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SEAL Team Six conducts a predawn raid in northern Nigeria, rescuing American hostage Philip Walton, who was kidnapped in Niger. The Pentagon says no U.S. military personnel were injured in the operation. | Updated on: October 31, 2020 / 11:03 AM
/ CBS News
U.S. forces have rescued an American hostage in northernNigeria. Philip Walton, who was abducted by a criminal gang, was rescued by SEAL Team 6, CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports. Officials had feared the gang would sell him to terrorists operating in the region.
"U.S. forces conducted a hostage rescue operation during the early hours of 31 October in Northern Nigeria to recover an American citizen held hostage by a group of armed men," Chief Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said in a statement Saturday. "This American citizen is safe and is now in the care of the U.S. Department of State."
The statement said no U.S military personnel were injured in the operation.
Walton, described by a defense official as an American farmer, was abducted in Niger earlier this week, Martin reports. He was then taken across the border to Nigeria, according to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
The criminal gang that captured Walton was based in the small village of Niamey in southwestern Niger, Martin reported. They apparently intended to hold him hostage for a ransom.
Six captors were involved, and five were killed during Walton's rescue while one got away, according to a defense official.
A defense official said the raid was carried out with the cooperation and support of both Niger and Nigeria.
| Armed Conflict | October 2020 | ['(CBS News)'] |
Russia's lower parliament approves a bill creating a list of blacklisted websites, amid fears of censorship. | The original proposal, which has been under review in the Duma since last week, implied that only “harmful information” would be censored.However, that phrase was amended on Tuesday night, and the list of reasons for which the government will be allowed to shut down a site is now strictly defined.The list includes web pages which advocate suicide, substance abuse, excessively risky behavior, and child pornography.But critics believe the blacklist of not-for-children sites will restrict internet freedom. The proposal aims to introduce a non-governmental internet watchdog, which would monitor the web for potentially harmful content and request hosting companies to restrict access to those pages. If hosting companies refuse, the page would then become blacklisted.
Top Russian websites have joined Wikipedia in the fight against a bill which would restrict access to online information. Yandex, Vkontakte, and LiveJournal have spoken out against the draft law, which they claim will pave the way for internet censorship in Russia.Search engine Yandex responded to the bill by crossing out the word “everything” out of its logo which usually reads “You can find everything.”The company also provided a link to a statement which warned the legislation may stifle free speech, and questioned the bill’s “rash” adoption.“We think it’s necessary to maintain the balance of public interests and also consider technological characteristics of the internet, that’s why a review of the draft law must be postponed, with the legislation openly discussed,” said Yandex’s chief editor, Elena Kolmanovskaya, in the statement.The move comes a day after online encyclopedia Wikipedia declared a 24 hour blackout against the bill. Visitors to the Russian Wikipedia site were unable to access it on July 10. Those who tried saw a black censorship banner over the word Wikipedia, which read, “Imagine a world without free knowledge.” A statement on the Wikipedia homepage read, “Lobbyists and activists supporting the amendments claim they are only aimed against content like child pornography and ‘similar things’, but strict adherence to the wording of the bill proposed for consideration will result in the creation in Russia of a system similar to the ‘Great Firewall of China’.”In January this year, English-language Wikipedia and other internet giants participated in a blackout, in order to protest SOPA and PIPA bills in the U.S. Congress and Senate. Critics claimed they would empower the government beyond reason, and would damage the internet as a result. Both bills have since been put on hold. | Government Policy Changes | July 2012 | ['(AFP via Google News)', '(Russia Today)'] |
The Malaysian National Security Council Act comes into effect giving the Prime Minister of Malaysia Najib Razak sweeping new powers. | PM covers a broad spectrum of issues relevant to all sections of Australia's geographically and culturally diverse community.
Peter Lloyd reported this story on Monday, August 1, 2016 18:25:00
| A security law has come into force in Malaysia that gives the Prime Minister, Najib Razak, sweeping new powers.As well as letting him declare any area in Malaysia a security zone, the law gives police enhanced powers, including the right to use unlimited force and immunity for their acts. Mr Najib is under international investigation in a billion dollar plus embezzlement scandal.He says the law is needed to combat terrorism. Peter Lloyd reports.PETER LLOYD: Najib Razak rammed the National Security Council Act through Parliament last December. In Malaysia, the country's rotating monarch gives the final signature before a law comes into effect. But the King has been resisting, and, for the first time, a government has gone ahead with legislation without that final step in checks and balance. Linda Lakhdhir is a lawyer from Human Rights Watch.LINDA LAKHDHIR: Once you've declared a national security area, you can do warrantless arrests, you can do warrantless searches for violations of any written law, and that's a part that really, really bothers us. Because it's not that you can do a warrantless search if you think someone's about to commit violence or you think someone is about to, you know, commit a terrorist attack, you can do a warrantless search and a warrantless arrest for suspicion of violating any written law, whether that's the peaceful assembly act, the sedition act, the communications and multimedia act.The laws will be used and abused a lot in Malaysia and that makes it a really, really broad law and it's very concerning to us.PETER LLOYD: Najib Razak's a hard man under pressure, accused of kleptocracy on a grand scale.He's already removed from office an attorney general planning to lay criminal charges, and sacked a potential rival in cabinet who would have replaced him.The new sweeping security laws are fit for an autocrat, precisely what many opposition figures in Malaysia fear is Najib Razak's endgame.Wan Saiful Wan Jan is from the Institute for Democracy. WAN SAIFUL WAN JAN: The problem with this act at the moment is it gives unprecedented amount of power to the hands of one person and that is a worry.PETER LLOYD: Under these security laws, a council led by the PM can impose so called security areas for up to six months at a time.Security forces can search and arrest people, and seize property without a warrant. Officers will be protected from prosecution for any deaths that may occur.In a statement, the Prime Minister defended the laws as necessary, and some of the almost exclusively pro-government media outlets in Malaysia conveyed that message, along with harrowing images of bomb blasts in Baghdad.The only bombshells in Malaysia recently are of the political kind. Najib's under huge pressure over allegations he's a massive thief who stole more than $700 million from a state investment fund.The US Justice Department's investigation suggests $3.5 billion was siphoned off from the fund.Reports suggest it's going after Goldman Sachs bank for documents to bolster their case.Eric Paulsen is from the group Lawyers For Liberty in Malaysia. ERIC PAULSEN: I think that the Prime Minister is consolidating power. If you're to look at the (inaudible) act itself, he would have control over the military and police. And, you know, in times of crisis, as the Prime Minister is now, the temptation to abuse the power is extremely high.PETER LLOYD: It means Malaysia is under yet more international scrutiny. Linda Lakhdhir from Human Rights Watch again. LINDA LAKHDHIR: It's much broader than can be justified for what it's supposed to be justified for which is to protect national security.PETER LLOYD: How does it compare to the old days of the internal security act? Is it more draconian?LINDA LAKHDHIR: It is arguably broader than some provisions of the national security act.PETER LLOYD: The law is now in force. Malaysians are waiting to see how and when it will be used.MARK COLVIN: Peter Lloyd. | Government Policy Changes | August 2016 | ['(ABC News PM)'] |
Three Israelis are killed and one other is wounded after a Palestinian gunman opens fire in an entrance to the Israeli settlement of Har Adar in the West Bank. | HAR ADAR, West Bank (Reuters) - A Palestinian man with security clearance to work at a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank opened fire at a checkpoint on Tuesday, killing two Israeli security guards and a paramilitary policeman.
The assailant, who was armed with a pistol and also seriously wounded a fourth Israeli, was shot dead, police said.
The incident was unusual in that the 37-year-old man had been issued an Israeli work permit - a process that entails security vetting - unlike most of the Palestinians involved in a wave of street attacks that began two years ago.
A police spokeswoman said the gunman approached Har Adar among a group of Palestinians who work at the settlement, and aroused the suspicion of guards at the entrance checkpoint.
Challenged to halt, the Palestinian “opened his shirt, drew a pistol and fired at the security staff and troopers at close range,” the spokeswoman said.
Residents of the settlement told Israeli media the man worked as a cleaner. One of them, Moish Berdichev, said he had domestic problems - his wife had left him - and speculated he may have carried out the attack knowing he would not survive.
“He was a guy with a good head on his shoulders. It’s a shame. Very sad,” Berdichev told Army Radio.
The Shin Bet internal security service identified the man as Nimr Jamal and said he had “severe personal and family issues, including domestic violence”.
The man lived in the nearby Palestinian village of Beit Suriq, the police said.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in public remarks to his cabinet that the man’s house would be demolished and any work permits issued to his relatives would be revoked.
| Armed Conflict | September 2017 | ['(Reuters)'] |
Egyptian interior minister Mohamed Ibrahim Moustafa survives an assassination attempt as his convoy traveled through the Nasr City district in Cairo. | Egypt's interior minister, Mohammed Ibrahim, has survived a car bomb attack on his convoy as it travelled through the Nasr City district in Cairo.
Security officials are not yet clear whether the explosion on Thursday morning was caused by a suicide car bombing or an explosives-laden car detonated by remote control.
Ibrahim is in charge of the country's police force.
Nasr City is a stronghold of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group from which ousted president Mohamed Morsi hails. | Armed Conflict | September 2013 | ['(The Guardian)', '(Wall Street Journal)'] |
The United Nations reports that a ceasefire has been agreed upon by non-governmental militias fighting in Tripoli. | Rival militia factions that have been fighting in Libya's capital Tripoli for the past week have agreed a ceasefire, the United Nations says.
At least 47 people have been killed and 1,800 families internally displaced by the violence, officials say.
Last week, a ceasefire deal announced by officials from western cities only held for a few hours.
A UN-backed government is nominally in power in the capital, but militias occupy much of the rest of the country.
"Under the auspices of [UN envoy Ghassan Salame], a ceasefire agreement was reached and signed today to end all hostilities, protect civilians, safeguard public and private property," the Unsmil mission said.
The ceasefire also provides for the reopening of the capital's only functioning airport, Mitiga, which has been closed since 31 August due to the clashes. The agreement "does not aim to fix all the Libyan capital's security problems; it seeks to agree on a broader framework on the way to start addressing these issues," the mission said. The talks included military officers, leaders of various armed groups in and around the capital and the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA). This is the third attempt to end the outbreak of violence in Tripoli as the first two ceasefires were broken almost immediately. This time there's a signed agreement mediated by the United Nations. By Rana Jawad, BBC North Africa correspondent
If the ceasefire holds, it will be a short-term fix because the underlying issues that drive these bouts of deadly militia violence in Tripoli are rooted in governance, and institutional issues that could take years to overcome. For the international community, containing this deadly conflict was a priority because it threatened the standing of the only government they can deal with and what has been a painstakingly slow return of foreign missions and diplomats to Tripoli since 2014. But this ceasefire only buys them time. Every government that has come and gone, whether backed by the international community or not, has legitimised these competing armed groups on and off, including all those involved in the fighting this past week. This allowed them to grow more powerful and richer over the years, and for the rivalry to deepen and boil over as it did this month. As it stands, the authorities need some of them to remain in power because they have not figured out how to do without them. If they can maintain the peace long enough, it may give the UN and member-states a chance to take control of further mediation and new parallel efforts that start finding solutions to the root causes of Libya's troubles.
The armed group that sparked the eight-day conflict posted a statement saying its commander supported the truce; the group claims the agreement includes the departure of its rivals from Tripoli. Those rivals are militia brigades which are nominally attached to the interior ministry in the Tripoli government. The violence has forced thousands of people to flee to nearby towns or seek shelter in other parts of the capital, while many more have remained trapped inside their homes.
The violence broke out last week when militias from a city to the south of Tripoli attacked its southern areas, leading to fighting with local militias that support the GNA.
Hundreds of migrants trapped by the fighting have been moved to other detention centres.
Libya has faced continuing chaos since Nato-backed forces overthrew long-serving ruler Col Muammar Gaddafi in October 2011. Hundreds escape Libya jail amid clashes
Nations call for calm after Libya clashes
'Militants' kill Libyan checkpoint officers
How Libya holds the key to solving Europe's migration crisis
Libya rivals agree 'historic' election plan
Is it possible to hold elections in lawless Libya?
| Sign Agreement | September 2018 | ['(BBC)'] |
Ebru Umar, a Dutch journalist of Turkish descent, is arrested in Kuşadası, Turkey, for tweets deemed critical of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. This comes as a political storm erupted this week over reports that the Turkish consulate asked Turkish organizations in the Netherlands to forward emails and social media posts which insult Erdoğan or Turkey. | A Dutch journalist was blocked from leaving Turkey on Sunday following her arrest on Saturday night for tweets deemed critical of the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
“Police at the door. No joke,” wrote Ebru Umar on her Twitter account.
Oké. Politie voor de deur timeline. Geen grap.
Umar, a well-known atheist and feminist journalist of Turkish origin, recently wrote a piece criticising Erdoğan for the Dutch daily Metro, extracts of which she then tweeted, leading to her arrest. After her arrest in the resort town of Kusadasi in western Turkey, where she was on holiday, Dutch officials said, she was brought before a judge.
She later said she was “free but forbidden to leave the country”.
Dutch blog Geenstijl said it received a message from Umar saying that she had been arrested after someone reported her tweets on a hotline set up by Turkish officials.
A political storm erupted this week over reports that the Turkish consulate asked Turkish organisations in the Netherlands to forward emails and social media posts that insult Erdoğan or Turkey.
The Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, said he would ask Ankara to clarify the call, saying it was not clear what the Turkish government aimed to achieve. The Turkish consulate said the note was sent by a consular official who used an “unfortunate choice of words” that was misinterpreted.
Umar had written about the row in her article. She compared the consulate’s call to “NSB practices”, a reference to the Dutch branch of the Nazi party before and during the second world war.
Umar’s Twitter feed showed she had recently engaged in spirited exchanges with her critics and reposted a tweet from someone claiming to have reported her to the police. Insulting the president is a crime in Turkey punishable by up to four years in jail, but the law has rarely been invoked. Since Erdoğan became president in 2014, prosecutors have opened more than 1,800 cases against people for insulting him, the justice minister said last month. Rutte said in a tweet that he “had had contact with @umarebru last night. Our embassy is in close contact with her for assistance.”
The Dutch education minister, Jet Bussemaker, told Dutch WNL television: “It is absurd that you can be arrested for a tweet.”
Born in The Hague to Turkish parents, Umar has been an outspoken critic of militant Islam, first in columns for the website of Theo van Gogh, who was murdered by a radical Islamist in 2004 after making films critical of the religion. Her case follows outrage in Germany after the government there gave a green light for authorities to begin criminal proceedings against popular comic Jan Böhmermann for performing a satirical poem about Erdoğan.
Last year, Turkey deported another Dutch journalist after she was arrested on suspicion of aiding Kurdish militants. Frederike Geerdink was detained in September 2015 during clashes between PKK rebels and Turkish security forces.
It was the second time she had been taken into custody: in April, Geerdink had been put on trial on charges of spreading “terrorist propaganda” for the PKK but was then acquitted.
“Thinking of dutch columnist @umarebru, now locked up in a kusadasi police station. Utter disgrace,” she tweeted.
Earlier this week, a German reporter was detained at an Istanbul airport and sent back to Cairo where he is based. A day later, authorities denied entry into Turkey for Russian news agency Sputnik’s Istanbul-based general manager. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Arrest | April 2016 | ['(The Guardian)'] |
The Israeli Air Force bombs two Syrian Armed Forces bases near Damascus and the town of Dimas, according to Russian and Syrian sources. | The Syrian military has accused Israel of carrying out two air strikes on Syria, near the capital Damascus.
Israeli planes bombed the area near Damascus international airport and the town of Dimas, the Syrian army said in a statement carried on state television.
No casualties were reported. There has been no confirmation of the air strikes from Israel.
Israel has conducted several air strikes on Syria since 2011.
"This afternoon, the Israeli enemy targeted two safe areas in Damascus province, namely the Dimas area and the Damascus International Airport," the military statement said.
It described the air strikes as "direct aggression" carried out to help the Syrian government's opponents.
Some installations had been damaged, it added, without elaborating on what had been hit.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the Syrian conflict, said (in Arabic) that 10 explosions were heard near Dimas, which is located close to the Syria-Lebanon border.
The group also said that there had been eight air raids on areas in the town of Khan al-Sheeh, on the eastern outskirts of the capital, and that a warehouse near Damascus airport had been hit.
Responding to the Syrian accusation, Israel's military said it did not comment on "foreign reports".
The Israeli air force has conducted several air strikes on Syria since the Syrian uprising began in March 2011.
They appear to have been mainly aimed at preventing weapons transfers to Syria's allies in Lebanon, the militant Hezbollah movement, the BBC's Jim Muir reports from Beirut.
Israel generally does not comment when it carries out attacks outside its borders, he says.
However, Israeli jets were seen constantly flying over parts of Lebanon on Sunday, about 30km (20 miles) from where the alleged attacks are said to have taken place, our correspondent adds.
The Israeli military has also bombed Syrian military sites in the past in retaliation for attacks on the occupied Golan Heights.
Israel seized the region from Syria in the closing stages of the 1967 Middle East War, and thwarted a Syrian attempt to retake it in 1973.
It unilaterally annexed the area in 1981, in a move not recognised internationally.
The two countries remain technically in a state of war, and UN observers are deployed to monitor a 70km-long (44-mile) demilitarised zone.
| Armed Conflict | December 2014 | ['(BBC News)'] |
LNA forces say they have seized control of Tripoli International Airport. | TRIPOLI/BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) - Eastern Libyan troops commanded by Khalifa Haftar said on Friday they had advanced into the southern outskirts of the capital Tripoli in a dangerous thrust against the internationally recognised government.
East Libyan troops close on Tripoli, claim airport
02:17
Fighting was going on near the former international airport, which Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA) force controlled by nightfall, an LNA spokesman and residents said.
The move by the LNA, which is allied to a parallel administration based in the east, escalated a power struggle that has splintered the nation since the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
It came as U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres departed after meeting Haftar to try to avert civil war.
“I leave Libya with a heavy heart and deeply concerned. I still hope it is possible to avoid a bloody confrontation in and around Tripoli,” he said on Twitter.
The U.N. Security Council was briefed behind closed doors on the latest developments on Friday and expressed deep concern in a statement read after the meeting by German U.N. Ambassador Christoph Heusgen, president of the council for April.
“They (the council) called on LNA forces to halt all military movements. They also called on all forces to de-escalate and halt military activity. There can be no military solution to the conflict,” Heusgen said.
Haftar, 75, who casts himself as an opponent of Islamist extremism but is viewed by opponents as a new Gaddafi, was quoted by Al-Arabiya TV as telling Guterres the operation would continue until terrorism was defeated.
The coastal capital Tripoli is the ultimate prize for Haftar’s eastern parallel government.
In 2014, he assembled former Gaddafi soldiers and in a three-year battle seized the main eastern city of Benghazi.
This year, he took the south with its oilfields.
Related Coverage
As well as visiting Haftar in Benghazi, Guterres had been in Tripoli this week to help organise a national reconciliation conference planned for later this month.
But that plan looked in jeopardy on Thursday as LNA forces took Gharyan, about 80 km (50 miles) south of the capital after skirmishes with forces allied to Tripoli-based, U.N.-backed Prime Minister Fayez al-Serraj.
From there, Haftar’s forces moved north, first taking the village of Suq al-Khamis, about 40 km (25 miles) from Tripoli, after some fighting, a resident and an eastern military source said.
Then on Friday, the LNA said it took the areas of Qasr ben Ghashir and Wadi al-Rabie on the southern outskirts of the capital, seizing the former Tripoli International Airport, which has been abandoned since a 2014 battle.
The LNA was in control of the former airport, LNA spokesman Ahmed Mismari said, rejecting a claim by the Tripoli interior minister, Fathi Bashagha, that his forces had retaken it.
The LNA said it had lost five soldiers since Thursday.
While the advance has looked fast, so far Haftar’s force has mainly crossed sparsely populated areas after taking Gharyan, the last town in the mountains before the road descends to a coastal plain.
In 2014 battles for Tripoli, it took advancing fighters weeks to reach the city centre from the old airport as snipers bogged them down.
Forces from Misrata, a city east of Tripoli, sent more reinforcements to defend Serraj, residents said.
Major ministries are still 20 km away.
Despite their gains, Haftar’s forces failed to take a checkpoint about 30 km west of the capital in a bid to close the coastal road to Tunisia. An LNA-allied armed group withdrew overnight from so-called Gate 27, leaving it abandoned in the morning, a Reuters reporter said.
And in another setback, forces allied to Tripoli took 145 LNA fighters prisoner in Zawiya, west of the capital, a western commander, Mohamed Alhudair, told Reuters.
An LNA source confirmed 128 had been captured.
Armed groups allied to the Tripoli government have moved more machinegun-mounted pickup trucks from the coastal city of Misrata to Tripoli to defend it against Haftar’s forces.
The offensive is a setback for the United Nations and Western nations trying to mediate between Serraj, 59, who comes from a wealthy business family, and military veteran Haftar.
They met in Abu Dhabi last month to discuss power-sharing.
