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A spokesman for Saudi Arabia strongly denies John Kerry's assertion that it had made an agreement with United States President George W. Bush to manipulate the price of oil for political purposes as the U.S. election approaches. The assertion stems from material in Bob Woodward's new book, Plan of Attack, detailing the Bush Administration's preparation for the invasion of Iraq. | Senator John Kerry attacked the Bush administration on Monday for what he called ''a secret deal'' with Saudi Arabia to cut oil prices in time to help the president in the November election.
Two days after an Israeli missile strike that killed the leader in Gaza of the militant group Hamas, Mr. Kerry also spoke of his record of support for Israel and promised that he would end what he called the United States' ''sweetheart relationship'' with Arab nations that support Palestinian terrorists.
| Sign Agreement | April 2004 | ['(NYT)', '(AP)', '(Democracy Now!)'] |
A Russian Mi-8 helicopter crashes into the sea off Svalbard with eight people reported missing. A search and rescue operation is underway. | Rescuers are trying to find a Russian Mi-8 civilian helicopter that crashed into the sea with eight people on board in the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard.
Norway has sovereignty over Svalbard but Russia has a small coal-mining community in Barentsburg. The crash happened a few kilometres from there.
Russia's consul there said five crew and three scientists were on board, all Russians. They are feared dead.
The helicopter went missing at 15:35 local time (13:35 GMT). It was on a short flight to Barentsburg from Pyramiden, a disused Russian mining settlement. The helicopter is operated by a Russian coal-mining enterprise, Arktikugol. Norway in Arctic dispute with Russia
| Air crash | October 2017 | ['(BBC)'] |
NATO announces it will hold a meeting of the NATO–Russia Council at the ambassadorial level at NATO headquarters in Brussels in the next two weeks after a two-year break since NATO cut all practical cooperation with Russia in 2014. | NATO has announced it will hold a meeting of the NATO-Russia Council at the ambassadorial level at NATO headquarters in Brussels in the next two weeks.
In a statement on April 8, the Western military alliance said the NATO-Russia Council will discuss "the crisis in and around Ukraine and the need to fully implement the Minsk agreements."
"We will discuss military activities, with particular focus on transparency and risk reduction," it said, adding that Afghanistan and regional threats were also on the agenda.
NATO suspended all practical cooperation with Russia in April 2014 due to Russia's action in Ukraine, including the annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in March 2014. Since then the NATO-Russia Council has only met once, in June 2014. Despite the strained ties, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov a few times in recent years.
| Diplomatic Talks _ Diplomatic_Negotiation_ Summit Meeting | April 2016 | ['(Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)'] |
The United Kingdom announces that it will apply to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, which forms a trade bloc of 11 Asia-Pacific nations. The UK will be the first non-founding country to apply to join the bloc. | The UK will apply to join a free trade area with 11 Asia and Pacific nations on Monday, a year after it officially left the EU.
Joining the group of "fast-growing nations" will boost UK exports, the government says.
The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership - or CPTPP - covers a market of around 500 million people.
But they are harder to reach than neighbouring markets in Europe.
Members include Australia, Canada, Japan and New Zealand.
Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam are also founder members of the bloc, which was established in 2018.
"In future it's going to be Asia-Pacific countries in particular where the big markets are, where growing middle-class markets are, for British products," International Trade Secretary Liz Truss told the BBC's Andrew Marr.
"Of course British businesses will have to reach out and take these opportunities, but what I'm doing is I'm creating the opportunities, the low tariffs, removing those barriers so they can go out and do that." Joining the bloc would reduce tariffs on UK exports such as whisky and cars, as well as service industries, she said.
However the immediate impact is likely to be modest as the UK already has free trade deals in place with several CPTPP members, some of which were rolled over from its EU membership. The UK is negotiating deals with Australia and New Zealand.
In total, CPTPP nations accounted for 8.4% of UK exports in 2019, roughly the same proportion as Germany alone.
The US was originally in talks to be part of the CPTPP, but former President Donald Trump pulled out when he took office. If the new administration in Washington were to reconsider the CPTPP, that would make membership much more attractive to the UK. It could allow a much closer UK-US trading relationship, without waiting for a bilateral trade deal to be negotiated.
Exactly a year after it said goodbye to the EU, the UK is eying a new trading club. It sounds a win-win: those Pacific Rim nations represent 13% of global income and 500 million people - and the UK would retain the freedom to strike deals elsewhere. There'd be agreement on how standards and regulations are set (with minimums to be adhered to) - but they wouldn't need to be identical.
In practice, however, the short-terms gains for households and business would be limited. The UK already has trade deals with seven of the 11 nations - and is pursuing two more. In total, CPTPP nations account for less than 10% of UK exports, a fraction of what goes to the EU. This deal would however deepen some of those ties - and allow UK manufacturers who source components from multiple nations in the bloc some benefits under "rules of origins" allowances. But the real boost could come in the future, if others join - in particular the US, as President Biden has hinted. That would give the UK that hoped-for trade deal with America - within a trading bloc wielding considerable power on the global stage.
The UK is the first non-founding country to apply to join the CPTPP and, if successful, would be its second biggest economy after Japan.
The free trade block aims to reduce trade tariffs - a form of border tax - between member countries.
It includes a promise to eliminate or reduce 95% of import charges- although some of these charges are kept to protect some home-made products, for example Japan's rice and Canada's dairy industry.
In return, countries must cooperate on regulations, such as food standards. However, these standards and regulations do not have to be identical, and member countries can strike their own trade deals.
The government was putting place strategies that would "deliver for Britain in 2030 and 2050", Ms Truss said. She said services, robotics, data and digital industries were particularly set to gain, which could lead to more UK jobs.
Membership will also offer the potential for faster and cheaper visas for business people, the government said.
The formal request to join will be made on Monday, with negotiations expected in the spring. | Join in an Organization | January 2021 | ['(BBC)'] |
Local officials say Taliban have killed 17 local militiamen in an attack on their base in Khwaja Bahauddin District, Takhar Province. A Taliban spokesman says they killed 21 gunmen. The Taliban propose a 7 to 10-day nationwide ceasefire, after which a peace deal with the United States would be signed. |
The Taliban has previously refused all offers of a ceasefire by the Afghan government, except for a three-day truce in June 2018 over the Eid al-Fitr holiday.
The current ceasefire proposal would last a week to 10 days and a peace deal with the United States would then be signed, the Taliban officials said.
Talks between Afghans on both sides of the conflict would follow to decide on the shape of a post-war Afghanistan.
The Taliban shura, or ruling council, is currently debating whether to accept the US ceasefire proposal, Taliban officials said.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media, but were familiar with the ongoing US-Taliban negotiations.
On Monday, a US soldier was killed in combat in the northern Kunduz province. The Taliban claimed it was behind a deadly roadside bombing that targeted American and Afghan forces in Kunduz.
The following day, a Taliban attack on a checkpoint killed at least seven Afghan army soldiers in the northern Balkh province.
Another six Afghan troops were killed in the same province on Thursday in an attack on an army base.
At least 10 Afghan soldiers were killed on Friday in a complex attack on a checkpoint in the southern Helmand province.
The Taliban frequently targets Afghan and US forces, as well as government officials. But many civilians are also killed in the crossfire or by roadside bombs planted by fighters.
| Sign Agreement | December 2019 | ['(Al Jazeera)'] |
Police in China detain 75 people in connection with a service that determined the female gender of unborn babies for the purpose of abortion. Authorities say that at least 300 people were involved in the illegal service in the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang. Expectant parents wanting male children smuggled fetal blood samples to Hong Kong for gender testing. China ended its one–child policy last year. | Police in China have detained 75 people in connection with a widespread network that illegally determined the gender of unborn babies.
The illegal service - aimed at expectant parents wanting male children - smuggled fetal blood samples to Hong Kong for gender testing, officials say.
It operated across much of China and brought in $30m (£25m).
Despite decades of campaigning, Chinese families, particularly in rural areas, continue to prize boys above girls.
At least 300 people were involved in the illegal service, the authorities in the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang said.
The size of the operation and the money involved reveal the desperation of the parents who wanted the service, BBC Asia Pacific regional editor Celia Hatton says. China ended its one-child policy last year, which was seen as contributing to the gender imbalance in China.
But Chinese population officials this week warned that that imbalance, 113 boys for every 100 girls, would remain for years to come.
What was China's one-child policy?
One-child policy end 'no panacea'
UN calls for end of arms sales to Myanmar
In a rare move, the UN condemns the overthrowing of Aung San Suu Kyi and calls for an arms embargo.
The ethnic armies training Myanmar's protesters. VideoThe ethnic armies training Myanmar's protesters
| Famous Person - Commit Crime - Arrest | October 2016 | ['(BBC)'] |
The Pakistan Army claims that at least 30 militants and 2 soldiers have been killed in fighting in the Bajaur region of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. | ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) Pakistani officials say at least 32 militants and 2 soldiers have died in clashes in the northwest of the country.
The casualties were reported in the Bajur region, which lies next to the Afghan border. Security forces say they have killed hundreds of militants there in weeks of fighting.
Army spokesman Maj. Murad Khan said Friday that security forces had killed 32 militants in the previous 24 hours. Khan said two soldiers, one of them an officer, also died.
Iqbal Khattak, a local government official, put the total for the 24-hour period higher, saying about 60 militants have died. | Armed Conflict | September 2008 | ['(AP via Google News)'] |
The U.S. Supreme Court rules in a 5–4 decision that the rescission of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy was "arbitrary and capricious" under the Administrative Procedure Act and reversed the order rescinding it. Chief Justice John Roberts casts the deciding vote, along with the four liberal Justices. | Activists demonstrate in front of the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on Thursday as the court rejected the Trump administration's move to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
In a major rebuke to President Trump, the U.S. Supreme Court has blocked the administration's plan to dismantle an Obama-era program that has protected 700,000 so-called DREAMers from deportation. The vote was 5-4, with Chief Justice John Roberts writing the opinion.
Under the Obama program, qualified individuals brought to the U.S. as children were given temporary legal status if they graduated from high school or were honorably discharged from the military, and if they passed a background check. Just months after taking office, Trump moved to revoke the program, only to be blocked by lower courts — and now the Supreme Court.
Roberts' opinion for the court was a narrow but powerful rejection of the way the Trump administration went about trying to abolish the program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA.
"We do not decide whether DACA or its rescission are sound policies," Roberts wrote. "The wisdom of those decisions is none of our concern. Here we address only whether the Administration complied with the procedural requirements in the law that insist on 'a reasoned explanation for its action.' "
In 2017, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions simply declared DACA illegal and unconstitutional. "Such an open-ended circumvention of immigration laws was an unconstitutional exercise of authority by the executive branch," he said at the time. Sessions argued that the program should be rescinded because he said it was unlawful from the start.
But, as Roberts observed, the attorney general offered no detailed justifications for canceling DACA. Nor did the acting secretary of homeland security at the time, Elaine Duke, who put out a memo announcing the rescission of DACA that relied entirely on Sessions' opinion that the program was unlawful.
As Roberts noted, Duke's memo didn't address the fact that thousands of young people had come to rely on the program, emerging from the shadows to enroll in degree programs, embark on careers, start businesses, buy homes and even marry and have 200,000 children of their own who are U.S. citizens, not to mention that DACA recipients pay $60 billion in taxes each year.
None of these concerns are "dispositive," Roberts said, but they have to be addressed. The fact that they weren't addressed made the decision to rescind DACA "arbitrary and capricious," he wrote. And none of the justifications the administration offered after the fact sufficed either, including a memo issued by then-Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen. That memo, said Roberts, was essentially too little, too late. An agency must defend its action based on the reasons it gave at the time it acted, he said, instead of when the case is already in court.
Roberts made clear that an administration can rescind a program like DACA, and indeed immigration experts don't disagree with that bottom line. The problem for the administration was that it never wanted to take responsibility for abolishing DACA and instead sought to blame the Obama administration for what it called an "illegal and unconstitutional" program.
The chief justice didn't address that issue. Instead, says immigration law professor Lucas Guttentag, the justices in the majority seemed to be saying, "Why should the court be the bad guy" when the administration "won't take responsibility" for rescinding DACA by explaining clearly what the policy justifications for the revocation are?
Joining the Roberts opinion were the court's four liberal justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Sotomayor wrote separately to say that while she agreed that rescinding DACA violated the law for the procedural reasons outlined by the chief justice, she would have allowed the litigants to return to the lower courts and make the case that rescinding DACA also amounted to unconstitutional discrimination.
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the principal dissent, accusing Roberts of writing a political rather than a legal opinion. Joining him were Justices Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito, with separate dissents also filed by Alito and Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
In a tweet, Trump blasted the decision as one of the "horrible & politically charged decisions coming out of the Supreme Court." The president also asked: "Do you get the impression that the Supreme Court doesn't like me?"
Former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, on the other hand, celebrated the decision, saying in a statement, "The Supreme Court's ruling today is a victory made possible by the courage and resilience of hundreds of thousands of DACA recipients who bravely stood up and refused to be ignored."
In an interview with NPR's Mary Louise Kelly, Ken Cuccinelli, the Trump administration senior official who oversees immigration and citizenship at the Department of Homeland Security, said Trump is considering his options.
"I do expect you will see some action out of the administration," he said, adding: "He is not a man who sits on his hands."
While the decision gives DACA and its hundreds of thousands of recipients a lifeline, the issue is far from settled. The court decided that the way Trump went about canceling DACA was illegal, but all the justices seemed to agree that the president does have the authority to cancel the program if done properly.
As for the immediate future of DACA, the consensus among immigration experts is that there is not enough time for Trump to try again to abolish the program before January. Cornell Law School professor Stephen Yale-Loehr, the author of a 21-volume treatise on immigration law, says, "It's not remotely possible before the election. But if [Trump] is reelected, he almost certainly will try again" to cancel DACA.
For now, though, more individuals eligible for DACA status may be able to apply. Marisol Orihuela, co-director of the Worker & Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic at Yale Law School, notes that the administration has refused to accept new applications since 2017. But she thinks that will change now. "Our understanding is that the program is restored to what it was in 2012 when it went into effect," she says.
Guttentag, who teaches immigration law at Yale and Stanford University, says if Trump is not reelected, a new administration could repair "much of the damage" that he says has been inflicted on immigrants during the Trump administration. But, he adds that the immigration system is "completely shattered" and needs "fundamental reform."
Politically, Thursday's decision played out as expected, with anti-immigration groups condemning the decision and DACA recipients jubilant and relieved.
But aside from the president, lots of Republicans are relieved as well. If Thursday's decision had gone the other way, the pressure on congressional Republicans to pass legislation protecting the DREAMers would have been intense.
DACA is an astonishingly popular program, with recent polls showing up to 85% support among Democratic and independent voters, and huge majorities among Republican voters as well.
Indeed, 200 major corporations filed briefs in the Supreme Court supporting the DACA recipients. Among them was Microsoft, which was a plaintiff in one of the cases that made it to the Supreme Court, and its president, Brad Smith.
"There are more than 30,000 DACA registrants working in the health space alone. We've needed these people more than we do today," he said. "Every time I meet with them, I have the same reaction. We are lucky as a country to have them."
Not all DACA critics are against the substance of DACA. Instead, some oppose the fact that Obama, frustrated with congressional inaction, put the program into effect unilaterally through executive order. Ilya Shapiro of the Cato Institute warns of unforeseen consequences if presidents can create new programs that future administrations will struggle to unwind.
"This raises profound issues of executive power and in effect sets out a ratchet whereby statutory changes can be enacted by presidential executive order but can only be rescinded through jumping through various administrative law hoops," he said.
At the end of the day, the man of the hour is Chief Justice Roberts. Amid a politicized and polarized society, he has repeatedly tried to portray the court as apolitical. He sees the growth of organizations on the hard right like the Judicial Crisis Network, and on the hard left like Demand Justice, each trying to stack the court with like-minded justices or pack the court by expanding the number of justices.
"What these decisions underscore is we have a chief justice who's plainly working hard to demonstrate to the American people that the court, unlike the other two branches, is doing its job and doing its best," said Harvard Law School professor Richard Lazarus, who has known the chief justice for decades. "He wants the American people to believe there is a thing called law and justice. His job is to apply it." | Government Policy Changes | June 2020 | ['(DACA)', '(APA)', '(NPR)'] |
Verizon Communications Inc. announces that it will buy AOL Inc. for US$4.4 billion. | Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) is buying AOL Inc. (AOL) in a $4.4 billion deal aimed at advancing the telecom giant's growth ambitions in mobile video and advertising.
The all-cash deal values AOL at $50 a share, a 23% premium over the company's three-month volume-weighted average price. AOL shares rose 18% in premarket trading to $50.27. Verizon shares fell 1.6% to $49.
The acquisition would give Verizon, which has set its sights on entering the crowded online video marketplace, access to advanced technology AOL has developed for selling ads and delivering high-quality Web video.
The U.S. wireless business has matured in recent years, leaving carriers like Verizon, AT&T Inc. (T) and Sprint Corp. (S) increasingly fighting to steal market share from one another. Offering digital video over wireless connections represents a growth avenue in coming years for Verizon, which last year brought in $127 billion in revenue and profit of $12 billion.
Verizon has said it plans to launch a video service focused on mobile devices this summer. The company has offered few details, but last month Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo said the service will offer a mix of paid, free and ad-supported content and won't try to replicate traditional TV.
The service will feature shorter snippets rather than 30 or 60 minute shows. It also could include multicast programming--a sort of broadcast service that uses cellular airwaves--for delivering live content like sports and concerts, along with on-demand viewing.
That description has left a lot of room for interpretation, and some analysts briefed on the service recently by the company said they came away unimpressed. Verizon, however, like rival AT&T, believes video will be a primary driver of demand for its wireless network in the years ahead.
"This will have nothing to do with what you do in your house," Mr. Shammo said in an interview on April 22. "Millennials consume news in ways you can't even see on the TV."
Verizon already has relationships with many media providers due to its FiOS TV service, which is available in 5.6 million U.S. households. And it has shown prowess in mobile video already, including through a partnership with the NFL that allows it to stream some games over phones.
A year ago, Verizon agreed to pay what people familiar with the matter said was around $200 million to buy Intel Corp.'s (INTC) fledgling OnCue Internet video service --an asset that underpins the telecom company's upcoming offering.
For AOL, the sale is the latest chapter for a company that has redefined itself in recent years as a significant player in digital media and marketing, after originating as a pioneer in the dial-up Web access business and being involved in one of the most disastrous corporate mergers ever.
AOL eventually grew to more than 20 million dial-up subscribers and consummated a $183 billion megamerger with Time Warner Inc. (TWX) in 2000. The company's value dissipated quickly after the dot-com bust and ultimately Time Warner spun out AOL in 2009.
Under the leadership of Tim Armstrong, a former Google Inc. executive who took over as chief executive of AOL in 2009, the company has invested heavily in ad technology--including an automated, or "programmatic" platform that allows marketers to bid for inventory electronically. In 2013 AOL purchased Adap.tv, an "exchange" that connects buyers and sellers of online video advertising.
AOL also built a stable of content including online news sites such as Huffington Post, TechCrunch and Engadget. And it has even produced original Web series. It recently launched "Connected," a documentary-style series in which the subjects film themselves.
In 2014, AOL generated revenue of $2.5 billion, about 9% higher than the previous year, and a profit of $126 million. The company has been successful in growing the part of its business that helps other companies sell ads, but lately has struggled to grow ad sales for its owned-and-operated properties. AOL has cut costs by shutting down some of its core sites and through layoffs.
In an interview, Mr. Armstrong said that the combination of Verizon and AOL will "create what I think is the largest mobile and video business in the United States." Mr. Armstrong said he believes that AOL will now not only be able to compete with digital advertising giants Google and Facebook Inc., but will also be able to play in the rapidly emerging connected TV and mobile media and advertising sectors. "This gives us a real seat at the table for the future of media and technology," he said.
The deal is expected to close this summer, pending regulatory approvals. Mr. Armstrong will continue to lead AOL's operations, the companies said. Verizon expects to finance the acquisition through cash on hand and commercial paper.
| Organization Merge | May 2015 | ['(Fox Business)'] |
A woman is diagnosed with Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease ("human mad cow disease") in Milan then hospitalised in Livorno, only the second case in Italy's history and the first since Sicily 2002. | A 42-year-old Italian woman was reported as the second ever case of mad cow disease in humans in the country and is currently hospitalised in desperate conditions, the ANSA news agency said on Wednesday.
The woman was diagnosed with a variant of the Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) at a Milan neurological hospital in the past months and was then transferred to a hospital in Livorno, in western Tuscany, when she was already in a coma, ANSA said.
It is still unclear how the woman contracted the disease.
In 2009, Italy's health ministry had reported the woman's disease as a "likely variant of the CJD".
The only previous case of mad cow disease in humans in Italy was reported in 2002 on the island of Sicily.
On Friday the European Union said it had nearly wiped out mad cow disease in animals in Europe.
Only 67 positive cases of mad cow disease were identified last year and the animals were old cows that could have been contaminated long ago, the EU said.
In the 1990s, panic erupted after Britain reported a link between mad cow and a new form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans. | Famous Person - Sick | July 2010 | ['(WAtoday)'] |
Evacuations are prompted in Butte County, California after the Camp Fire erupts. | A fast-moving wildfire in Northern California has grown rapidly, scorching some 18,000 acres and forced thousands of residents to evacuate, according to officials. Acting California Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a state of emergency in Butte County Thursday due to the "Camp Fire."
The Butte County Sheriff's Office said an evacuation order was issued for areas of Paradise, a town of about 27,000 people 180 miles northeast of San Francisco.
"This fire is very dangerous, please evacuate if asked to do so!" the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) tweeted.
Officials said the blaze has consumed more than 26 square miles so far.
CBS Sacramento reported that thousands of PG&E customers in Butte County have lost power because of the blaze, which has destroyed homes and threatened critical infrastructure, according to the governor's office.
Five people were burned in Paradise, according to California Highway Patrol (CHP). Authorities were working Thursday afternoon to close traffic heading north on Highway 99 into Chico. The fire was heading toward the city, according to CBS Sacramento.
Cal Fire said Wednesday that a Red Flag Warning was issued for most of Northern California's interior as well as parts of Southern California through Friday morning. Gusty winds and low humidity were among the factors that led to the warning.
Red Flag Warnings are issued for conditions that could lead to "extreme fire behavior" within 24 hours, according to Cal Fire.
Fire now burning on both sides of Highway 191. The heat is tremendous as firefighters work to save homes and in some cases in zero visibility #CampFire @CBSSacramento pic.twitter.com/CoirrCCyii
Cal Fire said several hundred structures have been been destroyed, but an official count won't be available until they can get into the area. Butte County CalFire Chief Darren Read told The Associated Press the destruction in Paradise could be near a thousand structures.
Read also said that at least two firefighters have been injured battling the flames Thursday.
Separately, there is another fire located northwest of the San Fernando Valley section of Los Angeles.
Earlier, the campus at California State University, Channel Islands, had been evacuated because of poor air quality. The Associated Press said the Ventura County Fire Department had ordered the evacuation of some communities in the path of the flames — not far from the site of a deadly mass shooting at a bar in the city of Thousand Oaks. | Fire | November 2018 | ['(CBS News)'] |
Several structures were set ablaze and as many as 24 militants were killed after suspected bombing Boko Haram attacks rocked the Nigerian city of Maiduguri. | The loud explosions that have rocked Nigeria's northern city of Maiduguri were orchestrated by the militant group Boko Haram, an army spokesman has said.
Lt Col Sagir Musa told the BBC the multiple attacks targeted locations used by the Joint Military Taskforce (JTF) in the city, the Islamists' base.
He said 24 militants had been killed but denied reports that civilians or soldiers had died.
Witnesses say a primary school and a radio tower were set ablaze.
Last month the group, which wants to impose Sharia across Nigeria, attacked mobile phone masts across the north of the country - accusing mobile phone companies of helping security agencies to monitor its members.
Earlier in October witnesses said soldiers shot dead up to 30 civilians after a bomb attack on an army patrol in Maiduguri - accusations the army denied.
Lt Col Musa said the explosions were caused by rocket-propelled grenades and improvised explosive devices. "This is not the first time that Boko Haram [has] used rocket-propelled grenades," he told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme. "The JTF recovered many assorted arms and ammunition," he said.
City residents say the latest trouble began on Monday afternoon when gunmen robbed a market.
There are also reports that a gunman shot dead a traffic warden in the city close to a military checkpoint.
Explosions were then heard, starting at around 18:00 local time (17:00 GMT) - some residents say there were up to 15 blasts, the last one the loudest which shook the city.
Reports said soldiers sealed off nearly every street in the city centre when the attacks began and continued after dark.
Some residents were unable to get home overnight.
The BBC's Abdullahi Kaura in northern Nigeria says journalists face difficulties confirming casualties when covering such attacks as the authorities always try to downplay the situation.
In the incident earlier this month, soldiers in Maiduguri reportedly opened fire on a busy street after a bomb attack killed an army officer.
Shops and homes were also torched, witnesses said.
The army denied killing civilians although correspondents say it offered contradictory explanations about what had happened.
Attacks in central and northern Nigeria blamed on Boko Haram have killed some 1,400 people since 2010. | Armed Conflict | October 2012 | ['(BBC)'] |
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi agree, on principle, that a strong United Nations Security Council resolution is needed regarding North Korea's nuclear test earlier this month. | BEIJING (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi agreed on Wednesday on the need for a significant new U.N. Security resolution targeting North Korea after its Jan. 6 nuclear test, though there were few signs of concrete progress.
Kerry, on a two-day visit to Beijing, had been expected to press China, North Korea’s lone major backer, for more curbs on Pyongyang after it said it had successfully conducted a test of a miniaturised hydrogen nuclear device, though the United States has voiced scepticism as to whether it was that powerful.
China has insisted it is already making great efforts to achieve denuclearisation on the “Korean peninsula” and Wang rejected any “groundless speculation” on its North Korea stance, following remarks from U.S. officials that China could do more.
“We agreed that the U.N. Security Council needs to take further action and pass a new resolution,” Wang told reporters at a joint briefing with Kerry.
“In the meantime, we must point out that the new resolution should not provoke new tensions.”
Kerry said the two sides had agreed to an “accelerated effort” at the U.N. to reach a “strong resolution that introduces significant new measures” to curtail North Korea’s ability to advance its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
“It’s not enough to agree on the goal. We believe we need to agree on the meaningful steps necessary to get the achievement of the goal,” Kerry said.
The exchange of goods and services between China and North Korea was one area where steps could be taken to pressure Pyongyang back to talks, he said.
Kerry also said that shipping, aviation, trade of resources, including coal and fuel, and security at border customs, were key areas in the sanctions debate. North Korea is heavily reliant on China for oil, gasoline and trade.
“All nations, particularly those that seek a global leadership role, share a fundamental responsibility to meet this challenge with a united front,” Kerry said.
He added that the U.S. would take “all necessary steps” to honour security commitments to allies, signalling that the U.S. was prepared to continue ramping up its military presence in the region, a move that would likely unsettle Beijing.
“North Korea poses an overt threat, a declared threat, to the world, and it has stated its intention to develop a thermonuclear weapon,” he said. “In addition, it has made clear its intent to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile with the capacity to carry a nuclear warhead.”
The 15-member U.N. Security Council said at the time of North Korea’s test that it would begin working on significant new measures in response, a threat diplomats said could mean an expansion of sanctions.
Since then, diplomats said Washington and Beijing have been primarily negotiating on a draft resolution, but when asked on Saturday if they were nearing agreement, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power said no.
After talks on Wednesday, which went hours past schedule, Kerry said details still had not been set.
In a sign that Beijing could be reluctant to take a more hardline stance on North Korea, state news agency Xinhua said it was “unrealistic to rely merely on China to press the DPRK to abandon its nuclear programme, as long as the U.S. continues an antagonistic approach wrought from a Cold War mentality”.
“Bear in mind that China-DPRK ties should not be understood as a top-down relationship where the latter follows every bit of advice offered by the former,” Xinhua said, referring to North Korea by its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Xinhua commentaries are not official government pronouncements, but can be read as a reflection of official thinking. Wang added that sanctions should be seen as a path to negotiation, and not as a punitive end in themselves
Kerry said that a need for the United States and China to find a way forward on easing tension in the South China Sea weighed heavily in talks.
“I stressed the importance of finding common ground among the claimants and avoiding a destabilising cycle of mistrust or escalation,” Kerry said. “Foreign Minister Wang Yi accepted the idea that it would be worth exploring whether or not there was a way to reduce the tensions and solve some of the challenges through diplomacy.”
Wang said China’s activities in the region, which have elicited unease from the U.S. and its allies, should not be construed as militarization.
“China has given a commitment of not engaging in so-called militarization, and we will honour that commitment,” Wang said. “We cannot accept the allegation that China’s words are not being matched by action.”
His remarks came as Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou said he planned a trip to the Taiwanese-held island of Itu Aba, known as Taiping Island in Taiwan, in the sea, a move a U.S. official called “extremely unhelpful” in resolving disputes over the waterway.
China claims almost all the disputed waters in the potentially oil- and gas-rich South China Sea, parts of which are also claimed by Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.
Kerry was in Cambodia on Tuesday after a visit to neighbouring Laos as part of an effort to urge unity among leaders of the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on the sea issue before a summit with President Barack Obama next month.
China insists any disputes should be handled bilaterally.
| Diplomatic Talks _ Diplomatic_Negotiation_ Summit Meeting | January 2016 | ['(Reuters)', '(CNN)'] |
The trial of two Congolese militia leaders, Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui, begins at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. | Two alleged Congolese militia leaders have denied war crimes at the start of their trial at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui are accused of directing an attack on the village of Bogoro in 2003 in which more than 200 people were killed. They face charges of ordering attacks on civilians, sexual slavery, rape, and enlisting child soldiers. Both deny the allegations and have expressed sympathy for the victims. 'Defending his people'
Chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo opened the case against them saying they had tried to wipe out the village of Bogoro. "Some [villagers] were shot dead in their sleep, some cut up by machetes to save bullets," he said. "Others were burned alive after their houses were set on fire by the attackers." He described the two defendants as "the top commanders of the troops that killed, raped and pillaged". "They used children as soldiers, they killed more than 200 civilians in a few hours, they raped women; girls and the elderly, they looted the entire village and they transformed women into sex slaves," he said. The two men listened to all the charges against them and pleaded not guilty to each one. Mr Katanga's lawyer claimed that his client was "merely defending his own people" and played no part in the Bogoro attack. Mr Ngudjolo's counsel also said his client had not been involved at Bogoro and that he had a "clear conscience". Continuing unrest
It is only the second trial at the ICC in The Hague. The first case - of Congolese militia leader Thomas Lubanga - began in 2008 but has been delayed by legal argument. Mr Lubanga's Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC) militia had controlled Bogoro until the other militias attacked. Mr Katanga and Mr Ngudjolo are accused of leading ethnic Lendu and Ngiti fighters against the UPC. Prosecutors says their goal was to "erase" the village, mainly populated by ethnic Hema, in the mineral-rich Ituri province of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Prosecutors plan to call 26 witnesses, although 21 of them will testify hidden from public view for fear of reprisals. The trial is expected to take several months. The conflict in Ituri was part of a war that raged in DR Congo following the 1994 genocide in neighbouring Rwanda and involved troops and fighters from several neighbouring countries. Militia leaders from all sides have been accused of using the conflict to profit from the region's mineral reserves, especially gold. Campaign group Human Rights Watch has called on the ICC to also investigate officials from DR Congo, Rwanda and Uganda, accusing them of arming rival militias in Ituri. The Ituri conflict ended after the intervention of European Union peacekeepers. The wider DR Congo conflict officially ended in 2003 but much of the east remains unstable. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Investigate | November 2009 | ['(BBC)', '(Al Jazeera)', '(AP)'] |
A man stabs two people to death and wounds 17 others, including sixteen children, in Kawasaki, Japan, before slitting his own throat; he later dies of his wounds. Three people are in critical condition. | A knife-wielding man has attacked a group of schoolchildren waiting for a bus in the Japanese city of Kawasaki near Tokyo.
At least 18 people were injured in a residential area. Two of them, an 11-year-old girl and a 39-year-old man, have died.
The suspect, a man in his 50s, stabbed himself in the neck after his rampage and later died in hospital. Police have named him as Ryuichi Iwasaki.
Violent crime is rare in Japan and the motive for the attack is unknown.
The suspect was holding knives in both hands as he attacked the victims - 16 of whom were schoolgirls. Police later named the victims of the fatal attack as Hanako Kuribayashi, who was in the sixth grade, and foreign ministry official Satoshi Oyama, who is believed to be the parent of another child.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe condemned the attack, saying he felt "strong anger" against it. "It is a very harrowing case. I offer my heartfelt condolences to the victims and hope the injured recover quickly," Mr Abe said. The incident took place just before 08:00 local time on Tuesday (23:00 GMT Monday) near a local park and a train station.
A number of students were waiting to board their bus to the nearby Caritas elementary school, a private Catholic school.
The driver of the Caritas bus told NHK that he saw a man approach the queue of students. He began stabbing the children and then boarded the bus and stabbed children inside as well, according to the BBC's Japan correspondent, Rupert Wingfield-Hayes.
News agency Kyodo said the man was heard shouting "I'm going to kill you" during the attack. He was apprehended by police and later died in hospital from injuries.
Emergency services arrived at the scene and set up medical tents to treat the wounded. Locals have now begun placing flowers outside the site of the attack in a tribute to the victims. US President Donald Trump, who was in Japan on the last day of a state visit, also offered his "prayers and sympathy" to the victims.
They are extremely rare and Japan has one of the world's lowest rates of violent crime.
Our correspondent says that in his neighbourhood it is very common to see children as young as four walking to school by themselves - a normal practice in Japan because it is so safe.
However, there have been in recent years a handful of attacks involving knives. In 2016, 19 people at a care centre for people with mental disabilities were stabbed to death by a former worker. He reportedly said he wanted those with disabilities to "disappear".
Eight students were killed in a 2001 attack after a man entered an elementary school in Osaka.
| Armed Conflict | May 2019 | ['(BBC)', '(CNN)'] |
The Connecticut Huskies defeat the Notre Dame Fighting Irish 63-53 to win their third successive NCAA Division I women's basketball championship. The title is the 10th for both the Huskies and their head coach Geno Auriemma, tying him with late UCLA men's coach John Wooden for the most championships by a Division I basketball coach. , , , | TAMPA, Fla. — Connecticut’s third straight N.C.A.A. women’s basketball championship was impassioned, not pretty. But in the end, it was perfect.
Withstanding a rugged challenge from Notre Dame in a rematch of last year’s national title game, the Huskies earned a 63-53 victory on Tuesday night and a record 10th championship for Coach Geno Auriemma, whose teams have never lost in the title game and who tied the U.C.L.A. legend John Wooden for the most titles in college basketball history.
The victory also made forward Breanna Stewart, who was named the Final Four’s most outstanding player, 3 for 3 in title games, and point guard Moriah Jefferson on the path for a chance at an unprecedented fourth championship next season. “I said that I wanted to win four championships, but you can’t win four without winning three,” a tearful Stewart said.
Notre Dame, which has lost in four title games in the last five years, made Stewart and Connecticut sweat for this one. The Irish stayed in the game deep into the second half and limited Stewart to 8 points on 8 shots from the floor. But the 6-foot-4, long-armed Stewart dominated the lane with 15 rebounds and four blocked shots, and her teammates — mainly Connecticut’s lone senior starter, Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis, and Jefferson, each with 15 points — picked her up. The versatile forward Morgan Tuck added 12 points and 7 assists, and Connecticut’s aggressive perimeter defense — particularly Jefferson’s — forced Notre Dame’s star guard, Jewell Loyd, into 4-for-18 shooting. “An incredible group,” Auriemma said of his team, which finished the season 38-1. What was different about this latest showdown between the premier women’s programs was the absence of the mutual hostility that had crept into the rivalry and surfaced on the path to last season’s final, a battle of unbeaten teams.
Auriemma attributed those prickly feelings to the number of Big East Conference collisions before Notre Dame left for the Atlantic Coast Conference last season and simultaneously disappeared from Connecticut’s regular-season schedule.
