens’ police chief was allegedly threatened with a gun over an order mix-up — the gunman was given his bagel without cream cheese, police say.
Vice reported that the woman, who works at Amazon's JFK8 facility on Staten Island, lives in her car in the warehouse parking lot.
Ever seen a scared cottonmouth?
An upcoming book from Wall Street Journal reporter Mike Bender alleges former President Donald Trump blamed his son-in-law for the civil unrest that erupted in the country following the death of George Floyd. The book titled “Frankly, We Did Win This Election: The Inside Story of How Trump Lost,” includes firsthand accounts from some of Trump’s closest advisers, “who spoke to me on the condition of deep background, an agreement that meant I could share their stories without direct attribution,” Bender wrote for Politico. In the book, Bender describes how Trump privately told advisers that he didn’t push back hard enough against protesters in the wake of Floyd’s killing by Minneapolis police in May 2020.
Alexandr Kudlay and Viktoria Pustovitova's last attempt to mend their relationship involved handcuffing themselves together. It didn't work.
The latest CDC data show that two-thirds of Americans 18 and older have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.
The 28-year-old was attempting to jump 351 feet during a performance at the Moses Lake Air Show when he crashed. | Government Job change - Appoint_Inauguration | May 2012 | ['(Yahoo)'] |
Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant militants lay siege to Iraq's largest oil refinery, located in Baiji. | BAGHDAD (AP) Islamic militants laid siege to Iraq's largest oil refinery Wednesday, threatening a facility key to the country's domestic supplies as part of their ongoing lightning offensive, a top security official said.
The attack comes militants have seized wide swaths of territory in Iraq and as the specter of the sectarian warfare that nearly tore the country apart and the doubts that followed the 2003 U.S.-led invasion now haunt those trying decide how to respond.
The official said fighters of the al-Qaida-inspired Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant began their attack on the Beiji refinery, some 250 kilometers (155 miles) north of the capital, Baghdad, late Tuesday night. The attack continued into Wednesday morning, with fighters targeting it with mortar shells. A small fire started on the facility's periphery, he said.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to journalists.
The Beiji refinery accounts for a little more than a quarter of the country's entire refining capacity all of which goes toward domestic consumption for things like gasoline, cooking oil and fuel for power stations.
Any lengthy outage at Beiji risks long lines at the gas pump and electricity shortages, adding to the chaos already facing Iraq.
Farther north in the city of Tal Afar, fighting raged Wednesday between government troops and Islamic State fighters who captured the city on Monday, chief military spokesman Lt. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi told The Associated Press.
He had no other details, but state television late on Tuesday aired footage of army troops and armed volunteers disembarking from a transport C-130 aircraft at an airstrip near Ta Afar.
Tal Afar is close to the Syria border and its capture strengthens the Islamic State's plan to carve out an "Islamic emirate" that covers territory on both sides of the territory.
The Sunni militants of the Islamic State have vowed to march to Baghdad and the Shiite holy cities of Karbala and Najaf in the worst threat to Iraq's stability since U.S. troops left. The three cities are home to some of the most revered Shiite shrines. The Islamic State also has tried to capture Samarra north of Baghdad, home to another major Shiite shrine.
Iran, a neighboring Shiite powerhouse, already has seen thousands volunteer to defend the shrines. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, speaking Wednesday to a crowd gathered at a stadium near his country's border with Iraq, said that the Islamic State and others would be defeated.
"We declare to all superpowers, their mercenaries, murderers and terrorists that the great Iranian nation will not miss any effort in protecting these sacred sites," Rouhani said.
Some 275 armed American forces are being positioned in and around Iraq to help secure U.S. assets as President Barack Obama also considers an array of options for combating the Islamic militants, including airstrikes or a contingent of special forces.
The White House has continued to emphasize that any military engagement remains contingent on the government in Baghdad enacting political reforms and ending sectarian tensions, which had been on the rise even before the Islamic State's incursion last week, with thousands killed since late last year.
Republicans have been critical of Obama's handling of Iraq, but Congress remains deeply divided over what steps the U.S. can take militarily. Even lawmakers who voted in 2002 to give President George W. Bush the authority to use military force to oust Saddam Hussein have expressed doubts about the effectiveness of drone airstrikes and worry about Americans returning to the fight in a country split by sectarian violence.
"Where will it lead and will that be the beginning or the end?" Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., said, when asked about possible U.S. airstrikes. "We don't know that. This underlying conflict has been going on 1,500 years between the Shias and the Sunnis and their allies. And I think whatever we do, it's not going to go away."
During the United States' eight-year presence in Iraq, American forces acted as a buffer between the two Islamic sects, albeit with limited success. But U.S. forces fully withdrew at the end of 2011 when Washington and Baghdad could not reach an agreement to extend the American military presence there.
Iraq has the world's fifth-largest known crude oil reserves, with an estimated 143 billion barrels, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. It produced some 2.58 million barrels of oil day in May, according to the Oil Ministry.
The price of oil eased slightly Tuesday after the U.S. said it was deploying a small group of troops to Iraq, which helped soothe fears somewhat over the prospect of disruption to crude supplies. The attack on Beiji likely will affect trading Wednesday.
___
Associated Press writers Hamza Hendawi in Baghdad and Julie Pace, Donna Cassata and Bradley Klapper in Washington contributed to this report. | Armed Conflict | June 2014 | ['(AP)'] |
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