The United Nations wants to find agreement on a road map for elections to resolve the prolonged instability in Libya, an oil producer and transit point for refugees and migrants trekking across the Sahara with the aim of reaching Europe.
Haftar enjoys the backing of Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, which see him as a bulwark against Islamists and have supported him militarily, according to U.N. reports.
The UAE, however, joined Western countries in expressing its deep concern about the fighting.
Russia said it was not helping Haftar’s forces and it supported a negotiated political settlement that ruled out any new bloodshed.
Tunisia has tightened control on its border with Libya in response to the renewed conflict, the defence ministry said.
Former colonial power Italy, which lies across the Mediterranean and has been a destination for migrants, was very worried, Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini said.
“We need to throw water on the fire, not petrol on the fire. I hope that people, acting out of economic or business self-interest, are not looking for a military solution, which would be devastating,” Salvini said.
Additional reporting by Hesham Hajali in Cairo and Michelle Nichols at the United Nations; Writing by Ulf Laessing; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne, Daniel Wallis and James Dalgleish
| Armed Conflict | April 2019 | ['(Reuters)'] |
A fire in a marketplace in Guatemala City kills at least fifteen people. The fire started from a cigarette in a fireworks stall. | Witnesses said a cigarette had set a fireworks stall ablaze in the La Terminal market in Guatemala City.
Firefighters said 14 bodies had been recovered from the scene and one person died in hospital.
Grain and vegetables are the mainstay of the market but a number of illegal firework stalls appear ahead of the holiday seasons.
Suffocated
Witnesses said the blaze could be seen 10km (six miles) away.
The market covers up to 8sq km and about 40 permanent shops were quickly destroyed.
One firework vendor told the Associated Press news agency a fellow vendor had thrown a lit cigarette into a street but the wind had blown it back and it ignited a pack of fireworks.
Fire department spokesman Ricardo Lemus said the cause was still under investigation.
He said some stallholders who stayed behind to protect their goods had died of suffocation in the poisonous fumes. | Fire | November 2006 | ['(BBC)'] |
The electoral commission announces the results of the May 12 elections. Muqtada al-Sadr's list wins most seats, followed by Hadi al-Amiri and Haider al-Abadi's groups. | BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A political bloc led by populist Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, a long-time adversary of the United States who also opposes Iranian influence in Iraq, has won the country’s parliamentary election, the electoral commission said on Saturday.
Sadr himself cannot become prime minister because he did not run in the election, though his bloc’s victory puts him in a position to have a strong say in negotiations. His Sairoon electoral list captured 54 parliamentary seats.
The Victory Alliance, headed by incumbent Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, trailed in third place with 42 seats, behind the Al-Fatih bloc, which won 47 seats.
Al-Fatih is led by Hadi al-Amiri, who has close ties with Iran and heads an umbrella group of paramilitaries that played a key role in defeating Islamic State.
The results were announced a week after Iraqis voted in a nationwide election, which produced surprising results amid a historically low turnout.
The nationalist cleric’s success could be a setback for Iran, which has steadily increased its influence in Iraq - its most important ally in the Middle East - since a U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003.
Sadr was able to capitalize on growing resentment over Tehran-backed governments who have failed to improve basic services and build hospitals and schools in a country devastated by the war against Islamic State and by sectarian bloodshed.
It was a remarkable comeback for Sadr, who for years had been sidelined by Iranian-backed rivals and was regarded by U.S. and Iraqi officials as an unpredictable maverick.
He reached out to dispossessed Shi’ites and marginalized Sunnis, and restored links with Sunni neighbors while keeping Iran at bay.
Sadr became a symbol of resistance to foreign occupation when he led two violent uprisings against U.S. troops, prompting the Pentagon to call his Mehdi army militia the biggest threat to Iraq’s security.
He derives much of his authority from his family. Sadr is the son of the revered Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Sadeq al-Sadr, killed for defying Saddam Hussein.
In his Baghdad stronghold of Sadr city, where posters of his father could be seen, people expressed concerns that Sadr would be outmaneuvered in what are expected to be long, tough talks on forming a government.
“New lists and candidates have won. But they are unable to form a government because the previous politicians are foxes and I believe that they aim to form big alliances in order to isolate the new blocs,” said one resident, Muied Hatim.
In the 2010 election, Vice President Ayad Allawi’s group won the largest number of seats, albeit with a narrow margin, but he was prevented from becoming prime minister. He blamed Tehran, which maneuvered Nuri al-Maliki into power.
Winning the largest number of seats does not automatically guarantee that Sadr will be able to hand-pick a prime minister.
Parties will have to align themselves to try and form a bloc large enough for the parliamentary majority necessary to nominate a candidate. The government should be formed within 90 days of the official results.
“Your vote is an honour for us,” Sadr tweeted moments after the official results were announced in the early hours of Saturday. “We will not disappoint you.”
The election dealt a blow to Abadi, but he could still emerge as a compromise candidate palatable to all sides because he has managed the competing interests of the United States and Iran - unwitting allies in the war against Islamic State - during his term in office.
Amiri is regarded as one of the most powerful figures in Iraq. He spent two decades fighting Saddam Hussein from Iran.
The victory was a surprising change of fortunes for Sadr.
His bloc’s performance represented a rebuke to a political elite that some voters blame for widespread corruption and dysfunctional governance.
It was also bolstered by a historically low turnout across the country, estimated earlier in the week at 44.5 percent. Sadr maintains a loyal base of supporters who turned up to the polls amid widespread national apathy.
Sadr’s unlikely alliance with communists and secular Iraqis says it fiercely opposes any foreign interference in Iraq, which is strongly backed by both Tehran and Washington.
It has promised to help the poor and build schools and hospitals in Iraq, which was battered in the war to defeat Islamic State and has suffered from low oil prices.
Before the election, Iran publicly stated it would not allow Sadr’s bloc to govern in Iraq, with which it shares a border.
Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani, commander of foreign operations for Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards and a highly influential figure in Iraq, has been holding talks with politicians in Baghdad to promote the formation of a new cabinet which would have Iran’s approval.
Last year, Sadr traveled to Iran’s regional arch-rival Saudi Arabia and met Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Shi’ite Muslim Iran has been locked in a regional power struggle with Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia, which has been tentatively seeking to increase its involvement in Iraq.
Earlier on Saturday, Sadr met a group of ambassadors from neighboring countries, including Saudi Arabia.
| Government Job change - Election | May 2018 | ['(Reuters)'] |
In further fallout from the Rutgers University basketball scandal, assistant coach Jimmy Martelli, seen on practice videos abusing players in the same manner as fired head coach Mike Rice, and athletic director Tim Pernetti both resign. | .
Rutgers University president Dr. Robert Barchi has come under fire for his handling of the Mike Rice scandal, which erupted after video of the head coach physically and verbally abusing his players was made public. (4:32)
PISCATAWAY, N.J. -- Tim Pernetti announced his resignation as Rutgers' athletic director Friday, and in a letter to the university, he said he wished he had overridden school officials and fired basketball coach Mike Rice.
Pernetti's resignation comes three days after video came to light showing Rice shoving, grabbing and throwing balls at players and using gay slurs during practice.
"My continued tenure as Athletic Director is no longer sustainable for the University which I attended and where a piece of me will always remain," Pernetti said in his resignation letter. "In connection with the incidents involving former basketball Coach Mike Rice, as was the case with all other matters which I handled on behalf of the University, I always tried my best to do what is right."
In the letter, Pernetti went on to say that his position was to fire Rice -- although earlier this week he had said he was intent on rehabilitating the coach's behavior, in part through counseling -- but that he apparently didn't have the support of his superiors. Pernetti, with the approval of Rutgers president Robert L. Barchi, initially suspended Rice three games in December and fined him $50,000 when Rice's mistreatment of players was brought to the AD's attention.
"I have spent a great deal of time reflecting on the events which led to today," Pernetti said. "As you know, my first instincts when I saw the videotape of Coach Rice's behavior was to fire him immediately. However, Rutgers decided to follow a process involving university lawyers, human resources professionals, and outside counsel. Following review of the independent investigative report, the consensus was that university policy would not justify dismissal. I have admitted my role in, and regret for, that decision, and wish that I had the opportunity to go back and override it for the sake of everyone involved."
But a Jan. 21 report by outside counsel hired by Rutgers -- John Lacey of Connell Foley LLP -- states that Rice could have been fired then: " ... due to the intensity with which Coach Rice engaged in some of the misconduct, we believe AD Pernetti could reasonably determine that Coach Rice's action tended to embarrass and bring shame or disgrace to Rutgers in violation of Coach Rice's employment contract with Rutgers."
Pernetti will be paid more than $1.25 million for resigning as part of a settlement, The Star-Ledger of Newark reported Friday. Pernetti also is still eligible to receive any bonus based on the success of Rutgers teams' athletic, financial or academic goals. He also gets to keep his laptop, iPad and car stipend until 2014, and his medical benefits and pension until 2015.
Rice's contract will pay him more than $1 million.
Barchi, like Pernetti, has come under heavy criticism for Rice's remaining on the job as coach for as long as he did. He announced at a campus news conference that John B. Wolf, Rutgers' interim senior vice president and general counsel, also has resigned his position. Barchi is "highly likely" to remain with the university, a source told ESPN's Brett McMurphy.
"At the end of the day, he has to run this place, day in and day out," said Ralph Izzo, chairman of the school's board of governors. "And I think he is the right person to run this place for many years to come.
"Dr. Barchi was brought on here eight months ago with two primary objectives: No. 1 was to build a strategic plan for this university for 10 years, going forward, to lead us to academic success and academic greatness; and No. 2, an enormous challenge of integrating a medical school with this university. Being on the job two months, hearing from a general counsel and the athletic director that there was a serious problem, I think he did the right thing by acquiescing to that advice at the time."
Barchi reiterated Friday that he had not seen the videotape until this week. Had he seen it in November, he said, he would have recommended that Rice be fired. He said Pernetti gave him a summary of what was on the Rice video at the time. When pressed, he said that in retrospect, he should have asked to view the tapes. Sources told ESPN that at least three Rutgers board members did witness the video of Rice last year and agreed with the suspension and fine as punishment.
"This was a failure of process. I regret that I did not ask to see this video when Tim first told me of its existence," Barchi said. "I want to apologize to the entire Rutgers community for the negative impact that this situation has had on Rutgers.
"I also apologize to the LGBT community and all of us who share their values for the homophobic slurs shown on that video. I personally know how hurtful that language can be."
Based on the summary he received from Pernetti, Barchi said he "agreed with and supported his recommendation to suspend, rather than fire, Coach Rice at that time. It was not until Tuesday evening of this week, when I watched the video, that I had the opportunity to witness personally for the first time what Tim had seen last fall.
"I was deeply disturbed by the behavior that the video revealed, which was much more abusive and pervasive than I had understood it to be. As Tim acknowledged on Wednesday, his decision to rehabilitate, rather than fire, Coach Rice was wrong."
Wolf is believed to have recommended against firing Rice in December. Barchi said Friday that he would appoint an interim athletic director in the coming days.
Pernetti's departure follows his firing of Rice on Wednesday and the resignation of assistant coach Jimmy Martelli, who also was seen on tape treating players in a like manner. The video was obtained by "Outside the Lines" and aired on ESPN on Tuesday.
More than 50 Rutgers faculty members had signed a letter calling for the dismissal of Pernetti for his handling of the Rice situation. Eric Murdock, the former director of player development for the Scarlet Knights, told "Outside the Lines" that he spoke with Pernetti in June and November about Rice's mistreatment of players. Murdock, whose contract wasn't renewed by the coach and AD last July, also told ESPN that he was not contacted beyond his November discussion with Pernetti and other university officials.
Murdock told "Outside the Lines" that Rice's "outrageous" behavior had caused at least three players to transfer from the team.
Murdock, as promised, filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against the university Friday in Essex County, N.J. ESPN reported Thursday that Murdock's attorney, Raj Gadhok, sought $950,000 from the university in December as a settlement.
Gov. Chris Christie issued a statement Friday calling Pernetti's resignation "appropriate and necessary given the events of the past six months."
"I commend President Barchi for his decisive leadership in coming to an agreement with Mr. Pernetti to have the Athletic Department of Rutgers University come under new leadership," he said. "This entire incident was regrettable and while it has damaged the reputation of our state University, we need to move forward now on a number of fronts which provide great opportunities for Rutgers' future."
The state university of New Jersey also is in danger of losing some of its biggest donors in tough economic times. Friday ended with some of Rutgers' biggest backers threatening to stop writing checks because they were upset Pernetti was forced out for not firing Rice when he first became aware of the video.
Tom Mendiburu, whose High Point Solutions paid $6 million for the naming rights to the university's football stadium, tweeted that he was concerned, saying he made the deal because of Pernetti.
"We've invested so much into #RU and now I'm not even sure who we turn to. Very sad day and I'm sorry Pernetti had to go through this," he tweeted.
Mendiburu said a lot of people are asking him what he is going to do -- and he isn't sure.
The Star-Ledger of Newark reported that Daniel Wheeler, a founding member of the Society of Queens College, was upset that Rutgers ignored prominent donors' pleas to keep Pernetti. Membership in the society, which bears the name under which Rutgers was chartered in 1766, requires a minimum of $1 million donated to the school.
"I won't say numbers, but I've given over seven figures, and like a lot of people who have done the same, I support Tim Pernetti," Wheeler told the newspaper.
Last month, Sports Business Journal named Pernetti one of its five finalists for athletic director of the year. It appeared he would survive this incident based on his past accomplishments at the school.
A 1993 Rutgers graduate who was hired as Rutgers' AD in April 2009, Pernetti was instrumental in Rutgers moving from the Big East to the Big Ten Conference for 2014. Because of the move, Rutgers will increase its media rights revenue from about $3 million annually in the Big East to more than $40 million annually by 2017, sources said.
"It's really sad. Obviously, that conduct is way, way out of bounds, " Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany told ESPN.com's Adam Rittenberg. "It was unacceptable. It's sad that Tim was separated from Rutgers. I don't really know all the details. ... Obviously, there's accountability there. Institutions hire coaches and they terminate them, and really it's not an area we're involved with."
Delany said the Big Ten learned about Rice's situation only after the video aired, and didn't know the reason behind Rice's initial fine and suspension.
"I just assumed $50,000 and a three-game suspension must have been serious, but beyond that, I don't have any detail," Delany said.
The firings will not affect Rutgers' transition to the Big Ten, the conference announced Friday.
"There's no impact on their transition to membership," Delany told ESPN.com. "These issues are sort of personnel issues. These are strictly local issues, and institutions are expected to handle them, and Rutgers is handling them. Maybe not in the way they should have initially. They would acknowledge that they probably came up short, but as long as people cure the problems that they have when they come up with them, I don't know that you can do much more."
Stephen Sweeney, the president of the state Senate, called for Pernetti to step down or be fired. Sweeney said Pernetti deserved credit for getting Rutgers into the Big Ten but he mishandled what Rice had done within the program. Pernetti hired Rice away from Robert Morris, which he led to two NCAA tournament appearances, in the spring of 2010.
"This incident will continue to hang over Rutgers like a dark cloud for weeks, months and perhaps years to come," the Democratic lawmaker said in a statement Thursday. "It seems pretty clear that things were not handled well from the start."
However, some prominent former Rutgers football players wanted Pernetti to remain.
NFL All-Pro running back Ray Rice said that when he returned to campus recently after the Ravens won the Super Bowl in February, Pernetti's main message was positive and inspirational -- he wanted Rice to complete his degree.
"That was what he wanted," Rice told The Star-Ledger. "He was telling me that to be a true pillar at Rutgers, I needed to graduate. He wanted me to register for some online courses so I can get that done. I mean, I just won a Super Bowl, and that's what he wanted!"
Former defensive tackle Eric LeGrand, who was paralyzed as a result of injuries sustained in a 2010 Rutgers game, also backed Pernetti.
"When you're in a situation like I have been for the past 2½ years, you truly see the character of people," LeGrand told The Star-Ledger. "Tim Pernetti has shown me and Rutgers how great of a person he really is, and how much he really cares."
On Friday, after learning of Pernetti losing his job, LeGrand tweeted, "Heading up to RU in support of Tim Pernetti to talk to some media. #KeepTimPernetti the things this man has done for me is indescribable."
Information from ESPN College Insider Brett McMurphy, ESPN.com senior writer Don Van Natta Jr., ESPN.com college football reporter Adam Rittenberg and The Associated Press was used in this report. | Government Job change - Resignation_Dismissal | April 2013 | ['(ESPN)'] |
A pair of buses collide on a road between Harare and Rusape, Zimbabwe, killing at least 47 people. | HARARE - At least 47 people were killed in Zimbabwe on Wednesday when two buses collided on a road between the capital Harare and the southeastern town of Rusape, police confirmed to AFP.
"We confirm 47 people have died in a road traffic accident at the 166-kilometre peg along the Harare-Mutare highway," police spokesman Paul Nyathi said.
In a post on Twitter, the state-run Herald newspaper said pictures from the scene were too graphic to post.
Traffic accidents are common in Zimbabwe, where roads are riddled with potholes due to years of underfunding and neglect, but the highway where the accident occurred had been recently resurfaced.
In June last year, 43 people were killed in a bus crash in the north of the country, along the highway leading to neighbouring Zambia. | Road Crash | November 2018 | ['(e News Channel Africa)'] |
Police in Bosnia and Herzegovina arrest 25 people on suspicion of multiple murders, drugtrafficking and robbery in the biggest crackdown on organised crime since the Bosnian War. | Sarajevo - Bosnian police arrested 25 people on Wednesday on suspicion of multiple murders, drug-trafficking and robbery in what it described as the largest crackdown on organised crime since the country's 1992-95 war.
Organised crime in the western Balkans grew out of the wars that tore apart socialist Yugoslavia in the 1990s, leaving the region awash with weapons and a key transit route for drugs and other illicit goods trafficked from Asia to western Europe.
Bosnian media reports said one of the locations raided on Wednesday was a hotel owned by Naser Kelmendi, an ethnic Albanian on a U.S. list of international drug kingpins in June, but police declined to name any of the suspected ringleaders.
At a news conference, the head of Bosnia's state security agency SIPA, Goran Zubac, said the operation was “the most complex and largest action in Bosnia-Herzegovina so far.”
“This is the beginning of the end of organised crime in Bosnia,” he told reporters. Zubac said the operation, codenamed Lutka (Doll), was continuing with the cooperation of other security agencies in the Balkan region.
Wednesday's arrests are in part linked to the 2007 murder of Bosnian Muslim warlord Ramiz Delalic, who was involved in organised crime after the war. Reports say police at the time investigated Kelmendi's possible involvement in the murder but he was never arrested. Zubac said police had now solved the case.
Kelmendi, 55, is a Kosovo-born Albanian with Bosnian citizenship suspected by the United States of trafficking heroin and cocaine to Europe through the Balkans.
With his sons and brother, Kelmendi owns a number of businesses in Bosnia, Montenegro, Serbia and Kosovo, including hotels and a trucking company. He has been investigated in Bosnia on 13 criminal charges but never brought to trial.
In June, U.S. President Barack Obama added Kelmendi to a list of now 97 drug lords who face U.S. sanctions under the U.S. Kingpin Act.