The rivalry was restored in December, with Connecticut rallying from an early 10-point deficit to win by 18, though in that game the Irish were without Brianna Turner, an athletic 6-3 forward, who struggled with nerves in the first half Tuesday but became an inside force and led Coach Muffet McGraw’s team with 14 points and 10 rebounds. “You know, we have a really good relationship,” McGraw said. “I think that both being from Philly, we just share some sort of bond.”
Beyond the bond was a shared benefit of maintaining a united front at the top of the food chain. In the aftermath of the now-dated fallout between Connecticut and Tennessee and the discontinuation of their popular series, Auriemma and McGraw understand the need to get along for the good of a sport trying to generate all the attention it can get.
Auriemma and McGraw have also consistently landed a healthy number of the best high school players — for next season, too — and that has created a false narrative reminiscent of what John Calipari faces at Kentucky, that it’s not about the coaching.
“We don’t get all of them; we just get some,” Auriemma said of the talent. “So whatever expectations these kids have, they still have to come and prove it. They just don’t show up in September, go to practice, and somebody says here’s when the championship game is and here’s when the parade is.”
Not many people believed Notre Dame’s young team could halt Connecticut’s title march, but McGraw had promised to challenge Stewart with new looks on defense, and did so. Stewart was largely contained, with Irish defenders taking turns bumping, face-guarding and providing weak-side help on passes into the post.
Stewart also gave Auriemma and the large Connecticut fan contingent a fright by falling awkwardly with 8 minutes 4 seconds left in the first half and limping off to have her ankle retaped.
The Huskies had an early lead but struggled to get good looks and often wound up settling for misfired jumpers. That led to no free throws being taken until 1:37 remained in the half and 38 percent shooting from the floor, along with eight turnovers.
Connecticut’s defense was also stout, while Notre Dame was sloppy with the ball. After committing no more than 11 turnovers over all in their three previous games, the Irish coughed the ball up a whopping 13 times in the first half and made things worse by shooting 30 percent from the floor, including several blown layups.
Still, thanks to Turner’s agile presence inside, the Irish were trailing by only 51-46 with 7:36 left. That was when Jefferson and the freshman Kia Nurse — by reputation Connecticut’s least desirable perimeter threats — hit consecutive 3-pointers. Mosqueda-Lewis, running the floor off with Jefferson breaking out of the backcourt, nailed another 3 from the right wing before hitting again from 16 feet.
“The two buckets K made down the stretch was kind of the difference,” Auriemma said.
The lead was 61-50, and Wooden was soon joined as college basketball’s most decorated coach by Auriemma, who recalled having met the Wizard of Westwood at a clinic about 15 years ago.
“We talked for about 15 minutes,” said Auriemma, who several years later opened Sports Illustrated to find a story quoting Wooden, who died in 2010, on why he loved the Connecticut women’s team.
“He says, ‘I’ve never met their coach, but he seems like a nice young fellow,’ ” Auriemma said. “I’m like, O.K., so much for my impression I made on Coach Wooden.” | Sports Competition | April 2015 | ['(New York Times)', '(CBS News)', '(ESPN)', '(USA Today)'] |
Former chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Rajendra K. Pachauri is to face a court in Delhi, India on charges of sexual harassment. Pachauri is accused of stalking, intimidation and sexual assault of a former employee. |
On Saturday, Rajendra Pachauri, former chair of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will face charges of stalking, intimidation and sexual assault of a former employee in one of the most high-profile cases of alleged workplace sexual harassment in Indian history.
It is a case that is likely to be closely watched by scientists, media and diplomats, as well as the controversial scientist’s critics.
The IPCC, which Pachauri headed, was jointly awarded a Nobel peace prize with Al Gore in 2007. Now he is facing charges that he harassed a 29-year-old former employee who worked for him at the Energy Resources Institute (Teri), based in New Delhi.
With a high-profile figure, prominent in national and international media, at its centre, the case has become a symbol of women’s struggle to speak out against sexual assault and harassment in the workplace in India, where abuses against women are often hidden.
The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, says Pachauri, 75, made sexual advances to her soon after she joined Teri in late 2013. A string of emails, texts and WhatsApp messages, which reportedly contain poems and declarations of love, have been submitted to the police as evidence. In February 2015, Delhi police filed the first report against Pachauri, setting in motion a legal process that has made headlines around the world.
Since then, two other women, both former employees of Teri, have come forward to make public statements accusing Pachauri of similar behaviour. One of the women, who worked at Teri in 2003, filed a police report in 2015, but is yet to hear if police will press charges against him based on her statements.
The third woman to come forward, who is not an Indian national, made a public statement in March, claiming Pachauri had made unwanted sexual advances towards her when she worked at Teri in 2008, including allegedly coming to her home with a bouquet of roses when she had taken a day of sick leave. She claims her contract was terminated early because she tried to stop his advances.
On the eve of the hearing, Pachauri announced he was stepping down from his role at Teri “to move away and get engaged in other interests which I have harboured over the past few years for activities at the global level”.
“I have had the good fortune of leading Teri for three decades and a half and have received the priceless contribution from thousands of colleagues over the years in building up this institute to the level of an outstanding organisation,” he said in a statement on Friday.
A report in the Hindu newspaper earlier this week suggested the governing council at Teri had decided not to renew his employment contract, which ended on 31 March this year.
Pachauri has denied allegations of sexual harassment. He disputed the origins of the messages in a controversial interview published by the Observer in March. In a series of emails, he suggested his email accounts had been hacked, and that allegations against him were part of a conspiracy to discredit him because of his environmental work.
Pachauri had first made claims that his account was hacked by “unknown cyber criminals” when the initial police report was filed in 2015. However, Delhi police found no evidence to support his claims.
In response to the Observer interview, the complainant’s lawyer, Prashant Mendiratta, said her client was “extremely hurt at the irresponsible manner in which the statements were made”.
Vrinda Grover, a lawyer who is representing the two women who have since come forward, said: “This is a case of a man who has been in a position of power, and has repeatedly abused his position.” She dismissed his claims of hacking as “wild and baseless”.
Grover added: “There are many, many women who don’t speak out because they see what the women who do go public face. They see that she has to face hostility, severe harassment; she loses her job, she’s maligned.” When allegations against him first emerged, Pachauri made attempts to prevent newspapers from reporting his name. In 2015, he won a gagging order against the Economic Times, forcing the newspaper to remove temporarily from its website an article naming him. Pachauri has also argued in court that newspapers should be restricted to using smaller photographs of him to accompany articles.
Pachauri stepped down from his role on the UN panel shortly after the first police report was filed but, until this week’s announcement, had held on to his position at Teri. The complainant said she was forced to leave her job in November, claiming in her resignation letter that the “organisation has treated me in the worst possible manner”.
Earlier this year, Pachauri was promoted to vice-chairman, a role created specially for him, sparking anger. Two days later, the woman filed a petition to the high court, alleging Pachauri was “exercising influence” on Teri officials to try to settle the sexual harassment case out of court.
Pachauri was allowed to continue his work at Teri for months after the first woman came forward, and Grover alleged that “during [the] investigation, access to servers at Teri was made extremely difficult for the police”.
In a statement to the Guardian, a Teri spokesperson said: “This matter is currently under investigation. We would like to restate that Teri has and will continue to fully cooperate with the investigating agencies and courts whenever asked to do so.”
Pachauri’s lawyer, Ashish Dixit, said there was “nothing on record to suggest that [Pachauri] had influenced witnesses or any other person related to the present case or interfered in the investigation”.
Police formally pressed charges against Pachauri in March, a year after the first police report was filed. They cited 23 witnesses and a number of messages sent to the 29-year-old woman by Pachauri as evidence of sexual harassment.
The statements made by the second woman, one of Grover’s clients, were filed to police in 2015, and three reminders of that statement have been sent to authorities since. Her accusations have not been included on the charge sheet.
The deputy commissioner of police, Prem Nath, who is heading Pachauri’s case, said he was unable to comment while proceedings were ongoing.
Dixit said the allegations by Grover’s clients were part of “an orchestrated attempt to create a negative perception against Dr Pachauri and prejudice the case in court”.
The allegations by the two other women, one of whom labelled Pachauri a “serial sexual harasser”, raised questions about whether there was any misconduct by Pachauri during his time as chair of the IPCC.
The UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said: “We [are] aware of these new allegations but, from what we understand, they took place in relation to Mr Pachauri’s institute. The UN has no authority nor any jurisdiction to investigate these issues.” This article was amended on 22 April 2016. An earlier version described Rajendra Pachauri incorrectly as “one of the world’s leading climate scientists”; while he chaired the IPCC, a panel of climate scientists, he is not a climate scientist himself. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | April 2016 | ['(The Guardian)'] |
12 people 10 civilian passengers and 2 policemen die in two separate roadside bombs in Badghis Province, Afghanistan. | At least 12 people have been killed by two roadside bombs in the north-western Afghan province of Badghis, police say.
The first blast hit a vehicle, killing 10 civilians. The second bomb exploded nearby shortly afterwards, killing two people in their vehicle, police said. Unconfirmed reports say the second blast killed at least one policeman. Meanwhile, five Nato soldiers were wounded in a double suicide bomb attack on the eastern town of Khost, a Nato spokeswoman said. There were explosions and gunfire from the centre of town as Afghan police and soldiers, joined by troops from the Nato-led International Security and Assistance Force (Isaf), fought a small group of militants armed with guns and explosives. Isaf spokeswoman Sgt Sabrina Foster said two suicide bombers detonated their explosives outside the Khost governor's palace, wounding five Isaf soldiers. Several Afghan police officers were wounded. Taliban insurgents have increasingly resorted to roadside improvised explosive devices in their attacks across the country, and conducting raids on the capital Kabul and other cities. US, Nato and Afghan forces are currently engaged in a major anti-Taliban offensive in the southern province of Helmand. Officials have signalled that the operation is likely to be expanded to surrounding areas. | Armed Conflict | March 2010 | ['(BBC)', '(Reuters)'] |
The Syrian Arab Army launches a ground offensive against HTS and NFL-held areas in northern Hama and southern Idlib, after six days of intensive airstrikes on the region. | Syrian troops captured a village and a strategic hill from insurgents in the country's northwest and a nearby Russian air base was also targeted by a missile attack from militants.
BEIRUT -- Syrian troops captured a village and a strategic hill from insurgents Monday in the country's northwest, pro-government media said, amid the heaviest fighting to hit the region in eight months. A nearby Russian air base was also targeted by a missile attack from militants.
The Syrian government's advance was the deepest push so far this year into Syria's last major rebel stronghold. The latest wave of violence, which began April 30, has raised fears the government may launch a wider offensive to retake the area, home to around 3 million people. It is also the most serious challenge to a Russia-Turkey sponsored cease-fire in place since September.
A senior Russian official said Russia's air base in the coastal province of Latakia came under fire from the insurgents, the latest assault on the military post since Friday.
Gen. Viktor Kupchishin said the base was targeted twice Monday by "multiple missile launcher systems." He blamed the attack on al-Qaida-linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the group in control of most of the rebel-held enclave. He said 36 missiles were fired using a drone but were repelled by the defense system. There were no casualties or damage, he said.
Kupchishin said the situation has "deteriorated dramatically" in the area. His comments were carried by Russia's state-owned Tass news agency.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed great concern at the intensifying hostilities in what was supposed to be a de-escalation area and alarm at reports of aerial attacks on population centers and civilian infrastructure "resulting in hundreds of civilian dead and injured and over 150,000 newly displaced persons," U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
Three health facilities were reportedly hit by airstrikes Sunday, bringing the total to at least seven struck since April 28, Dujarric said. Nine schools have reportedly been hit since April 30, leading to closures in many areas.
Guterres called for an urgent de-escalating as the Muslim holy month of Ramadan begins, and he urged all parties to recommit to cease-fire arrangements agreed to last September, Dujarric said.
Insurgents in Idlib and Hama provinces, where the rebel-held enclave is located, have previously used drones to target the base. Most of those attacks were thwarted, but they often serve to ratchet up tensions in the area.
Earlier Monday, the government-controlled Syrian Central Military Media said the village of al-Bani and the nearby Othman hill in the northern countryside of Hama province had been captured by Syrian troops.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition-linked war monitor, confirmed that al-Bani had been captured and that troops were marching toward the hill. The Observatory said the intense fighting on Monday killed 20 people.
Jaish al-Ezzat, one of the main rebel groups in the rebel-held enclave Syria, said it destroyed a Syrian army tank and that all the soldiers inside were killed. The group described "fierce clashes" near al-Bani.
The latest round of fighting has killed dozens and displaced tens of thousands in Idlib and nearby rebel-held areas, who fled to safer regions further north. It's the worst violence since September, when Russia and Turkey negotiated the cease-fire to avert a government offensive on Idlib and surrounding areas.
The Observatory reported more than 60 Russian airstrikes on insurgents Monday alone.
Syria's state news agency SANA reported that Syrian troops intensified their shelling of insurgents in northern parts of Hama province and the southern parts of Idlib. | Armed Conflict | May 2019 | ['(Fars)', '(Reuters)', '(ABC News)'] |
The 2011 Syrian protests spread to Aleppo. | Syria's state news agency said snipers killed a soldier on Thursday in the coastal city of Baniyas
Beirut: Syria's state news agency said snipers killed a soldier on Thursday in the coastal city of Baniyas, where authorities had been trying to ease tensions after protests against President Bashar Al Assad.
Rights campaigners had said authorities had agreed to replace secret police in Banias with army patrols as part of a deal to reduce tension in the restive city.
The agency quoted a source saying "a group of armed snipers shot today a number of army members while they patrolled the city of Banias... One was martyred and another wounded".
Aleppo, Syria's most populated city, on Wednesday witnessed its first reported anti-government protests, which observers say could have serious repercussions on the country's stability.
Approximately 1,000 students from the University of Aleppo took to the streets chanting slogans in support of protesters in Daraa and Baniyas. Both cities have witnessed clashes over the past week and the death toll is rising.
More than 3,000 women and children protested in Baniyas on Wednesday, demanding the release of husbands and children arrested by security forces on Friday.
The women blocked the highway under the bridge of Al Marqab and vowed not to move until their demands are met.
Speaking to Gulf News, Hasna M., a protester, said they marched two kilometres — from the city centre to the bridge — chanting ‘God, Syria and Liberty'.
Another group from the village of Al Bayda, 10 kilometres south of Baniyas, gathered under the Bustan bridge to demand the release of their relatives.
They also demanded that the lockdown on Baniyas be lifted to allow food and other necessities into the city.
Activists reported disruptions in phone and internet services and cutting off of power supply in areas witnessing protests.
Ammar Qurabi, head of Syria's National Organisation for Human Rights, said in a phone interview from Cairo that he lost contact with five members of his organisation in Baniyas.
His contacts in Syria have also reported blackouts in the Daraa area. Electricity in the village of Al Bayda was cut, Damascus-based human rights activist Razan Zaitouneh said on her Facebook page.
With inputs from agencies
| Protest_Online Condemnation | April 2011 | ['(Gulf News)'] |
The Church of Uganda, the Anglican province of Uganda, appoints a bishop in the United States, John Guernsey, deepening a split with the Episcopal Church over the ordination of gay priests and bishops. | Uganda's Anglican Church has appointed a bishop to serve in the US, against the wishes of the Episcopal Church, the Anglican Church's US arm.
It is the latest in a series of interventions by African Churches following the US decision to appoint an openly gay bishop in 2003. Correspondents say the move is expected to bring closer the fragmentation of the worldwide Anglican communion.
It ignores pleas from Anglican leaders to preserve unity.
But the thriving Ugandan Church says it is defending orthodox Christianity.
Open air service
The BBC's Christopher Landau says the consecration of a new local bishop in south-western Uganda would normally pass without comment.
But the church is also appointing a white American priest, John Guernsey, to lead a new branch of the Ugandan Church in the US, serving parishes in the state of Virginia that no longer feel able to tolerate the American Church's liberal stance on homosexuality. The ceremony took place in the open air because the local cathedral was not large enough to accommodate the thousands due to attend.
It follows the consecration of two US bishops in Kenya on Thursday.
Bill Murdoch of Massachusetts and Bill Atwood of Texas will be answerable to the Kenyan Church.
Much of the Anglican Church in Africa is conservative and deeply opposed to the ordination of gay priests. In February, Anglican bishops meeting in Tanzania issued an ultimatum to the American church, demanding an end to the appointment of gay clergy and the blessing of same-sex couples. US bishops have until 30 September to respond. What are these? | Government Job change - Appoint_Inauguration | September 2007 | ['(BBC)'] |
Sixteen militants and eight Indian Army soldiers are killed in Jammu and Kashmir's Kupwara District. | The Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba says it was involved in a five-day gun battle with troops in Indian-administered Kashmir.
At least 25 people died in fighting at Kupwara, including eight soldiers. Lashkar-e-Taiba is the group which India holds responsible for the armed attacks in Mumbai last November in which more than 170 people died. The army says the militants were well trained and equipped and had the backing of agencies in Pakistan. "Militarily prepared"
"The maps and communication equipment [recovered from dead gunmen] indicates that [Pakistani] state and security forces' assistance was there as such material is not available in the civil domain," Brig Gurmeet Singh told a press conference in Srinagar on Wednesday. "The majority of the militants have been killed and those left, if any, will also be eliminated." He said most of the barbed-wire fence along the Line of Control (LoC) which divides Indian- and Pakistani-administered Kashmir is now buried under snow, which was probably how the militants managed to infiltrate into Indian territory. The brigadier said his troops were "militarily prepared" to deal with the threat posed by between 300 to 400 militants currently operating in the Kashmir valley. For five days Indian troops battled against the militants in thick forests, close to the LoC. A spokesman for Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) who contacted local journalists said only 10 of the group's fighters had died - and the number of soldiers killed was far higher than officially admitted. He said that the coming days would "prove costly" for Indian forces. The BBC's Chris Morris in Delhi says that the army will be determined to prevent LeT or any other militant group from disrupting general elections in Indian-administered Kashmir when polling begins next month. State elections held at the end of last year were much more peaceful than many people had expected and the overall level of violence in Kashmir is far lower than it was a decade ago. Infiltrate
But our correspondent says that the LeT wants to send a message that its violent struggle for Kashmir is not over. Many of its leaders have been taken into custody in Pakistan in the wake of last year's attacks in Mumbai. But India alleges that the group still receives support from military and intelligence agencies in Pakistan. Delhi believes a large number of Islamic militants are waiting on the Pakistani side of the LoC for the chance to infiltrate into Indian territory. Defence spokesman Col JS Brar said that the fighting broke out in the higher reaches of the Shamsabari range on Friday morning after troops launched an operation to flush out the militants. | Armed Conflict | March 2009 | ['(BBC)'] |
Chile begins attempts to rescue 33 miners trapped underground as a result of the 2010 Copiapó mining accident. | COPIAPO, Chile (Reuters) - The first of 33 trapped miners will be pulled to safety in a capsule barely wider than a man’s shoulders on Tuesday night as a two-month ordeal deep inside a Chilean mine draws to an end.
Countdown in Chile
01:33
The men have spent 68 days in the hot, humid bowels of a gold and copper mine in Chile’s northern Atacama desert after an August 5 collapse. They now face a claustrophobic journey to the surface in the specially made steel cages, equipped with oxygen masks and escape hatches in case they get stuck.
The miners will be hoisted out one at a time in a two-day operation. The capsule will travel at about 3 feet/(1m) per second, or a casual walking pace, and speed to 10 feet/(3m) per second if the miner being carried gets into trouble.
With Chileans anxiously following the rescue on television, President Sebastian Pinera asked for all churches in the South American nation to ring their bells in celebration when the first miner emerges from the shaft.
Nervous wives, children, parents and friends waited on an arid, rocky hillside around 2,050 feet above the miners, and rescue teams planned to start the rescue operation after 10 p.m. (0100 GMT)
Local television showed engineers making last-minute checks of the capsule -- painted red, blue and white, the colors of Chile’s flag -- and hoisting it up on a yellow crane.
Florencio Avalos, 31, will be the first miner to be rescued, his mother told Reuters, citing officials. Married with two children, Florencio has been trapped along with his brother, 29-year-old Renan.
“Right now I’m calm, though still very anxious,” said Jessica Salgado, whose husband Alex is among the miners. “I hope my nerves don’t betray me when the rescue starts.
“The first thing I’m going to do is hug him hard, tell him how much I love him and how I’ve missed him all this time.”
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Officials said all the men volunteered to go last, to ensure that their friends were pulled ahead of them to safety.
Rescuers on Monday successfully tested a capsule, dubbed Phoenix after the mythical bird that rose from the ashes, after reinforcing part of the narrow escape shaft with metal casing to prevent rocks falling and blocking the exit.
Engineers said the final stage of the rescue still had its risks but that the capsule was handling well in the shaft, and they expected a smooth extraction.
Rescuers originally found the men, miraculously all alive, 17 days after the mine’s collapse with a bore hole the width of grapefruit. It then served as an umbilical cord used to pass hydration gels, water and food, as well as letters from their families and soccer videos to keep their spirits up.
The men have set a world record for the length of time workers have survived underground after a mining accident, and have been doing exercises to keep their weight down for their ascent.
Medics say some of the men are psychologically fragile and may struggle with stress for a long time after their rescue.
Pinera, who ordered an overhaul of Chile’s mine safety regulations after the accident, toured the rescue operation on Tuesday, meeting the miners’ families.
“When the first miner emerges safe and sound, which I expect will happen later today, I hope all the bells of all the churches of Chile ring out forcefully, with joy and hope,” the white-haired leader said. “Faith has moved mountains.”
Every Chilean TV station was saturated with coverage of the rescue operation.
“Everyone is following the rescue step by step. We are a Catholic country and we see this as a real miracle,” said Maritza Gonzalez, a 50-year-old housewife in capital city Santiago.
U.S. President Barack Obama said Americans were praying the miners would emerge safely and return to their families soon, and said he was proud of Americans who have been working with the Chileans on the rescue effort.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with the brave miners, their families, and the men and women who have been working so hard to rescue them,” Obama said.
Many relatives held vigils over the past two months at a tent settlement named Camp Hope above the mine, and more people joined as the climax neared.
Noemi Donoso, whose 43-year-old son-in-law Samuel Avalos is among the trapped, sat praying in a tent with four family members, their hands joined together to form a circle, singing hymns and chanting “hallelujah” and “glory to God.”
Her daughter had just left to have her hair done in a makeshift hairdressers in another of the camp’s tents.
“She went to the salon to get fixed up so she can look pretty when she receives him,” Donoso said, as excited school children ran around the camp with face paint on.
Once the evacuations start, it will take 48 hours to extract the men. Rescuers will first be lowered to help the miners prepare to return to the surface.
Each man’s journey through solid rock to safety should take about 12 to 15 minutes. They will have their eyes closed and will be given dark glasses to avoid damaging their eyesight after spending so long in a dimly lit tunnel. They will then be under observation at a nearby hospital for two days.
| Mine Collapses | October 2010 | ['(BBC)', '(Reuters)'] |
Two of Ethiopia's main opposition leaders call for a rerun of Sunday's elections won by Western–backed Meles Zenawi. They say the elections were not free and fair and that two politicians were killed by security forces. | An Ethiopian opposition party on Wednesday called for a re-run of Sunday’s general election, alleging intimidation by the ruling party.
Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) is heading for a massive victory, according to provisional results. The election that has been tainted by repeated allegations of political repression.
“In view of the fact that both the electoral process and voting day were not free and fair, and because in many polling stations throughout the country our party observers were beaten and driven away, AEUP has decided not to accept the results of the elections,” All Ethiopia Unity Party (AEUP) chairman Hailu Shawel told journalists in Addis Ababa.
According to provisional results released by the National Electoral Board (NEBE) on Tuesday, the EPRDF has so far won 499 seats in the 547-seat parliament. Including allies, the ruling party is expected to hold a majority of 534 of the 547 seats.
Ethiopians had been expecting a massive win for Zenawi, who came to power in 1991 after the EPRDF overthrew a brutal dictator, Mengistu Haile Mariam, but the majority was larger than expected.
Despite the complaints, the NEBE ruled out an election re-run.
“The elections were free, fair and peaceful,” spokesman Mohammed Abdurrahman told the German Press Agency dpa. “The public approved that with many rallies. The NEBE will investigate all complaints, but there are no plans for a re-run of the elections.” European Union election observers, Human Rights Watch and the United States have all criticized the vote. The United States and EU said the elections were not up to international standards, while the New York-based HRW was more scathing.
“Behind an orderly facade, the government pressured, intimidated and threatened Ethiopian voters,” said Rona Peligal, acting Africa director at HRW. “Whatever the results, the most salient feature of this election was the months of repression preceding it.” Information Minister Bereket Simon told dpa that HRW’s accusations were “baseless” and also dismissed the opposition complaints.
The EPRDF says strong economic growth, the launch of energy and infrastructure projects, and improvement in healthcare and education has encouraged voters to stick with the status quo.
Most observers did praise the elections for their peaceful nature, a sharp contrast to 2005 when almost 200 protestors were killed in demonstrations that followed Zenawi’s election victory.
Hundreds of Zenawi’s opponents were imprisoned and many, including opposition leader Birtukan Medeksa, remain in captivity. | Government Job change - Election | May 2010 | ['(Al Jazeera)', '(BBC)', '(The Hindu)', '(Reuters)'] |
Egyptian authorities arrest Muhammad Badie, the Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, in Cairo. Mahmoud Ezzat, deputy leader of the Brotherhood, becomes temporarily the new Supreme Guide. | Mr Badie, who was wanted over alleged incitement to violence and murder, has been temporarily replaced as "general guide" by his deputy, Mahmoud Ezzat.
In another development, Egypt's ex-vice president Mohamed ElBaradei is to face trial on charges of breaching national trust after resigning last week.
Almost 900 people have been killed in the country since Wednesday. Among them are 36 Islamist protesters who died in a prison van in Cairo on Sunday.
The UN's human rights agency OHCHR has said the deaths of the detainees are "deeply disturbing and need to be fully investigated".
Spokeswoman Liz Throssell said all those detained must be "treated humanely" and according to international law, and appealed to Egypt to allow UN human rights officers in to assess the situation.
Egypt is under a state of emergency as the military-backed interim leaders crack down on Islamists opposed to the army's ousting of Mohammed Morsi.
European Union foreign ministers will meet on Wednesday to decide whether to cut some of the billions of euros in aid pledged to Egypt. Hundreds of members of the Muslim Brotherhood - the movement from which Mr Morsi comes - have been detained, including Mr Badie's deputy, Khairat al-Shatir, who was arrested in the days following Mr Morsi's overthrow on 3 July. Mr Badie, 70, had initially been a prominent figure at the Brotherhood's protest camps in Cairo, but went into hiding as the military-backed interim government increased its efforts to shut down the protests.
He is facing charges of inciting violence and murder over the deaths of eight anti-Brotherhood protesters outside the movement's headquarters in Cairo last June.
Officials said he had been detained in a flat in Nasr City in north-east Cairo, near the site of one of the protest camps bloodily broken up by security forces last week.
The interior ministry released footage of him apparently taken shortly after his arrest.
The Brotherhood's political wing, the Freedom and Justice Party, said Mahmoud Ezzat - currently the movement's deputy leader and who is also subject to an arrest warrant - would temporarily take over from Mr Badie as "supreme guide".
Egypt is officially observing three days of mourning for 25 policemen killed by suspected Islamist militants near the Rafah border with Gaza in Sinai on Monday, in one of the deadliest attacks on security forces in several years.
In a separate incident, another police officer was killed in the north Sinai town of el-Arish.
Sinai is home to a range of militant groups, some linked to al-Qaeda, and while state media have not connected the killings to the Brotherhood, it has added to the sense of crisis, says the BBC Jeremy Bowen.
Attacks by Islamist militants on the Egyptian security forces have surged in the north of the peninsula since 2011 - and have become almost daily in recent weeks.
Meanwhile, Egyptian prosecutors have added a further 15 days to Mr Morsi's detention while they investigate fresh allegations against him.
He has reportedly been accused of complicity in acts of violence against protesters outside the presidential palace last December.
His detention had already been extended by 30 days in a separate case on Thursday.
A lawyer for former President Hosni Mubarak has said he hopes his client could soon be released once cleared of a final corruption charge.
Mubarak is facing a retrial for corruption and complicity in the deaths of protesters during the 2011 uprising which removed him from power after 30 years.
Correspondents say his release, if it happens, would be seen by many as a sign the military is rolling back the changes that flowed from the uprising. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | August 2013 | ['(BBC)'] |
Severe Tropical Storm Lionrock lands in China's Fujian province with warnings of strong winds and torrential rains. | * In Taiwan, nervous authorities have cancelled classes, called off work and set up evacuation space for 19,000 people to avoid any repeat of an August 2009 typhoon that triggered mudslides and killed about 700 people.
* That typhoon, the worst in 50 years, prompted a cabinet reshuffle amid accusations that officials responded too slowly.
Taiwan's largest port, in the southern city Kaohsiung, closed on Wednesday due to high winds, the harbour master said.
* Typhoons regularly hit China, Taiwan, the Philippines and Japan in the second half of the year, gathering strength from the warm waters of the Pacific Ocean or South China Sea before weakening over land. -- REUTERS
BEIJING - A TROPICAL storm hit China's east coast on Thursday, bringing heavy rains and disrupting shipping along the busy coast, while a typhoon shied away from China and ploughed into the Korean peninsula. Tropical storm Lionrock landed in Fujian, the Chinese province facing island Taiwan, the Xinhua news agency said. China's national weather forecaster warned residents to shelter from strong winds and torrential rains as Lionrock bore down on Xiamen, Quanzhou and other coastal cities, and to expect mudslides and land slips. Ships and fishing boats in the area were ordered to stay onshore or skirt around the storm, which hit Taiwan on Wednesday bringing downpours and lashing winds. Shanghai cancelled elementary school classes as Typhoon Kompasu threatened. The storm drenched the city and then turned its attention to South Korea, where domestic flights and school classes were cancelled on Thursday. Kompasu was whipping up winds of up to 139 kph, but was likely to weaken to a tropical storm by Friday, said forecaster Tropical Storm Risk (www.tropicalstormrisk.com). Lionrock was likely to weaken to a tropical depression, said the forecaster. -- REUTERS | Hurricanes_Tornado_Storm_Blizzard | September 2010 | ['(Straits Times)'] |
Delegates, among them billionaire businessmen, royalty and elected politicians, arrive in England for the 61st summit of the annual Bilderberg Group at The Grove, Watford. | Keep up with the news by installing RT’s extension for Chrome. Never miss a story with this clean and simple app that delivers the latest headlines to you.
20:18 GMT:
Panoramic picture of Bilderberg 2013 the largest Bilderberg
protest ever twitter.com/Lukewearechang…
19:21 GMT:
Amazing day at #Bilderberg
2013! Nearly 4k people! Around 2k capacity inside the festival
and around 2k more outside who couldn't get in!
19:17 GMT: Labor MP and former minister Michael Meacher
has demanded that Prime Minister David Cameron make a statement
to the House of Commons next week regarding his participation in
the Bilderberg talks.
Meacher said he would ask the Speaker of the Commons, John
Bercow, to grant an “urgent question” in Parliament next
week, a move which would force the Prime Minister to answer the
deputies’ questions regarding the talks.
“This is western capitalism at its highest level. We are
entitled to know,” Meacher told the Telegraph.
"Where there is a congress like this, which clearly has a very
important purpose, it is because something very valuable is
happening in terms of their attitude, plans, proposals for the
future of our economies. We, the rest of us, are going to be
affected,” Meacher insisted.
"When David Cameron goes to Brussels for a very important
meeting of heads of government of the 27 [EU member] states, he
gives a statement to the House of Commons and subjects himself to
cross-examination from MPs,” he continued.
“If we can do that on an issue which we already largely know
about, why not on this much more important
occasion?"
19:10 GMT: David Icke, the controversial writer and
speaker who believes that a secret cabal of reptilian humanoids
called the Babylonian Brotherhood rules over humanity, addresses
thousands of demonstrators at Bilderberg protest. 18:52 GMT:
I broadcasted for 3 hours today from #bilderberg I
hope everyone who watched enjoyed it. Massive crowd. twitter.com/nevmech/status…
12:22 GMT: David Cameron will attend the Bilderberg
conference on Friday night to take part in a discussion on
“domestic and global economic issues,” the British Prime
Minister’s spokesperson said.
“He feels it is an opportunity to discuss economic issues with
senior ministers, business people and academics,” the
spokesperson added. However, he did not disclose whom in
particular Cameron was going to meet, only revealing “it is a
private meeting.”
Some of the protestors at #Bilderberg
think #Obama
might have flown in last night. Also #PMs expected to
attend. Still trying to confirm.
22:12 GMT: Interestingly, serving UK prime ministers had
historically not been invited to Bilderberg meetings. Though
according to a survey by MSN UK, Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair
and Gordon Brown all attended Bilderberg conferences prior to
each becoming prime minister. By contrast, the current chancellor
of the exchequer, George Osborne, has attended four Bilderberg
conferences, in addition to this year’s.
21:05 GMT: Labour MP Michael Meacher told Sky News that
the meeting lacks transparency, which directly conflicts with
Prime Minister David Cameron’s recent pledge to his constituents
for just that following a series of scandals in his government.
“David Cameron said he was going to set up laws for proper
regulation of lobbyists, and for transparency. If there is any
conference which required transparency, which required democratic
accountability it is the Bilderberg conference, because this is
really where the top brass of Western finance capitalism meet in
order to make their deals, listen to each other, lobby -
including government ministers, particularly George Osborne and
Kenneth Clark, and as far as I know there will be no statement in
the House following it saying what happened, and how it might
affect government policy. This is totally in contradiction to the
government’s commitment to have greater transparency,” says
Meacher.
20:14 GMT: Jon Ronson, the author, documentary filmmaker
and author who once tried to infiltrate a Bilderberg meeting in
Portugal, spoke with Sky News on this year's meeting in Watford.
“Obviously there’s some mythologizing around Bilderberg,
because for decades they were very secretive. For a little while
they pretended they didn’t exist. But they do exist, and they’re
not telling us what they’re doing in there,” says Ronson.
“They always meet one time a year, at a five-star hotel with
golfing facilities. And yeah, they’re really powerful people. It
seems to be run by business, the idea is big business people. So
this year it’s Jeff Bezos, Eric Schmidt, and over the years it’s
been Heinz and Smithkline Beecham. They invite up-and-coming
politicians along, with the idea that they can offer the
up-and-coming politicians wise words. This is what
‘Bilderbergers’ have told me. And they’re globalists, and they
feel like they want to try and spot the next presidents or prime
minister,” he adds.
19:04 GMT: Local residents in the town of Watford are
forced to change their daily routine due to security measures at
the conference.
Guess I won't be popping up to The Grove for a quiet pint at
the Stables Bar tonight. #bilderberg#police#security
18:59 GMT: The lounge in the 5-star Grove hotel where the
Bilderberg meeting is taking place. The hotel itself is seen
behind the trees in the left of the picture. A protestor who's come dressed as a CCTV camera surveys the | Diplomatic Talks _ Diplomatic_Negotiation_ Summit Meeting | June 2013 | ['(The Irish Times)', '(The Guardian)', '(RT)'] |
Dublin defeats Mayo in the 2016 All–Ireland Senior Football Championship Final, retaining the Sam Maguire Cup for the first time since 1977. , | Last updated on 1 October 20161 October 2016.From the section Gaelic Games
Mayo's 65-year wait for an All-Ireland Senior Football title goes on after holders Dublin edged a 1-15 to 1-14 win in the final replay at Croke Park.
The key moment was a fumble by Mayo keeper Robert Hennelly early in the second half which gifted Dublin a penalty scored by Diarmuid Connolly.
Hennelly was a late inclusion in place of David Clarke but the move backfired.
Deep in injury-time, Cillian O'Connor missed a difficult free which would have levelled the scores.
Lee Keegan's goal put Mayo ahead midway through the first period but Dublin regrouped to lead 0-10 to 1-6 by half-time.
Hennelly struggled badly with his kick-outs early on with one of his misdirected clearances leading to the black carding of the influential Keegan late in the first half in what was a huge blow for the Connacht county.