The response of Balkan governments to organised crime has been patchy at best. Croatia has made the most progress as it nears membership of the European Union next year, but weak overnance and ingrained corruption has stymied the fight elsewhere. - Reuters | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | September 2012 | ['(IOL)'] |
American golfer Bubba Watson wins the US Masters defeating Louis Oosthuizen of South Africa in a playoff. | That completes our coverage of the final holes of the 2012 US Masters. Join us later this afternoon for coverage of the Easter Monday AFL blockbuster between Hawthorn and Geelong from the MCG. Live Scores
Bubba Watson pars the 18th.Credit:MIKE SEGAR
9.36am
The gracious Oosthuizen says "It was a great day" and he is fine with losing, believing he played well. "Great stuff to him, he played really well." His albatross on the second will be remembered as one of the greates ever Masters shots. However, it was the recovery/approach shot of Watson at the final playoff hole which won the tournament. In the end, Watson's shot-making brilliance overcame Oosthuizen's steadiness. Louis Oosthuizen of South Africa lines up a putt on the 18th hole.Credit:Getty Images
9.32am
Playoff: Bubba Watson v Louis Oosthuizen. Second playoff hole (10th, par-four). Watson putts for the title... and misses. But it's just a tap-in for the title. He hugs his caddie, sobbing with joy and relief. It takes a few moments before his loved ones can get in on the act, then he congratulates Oosthuizen. The emotional Watson is not surprisingly in tears as the gallery continues to applaud. 9.29am
Playoff: Bubba Watson v Louis Oosthuizen. Second playoff hole (10th, par-four). Third shots. Watson has a birdie chance to take the title. Oosthuizen faces a challenge just to make par from his difficult position below the hole. Oosthuizen chips up respectably to within three metres. He will now putt out before Watson putts for the title. It's no gimme - a downhill shot from the fringe of the green, and it curls superbly, but just misses to the right. Bogey for Oosthuizen. A par will do it now for Watson. Two putts to a green jacket for the likeable American leftie. Louis Oosthuizen of South Africa.Credit:MARK BLINCH
9.24am
Playoff: Bubba Watson v Louis Oosthuizen. Second playoff hole (10th, par-four). Second shot. Louis Oosthuizen ended up on the fringes of the fairway, 231 metres to the hole. He ends up way short, 25 metres-plus down the slope from the pin. Watson is in the woods, with a decent lie, but facing huge overhanging trees. He has fussed over the shot for five minutes. He curls his hig iron to within a couple of metres of the hole, surely the winning shot. Matt Kuchar is one of the more colourful contenders, not scared to show his emotions.Credit:Streeter Lecka
9.20am
Playoff: Bubba Watson v Louis Oosthuizen. Second playoff hole (10th, par-four). Watson goes way right with his left-handed iron. Oosthuizen goes way right with his right-handed iron! We're off to an ad break while these balls are located amongst the timber. Bubba Watson.Credit:Getty Images
9.15am
Playoff: Bubba Watson v Louis Oosthuizen. First putts: Oosthuizen's putt is agonisingly close, but slips by to the right. He slumps to his haunches, hvaing thought he had nailed it. Watson for birdie, and for the title: It is from no more than two metres... he misses! Watson taps in comfortably, but the birdie putt wasn't that close. The playoff will continue, at the tenth hole. That was Watson's second chance to putt for the title, but Louis' effort was better, from further way. Louis Oosthuizen of South Africa hits his tee shot on the third hole.Credit:Reuters
9.12am
Playoff: Bubba Watson v Louis Oosthuizen, for the US Masters title. Second shots: Oosthuizen is on solidly, mid-green, five or six metres from the hole. Watson's iron sucks back down the slope to within three or four metres. The massive gallery is right behind the American, and offering a trickle of grudging, polite applause for his rival. But when both men stride to the green together, there is warm applause. 9.07am
Playoff: Bubba Watson v Louis Oosthuizen, for the US Masters title. Watson's drive hits the mark down the middle, in the growing shadows - it is past 7pm now in Georgia. Oosthuizen's drive flirts with fairway bunkers but stays safe. Watson has previously lost a major playoff at the US Open. Oosthuizen's previous experience was a rollicking seven-shot win at the British Open. At the moment, Watson seems to be striking theball to more favourable spots, but the South African is nervelessly consistent. Steadiness or brilliance - what will win this shootout? 9.02am
With the final group of Mickelson and Hanson having completed their rounds, the playoff will commence shortly, on the 18th hole. It will be Louis Oosthuizen v Bubba Watson for the title, as it was for most of the back nine. It took Watson until te 16th hole to catch his playing partner, after being as much as five shots behind him during the early part of their rounds. They remained locked together over the final three holes. Last year's winner, Charl Shwartzel, had a 74 today to finish at eight-over, 18 shots from the leaders. But he will be on hand to present the fabled green jacket to the 2012 champion, who could be his close friend Louis Oosthuizen. The Aussie contingent must be looking on enviously at the South Africans. 9.00am
Louis Oosthuizen 10-under (69)Bubba Watson 10-under (68)Matt Kuchar 8-under (69)Lee Westwood 8-under (68)Phil Mickleson 8-under (70)Peter Hanson 8-under (71)
8.54am
Mickelson (8-under) just misses his birdie putt on 17, and must now eagle the final hole to join the playoff between Louis Oosthuizen and Bubba Watson both 10-under). The playoff will commence on the 18th hole. 8.51am
Bubba Watson putts for the tournament, missing tothe right, but he taps in for a par, a good feeling with his rival for the title facing a tricky one metre putt for par. The unflappable Louis Oosthuizen rolls his par putt into the middle of the hole. In all likelihood, that means we will be off to a playoff. It would take a miracle from Phil Mickleson for anything else to eventuate. 8.50am
Leader Louis Oosthuizen's long first putt on 18 finishes within a metre. The tounament is there for co-leader Watson to take, if he can nail this gettable five-metre putt for birdie. Louis Oosthuizen 10-under (18)Bubba Watson 10-under (18)Matt Kuchar 8-under Lee Westwood 8-under Phil Mickleson 8-under (17)
8.49am
Oosthuizen's first putt on the 18th. Does he go for it, with co-leader Watson a big birdie chance? Or does he play percentages, nail the par and hope Watson misses? 8.47am
Approach shots on the 18th for the leaders. They are are fcaing a massive gallery behind the green, and both are taking their time over club choices. Oosthuizen is maybe a club too far, on the green but fifteen metres away from the hole, with a ridge to negotiate. Watson goes high, taking a big divot and fires to within five metres, adjacent to the hole. He had perfect length. The American has the box seat to win the tournament now and strides to the green to a rapturous ovation. 8.44am
Matt Kuchar ends with a par to finish the tournament at eight-under. He got to within a shot of the lead at the 15th, but the dropped shot at the 16th cost him. 8.40am
Louis Oosthuizen 10-under (18)Bubba Watson 10-under (18)Matt Kuchar 8-under Lee Westwood 8-under Phil Mickleson 8-under (17)
Kuchar has a six-metre putt for birdie on the 17th. Watson's tee shot on 18 was straight down the middle. Oosthuizen looks happy with his drive as well. He looks like he is enjoying the pressure, smiling quietly, while Watson is more keyed up, tense-looking and fierce of eye. Watson has made more brilliant shots on the back nine, but the South African has been ultra consistent, and has not faltered. His brilliance came early, when he nailed that albatross to leapfrog from third to first on the second hole. he hasn't dropped the lead since, as the challenges have just kept coming. 8.39am
Bubba Watson, co-leader at 10-under, takes several deep breaths before addressing his ball on the 17th green. For birdie... it lips out! Hanson's short birdie putt lips out on 16! Oosthuizen now, for par, to retain a share of the lead. A teaser of about a metre... Yet again, the South African holds his nerve, putting truly, and the Masters remains up for grabs. Watson taps in and we're offf to the 18th hole with co-leaders, two shots clear of the chasers. 8.32am
Bubba Watson reaches the green from an awkward lie behind trees and shed with his second shot on the par-four 17th. Peter Hanson has a birdie chance at 16 to go to 8-under. Mickelson's "near-impossible" birdie putt on 16 lives up to its billing, but he should be able to par. Oosthuizen is within range for a par on 17. 8.28am
Par only for Matt Kuchar at 17. You'd think needs a birdie on the last to remain a chance at the title. Mickelson's tee shot at 16 refuses to drop off the ridge and stays ten metres from the hole. 8.23am
Oosthuizen's birdie putt seemed to roll past the hole, but he coverage was truncated by One HD, so we can't be sure. Here's Watson's putt, though - and it's straight in, to give the leftie a share of the lead at ten under. Oosthuizen did miss his birdie - he now rolls in the par to retain a share of the lead. And Kuchar could not get out of trouble at the 16th - he dropped a shot to fall to 8-under. You'd think it's between the pairing of Oosthuizen and Watson now. High tension with them playing together. Louis Oosthuizen 10-under (16)Bubba Watson 10-under (16)Matt Kuchar 8-under (15)Lee Westwood 8-under (16)Phil Mickleson 8-under (16)
8.22am
The shoot-out at the top of the leaderboard is brilliant, with Watson firing to within two metres on the par-three 16, and leader Oosthuizen rolling right in behind him, facing a putt of perhaps three and a half metres. One HD just put an ad break between the approach shots and the putts. They really don't care about sport. 8.16am
Louis Oosthuizen 10-under (15)Bubba Watson 9-underMatt Kuchar 9-under (15)Lee Westwood 8-under (16)Phil Mickleson 7-under (17)
8.15am
Louis Oosthuizen regains the lead, to a muted roar from the pro-American gallery. Again, the young South African showed great poise to recover from a tricky position and claim a necessary shot on the par-five. Watson follows suit, completing his birdie to go to 9-under. Meanwhile, Lee Westwood, who has been creating opportunities on most holes, birdies the 18th to finish at 8-under. 8.10am
Matt Kuchar sprays his tee shot after joining the lead, and faces a challenge to par at the 16th. Co-leader Oosthuizen faces a two metres tester for birdie at the 15th. Watson mishots his gettable eagle putt on 15. | Sports Competition | April 2012 | ['(The Age)'] |
At least 59 people are dead and 100 are injured after a train runs into a Dussehra celebration near Amritsar in India's northern state of Punjab. | At least 59 people have been killed and dozens more injured by a train running into a crowd near Amritsar in India's northern Punjab state.
The victims were standing on the railway tracks watching celebrations for Dusshera, a Hindu festival, when a train hit them at high speed on Friday.
It is not clear who, if anyone, had given permission for the event and officials are trading blame.
An inquiry into the incident has been ordered by the Punjab authorities.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi described the incident as "heart-wrenching".
Families of victims held an angry protest on the tracks on Saturday.
A large crowd had gathered to watch a celebration symbolising the triumph of the Hindu god Rama over the 10-headed demon king Ravana, symbolising the victory of good over evil.
The event involved the burning of a firecracker-filled effigy of Ravana and a fireworks display.
At one point, some of the crowd moved on to some railway tracks a short distance away, with some reports citing organisers' safety concerns about the effigy. According to eyewitnesses, many on the tracks had been busy filming the festivities on their phones at the time so did not hear or see the train approaching at high speed.
The train that hit the crowds was travelling from Jalandhar to Amritsar.
Hardeep Singh, chief medical officer for Amritsar, said on Saturday that at least 59 people had been killed by the train and 90 others injured.
Officials have warned identification of all the victims could take several days.
Eyewitness Amar Nath told BBC Punjabi that people had been "mauled" by the train.
"I removed the bodies from the tracks... my hands were full of blood."
The exact circumstances are not yet clear.
On Saturday scores of victims' families gathered at the tracks, criticising the state government and demanding action against the train's driver. Ordering the inquiry, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh described the incident as "absolutely tragic".
He said officials would do "everything possible" to assist the injured.
Ashwani Lohani, the chairman of the Railway Board, said it was "wrong" to hold the railways responsible for what had happened because they had not been made aware of the event, and people "are not expected to be on the tracks".
But local residents have told media the effigy burning is a regular local event there for every Dusshera. "I've been seeing this event every Dusshera from here and this has never happened before, the railways should have stopped or slowed down the train," Deep Kumari, who was watching from her home, told Reuters news agency.
The deadly accident has renewed criticism of India's state rail system, which has a notoriously poor safety record.
A state of mourning was declared in Punjab with offices and schools staying closed on Saturday as the first funerals for identified victims took place.
Extremely saddened by the train accident in Amritsar. The tragedy is heart-wrenching. My deepest condolences to the families of those who lost their loved ones and I pray that the injured recover quickly. Have asked officials to provide immediate assistance that is required.
He also announced compensation for the families of the dead and injured victims. Rescue bid after deadly India train crash
India train crash death toll passes 100
India country | Train collisions | October 2018 | ['(BBC News)'] |
The Union Solidarity and Development Party is predicting a sweeping victory in the Burmese general election which overseas observers have called a sham. | YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar’s biggest military-backed party won the country’s first election in 20 years by a landslide on Tuesday after a carefully choreographed vote denounced by pro-democracy parties as rigged to preserve authoritarian rule.
Opposition parties conceded defeat but accused the military junta of fraud and said many state workers had been forced to support the army-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) in advance balloting ahead of Sunday’s vote.
U.S. President Barack Obama told a news conference in Indonesia Myanmar’s election was neither free nor fair and called on Burmese authorities to immediately and unconditionally release all political prisoners.
But China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs lauded the election as “peaceful and successful,” illustrating strengthening ties between energy-hungry China and its resource-rich neighbor.
As the votes were counted, government soldiers cleared ethnic minority rebels from an eastern border town after two days of sporadic clashes that killed at least 10 people and sent about 18,000 civilians fleeing into neighboring Thailand.
Many refugees had returned to Myanmar by afternoon as the military pushed back the ethnic minority Karen rebels who have resisted central authority for generations since what was then Burma won independence in 1948 from Britain.
U.N. refugee agency UNHCR says it is helping about 15,000 refugees who fled to Thailand from fighting in Myawaddy, and monitoring another 3,000 who fled from another area of Myanmar.
The fighters say the election and the military’s continued dominance threaten any chance of achieving a degree of autonomy.
Stacked with recently retired generals and closely aligned with 77-year-old paramount leader Senior General Than Shwe, the USDP took as many as 80 percent of the available seats for parliament, a senior USDP official told Reuters.
But Khin Maung Swe, leader of the National Democratic Force, the largest opposition party, told Reuters: “We took the lead at the beginning but the USDP later came up with so-called advance votes and that changed the results completely, so we lost.”
The second-largest pro-democracy party, the Democratic Party (Myanmar), also conceded defeat.
“I admit defeat but it was not fair play. It was full of malpractice and fraud and we will try to expose them and tell the people,” its leader, Thu Wai, told Reuters.
At least six parties have lodged complaints with the election commission, accusing the USDP of fraud -- a charge that is unlikely to gain traction in a country where more than 2,100 political activists are behind bars.
The vote was held with Nobel laureate and pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi in detention and her party disbanded for refusing to take part in an election it said was unfair. She had urged supporters to boycott the poll.
With the election over, the spotlight returns to Suu Kyi, who has spent 15 of the past 21 years in detention but is due to be freed when her latest house arrest term expires on Saturday.
The United States, Britain, the European Union and Japan repeated calls this week to free the 65-year-old pro-democracy leader whose National League for Democracy beat an army-backed party by a landslide in 1990, a result ignored by the junta.
The army-backed USDP’s only real rival, the National Unity Party (NUP), also backed by the army, fared poorly in its quest for 980 seats, winning just 54 in the bicameral parliament and state assemblies.
“Some representatives of our party filed complaints about fraud and malpractice by the USDP,” said Tin Aung, a senior NUP official. A strong showing by the NUP would have been seen as a jab against Than Shwe since it is thought to be closer to a different faction in the army.
By crushing the NUP, the junta reduces the chance of fissures in the military spilling into the open in parliament.
Already, 25 percent of the seats in parliament are reserved for serving generals. Lawmakers are expected to rubber-stamp policies by a cabinet appointed by a president who is not elected by the people but appointed by a parliamentary committee.
Opposition lawmakers will have little say and no chance to secure the 75 percent of votes needed to amend a constitution that favors and reserves power for the military.
The armed forces supreme commander will choose three serving generals to head defense, interior and border affairs ministries.
This is why critics scoff at the military junta’s assertion that the new government will reflect the will of the people. In fact, parliament will have very limited power.
Myanmar’s neighbors and partners in ASEAN have been hoping the election would end Myanmar’s isolation and remove hurdles it poses to greater cooperation with the West.
China has built up close political and business links with Myanmar while the West has for years shunned its leaders and imposed sanctions over the suppression of democracy and a poor human rights record.
Russia also welcomed the vote.
“We see the elections as a step in the democratization of Myanmar society in accordance with the political reforms taken by the country’s leadership,” Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
| Government Job change - Election | November 2010 | ['(Reuters)'] |
Officials in Florida refuse to allow Bill Lee, the police chief who did not arrest George Zimmerman after he shot and killed unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin, to resign. George Zimmerman, now facing a murder charge, is released on bail and taken to a secret location. | City officials in Florida have blocked the resignation of the police chief who did not arrest the man who shot and killed unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin.
Sanford police chief Bill Lee tendered his resignation on Monday, the day shooter George Zimmerman - now facing a murder charge - was released on bail.
City officials later voted 3-2 to block Mr Lee's resignation.
George Zimmerman, 28, is facing a charge of second-degree murder for shooting Trayvon Martin, 17.
In a court document released on Monday it emerged that Mr Zimmerman has pleaded not guilty to the charge, which carried a possible life sentence. The court may now waive the requirement for him to appear at an arraignment hearing on 8 May, the document suggests.
He says he acted in self-defence on the night Trayvon Martin died, opening fire after coming under physical attack.
Under Florida's so-called "stand your ground" law it is not a crime to use lethal force if a person feels they are seriously under threat.
Mr Zimmerman was patrolling the streets of his gated community in Sanford, on the outskirts of Orlando, when he encountered Trayvon Martin on the night of 26 February. In Sanford on Monday, the five city commissioners convened a special meeting to discuss the police chief's offer to resign. One of Mr Lee's backers, commissioner Patty Mahany, called him "one of the finest police officers in Florida," the Orlando Sentinel reported.
"This is not right. Just on a human level," she said, adding that attacks against the police chief were "solely political", despite the same board having censured him with a vote of no-confidence a month ago.
There was a feeling that there could be "no healing" if he stayed on in his office, she said.
Antipathy against the police has run high in Sanford since the killing of Trayvon Martin, especially among the city's black community.
Earlier, George Zimmerman was released from prison on bail as he awaits trial for the killing. He left Seminole County jail late on Sunday night on a $150,000 (£93,000) bond. His ultimate destination, which could be outside Florida, was being kept secret for his safety.
Mr Zimmerman, who says he shot the teenager in self-defence, made no comment to journalists as he left the prison. Wearing a brown jacket, jeans and carrying a paper bag, he was met by another man and got into a white BMW before driving away. At Mr Zimmerman's bail hearing last week, the judge said he must inform police of his location every three days and stick to a dusk-to-dawn curfew. He will also be tracked electronically and is forbidden from carrying firearms, drinking alcohol, or contacting the victim's family personally or through an intermediary.
In court on Friday, Mr Zimmerman apologised to Trayvon's parents, saying he did not realise the schoolboy's age, or that he was unarmed. However, a lawyer for the family rejected the apology.
The accused's attorney, Mark O'Mara, told CBS's This Morning programme on Monday that his client would not have apologised during Friday's hearing if he had known the family felt it was the wrong time.
A lawyer representing the dead teenager's parents, Daryl Parks, said on Monday that the family was "devastated by him [Mr Zimmerman] being able to walk the streets". "It's with a very, very heavy heart that they've seen him walk freely late last night back into the public," Mr Parks told CNN.
The death of Trayvon Martin has divided the US, and sparked nationwide protests calling for Mr Zimmerman's arrest.
According to an affidavit of probable cause, Trayvon Martin was walking home from a local shop carrying a bag of sweets and a can of iced tea when he was "profiled" by Mr Zimmerman.
The document notes that Martin, who was visiting his father's fiancee's home, was unarmed but Mr Zimmerman assumed he was a criminal.
The neighbourhood watch volunteer had told a police dispatcher he thought Martin, who was wearing a hooded sweatshirt, looked suspicious.
Mr Zimmerman was advised by the police dispatcher not to go after the young man. But minutes later a confrontation ensued in the gated community, leading to the fatal shooting.
Florida judge grants gunman bail
Who are Martin and Zimmerman?
Mother backs Zimmerman in court
| Government Job change - Resignation_Dismissal | April 2012 | ['(BBC)'] |
Iran holds talks with Russia over buying an upgraded version of the S-300 surface-to-air missile defense system. | Iran negotiated with Russia at the weekend over buying an upgraded version of the S-300 surface-to-air missile defense system, which it requires to meet its military needs, a foreign ministry spokesman in Tehran was quoted as saying.
Iran was blocked from obtaining the S-300 before it reached a deal with world powers last July on curbing its nuclear program, with Russia having canceled a contract to deliver an older version of the system in 2010 under pressure from the West.
Russia now hopes to reap economic and trade benefits from the nuclear deal and the lifting of sanctions on Iran last month.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu visited Tehran on Sunday.
Commenting on the visit, ministry spokesman Hossein Jaberi Ansari told state news agency IRNA: “Iran is negotiating with Russia for providing its military needs... One of the main issues is buying the next-generation S-300 missile system.”
Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan was quoted as saying by the Fars agency on Feb. 10 that Iran would start taking delivery of the S-300 within two months.
Iran has also shown interest in buying the more advanced S-400 system, though no negotiations were being conducted at the moment, Russia’s RIA news agency reported last week.
It was not clear if by “next generation” Ansari was referring to the S-400, which Russia says can hit missiles and aircraft up to 400 km (250 miles) away.
Israel has expressed “dismay” at Russia’s decision to lift the ban on supplying S-300 missiles to Iran, which does not recognize Israel as a nation and has said it will use all its power to destroy it.
Ansari also said Shoigu met Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Sunday to convey “President (Vladimir) Putin’s special message ...regarding bilateral relations and some regional issues.” | Diplomatic Talks _ Diplomatic_Negotiation_ Summit Meeting | February 2016 | ['(Reuters)'] |
At least 11 Colombian Army soldiers and one policeman have been killed in an ELN attack in northeast Colombia. | Eleven soldiers and one policeman died, and another three soldiers were injured in an attack carried out by allegedELN rebels inthe northeast of Colombia on Monday, the military reported.
When attacked, the soldiers reportedly weretraveling throughthe Guican de la Sierra municipality located close to the border between the Boyaca and Arauca provinces after bringing back votes cast by a remote indigenous community.
While the military reported 11 deaths, weekly Semana said that as many as 18 soldiers had died in the post-election rebel ambush.
According to the military, Army commander General Alberto Jose Mejia has taken personal control over efforts to capture or kill the guerrillas responsible for the attack.
The ELN,Colombia’s second largest rebel group, has been fighting the Colombian state since 1964, using the region where the attack took place as one of its main areas of control.
The group’s leadership has been negotiating with the Colombian government about the possible formalization of peace talks, but neither party has ended hostilities.
On Sunday, when the country was holding local and regional elections, the ELN killed anothersoldier in an attack in the northwest of the country. | Armed Conflict | October 2015 | ['(Colombia Reports)'] |
Pope Shenouda III of Alexandria, the leader of Egypt's Coptic Christian community, dies of cancer at the age of 88. | Egypt's Coptic Christian Pope Shenouda III has died at the age of 88, state television has announced.
The leader of the Middle East's largest Christian minority was reported to suffer from cancer that had spread to several organs.
Coptic Christians make up 10% of Egypt's population of 80 million.
After attacks on Coptic Christians in recent years, Pope Shenouda urged officials to do more to address the community's concerns.
Pope Shenouda led the church, one of the oldest Christian communities in the world, for four decades.
His political adviser Hany Aziz told Reuters news agency that Shenouda "died from complications in health and from old age".
He had returned recently to Egypt after seeking treatment abroad.
Pope Shenouda was born Nazeer Gayed into a devout Christian family on 3 August 1923 in Asyut, Upper Egypt, and became a monk in 1954, taking the name Shenouda.
After Pope Cyril died in 1971, Shenouda was enthroned as Pope of Alexandria.
He fell out with President Anwar Sadat, who in 1981 sent him into internal exile. He was allowed back to Cairo by President Hosni Mubarak four years later.
The BBC's Jon Leyne in Cairo says Pope Shenouda sought to protect his Christian community amid a Muslim population by striking a conservative tone and lending tacit support to President Mubarak's rule.
Whoever succeeds him now faces the task of reassuring the Coptic community as the Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood look on the verge of sharing power in Egypt for the first time, our correspondent says.
Many younger Copts will now be looking for a leader who can help redefine their community's role in a rapidly changing post-Mubarak Egypt, our correspondent adds. | Famous Person - Death | March 2012 | ['(BBC)'] |
Belarusian women form human chains to condemn a crackdown on protests over the disputed election. | Women have formed human chains in Belarus to condemn a crackdown on protests as demonstrations over the disputed election entered a fifth day.
Many dressed in white and carried flowers as they called for an end to police brutality.
Unrest erupted after long-time leader Alexander Lukashenko was declared winner in a vote condemned by the EU and US as neither free nor fair.
Thousands of people have been arrested and at least two have died. In the latest official figures, the interior ministry said police had detained 700 people during protests on Wednesday, bringing the total number to 6,700.
Some detainees were released on Thursday. Tearful relatives gathered outside a jail north of the capital Minsk, hoping to be reunited with their loved ones or for information on their whereabouts. Several strikes have been reported at state-owned factories, where workers object to the violent treatment of protesters. Hundreds of employees were seen walking out at truck-maker Belaz, in Zhodino to the north-east of the capital.
Women in their thousands formed "solidarity chains" in Minsk and other cities as protests went into a fifth day. Participants told reporters they wanted a peaceful resolution, as they called for all detained protesters to be freed.
During the afternoon, women marched in big numbers down the main thoroughfare in Minsk, Independence Avenue, accompanied by a chorus of hooting cars.
Video footage shared on social media showed opposition figure Maria Kolesnikova joining the female protesters in Minsk, holding a bunch of flowers. She was one of three women who pooled their resources to spearhead the opposition. The other two have left the country.
Veronika Tsepkalo fled Belarus on the day of the vote while the main opposition candidate in the election, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, was briefly detained on Monday before being forced to leave for Lithuania.
Ms Tikhanovskaya, 37, released a video saying she made the "very difficult decision" to leave because of her children.
The opposition candidate was a stay-at-home mother until she entered the race after her husband was arrested and blocked from registering for the vote.
She became Mr Lukashenko's toughest opposition challenge in years, leading large rallies in the lead up to the vote.
But Mr Lukashenko dismissed her bid, saying a woman could not lead Belarus.
"Our constitution is not for women," he said earlier this year. "Our society has not matured enough to vote for a woman. This is because by constitution the president handles a lot of power."
Nobel literature laureate Svetlana Alexievich accused the authorities of declaring war on their own people and urged Mr Lukashenko to stand down.
Aged 65, he has ruled the former Soviet country since 1994 and has described opposition supporters as "sheep" controlled from abroad.
As protests continued on Thursday, some workers organised strikes and walkouts in Minsk, Grodno in the west and Zhodino.
Medics walked out of hospitals for a second day to join the demonstrations and performers from the Belarusian State Philharmonic held up a message saying "Philharmonia prays for the people".
Russian internet giant Yandex said armed individuals had entered two of its offices in Minsk and barred employees inside from leaving. They left some hours later.
By Olga Ivshina, BBC Russian
The body of evidence of police brutality, both in the streets and inside remand prisons, is mounting. Detainees include not only opposition activists, but also many journalists and accidental passers-by. One of the released journalists, Nikita Telizhenko of the Russian Znak.com news website, published a harrowing account of three days inside prison. Now back in Russia, he describes people lying on the floor of a detention centre, piled on top of each other, in a pool of blood and excrement. Not allowed to use the toilet for hours on end or even change position. He says he saw seriously injured people, with broken limbs and severe bruising, not only left without medical help, but kicked and beaten by the guards more. Telizhenko's testimony is confirmed by countless posts on social media - photos, videos, stories. I spoke to an American woman who was visiting her Belarusian boyfriend in Minsk - he got detained for no apparent reason. Not only had he not been protesting, but he was asleep in bed when the police came to his flat, kicked down the door and took him away. Election officials said Mr Lukashenko won 80% of the vote on Sunday, but protests erupted amid widespread allegations of vote rigging. Hundreds of people have been injured in a police crackdown on protests, some seriously. A BBC crew was attacked by police on Tuesday evening.
Officials have confirmed the deaths of two people.
One demonstrator died during a protest in the capital Minsk on Monday. The Belarusian interior ministry alleged an explosive device had gone off in his hand. Ambassadors from European countries laid flowers on Thursday where he died, a day before EU foreign ministers were due to consider imposing sanctions on Belarus.
A 25-year-old man also died in the south-eastern city of Gomel.
His mother told Radio Free Europe that her son had not taken part in any protests and was arrested as he was going to see his girlfriend. She said he had heart problems and was kept for hours in a police van.
People have been shouting the words "get out" from their balconies, the same slogan used by protesters on the ground. Police responded by firing rubber bullets.
The United Nations has condemned the use of violence by authorities.
Video footage shared on social media has shown ex-special forces officers throwing their uniforms into bins in disgust at the actions of their former colleagues. "I was proud of the unit I served [in]. Now I am ashamed. Shame on everyone who follows such orders," one former officer said.
| Protest_Online Condemnation | August 2020 | ['(BBC)'] |
Afghanistan: Five civilians, including four children, die in an explosion, while two construction contractors, including one from South Africa, are shot dead. | KABUL (Reuters) - Five Afghan civilians, four of them children, were killed in an explosion Thursday, and gunmen shot dead a South African construction contractor and his Afghan colleague in a separate attack, officials said.
One member of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was also killed in an explosion in the south of the country, the force said, without identifying the victim’s nationality.
Violence has surged in recent years as the Taliban made a comeback, reaching its highest levels since the Islamist militants were ousted by U.S.-backed Afghan forces in late 2001.
Record numbers of civilians and Afghan and foreign troops have been killed.
Washington has begun sending an extra 30,000 troops to join about 115,000 foreign troops, most of them American, already in Afghanistan in an attempt to reverse the growing momentum of the Taliban insurgency.
The blast that killed the civilians struck in Kapisa province, to the northeast of Kabul, ISAF said in a statement.
Three other children were also wounded, the alliance said. It did not give details about the type of explosion, saying it was caused by insurgents who are fighting the Afghan government and foreign troops.
The South African and one of his Afghan colleagues, both employees of an Indian road construction firm, were killed by armed men in a southeastern area, said Sakhi Jan, an Afghan commander providing security for the firm.
An Indian and an Afghan worker from the company were wounded in the attack, which took place on a project site in Khost province, close to the border with Pakistan.
| Armed Conflict | March 2010 | ['(Reuters)'] |
Tonga and Fiji declare a state of emergency as part of an ongoing measles outbreak. Conditions worsen in Samoa where the death toll continues to rise and schools remain closed. There are 1,797 confirmed cases as of Saturday, with 153 detected on Friday alone. | A measles outbreak in the Pacific nation of Samoa has killed 22 people, nearly all children under five.
The government says 1,797 cases have been reported - 153 since Friday alone.
Samoa declared a state of emergency last week to combat the outbreak. All schools are closed, children under 17 are banned from public gatherings and vaccinations are now compulsory. The United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) estimates Samoa's vaccination rate is between 28-40%.
It has sent 110,500 vaccines to the country, and New Zealand has sent medicine, nurses and equipment - while battling an outbreak of the disease itself.
To date, 1,797 measles cases have been reported since the outbreak with 153 recorded in the last 24 hours. 22 measles related deaths have been recorded, with 2 fatalities in the past 24 hours. *Includes 122 lab confirmed cases; routine measles testing is no longer recommended.
It usually takes between 10 days and two weeks for a vaccine to start working.
Some people are reportedly peddling false treatments. One businessman told Australian broadcaster ABC that his "Kangen Water" - in reality, tap water - could alleviate symptoms. Samoa Attorney General Lemalu Hermann Retzlaff has warned people against discouraging vaccinations in any way.
"Law enforcement is open to receiving notice, complaints, or evidence of any person or organisation, that is discouraging or going as far as preventing our community from vaccination," he told the Samoa Observer.
Tonga and Fiji have also declared states of emergency to tackle their measles outbreaks in the last month. However, both countries have far higher vaccination rates - over 90% in both countries - and have so far not reported any deaths.
The Tonga women's rugby team were put in quarantine on Thursday after a measles outbreak.
Measles is a highly infectious viral illness that can sometimes lead to serious health complications, including infections of the lungs and brain.
Infection rates are rising worldwide. The World Health Organization (WHO) announced in April that the number of cases reported globally quadrupled in the first three months of the year compared to the same period in 2018.
Nearly 5,000 people have died of measles in the Democratic Republic of Congo and close to a quarter of a million have been infected. The WHO says the outbreak there is the world's largest and fastest-moving epidemic.
Measles is a virus that initially causes a runny nose, sneezing and fever.
A few days later it leads to a blotchy rash that starts off on the face and spreads across the body.
Most people will recover, but measles can cause life-long disability. It can be deadly, especially if it causes pneumonia in the lungs or encephalitis (swelling in the brain).
It is estimated that a global total of 110,000 people die from measles each year.
| Disease Outbreaks | November 2019 | ['(BBC)'] |
A killing spree occurs in the small coastal town of Portapique, near Truro, Nova Scotia, Canada. At least 17 people are dead, including the perpetrator and a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer, making it the deadliest rampage in Canadian history. | TORONTO (AP) — A gunman disguised as a police officer shot people in their homes and set fires in a rampage across the Canadian province of Nova Scotia that killed 16 people, the deadliest such attack in the country’s history. Officials said Sunday the suspected shooter was also dead.
A police officer was among those killed. Several bodies were found inside and outside one home in the small, rural town of Portapique, about 60 miles (100 kilometers) north of Halifax — what police called the first scene. Bodies were also found at other locations. The assault began late Saturday, and authorities believe the shooter may have targeted his first victims but then began attacking randomly. Overnight, police began advising residents of the town — already on lockdown because of the coronavirus pandemic — to lock their doors and stay in their basements. Several homes in the area were set on fire as well.
Police identified the man believed to be the shooter as Gabriel Wortman, 51, who was thought to live part-time in Portapique. Authorities said he wore a police uniform at one point and made his car look like a Royal Canadian Mounted Police cruiser. Police first announced that they had arrested Wortman at a gas station in Enfield, outside Halifax, but later said he had died. It was not clear how, and they did not explain further.
“This is one of the most senseless acts of violence in our province’s history,” said Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil. RCMP spokesman Daniel Brien confirmed that 16 people had been killed in addition to the suspect. The dead officer was identified as Constable Heidi Stevenson, a mother of two and a 23-year veteran of the force. Another officer was also injured. Mass shootings are relatively rare in Canada. The country overhauled its gun-control laws after gunman Marc Lepine killed 14 women and himself at Montreal’s Ecole Polytechnique college in 1989. Before this weekend’s rampage, that had been the country’s worst.
It is now illegal to possess an unregistered handgun or any kind of rapid-fire weapon in Canada. The country also requires training, a personal risk assessment, two references, spousal notification and criminal record checks to purchase a weapon.
“As a country, in moments like these, we come together to support one another. Together we will mourn with the families of the victims, and help them get through this difficult time,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in a written news release. While they believe the attack did not begin as random, police did not say what the initial motive was. RCMP Chief Superintendent Chris Leather said many of the victims did not know the shooter. “That fact that this individual had a uniform and a police car at his disposal certainly speaks to it not being a random act,” Leather said. He added that police believe he acted alone.
Leather said they would investigate whether the attack had anything to do with the coronavirus pandemic but no link has been found thus far.
At one point, there was an exchange of gunfire between the suspect and police, he said. Late Sunday morning, there were half a dozen police vehicles at the scene of the gas station where the suspect died. Yellow police tape surrounded the gas pumps, and a large silver-colored SUV was being investigated. Cpl. Lisa Croteau, a spokeswoman with the provincial force, said police received a call about “a person with firearms” late Saturday night, and the investigation “evolved into an active shooting investigation.” Christine Mills, a resident of the area, said it had been a frightening night for the small town, with armed officers patrolling the streets. In the morning, helicopters flew overhead searching for the suspect. “It’s nerve-wracking because you don’t know if somebody has lost their mind and is going to beat in your front door,” she said. Tom Taggart, a lawmaker who represents the Portapique area in the Municipality of Colchester, said the quiet community has been shaken.
“This is just an absolutely wonderful, peaceful quiet community and the idea that this could happen in our community is unbelievable,” Taggart said by phone from his home in nearby Bass River. A Gabriel Wortman is listed as a denturist — a person who makes dentures — in the city of Dartmouth, near Halifax, according to the Denturist Society of Nova Scotia website. A suspect photo issued by the RCMP appears to be of the same person seen in video footage being interviewed about dentures by CTV Atlantic in 2014.
Mills also said that Wortman was known locally as someone who divided his time between a residence in Halifax and a residence in Portapique.
Taggart said he didn’t know Wortman well, but spoke to him a few times when he telephoned about municipal issues. | Riot | April 2020 | ['(CBC News)', '(Associated Press)'] |
The first person who was diagnosed with ebola in the United States, Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian man, dies in Dallas, Texas. | Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian national who was the first patient diagnosed with Ebola in the United States, died Wednesday at a Dallas hospital, Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital said.
Duncan, 42, arrived in Dallas from Liberia on Sept. 20 and was admitted to Texas Health Presbyterian on Sept. 28. Two days later he was diagnosed with the deadly virus that has claimed 3,879 lives in West Africa, according to the World Health Organization.
Duncan, whose condition steadily deteriorated over the past 10 days, had been heavily medicated, on dialysis and in a semi-comatose state, said Saymendy Lloyd, a Washington-based Liberian activist who has been acting as a spokeswoman for the family. Duncan had also been receiving some experimental anti-Ebola drugs at his family's urging.
Duncan's body will be cremated to reduce the risk that it could infect others, said David Lakey, Texas health commissioner.
"His suffering is over," said Louise Troh, Duncan's fiancée who rented the apartment where he was staying. "My family is in deep sadness and grief, but we leave him in the hands of God. Our deepest sympathies go out to his father and family in Liberia and here in America. Eric was a wonderful man who showed compassion toward all."
"He fought courageously in this battle," said Wendell Watson, a hospital spokesman. "Our professionals, the doctors and nurses in the unit, as well as the entire Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas community, are also grieving his passing. We have offered the family our support and condolences at this difficult time."
Troh, who was relocated along with her family and is being monitored daily for any symptoms of Ebola infection, thanked the people of Dallas, a church, the local Liberian community and public officials "for all the love and support they have shown" during the ordeal. "Without their help, I can't imagine how we could have endured," she said.
The treatment of the family drew criticism when they were quarantined in the apartment with Duncan's contaminated belongings for six days before a hazardous materials crew arrived to bag up and sanitize the materials.
Duncan's 19-year-old son, Karsiah Duncan, who has not seen his father since he fled Liberia at the age of 3 to avoid a civil war, had flown to Dallas Monday to visit his father. But Duncan died before their scheduled meeting Wednesday via a closed-circuit video, Lloyd said.
Duncan, in a few lucid moments recently, had told a nurse he was excited about reuniting with his son, who plays football at an American university, after 16 years. 'I'm so proud of him, I can't wait to see him,'" Duncan told the nurse, according to Lloyd.
News of Duncan's death sent shock waves through members of the Liberian community in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, who were holding prayer vigils for his recovery.
"Not just shock but fear," said Bishop Nathan Kortu, a local Liberian leader. "Right now everybody is really afraid. For this man to be in an advanced country where we thought he was in a safety zone, for him to perish like this is a very big concern for the Liberian community right now."
Liberian funerals are typically elaborate affairs, with an all-night viewing of the body followed by funeral services and burial, followed by a large celebration laden with traditional African dishes and singing, he said.
"Liberians like to say good bye to loved ones who have died," Kortu said. "It's amazing that none of this will happen."
There are no proven treatments or vaccines for Ebola, but several Ebola patients treated in the USA and elsewhere have received experimental, unproven drugs for compassionate use.
The odds were not in Duncan's favor, doctors say. About 70% of Ebola patients in West Africa are dying of the virus, including 60% of those who get to the hospital, said Robert Murphy, a professor of medicine and biomedical engineering at Northwestern University in Chicago.
His condition was complicated by a two-day delay in treatment after a Dallas hospital initially sent him home without realizing he was infected with Ebola. Such delays can be deadly with infectious diseases, Murphy said.
"The quicker we can get patients into care, the better their odds for survival. He may have been too far gone for even our best supportive care," said Amesh Adalja, infectious disease specialist at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
Three Americans treated for Ebola – Kent Brantly, Nancy Writebol and Richard Sacra – were evacuated from Liberia to top-flight American hospitals with specialized biocontainment units developed to treat Ebola and other dangerous diseases. All three survived.
"We've gotten lucky with the airlifted cases that they were able to get good supportive care," Adalja said.
But doctors may have had a more difficult time with Duncan. "We don't know his past medical history," such as whether he had any serious chronic diseases in addition to Ebola, Adalja said.
Duncan contracted the disease just before leaving Liberia in mid-September when he helped helped carry a 19-year-old woman, who was later diagnosed with Ebola, into a taxi to go to the hospital after her family was unable to get an ambulance.
The young woman, who was seven months pregnant, was turned away at the hospital because of lack of space in the Ebola ward. She returned home that evening, hours before she died.
At the airport in Liberia when he was departing, Duncan signed a form saying that he had not had contact with any person infected by the virus.
It is not clear whether he knew of her diagnosis, which initially appeared to be pregnancy-related, at the time he left the country. Officials in Liberia said Duncan showed no symptoms when he boarded the plane and he was therefore not contagious.
Ebola can only be spread through the bodily fluids of people showing signs of the disease. Unlike an infection such as tuberculosis, which primarily attacks the lung, Ebola affects many organs of the body at once, said Adalja.
Massive diarrhea and vomiting can cause dehydration and disrupt the normal balance of electrolytes, such as potassium, causing heart rhythm problems, he said. The virus can cause bleeding by making tiny holes in blood vessels and by harming platelets, a type of blood cell that normally helps the blood to clot. Ebola can cause kidney and liver failure, and prompt the immune system to overreact, further stressing the body. Many patients with Ebola die of septic shock, or a bloodstream infection, Adalja said.
As the first case of a person diagnosed with the disease in the United States, Duncan's hospitalization drew national attention to the deadly disease and efforts to keep it from spreading.
After Duncan's condition was diagnosed, city and state health officials moved quickly to track down as many as 80 to 100 people with whom he had contact in Dallas before he was hospitalized.
Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings was notified of Duncan's death while at a Dallas City Council meeting. "We will stop the Ebola virus in its tracks in our community," he vowed later.
The case also drew attention to the screening procedures for travelers from West Africa entering the United States, prompting a tightening of regulations.
In Washington, White House spokesman Josh Earnest on Wednesday confirmed a new policy that travelers from West Africa will get fever screening for Ebola at five U.S. airports. These airports are the destination of 94% of passengers from West Africa, he said. | Famous Person - Death | October 2014 | ['(USA Today)'] |
Kyrgyzstani police arrest Akhmat Bakiyev, a brother of ousted leader Kurmanbek Bakiyev, in an apartment raid in Jalalabad. | Police in Kyrgyzstan have detained one of the brothers of ousted leader Kurmanbek Bakiyev. Akhmat Bakiyev was captured in a raid on an apartment in the southern city of Jalalabad, the region hit by deadly ethnic violence in June. Officials said he was arrested on suspicion of fomenting the unrest. Kyrgyz authorities have accused the Bakiyev family of instigating the violence that erupted between the ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbek communities. Officials say as many as 2,000 people may have died in the clashes. Hundreds of thousands were forced to flee their homes. "Akhmat Bakiyev was arrested in one of the multi-storied homes near the centre, where he was renting an apartment. He did not put up resistance though he was armed," said local deputy police chief Melis Turganbayev. "He is accused of organising mass riots, sparking inter-ethnic conflict and organising illegal armed groups."