Earlier, Dublin's Jonny Cooper was also black carded and a number other players from both sides - notably Dublin's John Small - were fortunate not to suffer the same fate.
In the end, Dublin's stronger bench proved decisive as Cormac Costello came on to kick the champions' three final scores from play.
Cillian O'Connor's ninth point of the contest left the minimum between the teams with three minutes of injury-time left but the Mayo free-taker then missed a high-pressure free from 40 metres which would have levelled the scores again.
As Dublin celebrated back-to-back titles for the first time since the county's triumphs in 1976 and '77, Mayo's players looked crestfallen as they attempted to come to terms with a fifth All-Ireland final defeat in 12 years.
With Hennelly struggling to pick out team-mates from his kick-outs, Dublin moved into a 0-4 to 0-0 lead by the sixth minute which included three Dean Rock points - two of which were from play.
But Mayo were on terms within six minutes after a run of four points started by Patrick Durcan's superb point.
Two Rock frees edged Dublin ahead again but Mayo were suddenly in the lead as the over-lapping Keegan took a perfectly weighted pass from Aidan O'Shea before hammering past Stephen Cluxton from 14 yards.
Cooper's black carding moments later for a hand trip appeared a further boost for Mayo but the Dubs outscored them 0-4 to 0-2 during the remainder of the first period to lead 0-10 to 1-6 at the break.
Mayo regained the lead within two minutes of the restart but were soon three in arrears after another Rock free was followed by Hennelly's howler as he was forced to concede a penalty after spilling a harmless looking ball, with his inevitable black carding followed by Connolly superbly stroking past Clarke.
Mayo cut Dublin's lead to the minimum on four occasions during the remaining half hour of action but their habitual woes of errant shooting and a lack of composure prevented them from getting on terms.
Once again, Aidan O'Shea was not the force that Mayo would have hoped for despite his good work for their first-half goal.
Mayo: R Hennelly, B Harrison, D Vaughan, K Higgins, L Keegan, C Boyle, P Durcan, S O'Shea, T Parsons, K McLoughlin, A O'Shea, D O'Connor, J Doherty. A Moran, C O'Connor.
Dublin: S Cluxton; P McMahon, J Cooper, M Fitzsimons; J McCarthy, C O'Sullivan, J Small; B Fenton, P Mannion; P Flynn, K McManamon, C Kilkenny; D Rock, D Connolly, B Brogan. | Sports Competition | October 2016 | ['(Sky)', '(BBC)'] |
15 people are killed in a Mexican Drug Warrelated shootout at a car wash in Tepic, Nayarit, the country's third such mass shooting in under a week. | MEXICO CITY At least 15 young people, several of them in treatment for drug addiction, were shot and killed Wednesday at a car wash in western Mexico, the third mass shooting with apparent connections to organized crime in less than a week.
The latest killings were in Tepic, a city in Nayarit State about 400 miles west of Mexico City, and bore the hallmarks of a drug-related crime. Drug treatment centers have frequently been the site of shootings, often by groups of men firing high-powered weapons, because members of drug gangs seek help or hide out in them.
In this case, 10 of the 15 people were clients of a treatment center in the city, the director of the clinic told reporters, and they were killed by automatic weapon fire. Some victims appeared to be innocent bystanders, the police said.
The shooting followed the killing of 13 people at a drug rehabilitation clinic in Tijuana on Sunday and the shooting deaths on Friday of 14 young people, several of whom the authorities said had no association with the drug trade, at a birthday party in Ciudad Juárez.
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The Tijuana shooting may have been connected to Mexico’s record seizure of 134 metric tons of marijuana last week; the authorities said that the police had received threats of additional violence.
The gunmen in the Ciudad Juárez shooting were looking for a man believed to be a drug dealer, the police there said.
President Felipe Calderón, who began a crackdown on major drug-trafficking organizations four years ago in which nearly 30,000 people have been killed, called for a minute of silence for the victims at the start of a public forum on national security.
“Nothing justifies these acts of barbarity,” said Mr. Calderón, who has struggled to explain the crackdown to a public increasingly anxious over the violence. “These acts were perpetrated by criminals without scruples who snatched innocent lives, most of them young people who had their whole lives ahead of them, who worked to overcome addictions, to study, to get ahead.”
The killings do not appear to be related and seem to involve different factions of the multitentacled drug-trafficking organizations that are battling one another, in addition to the government.
Nayarit, which is one of the smallest states, has increasingly been a focus of the heroin trade. A potent form of heroin processed there has turned up in several cities in the United States, with young men from Tepic acting as couriers.
The authorities in Ciudad Juárez were also investigating the shooting deaths of three men who were found next to the international bridge to El Paso, Tex. Initial reports from state prosecutors said the men were federal police officers, but the federal government said it had not confirmed that. | Armed Conflict | October 2010 | ['(New York Times)', '(CNN)'] |
A national strike begins in France over President Emmanuel Macron's pension reform plan. |
Wide social protests forced the Eiffel Tower to be closed in Paris on Thursday, as demonstrators mounted a strike against the government's plans for a pension system that critics say will force millions of people to work longer.
Thousands of people are marching in the streets of Paris, Lyon, Marseilles and other French cities Thursday, as more than 30 unions launch a massive workers' strike that's meant to shut down the country and force President Emmanuel Macron to reevaluate his plans for pension reform.
The strike is being compared to the crippling protests of 1995, which were also triggered by a retirement reform effort and which unraveled the career of former Prime Minister Alain Juppé. The Eiffel Tower is shut down; so are most of the light rail lines in Paris. And some of the city's busiest streets were quiet, as commuters either took part in the general strike or made plans to avoid travel disruptions.
More than 280,000 people demonstrated in about 40 cities — excluding Paris and Lyon, where estimates were not yet available — according to Le Parisien, which cites the AFP news agency.
A protester walks through a cloud of tear gas during a demonstration against national pension changes in Nantes, France, on Thursday.
Sebastien Salon-Gomis/AFP via Getty Images
hide caption
A protester walks through a cloud of tear gas during a demonstration against national pension changes in Nantes, France, on Thursday.
Faced with severe air travel disruptions, France's civil aviation directorate says that on Friday, 20% of all flights going in and out of Paris and other large cities will be canceled.
While many of the demonstrations took place peacefully, police deployed canisters of tear gas in Bordeaux after a brief but tense standoff at the Place des Quinconces, a huge city square where the march was slated to end. The government estimates some 20,000 people were in the street, as news site 20 minutes reports.
Nouveaux tirs de lacrymo à #Bordeaux pic.twitter.com/CkI3crDl9K
A similar scene played out in Nantes, where journalist Christian Meas described the police playing a game of chat et souris (cat and mouse) with protesters. France's national railway company, SNCF, says that on average, only 1 in 10 trains is running on its most popular lines, including the high-speed TGV train.
Demonstrations and severe disruptions are expected to last at least through Monday — the date being mentioned by both the SNCF and key transport unions. In Paris, NPR's Eleanor Beardsley reports the streets were eerily calm early Thursday, feeling more like a Sunday morning than a weekday.
Transport workers, hospital employees, firefighters, teachers and others who play key roles in society are taking part in the strike, sending a warning to Macron to preserve their pensions under France's national system despite growing economic challenges.
Énormément de monde entre République et gare du Nord : syndicats, stands de partis politiques, gilets jaunes, étudiants, anarchistes, pompiers, profs, hospitaliers..... Foule très hétérogène #GreveGenerale #greve5decembre pic.twitter.com/cgKz8sGeVR
"People are living longer, and there are fewer workers supporting each retiree," Beardsley says on Morning Edition. "It needs reforming. People know this, but they say his reform is bad and unfair. He wants people to work longer — people do not want to have to work longer."
France's official retirement age is 62, having risen from 60 in the past decade. But the government hopes to install a new universal points-based pension system, which would change how pensions are calculated and effectively give full pension benefits only to workers who retire at age 64.
But beyond the push to preserve current pension terms, the protests also reflect "an anger and a dislike of Macron in society," Beardsley says, noting the criticisms the president has faced in the wake of the Yellow Vest cost-of-living protests of last autumn.
People hold a banner reading "Pension by points: we all lose. Retirement at 60: we all win" during a demonstration against a plan to overhaul national pensions in Paris.
People hold a banner reading "Pension by points: we all lose. Retirement at 60: we all win" during a demonstration against a plan to overhaul national pensions in Paris.
While thousands of police were deployed to secure areas around the protests, Le Figaro journalist Jean-Baptiste de la Torre spoke to three policemen who said they had turned out to show what support they could. "We are here for our children," one officer said. While acknowledging orders against joining the strike and march, the officer added, "We wanted to support our women who are teachers." | Strike | December 2019 | ['(NPR)'] |
John Edwards, former United States presidential candidate and Senator representing North Carolina, is indicted on charges of conspiracy and violating campaign finance laws in connection to his affair with Rielle Hunter; Edwards denies he broke any laws. | Updated at 3:46 p.m. ET
Former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards said he takes "full responsibility for having done wrong" but insisted he "did not break the law" to cover up his extramarital affair with Rielle Hunter.
Edwards was indicted earlier today by a federal grand jury. He pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy, making false statements and four counts of illegal campaign contributions.
In a brief statement to reporters outside the courthouse in Winston-Salem, N.C., Edwards declared his innocence on the criminal allegations.
"There's no question I've done wrong," Edwards said, adding he'll "regret the pain and the harm" that he caused for the rest of his life. But he was adamant: "I did not break the law and I never, ever thought I was breaking the law."
The charges center on more than $900,000 given to Hunter and former Edwards aide Andrew Young by Edwards' supporters Rachel "Bunny" Mellon and Fred Baron to keep the pair in hiding. Prosecutors argue that the money amounted to illegal campaign contributions because they allowed Edwards to continue with his 2008 presidential bid.
Edwards' lawyer, Gregory Craig, today criticized "an unprecedented prosecution" and vowed his client will "defend this case vigorously." Craig said there is no way anyone, including Edwards, would have known that the payments to Hunter and Young should be treated as campaign contributions.
Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer denounced Edwards' "scheme."
"We will not permit candidates for high office to abuse their special ability to access the coffers of their political supporters to circumvent our election laws," he said in a statement. "Our campaign finance system is designed to preserve the integrity of democratic elections for the presidency and all other elected offices and we will vigorously pursue abuses of the kind alleged today."
If convicted, Edwards could face five years in prison and a fine of $250,000 on each of the six counts.
The indictment reads as a slap at Edwards' character. "The centerpiece of Edwards' candidacy was his public image as a family man," the document begins, before giving excruciating detail about money and a coverup.
USA TODAY's Fredreka Schouten and Kevin Johnson look at the legal issues surrounding the Edwards case in this story and have more on the charges.
The indictment alleges that Edwards conspired with individuals, who are not named specifically, to accept and receive campaign contributions above what campaign finance law allowed at the time. The indictment alleges that between 2007 and 2008, Edwards accepted and received more than $900,000.
Much of the case has centered on testimony from Young, who claimed in 2007 that he was the father of Hunter's daughter in order to help his boss.
Edwards initially denied the affair but admitted the relationship with Hunter, a campaign videographer, in 2008. At the time, he denied he was the father of Hunter's daughter, Frances Quinn. Edwards did not admit paternity until 2010, the day before Young's memoir was released.
The saga over Edwards' affair has been a sordid chapter in the life of a one-time Democratic star. After years of winning million-dollar verdicts as a trial lawyer, Edwards appealed to voters and defeated incumbent Republican Lauch Faircloth in 1998 for a U.S. Senate seat.
Edwards ran for president in 2004, emphasizing "two Americas" for the rich and the poor, and eventually became John Kerry's running mate. In 2008, staking his campaign on opposition to the Iraq war and in support of universal health care, Edwards was eclipsed in the Democratic primaries by Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Elizabeth Edwards died in December after a six-year battle with cancer. At the time, she and John Edwards were legally separated.
| Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | June 2011 | ['(CNN)', '(USA Today)', '(Los Angeles Times)'] |
Park Geun-Hye, the President of South Korea, announces that the Republic of Korea Coast Guard will be broken up in the wake of the ferry disaster. | South Korea plans to break up its coastguard in the wake of the ferry disaster in which more than 300 people died, says President Park Geun-hye.
In a televised address, Ms Park apologised formally for the sinking. A new safety agency would handle rescue duties, with investigative functions passing to the police, she said. The Sewol ferry disaster on 16 April killed 286 passengers, most of whom were high school students. Another 18 are still missing.
"The ultimate responsibility of the poor response to this accident lies with me," Ms Park said. She said the coastguard had "failed to fulfil its original duties" and "had it actively carried out rescue efforts immediately after the accident", more lives could have been saved.
Ms Park added that in its current form, the coastguard would be unable to prevent another large-scale disaster.
"The coastguard continued to get bigger in size but did not have enough personnel and budget allocated for maritime safety, and training for rescue was very much insufficient," she said, according to Reuters.
Ms Park's office told agencies that her plans had to be approved by the National Assembly, in which her Saenuri party maintains a majority.
The planned disbanding of the coastguard is one of several reforms the South Korean leader announced on Monday. An interim investigation found that the ferry was overloaded, carrying three times its approved amount of cargo, and that a sharp turn destabilised it and caused it to capsize. Officials from the ferry's operator and a company that conducted safety checks on the vessel prior to the incident have also been arrested.
"A 20-year-old vessel was bought and refurbished to add excessive capacity, then it was loaded with much more cargo than allowed with a false reporting on weight, but not a single person in the position to supervise stopped any of it," Ms Park said.
She said she planned to increase restrictions on government officials taking up jobs related to their duties after retirement. The practice, also known as "bureaucratic mafia" in South Korea, is seen as fostering too-cosy ties between bureaucrats and regulators.
The accident showed "how big a calamity can be brought about by the abnormal practice of collusion between the government and civilians", she was quoted as saying by Yonhap news agency.
The president also proposed establishing a committee to look into whether the Sewol ferry accident was caused by corruption and other irregularities.
Ms Park's administration has been the subject of continued criticism over the accident, particularly on the speed of search and rescue operations, despite earlier apologies from her and the resignation of Prime Minister Chung Hong-won.
Only 172 passengers survived the sinking of the ferry, including 22 of the 29 crew members. The ferry captain and three members of the crew have been charged with manslaughter. Prosecutors have indicted another 11 crew members for negligence, for failing to evacuate passengers.
| Government Job change - Resignation_Dismissal | May 2014 | ['(BBC)'] |
President of Mexico Felipe Calderón replaces his Secretary of the Interior, Fernando Gomez Mont, after weeks of speculation. | Mexican President Felipe Calderon has replaced his interior minister, Fernando Gomez Mont, who oversaw the crackdown on powerful drug cartels. Mr Gomez Mont's departure ended weeks of speculation over his future. He had opposed a decision by Mr Calderon's National Action Party to join forces with leftist parties in key state elections earlier this month. New minister Jose Francisco Blake takes charge of a strategy that has seen troops deployed against drug gangs.
More than 23,000 people have died in drug-related violence since late 2006. Announcing the changes to his cabinet, President Calderon praised Mr Blake's experience as a senior official in the state of Baja California.
"The knowledge he has of crime, and the good relations he managed to build between the police and army in the fight against crime in Baja California will without doubt be of great value in strengthening the fight for public safety," said Mr Calderon. The Interior Ministry plays a key role in overseeing all Mexico's police forces, both at federal and state level. Since late 2006, more police and troops have joined the fight against the drug gangs but violence has not abated. As well as responsibility for national security, Mr Blake will play a key part in negotiating with opposition parties in Congress. President Calderon has struggled to ensure the passage of any significant legislation in the opposition-led Congress, correspondents say. Mr Gomez Mont, until recently a member of the National Action Party (PAN), opposed the party's decision to join forces with other parties in state and local elections on 4 July. In the end, the alliances allowed the PAN to win governorships of three states traditionally run by its archrival, the Institutional Revolutionary Party or PRI.
Both parties have their eyes clearly on the 2012 presidential election, which the sitting president is constitutionally barred from contesting. | Government Job change - Resignation_Dismissal | July 2010 | ['(BBC)'] |
John Logue, President of the Union of Students in Ireland, is arrested and taken from Dáil Éireann in handcuffs after turning his back on legislators while peacefully protesting against budget cuts. | Donegal man John Logue, the head of the Union of Students in Ireland, was handcuffed and led away by Gardai in the Dail.
Gardai are questioning him about an alleged breach of Dail rules.
It’s understood he was taking part in a protest demanding student rights, particularly relating to the debacle in the student grant allocation which has left 50,000 students without a grant payment.
He was with 100 other students in the gallery observing a Private Members Bill from Fianna Fail.
All the students then stood up and turned their backs on proceedings in protest at amendments from Government parties.
Logue was told to sit down by security staff and when he didn’t, he was arrested.
A USI spokesman said: “John Logue was arrested for the simple act for turning his back on a Dáil which has turned its back on students.
“By voting down an amendment that would have preserved the current level of the grant and stopped fee hikes, this government has once again failed students and families.
“Logue was supported by over 100 students, including sabbatical officers from TCDSU, DITSU and NCISU. It was a peaceful act of civil disobedience, intended to highlight the issues facing students, especially as students face into €3000 fees, cuts to the grant and a grant system that has only paid out to a minority of students who qualify for it.”
Donegal South West TD Pearse Doherty immediately demanded his release from custody.
The gallery in the Dail was packed with students at the time.
“Mr Logue should be released without charge immediately,” said Deputy Doherty.
His party colleague Jonathon O’Brien commented: “It’s ironic that if you wreck the economy you get a €500k per year salary, but if you stand up for students you are slapped in handcuffs.”
The 23-year-old Letterkenny man has had an increasingly high profile in recent weeks as the grants crisis grew. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Arrest | November 2012 | ['(Donegal Daily)', '(University Times)'] |
A speech by a Chinese-national student in the University of Maryland creates controversy. | A Chinese student who praised the "fresh air of free speech" in the U.S. during her commencement address at the University of Maryland is facing an online backlash from classmates and from people in China who say she insulted her own country.
Shuping Yang, who graduated with a double-major in psychology and theater, is from the city of Kunming in southwest China. As she prepared to speak on Sunday, her mother waved a bouquet of flowers at her from the audience.
China has nearly 330,000 students in the U.S., far and away the largest contingent of any country. Yang's speech is one of a number of events that have caused acrimonious political debates among them.
Yang told the assembly that pollution was so bad in her hometown that she had to wear face masks to keep from getting sick.
She also described the evolution of her political views, saying that she once believed that "only authorities control the narrative, only authorities could define the truth." She recalled being inspired by the sight of her classmates joining political protests, leading her to the conclusion that "freedom is oxygen."
In the comments on the YouTube video of the speech, some critics accused Yang of exaggerating China's problems, pointing out that Kunming is one of China's less polluted cities.
Others accused her of fawning over Americans. And some suggested she was not welcome to return to China.
One user with the handle Vivi Yingying on Weibo, China's main microblog platform, said of Yang's speech: "You reaped their [the audience's] applause, but you lost other people's respect."
Others sprang to her defense. "She pointed out the vexation that China's pollution and freedom of speech issues cause her. She's not wrong," said another Weibo user, Ji Xuguang.
The incident is reminiscent of controversies like what happened at Duke University in 2008, when student Grace Wang was assailed by critics for trying to mediate between pro-Tibetan demonstrators and Chinese students ahead of the Beijing Olympics.
In many of these episodes, Chinese critics seem less outraged by the actual content of any speech than the fact that their country's "dirty laundry" is being aired in front of outsiders.
Yang issued an apology on Weibo in which she said she "deeply loves her motherland" and intended only "to share her experience of studying overseas, not to negate or denigrate my country or my hometown."
She promised to use her education to promote Chinese culture, adding that she hoped ad hominem attacks on her would end.
In a statement on its website, the University of Maryland said it "proudly supports Shuping's right to share her views and her unique perspectives."
Some Chinese students from UMD released a video rebutting some of Yang's remarks. The theme of the video, according to the state-run Global Times tabloid, was "I have different views from Shuping Yang. I am proud of China."
The newspaper added that the official China Students and Scholars Association encouraged the students to speak in the video. Branches of the CSSA in U.S. universities and colleges describe themselves as organizations approved by the Chinese Embassy in the U.S. Critics see them as an arm of China's government.
The article quoted former University of Maryland CSSA President Zhu Lihan as saying that the school's support for Yang's "critical speech is not only ill-considered, but also raises suspicion about other motives." Zhu did not elaborate on what those motives might be. | Famous Person - Give a speech | May 2017 | ['(NPR)'] |
Ukraine commences its first presidential election campaign since the 2004 Orange Revolution. | Ukraine's President Viktor Yushchenko holds a news conference after meeting European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek at the EU Parliament in Brussels, October 15, 2009. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir
As the country starts its first presidential election campaign since that popular movement in 2004 broke the grip of the post-Soviet establishment, its leader, President Viktor Yushchenko, stares a painful reality in the face.
Opinion polls point to Viktor Yanukovich, his disgraced Moscow-backed opponent back then, getting easily through a January 17 election to go into a run-off vote.
Just as bitter for Yushchenko -- his erstwhile “Orange” ally but now rival, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, is almost certain to be the other player in the second-round showdown, analysts say.
The 55-year-old president has ratings so low that none but his most loyal supporters see a chance of re-election.
Most Ukrainians hope the vote, for which official campaigning begins Monday, will end five years of political in-fighting that has paralyzed decision-making and frustrated reform in one of Europe’s worst performing economies.
It will also decide the extent to which the ex-Soviet state of 47 million will stick to Yushchenko’s pro-western blueprint or toe a more compliant line toward its old master, Russia.
No matter who triumphs, most analysts expect renewed efforts to improve frosty ties with Russia -- including pushing the pursuit of NATO membership firmly on to the back-burner -- without abandoning the democratic strides Ukraine has made.
The two have been involved in disputes over the pricing and supply of Russian natural gas across Ukrainian territory to Europe. The Russian Black Sea fleet based in the Ukrainian port of Sevastopol could become a serious source of friction.
But both Yanukovich, a former prime minister from the hard school of eastern Ukraine politics, and Tymoshenko will fend off competition from Russian big business and attempts to tug Ukraine back into Moscow’s sphere of influence, analysts say.
“The course for integration into the European Union and NATO will be pushed back for at least five years,” said Vadym Karasev, director of the Institute for Global Strategies.
“The country will be suspended between the post-Soviet world of yesterday and the European one of tomorrow.”
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A poll this month put Yanukovich, whose power base is in Russian-speaking regions of the country, in front with 28.7 per cent. Tymoshenko had 19 percent, according to the SOCIS survey.
The challenge from former parliament speaker Arseniy Yatsenyuk, 35, who had been seen as a rival for Tymoshenko’s vote, has leveled off. Support for him was at 8.2 per cent.
But these ratings may hold good only for the first round.
Tymoshenko, 48, a firebrand who sports a peasant hair-plait, can quickly find the pulse of a crowd as she showed in 2004 with electrifying performances during the Orange street protests.
Pro-Tymoshenko advertising in Kiev proclaims: “She works!.” Her campaign will focus on her energy and decisiveness.
Yanukovich, 59, a towering man who heads the pro-business Party of the Regions, seems sure to champion Russian-language rights, oppose NATO membership and emphasize what he has denounced as the “chaos” of the Yushchenko years, analysts say.
“Yanukovich will not be a puppet of Moscow, but the degree of influence of Moscow on Yanukovich will be greater than that on Tymoshenko,” said political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko.
But in a run-off, Yanukovich may find it hard to strike a chord in central Ukraine -- a key battleground -- or make inroads in the Ukrainian-speaking west.
On balance, most analysts believe Tymoshenko will outperform the sometimes clumsy Yanukovich in a head-to-head clash in February. But, as steward of the economy, Tymoshenko might still see her ratings take a knock if there is more bad economic news.
Ukrainians have seen the national currency, the hryvnia, lose more than a third of its value against the dollar -- hard for the many who purchased big on dollar credit and are now facing rising pay-back terms.
A lot too depends on Ukraine’s business billionaires, who have no qualms about putting their money behind a candidate -- though they switch sides easily.
A turnaround in Yushchenko’s fortunes seems unlikely.
He ousted Yanukovich in 2004 after a rigged election was quashed by the Supreme Court and he went on to win a re-run.
But he has been an indecisive leader. His nationalistic and other policies have won little broad support. His incessant sniping at Tymoshenko has also backfired on him, many say.
But others say he has not been given the credit for a significant pro-democracy shift in society during his rule.
“This is a pluralistic society. There is a free press. The economy is in a mess but Ukraine is the freest country in the Commonwealth of Independent States,” said one foreign observer.
| Government Job change - Election | October 2009 | ['(Reuters)'] |
The Ebola death total in West Africa exceeds 1,900, according to the World Health Organization. | More than 1,900 people have now died in West Africa's Ebola outbreak, the World Health Organization (WHO) says.
There have been 3,500 confirmed or probable cases in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.
"The outbreaks are racing ahead of the control efforts in these countries," WHO chief Margaret Chan said.
The WHO is meeting on Thursday to examine the most promising treatments and to discuss how to fast-track testing and production.
Disease control experts, medical researchers, officials from affected countries, and specialists in medical ethics will all be represented at the meeting in Geneva.
At least $600m (360m) is needed to fight the virus, and more than 20,000 people could be infected before the outbreak is brought under control, the WHO has warned.
Ms Chan described the outbreak as "the largest and most severe and most complex we have ever seen".
"No-one, even outbreak responders with experience dating back to 1976, to 1995, people that were directly involved with those outbreaks, none of them have ever seen anything like it," she said.
More than 40% of the deaths have occurred in three weeks leading up to 3 September, the WHO says, indicating that the epidemic is fast outpacing efforts to control it.
Meanwhile, Nigeria has announced that it is reversing its decision to keep schools closed after the summer holiday until 13 October, in order to halt the spread of Ebola.
Schools will now re-open in mid-September but the precise date is not yet known, the education minister said.
On Wednesday Nigeria reported two further cases in the city of Port Harcourt.
There had previously only been one case outside the city of Lagos, where five people have died from the virus.
"The outbreak of Ebola virus disease in Port Harcourt has the potential to grow larger and spread faster than the one in Lagos," the WHO warned.
The outbreak is having a knock-on effect as far away as Thailand, where sailors are becoming fearful of sailing to West Africa, affecting shipments of rice.
West Africa imports millions of tonnes of rice, much of it from Thailand. Vichai Sriprasert, of the Thai Rice Exporters Association, told the BBC's Newsday programme that crews were afraid to go to Africa because of the threat of Ebola - despite evidence that infection and death is unlikely.
The cut in demand is hitting the price of rice in Thailand and affecting farmers, he added.
Also on Wednesday, the first British person to contract Ebola during the outbreak was discharged from hospital after making a full recovery.
On Tuesday medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) warned that a global military intervention was needed to combat the outbreak.
MSF condemned the global response so far as "lethally inadequate" and said the world was "losing the battle" to contain the outbreak.
It has called for military and civilian teams capable of dealing with a biological disaster to be deployed immediately, as well as for more field hospitals with isolation wards to be set up, trained healthcare workers to be sent to the region, and air support to move patients and medics across West Africa.
| Disease Outbreaks | September 2014 | ['(BBC)'] |
Twenty-three European Union countries sign a defence integration pact known as the Permanent Structured Cooperation. NATO members Denmark, Portugal and the United Kingdom , and non-NATO members Malta and Ireland, opt out. | France and Germany edged toward achieving a 70-year-old ambition to integrate European defenses on Monday, signing a pact with 21 other EU governments to fund, develop and deploy armed forces after Britain’s decision to quit the bloc.
First proposed in the 1950s and long resisted by Britain, European defense planning, operations and weapons development now stands its best chance in years as London steps aside and the United States pushes Europe to pay more for its security.
Foreign and defense ministers gathered at a signing ceremony in Brussels to represent 23 EU governments joining the pact, paving the way for EU leaders to sign it in December.
Those governments will for the first time legally bind themselves into joint projects as well as pledging to increase defense spending and contribute to rapid deployments.
“Today we are taking a historic step,” Germany’s Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel told reporters. “We are agreeing on the future cooperation on security and defense issues ... it’s really a milestone in European development,” he said.
The pact includes all EU governments except Britain, which is leaving the bloc, Denmark, which has opted out of defense matters, Ireland, Portugal and Malta. Traditionally neutral Austria was a late addition to the pact.
Paris originally wanted a vanguard of EU countries to bring money and assets to French-led military missions and projects, while Berlin has sought to be more inclusive, which could reduce effectiveness.
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Its backers say that if successful, the formal club of 23 members will give the European Union a more coherent role in tackling international crises and end the kind of shortcomings seen in Libya in 2011, when European allies relied on the United States for air power and munitions.
Unlike past attempts, the U.S.-led NATO alliance backs the project, aiming to benefit from stronger militaries.
The club will be backed by a 5-billion-euro defense fund for buying weapons, a special fund to finance operations and money from the EU’s common budget for defense research.
Members will also be required to submit national plans and be subject to a review system identifying weak spots in European armies with the goal of plugging those gaps together.
Many governments say Russia’s seizure of Ukraine’s Crimea in 2014 was a turning point, after years of defense spending cuts that left Europe without vital capabilities.
“This is a commitment for countries to do better together,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said. “It comes at a time of significant tension,” he said, referring indirectly to Russia’s rising military reach and Islamic militants who have attacked European cities.
Despite an Anglo-French-led EU defense integration effort in 1998, Britain blocked formal collaboration on military matters, wary of the creation of an EU army.
Defense integration was revived by France and Germany, with support from Italy and Spain, in a show of unity after Britons voted to leave the EU in June 2016.
The EU had struggled in military and humanitarian missions in the Balkans, Libya and in Africa over the past 20 years and were caught off guard by Russia’s Crimea annexation.
As the EU initiative, known as Permanent Structured Cooperation, has gained momentum, British officials have been pressing for involvement. Britain's aerospace industry and its biggest defense firm BAE Systems BAES.L fear losing out, diplomats said. British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson likened London’s support to Gothic architecture, saying: “We are there, like a flying buttress to support the cathedral,” he told reporters.
In a possible compromise, Britain may be able to join in, but only on an exceptional basis if it provides substantial funds and expertise.
| Sign Agreement | November 2017 | ['(withdrawal from EU underway)', '(Reuters)'] |
US President George W. Bush nominates former deputy secretary of state Robert Zoellick as President of the World Bank. | His nomination will be considered by the World Bank's 24-member board of governors, although the US nomination has always been accepted in the past.
Mr Zoellick would replace Paul Wolfowitz, who steps down on 30 June.
Some members have called for candidates from outside the United States to be considered for the job.
'Trust'
Accepting the nomination, Mr Zoellick acknowledged that he had much work to do to deal with the tensions which unseated his predecessor.
"We need to put yesterday's discord behind us and focus on the future together," he said.
President Bush said of Mr Zoellick: "He has earned the trust and support of leaders from every region of the world."
"He is deeply devoted to the mission of the World Bank," he added.
He has to establish or rather re-establish confidence in the institution because it was a dark chapter with Wolfowitz
Bernard Kouchner, French Foreign Minister
Challenges facing new boss
Choosing a World Bank boss
As deputy secretary of state, Mr Zoellick was chief aide to Condoleezza Rice between February 2005 and June last year.
He is also an ex-US trade representative and is currently an executive at the investment bank Goldman Sachs. Mr Zoellick's choice was praised by the new French government.
"Mr. Zoellick is certainly the right man for the job," French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said.
But he added: "He has to establish or rather re-establish confidence in the institution because it was a dark chapter with Wolfowitz."
Criticism
But Paul Zeitz, executive director of the Global AIDS Alliance, said that he thought Mr Zoellick was a terrible choice.
President Bush said Mr Zoellick had built trust in all his top-level jobs
"Zoellick has no significant experience in economic development in poor countries," he said. "He has been a close friend to the brand-name pharmaceutical industry, and the bilateral trade agreements he has negotiated effectively block access to generic medication for millions of people."
President Bush also used his nomination speech to pay tribute to Paul Wolfowitz.
"I thank him for his dedication to the poor and his devotion to the good work of the World Bank," he said. "Bob Zoellick is the right man to succeed Paul in this vital work." | Government Job change - Appoint_Inauguration | May 2007 | ['(BBC)'] |
NASA publishes LRO images of the two craters on the Moon, where twin GRAIL probes ended their gravity–mapping mission in December 2012. | Nasa has released information about the impacts made when two probes were deliberately crashed into the lunar surface last year.
The Grail gravity mapping satellites were smashed into a mountain near the Moon's north pole in December.
Images taken before and after the crash have now revealed the precise location of the craters created by the craft.
And an analysis of the plumes thrown up by the impact showed mysterious concentrations of mercury.
The two Grail probes, called Ebb and Flow, were each about the size of a washing machine. Launched in September 2011, the spacecraft were designed to map tiny variations in the pull of gravity around the lunar body.
This information should give scientists fresh insight into the internal structure of Earth's satellite.
And it could shed light on remaining mysteries, such as why the crust on the far side of the Moon is thicker than that on the near side.
At the end of the mission, Nasa decided to deliberately ditch the probes to avoid the possibility of an uncontrolled descent on to locations of historic importance, such as the Apollo landing sites.
As the pair of probes took their final plunge, Nasa's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) had been manoeuvred into the right place to see the spacecraft slam into an unnamed 2,500m mountain.
Scientists had only three weeks' notice to position LRO to see Grail's fiery finale. By observing the cloud of dust and gas kicked up by each impact, scientists knew they could obtain valuable data about the Moon's composition.
One of LRO's instruments, the Lyman Alpha Mapping Project (Lamp), detected enhanced concentrations of mercury and atomic hydrogen in the cloud from the demise of the twin spacecraft.
Mercury is known as a "volatile" - meaning it is easily vaporised - and is thought to be present in cold, permanently shadowed craters on the Moon (and perhaps other bodies). But it was a surprise to find it in an area that receives regular sunlight. "While our results are still very new, our thinking is that the mercury detected by Lamp from the Grail site might be related to an enhancement at the poles caused by mercury atoms generally hopping across the surface and eventually migrating toward the cold polar regions," said Kurt Retherford, the chief scientist for Lamp.
Scientists think mercury atoms may "hop" across the surface of the Moon towards the poles, causing them to be concentrated in these regions.
It is still unclear whether the hydrogen represents the release of water by the heat of the impact, or whether it simply sheds light on the way that water is formed on the Moon from its chemical constituents.
The two spacecraft were travelling at a velocity of 1.7km per second and came in at very shallow angles of a degree-and-a-half. The impact sites show that the spacecraft kicked up fields of dark debris as they slammed into the lunar soil.
During Grail's three-month primary mission, the spacecraft orbited at an average altitude of 55km. They were then commanded to reduce their height by a factor of two (to 23km) for another three months, allowing them to obtain data at an even better resolution.
For the final science campaign before the planned impacts into the Moon, the twin spacecraft were lowered to an average altitude of 11km, which allowed them to carry out very high-resolution mapping of a lunar impact basin called Orientale. It is one of the youngest and best preserved of such features on the lunar surface.
"We have had very detailed mapping of that basin from images, from orbital spectral data, but we have not had high-resolution of its interior structure," Grail's chief scientist, Prof Maria Zuber, who has been speaking at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) in The Woodlands, Texas, told BBC News.
The data could shed light on how impacts shaped the evolution of the Moon and other bodies such as the Earth.
One theory for the difference between the Moon's far side and near side is an ancient collision with a second natural satellite of Earth. A paper published in Nature journal in 2011, suggested this smaller sibling - if it indeed existed - could have been about one-third the size of the Moon and would have smeared itself across the lunar far side in a low-velocity impact.
"We've been looking at that, but to date we have not seen evidence for that highland area on the Moon being substantially different from surrounding areas," said Prof Zuber.
"So we don't see evidence for another planetary body being pasted on the top.
"But one could imagine that such signatures are extremely subtle. So I am not ready to conclude anything at this point. We and others need to analyse that data in many different ways."
| New achievements in aerospace | March 2013 | ['(NASA)', '(Space.com)', '(BBC)'] |
New York City police question International Monetary Fund head Dominique Strauss-Kahn, arrested yesterday, over allegations that he sexually attacked a hotel maid near Times Square. Strauss-Kahn's schedule is threatened with interruption, with a meeting over the bailouts of Portugal and Greece with European Union finance ministers due in Brussels tomorrow. | The head of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, has been charged by New York police over an alleged sex attack on a hotel maid.