Kurmanbek Bakiyev - who drew much of his support from southern Kyrgyzstan - was ousted in mass protests in April. He is now in exile in Belarus, although the new Kyrgyz government says its wants him to face trial over the 85 deaths in April's protests. Kyrgyz authorities are also seeking another of his brothers, Zhanybek, who is accused of giving the order to fire on protesters in April. Setback for EU in legal fight with AstraZeneca
. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | July 2010 | ['(BBC)'] |
American graphic designer Richard Swanson dies after being struck by a pickup truck in Oregon while attempting to dribble a soccer ball all the way to Brazil to raise money for charity. | Richard Swanson, who died in Oregon Tuesday, has inspired an outpouring of condolences as his story of walking to Brazil for charity has inspired those who learn about it.
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Richard Swanson, who died in Oregon Tuesday, has inspired an outpouring of condolences as his story of walking to Brazil for charity has inspired those who learn about it.
Hundreds of condolences are appearing online for Richard Swanson, the Seattle man whose plan to dribble a soccer ball all the way to Brazil to raise money for charity ended Tuesday after he was struck and killed by a pickup truck in Oregon. Many see his story as an inspiration, and say they'll continue his charity work.
"It is with a heavy heart to notify you that Richard Swanson passed on this morning," reads an update announcing Swanson's death on the Facebook page for his project, Breakaway Brazil, yesterday.
"His team, family, friends, and loved ones will miss him and love him dearly. You made it to Brazil in our hearts, Richard."
Swanson's trek to Brazil was a charity undertaking to benefit One World Futbol Project, which donates a durable blue soccer ball to a variety of needy communities, in war zones and impoverished areas, for every ball purchased on its site.
Condolences are pouring in on Swanson's page, as people in the U.S., Brazil, and other nations express their admiration for his goal of walking thousands of miles to Sao Paolo, in the hopes that he would make it there in time for next year's World Cup. Some also say they're making donations in his honor.
One of Swanson's two sons, Devin, wrote on the announcement, "We love you dad.. with all our hearts! You are a inspiration to all to continue doing what you love! One day .. I will continue your journey in your name!"
The page also features photos of Swanson, posing for pictures with the friends he made along the way. He began his journey earlier this month.
Swanson, who was 42, uploaded a video to YouTube shortly before his death. In it, he celebrates making it to Lincoln City, on Oregon's Pacific coastline, where he walked along the beach with his shoes off.
"'Very exciting moment today,' he says. 'Going to be on the ocean for thousands of miles. This is my first taste of it and I'm very excited about it.' The video ends with Swanson kicking the ball into the surf."
"Someone should get that ball and finish the journey," the top-rated comment on the video reads.
The driver of the vehicle that struck Swanson remained at the scene and has cooperated with authorities, according to reports.
On Facebook, Swanson identified himself as an "avid runner, soccer player, and all around lover of the Pacific Northwest."
"He was at a point in his life where he had raised his kids," a friend of Swanson's, Kristi Schwesinger, tells the AP. "Both his boys (Devin and Raven) had graduated from high school. He had no mortgage. He had sold his condo recently and was between jobs. | Famous Person - Death | May 2013 | ['(AP via National Public Radio)'] |
A Hubei court finds Chinese tycoon Liu Han, the former head of the conglomerate Hanlong Group, guilty of "organising and leading mafia–style crime and murder" and "obtain financial gains via illegal activities", sentencing him to death. | Liu Han, a Chinese tycoon believed to have links to China's former security chief Zhou Yongkang, has been sentenced to death.
A Hubei court has found Liu Han and his brother Liu Wei guilty of "organising and leading mafia-style crime and murder", reports Xinhua.
The two men were among a group of 36 people charged with similar crimes.
Liu Han's sentencing is believed to be part of a wider corruption crackdown linked to Zhou's network.
The court verdict stated that, among other things, Liu Han and his group had "in an organised fashion obtained financial gains via illegal activities".
They had also on multiple occasions "committed murder, harm and illegal detention".
The verdict stated they relied on "the cover-ups and collusion of government employees" to illegally control gaming machines in Guanghan in Sichuan province.
The case raises other sobering questions for China's political leaders, says the BBC's China Editor Carrie Gracie.
It could lead to criminal proceedings against Zhou Yongkang, an associate of Liu's and China's former security chief.
If this happens, it could be the most serious political corruption case in China's communist history, our correspondent says.
Liu, who is the former head of mining conglomerate Sichuan Hanlong Group, was ranked 148th on Forbes' list of the richest Chinese business people in 2012.
His former company once tried to take over Australian miner Sundance Resources Ltd. Chinese state media said previously that the Sichuan-based gang had had strong political ties that played a role in Liu Han's appointment as a delegate in Sichuan's political advisory body. In recent months, several top officials from Sichuan province linked to Zhou Yongkang have come under scrutiny. Mr Zhou was the party secretary in Sichuan province before becoming head of China's Public Security Ministry in 2003. In April, China announced it had removed from office Guo Yongxiang, a former Sichuan vice-governor, and that Sichuan's former deputy party chief Li Chuncheng was being investigated for bribery.
Speculation has swirled for months that Mr Zhou is being investigated for corruption, although none of the rumours have been confirmed officially.
| Famous Person - Commit Crime - Sentence | May 2014 | ['[ing]', '(BBC)'] |
Thirteen Pakistani nationals, including eight children and four women, have died and three others are injured in a fire at a farm in rural Jordan. | Thirteen Pakistani nationals, including eight children and four women, have died in a fire at a farm in Jordan, the civil defence department (CDD) has said.
The fire swept through corrugated iron sheds housing labourers at the farm in South Shouna, a rural area west of the capital Amman, early on Monday.
Three other people were injured. The Petra news agency cited the CDD as saying it believed the fire was caused by an electrical short-circuit.
Prime Minister Omar al-Razzaz expressed his condolences to the people and government of Pakistan, and called for an expedited investigation into the incident.
Two families had lived in the makeshift buildings used as housing for immigrant labourers, according to the CDD.
Thousands of migrant workers are employed by private farms in the Jordan Valley, many of them housed in poor accommodation. | Fire | December 2019 | ['(BBC)'] |
Israel and Palestinians agree to resume peace talks on September 2. | Agreement to resume direct peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians is an achievement for American arm-twisting, but it will be an uphill struggle to overcome deep mistrust and yawning gaps between the sides.
Months of procedural wrangling barely mask disagreement on the hypersensitive "core" issues of the Middle East conflict: settlements, Jerusalem, and refugees. Still, no face-to-face talks have been held since late 2008, when Israel attacked the Gaza Strip, so their resumption in Washington on 2 September, with a tight deadline of one year, will be closely watched.
Israel's prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, had insisted he would only return to negotiations without preconditions, and there is no sign that his rightwing coalition will agree to extend the partial 10-month moratorium on settlement building in the West Bank when it expires in late September. Crucially, there is no such demand in the carefully worded Quartet invitation to direct talks, though it is not hard to decode the call to refrain from "provocative actions and inflammatory rhetoric".
Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, who has been under heavy pressure from the US and EU to resume talks, will approve of the goal of reaching an agreement "that ends the occupation which began in 1967 and results in the emergence of an independent, democratic, and viable Palestinian state living side-by-side in peace and security with Israel". But that sounds more like an aspiration for an ideal world than a working agenda in the real one.
Western-backed Jordan and Egypt, which already have peace treaties with Israel, will like that language. So will Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. But there is nothing for Syria, which wants Israel to give back the Golan Heights.
The Quartet announcement shows no signs of a shift by either party — apart from agreement to talk. Leaving aside the core issues, tensions are high over Israel's blockade of Gaza and settlement activity in East Jerusalem as well as restrictions on Palestinian movement. Nor has there been any progress in ending the split between Hamas in Gaza, which rejects negotiations with Israel, and Abbas's Fatah movement in the West Bank.
Barack Obama has made much of prioritising Israeli-Palestinian talks and his tone towards Israel has been more critical than any previous president. But few expect him to turn the screws tighter before the mid-term congressional elections. The big question is whether envoy George Mitchell will submit US "bridging" proposals on the central points of dispute or try to impose an international plan.
The gloomy but familiar conclusion must be that there is to be more process, but not much chance of a workable peace agreement at the end of it. | Diplomatic Talks _ Diplomatic_Negotiation_ Summit Meeting | August 2010 | ['(The Guardian)', '(Aljazeera)', '(Xinhua)', '(The New York Times)'] |
A car bomb kills at least 34 people and injures 72 others in Baghdad, Iraq. | At least 34 people have been killed by a large car bomb in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, police say.
Another 72 people were injured by the explosion from a parked car in the north-west of the city. The attack happened near a popular restaurant in Shula, a poor, crowded mainly Shia neighbourhood. In the last few days several similar attacks have targeted crowded tea shops across the capital, but this is the largest attack this month. All victims were civilians and the toll is expected to rise, police said. "The explosion happened around a number of restaurants and retail shops. The car bomb was parked," an official at the defence ministry told news agency AFP. "It occurred when the streets were filled with people. There were a large number of people shopping. Many people were sitting in the restaurants. That is why there are so many victims." Upsurge in violence
The most recent large attack in Baghdad happened on 29 April when three bombs exploded in Sadr City. Overall, April was the bloodiest month in Iraq this year, with a 40% rise in the number of people killed over March - though it had been a relatively quiet May until now. Both the Iraqi government and the US say recent attacks were isolated incidents that do not undermine the security gains. They say the attacks are not as sophisticated as they once were. But the BBC's Natalia Antelava in Baghdad says many people in the city feel the situation is deteriorating and could get worse once US troops withdraw from Iraqi cities at the end of June. Many also point out that the latest attacks have tended to target Shia areas, raising fears that sectarian violence could once more be on the rise. | Armed Conflict | May 2009 | ['(BBC)'] |
Flash floods on the outskirts of the Greek capital Athens kill at least 16 people and injure dozens more after a severe thunderstorm. , | Flash floods have turned roads into raging torrents of mud and debris on the fringes of Greece's capital, killing at least 15 people, inundating homes and businesses and knocking out a section of a major highway.
There were fears the death toll could rise further as rescue crews searched for potentially missing people in flooded homes and streets on the western outskirts of Athens.
The flooding came after a severe overnight storm brought driving rain to the area. Roads turned into muddy rivers that carried away vehicles, tossing them into piles on roadsides and against fences and buildings.
Twelve of the people killed — four women and eight men — were found in or near Mandra, a small town on the western outskirts of Athens that was hardest-hit by the flood. "This is a biblical disaster … everything is gone," Mandra Mayor Yianna Krikouki told reporters.
The coast guard recovered the bodies of two more men believed to have been swept out to sea by the flood.
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras declared a period of national mourning.
"These are very difficult moments for Greece. We are living a great disaster," Mr Tsipras said.
"Immediately and without delay support measures will be adopted for households and businesses affected."
AP: Petros Giannakouris
Floodwater carrying debris charged toward the coast, sinking fishing boats in a small harbor.
Several people were being treated in a hospital for various injuries, including hypothermia.
The fire department said it had received more than 600 calls for help pumping water out of buildings and had rescued 86 people trapped in vehicles and homes — it said it had deployed 190 firefighters with 55 vehicles.
A section of the highway between Athens and Corinth was completely knocked out, with cars, trucks and buses trapped in an inundated underpass.
Judicial authorities ordered an immediate investigation into the deaths and material damage.
Local authorities shut schools in the areas of Mandra, Nea Peramos and Megara, while the fire department appealed to the public to avoid the area unless absolutely necessary in an effort to reduce traffic.
More hazardous weather was predicted for large swaths of Greece later on Wednesday (local time) and in coming days, with storms predicted for western Greece and for parts of the Greek capital.
The deaths came a day after authorities declared a state of emergency on the small Aegean Sea island of Symi due to torrential rainfall there that flooded homes and shops, swept vehicles into the sea and cut power after the local power station was flooded.
AP: Petros Giannakouris
AP/Reuters
We acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Australians and Traditional Custodians of the lands where we live, learn, and work.
This service may include material from Agence France-Presse (AFP), APTN, Reuters, AAP, CNN and the BBC World Service which is copyright and cannot be reproduced.
AEST = Australian Eastern Standard Time which is 10 hours ahead of GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) | Floods | November 2017 | ['(AP via ABC Australia)', '(The Guardian)'] |
The Crown Office confirms that Strathclyde Police will investigate phone hacking and breaches of data protection in Scotland. | Strathclyde Police are to investigate phone hacking and breaches of data protection in Scotland, the Crown Office has confirmed.
The probe will centre on allegations that witnesses gave perjured evidence in the trial of ex-MSP Tommy Sheridan.
In December he was found guilty of lying during his successful defamation case against the News of the World (NoW) newspaper in 2006.
The NoW was closed at the beginning of July over the hacking scandal.
Sheridan, former Scottish Socialist Party leader, was jailed for three years for lying under oath
He had won £200,000 in damages over its claims he was an adulterer who visited swingers clubs.
Asst Ch Con George Hamilton said: "Following our discussions with the Crown, we have now been instructed to carry out a full investigation into allegations that witnesses gave perjured evidence in the trial of Tommy Sheridan and into alleged breaches of data protection and phone hacking.
"We will also be looking to see if we can uncover any evidence of corruption in the police service or any other organisation related to these inquiries.
"However, I must stress that no specific allegations regarding corruption have been presented to us at this time."
He said his detectives would be working with the Metropolitan Police and other Scottish forces.
"By its very nature, this investigation will require us to allocate varying levels of resources to it," he said.
"There is a huge amount of material to consider and, potentially, a large number of people to contact.
"This will mean that the investigation is likely to be a lengthy one. However, you have my absolute assurance that it will be a thorough one."
Strathclyde Police began looking into the issue after a dossier of information alleging hundreds of people had been targeted by News International was handed to them by Sheridan's lawyer Aamer Anwar.
The BBC has obtained a copy of that dossier, which details journalists' requests to private detective Steve Whittamore.
The so-called "Blue Book" features the names of many high-profile figures who later allegedly became victims of phone hacking.
It includes requests for a variety of legitimate, publicly-sourced information, but there are also requests for sensitive information like ex-directory numbers, criminal records, vehicle registration details and Friends and Family numbers, which could be illegal if they have been accessed by blagging or deception. According to the dossier, the Scottish News of the World employed Whittamore dozens of times.
It contains a few Scots in the public eye, including former rugby star Kenny Logan and his wife, Gabby, a BBC Sport presenter. Jethro Tull frontman Ian Anderson and actress Natalie Robb are also on the list. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Investigate | July 2011 | ['(BBC)'] |
Gerard Batten is elected unopposed as the leader of the UK Independence Party, having been interim leader of the party since previous leader Henry Bolton was overthrown in a vote of no confidence in February. |
Saturday 14 April 2018 21:10, UK
UKIP has confirmed it has a new leader - its fifth since Nigel Farage stepped down in late 2016.
Gerard Batten, who ran unopposed in the election to replace Henry Bolton, announced he had taken over the role officially on Saturday.
Mr Bolton, 55, was ousted from the leadership following a scandal over his affair with 25-year-old model Jo Marney.
Mr Batten, who is also UKIP's MEP for London, said he would now concentrate on restoring the "party's fortunes" after it saw its vote share in the polls slip from a high of more than 25% in the European elections in 2014 to less than 2% in 2017.
He also pledged to resign after 12 months to allow a full leadership election to take place.
He said in a statement: "I received the backing of all three UKIP Lords, our major donors, our MEPs, our London and Welsh Assembly Members, and party activists and members from all over the UK.
"I would like to thank everyone for their support, and am grateful for the trust and confidence placed in me.
"For the next twelve months, I will concentrate on doing all I can to restore the party's fortunes. A very good start has been made and the party is now on a sound financial footing.
"However, we need to get UKIP back into the political fight. We have made a very good start with the 554 UKIP candidates standing in the English local elections.
"Don't pay any attention to our enemies who are crowing that our candidates numbers are 75% down on what they were last time.
"The truth is that instead of 554 candidates, the number would have been zero if you had not all backed me from the 17 April onwards and the party had disintegrated. Instead, let's celebrate the 554 and help them all we can.
"My role as Interim Leader was to ensure the immediate survival of the party. That has been done. However, we must move on and progress."
UKIP lost control of its only major council in February when the party's local leader resigned.
Before he became the official leader, Mr Batten was forced to defend his description of Islam as a "death cult".
Diane James was the first to replace Mr Farage after a vote but, before taking up the role, she announced she would not be doing so as she claimed she did not have the authority.
Paul Nuttall followed Ms James but lasted seven months before he resigned when he failed to win a seat in the General Election. | Government Job change - Appoint_Inauguration | April 2018 | ['(Sky News)'] |
Trump instructs officials to consider a further $100 billion of tariffs against China in addition to the $50 billion worth of US tariffs already proposed on hundreds of Chinese imports. | US President Donald Trump has instructed officials to consider a further $100bn (£71.3bn) of tariffs against China, in an escalation of a tense trade stand-off.
These would be in addition to the $50bn worth of US tariffs already proposed on hundreds of Chinese imports. China's Ministry of Commerce responded, saying China would "not hesitate to pay any price" to defend its interests.
Tit-for-tat trade moves have unsettled global markets in recent weeks.
The latest US proposal came after China threatened tariffs on 106 key US products. In response to Mr Trump's latest announcement, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said: "China and the US as two world powers should treat each other on a basis of equality and with respect.
"By waving a big stick of trade sanctions against China, the US has picked a wrong target."
Ministry of Commerce Spokesman Gao Feng said: "We do not want to fight, but we are not afraid to fight a trade war."
He said that if the US side ignores opposition from China and the international community and insists on "unilateralist and protectionist acts," then China will "not hesitate to pay any price, and will definitely strike back resolutely... [to] defend the interests of the country and its people."
Analysts have warned of the risk of a full-blown trade war for the global economy and the markets, and believe ongoing behind-the-scenes negotiations between the two giants are crucial. Market reaction in Asia on Friday suggested investors were relatively untroubled by the latest twist in the trade row. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index rose more than 1% while Japan's Nikkei index edged lower.
Earlier this year, the US announced it would impose import taxes of 25% on steel and 10% on aluminium. The tariffs were to be wide-ranging and would include China.
China responded last month with retaliatory tariffs worth $3bn of its own against the US on a range of goods, including pork and wine. Beijing said the move was intended to safeguard its interests and balance losses caused by the new tariffs.
Then the US announced it was imposing some $50bn worth of tariffs on Chinese-made goods, blaming what it described as unfair Chinese intellectual property practices, such as those that pressured US companies to share technology with Chinese firms. Mr Trump argues that because Beijing forces any US firms setting up shop in China to tie up with a Chinese company, US ideas are left open to theft and abuse.
Mr Trump reiterated in his statement on Thursday that China's "illicit trade practices" had been ignored by Washington for years and had destroyed "thousands of American factories and millions of American jobs". The draft details of the $50bn to $60bn worth of tariffs were released last week when Washington set out about 1,300 Chinese products it intended to hit with tariffs set at 25%. China responded this week by proposing retaliatory tariffs, also worth some $50bn, on 106 key US products, including soybeans, aircraft parts and orange juice. This set of tariffs was narrowly aimed at politically important sectors in the US, such as agriculture. In Mr Trump's Thursday statement he branded that retaliation by Beijing as "unfair". "Rather than remedy its misconduct, China has chosen to harm our farmers and manufacturers," he said.
"In light of China's unfair retaliation, I have instructed the USTR (United States Trade Representative) to consider whether $100bn of additional tariffs would be appropriate... and, if so, to identify the products upon which to impose such tariffs."
He said he had also instructed agricultural officials to implement a plan to protect US farmers and agricultural interests.
On the political front, Mr Trump's latest announcement has elicited a less-than-friendly reception from some fellow Republicans. They have warned that the tariffs will hurt Americans and cost jobs. They have also said relationships the US has with its other big trading partners could be hurt. US retail giants including Walmart and Target have also asked Mr Trump to consider carefully the impact the tariffs would have on consumer prices and American families.
On Thursday, Ben Sasse, a Republican Senator from the farming area of Nebraska, said Mr Trump's latest plan was "nuts" and that he hoped the president was "just blowing off steam".
"Let's absolutely take on Chinese bad behaviour, but with a plan that punishes them instead of us," he said. "This is the dumbest possible way to do this."
Mr Sasse's comments echo sentiment pouring out of various Republican-voting farming belts in the US. America's soybean farmers are expected to be particularly hurt by Mr Trump's tariff tactics.
To get a sense of how things might play out for those farmers, the trade tit-for-tat could hit soybean producers in the US - and possibly around the world. China, which is a big producer of soybeans itself, buys about 60% of all soybeans exported by the US. It uses the product to feed farmed animals, including pigs and chickens, as well as fish. Those animals are in turn used to help feed China's enormous population. China's demand for soybeans and soybean products has buoyed the price of US soybeans for some time. But Beijing's tariffs against US soybeans will mostly likely see sales to China fall off, which will in turn hurt American farmers. Meanwhile, China will need to set about sourcing the extra soybeans it needs from other countries. India is one of the world's biggest soybean producers, and analysts there have already pointed to a potential trade war between the US and China as an opportunity for its economy.
Other big soybean producers are Argentina and Brazil, and some studies suggest that is where China will turn to should the current set of proposed tariffs come into force. But it could end up paying more than it currently does, ultimately forcing up the price of those animals which eat soybean products. So that would mean pork, for example, China's most popular meat, could get more expensive. And food price inflation is something that will worry Beijing.
China has initiated a complaint with the World Trade Organization over the US tariffs, in what analysts say is a sign that this will be a protracted process.
The WTO circulated the request for consultation to members on Thursday, launching a discussion period before the complaint heads to formal dispute settlement process.
Meanwhile, under US law, the proposed set of tariffs against about 1,300 Chinese products must now go under review, including a public notice and comment process, and a hearing. The hearing is scheduled at the moment for 15 May, with post-hearing filings due a week later. So, it could be some months before the USTR will announce its final findings or any decision on whether or not it will move ahead with the proposed tariffs. US trade deficit widens in February
| Government Policy Changes | April 2018 | ['(BBC)'] |
The military of Togo is criticized by global leaders for suspending the constitution after the death of president Gnassingbé Eyadéma and naming his son successor. | While the constitution stipulates that parliament's speaker should take over in the event of death, the army swiftly handed power to son Faure Eyadema, 39.
The African Union, currently keen to promote better governance on the continent, spoke of a "military coup".
The UN, EU and former ruler France also demanded respect for the constitution.
"The transition should take place in conformity with the provisions of the constitution, and with strict respect for legality, by the speaker of the national assembly," France's deputy foreign ministry spokeswoman, Cecile Pozzo di Borgo, told reporters.
What's happening in Togo needs to be called by its name: it's a seizure of power by the military, it's a military coup d'etat
Alpha Oumar Konare,AU African Union commissioner The request echoed one made by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan shortly after President Eyadema died - reportedly of a heart attack - on Saturday.
For its part, the EU warned ties with Togo could suffer. "I call for the strict respect of procedures under the constitution," said EU Development Commissioner Louis Michel in a statement. "All other means will not offer stability to the country."
Locked out
By the time the death was announced on public radio on Saturday, the army had already sealed the border.
It then handed power to Faure Eyadema, currently the communications minister. Army Chief of Staff Gen Zakari Nandja said the decision had been taken to avoid a power vacuum.
The speaker of parliament, Fambare Natchaba Ouattara, who had been returning to Togo from Paris, was reportedly not allowed in because of the border closures.
He is now in neighbouring Benin.
Old style
Eyadema, 69, Africa's longest-serving ruler, died while being evacuated for medical treatment abroad. After seizing power 38 years ago, he dissolved all political parties and governed unchallenged for more than two decades. He legalised political parties in 1991, as a result of popular pressure, and won three elections. But accusations of political repression and electoral fraud continued. African Union chairman - Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo - called Eyadema "one of Africa's greatest leaders", but added that that the AU would not accept any unconstitutional transition of power in Togo, his spokesman said.
The BBC's African affairs analyst, Martin Plaut, says that while there was a time when such events in Togo would have attracted little attention, the installation of new leaders by soldiers is now supposed to be a thing of the past.
It had been hoped, our analyst notes, that democracy rather than coups would be at the heart of African politics in the 21st Century. Indeed, it was Africa's promise to mend its ways that has furthered efforts to raise money for development, he says. Just hours before Eyadema's death, finance ministers of the world's leading industrialised countries announced plans to write off debt - in exchange for government reforms. | Famous Person - Death | February 2005 | ['(BBC)'] |
The European Union pledges to give the Gambia €225 million in aid to assist the country following the departure of former president Yahya Jammeh, whose 22 years of misrule left the country "virtually bankrupt". | Major funding commitment to help ‘virtually bankrupt’ country shake off legacy of dictatorship, as President Adama Barrow promises better life for Gambians
Last modified on Thu 15 Oct 2020 14.26 BST
The EU has pledged its support to the new leaders of the Gambia with hundreds of millions of euros, shoring up a country that is “virtually bankrupt” after two decades of Yahya Jammeh’s rule.
Aid to the Gambia dried up under Jammeh, whose record of human rights violations, along with his habit of pulling out of international institutions and throwing out diplomats, alienated donors.
Now, after promises from the new government to defend human rights, protect media freedom and rejoin the international criminal court and the Commonwealth, the EU has become the first to commit major funding to what has become known as “the new Gambia”.
After a rollercoaster transition period during which Jammeh accepted electoral defeat before performing a U-turn – he refused to leave State House, and finally conceded only under pressure from a phalanx of African presidents – there will be no respite for the country’s new president.
Having beaten the eccentric autocrat despite the odds, largely on a promise of a better life for Gambians, Adama Barrow now faces the challenge of living up to his people’s hopes.
The EU has pledged €75m (£64m) in immediate funding and €150m in the longer term to help “make sure that the new Gambian state can deliver as it should … that it can stand up to the high expectations of the population”, said Neven Mimica, the commissioner for international cooperation and development, who met Barrow on Thursday. “There is no time to lose.”
The former estate agent-turned-coalition leader told Mimica that his country was “in need of immediate rescue”, particularly emergency budget support.
“We have just assumed the task of governing the country after decades of dictatorship and self-imposed isolation,” Barrow said.
Jammeh expelled the EU’s charge d’affaires in 2015, giving her 72 hours to leave Banjul, with no explanation. “We had a dictatorship that thrived on bad governance, human rights abuses, bad policy choices, and violation of the rule of law. A dictatorship that cost us our friends. A dictatorship whose conduct deprived us of our development and aid. A dictatorship that was brutal toward its citizens,” said Barrow.
“As a new government, what we have inherited is an economy that is virtually bankrupt and in need of immediate rescue. This sad reality was brought about through a mismanagement of our finances.”
Donor money is sorely needed in a country whose economy has grown little in recent decades, prompting many Gambians to take the perilous “back way” to Europe – crossing the Mediterranean from Libya to Italy – in search of a livelihood. The Gambia has public debt of more than 100% of annual GDP and youth unemployment of just under 40%.
The US is planning to send an assessment team to the country shortly after Barrow’s official inauguration on 18 February. Barrow was sworn in as president in neighbouring Senegal last month, as Jammeh clung to power. After all-night negotiations by regional presidents, who finally succeeded in persuading Jammeh to go, Barrow returned to his country and was greeted by thousands of celebrating supporters.
In a final blow, however, Jammeh withdrew more than $11.4m (£9.2m) from the country’s banks in the fortnight before getting on the plane to Equatorial Guinea, according to the interior minister, who said the coffers were “virtually empty”.
Despite the cash flow problems, Barrow and his team have ambitious plans.
The country’s new foreign minister, Ousainou Darboe, said he wanted to make the Gambia the “human rights capital of Africa”. This would be a dramatic turnaround from life under Jammeh, when journalists, political opposition members and people arrested at peaceful protests, whether they were protesting or not, were thrown in jail, often without trial or on trumped-up charges. Darboe was a political prisoner until his release in December, which drew thousands of people to his modest house in Banjul, flooding in to offer their congratulations.
“We already have the institutions that give the Gambia the qualification to be the human rights capital of Africa,” said Darboe. “We have the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights here in Banjul. The only institution we don’t have is the African court of human rights. We are going to champion the establishment of that institution and its location in the Gambia. “Also, our own practice of human rights and protection of human rights will be a model.”
Barrow has said his administration will prioritise rebuilding the economy, and a national development plan is in the works. He is also creating a thinktank of advisers on agriculture, health, the environment and other areas, to identify the needs in each sector.
The country’s justice system, which Jammeh used to further his own agenda, will be overhauled, and the constitution amended, in particular to remove age limits for positions in government.
Barrow’s first move as president, making Fatoumatah Jallow-Tambajang his vice-president, was unconstitutional, as an age limit of 65 had been set under the youthful Jammeh, who was 29 when he took power and 51 when he left.
Most of the EU’s €75m is for projects tackling malnutrition, food security and unemployment. Drought and climate change have made farming difficult for Gambia in recent years, and a tenth of the population suffers from acute malnutrition. Mimica also said he was aware of the need to support “stability and reconstruction of the Gambian state” and would dispatch a team to Banjul to help decide what the other €150m should be spent on. | Financial Aid | February 2017 | ['(The Guardian)'] |
Former Chief Executive of Hong Kong Donald Tsang is sentenced to 20 months in prison for corruption, becoming the highest officeholder in Hong Kong's history to be convicted. | Former Hong Kong leader Donald Tsang has been sentenced to 20 months in prison for misconduct.
Tsang led Hong Kong from 2005 to 2012 and is the most senior official in the territory ever to stand trial for corruption.
He was found guilty last week of misconduct in public office, in a case related to a luxury flat in China.
In sentencing, Judge Andrew Chan said: "Never in my judicial career have I seen a man fall from so high."
A number of senior former officials in Hong Kong had written letters to the court in defence of Tsang's character. The judge said he took Tsang's reputation and long public service into account in sentencing, taking 10 months off what would have been a 30-month sentence. The maximum penalty could have been seven years.
Tsang was cleared last week of a second count of misconduct, while the jury failed to reach a verdict on a third charge of accepting an advantage. He is expected to be retried on that charge in September.
After sentencing, he was taken from court in handcuffs to the hospital where he has been staying since experiencing chest pain on Monday.
When the presiding judge asked Mr Tsang to stand for sentencing, the former chief executive took a sip of water and closed his eyes. He kept his eyes closed during most of the sentencing speech and appeared to calm himself with a rhythmic breathing exercise.
Five years of investigations and weeks of trial had culminated in this humiliating moment.
It was an ignominious end for a man who used to be the pride of Hong Kong - someone who had overcome a humble start in life to hold three of the city's top jobs.
Mr Tsang's legacy and reputation are in tatters and the judge acknowledged it, saying he had never before seen a man fall so far, so fast.
The case has worried a territory that prides itself on its relatively clean reputation.
The trial related to events which took place near the end of his term, between 2010 and 2012.
Prosecutors accused Mr Tsang of inappropriate and undeclared conflicts of interest, including renting a luxury flat in mainland China from the shareholder of a broadcast company whose licence applications he approved. They also alleged the flat was redecorated free of charge and that he later nominated the interior designer for an honour.
The jury found him guilty of misconduct over his failure to disclose the lease of the flat, but dismissed the charge related to the designer and did not reach a verdict on whether he accepted a bribe in the form of the refurbishment.
A career civil servant, Tsang rose through the ranks to become Hong Kong's second chief executive, following Tung Chee-hwa.
His deputy, former Chief Secretary Rafael Hui, was jailed for accepting bribes from a property tycoon in 2014.
| Famous Person - Commit Crime - Sentence | February 2017 | ['(BBC)'] |
Hurricane Matthew moves towards the United States with hundreds of thousands of people being evacuated from the states of Florida and South Carolina. | MELBOURNE, Fla. — Evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people was underway Wednesday in Florida and South Carolina as Hurricane Matthew roared closer to the U.S. after leaving 16 people dead and carving a path of destruction across Haiti.
The impending weather prompted Florida Gov. Rick Scott to ask President Obama to declare a pre-landfall emergency, activate 1,000 more National Guard members to join the 1,500 already positioned in the state and suspend all tolls in the affected areas, including the entire Florida Turnpike, Alligator Alley, Central Florida Expressway Authority and the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority.
"Based on the most recent forecast I received from the National Hurricane Center, the eye of Hurricane Matthew is going to be much closer to Florida," Scott said Wednesday night in a statement. "There are hurricane watches and warnings along Florida’s entire east coast and we now have Tropical Storm warnings on Florida’s Gulf Coast. This storm is serious and protecting life remains our number one priority."
During a briefing with reporters earlier Wednesday, Scott also implored those who had been ordered to evacuate to do so.
"There is absolutely no excuse not to evacuate," Scott said during the briefing at the Brevard County Emergency Operations Center in Rockledge, Fla. "If you are able to leave early, go now," before evacuation-related traffic tie-ups get worse."
"We can rebuild your home. We can rebuild your business," Scott said. "We cannot rebuild your life."
The governor added that the state is "preparing for the worst, hoping for the best and not taking any chances.
Tropical storm conditions are expected to reach parts of the Florida coast by early Thursday, intensifying to hurricane conditions in some areas later that day, the National Hurricane Center warned. Matthew had top sustained winds of 115 mph, a Category 3 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale, Wednesday evening and is forecast to strengthen in coming days, the center said.
"People have less than 24 hours to prepare," Scott said. "Having a plan could be the difference between life and death."
Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina declared states of emergency ahead of the most powerful storm to rock the Atlantic basin since Hurricane Felix killed more than 100 people, most in Nicaragua, in 2007.
“Residents and visitors should take evacuation orders seriously,” Federal Emergency Management Agency chief W. Craig Fugate said. “This is a major hurricane that has the potential to cause significant harm to life and property.”
. Wednesday evening the storm was about 325 miles southeast of West Palm Beach heading northwest at 10 mph. The storm had weakened but was expected to strengthen later Wednesday and on Thursday, according to the National Hurricane Center.
| Hurricanes_Tornado_Storm_Blizzard | October 2016 | ['(USA Today)'] |
Two bombs explode in the central Nigerian city of Jos with at least 40 people dead. | By Reuters Published: 22:21 BST, 11 December 2014 | Updated: 20:16 BST, 12 December 2014 View comments
At least 40 people have died in a double-bombing in central Nigeria, just months after more than 100 were killed in a similar attack.
Two bombs exploded near a bus station in the city of Jos on Thursday evening, witnesses said, the second one killing at least 40 people.
It is feared that the bombings were carried out by Islamist militants Boko Haram, who engineered an attack on the same bus station in May, killing 118.
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Rescue workers carry an injured victim of the double bomb blast in the central Nigeria city of Jos
Casualties from the first blast could not immediately be ascertained and Nigerian security sources could not immediately be reached for comment.
Mohammed Abdulsalam, coordinator for the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) in the city, said the scene of the attack was a densely populated area.
'I saw a flash of light and heard a loud boom. Afterwards there was debris everywhere and mutilated bodies,' witness Tanko Mohammed said of the blast in Jos's commercial Terminus district.
'The bodies recovered so far are 31 but rescue workers are at the scene and the figures may change,' Pam Ayuba, spokesman for the Plateau state governor Jonah Jang said.
Boko Haram is a Sunni jihadist movement that has been waging a five-year insurgency to establish an Islamist state in the northeast of the country.
Two bombs exploded near a bus station in the city of Jos on Thursday evening, witnesses said, the second one killing at least 40 people
Similar attack: Thursday's blast in the central city of Jos, Nigeria, comes just months after a similar attack at the market killed 118 people
The terrorist organisation has increasingly used women as suicide bombers in attacks ranging from Borno state in the far northeast to Niger to the northwest.
Just last month, at least 120 people were killed when two suicide bombers blew themselves up at Kano's central mosque and gunmen opened fire on worshippers as they fled.
Security analysts have seen the use of women - whether voluntarily and ideologically motivated or coerced - as a sign that Boko Haram wants to sow fear and terror further afield.
President Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency in three northeastern states last year. The number of attacks has risen sharply since then, in the run-up to elections in February 2015.
The latest blasts came as both Jonathan's ruling party and the main opposition coalition agreed on candidates to contest the elections, in which security is likely to be a major campaign issue.
Former military ruler Muhammadu Buhari will be challenging Jonathan at the polls for the second time.
| Riot | December 2014 | ['(Reuters via Daily Mail)'] |
A Texas man opens fire with an AK–47 style rifle at the Cuban Embassy in Washington, D.C., in a suspected hate crime. No one is injured, and the shooter is arrested and charged. | WASHINGTON (AP) — A man armed with an assault rifle was arrested after opening fire outside the Cuban Embassy in Washington early Thursday, his bullets tearing holes into the walls and pillars near the front entrance in what authorities suspect was a hate crime.
The gunfire broke out around 2 a.m. outside the embassy in northwest Washington. Metropolitan Police Department officers were called to the scene after neighbors reported hearing gunshots, authorities said. No injuries were reported.
Officers found the man, Alexander Alazo, 42, of Aubrey, Texas, armed with an assault rifle, and they and took him into custody without incident, police said. A police report obtained by The Associated Press describes the shooting as a “suspected hate crime” and says Alazo “knowingly discharged multiple rounds from an AK-47 rifle into the Cuban Embassy.” But the report also says Alazo’s motivation is unknown.
Officers recovered the rifle, ammunition and a white powdery substance that was found in a small baggie after Alazo’s arrest, according to the report.
Alazo was arrested on charges of possessing an unregistered firearm and ammunition, assault with intent to kill and possessing a high-capacity magazine, a U.S. Secret Service spokeswoman said. Alazo remained in custody Thursday. It wasn’t immediately clear whether he had a lawyer.
Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that embassy staff members were “safe and protected” but that the shooting caused “material damage” to the building. Photos showed large holes left in the building’s facade near the front door and in pillars outside the building. The Cuban government didn’t know the suspect’s potential motives, the statement said, adding that the State Department was aware of the incident. “It is the obligation of States to adopt appropriate steps to protect the premises of diplomatic missions accredited to their country against any intrusion or damage and to prevent any disturbance of the peace of the mission or impairment of its dignity,” the statement said.
Photos from the scene posted to social media showed a group of police officers outside the embassy after the shooting and investigators searching through an SUV parked there. Other images showed investigators surveying the damage in front of the ornate embassy in Washington’s Adams-Morgan neighborhood, including a bullet hole in a window over the front door and damage to a flagpole and a column flanking a statue of Cuban independence hero José Martí. | Riot | April 2020 | ['(The Washington Post)', '(The Associated Press)'] |
Italian reform minister Roberto Calderoli resigns after criticism for wearing a T-shirt depicting the cartoons. The incident triggered yesterday's rioting outside the Italian consulate in Benghazi, Libya, in which at least 10 people died. | Roberto Calderoli stepped down a day after rioting outside the Italian consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi led to at least 10 deaths.
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi had also urged him to go. The cartoons, first published by a Danish newspaper in September, have angered Muslims across the world.
During a sixth day of protests in Pakistan, four protesters were wounded after police reportedly opened fire on hundreds of demonstrators throwing stones and trying to burn down shops in the eastern town of Chaniot.
The cartoons, published by Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, have since been reprinted by several other European publications. They include an image portraying Muhammad with a bomb in his turban.
Islamic tradition strictly prohibits any depiction of Allah or the Prophet. Libyan minister suspended
Mr Calderoli, of the anti-immigration Northern League party, said he had decided to hand in his resignation "out of a sense of responsibility and certainly not because it was demanded by the government and the opposition".
CARTOON ROW
30 Sept 2005: Danish paper publishes cartoons
20 Oct: Muslim ambassadors complain to Danish PM
10 Jan 2006: Norwegian publication reprints cartoons
26 Jan: Saudi Arabia recalls its ambassador
31 Jan: Danish paper apologises
1 Feb: Papers in France, Germany, Italy and Spain reprint cartoons
4-5 Feb: Danish embassies in Damascus and Beirut attacked
6-12 Feb: Twelve killed in Afghanistan as security forces try to suppress protests
13-18 Feb: Five killed as protests break out across Pakistan
17 Feb: Ten killed in Libya as protesters target the Italian consulate in Benghazi
In pictures: Cartoon violence
Timeline of the row
How can row be resolved?
"I don't intend to allow further shameful manipulation of the kind which has been recently been brought to bear against me, and against the Northern League, from members of the government," the 49-year-old said.
At least 10 people were killed and several wounded as Libyan police tried to stop an angry protest of hundreds of demonstrators outside the Italian consulate in Benghazi on Friday.
According to police, the crowd splintered off from a larger, peaceful demonstration in the centre of the city and headed towards the consulate. The Italian foreign ministry said protesters broke into the grounds and set the first floor of the building on fire.
The Libyan government blamed what it called a small irresponsible group that it said did not reflect the Libyan spirit.
The consulate in Libya was the first Italian interest to be targeted
Libyan Interior Minister Nasr al-Mabrouk was suspended on Saturday and referred for investigation into police actions during the rioting.
"We condemn the excessive use of force and the inappropriate way that went beyond the limits of carrying out the duties of the police," said a statement from the parliamentary secretariat. | Government Job change - Resignation_Dismissal | February 2006 | ['(BBC)'] |
British musician and actor David Bowie dies from cancer, aged 69. | Singer David Bowie, one of the most influential musicians of his era, has died of cancer at the age of 69.
A statement was issued on his social media accounts, saying he "died peacefully, surrounded by his family" after an "18-month battle with cancer".