Mr Strauss-Kahn, 62, was taken off an Air France plane at JFK airport just minutes before it left for Paris.
Police say the maid has now formally identified him in a line-up. He faces three charges which he denies.
The married former French finance minister is also considered a possible Socialist candidate for the presidency.
The BBC's Hugh Schofield, in Paris, says Mr Strauss-Kahn has been riding high in the polls and was seen as having a genuine chance of beating President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Martine Aubry, leader of France's Socialist Party, described news of his arrest as a "thunderbolt" which left her "astounded".
Mr Strauss-Kahn is expected to appear before a New York state court before 0100 local time on Monday (0500 GMT), despite reports of a delay as police apply for search warrants for further DNA evidence. His lawyer, William Taylor, told Agence France-Presse news agency: "We saw him, he's doing OK. And we'll be in court with him later in the afternoon."
Mr Strauss-Kahn had been scheduled to meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday, but that meeting has now been cancelled, reports say.
On Monday he had planned to attend a meeting of European Union finance ministers in Brussels on Monday to discuss the bailouts of Portugal and Greece.
Correspondents say his detention is likely to complicate ongoing efforts to stabilise the finances of struggling eurozone member states.
The Euro fell half a cent to $1.4063 when Asian markets opened on Monday - a six-week low against the dollar - reflecting concerns about the impact the arrest could have on the bailout talks.
In a brief statement posted online on Sunday, an IMF spokeswoman acknowledged Mr Strauss-Kahn's arrest and said the organisation would not comment on the case.
"The IMF remains fully functioning and operational," she added.
John Lipsky will act as IMF managing director in Mr Strauss-Kahn's absence.
Dominique Strauss-Kahn's arrest unfolded in dramatic fashion as he was poised to fly to Europe.
A spokesman for New York's Port Authority said they detained Mr Strauss-Kahn at JFK airport at the request of the New York Police Department (NYPD).
NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said Mr Strauss-Kahn had been charged with a criminal sexual act, attempted rape and unlawful imprisonment relating to an incident involving a 32-year-old woman.
Mr Browne said the allegations had been made by a 32-year-old woman who worked at the hotel, which has been identified as the Sofitel near Times Square. His accommodation there was described by the New York Times as a luxury suite costing $3,000 per night (1,900).
"We received a call that a chambermaid in a hotel in midtown Manhattan had been sexually assaulted by the occupant of a luxury suite at that hotel, and that that individual had fled," Mr Browne told the BBC. "The maid described being forcibly attacked, locked in the room and sexually assaulted," he said.
Speaking to Reuters, Mr Browne gave more details on the allegations against Mr Strauss-Kahn. "She told detectives he came out of the bathroom naked, ran down a hallway to the [suite] foyer where she was, pulled her into a bedroom and began to sexually assault her, according to her account."
"She pulled away from him and he dragged her down a hallway into the bathroom where he engaged in a criminal sexual act, according to her account to detectives. He tried to lock her into the hotel room."
Mr Strauss-Kahn then made his way to the airport but left his mobile phone and other items behind, Mr Brown said.
"It looked like he got out of there in a hurry."
By the time police established that the occupant of the room was Mr Strauss-Kahn, the IMF chief was on board an Air France plane at John F Kennedy airport, about to depart for Paris. "Our detectives requested of the airport authorities that they stop the plane from leaving, went to the airport and took him into custody," Mr Browne said.
"If our officers had been 10 minutes later he would have been in the air and on their way to France."
The woman has been treated at hospital for minor injuries, said Mr Browne.
Mr Strauss-Kahn ran for the French Socialist Party's presidential candidacy in 2006 but lost to Segolene Royal.
He was appointed managing director of the IMF the following year. Mr Strauss-Kahn has won praise for his stewardship of the IMF, which he has guided through difficult times including the recent world financial crisis.
But in 2008 he was investigated by the IMF board over his relationship with a female member of his staff. The board ruled his actions "reflected a serious error of judgment" but that the relationship had been consensual. He apologised to IMF staff and his wife, French TV personality Anne Sinclair.
Mr Strauss-Kahn has not yet announced whether he intends to run in the 2012 French presidential elections, but had widely been expected to do so.
| Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | May 2011 | ['(BBC)'] |
Twenty children die in a fire in Surat, India. | At least 22 students were killed and several others injured in a fire at a coaching centre in Sarthana area of Surat in Gujarat. The coaching centre was located on the third and fourth floors of the Takshashila Complex.
Students, mostly teenagers, died "either due to suffocation or jumping off from the complex", the deputy CM said. "We have ordered a detailed inquiry into the incident. We will not spare those found guilty," Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel said.
Horrifying visuals of the fire showed kids falling off the windows.
An initial investigation suggests the fire was caused by a short-circuit. According to a fire official, flames started from the ground floor and reached the top floor, forcing some students to take shelter on the terrace which was covered.
"Lot of smoke accumulated on the top floor where there were AC compressors and tyres which too caught fire. There was no escape route available for the students who got trapped on the top floors. The fire was doused in one hour. There were no safety equipment installed in the building," a fire official told the media.
Coaching classes at the centre were run in a shade built on the top floor of the building, Gujarat Deputy CM Nitin Patel said, adding that they "will check if the construction was illegal".
RESCUE OPERATIONS
The fire official said that 19 fire tenders and two hydraulic platforms were pressed into service to douse the fire. It took an hour to contain the blaze.
Eye-witnesses claimed that there were around 50 students in the complex when the fire started.
"Around 10 students on fourth and third floor jumped off to the ground to save themselves from fire and smoke," said a fire official.
Locals helped in the rescue operation to save the stranded students and other occupants of the building.
Heartbreaking VideoMassive Fire at ine commercial Complex , Namedin surat's #sarthana Area .Many Students were stuck.A Brave man tried to rescue the Girls.Pray &Hope for No big Injuries.CM OFFICE ORDERS INVESTIGATION
Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani has ordered an investigation into the incident. The chief minister has also declared financial help of Rs 4 lakh each to the families of children who died in this incident, an official statement from the CM office said.
Later in the day, Vijay Rupani visited the hospital to meet those injured in fire. "I am told that due to fire in the staircase, several people jumped from the fourth floor of the building to escape. Have ordered enquiry".
Gujarat CM Vijay Rupani visits hospital to meet those injured in fire at coaching centre in Surat; says, "I'm told that due to fire in the staircase, several people jumped from the 4th floor of the building to escape. Have ordered enquiry". 20 people have died in the incident
Meanwhile, municipal authorities in Ahmedabad ordered closure of all coaching classes till further orders to check whether they follow fire safety norms.
PM NARENDRA MODI EXPRESSES ANGUISH
Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed deep anguish over the incident and directed authorities to provide all possible help."Extremely anguished by the fire tragedy in Surat. My thoughts are with bereaved families. May the injured recover quickly. Have asked the Gujarat Government and local authorities to provide all possible assistance to those affected," PM Narendra Modi tweeted.
Extremely anguished by the fire tragedy in Surat. My thoughts are with bereaved families. May the injured recover quickly. Have asked the Gujarat Government and local authorities to provide all possible assistance to those affected.
Home Minister Rajnath Singh also reacted on the deadly fire. "Deeply saddened by the loss of precious lives due to fire in Surat. My thoughts are with the families of the deceased. I pray for the speedy recovery of the injured," Rajnath Singh said in a tweet.
BJP chief Amit Shah also expressed his grief on the tragedy and asked BJP workers to provide all possible assistance.
"Deeply anguished by the loss of lives due to a tragic fire accident in Surat, Gujarat. My condolences with the bereaved families. I pray for the speedy recovery of those injured. I urge our karyakartas of BJP Surat unit to assist the people in need," Amit Shah said in his tweet.
Deeply anguished by the loss of lives due to a tragic fire accident in Surat, Gujarat. My condolences with the bereaved families. I pray for the speedy recovery of those injured. I urge our karyakartas of BJP Surat unit to assist the people in need.
Congress chief Rahul Gandhi tweeted to express anguish on the incident and prayed for the speedy recovery of those injured. | Fire | May 2019 | ['(India Today)'] |
The Toronto Raptors defeat the Milwaukee Bucks in Game 6 and advance to the NBA Finals for the first time in the team's history. | The Kawhi Leonard trade was worth it. After years of slamming their heads into a LeBron James-enforced glass ceiling, the Raptors are headed to the NBA Finals for the first time in franchise history, securing a come-from-behind, 100–94 win over the Bucks in Game 6 of the East Finals. The Raptors overcame a 15-point deficit in a dramatic second half Saturday, and now they’ll face the Warriors in the championship round beginning May 30.
Simply put: Leonard cemented himself as the best player in the NBA against the Bucks. With Kevin Durant injured out West, and Kawhi facing an athletic marvel in Giannis Antetokounmpo, Leonard delivered with aplomb on both sides of the floor in the conference finals. He scored 27 points in the decisive Game 6, while collecting seven assists and a whopping 17 rebounds, including four massive ones off the offensive glass. Kawhi scored 19 points in the second half, continuing the trend of him outplaying Antetokounmpo in the game’s most crucial moments.
Kawhi’s play over the last four games was exactly why Masai Ujiri parted with longtime franchise favorite DeMar DeRozan last summer. Leonard is able to exert control over a game in a way reserved for the elitist of the elite. His imprint was all over Game 6, from timely buckets to his lockdown defense on Antetokounmpo, to his impressive passing after commanding double teams. Leonard carried a Herculean burden offensively, while forcing Giannis into easily his worst series of the playoffs on the other end of the floor. And he’s the biggest reason the Raptors will be headed to the Finals.
Over the last four games of the series, Toronto forced Milwaukee to play in mud, and the Bucks faltered when the games slowed to a snail’s pace. The Raptors thrived in the half court, and Saturday received timely contributions from the likes of Kyle Lowry and Fred VanVleet. After shooting 7-of-9 from three in Game 5, VanVleet followed up with a 4-of-5 performance from beyond the arc in Game 6. Toronto connected at a higher rate than Milwaukee from deep, while also outscoring the Bucks from midrange and in the paint. Milwaukee was simply not built to play these type of half-court contests, and its offense looked bogged down for the fourth straight game.
Antetokounmpo will undoubtedly use this series as a learning experience. Leonard shut him down defensively when the two were matched up. Giannis was inconsistent at best in the half court, and at times he looked hesitant to shoot, all while also struggling from the free throw line. The Bucks’ supporting cast couldn’t bail out Antetokounmpo despite all the attention he drew in the paint, a concerning thought as the team heads toward a pivotal offseason. The stats from Games 3–6 paint a grim picture for the Bucks. Their offensive rating, a sterling 113.5 during the regular season, plummeted to 102.3 during the four-game losing streak. The pace of the final four games was a deliberate 94.6, which undoubtedly exacerbated Milwaukee’s struggles.
But Saturday, and this series, will ultimately be about Leonard. He's playing better now than he did when he won Finals MVP in 2014. Leonard’s last playoff run saw him take a massive leap, and he’s again taken his game to another level. He’s become an equalizer for the Raptors. If, and when, everyone else on the floor is struggling, Nick Nurse can call an iso for Kawhi and expect a bucket. When an opponent presents an until-this-moment unstoppable offensive force, Nurse can ask Kawhi to check him defensively and slow him down considerably. It’s unclear what Leonard’s presence will mean in a series against the Warriors, but the fact that he can credibly be the best player on the floor at times during that matchup speaks to not only why Toronto acquired him, but also how well Kawhi has played throughout this postseason.
For the Raptors, the work is not done. Golden State is the favorite, but particularly with Durant’s injury, the Warriors are probably in their most vulnerable state of the last three years. Toronto will have a legitimate belief at the start of the Finals, which is probably much more than whatever the Cavaliers had at the start of last year’s championship. But this Raptors season is already a success. Last summer’s makeover—and the continuing tinkering at the trade deadline—worked exactly as intended. And now, Toronto is headed to its first-ever Finals, with an unquestioned superstar at the height of his power—another franchise first—leading the charge.
The Bills' plans to build a new stadium in Orchard Park are still pending approval, but their new home could be ready for games as early as 2025.
The two South American powers meet in the Copa América group stage on Friday, June 18th.
Bills wide receiver Cole Beasley explained why he's going unvaccinated after blasting the NFL and NFLPA on Thursday for this season's COVID-19 protocols.
There's no doubting the individual talent of England's stars, but there's a lack of purpose between them, and that was indeed the case again in a scoreless tie.
Wizards star Bradley Beal will be a first-time participant in the Tokyo Olympics, having previously been a finalist for the 2016 Rio Games.
There hasn't been a women's soccer tournament at the Olympics without the Brazilian veteran.
The Gold Cup contenders each revealed squads of up to 60 players, which will be trimmed down to 23, but there are still significant indications given by such sizable groups.
Shohei Ohtani is currently third in MLB with 19 homers and he will become the first Japanese-born player to compete in the Derby.
How to watch the Euros group stage match between England and Scotland on Friday, June 18. | Sports Competition | May 2019 | ['(CBC)', '(Sports Illustrated)'] |
United Kingdom House of Commons Speaker Michael Martin announces that he will resign on June 21. | Michael Martin: 'I will relinquish the office of Speaker on Sunday, 21st June'
Michael Martin has told MPs he intends to stand down, so becoming the first Commons Speaker to be effectively forced out of office for 300 years.
In a brief statement, he said he would step down on 21 June, with a successor set to be elected by MPs the next day. Mr Martin, who will also step down as an MP, has faced criticism over his handling of the MP expenses issue. He later announced a clampdown on MPs' expenses - with a £1,250 cap on mortgage interest and rent payments. He was clapped and cheered by MPs as he announced emergency changes to the expenses system which have been agreed between the party leaders. These include a ban on "flipping" of second homes and of using allowances to buy furniture and household goods - and a £1,250 a month cap on mortgage or rent on second homes, which will come down in future years. He said all parties were now committed to accepting the recommendations of Sir Christopher Kelly's Committee on Standards in Public Life, provided they met certain tests. He also announced proposals to "tighten up" the administration of the expenses system with a "reasonableness" test to block dubious claims. Hear hears
On Monday, Mr Martin apologised for his role in events but gave no indication about when he would stand down - only to be challenged by a succession of MPs who asked for a debate on a motion of no confidence in him. In his resignation statement, on Tuesday afternoon, which lasted just 35 seconds, Mr Martin said: "I have always felt that the House is at its best when it is united. "In order that unity can be maintained, I have decided that I will relinquish office of Speaker on Sunday 21 June. "This will allow the House to proceed to elect a new Speaker on Monday 22 June." He finished by adding "that is all I have to say on this matter" before going on to ask for questions to Foreign Secretary David Miliband. Mr Miliband said the House would respect his wishes and pay its tributes at "a later date". But independent MP Bob Spink, who asked the first question, paid "the warmest possible tribute" to Mr Martin - to "hear hears" from MPs. 'Aggressive attitude'
BBC political correspondent Iain Watson said sources had confirmed that a meeting took place between the prime minister and the Speaker on Monday night to discuss Mr Martin's future. Additionally, meetings were arranged between allies of the prime minister and friends of Michael Martin and between the Speaker and the government's business managers. Our correspondent said the prime minister was very keen not to be seen to be forcing Mr Martin from office. But the key message at these meetings was that government business managers would have to allow a motion of no confidence to be debated if it were signed by a large number of people. At a news conference Mr Brown paid tribute to his "30 years of public service" - a record of which, he said, Mr Martin and his family could be proud. Mr Martin's spokeswoman said he would stand down as MP for Glasgow North East on June 21, sparking a by-election in what has been considered a safe Labour seat. Later in a written statement Commons leader Harriet Harman paid tribute to Mr Martin's "passionate commitment to the House" and said he had served "with distinction". David Cameron: 'A new Speaker is a good start'
She said: "Michael Martin's resignation today as Speaker is an act of great generosity to the House of Commons that Members of Parliament from all parties will respect." Labour MP Paul Flynn, who was among those who signed the no confidence motion, told the BBC it had been "painful" to see the Speaker forced out but it was inevitable. But he added: "He had not recognised the seriousness of the situation and... made a disastrous situation even worse by his lack of penitence, by his aggressive attitude by his attempt to blame the whistleblowers." Mr Martin's critics say he was the driving force behind repeated attempts by Commons authorities to block details of MPs' expenses from coming out under Freedom of Information legislation. But his supporters say he has long been the victim of snobbery and has been made a scapegoat for a scandal that has affected all the main parties. Meanwhile, in other events linked to the row over MPs' second homes expenses, the Metropolitan Police have said they will not investigate how details of claims came to be leaked to the Daily Telegraph. A spokesman said it was likely the "public interest defence would be likely to prove a significant hurdle" to a criminal prosecution. But he said officers from the Economic and Specialist Crime Command had met senior Crown Prosecution Service solicitors to discuss allegations some MPs had misused public money. Moat cost
Gordon Brown has said no Labour MP who broke expenses rules would stand at the next election. And former Conservative minister Douglas Hogg said he would stand down as an MP at the next general election. He has already agreed to repay £2,200 - the cost of clearing a moat at his country estate - which had been on paperwork submitted to the Commons fees office in support of his claims. Tory backbencher Douglas Carswell - who put forward the motion of no confidence in Mr Martin - said the Parliamentary system had fallen into disrepute with many MPs being seen as "parasites" over the expenses scandal. But he told the BBC: "Removing Michael Martin is not the end, it is the beginning - a new Speaker has to be reformist, they need to be progressive." | Government Job change - Resignation_Dismissal | May 2009 | ['(BBC)'] |
Chicago, Illinois Mayor Rahm Emanuel asked for and received the resignation of that city’s police superintendent Garry McCarthy. Emanuel spoke of the loss of the public’s confidence in the city police and announced a task force on police accountability. The change comes in the wake of protests over the release of police footage showing the October 2014 shooting of Laquan McDonald. | By Ashley Fantz and Holly Yan, CNN
Updated 2334 GMT (0734 HKT) December 1, 2015 (CNN)Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Tuesday he has asked for the resignation of Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy. | Government Job change - Resignation_Dismissal | December 2015 | ['(CNN)'] |
Nine soldiers are killed and nine others are wounded during a long exchange of fire with armed groups in Bandiagara, Mali. | Nine other soldiers were wounded, five of them seriously, amid a long exchange of fire with armed groups.
Nine soldiers have been killed in an attack near the central Malian town of Bandiagara, in an area where armed groups are rampant, a military official has said.
Army and local officials had earlier spoken of a death toll of eight in the attack on a gendarmerie post which took place on Thursday night.
Nine Malian soldiers were also wounded, five of them seriously, according to a military official who declined to be named.
A local official also said there was a long exchange of fire with a large number of fighters.
Mali has been plagued by a brutal conflict that began as a separatist movement in the north but devolved into a multitude of armed groups jockeying for control in the country’s central and northern regions.
The insecurity has spread across the arid scrublands of the Sahel, into Burkina Faso and Niger, with groups exploiting the poverty of marginalised communities and inflaming tensions between ethnic groups.
Attacks grew fivefold between 2016 and 2020, with 4,000 people killed in the three countries last year, up from about 770 in 2016, according to the United Nations.
Rebel attacks in central Mali typically involve roadside bombs or hit-and-run raids on motorbikes or pickups.
The region has seen a string of deadly attacks since the start of the year, including a roadside bomb that killed four United Nations peacekeepers from the Ivory Coast.
French and Malian troops have also carried out a joint mission in the area, called Operation Eclipse. According to a Malian army statement on January 26, “100 terrorists were neutralised” in the operation.
The deteriorating security situation has created an enormous humanitarian crisis across the Sahel, destroying fragile agricultural economies and hobbling aid efforts.
| Armed Conflict | February 2021 | ['(Al Jazeera)'] |
Official European Union figures shows that unemployment in the eurozone hit a record high of 12.0% in February 2013. | Official European Union figures published Tuesday showed unemployment in the eurozone hit a record high of 12.0% in February, and young people are paying a particularly heavy price. The reported January rate of 11.9% was also revised up to 12.0%, meaning the continent has spent consecutive months at the new record level. Some 19 million people are out of work in the eurozone, 3.6 million of them under the age of 25, meaning nearly one in every four young people are without a job. Compared with the same month a year earlier, the jobless total in the eurozone has increased by 1.8 million, with the depressed economies of southern Europe suffering the most. There is little hope that Europe will return to growth this quarter, especially in the wake of a messy and tumultuous bailout for the tiny nation of Cyprus. Related story: Tough times for Cyprus after EU bailout The European Central Bank will meet later this week to discuss monetary policy for the first time since the country's bank bailout deal was done. The ECB remains under pressure to cut interest rates. There has been more gloomy economic news since it last met, including Italy downgrading its forecast for this year and weak sentiment survey from the European Commission. Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2019 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc.2019. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2019 and/or its affiliates. | Break historical records | April 2013 | ['(CNN)'] |
Five aid workers representing Médecins Sans Frontières are killed in a Taliban ambush in northwestern Afghanistan. The workers are one Dutchman, one Belgian, one Norwegian, and two Afghans. The incident leads MSF to temporarily suspend their activities nationwide, except for lifesaving activities. | The attack occurred in the village of Khair Khana, in Badghis province, 550 km (340 miles) west of Kabul.
All the victims were staff of international aid organisation Medecins Sans Frontieres and were thought to be setting up a clinic in the area.
The former ruling Taleban has said it carried out the attack.
A spokesman in the Pakistani city of Peshawar said his political grouping was responsible for firing on what he alleged was a United Nations vehicle.
Security experts have confirmed that an ongoing Taleban insurrection, while concentrated in Afghanistan's south and east, had also spilled over to the north-west.
MSF confirmed the five victims worked for them.
The foreign victims were a Belgian woman who was a project co-ordinator, a Dutch male logistician and a Norwegian male doctor. The Afghan victims were a driver and a translator for the organisation. Three other Afghans in the vehicle escaped unhurt.
Poor security
Gunmen opened fire on their car as they left their office on Wednesday afternoon, Badghis province police chief Amir Shah Naibzada said.
The vehicle was badly damaged, and shell cases were seen strewn by the roadside. Mr Naibzada said there were two attackers, one armed with a pistol and the other with a Kalashnikov assault rifle.
There was a lone
tyre track leading away from the scene, suggesting the
attackers fled on a single motorbike.
Taleban rebels have targeted aid workers in the south and east of the country, in what is being seen as an attempt to undermine government efforts at reconstruction.
Correspondents say the continuing violence has cast a shadow over plans for elections in the war-torn country in September.
Suspected Taleban fighters killed two Britons and their Afghan translator in eastern Nuristan province in May while evaluating security for the voter registration process. Such attacks have not so far been reported in the north, but security there is poor and armed robberies are common. | Armed Conflict | June 2004 | ['(MSF)', '(BBC)', '(MSF Press Release)', '[permanent dead link]'] |
Karl Lacey of Donegal is named the GAA All Stars Footballer of the Year, alongside which he picks up his fourth All Star. | Karl Lacey edges out Donegal team-mates Colm McFadden and Frank McGlynn to be named Gaelic Footballer of 2012.
Lacey was one of eight Donegal players to pick up their Football All-Stars in Dublin on Friday night.
Defender Lacey, picking up his fourth All-Star, said his player of the year award "tops off an unbelievable 2012".
| Awards ceremony | October 2012 | ['(BBC Sport)'] |
A strong cold front sweeps across south–eastern Australia, bringing destructive winds to South Australia, Victoria and Tasmania. In Melbourne, a woman died when part of a wall collapsed in the suburb of Mentone. |
A 57-year-old woman was killed when a three-metre wall collapsed on her in high winds, as she walked past a post office at Mentone, in Melbourne's south-east.
The wild weather, including gale force winds, has caused damage across the state with the weather bureau reporting wind gusts of up to 132 kilometres per hour at Mount Gellibrand.
The State Emergency Service (SES) has received more than 1,200 calls for assistance with storm damage.
More than 215,000 electricity users are without power because of the weather.
At the peak of the blackout, more than 290,000 users were without power, with Melbourne's eastern suburbs the worst affected.
Scott Parker from energy company Alinta says emergency crews are working to restore services, but some people may be without power until early tomorrow.
"We have around 200 crew members out on site making sure people and areas are safe before we making decisions about getting people back on," he said.
SES spokesman John Parker says their phone lines are jammed and some people will have to wait for assistance.
"We're just asking people to be patient," he said.
Part of the roof of the Caulfield hospital in Melbourne's south-east has been torn off.
An 89-year-old man is in hospital after being blown off a roof at Bulleen in the city's east and two people have minor injuries after a tree hit their car at Dandenong.
At Mornington, one boat has sunk and 15 have broken their moorings and washed ashore on Mothers Beach.
The Mornington Yacht Club Commodore, John Hart, says another five boats may break free, after winds of up to 72-knots lashed the area.
"We're not too sure what their damage is, but the total value of the boats on the beach at the moment would be in the region of $2 million," he said.
"One large motor cruiser has sunk, it broke its moorings and smashed one of the piers off and has sunk in the harbour."
Some lanes on the Westgate Bridge have been closed with drivers being warned to take extreme care going over the bridge.
The Sandown races had to be abandoned and the Melbourne Flower and Garden show in the Carlton Gardens was closed after a falling branch struck a man.
There are also major delays for rail commuters on all lines.
Connex says trains have been hit by lightning and trees are down across railway tracks.
Spokesman John Rees says there could be delays of two hours or more.
"The system is continuing to experience widespread disruptions, they are very severe indeed," he said.
"But we will run buses where we are unable to run trains, and we're just looking at a very, very delayed network."
We acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Australians and Traditional Custodians of the lands where we live, learn, and work.
| Hurricanes_Tornado_Storm_Blizzard | April 2008 | ['(ABC News Australia)'] |
Russia issues an international arrest warrant for former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky on charges of organizing the murder of Vladimir Petukhov, mayor of Nefteyugansk in 1998. | Former oil tycoon says order to have him arrested in absentia over alleged murders shows that Russian authorities have ‘gone mad’
Last modified on Wed 29 Nov 2017 05.18 GMT
Russia has issued an international arrest warrant for Mikhail Khodorkovsky as Moscow ramped up the pressure on the leading critic of Vladimir Putin.
Earlier this month the investigative committee, which reports directly to the Russian president, charged the former oil tycoon in absentia with organising the 1998 murder of a mayor in Siberia, a move supporters say is aimed at silencing the exiled Kremlin critic.
Khodorkovsky, 52, was also charged with the attempted murders of two other people.
Investigative committee spokesman Vladimir Markin confirmed in a statement on Wednesday that an international arrest warrant had been issued for Khodorkovsky, who lives abroad and spends much of his time in London.
“They’ve gone mad,” Khodorkovsky said in a statement released by his opposition group, Open Russia.
He said an order to have him arrested in absentia compared favourably with a new law that would allow Russian police to fire at women and children.
“And what’s most important, it will be safe for the public,” he said.
His spokeswoman, Kulle Pispanen, dismissed the announcement as political pressure and said it would not affect the former head of bankrupt oil giant Yukos.
“Mikhail Borisovich will by no means limit his movements because of the hysterical actions of the Kremlin ghouls,” Pispanen told AFP, referring to the former business magnate by his first name and patronymic.
Markin on Wednesday reiterated the charges against Khodorkovsky.
Khodorkovsky’s lawyer, Vadim Klyuvgant, said it was up to other countries to decide whether to comply with the warrant.
Speaking on Echo of Moscow radio, he called the arrest announcement “another bout of fraudulent activities”.
On Tuesday, investigators raided the apartments of employees of Open Russia, a group set up to help nurture civil society in the country, as well as its offices.
The searches appeared to be connected to a 2003 case that led to the criminal prosecution of Khodorkovsky, one of Russia’s most powerful oligarchs, and the dismemberment of Yukos, which have become defining events in Putin’s presidency.
The investigative committee has said it is also checking the information provided in foreign courts by shareholders of now-bankrupt Yukos, who are seeking $50bn (34bn) in damages from Russia and have convinced a Paris appeals court to back the freezing of Russian assets in France.
Khodorkovsky’s staff and supporters ridiculed the raids that took place on Tuesday.
“In revenge for the arrest of Russian property in France, the investigative committee arrested Kulle Pispanen’s MacBook and iPhone, a letter to Father Christmas and a portrait of Khodorkovsky,” Maria Baronova, an Open Russia employee, said on Facebook.
Khodorkovsky spent a decade in prison on charges of tax evasion, fraud and embezzlement, which he and his supporters say were trumped up in revenge for his political ambitions.
He was suddenly pardoned by Putin in 2013 and flown out of the country.
Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, insisted on Wednesday that there was no contradiction between the president’s move to pardon the ex-tycoon and the arrest warrant.
When investigators announced earlier this month that they planned to press new charges against Khodorkovsky, he called a news conference in London, saying revolution in Russia was inevitable.
“The investigation is looking into who stole Yukos shares,” Khodorkovsky said on Twitter on Tuesday.
“Let me give you a tip,” he added in a posting with a picture of the Kremlin. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | December 2015 | ['(The Guardian)'] |
Jonny Marray makes it to final of the men's doubles at Wimbledon, becoming the first Briton to do so in 52 years. | Last updated on 6 July 20126 July 2012.From the section Tennis
Jonathan Marray became the first Briton to reach the men's doubles final at Wimbledon in 52 years after he and Freddie Nielsen overcame defending champions Mike and Bob Bryan.
Sheffield-based Marray and Denmark's Nielsen had played together at only three tournaments before Wimbledon.
But they prevailed 6-4 7-6 (11-9) 6-7 (4-7) 7-6 (7-5) against the 11-time Grand Slam-winning Americans.
Bobby Wilson and Mike Davies were the last British finalists in 1960.
That pair lost, while the last British winners were Patrick Hughes and Raymond Tuckey in 1936.
Jeremy Bates was the last Briton to reach a Grand Slam men's doubles final, at the 1988 Australian Open.
Marray, 31, and Nielsen will face the fifth seeds, Robert Lindstedt of Sweden and Romanian Horia Tecau, in the final on Saturday, on Centre Court after the women's singles final.
Nielsen has tennis pedigree as his grandfather Kurt was twice a runner-up in the men's singles at Wimbledon in 1953 and 1955.
The victory did not come without controversy, however. The Bryans were angry at being moved to Court 12, where Hawk-Eye was not available, and they vented frustration at the umpire on several occasions.
"They've won all these tournaments many times over," said Marray. "To actually beat them in our first semi-final at Wimbledon is a pretty big thing. "
And looking ahead to the final, he added: "Winning a trophy at Wimbledon is why I play tennis.
"That's what I dreamed of when I was growing up so for it to come true would be the pinnacle of my career."
Serena and Venus Williams booked their place in the final of the women's doubles with a 2-6 6-1 6-2 win over number one seeds and fellow Americans Liezel Huber and Lisa Raymond.
The four-time champions will meet Czech duo Andrea Hlavackova and Lucie Hradecka in the final, after they saw off Italian pairing Flavia Pennetta and Francesca Schiavone.
Serena contests the singles final against Agnieszka Radwanska on Saturday (1400 BST), and will return to Centre Court later with Venus following the conclusion of the men's doubles final. | Sports Competition | July 2012 | ['(BBC)'] |
Irish fruit firm Fyffes and U.S. rival Chiquita agree to combine, creating the world's largest banana company in an all–stock deal valued at about $1.07 billion. | Irish fruit firm Fyffes and US rival Chiquita are to merge to create the world's largest banana company, worth about $1bn (£597m).
The new firm, named ChiquitaFyffes, is expected to sell about 160 million boxes of bananas annually, more than any rival.
"This is a milestone transaction for Chiquita and Fyffes that brings together the best of both companies," said Chiquita boss Ed Lonergan.
It will be listed in New York. In the merger, shareholders will receive shares in each firm, with Fyffes shareholders owning about 49.3% of the combined company.
Mr Lonergan said the deal would help it to save costs and expand the areas it served.
The tie-up came as Fyffes revealed that its profit before tax for 2013 rose 9.8% to 28.7m euros (£23.8m).
It said results in its banana division were "broadly satisfactory", although profits in that division were slightly down compared with 2012's strong performance. It said "significant inflation" in the cost of fruit and the strength of the US dollar against sterling had both hit performance.
The global market is currently controlled by four firms - Chiquita, Dole Food Company, Fresh Del Monte and Fyffes - according to the United Nations.
"The first three [companies] on a global scale are not too far away from each other, whereas Fyffes was a good deal smaller. Now a firm number one has been created, there will be some impetus for further consolidation in the sector," said David Holohan, analyst at Merrion Stockbrokers.
The deal is expected to go through this year, but will be subject to review by competition authorities.
However, Mr Holohan said that because the two firms operated mainly in separate North American and European markets, this was unlikely to be a problem. Fyffes warns of fruit price rise | Organization Merge | March 2014 | ['(BBC)'] |
Rory Stewart is eliminated after coming in fifth place in today's third round voting. The front runner remains Boris Johnson. Jeremy Hunt, Michael Gove, and Sajid Javid came in second, third, and fourth respectively. A fourth round will be taken tomorrow. | Four men are left in the race to be next prime minister after Rory Stewart was knocked out.
The international development secretary was eliminated after coming last with 27 votes, 10 fewer than last time. He said his warnings about a no-deal Brexit "probably proved to be truths people weren't quite ready to hear".
Boris Johnson topped the vote again with 143 votes, 17 more than last time. Jeremy Hunt came second with 54, Michael Gove got 51 and Sajid Javid 38.
A fourth round of voting will take place on Thursday. Mr Stewart started as a rank outsider in the race but gained support on the back of an unusual campaign strategy. Touring the country for pop-up meetings, which were promoted and recorded on social media, he drew large crowds and won the backing of several senior cabinet ministers. He had accused other candidates, including Mr Johnson, of lacking realism over Brexit and making undeliverable promises. After his elimination, he tweeted that he had been "inspired" by the support he received which had rekindled his faith and belief in politics.
I am so moved & inspired by the support I have received over the last few weeks - it has given me a new faith in politics, a new belief in our country. I didn’t get enough MPs to believe today - but they will ? I remain deeply committed to you and to this country. #RoryWalksOn
Mr Stewart's vote tally fell from Tuesday - following a live BBC TV debate in which he summed up his own performance as "lacklustre".
There have also been suggestions of tactical voting - "dark arts" as he called them - with candidates lending votes to others in order to help eliminate certain rivals. One MP supporting Mr Stewart claimed he had been "let down" by "thieving, mendacious, lying" colleagues who had switched.
Following his exit, Mr Stewart - MP for Penrith and The Border - told the BBC he was "disappointed" and believed his party "didn't seem ready to hear his message" about Brexit and the need to seek out the centre ground. He said his arguments during the campaign that an alternative Brexit deal was not on offer from the EU, and a no deal would be catastrophic, were "probably truths people were not quite ready to hear, but I still think they are truths". He defended his attacks on Mr Johnson, saying the gravity of the situation meant it was right to warn that the frontrunner risked "letting down" his supporters over Brexit.
"These are the times to ask these questions, but I agree they are uncomfortable questions," he said.
"People felt they were exposing divisions in the party they were not comfortable with. "My conclusion is that you don't unify a family or a party by pretending to agree when you disagree. You unify through honesty and trust."
Mr Stewart, who has ruled out serving under Mr Johnson because of their differences over Brexit, added "I appear to have written my cabinet resignation letter."
He said he had not decided who to now support.
Home Secretary Mr Javid, who leapfrogged Mr Stewart in Wednesday's poll after gaining five votes on his second round tally, thanked Mr Stewart for his contribution to the campaign.
Thank you @RoryStewartUK for the positive impact you have had on this campaign. You’ve injected it with real humility, authenticity, and pragmatism. Like many I look forward to seeing the contribution you will make to our party and the country in the future.