Tributes have been paid from around the world to the "extraordinary artist" whose last album was released days ago.
Sir Paul McCartney described him as a "great star" who "played a very strong part in British musical history".
Bowie's son Duncan Jones, who is a Bafta-winning film director, wrote on Twitter: "Very sorry and sad to say it's true. I'll be offline for a while. Love to all." The artist's hits include Let's Dance, Changes, Space Oddity, Starman, Modern Love, Heroes, Under Pressure, Rebel Rebel and Life on Mars. He was also well known for creating his flamboyant alter ego Ziggy Stardust.
The singer, who had been living in New York in recent years, released his latest album Blackstar only last Friday, his birthday. The album has been well received by critics and was intended as a "parting gift" to the world, according to long-time friend and producer Tony Visconti.
Visconti wrote on Facebook: "His death was no different from his life - a work of art."
He added: "He was an extraordinary man, full of love and life. He will always be with us." Blackstar is on course to be number one in the UK this Friday, according to the Official Charts Company, with combined sales of more than 43,000. Hundreds of fans have gathered in his birthplace of Brixton, south London, to pay tribute to the singer, laying flowers and candles at his mural and taking part in an impromptu sing-along of his hits. There have also been crowds outside his New York home and in Berlin where he lived in the late 1970s.
£135m
estimated net worth*
140 million albums sold since his first release in 1967 111 singles - averaging more than two a year during his career 51 music videos, along with a number of film roles including The Man Who Fell to Earth and Labyrinth 25 studio albums, including Blackstar, which was released two days before his death "His music played a very strong part in British musical history and I'm proud to think of the huge influence he has had on people all around the world." Sir Paul McCartney said he would "always remember the great laughs" the pair shared, saying in a statement: "David was a great star and I treasure the moments we had together. "His music played a very strong part in British musical history and I'm proud to think of the huge influence he has had on people all around the world." Friend and collaborator Brian Eno said: "David's death came as a complete surprise, as did nearly everything else about him. I feel a huge gap now." The Rolling Stones paid tribute to "an extraordinary artist" and a "true original". Brian May, guitarist with Queen - with whom Bowie collaborated on Under Pressure - described him as "a fearsome talent".
Friend and collaborator Iggy Pop wrote on Twitter: "David's friendship was the light of my life. I never met such a brilliant person. He was the best there is."
Madonna said she was "devastated", writing on Facebook that Bowie "changed the course" of her life after she saw him perform - her first ever concert. "I found him so inspiring and innovative," she wrote. "Unique and provocative. A real genius."
Comedian and actor Ricky Gervais, who convinced Bowie to star as himself and ridicule Gervais in an episode of 2006 sitcom Extras, simply wrote: "I just lost a hero. RIP David Bowie."
Midge Ure, who helped organise the Live Aid concert in 1985 - at which Bowie performed - said: "He wasn't just a brilliant songwriter and an amazing creator, he excelled at everything."
David Bowie was the Picasso of pop. He was an innovative, visionary, restless artist: the ultimate ever-changing postmodernist. Along with the Beatles, Stones and Elvis Presley, Bowie defined what pop music could and should be. He brought art to the pop party, infusing his music and performances with the avant-garde ideas of Merce Cunningham, John Cage and Andy Warhol. He turned pop in a new direction in 1972 with the introduction of his alter ego Ziggy Stardust. Glam rock was the starting point, but Ziggy was much more than an eyeliner-wearing maverick: he was a truly theatrical character that at once harked backed to pre-War European theatre while anticipating 1980s androgyny and today's discussions around a transgender spectrum. He was a great singer, songwriter, performer, actor, producer and collaborator. But beyond all that, at the very heart of the matter, David Bowie was quite simply - quite extraordinarily - cool. Read more: An ordinary chap who did extraordinary things
Chris Hadfield, the former commander of the International Space Station who recorded a video of a version of Space Oddity during his final mission, said his "brilliance inspired us all". Yoko Ono said Bowie was "as close as family" for her and late husband John Lennon, describing him as a "father figure" for their son Sean.
Bowie was born David Jones in Brixton, south London, on 8 January in 1947. He changed his name in 1966 after The Monkees' Davy Jones achieved stardom. He was in several bands before he signed with Mercury Records, which released his album Space Oddity in 1969, with the title track becoming his first UK number one.
His breakthrough came with 1972's The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars. David Bowie changed music forever. Throughout his career, he reinvented not just his sound but his persona over and over again.
He was a proudly progressive composer, drawing on any genre that came to mind - from the hippy folk of Space Oddity to the crunching industrial rock of 1995's Outside album and his ambitious, jazz-flecked swansong Blackstar, released just last week.
His style shifted with the sands, but he was always recognisably David Bowie. That powdery voice - vibrating off the back of his teeth - is unmistakable; while his impressionist lyrics had a constant theme - he was an outsider, an alien, a sexually ambiguous spectre.
Read more: A career that shaped modern pop
Bowie also carved out a successful acting career, including his role as an alien seeking help for his dying planet in Nicolas Roeg's The Man Who Fell to Earth in 1976.
Other roles included Labyrinth, Cat People, The Last Temptation of Christ and The Hunger.
The late 1980s were dominated by Bowie's involvement with his new band, a postmodernist heavy metal outfit, Tin Machine.
The 1990s saw him flirting with drum-and-bass on the Earthling album, while his 2002 album Heathen saw a long-awaited return to form for the singer. He headlined Glastonbury in 2000 - his first appearance there since 1971. Festival founder Michael Eavis told the BBC: "He's one of the three greatest in the world, ever - Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley and David Bowie. There's no-one else even close." Bowie was thought to have suffered a heart attack in 2004, after which he largely stopped making public appearances. His last live performance was at a New York charity concert in 2006.
But after a decade without a studio album he released The Next Day in 2013, surprising fans who thought he had retired. It became his first UK number one for 20 years.
He co-wrote Lazarus, a musical featuring his songs and inspired by his role in The Man Who Fell to Earth, which opened in New York last month.
And a truncated version of Blackstar, the title track of his new album, appears as the theme music for the TV show The Last Panthers.
Watch a special tribute programme David Bowie: Sound and Vision on the BBC iPlayer
Reaction and tributes
David Bowie: A life in pictures
Obituary: David Bowie
David Bowie: The internet pioneer
BBC Music: David Bowie
David Bowie
Setback for EU in legal fight with AstraZeneca
But the drug-maker faces hefty fines if it fails to supply doses of Covid-19 vaccine over the summer. | Famous Person - Death | January 2016 | ['(BBC)'] |
Voters in the European Union go to the polls for a multi-day European Parliamentary election. Voters in Ireland and the Czech Republic vote today. | European Parliament elections have entered their second day, with Irish and Czech voters going to the polls. This comes as Eurosceptics in the Netherlands appeared to suffer a setback on the first day of voting.
Irish and Czech voters will be going to the polls on Friday to choose their next members of the European Parliament on the second of four days of polling across the 28-nation European Union.
Polls in Ireland, where just over 3 million people can participate in the vote, opened at 7 a.m. (0600 UTC). Turnout on the island could be boosted by local elections, which are taking place at the same time.
Two days of voting in the Czech Republic get under way at 2 p.m. (1200 UTC). The Czech protest party Ano, led by billionaire Andrej Babis, is expected to win most of the 21 seats up for grabs in the country, with its government coalition partner, the Social Democratic party (CSSD), likely to come second.
No official results from the elections will be released until late on Sunday after polls have closed in all 28 EU member states.
Eurosceptics lose out
However, an exit poll from the opening day of elections in the Netherlands on Thursday indicated that the party of anti-Islam populist Geert Wilders appeared to have lost support.
An IPSOS exit poll published by Dutch state broadcaster NOS said Wilders' Party for Freedom had won just 12.2 percent of the vote, down from 17 percent at the last election in 2009.
The result would seem to go in the face of predictions that far-right and far-left parties might make considerable gains on the continent as Europe struggles to recover from an economic crisis.
Britain also voted on Thursday, but no exit polls have been released.
Latvia, Malta and Slovakia are to vote on Saturday, and the rest of the countries in the bloc on Sunday. Altogether 388 million Europeans are entitled to vote for 751 deputies in the European Parliament.
However, pollsters forecast a low turnout. Elections in 2009 saw just 43 percent of eligible voters casting a ballot. | Government Job change - Election | May 2014 | ['(Deutsche Welle)'] |
President Adama Barrow announces that Yahya Jammeh has agreed step down and leave the country following an intervention by ECOWAS states. | The Gambia's leader Yahya Jammeh is to step down and leave the country, officials involved in negotiations say.
West African mediators spent several hours with Mr Jammeh on Friday, negotiating his future. The motorcade carrying the presidents of Guinea and Mauritania has left the official residence, but they are not thought to have left the country.
Mr Jammeh was defeated in December's election and his successor Adama Barrow has been inaugurated.
A tweet from an account believed to belong to the new president, saying that Mr Jammeh had agreed to step down and go into exile, has since been deleted.
But Mai Fatty, a senior aide to the new president, told the BBC's Umaru Fofana that Mr Jammeh had agreed to step down.
News agency AFP reported that Mr Jammeh had agreed in principle to go but that the terms of his departure were still being finalised.
Mr Barrow told Gambians who had fled the country that they now had "the liberty to return home".
"The rule of fear has been vanished from The Gambia for good," he said in the Senegalese capital, Dakar.
Mr Barrow has been in neighbouring Senegal for days. He was sworn in at the Gambian embassy there on Thursday.
West African nations, including Senegal, have deployed troops in The Gambia - threatening to drive Mr Jammeh out of office by force.
Mr Barrow's legitimacy as president has been recognised internationally, after he won last month's elections.
Mr Jammeh was given an ultimatum to leave office or be forced out by UN-backed troops, which expired at 16:00 GMT on Friday.
The deadline was set by the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas), a regional grouping backed by the United Nations. The man who once said he would rule The Gambia for a billion years is finally leaving. He is thought to have been offered an amnesty deal, so that he will not face charges of human rights abuses. He had wanted to stay in The Gambia but this was not negotiable. There have been suggestions he may now go to Guinea, although he has been offered asylum in Nigeria and it is thought Morocco has done the same.
Mr Jammeh's term expired at midnight on Wednesday - but, while still president, he engineered a parliamentary vote to extend his presidency. As Mr Barrow has already been sworn in, the country could be said to have two presidents at the same time.
Ecowas said that its forces, from Senegal and other West African countries, had encountered no resistance after entering The Gambia. After first accepting defeat in the election he reversed his position and said he would not step down. He declared a 90-day state of emergency, blaming irregularities in the electoral process.
The electoral commission accepted that some of its early results had contained errors but said they would not have affected Mr Barrow's win.
Mr Jammeh had said he would stay in office until new elections were held.
| Government Job change - Resignation_Dismissal | January 2017 | ['(BBC)'] |
Saudi Arabia tells a UN Security Council meeting that Israel's practices and illegal measures against the Palestinian people undermine international efforts for peace. | Updated: Jan 21, 2011 22:52
NEW YORK: Saudi Arabia stressed that the Israeli practices and illegal measures against the Palestinian people do not only represent a breach of the Charter of the United Nations, the humanitarian values and UN resolutions, but also undermine any international effort for peace. In a speech before the Security Council meeting last night to discuss the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian issue, Permanent Representative of Saudi Arabia to the UN Ambassador Khaled Al-Nafisee called on the international community, the United Nations and especially the Quartet Committee, to follow a comprehensive strategic approach toward an immediate halt to all settlement projects in the Occupied Territories, the Saudi Press Agency reported on Friday.
Al-Nafisee said that the suffering of the Palestinian people began with the idea of giving their homeland to another people without a homeland. The issue soon spawned new issues of refugees, settlements, changing historical facts and demolition of religious sites. The Palestinian people have suffering under the brutal force of Israel with the international community not making any effective move to restrain the occupier, he pointed out.
“Had the UN Security Council carried out its role, the suffering of the Palestinian people would not have continued for more than a half a century of Israel’s worst forms of killings, displacement, imprisonment, blockade, annexation, confiscation of property and looting of goods in order to destroy that people and push them to surrender, despair and frustration through exposing them to more oppression and suffering, which is evidenced by the current Israeli practices,” the Saudi representative said.
He added that the Arabs opted for peace and not surrender and their demand has been, and still is, the implementation of the UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338 and the principle of land for just and comprehensive peace, which requires a full Israeli withdrawal from occupied Arab territories to the 1967 borders, as well as the return of Palestinian refugees to their homes, regaining their rights, enabling the Palestinian people to exercise their right to self-determination and establishing their independent state on their national soil with Al-Quds (Jerusalem) as its capital, as well as withdrawal from the Golan Heights in Syria and the Lebanese Shebaa Farms.
He said the Israeli occupation forces that have built a wall of racist separation and expanded settlements in Palestinian territories, in addition to arming, protecting and encouraging settlers to build more settlement outposts over the past few months with simultaneous rise in incidents of demolitions of Palestinian homes, property and farms including the demolition of the historic Shepherd Hotel.
Ambassador Al-Nafisee said such practices completely hinder all peace initiatives because they surround most cities in the West Bank and make it virtually impossible to establish a contiguous and viable Palestinian state in the future.
He added that for six decades, the Arab-Israeli conflict has been and still is overshadowing all the issues in the Middle East and was a reason for the growth of extremism and terrorism and a obstacle to efforts of development and reform in that region.
At the end of his speech, the Kingdom's permanent representative at the United Nations reiterated the commitment of all Arab countries to the just and comprehensive peace based on UN resolutions. He affirmed that the commitment is still waiting for a reciprocal and serious Israeli commitment by immediately accepting the Arab Peace Initiative, which provides the only way to a lasting and comprehensive peace between the two sides. | Diplomatic Talks _ Diplomatic_Negotiation_ Summit Meeting | January 2011 | ['(Arab News)'] |
A Thai appeals court rules to extradite alleged Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout to the United States; Russia expresses its disagreement with the ruling. | A Russian man suspected of selling arms to insurgent groups around the world is to be extradited to the United States, a court in Thailand has ruled.
Viktor Bout, 43, is pleading not guilty on US charges of conspiracy to sell arms to Colombian rebels.
Mr Bout - dubbed the Merchant of Death - was detained in a joint Thai-US sting operation in March 2008.
Russia has condemned the decision and said it would work to secure his return.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov described the ruling as "unlawful" and said his government believed it was made "under very strong external pressure".
The ministry has summoned Thailand's ambassador to express its "extreme disappointment and bewilderment" at the verdict, the Agence France-Presse news agency reported.
The US said it was "extremely pleased" at the news.
"We have always felt that the facts of the case... clearly supported the extradition of Mr Bout on these charges," acting Deputy US Attorney General Gary Grindler said in a statement.
A Thai court had previously rejected a US request for his extradition, but the US appealed against that ruling.
Speaking to reporters in Russian after the verdict, Mr Bout said he would "face the trial in the United States and win it," Russia's RIA Novosti news agency reported.
Mr Bout, a former Soviet air force officer, faces US charges of conspiring to kill Americans, conspiring to provide material support to terrorists and conspiring to acquire and use an anti-aircraft missile.
He could face a maximum penalty of life in prison if convicted in the US.
American authorities lodged two further charges of money-laundering and electronic fraud against Mr Bout before Friday's hearing - if their appeal had been rejected, he would have had to remain in jail pending another decision.
The court gave the authorities three months to deal with them, but it is expected the US will drop this second raft of charges and proceed with the extradition as soon as possible.
"The court has decided to detain him for extradition to the US," said the judge Jitakorn Patanasiri.
The decision had been repeatedly delayed by a high turnover of defence lawyers.
Lawyers for Mr Bout have argued that he will not receive a fair trial in the US, where officials say he supplied arms to warlords, al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
United Nations agencies and several Western governments have reported that Mr Bout has delivered arms to warlords in Africa and Afghanistan, allegedly breaking several UN arms embargoes in the process.
"Viktor is an entrepreneur, a businessman. He's good at what he does," said his lawyer, Lak Nittiwattanawichan.
"Whether or not he's an arms trafficker, you have to prove that in court. I am not personally aware of such activities."
The sting operation that caught Mr Bout involved US officers posing as members of the Farc rebel group of Colombia.
"This is a political case. The Farc is fighting for a political cause and is not a criminal gang. Thailand does not recognise the Farc as a terrorist group," a judge said to explain last year's rejection of the US extradition request. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Sentence | August 2010 | ['(The Independent)', '(AP via CBS)', '[permanent dead link]', '(Thai News Agency)', '(BBC)'] |
At least one person is dead and several injured as a result of a knife attack in London's Russell Square. | A man has been arrested on suspicion of murder after a US citizen was killed and five other people were injured in a knife attack in central London.
Police believe the attack in Russell Square on Wednesday was "spontaneous", with victims "selected at random".
The woman who died was thought to be in her 60s. The injured people were from Britain, America, Israel and Australia.
Police arrested a 19-year-old Norwegian national of Somali origin. They say there is no evidence of radicalisation.
The Met Police's assistant commissioner for specialist operations, Mark Rowley, said the investigation was increasingly pointing to the attack being "triggered by mental health issues". He had earlier said the force was considering terrorism as a line of inquiry. Mr Rowley, Britain's most senior counter-terrorism officer, told a press conference it had been necessary to consider "all possibilities" following recent terror attacks across Europe. Armed police were called to the square shortly after 22:30 BST on Wednesday after receiving reports of a man attacking people with a knife.
They arrived within six minutes and chased the suspect, who eyewitnesses said had blood on his hands. They said police ordered him to stand still but he kept running. He was then Tasered by officers.
Two other women and three men received various injuries in the attack, which happened near the Imperial Hotel. One person from the group remains in hospital while the others have since been discharged. None of the injuries were life-threatening.
The US ambassador to the UK, Matthew Barzun, said of the woman who died: "Heartbreaking news that a US citizen was killed in #RussellSquare attack. My prayers are with all the victims and their loved ones."
After receiving treatment in hospital, the arrested man, who was detained in Bedford Place, is now in police custody in south London.
Norwegian police said in a statement the man had emigrated from Norway in 2002 and they were assisting London police.
The Met said they had searched an address in north London on Thursday morning and another will be searched in south London. Jodie Parry, who witnessed the events unfold from her hotel window, said she saw a man running down the street.
"I could hear the policeman screaming 'stop, don't move, don't go any further, just stay where you are', and he turned round and continued running," she said. She added that the man was carrying a knife and had blood on his hands. Paul Geibheannaigh, who lives near to the square, said he had seen the body of the woman "on the pavement" and the area was surrounded by a "heavy armed police presence".
Mr Rowley said there would be an increased police presence on the streets in the wake of the attack - including armed officers - to "provide reassurance and safety". Met commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe said the force's "swift response undoubtedly helped to prevent more people from getting injured". | Armed Conflict | August 2016 | ['(BBC)'] |
A jury fails to reach a verdict in the retrial of a policeman thought to have racially abused a suspect in the aftermath of the 2011 England riots. | A jury has failed to reach a verdict in the retrial of a policeman accused of racially abusing a suspect days after the riots in London last year.
PC Alex MacFarlane, 53, denied causing racially aggravated intentional harassment, alarm or distress to Mauro Demetrio on 11 August 2011.
Southwark Crown Court heard Mr Demetrio believed he was stopped on suspicion of drug-driving because he was black.
Prosecutors said they would not be seeking a third trial.
Prosecutor Duncan Atkinson told the judge it was "not in the public interest" for another trial to take place.
"May I therefore offer no evidence against Mr MacFarlane," he said.
Richard Atchley, defending, said the officer would now face disciplinary proceedings.
The five women and seven men, who had been told they could return a majority decision, could not agree on a verdict.
The retrial was ordered after a jury failed to reach a verdict in the case last week.
In April, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) ordered Mr MacFarlane be charged after it reviewed an earlier decision not to prosecute.
| Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | October 2012 | ['(BBC)'] |
The Georgian breakaway region of Abkhazia holds its first presidential elections. | SUKHUM, Georgia, Dec. 12 (UPI) -- Voters in Abkhazia took to the polls Saturday for the first time since the republic broke away from Georgia last year, election observers said.
About 174 polling stations were opened, with two located in the Russian cities of Moscow and Cherkessk, where 7,000 ballot papers were delivered, ITAR-Tass reported.
The Abkhazian Central Electoral Commission told the news agency about 127,000 people were eligible to vote for five candidates running for Abkhazian president. They include incumbent Sergei Bagapsh of the United Abkhazia Party, Vitaly Bganba, ex-Vice President Raul Khadzhimba, Zaur Ardzinba and Beslan Butba of the Economic Development Party.
The Abkhazian Foreign Ministry told ITAR-Tass 100 international observers from about 20 countries were to observe the elections, including a large group from Russia.