Mr Javid said he was pleased to make it through into the next round, adding that he could provide "constructive competition" to frontrunner Boris Johnson if he made it into the final two. "People are crying out for change, if we don't offer change ourselves, they'll vote for change in the form of Corbyn - and I can be that agent of change", he said. Reacting to his third consecutive second place, Mr Hunt said the "stakes were too high to allow someone to sail through untested". Three times now MPs have chosen me as the person best-paced to take on Boris. If I make it to the final I will put my heart & soul into giving him the contest of his life: in politics today the unexpected often happens. The stakes too high to allow anyone to sail through untested
Liam Fox, who is backing Foreign Secretary Mr Hunt, said the surviving candidates were the four most experienced men in the field and this is what people expected all along. Tory MP Johnny Mercer, who is backing Mr Johnson, insisted there was "no complacency" despite his large lead, telling BBC News "there is still work to do".
Education Secretary Damian Hinds said Mr Gove had "closed the gap" on Mr Hunt in second place and was gaining momentum. He said the environment secretary had the experience, the vision and the plan to deliver Brexit that could unite the country. Delighted to have made it through! It’s great to have gained the support of 10 more colleagues and closed the gap to second once again #ReadyToLead #Gove4PM pic.twitter.com/u1e9GqwKB9
Unless another candidate drops out, there will be a fifth ballot on Thursday evening to determine the final two candidates who will go forward into a run-off of the party's 160,000 or so members. The winner will be announced in the week of 22 July. | Government Job change - Election | June 2019 | ['(BBC)'] |
Twenty-eight people are killed in a coordinated attack on the Dayah Hotel in central Mogadishu. The terrorist group Al-Shabaab claims responsibility. | Twenty-eight people were killed Wednesday when Al-Shabaab fighters attacked a popular Mogadishu hotel, setting off two car bombs and opening fire on security guards, according to the city's main ambulance service.
The attack, claimed by the Al-Qaeda-aligned Shabaab insurgents, began when a car loaded with explosives rammed the gate of the Dayah Hotel near the Somali parliament and state house.
Security sources said at least four gunmen then entered the compound and exchanged fire with security guards, but they were shot dead before reaching the main building where guests were staying. They were not counted among the 28 dead.
A second massive blast went off after ambulances and journalists had already rushed to the scene, leaving seven reporters with minor injuries, according to the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ).
They included an AFP photographer who suffered shrapnel wounds to his shoulder and leg, an Associated Press photographer and a reporter working with Al-Jazeera television.
"The number of casualties we have recorded today is 28 dead and 43 wounded. This is what we have confirmed with our teams but there were also other ambulances which carried some casualties (but) I don't know how many," said Dr Abukadir Abdirahman Adem, head of the ambulance service.
Somalia's Security Minister Abdirisak Omar Mohamed told reporters there were 10 people killed and 51 wounded in the attack.
"We commend the security guards of the hotel who fiercely fought the Shabaab attackers to defend the hotel," he said.
AFP images showed security forces and civilians milling about outside the devastated hotel -- its windows and doors blown out -- after the first explosion, when a second car exploded with a massive blast, sending thick plumes of smoke into the air and sending people fleeing.
Gunfire rang out from the hotel as civilians and rescue workers carried away the injured.
The Shabaab group claimed responsibility in a statement distributed on its Telegram messaging account.
"The mujahideen fighters have attacked a hotel and have managed to enter the hotel after detonating a car loaded with explosives," it said.
The Shabaab is fighting to overthrow the internationally-backed government of Somalia and regularly stages deadly attacks on state, military and civilian targets in the capital and elsewhere in the war-torn country.
- Election date set -
The attack -- the deadliest so far in Somalia in 2017 -- came shortly before the country's election commission announced that a long-awaited presidential vote would take place on February 8.
The date has been pushed back numerous times amid delays in a vote for lawmakers, who were finally sworn in in late December.
Somalia has not had an effective central government since the 1991 overthrow of president Siad Barre's military regime, which ushered in more than two decades of anarchy and conflict in a country deeply divided along clan lines.
The clan rivalries and lawlessness provided fertile ground for the Shabaab to take hold and seize territory, frustrating efforts to set up a central administration.
After a series of transitional governments were formed abroad, a previous parliament was chosen by 135 clan elders and set up in Mogadishu in 2012.
Somalis were promised a one-person, one-vote election in 2016.
But political infighting and ongoing insecurity due to the presence of Shabaab meant Somalis were handed a "limited" election, in which 14,025 specially picked delegates voted for 275 parliamentary seats distributed according to clan.
Another 72 seats in a new upper house were shared out according to region. | Armed Conflict | January 2017 | ['(Yahoo)', '(Al Jazeera)'] |
The United States government agrees to pay $3.4 billion to settle Cobell v. Salazar, a class–action lawsuit brought by Native American representatives who claimed that it has incorrectly accounted for Native American trust assets. | The Obama administration on Tuesday announced it would pay Native Americans $3.4 billion to settle a class-action lawsuit that claimed the federal government cheated tribes for more than a century of royalties for oil, mineral and other leases.
The settlement ends a 13-year legal battle that led to 3,600 filings, millions of pages of discovery documents and 11 separate appellate decisions. It is the largest settlement Native Americans have ever received from the federal government, eclipsing the sum of all previous settlements, according to the plaintiff’s lawyers.
The dispute stemmed from a 19th century decision to grant parcels of land to individual Indians and place the properties in trust accounts. For more than a century, the plaintiffs contended, the account holders were cheated out of their share of revenues that the federal government collects for leasing that land.
“We are here to right a past wrong,” Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Tuesday at a Washington, D.C., news conference to announce the settlement, which still must be approved by Congress and the courts. He was joined by Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. and Elouise Cobell, the lead plaintiff in the class-action lawsuit.
“I expected this settlement 10 years ago,” Cobell said. “Today we have an administration that is listening to us, an administration that is willing to admit the errors of the past.”
The plaintiffs had estimated they were owed as much as $47 billion. Congress had considered, but did not pass, a nearly $8-billion settlement as recently as 2006.
Cobell said she had to weigh the possibility of winning a greater sum against the tough situations faced by many of the plaintiffs.
“Time takes a toll, especially on elders living in abject poverty,” Cobell said. “Many of them died as we continued our struggle to settle this suit. Many more would not survive long to see a financial gain, if we had not settled now.”
President Obama had specifically directed his Cabinet to settle the matter when he took office, Salazar said. The president issued a statement Tuesday praising the deal and urging Congress to swiftly finalize it and “correct this long-standing injustice.”
“As a candidate, I heard from many in Indian country that the Cobell suit remained a stain on the nation-to-nation relationship I value so much,” Obama said. “I pledged my commitment to resolving this issue, and I am proud that my administration has taken this step today.”
The settlement, finalized Monday night after months of intense negotiations, provides a $1,000 cash payment to every individual who has a trust account and $2 billion for the federal government to buy back the land parcels, some of which have been subdivided so much over the decades as to become almost worthless.
The government would consolidate the parcels and then return them to tribes. It would also provide up to $60 million for scholarships for Native American children.
Salazar said he was also creating a commission to recommend how to manage the trusts in the future.
The trusts date back to the 1887 Dawes Act, which attempted to erode the tribal system by granting parcels of land to individual Native Americans.
The Indians were not allowed to control their new property. Instead, the land was placed in trust and the government promised to pay the owners royalties for oil and gas, grazing or recreational leases. For more than a century, however, Indians received little or no payment.
In the 1990s, Cobell, a banker and rancher in the Blackfoot Nation in Montana, decided to do something about it and filed a class-action suit, funded partly by nonprofit groups.
Now, the government and the plaintiffs will have to determine who gets paid and whose land can be bought. The records are in such disarray it is not clear how many individuals are affected by the settlement -- estimates range from 300,000 to 500,000 people.
Those affected are mainly in the western United States, with the greatest concentration in the Great Plains and Montana, attorneys said.
In Washington, both Salazar and Cobell said they hoped the settlement could help create a more trusting relationship between tribes and the government.
Carl W. Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond in Virginia, noted that Native American distrust of the government long predates the tough stance the Department of Justice took in litigating the lawsuit.
Still, he said, the settlement could change attitudes.
“The Obama administration has made an effort to reach out to Native Americans in a number of ways,” he said. “In modern times, this is probably the biggest piece of litigation” against the government over mistreatment of Indians.
“In that way, this has a lot of symbolic impact,” he said. | Government Policy Changes | December 2009 | ['(Los Angeles Times)', '(Xinhua)', '(Voice of America)'] |
In South Africa, President Thabo Mbeki names energy and minerals minister Phumzile Mlambo–Ngcuka as his deputy president. She is the first woman to hold the position. | Sasco congratulates Mlambo-Ngcuka's appointment Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, the minerals and energy minister, has been appointed as our deputy president
The South African Students Congress (Sasco) congratulated newly appointed deputy president Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka - the first female in the country to get the position. Mlambo-Ngcuka, who had been minerals and energy minister, replaces Jacob Zuma, sacked last week.
Sicelo Mdletshe, Sasco spokesperson, said: "To us, her appointment demonstrates our government's commitment in the creation of a truly non-sexist and prosperous South Africa.
"As students, we have full confidence in her abilities and strongly believe that she will execute her new assignment successfully."
Sasco also saluted President Thabo Mbeki for the leadership "he is providing to the country."
Mdletshe also congratulated the newly-appointed minister of minerals and energy, Lindiwe Hendricks and deputy ministers of Trade and Industry, Elizabeth Thabethe and Rob Davies on their new responsibilities.
"We pledge our support to all these comrades and commit ourselves to be always ready to lend a helping hand whenever necessary," said Mdletshe.
Mbeki made the announcement during a press conference following Cabinet's fortnightly meeting at Tuynhuys today. He also used the opportunity to announce a minor reshuffle to his Cabinet. - Sapa | Government Job change - Appoint_Inauguration | June 2005 | ['(SABC)', '(Reuters SA)', '(News24)', '(BBC profile)'] |
Leo Varadkar becomes the new party leader of Fine Gael, after winning 51 of 73 votes in the parliamentary party, and is expected to become Taoiseach of Ireland, which would make him the youngest and first openly gay man to be Taoiseach, as well as being the first of half-Indian descent. | Frontrunner Leo battled for the coveted role against Simon Coveney and now becomes the 11th Fine Gael leader
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LEO Varadkar has been confirmed as the new leader of Fine Gael - and looks set to become the youngest Taoiseach in the history of the State aged just 38.
Frontrunner Leo battled for the coveted role against Simon Coveney, a 44-year-old father-of-three from Cork.
The Dubliner won 70 per cent of the parliamentary vote after getting the 55 per cent of councillor's backing earlier on.
Overall Varadkar won the race with 60 per cent of the party backing him and becomes the 11th leader of Fine Gael.
The Fine Gael leadership race - and with it the fight to be Taoiseach - began in the middle of May after Enda Kenny confirmed the long-awaited date for his departure.
Ireland's new Taoiseach is not expected to be formally confirmed until June 13 when the Dail resumes following a week long break.
Speaking after the vote, current Taoiseach Enda Kenny offered his "heartiest congratulations" to Deputy Varadkar on his election as Leader of the Fine Gael party.
"This is a tremendous honour for him and I know he will devote his life to improving the lives of people across our country.
"He will have my full support in the work that lies ahead.
“The most important priority has to be the continued progress of our country led by Fine Gael in Government. I know that Leo has the capacity to provide the leadership required in order to achieve this.”
“I want to also thank and pay tribute to Simon Coveney for making the Leadership Election a real contest.
"This has been a wonderful exercise in democracy for the Fine Gael party," he added.
Fianna Fáil Leader Micheál Martin TD commented: “I wish to congratulate Leo Varadkar on his election as Fine Gael Leader. This is a proud moment for him and his family.
“Like many people I am glad that the long standing issue over the leadership of the Fine Gael party is now settled.
"Irish politics over the last twelve months has not been as productive as it could or should have been, and there is no doubt that the internal dynamic within Fine Gael has been the most influential factor in this."
He continued: “Fianna Fáil remains committed to delivering in full the Confidence and Supply Agreement.
“I look forward to meeting with the new Leader of Fine Gael... and delivering on the commitments in our three year agreement."
The new leader of Fine Gael was decided in an electoral college system that gives the Fine Gael parliamentary party, made up of 73 TDs, senators and MEPs, 65 per cent of the vote.
The 21,000 rank-and-file members of the party have 25% and 235 local representatives 10 per cent.
As the first openly gay Irish Cabinet Minister, Mr Varadkar has enjoyed a meteoric rise through the ranks of the party.
He was first elected a TD ten years ago, having joined Fine Gael while still in school.
In a radio interview in January 2015, on his 36th birthday, he revealed he was gay and was a prominent supporter of the Yes campaign in the same-sex marriage referendum the following May.
He kept tight-lipped on his leadership hopes in the days that followed Kenny's resignation, as nine Senators and 17 TDs gave him their backing on the first day of campaigning.
Varadkar's team also secretly launched a new campaign website - asking the public for help.
Supporters of Varadkar claim their man has the charisma to be the country’s next leader but Coveney insisted: “People are not looking for a Taoiseach with an X factor.”
Varadkar was tight-lipped in the early days of the campaign, but finally broke his silence to the Irish Sun on May 19 - revealing he was happy with how it had been going at that stage.
Varadkar and Coveney then battled in out in four party hustings across the country last week.
Leo accused his fellow Fine Gael contender Coveney of being divisive and dishonest - but Coveney hit back as voting began.
But the writing was on the wall for Coveney from the start, as Leo cruised to victory, with the Housing Minister needing a massive vote from the party membership to claw back his rival's lead.
Varadkar graduated from the School of Medicine in Trinity College in 2003 and spent several years working as a junior doctor in Connolly Hospital Blanchardstown before qualifying as a GP in 2010.
He was only 20 and in his second year in medical school when he contested the local elections in 1999 — but he only scored 380 first preference votes and was eliminated on the fifth count.
He was co-opted onto Fingal County Council in 2004, before being elected to Dail Eireann in the 2007 general election.
Varadkar was immediately appointed as Fine Gael’s spokesman for Enterprise, Trade and Employment.
He was re-elected in 2011 when Fine Gael came into power and he was made Transport Minister.
In a cabinet reshuffle in 2014, he replaced James Reilly as Health Minister.
He was returned to the Dail in the 2016 general election and was subsequently handed the job of Social Protection Minister.
| Government Job change - Election | June 2017 | ['(Prime Minister)', '(The Sun)'] |
Seven people are killed in a bombing targeting a NATO convoy in Kabul, days before the presidential elections in Afghanistan. | Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play. The suspected car bomb attack took place on a busy road
A suicide car bomber has killed 10 people in an attack on a convoy of Western troops in the Afghan capital.
More than 50 people were wounded in the explosion, which came despite heightened security ahead of Thursday's presidential election. A Nato soldier and nine Afghans, including two UN staff, died in the explosion, the Nato-led force said. Militants have threatened to disrupt the vote, in which Hamid Karzai is tipped to be re-elected president. However, correspondents say he is facing a strong challenge from ex-Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah. Several dozen candidates are in the race. The suicide car bomb went off at about 1pm on the main road out of Kabul to Jalalabad.
It's also the route to the sprawling Bagram international military base.
The road is often used to transport members of the International Security and Assistance Force in Afghanistan, and it is believed they were the intended target.
The bomb was heard in the neighbourhood and sent up a huge plume of black smoke, said witnesses, but Kabul's busy daily routine was barely affected. In other violence on Tuesday: A rocket was fired into the presidential compound in the capital, Kabul; no-one was reported injured Two US soldiers died in a roadside bomb in the east of the country Two civilians and three Afghan soldiers died when a suicide bomber on foot blew himself up in southern Uruzgan province, police said In the usually peaceful north, an election candidate was shot dead in Jowzjan province, and three poll workers were killed in Badakhshan when their car hit a bomb In a statement, President Karzai said such attacks would not deter Afghans, who would vote "despite the efforts of the enemies and will show their opposition to their barbaric acts", reports Reuters news agency. Body parts
But meanwhile, Afghanistan's foreign ministry urged the media not to cover any violence on election day, saying such reports could scare voters away. "This decision will control the negative impact of the media. If something happens, this will prevent them from exaggerating it, so that people will not be frightened to come out and vote," Siamak Herawi, a spokesman for President Karzai, told Reuters. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the Kabul suicide blast, which targeted a convoy of foreign troops near a bustling market on the busy Jalalabad road. Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) said in a statement: "Updated reports indicate those killed were one Isaf service member, seven Afghan civilians and two Afghan civilian employees of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan." An Associated Press reporter at the scene saw British soldiers, who were securing the site, collecting what appeared to be body parts from the roof of an Afghan home. "I was inside my shop and then it collapsed on me, so I walked away. There were a lot of dead bodies," shopkeeper Jawed Ahmad said. The latest violence comes as a BBC investigation found thousands of voting cards have been up for sale and thousands of dollars have been offered in bribes to buy votes. The Afghan Independent Election Commission, which is overseeing the ballot, denied voting cards were being sold, saying they could only be used by their rightful owners. Thursday's vote will be Afghanistan's second presidential election since the US-led invasion in 2001 toppled the Taliban regime. | Armed Conflict | August 2009 | ['(BBC)'] |
Four earthquakes ranging from 5 to 6.2 in magnitude hit the Philippines. | A 6.2-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of the Philippines this morning but caused no damage, authorities said.
The US Geological Survey said the quake occurred at 4:47am (local time), 125 kilometres west of Negros island, at a depth of 19 kilometres.
The Philippines Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said the quake struck in the Sulu Sea 93 kilometres south-west of Dumaguete City, one of the major cities on Negros.
Authorities were confident the quake caused no damage, according to Nazario Caro, a duty officer of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council on the neighbouring island of Panay.
"We did not issue any tsunami alert," Mr Caro told AFP by telephone.
"We have checked the nearby areas and we did not get any reports of damage or casualties."
The Philippines sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire - a belt around the Pacific Ocean dotted by active volcanoes and tectonic trenches, where eruptions and earthquakes take place frequently.
- | Earthquakes | July 2011 | ['(AFP via ABC News)', '(The Times of India)'] |
Workers of the Haft Tappeh sugar mill company in the ancient city of Shush, southwest Iran, continued their strike and protests to the unpaid salaries for the 15th consecutive day. | Largescale strikes, protests continue in Iran’s ancient city of Shush Workers and Employees of the Haft Tappeh sugar mill company in the ancient city of Shush, southwest Iran, continued their strike and protests on Monday for the15th consecutive day, despite measures by authorities dispatching anti-riot units to prevent any such gatherings.
According to reliable sources, 19 sugar cane mill, and factory workers have been arrested by the plain cloth of mullah’s secret service on Sunday, November 18. Following the day of arrests, the angry protestors launched demonstration in front of governance of Shush city, chanting, “Down with tyrants, viva workers”, “Do not be afraid, we are all together!”, “Neither threat nor prison is effective anymore!”
The Haft Tappeh Sugar Mill Workers’ Union said that 19 workers were detained, identifying them by name.
In a statement issued today, the union also said that the labor activists were detained after the peaceful protests on their way back to the company.
It said that the families of the detainees were very concerned about their well-being and that they were demanding the immediate release of their loved ones.
Founded half a century ago in the southern city of Shush, in Khuzestan Province, the Haft Tappeh Sugar Mill is the oldest sugar factory in Iran. Some 5,600 workers are currently working at the company.
State-run news sources said that only four people were detained.
IRNA state-run News Agency quoted the governor of Khuzestan as saying that he was informed that four people were arrested. The strike on Tuesday was met with force by security forces who tried to prevent the gatherings in which thousands of workers and their families were participating, demanding the release of the arrested workers.
Women played a significant role in the protests and stood at the forefront of the gatherings.
Reports indicate that women’s participation in the protests drew national support from other workers and teachers in Iran. Merchants and shop owners in the Shush Bazaar also closed their shops in support of the workers.
The most well-known workers who were arrested on Saturday were Ismael Bakhshi and Moslem Armand, and they were both at the forefront of almost all the protests. Ismael Bakhshi is a labor activist and represents Haft Tappeh workers. In his last speech during one of the demonstrations, which was recorded and uploaded on social media, he said that the government did not listen to them despite two weeks of protests.
“The families of some workers have to buy bread on credit, because of unpaid salaries and if this situation continues, even bakeries will refuse to sell bread to the workers on credit”
“We are angry but instead of carrying out specific measures, they bring in riot police and the filthy Seda and Sima (state TV) and film the clashes and say that they (the workers) are seditionists,” he said. “They only lie instead of solving the problem. The governor and Minister say that this (Haft Tappeh) company was bankrupt even though they embezzled it themselves. Even if they pay our wages, the strike will continue while the company is privatized,” Bakhshi said.
Since the privatization of the Haft Tappeh Sugar Mill in a questionable 2015 privatization deal, the condition of workers has worsened. They have said that since the transfer of ownership to the present owners, the company’s debts have increased, with the employer only thinking of reducing the permanent workforce.
Accusing the government of supporting the wealthy, the workers complain they have become poorer while the managers of the company have become richer.
Trade unionist Jafar Azimzadeh, the leading member of the Free Union of Workers in Iran, described the workers’ condition as “slavery.”
“The families of some workers have to buy bread on credit, because of unpaid salaries and if this situation continues, even bakeries will refuse to sell bread to the workers on credit,” he said, explaining the plight of workers who have not received their wages for months.
Under such financial strain, some workers have even reached the point of committing suicide.
Ali Naghdi was the latest instance whose dead body was found afloat in a canal on February 27. It was said that Naghdi committed suicide due to his debts as the company refused to pay his wages. Haft Tappeh workers have always had to fight for their wages, pensions and rights in the past years.
In recent months, they have been going on strikes periodically, protesting unfulfilled promises made by their employer.
The last time the Haft Tappeh Sugar Mill workers went on strike was in mid-August when 500 workers protested not being paid for at least three months. Reports indicate that riot police attacked the striking workers with tear gas and beat the protesters. Five workers were also detained but were later released after being charged with “disrupting order”.
This was not an isolated case of persecution against these workers. Iranian officials have in the past also responded with force, arresting leaders and members of the Haft Tappeh Workers’Syndicate. At least 100 workers of Haft Tappeh Sugar Mill have been summoned or detained only for speaking out and demanding their rights.
The Syndicate of Workers of Haft Tappeh Sugar Mill in Ahwaz announced on Sunday, February 4, that at least 34 of their workers were arrested by the police in their ongoing strike. Ismail Bakhshi, Karamat Pam, Rahim Besak and Ramadan Alipour were among the detainees.
A number of workers, including Hassan Alkasir, Amir Alkasir, Majid Amiri, and eight others were summoned to the Shush Intelligence Department via telephone on Tuesday, March 6. Earlier, Ramadan Alipour and Rahim Beshagh, labor activists and members of Haft Tappeh Sugar Mill Union were summoned by the 3rd Branch of the Shush Court.
Summonses were issued for about 20 Haft Tappeh Sugar Mill workers following a gathering outside of the governor’s office on March 28 in Ahwaz.
The summons said that the workers had to report to the Shush Prosecutor’s Office at 9am on Saturday, March 31. The workers who went to the Office on March 31 were told that it was closed for the holidays. According to reports, at 1pm on the same day, security forces came to the Haft Tappeh Sugar Mill with arrest warrants for the workers and detained a number of them. The forces then went to the homes of other workers to detain them.
Workers and Employees of the Haft Tappeh sugar mill company in the ancient city of Shush, southwest Iran, continued their strike and protests on Monday for the 15th consecutive day, despite measures by authorities dispatching anti-riot units to prevent any such gatherings.
According to reliable sources, 19 sugar cane mill, and factory workers have been arrested by the plain cloth of mullah’s secret service on Sunday, November 18. Following the day of arrests, the angry protestors launched demonstration in front of governance of Shush city, chanting, “Down with tyrants, viva workers”, “Do not be afraid, we are all together!”, “Neither threat nor prison is effective anymore!”
The Haft Tappeh Sugar Mill Workers’ Union said that 19 workers were detained, identifying them by name.
In a statement issued today, the union also said that the labor activists were detained after the peaceful protests on their way back to the company.
It said that the families of the detainees were very concerned about their well-being and that they were demanding the immediate release of their loved ones.
Founded half a century ago in the southern city of Shush, in Khuzestan Province, the Haft Tappeh Sugar Mill is the oldest sugar factory in Iran. Some 5,600 workers are currently working at the company.
State-run news sources said that only four people were detained.
IRNA state-run News Agency quoted the governor of Khuzestan as saying that he was informed that four people were arrested. The strike on Tuesday was met with force by security forces who tried to prevent the gatherings in which thousands of workers and their families were participating, demanding the release of the arrested workers.
Women played a significant role in the protests and stood at the forefront of the gatherings.
Reports indicate that women’s participation in the protests drew national support from other workers and teachers in Iran. Merchants and shop owners in the Shush Bazaar also closed their shops in support of the workers.
The most well-known workers who were arrested on Saturday were Ismael Bakhshi and Moslem Armand, and they were both at the forefront of almost all the protests. Ismael Bakhshi is a labor activist and represents Haft Tappeh workers. In his last speech during one of the demonstrations, which was recorded and uploaded on social media, he said that the government did not listen to them despite two weeks of protests.
“The families of some workers have to buy bread on credit, because of unpaid salaries and if this situation continues, even bakeries will refuse to sell bread to the workers on credit”
“We are angry but instead of carrying out specific measures, they bring in riot police and the filthy Seda and Sima (state TV) and film the clashes and say that they (the workers) are seditionists,” he said. “They only lie instead of solving the problem. The governor and Minister say that this (Haft Tappeh) company was bankrupt even though they embezzled it themselves. Even if they pay our wages, the strike will continue while the company is privatized,” Bakhshi said.
Since the privatization of the Haft Tappeh Sugar Mill in a questionable 2015 privatization deal, the condition of workers has worsened. They have said that since the transfer of ownership to the present owners, the company’s debts have increased, with the employer only thinking of reducing the permanent workforce.
Accusing the government of supporting the wealthy, the workers complain they have become poorer while the managers of the company have become richer.
Trade unionist Jafar Azimzadeh, the leading member of the Free Union of Workers in Iran, described the workers’ condition as “slavery.”
“The families of some workers have to buy bread on credit, because of unpaid salaries and if this situation continues, even bakeries will refuse to sell bread to the workers on credit,” he said, explaining the plight of workers who have not received their wages for months.
Under such financial strain, some workers have even reached the point of committing suicide.
Ali Naghdi was the latest instance whose dead body was found afloat in a canal on February 27. It was said that Naghdi committed suicide due to his debts as the company refused to pay his wages. Haft Tappeh workers have always had to fight for their wages, pensions and rights in the past years.
In recent months, they have been going on strikes periodically, protesting unfulfilled promises made by their employer.
The last time the Haft Tappeh Sugar Mill workers went on strike was in mid-August when 500 workers protested not being paid for at least three months. Reports indicate that riot police attacked the striking workers with tear gas and beat the protesters. Five workers were also detained but were later released after being charged with “disrupting order”.
This was not an isolated case of persecution against these workers. Iranian officials have in the past also responded with force, arresting leaders and members of the Haft Tappeh Workers’Syndicate. At least 100 workers of Haft Tappeh Sugar Mill have been summoned or detained only for speaking out and demanding their rights.
The Syndicate of Workers of Haft Tappeh Sugar Mill in Ahwaz announced on Sunday, February 4, that at least 34 of their workers were arrested by the police in their ongoing strike. Ismail Bakhshi, Karamat Pam, Rahim Besak and Ramadan Alipour were among the detainees.
A number of workers, including Hassan Alkasir, Amir Alkasir, Majid Amiri, and eight others were summoned to the Shush Intelligence Department via telephone on Tuesday, March 6. Earlier, Ramadan Alipour and Rahim Beshagh, labor activists and members of Haft Tappeh Sugar Mill Union were summoned by the 3rd Branch of the Shush Court.
Summonses were issued for about 20 Haft Tappeh Sugar Mill workers following a gathering outside of the governor’s office on March 28 in Ahwaz.
The summons said that the workers had to report to the Shush Prosecutor’s Office at 9am on Saturday, March 31. The workers who went to the Office on March 31 were told that it was closed for the holidays. According to reports, at 1pm on the same day, security forces came to the Haft Tappeh Sugar Mill with arrest warrants for the workers and detained a number of them. The forces then went to the homes of other workers to detain them. | Strike | November 2018 | ['(Al Arabiya)'] |
Former Cuban President Fidel Castro dismisses allegations that exU.S. State Department employee Kendall Myers spied for his country. | Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro says US allegations that a Washington couple spied for Cuba are a "ridiculous tale".
In an editorial, he questioned the timing of their arrest - days after the Organization of American States lifted Cuba's 1962 expulsion from the group. The couple, retired state department official Walter Kendall Myers and his wife, are accused of having passed on information to Cuba for three decades. The pair, both in their 70s, face up to 20 years in prison if found guilty. In his article, Mr Castro described the case as an "espionage comic strip". He admitted that he had met the Myerses in Mexico in 1995 - as the US alleges - but went on to say that he had met thousands of US citizens in his life for all sorts of reasons.
However on the question of whether the charges were true, the BBC's Michael Voss in Havana says Mr Castro was somewhat ambiguous. Those who have helped to protect Cuba "from the terrorist plans and assassination plots organised by various US administrations", the former president wrote, deserve "all the honours in the world". Washington DC residents Walter Myers, 72, and Gwendolyn Myers, 71, are accused of acting as illegal agents for Cuba and wire fraud. Their arrest, announced on Friday, followed a sting operation by the FBI. The US justice department says Mr Myers was first approached by the Cuban government in 1978, and that he and his wife agreed to provide information to Cuban intelligence. Mrs Myers' preferred method of passing on secrets was to exchange shopping trolleys in a grocery store, it said. Fidel Castro, 82, has not been seen in public since July 2006 and ceded power to his brother in February 2008. However comments by him appear frequently in Cuba's state-run press. What are these? | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | June 2009 | ['(ABC)', '(BBC)', '(Times of India)'] |
Iran agrees to allow inspections of a recently revealed nuclear facility near the city of Qom. | GENEVA Iran agreed on Thursday in talks with the United States and other major powers to open its newly revealed uranium enrichment plant near Qum to international inspection in the next two weeks and to send most of its openly declared enriched uranium outside Iran to be turned into fuel for a small reactor that produces medical isotopes, senior American and other Western officials said.
Iran’s agreement in principle to export most of its enriched uranium for processing if it happens would represent a major accomplishment for the West, reducing Iran’s ability to make a nuclear weapon quickly and buying more time for negotiations to bear fruit.
If Iran has secret stockpiles of enriched uranium, however, the accomplishment would be hollow, a senior American official conceded.
The officials described the long day of talks here with Iran, the first such discussions in which the United States has participated fully, as a modest success on a long and complicated road. Iran had at least finally engaged with the big powers on its nuclear program after more than a year and had agreed to some tangible, confidence-building steps before another meeting with the same participants before the end of this month.
But despite the relatively promising outcome, the Obama administration was at pains to strike a cautious tone, given Iran’s history of duplicity, its crackdown on its own people after the tainted June presidential elections and President Obama’s concern about being perceived as naïve or susceptible to a policy of Iranian delays.
Mr. Obama, speaking in Washington, called the talks “constructive,” but warned Tehran that he was prepared to move quickly to more stringent sanctions if negotiations over Iran’s nuclear ambitions dragged on.
“We’re not interested in talking for the sake of talking,” Mr. Obama told reporters in the White House Diplomatic Reception Room. “If Iran does not take steps in the near future to live up to its obligations, then the United States will not continue to negotiate indefinitely.” France and Britain have spoken of December as an informal deadline for Iran to negotiate seriously about stopping enrichment and cooperate fully with the International Atomic Energy Agency. American officials say that timeline is “about right,” but Iran continues to insist that it has the right to enrich uranium for what it calls a purely civilian program.
Mr. Obama said Tehran must allow international inspectors into the site near Qum within the next two weeks, a timeline Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, agreed to here.
The atomic energy agency’s director general, Mohamed ElBaradei, will travel to Tehran this weekend to discuss the details and timing of the inspections, officials said. But the Americans also want Iran to cooperate with the inspectors and make personnel and documents about the site near Qum available. Besides the scheduling of another meeting, the main practical accomplishment on Thursday was Iran’s agreement in principle to be worked out by experts later this month in Vienna to ship what American officials called “most” of its declared stockpile of lightly enriched uranium to Russia and France to be turned into nuclear fuel.
While American officials refused to specify the amount, other Western officials said it could be 1,200 kilograms, or more than 2,600 pounds, of enriched uranium, which could be as much as 75 percent of Iran’s declared stockpile. While there may be hidden stocks of enriched uranium, such a transfer, if it occurs, “buys some time” for further negotiations, a senior American official said.
Given the assessment that Iran has made enough low-enriched uranium to produce at least one nuclear weapon at some time in the future, a sharp reduction in its stockpile would be “a confidence-building measure to alleviate tensions and buy us some diplomatic space,” the official said.
Israel, the nation most concerned about a nuclear-armed Iran, has been informed of the discussions, another American official said.
Iran’s uranium is enriched to about 3.5 to 5 percent, the officials said; the Tehran reactor for making medical isotopes, last powered by Argentine-made fuel in 1993, needs uranium enriched to 19.75 percent, still far below weapons grade. And that uranium must then be fabricated into metal rods for the reactor.
Iran had told the International Atomic Energy Agency that it needed fuel for the Tehran reactor before December 2010. Washington, with its allies, pushed the agency to offer Iran the fuel, but made from Iran’s own enriched uranium as a feedstock. Mr. Jalili agreed to that in principle on Thursday.
The talks were between Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France as well as Germany, and led by the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Javier Solana.
The tone of the discussions, held just outside Geneva, was considerably more positive than just a week ago, after the United States revealed the existence of the uranium enrichment site near Qum and, with its European allies, threatened Iran with tough new sanctions if it refused to halt its uranium enrichment program, which they suspect is meant for creating atomic weapons.
“This was a day very much for the engagement track of the two-track strategy,” a senior American official said, with the second track increased sanctions to be discussed only if this new round of negotiations founders.
After a plenary session in the morning, the participants adjourned to a lunch where informal discussions continued, followed by three hours of informal bilateral meetings. Those included a 45-minute session between the chief American diplomat here, Under Secretary of State William J. Burns, and Mr. Jalili, the highest level United States-Iranian talks in three decades.
Mr. Burns raised a range of topics, including the nuclear dispute and the plant near Qum and human-rights issues, American officials said, while the Iranians raised their own concerns, including the need for a world free of nuclear bombs and access to peaceful nuclear energy for all.
Mr. Jalili, in a news conference, called the discussions “good talks that will be a framework for better talks,” and expressed satisfaction that the world had engaged with Iran’s global agenda, which includes nuclear disarmament. He denied that there were any other Iranian nuclear facilities hidden from the I.A.E.A.
Many diplomats and analysts believe that the plant near Qum is only one of a series of hidden installations that Iran has constructed, in addition to its publicly acknowledged ones, for what is considered to be a military program. Iran insists that its program is purely peaceful and that it has a right under the nonproliferation treaty to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes. But it has regularly lied to the United Nations and the International Atomic Energy Agency about its facilities.
Despite the uncertainties, nuclear experts hailed the tentative agreements. “It’s significant,” David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a private group in Washington that tracks nuclear proliferation, said. “The principle is important.”
Mr. Albright said the amount of low-enriched uranium to be shipped out of Iran was also significant. Iran’s stockpile has worried some arms controllers, who fear that Tehran may drop out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and further enrich the material into fuel for a bomb.
The new accord would end that prospect at least for the exported uranium.
Mr. Albright cautioned that the deal would become a real solution only if Iran expanded the accord to cover all the uranium that it wanted enriched. “Iran’s made a concession,” he said. “But it has little meaning for the long term unless Iran continues to send out” its uranium for enrichment. | Government Policy Changes | October 2009 | ['(The New York Times)'] |
A Russian marine is killed by rebel gunfire while on a mission to rescue the crew of the downed Su-24 near the Syrian-Turkish border, Russia's Defence Ministry confirms. | A Russian pilot who went missing after his jet was shot down by Turkey while taking part in air strikes over Syria was rescued in a 12-hour operation involving special forces, Russia says.
The pilot is "alive and well" at a Russian air base in Syria, it says. His co-pilot and a marine involved in a failed rescue attempt were killed.
Turkey said the jet had strayed into its airspace but Russian President Vladimir Putin says the plane was flying over Syrian territory.
It is not clear what has happened to the body of the other pilot, who was killed by gunfire as he parachuted from his burning plane.
Tensions have escalated between the two countries over the incident, and Russia has broken off military contacts with Turkey. The US, the EU and the UN have all appealed for calm. After Turkey became the first Nato member to shoot down a Russian plane in over half a century, the question now is how will Moscow respond? President Putin called Turkey an "accomplice of terrorists" and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov cancelled a planned trip to the Turkish capital Ankara on Wednesday. But the UN and Nato have urged both sides to de-escalate the crisis. According to Ankara, the Russian Su-24 was warned 10 times about entering Turkish airspace, though Moscow says there was no such communication. But Turkey also said the violation lasted just 17 seconds. And given signs that a united front was beginning to form against Islamic State, there will be diplomatic pressure on both sides to focus instead on the common threat from the militants. The tough talk from Ankara and Moscow will no doubt continue - but whether there will be serious retaliation is less clear.
President Putin has described the downing of the plane as a "stab in the back", and warned of serious consequences.
Turkey's President Recep Erdogan has defended the action, saying "everyone must respect the right of Turkey to protect its borders", but he stressed he did not want to escalate tensions further.
Turkey is a member of Nato. The alliance has backed Turkey's version of events, although it, too, is calling for "diplomacy and de-escalation" to resolve the situation. The two pilots - Lt Col Oleg Peshkov and Capt Konstantin Murakhtin - came under ground fire after they parachuted from their burning plane, Russia said.
Lt Col Peshkov was killed, and there had been various reports about the fate of Capt Murakhtin.
He was rescued by Russian and Syrian special forces in a 12-hour operation and was brought to the Russian base in Syria "alive and well", Russia's Defence Minister Sergei Shoygu said.
Soldier Aleksandr Pozynich was killed during the operation to rescue the pilots after his helicopter came under fire from rebels during "an emergency landing on neutral territory", Russian officials said.
President Putin said Lt Col Peshkov would posthumously be awarded Russia's highest award for valour, the Hero of Russia, and the other two men would be decorated with Orders of Courage (one of them posthumously).
While they talk of not wanting to escalate tensions, both Russia and Turkey had some harsh words for each other on Wednesday:
"We have serious doubts about this being an unpremeditated act, it really looks like a planned provocation" - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Turkey's downing of the jet.
"We should be honest here. Supporting someone who is practising state terror... if you confirm, if you approve violence or oppression you are (an) oppressor," Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in an apparent reference to Russia's support for Syria's President Assad.
"The problem is not the tragedy we witnessed yesterday. The problem is much deeper. We observe ... that the current Turkish leadership over a significant number of years has been pursuing a deliberate policy of supporting the Islamisisation of their country," Russian President Vladimir Putin on Turkey.
"No-one can legitimise attacks on Turkmen in Syria using the pretext of fighting the Islamic State," Turkish PM Ahmet Davutoglu suggesting Russia is not being honest about its targets in Syria.
Russian defence officials say the plane never entered Turkish territory, and that Turkish pilots made no attempt to communicate with the Russians before they fired.
Turkey says it warned them repeatedly before shooting the plane down. Russia has announced fighter jets will now escort its bombers during air strikes over Syria, and Moscow is sending out its most advanced anti-aircraft missile system, the S-400.
Russia and Turkey have found themselves on opposing sides in Syria's conflict, with Russia supporting President Bashar al-Assad, while Turkey is a staunch critic.
Russians have been advised not to visit Turkey - a popular tourist destination for Russians - and one of Russia's largest tour operators, Natali Tours, has suspended package holidays there.
There have been loud calls in Russia for economic sanctions and for all flights to Turkey to be cancelled, the BBC's Moscow correspondent, Sarah Rainsford, reports.
| Armed Conflict | November 2015 | ['(BBC)'] |
Israeli Prime Minister and Likud chairman Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli Foreign Minister and Yisrael Beiteinu chairman Avigdor Lieberman announce the unification of their two parties which will run as a single bloc for the upcoming election to be held in January 2013; the joint party will be called "Likud Beiteinu" ("The Likud Is Our Home") and Netanyahu will be number 1 on the list, followed by Liberman who will be number 2 on the list. |
In a move that took everyone by surprise, including their own senior party members, Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu party and the Benajmin Netanyahu’s Likud have joined forces ahead of the upcoming elections, and will be running as a joint list.
There will be a press conference on Thursday night at 8:00 PM in the Dan Panorama Hotel in Jerusalem, where they will officially announce the merger.
Channel 2 said the joint party will be called “Likud-Beyteinu”. Netanyahu will be number 1 on the list, followed by Liberman who will be his number 2.
Liberman used to be a member of the Likud, and broke away to form his own party in 1997. At the time the speculation was this was part of a larger master plan, where Liberman would attract the Russian votes that the Likud couldn’t, and support the Likud with the seats they gained.
The Likud currently has 27 seats, and Yisrael Beiteinu 15. This merger has the potential to increase their seats, as well as practically guarantee that they will be the largest party and bloc in the upcoming election.
Internal surveys say the joint list could win up to 50 seats.
| Organization Merge | October 2012 | ['(BBC)', '(The Jewish Press)', '(The Times of Israel)'] |
Kosovan voters go to the polls for a parliamentary election, with Hashim Thaci expected to win. | Hashim Thaci has promised to declare formal independence from Serbia after 10 December - the UN deadline for Albanians and Serbs to reach a deal.
It seems likely his party will have to form a coalition with bitter rivals.
Serbs, who want Kosovo to remain part of Serbia, boycotted the polls, which saw a record low turnout.
We will declare independence immediately after 10 December
If Mr Thaci's party did in fact win the largest number of seats in the 120-seat parliament, a period of negotiations is likely to take place before a coalition government is formed, the BBC's Nick Hawton reports from the Kosovo capital, Pristina.
But every ethnic Albanian party, our correspondent adds, has the same priority: trying to make Kosovo an independent state in its own right and break away from Serbia. EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn called for the "rapid formation" of a new government and urged Kosovo's new leaders to "work constructively for a sustainable status settlement".
Kosovo is formally part of Serbia but has been run by the United Nations since 1999 when Nato ejected Serbian forces from the province.
'New century'
"We will declare independence immediately after 10 December," Mr Thaci told cheering supporters as results were coming in.
"With our victory today begins the new century... Today Kosovo citizens sent a message to the world, that we are a democratic society, that we are ready to take our country towards the European Union."
Mr Thaci's Democratic Party had won 34% of the vote with more than 90% of ballots counted, independent observers said.
That puts the former leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army in pole position to be prime minister.
The rival Democratic League of Kosovo, which has dominated Kosovo politics since independence, trailed in second place with 22% of the vote, election monitors said.
Official final results may take several days to come through.
According to election officials, the turnout was around 45%, the lowest since 1999.
Council of Europe representatives described the turnout as "alarmingly low".
Correspondents say the low figure was down to poor weather and disenchantment with economic prospects, not second thoughts about independence.
One hundred of the 120 seats in the provincial assembly were up for direct election, with the rest reserved for Serbs and other minorities.
The Serbian government had called on ethnic Serbs not to vote so as to avoid legitimising the new government. A Kosovo Serb spokesman, Rade Negojevic, said just three out of 46,000 Serbs in northern Kosovo had cast ballots.
"Two people voted in Leposavic district, one in Zvecan and not a single person in Kosovska Mitrovica," he said. | Government Job change - Election | November 2007 | ['(BBC)'] |
Typhoon Meranti hits mainland China and Taiwan killing at least eight people and destroying 1,600 houses. | At least eight people have been reported dead after a powerful typhoon lashed much of southeastern China and Taiwan.
China's Ministry of Civil Affairs on Friday updated the number of deaths to seven as a result of Typhoon Meranti, which struck Fujian province early Thursday. Nine people in China are still missing.
Taiwanese authorities reported that one person died in the storm.
According to Chinese officials, Meranti forced the relocation of 33 million people and destroyed 1,600 homes. Images shared by state news media showed power lines and destroyed vehicles downed on streets in the coastal city of Xiamen. Taiwanese media reported that parts of southern Taiwan remain flooded.
But even as the cleanup is underway there, another typhoon, Malakas, is expected to hit Taiwan late Friday and Saturday. | Hurricanes_Tornado_Storm_Blizzard | September 2016 | ['(The Wall Street Journal)', '(AP via ABC News)'] |
German–Kurdish singer Hozan Canê is released from her Istanbul prison, after being arrested and convicted in 2018 for allegedly being a member of the Kurdistan Workers' Party. She is currently barred from leaving the country as her trial will continue on October 20. | Singer Hozan Cane has been released from a Turkish prison after two years. She and her daughter have been accused of terrorism and are banned from leaving the country.
A German-Kurdish singer imprisoned in Turkey for the past two years on terrorism charges was released on Wednesday night, according to her lawyer.
Saide Inac, who goes by the stage name Hozan Cane, walked out of the prison in Istanbul after a court ordered her release, her lawyer Newroz Akalan told news agency DPA. The court earlier ruled that her prison sentence was disproportionate.
The singer has been barred from leaving the country and her trial will continue on October 20, Akalan said. The trial of her daughter, Gönül Örs, also accused of terrorism, will continue on Thursday.
Cane was arrested in June 2018 in the western province of Edirne while attending campaign events of the pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party ahead of national elections.
She was accused of being a member of the Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK and in November that year, she was sentenced to six years and three months in prison.
Turkey, as well as the European Union and the United States, consider the PKK a terrorist organization.
Cane's trial was reopened in August after an appeals court found that there was no clear evidence of her being a member of the terrorist organization.
Read more: Turkey detains another German national on 'terror propaganda' charges
Cane's release was welcomed by German politicians. Arrests of dual Turkish-German nationals in Turkey have put major strains on relations between Berlin and Ankara.
Berivan Aymaz, a Greens politician in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia where Cane lived, welcomed the "good news" in a post on Twitter.
"International publicity is working, we will continue to work on this until she [Cane] and her daughter Gönül/Dilan Örs are allowed to leave the country and be among us in Cologne again," Aymaz said.
Frank Schwabe, the human rights spokesman for the Social Democrats (SPD) parliamentary group, also vowed to continue campaigning for Cane's repatriation to Germany.
"Hozan Cane is no longer in prison. But she is not allowed to leave Turkey yet," Schwabe tweeted, adding that he will "continue to fight for her to be back in Germany along with her daughter Gönül Örs."
"Hozan Cane was wrongfully in prison. She is a singer who has been politically active with her art. But that is not a crime," he told DPA.
Born in Turkey, Cane fled to Germany in the 1990s — at a time when Turkey was cracking down on its Kurdish population. She sought asylum in Germany after being arrested, tortured and harassed, according to her biography.
Cane is a naturalized German citizen and prior to arrest, she lived in the western German city of Cologne.
Five German citizens are receiving consular support after they were detained in Turkey. Pro-Kurdish media reported that they have been accused of being members of an illegal organization and spreading propaganda.
A German national has been arrested in Turkey for allegedly trying to join the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, Turkish media reported. Turkey alleges he was formerly in the German military, which the Bundeswehr denied. Four of six Germans arrested this week have been conditionally released, according to local media. They have been accused of spreading pro-Kurdish propaganda. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Release | September 2020 | ['(DW)'] |
Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz is investigated by anti–corruption prosecutors for allegedly lying to Parliament about his role in the Ibiza affair. Kurz denies the charges. | The chancellor is facing accusations that he lied to a parliamentary committee investigating cronyism. Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz is under investigation by anti-corruption prosecutors over allegations that he lied to a parliamentary commission probing the so-called Ibiza scandal and its fallout. Kurz confirmed in a press conference Wednesday that prosecutors had informed him and his chief of staff Bernhard Bonelli that they were suspected of providing false testimony. He denied any wrongdoing and criticized the commission. “It’s a pity … that it has become a common method in the commission to create a heated atmosphere with leading questions and sometimes even insinuations, and then at the same time to try to twist every word in your mouth,” Kurz said.
The parliamentary commission was set up in the aftermath of the Ibiza affair, which brought down Kurz’s coalition with the Austrian far-right Freedom Party in 2019. It has since expanded from looking into the scandal itself to investigate wider allegations of cronyism under that government. (Kurz is now head of a new coalition between his conservatives and the Austrian Greens.) Among other issues, the commission looked into the appointment of a Kurz loyalist as CEO of state holding company ÖBAG. Kurz said he had not been involved, but the commission obtained text messages that suggested otherwise, local media reported. The liberal opposition party Neos subsequently filed a complaint, prompting Austria’s Economic and Corruption Prosecutor’s Office to launch the investigation. Kurz insisted he had done nothing wrong. “I would like to point out that I have always spent hours in the committee trying to answer all questions as truthfully as possible — despite the fact that these are issues that go back many years and have not exactly been among the main topics of my own activity as head of government,” he said at Wednesday’s press conference.
The investigation comes as Kurz is increasingly facing questions over a plethora of political scandals and concern over pressure on Austria’s democratic institutions, including the press, under his tenure. Asked if he would step down if he was found guilty, Kurz said he “cannot imagine that with the best will in the world.” Providing false testimony to a parliamentary commission can be punished with up to three years in prison in Austria. Armin Laschet says he combines the ‘sobriety’ of the departing German chancellor with the ‘passion’ of the French president.
A love-fest with new president in Brussels, and support as he confronts Russia. Unlike the EU, Biden can’t solve his Putin problem with a task force.
Businessman had been found not guilty of killing Ján Kuciak and fiancée Martina Kušnírová.
| Famous Person - Commit Crime - Investigate | May 2021 | ['(Politico.eu)'] |
Parcel bombs explode at the Mexican, Russian and Swiss embassies in Greece. Similar packages were sent or addressed to the embassies of Belgium, Bulgaria, Chile, Germany and the Netherlands over the past two days. | ATHENS, Greece Small mail bombs exploded outside the Russian and Swiss embassies in Athens Tuesday and police destroyed at least three other packages as they tried to halt a wave of attacks blamed on far-left domestic extremists.
Police closed down sections of Athens that host embassies, and checked dozens of potential targets including the German and Panamanian embassies.
The wave of attacks began Monday when a mail bomb addressed to the Mexican embassy exploded at a delivery service in central Athens, lightly wounding one worker.
Authorities searched surrounding streets and arrested two suspects shortly after the blast. They were carrying mail bombs addressed to Sarkozy and the Belgian Embassy, along with handguns and bullets in waist pouches. One wore body armor, a wig and a baseball cap.
Police detonated the bombs along with a fourth device found at a delivery company and addressed to the Dutch Embassy.
One of the men was wanted in connection with an investigation into a radical anarchist group known as Conspiracy Nuclei of Fire, which has claimed responsibility for a spate of small bomb and arson attacks over the past two years.
The explosions began again Tuesday with the detonation of a bomb in the courtyard outside a six-story building that's home to the Swiss Embassy. Soon after, a courier heading for another embassy became suspicious about a package and stopped at Parliament, where police on guard duty detonated a bomb.
Police then found explosive devices at the Bulgarian Embassy and a central Athens courier company and set them off in controlled explosions.
A fifth bomb went off on the ground of the Russian Embassy.
None of the bombs were powerful, and no link was made with the recently discovered Yemen-based mail bomb plot. | Armed Conflict | November 2010 | ['(BBC)', '(The Telegraph)', '(China Daily)'] |
In the early hours of the morning, a car crashes into a group of German tourists in Luttach, Italy, killing six people and injuring 11 others. The driver was reportedly drunk and is charged with murder. | writer: AFP ROME: A drunk driver ploughed into pedestrians in an Italian Alpine village on Sunday, killing six German tourists and injuring 11 other people, emergency services said.
The accident happened at around 1.15am (7.15am Thailand time) in the village of Lutago near the Austrian border in an area popular with skiers.
A group of German tourists had left a nightclub shortly before the car slammed into them at high speed -- throwing some of them dozens of metres.
Six Germans were killed, a fire service official in Lutago told AFP. Eleven other people were injured -- two of whom were seriously hurt and flown by helicopter to a hospital in Innsbruck in Austria.
The local head of Italy's paramilitary carabinieri police force told AFP the driver had between 1.9 and 2.0 grams of alcohol per litre in his blood, about four times the maximum allowed level.
The driver, a 27-year-old local, was charged with murder and put in hospital under police guard.
'A terrible scene'
Roughly 160 emergency workers went at the scene and a field hospital was set up by the road.
"A terrible scene, people on the ground, cries and pain, a tragedy - we don't have the words," a hotel receptionist told the Corriere della Sera newspaper.
"We have asked several times for a radar on this road as drivers speed up as soon as they leave Lutago and here, one kilometre from the centre, they go at 100 kilometres an hour."
"The New Year has begun with a tragedy," South Tyrol governor Arno Kompatscher told reporters.
South Tyrol is a largely German-speaking province with a high degree of autonomy, known in particular for the Dolomites mountain chain.
The German foreign ministry in Berlin said its consulate in Milan was "in close touch with the Italian authorities who are proceeding with the identification of the victims, assisting those who have been affected".
Lutago, in the picturesque Aurina valley, is popular with tourists who ski at Klausberg and Speikboden.
The village of about 800 residents is the location for a popular Italian television series "Un Passo dal Cielo" ("One Step from Heaven").
Last week, three Germans - a woman and two girls, one of them aged seven - were killed in an avalanche in South Tyrol.
Italy has also suffered several high-profile road accidents in recent months, one in December when the son of a well-known film director hit and killed two 16-year-old girls in a Rome.
| Road Crash | January 2020 | ['(Bangkok Post)'] |
Several Beirut port officials are placed under house arrest as an investigation starts into how 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate was left unsecured at a warehouse at the port for six years. | A number of Beirut's port officials have been placed under house arrest as Lebanon's ruling class vowed to come down hard on those responsible for Tuesday's explosion. The investigation is focusing on how 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate, a highly explosive chemical used in fertilisers, came to be stored at the facility for six years, and why nothing was done about it.
On Wednesday, the hunt for survivors from the explosion continued, as the death toll rose to at least 135 people with 5,000 were injured.
Lebanese health minister Hamad Hasan said dozens of people are still missing.
What is ammonium nitrate and how did it likely cause the Beirut blast?
State prosecutor Ghassan Oueidat ordered security agencies to start an immediate investigation into all letters related to the materials stored at the port as well as lists of people in charge of maintenance, storage and protection of the hangar.
The move comes after a letter was published online purportedly from the head of the customs department warning of “dangers if the materials remain where they are regarding the safety of (port) employees” and asking for guidance on how to remove it.
ITV News Security Editor Rohit Kachroo on how vast stockpiles of ammonium nitrate came to be stored in a hangar in Beirut's port:
The 2017 letter to a judge, which could not be immediately verified, claims that similar letters were sent in 2014, 2015 and 2016. It is not known if there was ever a response.
If authentic, it could deepen the belief expressed by some Lebanese that widespread mismanagement, negligence and corruption among the country’s ruling class is to blame for the explosion.
The Port of Beirut and customs office is notorious for being one of the most corrupt and lucrative institutions in Lebanon where various factions and politicians, including Hezbollah, hold sway.
The Lebanese government has declared a two-week state of emergency, effectively giving the military full powers during this time, as speculation mounts that negligence might be to blame.
The damage caused by the blast is estimated to cost billions to a country already on its knees economically.
Beirut Governor Marwan Abboud estimated losses from the blast to be between $10-15 billion and said that nearly 300,000 people have been made homeless.
Estimated losses due to the blast Estimated number of homeless due to the blast
President Michael Aoun told a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday that the investigation would be transparent and that those responsible will be punished.
Emma Murphy reports from the ground in Beirut:
In pictures: Beirut rocked by major explosion Loved ones waited all night for news of friends and family who had gone missing, as hospitals were overwhelmed dealing with the dead and injured. Others posted on social media in a desperate bid to track down relatives.
Smoke was still billowing from the epicentre of Tuesday's blast, which is thought to have started with a fire which detonated the stockpile of ammonium nitrate.
Buildings up to 15 miles away were damaged by the explosion, which experts say was felt as far away as Cyprus, more than 180 miles across the Mediterranean.
It is understood there have been no reports of British fatalities so far.
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has promised a £5 million support package for Lebanon following the devastating Beirut blast.
Mr Raab said he had spoken to Lebanon’s Prime Minister Hassan Diab and pledged to “stand by the Lebanese people in their time of need”.
He said: "It's a devastating explosion. There's clearly both loss of life but also wider damage in Beirut. "We're not sure on the precise figures in relation to UK nationals there, we'll obviously want to bottom out that in the days ahead. We have a consulate team there which are monitoring that very carefully."
The Foreign Secretary said the support would include “search and rescue, humanitarian assistance up to £5 million, as well as expert medical support”.
A Royal Navy survey ship could also assist in assessing the damage to Beirut’s port, he added.
ITV News ITV News Senior International Correspondent John Irvine on how Beirut, beleaguered by mismanagement, can rebuild after the disaster:
French president Emmanuel Macron said he would be visiting the country on Thursday, while the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Poland and the Netherlands have also offered to send emergency rescue workers and equipment to help in the rescue efforts.
The huge blast registered a force of a 3.5 magnitude earthquake, according to Germany’s geosciences centre GFZ, with experts saying the blast was around a fifth the size of the nuclear bomb which devastated Hiroshima in 1945.
How the blast happened:
Interior Minister Mohammed Fahmi told a local TV station that it appeared the blast was caused by the detonation of more than 2,700 tons of ammonium nitrate that had been stored in a warehouse at the dock ever since it was confiscated from a cargo ship in 2014. Witnesses reported seeing an orange cloud like that which appears when toxic nitrogen dioxide gas is released after an explosion involving nitrates.
Videos showed what looked like a fire erupting nearby just before, and local TV stations reported that a fireworks warehouse was involved.
The fire appeared to trigger a large blast which tore through the city, with a huge mushroom cloud billowing from the epicentre of the blast.
Footage from Beirut the morning after a huge explosion tore through the city
Mr Diab has said that Wednesday would be a day of mourning and indicated that the blast came from a "dangerous" warehouse.
"I promise you that this catastrophe will not pass without accountability," he said "Those responsible will pay the price."
He added: "Facts about this dangerous warehouse that has been there since 2014 will be announced and I will not preempt the investigations."
Donald Trump, however, appeared to contradict the Lebanese leader, saying it could have been "an attack".
He said: "Well, it would seem like it based on the explosion. I met with some of our great generals and they just seemed to feel that it was this was not a some kind of a manufacturing explosion type of event.
"This was a, seems to be according to them, they would know better than I would but they seemed to think it was an attack. It was a bomb of some kind. Yes."
The Queen and Prince Philip sent her condolences to the President of the Republic of Lebanon, saying she and the Duke of Edinburgh are "deeply saddened" by the incident.
She said: "Prince Philip and I were deeply saddened by news of the explosion at the Port in Beirut yesterday.
"Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends of those who have been injured or lost their lives, and all those whose homes and livelihoods have been affected."
Boris Johnson has also offered his support to Lebanon and confirmed British nationals had been caught up in the blast.
Aerial footage shows the devastation caused by the blast
Lebanon has been on the brink of economic collapse in recent months, faced with rising inflation and mass protests.
Its hospitals had been dealing with a surge in coronavirus cases, and there were concerns the virus could spread further as people treated in the hospital.
Marwan Ramadan, who was about 500 meters from the port and was knocked off his feet by the force of the explosion, said: “It was a real horror show. I haven’t seen anything like that since the days of the (civil) war.”
The blast destroyed numerous apartment buildings, potentially leaving large numbers of people homeless at a time when many Lebanese have lost their jobs and seen their savings evaporate because of a currency crisis.
Balconies had dropped to street level, where shops and restaurants were buried and chairs and tables turned upside down.
Pictures shared on social media on Wednesday showed communities coming together to clear neighbourhoods of debris.
The explosion also raises concerns about how Lebanon will continue to import nearly all of its vital goods with its main port devastated.
Some of the worst hit neighbourhoods were Mar Mikhael and Gemayzeh, where the blast damaged some of the few historic buildings that survived the 1975-1990 civil war.
“I have nowhere to go,” a woman said as she wept in what remained of her home in Gemayzeh. “What am I supposed to do?” she screamed into her mobile phone.
There is also the issue of food security in Lebanon, a tiny country already hosting over one million Syrians amid that country’s years long war.
The port's major grain silo is run by the Lebanese Ministry of Economy and Trade. Drone footage shot on Wednesday by AP showed that the blast tore open those grain silos, dumping their contents into the debris and earth thrown up by the blast. Some 80% of Lebanon’s wheat supply is imported, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department.
Estimates suggest some 85% of the country’s grain was stored at the now-destroyed silos.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency quoted the Raoul Nehme, the minister of economy and trade, as saying that all the wheat stored at the facility had been “contaminated” and couldn’t be used. However, he insisted Lebanon had enough wheat for its immediate needs. Nehme said Lebanon also would import more wheat. The tiny Mediterranean nation's economic crisis is rooted in decades of systemic corruption and poor governance by the political class that has been in power since the end of the civil war. Lebanese have held mass protests calling for sweeping political change since last autumn but few of their demands have been met as the economic situation has steadily worsened.
“They are so irresponsible that they ended up destroying Beirut,” said Sana, a retired schoolteacher who was preparing to leave her heavily damaged apartment in Mar Mikhael. “I worked for 40 years to make this home and they destroyed it for me in less than a minute.”
“The political class must go. This country is becoming totally hopeless,” she said. “It cannot get worse.”
The size and scale of the Beirut explosion mirrored that of another major disaster involving ammonium nitrate. In 1947, a ship carrying some 2,200 tons of the chemical compound caught fire in Texas City, Texas, and exploded, causing a series of subsequent blasts at nearby oil facilities and a chemical plant. That disaster killed over 575 people and wounded another 4,000.
| Famous Person - Commit Crime - Investigate | August 2020 | ['(ITV)'] |
A Nuremberg court issues an arrest warrant for former Argentine leader Jorge Rafael Videla, on suspicion of killing a German man. | A court in Germany has issued an arrest warrant for the former Argentine military leader, Jorge Rafael Videla, on suspicion of murdering a German man.
The case against the 84-year-old was abandoned in 2008 after an Argentine court rejected an extradition request. But prosecutors in Nuremberg reopened it last year after the body of Rolf Stawowiok, who vanished in the 1970s, was found with signs of bullet wounds. Tens of thousands of government critics were murdered during military rule. Videla, who ruled from 1976 to 1981, was sentenced to life in prison in 1985 of the murders of 66 people and the torture of 93 others. But he was imprisoned for only five years before President Carlos Menem granted him a pardon, together with other junta leaders. Videla briefly returned to prison in 1998 after being convicted of kidnapping children, but was soon transferred to house arrest due to health issues. Then last year, he was once again sent to prison after a court cancelled the 1990 pardon, ruling that it had been unconstitutional. Thomas Koch, a spokesman for the prosecutor's office in Nuremberg, said its investigation into the murders of several Germans during the so-called "Dirty War" had been abandoned due to a lack of evidence. "Now, however, the remains of one individual have been identified and we know that this person was murdered, which is why we could pick up the investigation once again," he told the Reuters news agency. Mr Koch said that Germany had issued an international arrest warrant for Videla, even though Argentina was unlikely to extradite him. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | January 2010 | ['(BBC)', '(Deutsche Welle)'] |
SpaceX's unmanned spacecraft Dragon 2 successfully docks with the International Space Station for the first time. | Following a successful launch early Saturday morning, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft has successfully conducted a rendezvous and docking to the International Space Station for the first time. Docking was ahead of schedule at 5:51 AM EST (10:51 UTC) on Sunday, March 3.
A Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket lofted Dragon to orbit from LC-39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, kicking off the first orbital test flight of NASA’s Commercial Crew program.
The Demo-1 mission marks the first flight of the new and improved Dragon 2 spacecraft, which is longer and more massive than its Dragon 1 predecessor.
Furthermore, the crew variant of Dragon 2 is one of two spacecraft that will return domestic crew launch capability to the United States, the other being Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner.
Starliner and Dragon 2 – via Nathan Koga for NSF/L2
In order to certify Crew Dragon to carry humans, NASA and SpaceX will complete a series of four test flights, of which Demo-1 is the second. Following a successful pad abort test in 2015, the objective of Demo-1 is to demonstrate nominal end-to-end performance of Crew Dragon and its launcher, Falcon 9.
This includes demonstrating the on-orbit operation of avionics, communications, telemetry, life support, electrical, and propulsion systems, as well as the guidance, navigation, control (GNC) systems aboard both Falcon 9 and Dragon. GNC system performance must be demonstrated during ascent, on-orbit operations, and reentry.
The first two post-launch milestones for Crew Dragon were successfully completed shortly separating from Falcon 9’s second stage, as confirmed by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk during a post-launch press conference Saturday morning.
The nosecone of Dragon opened to reveal the docking port and forward-facing Draco thrusters, and the first of a series of burns to gradually match the ISS’s orbit was completed. Musk also confirmed that Dragon’s solar panels and electrical systems were operating nominally.
Dragon 2 was the first SpaceX vehicle to attempt an autonomous docking in orbit. Dragon 1, which has been flying cargo resupply missions to the ISS since 2012, only maneuvered close enough to be grappled by the station’s robotic arm, which then moved the spacecraft into position to be berthed.
Dragon 2, on the other hand, will not utilize the robotic arm, but rather use the onboard Draco thrusters to dock with the station. During a crewed mission, astronauts aboard the spacecraft will have the capability to intervene and fly the vehicle manually, if needed.
Crew Dragon docked to the forward port of the space station’s Harmony module, which has been fitted with an International Docking Adaptor (IDA). The IDA was launched aboard Dragon 1 on the SpaceX CRS-9 mission. Crew currently aboard the ISS completed a checkout of the docking port in advance of Saturday’s launch, and verified the docking system was “go” for docking.
The IDA before it was launched on a Cargo Dragon – via NASA
During the rendezvous, Dragon went through numerous milestones, first coming into view at around 3,000 meters out, before approaching towards the Approach Elipsode and arrive at Waypoint 0.
With permission to enter the Keep Out Sphere (KOS), Dragon approached to within 150 meters of the docking port, where the station’s crew tested a retreat command at Waypoint 1.
Sending this command to the spacecraft moved Dragon back to 180 meters. After remaining in this position for approximately 10 minutes, Dragon was cleared to proceed to 20 meters for another brief hold, at Waypoint 2, followed by the historic docking to the ISS at 5:51 AM Eastern.
A single action item concerning Dragon’s approach to the station was identified during the Flight Readiness Review (FRR) conducted before launch.
A concern over Dragon’s docking abort procedures was raised by the Russian space agency Roscosmos, one of NASA’s international partners in the ISS program. While a scenario in which this issue would arise is unlikely, NASA and Roscosmos agreed to additional procedures to follow should Dragon encounter a problem during the rendezvous. No issues were suffered during the test objectives.
Also of interest over the course of Dragon’s mission will be the performance of the Draco thrusters used to maneuver in orbit. Thermal vacuum testing conducted last year revealed less than nominal performance within the full thermal environment the Draco thrusters were expected to experience during the Demo-1 mission.
As a result, NASA and SpaceX modified the mission design to constrain the thermal environment and ensure the thrusters would be ready for flight. Lessons learned, including the addition of heaters to the thrusters’ fuel lines, will allow the removal of those thermal constraints for the Demo-2 mission.
After docking to the station, Dragon’s hatch was opened, and the station crew boarded the spacecraft to perform inspections. Aboard Dragon is Ripley, a mannequin fitted with instruments to gather data during the flight, along with 181 kg of supplies and equipment.
Enter The Dragon – via NASA TV
Dragon will spend four days docked to the ISS, after which Dragon will return to Earth with science samples as well as a failed spacesuit part needing repair. During operational crew missions, Dragon will be able to carry approximately 50 kg of cargo to and from the station, in addition to the crew.
Dragon’s hatch is set to be closed at 12:25 PM EST (17:25 UTC) on Thursday, March 7. The following morning at 2:31 AM EST (07:31 UTC), Dragon will autonomously undock from the Harmony module and maneuver away from the station.
The deorbit burn, which will last up to 15 minutes, will begin at 7:50 AM EST (12:50 UTC). Like its Dragon 1 predecessor, the Dragon 2 capsule will separate from the spacecraft’s trunk prior to reentry.
Unlike Cargo Dragon, Crew Dragon will splash down via four parachutes in the Atlantic Ocean off of the coast of Florida, whereas Cargo Dragon has always landed in the Pacific. Splashdown is scheduled for 8:45 AM EST (13:45 UTC) on Friday, March 8. | New achievements in aerospace | March 2019 | ['(ISS)', '(BBC)', '(NASA Spaceflight)'] |
Members of the House of Lords vote in favour of the Marriage Bill, paving the way for gay marriage in the United Kingdom. | Peers have voted by more than two to one to back government plans for same-sex marriages in England and Wales.
The House of Lords spent two days debating the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill, with many members voicing their concerns.
But it rejected an amendment aimed at wrecking the bill by 242 votes, moving it a step closer to becoming law.
The BBC's Norman Smith said plans were on course for the first same-sex weddings to take place next summer.
The bill would allow couples, who can currently form civil partnerships, to marry.
If it passes into law, religious organisations would have to "opt in" if they wished to offer gay weddings, except the Church of England and Church in Wales, which would be banned in law from doing so.
Peers were allowed a free vote on the amendment, tabled by crossbench peer Lord Dear, which would effectively have wrecked the government's plans. It was defeated by 390 votes to 148.
Shortly afterwards, the bill - also backed by Labour leader Ed Miliband - was given a second reading without a vote taking place and will now go forward to more detailed scrutiny by peers.
The result was greeted with cheers from supporters of same-sex marriage gathered outside Parliament.
During the debate, Lord Dear insisted the change would "completely alter the concept of marriage as we know it".
The bill was "ill thought through", had no democratic legitimacy and was "fatally flawed", he said.
But equalities minister Baroness Stowell of Beeston called the legislation a "force for good" which would strengthen marriage.
She said it protected both religious freedom and freedom of speech.
Baroness Royall, Labour's leader in the Lords, said marriage had a "special status in our society": "I firmly believe that our society will be strengthened when more couples are able to choose to make a lifetime commitment to each other and when all members of our communities are able to celebrate their identity and relationships within the institution of marriage."
After the vote, Culture Secretary Maria Miller posted on Twitter: "Great result in @UKHouseofLords tonight, overwhelming support from Peers from all sides."
Ben Summerskill, chief executive of the gay rights group Stonewall, said he was delighted, adding: "Britain's 3.7 million gay people don't deserve to be second class citizens in their own country.
"A tough fight lies ahead and we'll continue to work tirelessly every single day to get equal marriage through the Lords."
Peter Tatchell, who co-ordinates the Equal Love campaign, said: "This is a victory for love, marriage and equality.
"We are another step closer to our goal of equal marriage. It signals that the House of Lords accepts the principle that we should all be equal before the law."
But Colin Hart, campaign director for the Coalition for Marriage, said that 148 peers had "chosen to register their profound opposition to the gay marriage bill".
He added: "The government may have won the vote today but what was clear from the debate was the huge opposition to almost every part of the bill.
"We will continue to campaign to save traditional marriage and today's vote and the concerns expressed by many peers mean we will be able to introduce safeguards that will protect teachers, registrars, chaplains and anyone who works in the public sector.
"If the government refuse to accept these changes, they risk losing the legislation at third reading."
The plans, which the government wants to come into force in July next year, passed through the Commons last month with a 205 majority.
But many religious bodies, including the Church of England, and many Conservative activists have raised concerns. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, was among those who spoke against the proposal in the Lords.
France recently held its first same-sex marriage while the Scottish government has confirmed it will introduce its own bill shortly.
In total Lord Dear's amendment was supported by 66 Conservative peers, 16 Labour peers, two Liberal Democrats, 46 crossbenchers, nine bishops and nine others.
Supporting the Bill were 80 Conservatives, 160 Labour peers, 73 Lib Dems, 68 crossbenchers and nine others.
| Government Policy Changes | June 2013 | ['(Same Sex Couples)', '(BBC)'] |
Abu Anas al-Libi, a one-time associate of Osama bin Laden, dies in New York, United States, while awaiting trial for allegedly plotting the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. | Follow NBC News NEW YORK — A one-time associate of Osama bin Laden died in New York on Friday while awaiting trial for allegedly plotting the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
Abu Anas al-Libi, 50, was captured in Libya by U.S. commandos in Oct. 2013 and brought to New York where he was due to stand trial. He had been wanted for more than a decade and there was a $5 million reward for his arrest. Al-Libi had pleaded not guilty.
The al Qaeda terror suspect has been in poor health and suffered liver disease as a result of hepatitis C, according to published reports.
In a court filing, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said that al-Libi was taken from the Metropolitan Correctional Center to a New York hospital on Wednesday "due to sudden complications arising out of his long-standing medical problems."
Bharara added that al-Libi's condition "deteriorated rapidly" and he died on Friday.
"We understand that, in addition to his counsel, an imam was with al-Libi at the hospital and that appropriate arrangements are being made with his family," Bharara wrote.
A spokesman for Bharara declined comment. An FBI spokesman did not immediately return a request for comment.
Al-Libi's attorney Bernard Kleinman had recently said his client's health was deteriorating. Kleinman did not immediately return a call for comment early Saturday.
Al-Libi's wife, Um Abdullah, told The Associated Press that being in his experience only worsened his ailments, including hepatitis C, leading to his death. "I accuse the American government of kidnapping, mistreating, and killing an innocent man. He did nothing," Abdullah said.
Abdullah said her husband underwent liver surgery three weeks ago, went into a coma and was moved prematurely back to prison where he suffered complications.
His wife said that she spoke to al-Libi last time from prison on Thursday. "His voice was weak and he was in a bad condition," she added.
Al-Libi had argued in court that he was illegally kidnapped and interrogated for seven days aboard a Navy ship after members of an Army Delta Force swooped into his property in Tripoli and pulled him from his car.
However, a judge in May rejected that attempt to quash his charges.
The near-simultaneous bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa on Aug. 7, 1998 introduced al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden to most Americans for the first time. The attacks killed 224 people, including 12 Americans.
Al-Libi — who was also known as Nazih Abdul Hamed al-Ruqai — was charged with having played a major role in organizing and conducting surveillance for the operation.
In a sweeping joint indictment (PDF) of al-Libi and a dozen other top al Qaeda officials — including bin Laden — prosecutors alleged that as early as 1994, al-Libi plotted attacks against the U.S. Agency for International Development office and other international targets in Nairobi, Kenya. Six al Qaeda operatives have already been convicted in New York.
Al-Libi had studied electronic and nuclear engineering and graduated from Tripoli University. He opposed Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi's rule.
He is believed to have spent time in Sudan, where bin Laden was based in the early 1990s. After bin Laden was forced to leave Sudan, al-Libi turned up in Britain in 1995 where he was granted political asylum under unclear circumstances and lived in Manchester. He was arrested by Scotland Yard in 1999, but released because of lack of evidence and later fled Britain. After his indictment, U.S. officials said they believed he was hiding in Afghanistan. | Famous Person - Death | January 2015 | ['(NBC News)'] |
Four people are killed and seven others are injured in three blasts in the city of Kathmandu, Nepal. Police believe a Maoist splinter group may have been responsible. | At least four people died and seven others were injured in three explosions in the Nepali capital, Kathmandu, officials say.
The three blasts - one in the centre and two on the outskirts - took place on Sunday afternoon local time.
Improvised or crude explosive devices are believed to have been used to set off the blasts, police said. One official told reporters a Maoist splinter group was under suspicion after pamphlets were found nearby.
The same group is alleged to have carried out an explosion in February which killed one person in Kathmandu.
However, no one has claimed responsibilities for the attacks.
Police official Shyam Lal Gyawali said three of those killed died "on the spot", while the fourth died in hospital.
The pamphlets were found at a home on the outskirts of the city, where the first blast took place, he added.
Student Govinda Bhandari, 17, told Reuters news agency: "I heard a big noise and rushed to the spot to find the walls of a house had developed cracks due to the impact of the blast."
Just one person died in the initial explosion, while three died in a second incident near a hairdressers in the city centre.
The third blast happened several hours later and is reported to have injured two members of the group transporting an explosive device. Security forces have sealed off the locations of the blasts and say investigations are under way.
Since a decade-long civil war ended in 2006, Nepal has been relatively peaceful, with the main group of the former rebels joining the ruling government party the next year.
However, some have now broken away, saying their leaders are betraying their original revolutionary ideals. | Armed Conflict | May 2019 | ['(Reuters)', '(BBC)'] |
American spammer Jeremy Jaynes is sentenced for nine years in prison. The sentence is suspended until further appeals. | Prosecutors said Jeremy Jaynes was the brain behind the operation and earned as much as $750,000 monthly by sending spam e-mail messages. The spoils helped him buy lavish homes, including a 5,800-square-foot mansion. "The jury in large measure represents community sentiment," Loudoun County Circuit Court Judge Thomas D. Horne said. The sentence is "a deterrent to stop other people who might send unsolicited mail in this fashion."
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A judge sentenced a man Friday to nine years in prison for clogging the world's computers with millions of junk e-mails.
But he postponed Jeremy Jaynes' incarceration until appeals are exhausted and challenges to the Virginia law used to convict him are resolved.
Jaynes, 30, of Raleigh, N.C., could remain free for years.
Even so, the decision to impose the maximum punishment proposed by a jury in the nation's first felony prosecution of a spammer is likely to embolden prosecutors nationwide.
"The jury in large measure represents community sentiment," Loudoun County Circuit Court Judge Thomas D. Horne said. The sentence is "a deterrent to stop other people who might send unsolicited mail in this fashion."
Virginia officials shut down one of the world's most prolific spam operations by prosecuting Jaynes. But his conviction in November has not scared others into submission.
Junk e-mail still thrives like uncontrolled weeds, choking computer networks and robbing recipients of time and money. In December 2003, the month Jaynes was arrested, spam accounted for two-thirds of all e-mail, according to estimates by CipherTrust, a message security company. In January, the figure was 82 percent.
What's more, spam has become a potent security threat. The messages once known for unwanted get-rich-quick pitches or bedroom performance products are just as likely now to carry viruses that can disable computers. Spammers send e-mail disguised as correspondence from companies to get personal data .
"It's definitely gotten more dangerous," said Sara Radicati, chief executive of the Radicati Group, a research firm in Palo Alto.
Law enforcement and companies across the country are pursuing spammers with fresh vigor, aided by new state and federal legislation to stamp out billions of unwanted e-mail messages.
Critics say the legal efforts are pointless. Better technology, they say, is the solution because it attacks the economics that makes spam lucrative. If spammers can't get messages to mailboxes, the business loses its appeal.
Jaynes was prosecuted not for pumping out e-mail in bulk but for falsifying information used to route the messages. He was caught under a tough Virginia law that took effect in 2003 and was crafted with the help of industry giants including America Online, whose server he used to send his mass e-mail ads.
The case against Jaynes eventually ensnared his sister, Jessica DeGroot of Apex, N.C., whose conviction was later overturned, and a second man, Richard Rutkowski of Cary, N.C., who was acquitted.
Prosecutors said Jaynes was the mastermind and made as much as $750,000 a month sending e-mails for products that included a Web history eraser. The spoils helped him buy two homes in Raleigh, including a 5,800-square-foot mansion.
While prosecutors presented evidence of just 53,000 illegal e-mails, authorities believe Jaynes was responsible for spewing out 10 million e-mails a day.
Jaynes' lawyers on Friday disputed his image as a modern snake-oil salesman. They portrayed him as a compassionate businessman who built homes for the poor and gave to charities.
They presented letters attesting to his character, including one from former North Carolina Attorney General Rufus Edmisten. And they said that Jaynes lacked the wealth described by the prosecution. His bank accounts are depleted, and he owes $1.6 million in federal taxes because of a tax shelter that has been deemed improper, said Jaynes' lawyer, David Oblon.
"I would like to let the court know that I didn't intend to cause harm to anybody," Jaynes said before sentencing, joined in court by his wife, sister, mother and other relatives. "I will never be involved in the e-mail marketing business again."
Oblon argued that Jaynes should serve no time. He said that nine years was far too long given that Jaynes was charged as an out-of-state resident with violating the Virginia law that had taken effect just weeks before.
"We have no doubt that we will win on appeal; therefore, any sentence is somewhat moot. Still, the sentence is not what we recommended and we're disappointed," Oblon said.
But Horne said the offense warranted confinement. He agreed to postpone incarceration because the law used to convict Jaynes remains shaky.
For now, Jaynes must comply with the terms of the $1 million bond posted after his conviction. He must stay in the country club home he rents in Loudoun County, Va., under electronic surveillance unless his lawyers can win court approval for him to return to Raleigh.
"We're satisfied," said Lisa Hicks-Thomas, an assistant Virginia attorney general whose office has indicted two others under the spam law. "We'll be back here in a few months with some other people." | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Sentence | April 2005 | ['(Spamfo)', '(E–Commerce News)', '(CNN)'] |
A coal mine explosion kills 5 in China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. | ZHONGNING, NINGXIA - Another three seriously injured miners were confirmed dead in hospital by local authorities, putting the total fatalities to five after an coal mine explosion that occurred early Saturday in northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.
The explosion happened at around 2:30 a.m. at Hongyuan Coal Mine at Shikong Town of Zhongning County. A total of 12 people were trapped underground, according to .
According to Wang Jun, head of the county's health bureau, the other seven miners were under hospital treatment, including one severely injured who was receiving large volume of blood transfusion.
The main symptom for the seven miners was carbon monoxide poisoning, and their lives might still in danger, said Wang.
The township-owned coal mine has been ordered to suspend operation for a safety overhaul, according to the regional coal mine safety supervision authorities. | Mine Collapses | June 2010 | ['(China Dialy)'] |
A fire breaks out at the Old Executive Office Building in Washington, D.C., which houses ceremonial offices of Vice President Dick Cheney and the majority of White House staff. No injuries are reported. | WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Firefighters quickly doused a two-alarm fire Wednesday in the historic Eisenhower Executive Office Building, which houses the vice president's ceremonial offices and the majority of the White House staff.
Smoke billows from a window in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on Wednesday.
Firefighting crews used axes to break windows on the third floor of the ornate building shortly after the two-alarm blaze broke out after 9 a.m. The fire started near the vice presidential offices, CNN's Kathleen Koch reported.
At its peak, heavy black smoke streamed from the building. Watch smoke pouring from building »
Within an hour, smoke had stopped pouring from the building and was replaced by a fine mist of water, which the firefighters used to ventilate the building until they could get fans set up.
Vice President Dick Cheney's working offices are in the West Wing of the White House, where he was at the time of the fire. The White House is adjacent to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. See how close building is to the White House »
There were no reports of injuries from the blaze, which appeared to be confined to the third floor, said D.C. Fire Department spokesman Alan Etter. Etter said the blaze appeared to have started in an electrical closet or a telephone bank.
"We have this under control," he said, adding that the building was evacuated.
The Secret Service and a number of other agencies were on scene, as were 15 fire trucks.
The building houses nearly all of the White House staff, including White House speechwriters, White House communications, senior staff from the Office of Management and Budget and the National Security Council. It was constructed between 1871 and 1888 and has been undergoing renovations. Also called the Old Executive Office Building, the massive structure was originally built for the State, War and Navy Departments and is an example of the French Second Empire style of architecture, according to a government Web site.
The building is the site of a number of events, including ceremonial signings, news conferences and photo opportunities.
It was designed by Alfred Mullett, the supervising architect of the Treasury Department, and its exterior is composed of granite, slate and cast iron. | Fire | December 2007 | ['(CNN)'] |
A Washington University in St. Louis international tax law expert says this deal is the biggest merger involving tax inversion, i.e., relocation of a corporation's legal domicile to a lower-tax nation, usually while retaining operations in its higher-tax country. "None of the special anti-inversion laws and regulations issued by the federal government will apply to Pfizer post-merger," Professor Adam Rosenzweig, JD, said. Rosenzweig believes this deal will encourage more U.S. companies to follow Pfizer's approach in future mergers. | U.S. pharmaceutical giant Pfizer announced Nov. 23 a record-breaking $160 billion merger with Irish firm Allergan, the biggest merger to-date involving the controversial strategy of tax inversion.
The move marks the beginning of the end of the ability to stop corporate tax inversions under current tax rules, said an expert on international tax law at Washington University in St. Louis.
“Despite the best intentions of the Obama administration, companies are finding ways to work around the regulations on tax inversion,” said Adam Rosenzweig, JD, professor of law.
The Pfizer agreement comes just four days after the administration of President Barack Obama enacted fresh restrictions on corporate tax inversions — reincorporating overseas in a country where the corporate tax rate is lower.
“Congress has enacted rules to try to prevent these from occurring as purely ‘paper’ moves but to permit real moves to other countries,” Rosenzweig said. “Congress did so by looking at the historic shareholders of the new foreign company. If a U.S. corporation changes its place of incorporation by merging with a foreign corporation, but more than 80 percent of its shareholders own the combined company after, the company is still treated as U.S. corporation for U.S. tax purposes.”
However, Rosensweig said, if the former shareholders of the U.S. corporation own between 60-80 perceent of the combined company, other strict rules apply but otherwise the “foreign” character of the company is respected.
If the former shareholders of the U.S. corporation own less than 60 percent of the combined company, then these anti-inversion rules do not apply at all, he said.
“Typically, most inversions have tried to fit within the 60-80 percent range because in that way a U.S. company could merger with a smaller foreign company and move its tax residence without significantly changing its management or business model,” Rosenzweig said.
Pfizer, on the other hand, Rosenzweig said, has structured its deal with Allergan such that its historic shareholders will only own 56 percent of the combined company post-merger.
“Thus, none of the special anti-inversion rules issued by Congress, the United States Treasury or the Internal Revenue Service will apply to Pfizer post-merger,” he said.
“For this reason, I believe the Pfizer/Allergan deal marks the beginning of the incentive for U.S. companies trying to fall under the 60 percent threshold rather than comply with the increasingly onerous anti-inversion rules for 60-80 percent inversions,” Rosenzweig said.
While it is true that Congress could lower the threshold, say to 50 percent, Rosenzweig said, “I believe that all this would do would be to encourage less than 50 percent inversions — which are otherwise known as foreign takeovers.
“It would probably strike many people as odd to adopt a tax rule that encourages foreign takeovers of U.S. companies, but the Pfizer/Allergan deal could indicate that this would be the case if Congress lowered the threshold further,” he said.
“That is why I think of the Pfizer/Allergan deal as the beginning of the end of the anti-inversion rules as currently in place.”
| Organization Merge | November 2015 | ['(U.S.)', '(Washington University)'] |
A Taliban bomb in the middle of a heavily fortified area in Kabul kills twelve people, including a U.S. soldier and a Romanian soldier. | A car bomb attack in the Afghan capital Kabul has killed at least 10 people and injured 40 others, officials say.
The blast happened near a security checkpoint in a highly protected area close to embassies and government buildings.
Taliban militants said they had carried out the attack. Kabul has been gripped by a surge in violence since the US and the Taliban reached an agreement in principle to bring an end to the war. As part of the deal with the militants, the US would withdraw 5,400 troops from Afghanistan within 20 weeks, according to US top negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad.
The attack took place on a road near the Nato office and US embassy in the Kabul's heavily fortified Green Zone, and destroyed cars and nearby shops. The Taliban said they had targeted a convoy of foreign forces. Two of the victims were identified as members of the Nato-led mission in the country, Resolute Support - one from Romania, the other from the US. Earlier, a spokesman for the interior ministry said all victims were civilians.
On Monday, a truck bomb exploded close to a compound housing foreigners killing at least 16 people and injuring more than 100, an attack that was also claimed by the Taliban.
The recent attacks have highlighted fears that US negotiations with the Taliban will not end the daily violence in Afghanistan and its terrible toll on civilians.
Earlier in the week, nine former top US diplomats warned that Afghanistan could collapse into a "total civil war" if President Donald Trump withdrew all American forces before a peace deal between the Afghan government and the Taliban.
The group - which included five former ambassadors to Kabul, a former special envoy to Afghanistan and a former deputy secretary of state - said a "major troop withdrawal must be contingent on a final peace". "The initial US drawdown should not go so far or so fast that the Taliban believe that they can achieve military victory. In that case, they will not make compromises for peace with other Afghan political forces," they said.
The text, published on the website of the Atlantic Council think tank, came after Mr Khalilzad outlined the deal with the Taliban, reached after nine rounds of peace talks that have been held in the Gulf state of Qatar.
In exchange for the US troop withdrawal, the militants would ensure that Afghanistan would never again be used as a base for militant groups seeking to attack the US and its allies.
The US currently has about 14,000 troops in the country.
But Afghan presidential spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said the government was concerned about the consequences of the deal and that the authorities wanted more information about the risks it posed.
Many in Afghanistan fear that a US-Taliban deal could see hard-won rights and freedoms eroded. The militants enforced strict religious laws and treated women brutally under their rule from 1996 to 2001.
US-Taliban deal would see 5,400 troops withdraw
Afghan and US forces 'deadliest for civilians'
Saving lives in one of the world's deadliest cities
Why Afghanistan is more dangerous than ever
UN calls for end of arms sales to Myanmar
In a rare move, the UN condemns the overthrowing of Aung San Suu Kyi and calls for an arms embargo.
The ethnic armies training Myanmar's protesters. VideoThe ethnic armies training Myanmar's protesters
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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 | Armed Conflict | September 2019 | ['(CNN)', '(BBC)'] |
United States Senate election, 2008: Author and comedian Al Franken announces his candidacy for Senator of Minnesota. | Outspoken comedian and liberal radio host Al Franken announced Wednesday that he intends to run for the U.S. Senate from his home state of Minnesota.
On his Web site -- alfranken.com -- the NBC "Saturday Night Live" veteran said he will vie for the seat now held by Republican Sen. Norm Coleman.
Franken also confirmed that he is running for Senate during his final show on the liberal Air America radio network. He announced last month that he was leaving Air America after his February 14 broadcast.
During his announcement, Franken cited the late Minnesota Sen. Paul Wellstone as his political hero. (Watch Franken announce his candidacy )
Wellstone, who first won election to the senate in 1990, died in a plane crash shortly before the 2002 elections. Coleman was elected to take his place.
Franken has been a commentator on Air America Radio -- a liberal response to conservative talk radio. He has written several books, including "Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot" and "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them." (Other famous faces turned politicos)
"I'm not a typical politician," Franken said in an 8½ minute video message on his Web site. "I've spent my career as a comedian. Minnesotans have a right to be skeptical about whether I'm ready for this challenge, and to wonder how seriously I would take the responsibility that I'm asking you to give me." Franken said he takes such issues seriously because of his background -- growing up in a working-class family that moved from New Jersey to Minnesota when he was 4 years old -- and his wife's family background -- she grew up with a widowed mother and four siblings who lived on Social Security survivor's benefits.
"That's what progressives like me believe the government is there for," he said. "To provide security for middle-class families like the one I grew up in, and opportunity for working poor families like the one [my wife] grew up in."
Franken has said previously that he was considering a bid to unseat Coleman, a moderate Republican and former St. Paul mayor who was elected to the Senate in 2002. During the 2006 midterm election, Franken's political action committee, the Midwest Values PAC, raised money for Democratic candidates across the North Star State. The Bush administration courted Coleman to run for the Senate. But as the Iraq war has become increasingly unpopular, Coleman has distanced himself from the president. Last month, Coleman became one of a group of GOP senators who came out against Bush's plan to increase U.S. troops in Iraq by more than 20,000.
Franken will be running as a member of Minnesota's Democratic-Farmer-Labor party. He is the second celebrity in the past decade to seek political office in Minnesota. In 1999, former professional wrestler Jesse Ventura, representing the Reform Party, defeated Coleman and Attorney General Hubert H. "Skip" Humphrey III to become governor of the state, serving, as promised, one term. Franken is a graduate of Harvard University with a degree in government. He met his wife, Franni, at a college mixer. They have two children, Thomasin and Joe. | Government Job change - Election | February 2007 | ['(CNN)'] |
A mortar attack on joint Iraqi armypolice office kills 2 Iraqi soldiers and injures 14 in Baghdad. | Another 14 people were wounded in the 1 a.m. attack on the joint Iraqi army-police office in the capital's Hurriyah area, the officials said.
Three mortars hit the security station, according to two Iraqi police officials, and an army colonel was among the wounded. A hospital official confirmed the casualties.
All three officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks.
It was the second big attack in Hurriyah in less than a week.
Last Friday, a car bomb at the district's Hadi al-Chalabi mosque killed eight people and wounded 19. The bombing was part of what appeared to be a coordinated strike on Shiite worshippers across Baghdad.
In all, 72 people were killed and hundreds more wounded in the Friday bombings that also targeted Sunni police officials in the country's western Anbar province. | Armed Conflict | April 2010 | ['(USA Today)'] |
An outbreak of Hepatitis A linked to a fruit juice product made by Townsend Farms sickens 79 people in the United States. | The multistate outbreak of hepatitis A infections potentially linked to consumption of "Townsend Farms Organic Antioxidant Blend" frozen berry and pomegranate mix has sickened 79 people across eight states namely, Arizona, California Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Washington, as of June 7, 2013, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Thirty people have been hospitalized, and no deaths have been reported.
Townsend Farms Inc. of Fairview, Oregon voluntarily recalled certain lots of its frozen Organic Antioxidant Blend due to potential to be contaminated with hepatitis A virus on June 3, 2013. The product was sold at Costco warehouse stores and Harris Teeter stores.
As per preliminary laboratory studies, the strain of hepatitis A virus (HAV) involved in the outbreak is genotype 1B, which is rarely seen in the Americas but circulates in the North Africa and Middle East regions, says the CDC. | Disease Outbreaks | June 2013 | ['(RTT News)'] |
Former Minneapolis Police officer Derek Chauvin, who was recorded on video kneeling on George Floyd's neck for several minutes and eventually causing his death, is taken into custody by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and charged with third-degree murder and second degree manslaughter. | Fired Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin has been arrested four days after George Floyd’s fatal arrest that sparked protests, rioting and outcry across the city and nation, and Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman announced he has been charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter.
On Friday, John Harrington, commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, announced that Chauvin, 44, of Oakdale, was taken into custody by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, who said that Chauvin was arrested in Minneapolis. There was some speculation that he had gone to a home in Florida.
“We have now been able to put together the evidence that we need. Even as late as yesterday afternoon, we did not have all that we needed,” Freeman said, before saying that he was unable to speak to specific pieces of evidence and which one specifically was needed to file charges.
“This is by far the fastest that we’ve ever charged a police officer,” Freeman said.
A criminal complaint released Friday afternoon details the events that unfolded on May 25:
Officers were dispatched to Cup Foods on the report of a man buying merchandise with a counterfeit $20 bill. Shortly after 8 p.m., Officers Thomas Lane and J Alexander Kueng arrived with their body cameras activate and recording. The officers learned from store workers that the man, later identified as Floyd, was parked in a car around the corner. Body camera footage shows the officers approaching the car with Lane on the driver’s side and Kueng on the passenger side. Three people were in the car: Floyd, another man and another woman. As Lane began speaking with Floyd, he pulled out his gun, pointed it at Floyd and ordered him to show his hands. Floyd then put his hands on the steering wheel and Lane holstered his firearm. Lane then ordered Floyd out of the car and handcuffed him, but Floyd “actively resisted being handcuffed,” the complaint states. Once handcuffed, however, police said Floyd did not resist and walked with Lane to the sidewalk. Floyd then sat on the ground at Lane’s direction. The complaint says Lane spoke with Floyd for under two minutes, asking Floyd for his identification and name. He also asked Floyd if he was “on anything” and told Floyd he was going to be arrested for passing counterfeit currency. Then, Lane and Keung stood Floyd up and attempted to take him to their squad car. Floyd then “stiffened up, fell to the ground and told the officers he was claustrophobic,” the complaint states. That’s when Officers Chauvin and Tou Thao arrived on the scene in a separate squad car. After making several attempts to get Floyd in the backseat from the driver’s side, the complaint says Floyd wouldn’t get in and would struggle with the officers by intentionally falling down. The complaint says that Floyd began saying and repeating he could not breathe while standing outside the car. Chauvin then went to the passenger side and tried to get Floyd in from that side, with Lane and Keung assisting. Chauvin then pulled Floyd out of the passenger side of the car at 8:19 p.m. and Floyd went to the ground face down while still handcuffed. While Keung and Lane held Floyd’s back and legs, Chauvin “placed his left knee in the area of Mr. Floyd’s head and neck.” Floyd could be heard repeatedly saying “I can’t breathe”, as well as “mama” and “please.” The officers, however, stayed in their positions. The officers told Floyd, “You are talking fine”, as he continued to struggle. At one point, Lane asked “should we roll him on his side?” To which Chauvin responded, “No, staying put where we got him,” the complaint states. Lane then said he was “worried about excited delirium or whatever” to which Chauvin responded, “That’s why we have him on his stomach.” They continued holding their positions. At 8:24 p.m., Floyd stopped moving. Kueng then checked Floyd’s right wrist for a pulse and said “I couldn’t find one.” The officers continued to hold their positions. At 8:27 p.m., Chauvin removed his knee from Floyd’s neck as medics arrived. Floyd was taken away in the ambulance. He was pronounced dead at Hennepin Healthcare. An autopsy report is pending, but the Hennepin County Medical Examiner did release these findings: There were no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation, and that Floyd had underlying health problems, including coronary artery disease and hypertensive heart disease. According to the medical examiner, “the combined effects of Mr. Floyd being restrained by the police, his underlying health conditions and any potential intoxicants in his system likely contributed to his death,” the complaint states.
The complaint determined that Chauvin had his knee on Floyd’s neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds total. Two minutes and 53 seconds of that time was after Floyd became unresponsive. “Police are trained that this type of restraint with a subject in prone position is inherently dangerous,” the complaint said. If convicted, Chauvin could face up to 25 years in prison on the murder charge and up to 10 years in prison on the manslaughter charge. No court appearance has been set.
Freeman says the other officers involved in the fatal arrest are under investigation and that charges are expected. “But I’m not going to get into that,” he said. “Today, we’re talking about former officer Chauvin.”
Mayor Jacob Frey called the decision to charge “an essential first step on a longer road toward justice and healing our city.”
“What’s happened in Minneapolis is bigger than any one city and any single event,” Frey said. “For our Black community who have, for centuries, been forced to endure injustice in a world simply unwilling to correct or acknowledge it: I know that whatever hope you feel today is tempered with skepticism and a righteous outrage.”
The FBI, meanwhile, is seeking photos/video from those who witnessed the incident to support the federal civil rights investigation into Floyd’s death.
Ben Crump, the attorney representing Floyd’s family, released a statement on their behalf, saying that they were expecting first-degree murder charges.
“We call on authorities to revise the charges to reflect the true culpability of this officer,” the statement said. FAMILY STATEMENT: The family of #GeorgeFloyd and I released the following statement in response to the arrest of Derek Chauvin, the officer videoed kneeling on George Floyd’s neck. #JusticeForFloyd #JusticeForGeorgeFloyd pic.twitter.com/BkSFRlYB6j
Ben Crump (@AttorneyCrump) May 29, 2020
A first-degree murder charge carries a mandatory life sentence in Minnesota. Attorney General William Barr issued a statement Friday afternoon, saying:
The video images of the incident that ended with death of Mr. Floyd, while in custody of Minneapolis police officers, were harrowing to watch and deeply disturbing. The state prosecutor has been in the process of determining whether any criminal charges are appropriate under state law. On a separate and parallel track, the Department of Justice, including the FBI, are conducting an independent investigation to determine whether any federal civil rights laws were violated. Both state and federal officers are working diligently and collaboratively to ensure that any available evidence relevant to these decisions is obtained as quickly as possible. Under our system, charging decisions must be, and will be, based on the law and facts. This process is proceeding quickly. As is the typical practice, the state’s charging decisions will be made first. I am confident justice will be served.
BREAKING MPD Officer Derek Chauvin has been arrested in the death of #GeorgeFloyd.I am at a news conference in Minneapolis City Hall with black leaders in Minnesota and friends of George Floyd. They found out the news in the moment and this is their response. #WCCO pic.twitter.com/JNOE2zm1IG
Marielle Mohs (@MarielleMohs) May 29, 2020
Day 2 of a demonstration in front of the Hennepin County Government Center. This crowd heard the charges of #DerekChauvin all together and immediately began chanting “1 down, 3 to go” #GeorgeFloyd #WCCO pic.twitter.com/IatDHQra8v
Marielle Mohs (@MarielleMohs) May 29, 2020
Chauvin is the former officer in the video seen around the world with his knee on Floyd’s neck for at least five minutes. He’d been with Minneapolis police for 19 years.
Police initially said Floyd was resisting arrest and had a medical incident. However, video obtained by CBS News shows Floyd cooperating with officers, at least in the initial moments of the encounter.
A bystander’s video showed Floyd pleading that he could not breathe as a white officer identified as Chauvin knelt on his neck and kept his knee there for several minutes after Floyd stopped moving and became unresponsive.
Related: Medics Worked On ‘Unresponsive, Pulseless’ George Floyd After Mpls. Arrest
All four officers were fired a day after Floyd’s death. As of yet, none of the other three officers have been reported as having been taken into custody.
The incident drew comparisons to the case of Eric Garner, an unarmed black man who died in 2014 in New York after being placed in a police chokehold. He also said the words “I can’t breathe” while being arrested. The phrase has become a rallying cry for protests over police brutality. The video circulated widely on social media, sparking protests in Minneapolis and cities across the country.
On both Tuesday and Wednesday, protests began with peaceful demonstrations near where Floyd was pinned to the ground, but violence later broke out near the 3rd Precinct police station. Wednesday evening’s protests involved more than 30 fires, destruction of businesses and looting.
Unrest was more widespread Thursday night, with destruction spreading to St. Paul, where more than 170 businesses were damaged. In Minneapolis, rioters burned the 3rd Precinct police station.
Earlier Friday, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said the looting and arson must come to an end so that state can address the problems that led to Floyd’s death.
“We cannot have the looting and recklessness that went on,” he said. “It’s time for us to clean our streets.”
At that same press conference, Harrington, the commissioner of public safety, called Floyd’s death a murder.
“That’s what it looked like to me,” he said. “I’ll call it as I see it.”
Floyd’s death is being investigated by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, FBI in Minneapolis and the Department of Justice Civil Rights division. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | May 2020 | ['(KSTP)', '(WCCO)'] |
The Afghan Ministry of Defense reports that Mullah Fazlullah, the emir of the Pakistani Taliban, was killed in Kunar province by an U.S. drone strike two days prior on June 13. | Follow NBC News PESHAWAR, Pakistan — The leader of the Pakistani Taliban was killed by a U.S. drone strike, an Afghan official said Friday.
Mullah Fazlullah Khorasani was Pakistan's most-wanted militant and blamed for attacks including a 2014 school massacre that killed 132 children and the 2012 shooting of schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai, who was later awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
In March, the U.S. offered a $5 million reward for information on Fazlullah.
Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammad Radmanish told NBC News that Fazlullah died in a strike in the Marawaya district of the border province of Kunar.
Earlier, Lt. Col Martin O’Donnell, a spokesman for U.S. Forces in Afghanistan, said in a statement that U.S. forces had carried out an airstrike Thursday in Kunar "which targeted a senior leader of a designated terrorist organization."
Fazlullah's death could ease strained ties between Islamabad and Washington even as Afghanistan observes an unprecedented three-day ceasefire with the larger Afghan Taliban.
Pakistan is considered key to persuading Afghan Taliban leaders, who Washington believes shelter on Pakistani soil, to open negotiations to end the 17-year-old war in Afghanistan.
Prior to the Afghan Defense Ministry stating that Fazlullah had been killed, several members of the Pakistani Taliban told NBC News they had been unable to make contact with him and other senior commanders since receiving word of the strike.
They said they feared four other top commanders may also have been killed.
"Most of our people are seriously concerned after they heard about the killing of our leader, but the top leadership is out of access," Pakistani Taliban commander Maulvi Obaidur Rahman told NBC News.
Like many other Pakistani militants, Khorasani had crossed into Afghanistan after the Pakistani army launched a major military offensive in the Swat Valley in 2009. | Famous Person - Death | June 2018 | ['(NBC News)'] |
South Korean President Moon Jae-in and U.S. President Donald Trump agree to revise the South Korea Ballistic Missile Range Guidelines which caps South Korea's missile development. | U.S. President Donald Trump agreed with South Korean President Moon Jae-in to revise the two countries’ treaty capping the development of the South’s ballistic missiles as Seoul has hoped to, Moon’s office said on Saturday.
South Korea’s development of its ballistic missiles is limited to range of 800 kilometers (500 miles) and payload weight of 500 kilograms (1,100 pounds) under a bilateral treaty revised in 2012.
The two leaders discussed the issue as a way to boost the South’s defense against growing threat from North in a telephone call, South Korea’s Blue House said.
| Sign Agreement | September 2017 | ['(Reuters)'] |
The first of a series of British satellites, known as NovaSAR, is launched from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in India. The Surrey Satellite Technology satellite is designed to monitor suspicious shipping activity. | The first all-British radar satellite has launched to orbit on an Indian rocket. Called NovaSAR, it has the ability to take pictures of the surface of the Earth in every kind of weather, day or night. The spacecraft will assume a number of roles but its designers specifically want to see if it can help monitor suspicious shipping activity. Lift-off from the Satish Dhawan spaceport occurred at 17:38 BST. NovaSAR was joined on its rocket by a high-resolution optical satellite - that is, an imager that sees in ordinary light. Known as S1-4, this spacecraft will discern objects on the ground as small as 87cm across. Both it and NovaSAR were manufactured by Surrey Satellite Technology Limited of Guildford. UK engineers have long had expertise in space radar but their technology has previously always gone on broader missions, such as those for the European Space Agency. NovaSAR, which has the distinctive shape of a cheesegrater, is uniquely British, however. Its radar instrument was developed for SSTL by Airbus in Portsmouth. The mission incorporates low-cost, miniaturised components and will aim to demonstrate a more affordable approach to radar imaging. It will operate in a number of modes for applications that include the detection of oil spills, flood and forestry monitoring, disaster response, and crop assessment. But perhaps its most interesting role will be in maritime observation. The satellite is equipped with a receiver that can pick up Automatic Identification System (AIS) radio signals. These are the positional transmissions that large ships are obliged to broadcast under international law. Vessels that tamper with or disable these messages very often are engaged in smuggling or illegal fishing activity. If such ships appear in NovaSAR's pictures, they will be reported to the authorities. "We are very interested in this maritime mode, which is a 400km-plus swath mode," said Luis Gomes, the chief technology officer at SSTL. "It is important to be able to monitor large areas of the ocean - something we don't do at the moment. We all saw with the Malaysian airline crash in the Indian Ocean the difficulty there was in monitoring that vast area. We can do that kind of thing with radar and NovaSAR is good for that," he told BBC News.
The NovaSAR project was initiated inside SSTL in 2008/9. Back then the idea of a radar satellite that measured 3m by 1m was regarded as something of a breakthrough because, up that point, such spacecraft had been big, power-hungry beasts that cost a lot of money. It is a little unfortunate therefore that the programme got delayed because in the meantime others have also managed to package radar systems into small volumes. The Finnish start-up Iceye has a platform flying now that is the size of a suitcase. And an American company called Capella is promising a radar satellite that is not much bigger than a shoebox. But radar expert Martin Cohen from Airbus is unperturbed by these developments. "NovaSAR is still a step change, certainly for Airbus in terms of what you can do for a particular amount of money. But while we've been waiting for a launch, we haven't stood still," he said. "We've done lots of work on the next generation. "NovaSAR is just the first in a family of instruments that will offer different capabilities, such as finer resolutions and other parameters; and we will be putting those capabilities on smaller spacecraft than NovaSAR." The satellite, as presently configured, will operate in the S-band (3.2 gigahertz), giving a best resolution of 6m with a swath width of 15-20km. Future variants will go to the higher-frequency X-band and sense features on the ground as small as a metre across, and less. The Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) was programmed to put NovaSAR and S1-4 into an orbit that is 580km above the Earth. S1-4 will be taking pictures of China for Twenty First Century Aerospace Technology (21AT). This company, based in Beijing, will use the data in the Asian nation to help with urban planning, working out crop yields, pollution monitoring and doing biodiversity assessments, among many other applications. | New achievements in aerospace | September 2018 | ['(BBC)'] |
Voting in Egypt continues for an unscheduled third day due to concerns about low turnout. Official results show former military chief Abdul Fattah al-Sisi headed for a massive victory with 92% of the vote. | Former military chief Abdul Fattah al-Sisi has won an overwhelming victory in Egypt's presidential election, according to provisional results.
He gained more than 93% of the vote with ballots from most polling stations counted, state media say.
Turnout is expected to be about 46% - far lower than Mr Sisi was hoping for as an endorsement. Islamist and some secular groups boycotted the vote.
Mr Sisi's only opponent Hamdeen Sabahi has admitted defeat.
"I accept my defeat and respect the people's choice," Mr Sabahi said in a televised press conference.
However, he also said there were "violations" in the voting process, and rejected the 46% turnout announced by the government, describing it as an "insult to the intelligence of Egyptians". Mr Sisi deposed President Mohammed Morsi last July after mass protests.
He has overseen a bloody crackdown on Mr Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood movement in which more than 1,400 people have been killed and 16,000 detained.
The Brotherhood boycotted the vote, as did many liberal and secular activist groups.
The Islamist movement rejected the vote on Thursday with Tariq Al-Zumur, head of the Construction and Development Party, calling the process a "theatrical play which did not convince anybody".
Analysis, by Jeremy Bowen, BBC Middle East editor, Cairo
Supporters of Abdel Fattah al-Sisi started celebrating even before the polls closed in Egypt. His victory was never in doubt. The Muslim Brotherhood, the winner of the last presidential election, is banned. It had urged its supporters to boycott the vote. Egypt is a troubled country. Its most fundamental problem is the weakness of the economy. It has a big, young, growing population, and not nearly enough jobs to go round. About 40% of the population live in poverty. More than 40% of the poorest Egyptians are illiterate. Healthcare and education don't meet the needs of the people. Added to that are Egypt's security problems. There have been attacks from Islamist extremists, especially in Sinai. The former Field Marshal Sisi will not want them to escalate into a fully fledged uprising. No quick fixes exist for the grave structural problems faced by Egypt. But the president-elect needs results. Egyptians have a habit of protest now. If their lives don't get better they they will lose patience with their new president too. Mr Sabahi secured fewer than 760,000 of the 24.7 million votes counted, and lost out in many regions to a high number of spoiled ballots, the state-run al-Ahram newspaper reports.
Hundreds of Sisi supporters took to the streets of Cairo as results emerged, waving Egyptian flags, setting off fireworks and honking their car horns.
The military-backed authorities had extended voting to a third day in the hope of boosting turnout.
But reports suggested many polling stations were almost deserted on Wednesday.
The BBC's Orla Guerin in Cairo says Egypt's new president will inherit a crippled economy, a low-level insurgency and a bitterly divided nation. He had aimed to win 40 million of 54 million registered votes, to show that he had the support of the majority of Egypt. In the event, it appears about 25 million voted.
Turnout for the previous presidential election between Mohammed Morsi and former Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq was about 52%.
Al-Sisi's campaign site
Sabahi's campaign site (in Arabic) | Government Job change - Election | May 2014 | ['(BBC)', '(BBC)', '(AP)'] |
U.S. district court judge Reggie Walton declares a mistrial in the perjury trial of former baseball star Roger Clemens after prosecutors present evidence that Walton had previously ruled inadmissible. Walton will hold a hearing on September 2 to determine whether to hold a new trial. | WASHINGTON -- One minute Roger Clemens was on trial for his freedom. Then, on just the second day of testimony, it was suddenly all over and the former baseball star was outside signing autographs for fans.
Almost as soon as it began, Clemens' perjury trial ended Thursday -- in a mistrial the judge blamed on prosecutors and said a "first-year law student" would have known to avoid.
U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton called a halt to the trial under way after prosecutors showed jurors evidence that he had ruled out -- videotaped revelations that a teammate had said he'd told his wife Clemens confessed to using a drug.
Walton scheduled a Sept. 2 hearing to determine whether to hold a new trial. Rusty Hardin, Clemens' attorney, told reporters, "I wouldn't even hazard a guess" about what Walton will decide. Hardin said he needs until July 29 to file the motion for the hearing. The prosecution has until Aug. 2 to respond.
Walton told jurors he was sorry to have wasted their time and spent so much taxpayer money, only to call off the case.
Walton scolded prosecutors and said he couldn't let the former All-Star pitcher face prison if convicted on such "extremely prejudicial" evidence.
"Mr. Clemens has to get a fair trial," Walton said. "In my view, he can't get it now."
Hardin, who had asked for the mistrial declaration, patted an unsmiling Clemens on the back as the judge announced his decision. As he left the courthouse, Clemens did not comment but accepted hugs from a couple of court workers, shook hands with the security guards and autographed baseballs for fans waiting outside.
The quick end on only the second day of testimony was the second mistrial involving a superstar player accused in baseball's steroids scandal. Home run king Barry Bonds was convicted three months ago of obstruction of justice, but a mistrial was called on three more serious false-statements charges after jurors couldn't agree on a verdict.
Walton could end the prosecution by declaring that a new trial would run afoul of double jeopardy -- the right not to be brought to trial twice on the same charges for the same offense. But experts said it was unlikely that he would go that far, especially since the trial was just under way.
"Generally speaking, mistrial does not bar a trial of the defendant when the defendant requested the mistrial," said Harry Sandick, a former prosecutor who now defends white-collar cases. He said a judge may make an exception for misconduct on the part of prosecutors, but this appears to have been a simple yet devastating mistake.
"How could the government not have reviewed each piece of evidence after the court's pretrial rulings?" he said. "This is crucially important, and prosecutors have to do this all the time."
New York Yankees star shortstop Derek Jeter, once a teammate of Clemens', said after the mistrial was declared: "I'm no legal expert, but you want it to be behind him. Obviously, the more attention that's paid to that, it's just negative for the game in general."
The U.S. attorney's office in Washington, which tried the case, said it would have no comment because of Walton's gag order. Clemens also stayed mum.
"I'm not going to say anything," Clemens said as he left the courthouse. He and his legal team ducked into a nearby restaurant to escape the media horde following him.
The Clemens mistrial was the biggest embarrassment for the Justice Department in a high-profile case since the prosecution of Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, in which the government failed to turn over evidence favorable to the defense. That failure, two years ago, was so serious that Attorney General Eric Holder stepped in and asked a federal judge to throw out Stevens' convictions. The judge did so.
The unraveling of the current case began as prosecutors were showing jurors a video of Clemens' 2008 testimony before Congress. He is accused of lying under oath during that testimony when he said he never used performance-enhancing drugs during his 24-season career.
Clemens' former teammate and close friend, Andy Pettitte, had told committee investigators that Clemens confessed in 1999 or 2000 that he used human growth hormone. Clemens has said Pettitte "misremembers" or "misheard" their conversation.
Prosecutors had wanted to call Laura Pettitte as a witness to back up her husband's account because she says her husband told her about the conversation the day it happened. But Walton had said Laura Pettitte's statement wasn't admissible since it didn't involve direct knowledge of what Clemens said.
In the video prosecutors showed the jury, Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., referred to Pettitte's conversation with his wife during the questioning of Clemens. Walton quickly cut off the tape and called attorneys to the bench for a private conversation for several minutes. The video remained frozen on the screen in front of jurors with a transcript of what was being said on the bottom.
Cummings had been quoting from Laura Pettitte's affidavit to the committee. "I, Laura Pettitte, do depose and state, in 1999 or 2000, Andy told me he had a conversation with Roger Clemens in which Roger admitted to him using human growth hormones," the text on the screen read.
The judge eventually told the jurors to leave while he discussed the issue with attorneys in open court. Hardin asked for a mistrial, while prosecutors suggested the problem could be fixed with an instruction to the jury to disregard the evidence. Walton responded that they could never know what impact the evidence would have during the jury's deliberations.
"I don't see how I un-ring the bell," he said.
"Government counsel should have been more cautious," Walton said, raising his voice and noting that the case had already cost a lot of taxpayer money.
"I think that a first-year law student would know that you can't bolster the credibility of one witness with clearly inadmissible evidence," Walton said.
He said it was the second time that prosecutors had gone against his orders. The other occurred during opening arguments Wednesday when assistant U.S. attorney Steven Durham said Pettitte and two other of Clemens' New York teammates, Chuck Knoblauch and Mike Stanton, had used human growth hormone.
Walton said in pre-trial hearings that such testimony could lead jurors to consider Clemens guilty by association. Clemens' defense attorney objected when Durham made the statement Wednesday and Walton told jurors to disregard Durham's comments about other players.
Joshua Berman, a white collar defense lawyer who used to work with Durham and Butler when he was at the Justice Department, said both men have excellent reputations as ethical and responsible attorneys.
"I think that mistakes get made, frankly, and they get made in every trial on both sides," Berman said. "Unfortunately here you are on day one of a very high-profile trial." | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Sentence | July 2011 | ['(ESPN)'] |
Iraqi government forces and allied Shia militia recapture the town of Dhuluiya in Saladin Province, north of Baghdad, from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. | Iraqi government forces and allied Shia militia have recaptured the town of Dhuluiya, north of Baghdad, from Islamic State, security sources say.
One source at the Iraqi army's Samarra Operations Command said almost 300 IS fighters had been killed in the battle.
There has been no independent confirmation of the reports.
IS fighters seized the northern half of Dhuluiya in June and surrounded the southern half after a local Sunni tribe refused to swear allegiance.
Since then, government forces backed by US-led air strikes have been gradually pushing back the jihadists north and west of the capital.
The operation to break Islamic State's grip on Dhuluiya began on Sunday with air raids by Iraqi helicopter and fighter jets, police and locals said. Troops and militiamen had taken control of the town centre by Monday afternoon, and IS fighters had been surrounded in small areas to the north-west, Police Capt Khalaf Hammad told the Reuters news agency.
There were reports of fierce clashes overnight. Then by midday, security sources were claiming that the whole of the town was back in the government's hands, and that IS had suffered very heavy casualties when the northern area of Khrazraj was overrun.
A commander of the Badr Brigade, an Iranian-backed Shia militia, also told Iran's Press TV that Dhuluiya was now under full government control.
| Armed Conflict | December 2014 | ['(BBC)'] |
The FBI announces that 13 men from militia group Wolverine Watchmen are charged in a plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer at her vacation home. | Six people have been charged in federal court with plotting to kidnap Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer at her vacation home
LANSING, Mich. -- Agents foiled a stunning plot to kidnap Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, authorities said Thursday in announcing charges in an alleged scheme that involved months of planning and even rehearsals to snatch her from her vacation home.
Six men were charged in federal court with conspiring to kidnap the governor in reaction to what they viewed as her “uncontrolled power,” according to a federal complaint. Separately, seven others linked to a paramilitary group called the Wolverine Watchmen were charged in state court for allegedly seeking to storm the Michigan Capitol and seek a “civil war.”
The two groups trained together and planned “various acts of violence,” according to the state police.
Surveillance for the kidnapping plot took place in August and September, according to an FBI affidavit, and four of the men had planned to meet Wednesday to “make a payment on explosives and exchange tactical gear.”
The FBI quoted one of the men as saying Whitmer “has no checks and balances at all. She has uncontrolled power right now. All good things must come to an end."
Authorities said the plots were stopped with the work of undercover agents and informants. The men were arrested Wednesday night. The six charged in federal court face up to life in prison if convicted. The state terrorism charges the other seven men face carry a possible 20-year sentence.
Andrew Birge, the U.S. attorney in western Michigan, called the men “violent extremists.”
“All of us in Michigan can disagree about politics, but those disagreements should never, ever amount to violence. Violence has been prevented today,” Detroit U.S. Attorney Matthew Schneider told reporters.
A few hours later, Whitmer pinned some blame on President Donald Trump, noting that he did not condemn white supremacists in last week’s debate with Joe Biden and instead told a far-right group to “stand back and stand by.”
“Hate groups heard the president’s words not as a rebuke but as a rallying cry, as a call to action,” Whitmer said.
The White House called Whitmer's remarks “outlandish.”
Whitmer, who was considered as Biden's running mate, has been widely praised for her response to the coronavirus but also sharply criticized by Republican lawmakers and people in conservative areas of the state. The Capitol has been the site of many rallies, including ones with gun-toting protesters calling for her ouster.
Whitmer put major restrictions on personal movement and the economy, although many of those limits have been lifted since spring. The governor has exchanged barbs with Trump on social media, with the president declaring in April, “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!”
There is no indication in the criminal complaint that the men were inspired by Trump. Authorities also have not publicly said whether the men were angry about Whitmer's coronavirus orders.
The criminal complaint identified the six accused in the plot against Whitmer as Adam Fox, Ty Garbin, Kaleb Franks, Daniel Harris, Brandon Caserta, all of Michigan, and Barry Croft of Delaware. All but Croft appeared Thursday in federal court in Grand Rapids. They asked for court-appointed lawyers and were returned to jail to await detention hearings Tuesday.
Fox, who was described as one of the leaders, was living in the basement of a vacuum shop in Grand Rapids. The owner said Fox was opposed to wearing a mask during the pandemic and kept firearms and ammunition at the store.
“He was anti-police, anti-government," Brian Titus told WOOD-TV. “He was afraid if he didn’t stand up for the Second Amendment and his rights that the country is going to go communism and socialism.”
The government said the plot against Whitmer appeared to have roots in a June gathering in Dublin, Ohio, attended by more than a dozen people from several states, including Croft and Fox.
“The group talked about creating a society that followed the U.S. Bill of Rights and where they could be self-sufficient,” the FBI affidavit said. “They discussed different ways of achieving this goal from peaceful endeavors to violent actions. ... Several members talked about murdering ‘tyrants’ or 'taking' a sitting governor.”
The seven men charged in state court are accused of identifying the homes of law enforcement officers and making violent threats "intended to instigate a civil war,” Attorney General Dana Nessel said.
They were identified as Paul Bellar, 21, of Milford; Shawn Fix, 38, of Belleville; Eric Molitor, 36, of Cadillac; Michael Null, 38, of Plainwell; William Null, 38, of Shelbyville; Pete Musico, 42, and Joseph Morrison, 26, who live together in Munith. According to the affidavit, Musico and Morrison are founding members of the Wolverine Watchmen, which authorities described as “an anti-government, anti-law enforcement militia group.”
At least three of the 13 defendants were among some armed demonstrators who entered the Senate gallery on April 30 following a larger protest outside the Capitol against Whitmer's stay-at-home order, said Nessel spokeswoman Kelly Rossman-McKinney. At the time, a senator said the men shouted down at senators who were meeting amid debate over extending the governor's emergency declaration. The identities of the three men were not immediately available.
The Watchmen have met periodically for firearms and tactical training in remote areas “to prepare for the ‘boogaloo,’ a term referencing a violent uprising against the government or impending politically motivated civil war,” state police Det. Sgt. Michael Fink wrote in an affidavit.
Some boogaloo promoters insist they are not genuinely advocating for violence. But the boogaloo has been linked to a recent string of domestic terrorism plots, including the arrests of three Nevada men accused of conspiring to incite violence during protests in Las Vegas.
Boogaloo supporters have shown up at protests against COVID-19 lockdown orders and racial injustice, carrying rifles and wearing tactical gear over Hawaiian shirts.
Michigan became known for anti-government paramilitary activity in the mid-1990s, when a number of loosely affiliated groups began organizing and training in rural areas. They used short-wave radio, newsletters and early internet connections to spread a message of resistance to what they contended was a conspiracy to impose world government and seize guns.
They gained notoriety after reports surfaced that Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, convicted in the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building, had met with group members, although their connections were murky.
“That old militia world is still there, but kind of long in tooth,” said J.J. MacNab, a fellow at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism.
Nonetheless, rallies at the Michigan Capitol against Whitmer’s shutdown orders were recruiting events for such groups, said MacNab, who monitors their social media activity.
| Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | October 2020 | ['(ABC News)'] |
A mass shooting in Lancaster, South Carolina, leaves 2 men dead and 9 other people injured. | A shooting apparently tied to a longstanding"beef" left two people dead and several others injured early Saturday at a sports bar crowded with young peoplein Lancaster, South Carolina, according to authorities.
"It was one person targeting another, and unfortunatelywe have 10 shooting victims," Lancaster County Sheriff Barry Faile told reporters Saturday afternoon.
The sheriffsaid gunfire erupted at around 2:45 a.m. at the Old Skool Sports Bar & Grillin Lancaster, about 60 miles north of Columbiaand about 45 milessouth of Charlotte, North Carolina.
Two men were killed at the scene and eight were injured in the shooting,four of them airlifted to a hospital. Another person was injured in a fall as patrons tried to flee the bar, Faile said..
The deadwere identified Saturday asHenry Lee Colvin, 29, of Rock Hill, andAaron Harris, 28, of Kershaw, according to the Lancaster County Coroner's Office.
"I believe it was a beef between two individuals who showed up at the same place and things turned violent," Faile said. "And there were several others who got shot who were at the wrong place at the wrong time."
He said authorities had surveillance footage from the scene and had identified a possible suspect.
Authoritiessaida large crowd of young people was atthe barwhen the shooting occurred and that shots were fired inside and outside.
Authorities aren't sure if more than one person fired a weapon.
Faile saidit was the second time this year that police had been called to the scene because of reports of a shooting. | Armed Conflict | September 2019 | ['(USA Today)'] |
A rupture of an underground oil pipeline in California's Santa Barbara County near Refugio State Beach may have released 105,000 gallons of crude oil with tens of thousands gallons released into the Pacific Ocean. Jerry Brown, the Governor of California later declares a state of emergency. , | The operator of an underground pipeline that ruptured and released up to 105,000 gallons of crude oil in Santa Barbara County -- and tens of thousands of gallons into the ocean -- said Wednesday that the spill happened after a series of mechanical problems caused the line to be shut down.
The problems began about 10:45 a.m. Tuesday at two pump stations that move oil through the 11-mile pipeline along the Gaviota Coast, Rick McMichael, director of pipeline operations for Plains All American Pipeline, said at a news conference.
The company said its estimate of 105,000 gallons spilled west of Santa Barbara is a worst-case scenario that was based on the line’s elevation and flow rate -- which averages about 50,400 gallons an hour.
Investigators won’t find a cause for the rupture until they excavate the 24-inch wide line, which was installed in 1987, according to a joint statement from government and company officials.
When the line ruptured Tuesday, the oil seeped through the ground to a culvert and flowed into the ocean about a mile up the coat from Refugio State Beach. The company estimates about 21,000 gallons of crude went into the water.
The U.S. Coast Guard said a pair of oil slicks are stretching across a combined nine miles.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife said it had crews combing the beaches in search of oiled wildlife but that the agency did not yet have a count of how many have been affected.
At least two brown pelicans were oiled by the spill, said Jim Milbury, a spokesman for NOAA Fisheries. So far, federal wildlife officials have found no marine mammals affected, he said.
Photographer Reeve Woolpert, 69, of Summerland came down from Refugio to an area near the spill and saw a brown pelican by the shore covered in oil.
He told fish and wildlife and state parks officials about the bird, but three hours later nobody had come by.
“I said this bird wants to live, it’s a fighter,” Woolpert said.
So he wrapped the bird in his T-shirt and climbed the bluffs up to the train tracks where the spill first crossed toward the ocean.
A fish and wildlife worker came and took the blackened bird away in a cardboard box.
As Woolpert stood in a children’s sized swimming pool and scrubbed the oil off himself with a rag and soap, he looked down at the pooled oil from the culvert.
“It is a damn shame,” he said.
Also on Wednesday, Gov. Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency for Santa Barbara County to free up resources to respond to the spill.
The ruptured line, owned by Houston-based Plains All American Pipeline, is part of a larger oil transport network centered in Kern County.
An integrity check on the line was done two weeks ago, but results had not come back before Tuesday’s rupture, said Darren Palmer, district manager for Plains All American. The last inspection prior to this month was in 2012, according to the company.
The line was manually shut down by 11:30 a.m. after company workers noticed pressure abnormalities, company officials said. But the rupture was not confirmed visually until two hours later, when a company employee went to the site to inspect a report of an odor.
“We’re sorry this accident has happened, and we’re sorry for the inconvenience to the community,” Palmer said at the news conference.
Fishing and shellfish harvesting have been closed for one mile on either side of Refugio Beach, a popular coastal campsite, state officials said.
The Santa Barbara County Office of Emergency Management estimated it could take at least three days to clean up the spill, but that it will likely take much longer.
State park officials have shut down both Refugio and nearby El Capitan State Beach for the weekend and urged volunteers eager to head to the coast to clean to stay away while the investigation and recovery is ongoing.
The U.S. Coast Guard is supervising the cleanup effort, officials said. Plains All American hired Patriot Environmental Services, which was involved in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill cleanup effort in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, to manage the cleanup.
The company is using skimmers and booms to soak and suck up the oil and have already recovered more than 6,000 gallons, Plains All American officials said.
On Wednesday, workers in white protective suits, white helmets and yellow boots were working along several hundred yards of beach, doing the arduous work of shoveling fouled mud into clear plastic bags.
Occasionally a few formed human chains, passing the heavy bags from hand to hand to be piled near a parking area for pickup.
“This stretch of the California coast is unique in the world,” Santa Barbara County Supervisor Doreen Farr, who represents the area where the spill occurred, said at the news conference. “This is more than an inconvenience, this is a disaster.”
Linda Krop, chief counsel for the Santa Barbara-based Environmental Defense Center, visited Refugio State Beach late Tuesday and said she was alarmed to find little response to the spill.
“There was oil that was covering the beach and also being washed out to sea,” she said. “To me this was a very significant event. The beach was just blanketed in black tar.”
She said there was little active response to the spill.
Krop said the spill was particularly alarming because it was the result of a ruptured pipeline, which are considered safer than other modes of transporting oil, such as tankers.
“This spill happened from a pipeline that was built with supposed safeguards,” she said. “Pipelines tend to be a safer ... but even a pipeline can leak and rupture and cause a really significant spill.”
Krop was worried about how far the slick would spread through the Santa Barbara Channel, which she called “one of the most biologically rich places on the planet.”
“Right now we have migratory whales, including endangered humpbacks and blue whales,” she said. “We also have gray whales migrating back from Baja [California] to Alaska, and they come closer to shore. We also have a lot of very rare seabirds and other coastal endangered species. It’s a very, very sensitive, important place and we don’t know what the eventual harm will be.”
But farther south, county tourism officials said a yacht race planned for the weekend off Santa Barbara would go on as scheduled because the oil wasn’t expected to spread that far.
During the several-hours-long leak, about 21,000 gallons of oil escaped the pipeline, Coast Guard officials estimated. Coast Guard crews stopped the leak by 3 p.m., said Petty Officer Andrea Anderson.
The Santa Barbara County district attorney’s office was investigating the incident for any potential criminal or civil liabilities, said Dist. Atty. Joyce Dudley.
California State Parks district superintendent Richard Rozzelle said officials were assessing the spill’s impact by helicopter.
“We are very disappointed to have oil on our beach,” Rozzelle said Wednesday, standing near oil-covered rocks. “It is a public resource we spend a lot of time protecting.”
The executive director of Audubon California, Brigid McCormack, said, “Anytime you have oil spilled into the marine ecosystem, it’s a major threat for birds and other wildlife.” | Environment Pollution | May 2015 | ['(Los Angeles Times)', '(ABC7 Los Angeles)'] |
Two Roman Catholic priests are sentenced to more than 40 years in prison for sexually assaulting deaf children at a church school in Mendoza Province, Argentina; the school's gardener also receives an 18-year sentence. | A court in Argentina has sentenced two Roman Catholic priests to more than 40 years in prison for sexually abusing deaf children at a church school. Horacio Corbacho and Nicola Corradi, as well as a gardener, were found guilty of rape and abuse at the school in Mendoza province from 2004 to 2016.
Several victims were in court to see sentence passed on Monday.
The case has shocked Argentina, Pope Francis' homeland, with many accusing the Church of acting too slowly. The Catholic Church has faced an avalanche of child sexual abuse accusations around the world in the last few decades.
On Monday, the court in the provincial capital Mendoza sentenced Argentine priest Corbacho to 45 years in prison.
The 59 year old was found guilty of sexually abusing children at the Instituto Antonio Provolo de Mendoza in the city of Luján de Cuyo.
Corradi, an 83-year-old Italian national, was given a 42-year sentence. He had been investigated for abuses at the institute's school in Verona, Italy, in the 1970s, but was never charged. Armando Gómez, the gardener at the Luján de Cuyo school was jailed for 18 years.
The sentences cannot be appealed against.
None of the defendants made any comment after the sentences were read out.
Some of the victims' mothers present in the courtroom were seen crying and hugging each other.
Meanwhile, a crowd of mainly young people cheered the verdicts outside the court.
"You have no idea how important this is for us, and for the world," factory worker Ariel Lizárraga, the father of one of the victims, was quoted as saying by the Washington Post. "The church has been trying to hide these abuses. But these priests raped and abused our children. Our deaf children! Today, the taboo against accusing priests stops here," he said.
Analysis by BBC's Candace Piette
The verdict in this case is the latest stain on the Roman Catholic Church's handling of sex abuse cases across the globe.
The case has horrified people in Argentina, where dozens of cases of abuse in the Catholic church have come to light in recent years. The Mendoza victims told how, as children, they had been forbidden from using sign language so they could not communicate what was being done to them. The court heard how victims were raped. Many Argentines are asking why it took the police and the justice system - not the Catholic Church - to close down the school and prevent the abusers from having access to their victims.
| Famous Person - Commit Crime - Sentence | November 2019 | ['(BBC)', '(The Guardian)'] |
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling BJP Party concedes defeat to the grand alliance of Bihar sitting chief minister Nitish Kumar in the fifth and final phase of the 2015 Bihar Legislative Assembly election. | The Bihar poll outcome is sure to make life tougher for Modi in Parliament to push ahead his reform agenda. That’s where precisely Modi's challenge lies
For the Narendra Modi government, the defeat in Bihar elections should act as an eye-opener. Besides the Bihar-specific factors, the Bihar mandate was perceived to also partly reflect the development work the NDA government has carried out in its 17-months rule.
The poll outcome questions the dominance of Modi and BJP and, undoubtedly, puts more pressure on the NDA government to focus on governance and development agenda in the next three-and-a-half years.
Investors and economy watchers would have been happier with a BJP victory in Bihar since the BJP has to improve its strength in the Upper House, where its weak position has created major roadblocks for Modi to get some of the critical reforms push ahead.
PM Narendra Modi. PTI
While even a victory would not have changed the numbers in Rajya Sabha in a meaningful manner, it could have certainly given room for the Modi government to get more credibility to put more push the reform process with a renewed vigour. Post Bihar, that advantage is clearly lost for Modi. This is something economists and political analysts had pointed out.
The decisive victory of grand alliance in Bihar could act as a major turn off for the investors, who are eagerly looking at the continuity of the reform process under the Modi government.
Clearly, Bihar was the first major test for the BJP leadership in the Hindi-heartland after the May, 2014 Lok Sabha election. Despite Modi’s Rs 1.65 lakh crore package for the state announced in August this year and despite Modi and Amit Shah spending a lot of time to the poll campaign, it turned out to be a lost battle. The BJP’s failure to effectively address the ‘intolerance’ wave too has played out in the Bihar defeat.
Modi should accept the defeat and move on to focus on the NDA's development agenda. True, confronting a rejuvenated opposition will be even more difficult for Modi in Parliament as the Winter Session is set to begin later this month.
The reform process is still a job half done for Modi, especially on crucial issues such as GST, labor law reforms and making the environment more conducive for foreign investors.
The Modi government, which staged a landslide victory in the May 2014 Lok Sabha elections, has indeed managed to put the economy back on the reform track after a prolonged period of so-called policy paralysis during the UPA regime, but has failed to make progress on large-ticket reforms such as land acquisition on account of lack of strength in the Upper House.
"Bihar polls are important politically as they are the first test of the ruling BJP in the Hindi heartland after the May 2014 general elections," said economists at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in a report dated 4 November.
"While Bihar polls will not impact national politics as PM Modi commands a majority in the Lok Sabha, they will influence the market’s perception of reforms," said they in a report.
Eye on reforms
Modi’s reform plan so far has focused on several small incremental steps, many of which have made notable progress.
The government’s push on the financial inclusion front, creation of a social security network, roll-out of direct benefit transfer and overhauling the financial sector structure, have been seen as critical steps in the overall reform progress.
The challenge for Modi is to take the process forward amid ongoing disruptions.
In a recent report, Moody’s Analytics had warned that Modi will have to focus on the reform process keeping his party members under check (referring the inflammatory comments by BJP leaders on sensitive issues).
The NDA government's very ability to push critical reforms in the economy could also suffer (if) the debate turns away from economic policy in Parliament, the agency said.
"Back to the fore will be the need to push key reforms, mainly concerning the factors of production – namely land acquisition, labour reforms and improving the business climate," said Radhika Rao, economist at Singapore based DBS Bank.
"Attracting investments is also a priority through simpler foreign direct investment regime and iron out contentious issues regarding the public-private partnerships. Latter is particularly important for the infrastructure sector, especially roads and highways where many projects are stalled due to a combination of financing crunch, cost over-runs and tepid private sector participation," Rao said.
On Friday, speaking at the Delhi Economics Conclave, Modi said India's economy looks much better now compared with the time he took over the office from UPA last year. "By almost every major economic indicator, India is doing much better, than we took office 17 months ago," Modi said. Modi cited an improving GDP growth, low inflation, pick up in foreign investments, healthy fiscal deficit and lower interest rates.
Certainly, the economy looks in a much better shape than the UPA-days. While the NDA-government can certainly claim its due credit for pushing several development-oriented reforms, it should also thank the lower crude and commodity oil prices, which have helped to ease a significant part of the burden on India’s import bill and inflation worries.
Also, the improvement in GDP growth is yet to reflect on corporate performance, bank credit growth and the stressed asset situation in the sector.
The bottomline: The Bihar poll outcome is sure to make life tougher for Modi in Parliament to push ahead his reform agenda. That’s where precisely Modi's challenge lies.
The voices raising doubts over Modi government’s ability to stay course on the reform-plans are likely to turn intense post Bihar. The task for Modi is to restore the investor confidence.
| Government Job change - Election | November 2015 | ['(NPR)', '(FirstPost.com)'] |
Protestors set fire to the Ministry of Agriculture headquarters in Brasília amid calls for the impeachment or resignation of Michel Temer as President of Brazil over allegations of corruption. | Angry demonstrators in Brasilia have started a fire inside the ministry of agriculture and have damaged several other ministerial buildings. Brazilian authorities estimate around 35,000 are marching in the capital. Troops are being deployed to defend government buildings and there is a heavy police presence on the streets.
Protesters are demanding the resignation of President Michel Temer, fresh elections, and for economic reform plans to be withdrawn. Mr Temer has faced new corruption allegations in the last week, and is facing growing pressure to step down.
According to reports, several ministries are being evacuated because of the protests - but not before the agriculture ministry was damaged.
"There was an invasion of the ministry's private entrance. They lit a fire in a room, broke photos in a gallery of ex-ministers and confronted police," a spokesman told the AFP news agency.
There have been clashes between police and demonstrators and local media report one person has been injured and several have been detained. Planned demonstrations began peacefully around midday before clashes with police erupted.
Police fired rubber bullets and tear gas at some demonstrators, and video footage showed other members of the crowd smashing windows or setting makeshift barriers afire.
Last week, testimony released by the country's supreme court alleged that Mr Temer had taken millions of dollars in bribes since 2010.
The plea-bargain testimony came from bosses of a giant meat-packing firm.
In response, Mr Temer vowed to prove his innocence and remain as president while so doing.
On Saturday, he filed a petition to have the investigation suspended, but reversed that decision on Tuesday.
Mr Temer took office a year ago after his predecessor, President Dilma Rousseff, was impeached.
| Protest_Online Condemnation | May 2017 | ['(BBC)'] |
More than 450 people have been arrested after protests in which police used tear gas and water cannons in Chile's capital, Santiago. | The worst violence broke out when police tried to prevent demonstrators marching on the presidential palace. Dozens of people were injured, among them a socialist senator.
The main trade union federation called the protest, saying the government's free market economic policies have meant poorer conditions for workers.
Demonstrations took place in several cities around Chile, but outside the capital they were mostly peaceful.
Appeal for dialogue
There were clashes throughout the day in Santiago, where riot police tried to stop demonstrators moving on the government palace, La Moneda.
The marchers threw stones, while the police responded with teargas and water cannon.
Local television showed Socialist Senator Alejandro Navarro with blood streaming from a head wound after he was struck by a police officer. A police spokesman later apologised. Trade union leaders promised to continue their protests.
"We're going to continue behaving badly as long as there is injustice in this country. We're happy people are here because it means Chile is defending itself." said Maria Rozas, vice-president of the trade union federation, CUT. President Michelle Bachelet said there was space within Chilean democracy for people to express their demands but it should be done peacefully.
Democracy, she added, did not need disorder and violence.
Chile has one of the strongest economies in Latin America and has one of the lowest poverty levels in the region. The BBC's Horacio Brum in Santiago says about three million workers, roughly half the workforce, earn the minimum age of $260 (£130) a month. "But a family of four, without thinking of pension plans and health insurance etc, needs about $1000 to $1,500 a month to live comfortably." The popularity of President Bachelet's government has slumped in recent months, with Chileans taking to the streets to demonstrate, among other things, against unemployment, the education system and poor public transport. | Protest_Online Condemnation | August 2007 | ['(BBC)'] |
Uzbekistan Deputy Prime Minister Rustam Azimov is dismissed by President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, who had earlier criticized Azimov for failing to control financiers' activities. He is replaced by former Deputy Finance Minister Jamshed Kuchkarev. (Reuters²) | ALMATY (Reuters) - Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has harshly criticized officials in charge of finance and banking, asserting his power above one of two other members of a triumvirate that has ruled since the death last year of leader Islam Karimov.
In a leaked audio recording of a meeting, posted online, a voice recognizable as Mirziyoyev’s berates an official identified by news website Kun.uz as Deputy Central Bank Chairman Saidkamol Khodjaev and criticizing Deputy Prime Minister Rustam Azimov.
The tape confirms that Azimov - one of the ruling triumvirate along with Rustam Inoyatov, head of the SNB state security service - is under pressure. It also suggests Mirziyoyev may make sweeping changes at the central bank which awaits the appointment of a new chairman and is supposed to be preparing a foreign exchange reform.
Sources told Reuters last month that Mirziyoyev has moved to consolidate his power by sidelining Azimov.
In the recording, Mirziyoyev scolds Khodjaev over idleness and corruption among the bank’s lower-level officials.
“Your bankers don’t like to work. Is it possible to make someone work who has enjoyed his post for 10 years? No, because he doesn’t listen to you and gets more money than we do. Don’t be offended, but he gets his bribes,” he says.
He then berates Azimov, who has long been in charge of financial matters, for ignoring those problems.
“If people like Azimov, who have firmly grabbed the system sitting in Tashkent had come down (worked with people in lower levels of the system) we wouldn’t have had this situation,” he says. It is unclear if Azimov was present at the meeting.
Mirziyoyev’s office did not reply to an emailed request for comment from Reuters but it has published a report about a May 30 teleconference chaired by Mirziyoyev in which “officials in charge of certain industries and regions came under strong criticism over lack of responsibility, exactingness and initiative”.
Uzbekistan, a predominantly Muslim nation of 32 million, has been in flux since Karimov died last year after ruling for 27 years. Mirziyoyev became president but effectively shared power with Azimov and Inoyatov.
Azimov’s apparent sidelining effectively leaves Mirziyoyev and security boss Inoyatov as the two men sharing power in Central Asia’s most populous nation.
| Government Job change - Resignation_Dismissal | June 2017 | ['(Reuters)', '(AKIpress news agency)'] |
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