Russia is only one of three countries to recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent countries after the August 2008 Russia Georgia conflict, RIA Novosti reported. The only other countries to recognize the two republics have been Nicaragua and Venezuela. | Government Job change - Election | December 2009 | ['(euronews)', '(UPI)', '(Al Jazeera)', '(The Georgian Times)'] |
The Royal Thai Government Gazette reports that Thai King Vajiralongkorn restored the rank and titles of former royal consort Sineenat Bilaskalayani. Her titles were stripped last October after the court accused her of disobedience and trying to raise herself to "the same state as the queen". | Thailand's king has reinstated his royal consort to the position, nearly a year after she was stripped of her titles in a dramatic fall from grace. King Vajiralongkorn returned Sineenat Wongvajirapakdi's rank and titles on Wednesday, the Royal Gazette announced.
Sineenat was stripped of her rank in October 2019, only months after being named as the king's companion. The palace had said that she was being punished for trying to elevate herself to "the same state as the queen". Sineenat was the first royal consort for almost a century in Thailand, where the term refers to a partner in addition to the king's wife.
Last year's announcement also accused her of "misbehaviour and disloyalty against the monarch". She has not been seen in public since and her whereabouts have not been confirmed.
The king's latest decision means that "Sineenat Wongvajirapakdi is not tarnished", the Royal Gazette announced. "Henceforth, it will be as if she had never been stripped of her military ranks or royal decorations." Born in 1985, she is from northern Thailand and worked as a nurse before entering a relationship with the then-crown prince Vajiralongkorn. She eventually became a bodyguard, pilot and parachutist, and joined the royal guards. In early 2019, she was appointed a major-general.
She received the official title of first Royal Noble Consort in July that year, shortly after the king married his fourth wife Queen Suthida, who had been the deputy head of his personal security detail.
Just a few months later, in October, Sineenat was unexpectedly stripped of her rank and titles, sparking widespread speculation over what might have prompted the sudden downfall.
The true cause of her removal - and her subsequent reinstatement - as royal consort may never be made public, given the secrecy which cloaks palace affairs in Thailand. Thailand's lese-majeste law forbids any criticism of the monarchy, with hefty prison sentences for offenders.
The removal of Sineenat in 2019 echoed the cases of two of the king's former wives. In 1996, he denounced his second wife, who fled to the United States, and disowned four sons he had with her.
In 2014, his third wife Srirasmi Suwadee was similarly stripped of all her titles and banished from the royal court. Her 15-year-old son has been raised by King Vajiralongkorn in Germany and Switzerland.
The king, who now spends most of his time in Germany, has seven children in total.
Queen Suthida, a former flight attendant for Thai Airways, had been seen with him in public for many years, though their relationship had never been officially acknowledged before he married her.
Even after the marriage, his consort Sineenat was a regular guest at royal events until her downfall. Thai kings throughout the centuries took multiple wives - or consorts. But until 2019, the last time a Thai king had taken an official consort was in the 1920s and the title had not been used since the country became a constitutional monarchy in 1932.
Wednesday's palace announcement comes amid anti-government protests in Thailand, where the military has entrenched its political rule after a 2014 coup. The protests include demands to curb recently-expanded powers of the king and there have been unprecedented calls to reform the monarchy. The protesters have challenged the king's decision to declare Crown wealth as his personal property, making him by far the wealthiest person in Thailand. It had until now been notionally held in trust for the benefit of the people. There have also been questions over King Vajiralongkorn's decision to take personal command of all military units based in Bangkok - a concentration of military power in royal hands unprecedented in modern Thailand.
The king ascended the throne after the death of his much-loved father Bhumibol Adulyadej in 2016. King Bhumibol had ruled for 70 years, making him the longest-reigning monarch in the world at the time of his death.
Facebook blocks group critical of Thai monarchy
How did Thailand's royal consort fall from grace?
Thai king strips consort of titles for 'disloyalty'
Rare photos of Thai king’s consort released | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | September 2020 | ['(BBC)'] |
California Governor Jerry Brown declares a drought emergency and asks residents of the state to voluntarily conserve water. | <p>Gov. Brown today declared a drought emergency in the state, amid California’s driest year on record.</p>
SAN FRANCISCO -- Amid California’s driest year on record, Gov. Jerry Brown on Friday officially declared a drought emergency in the state.
Speaking at a San Francisco news conference, Brown also called on “all citizens” to cut back “at least 20% of their water use.” He was flanked by charts and photos showing the state’s anemic precipitation and snowpack.
“We ought to be ready for a long, continued, persistent effort to restrain our water use,” Brown said, adding that conservation efforts would be “voluntary.”
PHOTOS: California drought seen from space
Brown’s announcement, which lawmakers, farmers and activists have been urging for weeks, comes as state reservoirs are critically low and cities across the state have already begun water-rationing measures.
While Brown has downplayed the effect of an official drought declaration, those affected by the water shortage say it will be an important tool in focusing Californians on the problem.
The announcement came as Brown faced growing pressure to act. On Thursday, hundreds of activists from the Central Valley joined a bipartisan cadre of state lawmakers on the steps of the Capitol in Sacramento to urge the governor to take action.
During a recent two-day swing from Fresno to Bakersfield, Brown was asked about the water shortage at every stop. He met with farmers and agriculture leaders from the Westlands Water District in Fresno on Monday, and promised those in attendance that administration action would be forthcoming.
| Droughts | January 2014 | ['(Los Angeles Times)'] |
A man is arrested following a breakin at the home of the Irish minister for Justice, Alan Shatter, in Dublin. | There has been a break-in at the home of the Irish minister for Justice, Alan Shatter, in Dublin.
It is believed a man broke into Mr Shatter's home in south Dublin at about 23:30 GMT on Sunday.
He entered the house from the back but an alarm went off and he fled on foot.
A man in his early 20s was arrested a short distance from the scene.
He is being held at Blackrock Garda Station under Section Four of the Criminal Justice Act and can be questioned for up to 24 hours. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | March 2012 | ['(BBC)'] |
Deputy US Trade Representative Dennis Shea will represent the United States at the Group of 20 trade ministerial meeting in Argentina. | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Deputy US Trade Representative Dennis Shea will represent the United States at a Group of 20 trade ministers meeting in Mar del Plata, Argentina, on Friday, the USTR office said on Wednesday.
Shea, who serves as the U.S. ambassador to the World Trade Organization in Geneva, “will promote President (Donald) Trump’s priorities for free, fair and reciprocal trade, particularly the need to address non-market oriented policies,” USTR said in a statement.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer met with Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland on Tuesday for negotiations toward a new North American Free Trade Agreement. Shea’s attendance at the G20 meeting would likely free up Lighthizer for further talks this week in Washington if they are scheduled.
A USTR spokeswoman could not be immediately reached for comment on whether additional ministerial-level NAFTA talks would be held on Thursday or Friday.
The USTR office said Shea will also hold several bilateral meetings with key trading partners, but did not specify those countries.
The G20 includes the European Union, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, China, Germany, France, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey and the United States.
| Diplomatic Talks _ Diplomatic_Negotiation_ Summit Meeting | September 2018 | ['(Reuters)'] |
At least 17 people die after a tourist bus crashes in Antalya. (Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review) (Today's Zaman) | According to news reports, the bus was heading from Antalya's Alanya district to Pamukkale, located in the Aegean province of Denizli and famous for its travertine terraces. The bus, driven by Hikmet Yılmaz, plunged off Aksu bridge in the district and fell about 15 meters below into a river, landing on its roof. Ambulances and rescue teams were immediately dispatched to the scene. Rescue teams found the bodies of 15 people; however, news reports indicate that fatalities may increase due to the severe injuries sustained by other passengers. Survivors of the crash were taken to various local hospitals, including the Medical Park Hospital and the Akdeniz University Hospital, both in Antalya.
“We are very saddened by this unfortunate accident. The cause has not yet been determined; however, we believe the driver may have fallen asleep at the wheel,” Antalya Deputy Governor Mehmet Sayman said.
Mirdzhalol Khusanov, the consul general of the Russian Federation in Antalya, said most of those who perished have yet to be identified and that authorities are working to identify everyone.
Antalya Chamber of Tour Guides (ARO) Vice President Oktay Tilki told the Anatolia news agency that Mustafa Günel, the tourist guide who was on the bus, died along with the foreign tourists. Tilki noted that Günel was involved in a traffic accident last year and treated at a hospital for his injuries. The ARO vice president also said tourism officials should take safety precautions to prevent these types of accidents from occurring again.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev issued a written statement on the accident, conveying his condolences to the families of the victims and wishing all the injured a speedy recovery. Medvedev called for an investigation to be carried out into the event. A Russian plane was sent to Turkey to repatriate the bodies of the 15 victims to their homeland.
Antalya Culture and Tourism Agency General Manager İbrahim Acar said an in-depth investigation has been launched into the accident. Speaking to Anatolia on Tuesday, Acar noted that he is in contact with the bus company’s officials, who have said they will do whatever is necessary to aid in the investigation.Culture and Tourism Minister Ertuğrul Günay plans to visit Antalya today. | Road Crash | May 2010 | ['(RIA Novosti)', '(BBC)', '(CBS News)'] |
Pakistani protesters armed with sticks and stones clash with police in the centre of Islamabad after protests calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif turn violent. All schools in the capital have been closed as a result of the clashes. | - Pakistani soldiers and paramilitary forces secured the state television headquarters in Islamabad on Monday after a crowd of anti-government protesters stormed the building and took the channel off the air. Protesters led by opposition leaders Imran Khan, a hero cricket player turned politician, and firebrand Muslim cleric Tahir ul-Qadri have been on the streets for weeks trying to bring down the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Protests descended into deadly chaos over the weekend, with demonstrators clashing with police in a central area near many government buildings and embassies. Three people were killed. Sharif, who was toppled by the army in a 1999 coup but staged a comeback with a big election win in May last year, has refused to quit while protest leaders have rejected his offers of talks, creating a dangerous deadlock. Clashes broke out early on Monday and continued sporadically throughout the day. The state PTV channel and its English-language PTV World service were taken off the air after protesters stormed its headquarters. A PTV source told Reuters the protesters had occupied the main control room and smashed some equipment. Uniformed members of a paramilitary force and soldiers later secured the building and the station later came back on the air. In the nuclear-armed nation where power has often changed hands through military coups rather than elections, the army is bound to play a key role in how the conflict unfolds. It has not directly intervened, apart from meeting the protagonists and calling on them to show restraint. Army chief General Raheel Sharif met Prime Minister Sharif on Monday, but it was unclear what they discussed. WRIT OF THE STATE Defense Minister Khawaja Asif told Reuters the government was preparing to launch a selective crackdown against protesters, possibly later on Monday, and warned demonstrators against storming government buildings. "The writ of the state must be enforced. We hope to make a decisive move sometimes later today, not in the evening but even before that," he said. "I personally feel that the next few hours will determine the course of coming events." Protesters have camped out in Islamabad since mid-August, paralyzing life in the center of the capital and creating massive traffic jams. The protest site, where many sleep rough, is littered with rubbish and reeks of human waste. How the crisis ends will be ultimately decided by the army. If the protests get out of hand, the military could step in decisively, imposing a curfew or even martial law. There is also a question mark over how much protest leaders are capable of controlling their own people, many of them frustrated after weeks of hardship and no solution in sight. Alternatively, the army could side with the protesters and put pressure on Sharif to resign, in which case an interim government would have be put in place and early parliamentary elections held to elect a new government. However, few observers believe the army is bent on seizing power again. A weakened Sharif would allow the army to remain firmly in charge of key issues such as relations with India and Afghanistan while allowing the civilian government to deal with day-to-day economic problems in which it has little interest. The United States, already concerned about regional stability at a time when most of its troops are leaving neighboring Afghanistan, called for restraint by all sides, saying protesters had a right to demonstrate peacefully. "Violence and destruction of private property and government buildings are not acceptable means of resolving political differences, however, and we strongly oppose any efforts to impose extra-constitutional change to the political system," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said. DISAGREEMENTS Some ruling party officials have accused elements within the military of orchestrating the protests to weaken the government. Khan and Qadri have instructed their supporters to avoid any confrontation with the armed forces and strictly follow their orders. As soldiers entered the PTV building, many protesters smiled and shook hands with them. The military insists it does not meddle in politics but it was known to be frustrated with the government, in particular over the treason trial of former military chief and ex-President Pervez Musharraf, who deposed Sharif in 1999. There has also been disagreement on how to handle Islamist militants, and on relations with old rival India. On Monday morning, despite heavy rain, crowds of protesters fought running battles with retreating police after breaking the main gate into the Pakistan Secretariat area which houses government ministries as well as Sharif's official residence. After a brief lull during the day, protesters once again charged towards police lines in the so-called Red zone - home to the prime minister's house, parliament and foreign embassies - as they sought to reach the prime minister's house. Sharif, who was prime minister twice in the 1990s, swept to office last year in Pakistan's first democratic transition of power. He is due to address both houses of parliament on Tuesday in an apparent effort to show that he is firmly in control. Seeking to appear decisive as the conflict unfolded, the government has also registered treason cases against Khan and Qadri following the weekend clashes, the defense minister said. But Sharif looks increasingly cornered, and even if he survives the crisis he is likely to remain significantly weakened for the rest of his tenure. In a speech laced with populist slogans, Khan said he would not call off the protests until Sharif resigns. "Pakistan's Hosni Mubarak, who buys people with his money, was once thought of as indispensable, but today his legs are shaking," he said, likening Sharif to the ousted Egyptian leader. | Protest_Online Condemnation | September 2014 | ['(Reuters via Yahoo! News)'] |
Multiple tornadoes tear through New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and other parts of southeastern Louisiana, injuring at least 20 people; no deaths have been reported. The severe weather also delivers heavy rain and hail in Mississippi and Alabama. | Feb 7 (Reuters) - A tornado tore through New Orleans and surrounding parts of Louisiana on Tuesday, injuring at least 11 people and causing severe damage to homes and businesses, the National Weather Service and local media said.
The storm hit New Orleans at about 2 p.m. EST, according to the weather service’s website. It said numerous buildings and homes were reported destroyed in the city and in suburban areas of Baton Rouge.
At least 11 people were hurt in the twister, the Times-Picayune newspaper said.
Photos and videos on social media showed the storm roaring across highways and streets, tearing down trees, power lines and homes.
Nearly 50,000 customers were without power in Louisiana, with more than 10,000 of them located in New Orleans, according to Entergy New Orleans spokeswoman Kacee Kirschvink.
The National Weather Service cautioned residents to remain sheltered to avoid flying debris and tornado-damaged areas.
“Keep the roads clear for emergency responders. Lots of downed power lines and debris,” the weather service’s New Orleans officer said in a posting on Twitter. | Hurricanes_Tornado_Storm_Blizzard | February 2017 | ['(AP)', '(Reuters)'] |
Apple Inc. and Ireland agree on an interim deal to put €13 billion in an escrow fund for the repayment of back taxes, starting early 2018. Still, both parties refute that the alleged "sweetheart" corporate tax deals were illegal. In 2016, the European Commission found that an unfair advantage of €13 billion is to be reimbursed. | Although both Apple and the Irish Government are challenging the European Commission’s levelling of a major fine against the company, Apple will now begin lodging unpaid taxes into an escrow account.
From early next year, Ireland will begin collecting the €13bn ($15bn) in back taxes.
‘We expect that the money will begin to be transmitted into the account from Apple across the first quarter of next year’
– PASCHAL DONOHOE, TD
In 2016, the European Union (EU) ordered the Irish Government to retrieve the billions of euros that the EU claims Apple avoided paying, thanks to alleged sweetheart deals.
After finding that Apple enjoyed a special agreement of sorts with the Irish Government, €13bn was the value EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager put on the arrangement.
“This selective treatment allowed Apple to pay an effective corporate tax rate of 1pc on its European profits in 2003, down to 0.005pc in 2014,” she said at the time.
Apple CEO Tim Cook dismissed any wrongdoing, saying: “It’s maddening. It’s disappointing. It’s clear it comes from a political base and has no basis in fact.”
While Ireland is challenging the judgement by Vestager, it is expected to collect the money in the meantime. Ireland had already missed a deadline to begin collection a year ago.
“We have now reached agreement with Apple in relation to the principles and operation of the escrow fund,” Ireland’s Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe, TD, told media in Brussels today (4 December).
“We expect that the money will begin to be transmitted into the account from Apple across the first quarter of next year.”
The agreement is understood to be in response to the threat of legal proceedings against Ireland over the non-collection of the back taxes so far. Ireland is also battling perceptions that it has become a sort of ‘fiscal paradise’ used by corporations to avoid paying taxes.
The Irish Government is understood to be seeking to appoint an investment manager and custodian to operate the account.
The core of the issue is that both Apple and Ireland claim that the tech giant was fully compliant with Irish sovereign tax rules.
The case is likely to rumble on for several years while the €13bn languishes in an escrow account. | Sign Agreement | December 2017 | ['(SiliconRepublic)'] |
Floods kill 8 in Turkey's Artvin Province. | At least eight people have been killed after heavy flooding and a landslide hit north-eastern Turkey, according to officials.
The flooding in the Black Sea province of Artvin was caused by torrential rainfall. TV pictures showed rivers bursting their banks and flooding the streets of the area.
Artvin's governor, Kemal Cirit, told local media that three people died after a house collapsed. He added that two people are still missing but the heavy rain is expected to ease off over Monday night.
Artvin is known for its high levels of rainfall and floods are a regular occurrence. | Floods | August 2015 | ['(BBC)'] |
The International Maritime Bureau says that deaths due to piracy doubled in the first month of 2004 compared with the same period in 2003, to 30 people. Half of the killings were in Nigerian waters. Despite the increased violence, the total number of piracy attacks fell. In the economically critical Straits of Malacca however, attacks rose by a third. | The International Maritime Bureau says 30 crew members were killed, twice as many as in the same period last year.
It is the highest number of piracy related killings for a decade, despite a global fall in the number of attacks.
Half of those killed were in Nigerian waters. Other hot spots were Vietnam, Bangladesh, and the Philippines.
"The increased ferocity and the number of attacks are
linked to law and order problems ashore," the British-based bureau said in a
report released by its piracy watch centre in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
"The (Nigerian) authorities are under pressure and unable
to respond adequately to attacks at sea."
Guns and knives
The number of attacks around the world fell by almost a quarter compared to the same period last year, but the situation in the Malacca Strait deteriorated. Attacks on vessels in the world's busiest sea lane rose by 33%.
Last week, Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore started coordinated naval patrols of the Straits in response. Eighty two of the 182 incidents reported worldwide in the first half of the year happened in their waters, most of them in Indonesian territory.
Indonesia suffered 50 attacks, although the figure was lower than the 64 reported in the first half of last year. | Armed Conflict | July 2004 | ['(BBC)'] |
Former Tehran Mayor MohammadAli Najafi is arrested after confessing to the murder of his wife. | Mohammd Ali Najafi, a former Iranian vice-president and a one-time mayor of Tehran, has confessed to the murder of his wife.
Najafi’s wife, Mitra Ostad, was murdered at her home in Tehran on Tuesday. Police found her body with several gunshots in her chest.
Najafi has reportedly gone to the Criminal Police headquarters in person and confessed to the murder.
Najafi had resigned from the post of Tehran’s mayor in April 2018, citing failing health for leaving the office.
A graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), 67-year-old Najafi was elected mayor of Tehran in August 2017.
Affiliated with the reformist political faction, he used to serve as the minister of education and the minister of culture in various administrations.
He also took the helm at Iran’s Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization (ICHTO) during President Hassan Rouhani’s first term, but resigned after six months. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | May 2019 | ['(IFP)'] |
Four German Islamists are imprisoned after being convicted of planning "a second 11 September 2001". | Prosecutors said the four men had a 'profound hatred of US citizens'
Four Islamists have been convicted by a court in Germany of plotting to attack US facilities in the country.
The men, two of whom were German-born converts to Islam, were given prison sentences of between five and 12 years. The judge said they had dreamed of "mounting a second September 11 2001" by killing US civilians and soldiers by bombing targets like Ramstein Air Base. They were accused of operating as a German cell of the radical al-Qaeda-linked group, the Islamic Jihad Union. According to the US state department, the Islamic Jihad Union was responsible for co-ordinated bombings outside the US and Israeli embassies in July 2004 in the Uzbek capital, Tashkent. 'Mistake'
The two German converts to Islam - Fritz Gelowicz, 30, and 24-year-old Daniel Schneider - were sentenced to 12 years in jail. Adem Yilmaz, 31, a Turkish citizen, was given 11 years, while Atilla Selek, a 25-year-old German of Turkish origin, was sentenced to five years. During the 10-month trial, all four admitted to belonging to a terrorist organisation, plotting murder and preparing explosive devices. Schneider also admitted to attempted murder for grabbing a handgun from a police officer while attempting to evade capture and firing a shot. No-one was wounded in the incident. He, Gelowicz and Selek renounced extremism and described their actions as a "mistake". Announcing the verdict, Judge Ottmar Breidling said the men had dreamed of "mounting a second 11 September 2001". "If the accused had managed to do what they planned, it would have led to a monstrous bloodbath, primarily among US army personnel and also civilians," he added. The judge added that there were now "many impressionable young men and men who have already been led astray, ready to kill for notions of jihad". "Violent Islamism has penetrated our society and turned young men against it." 'Profound hatred'
Known as the "Sauerland group", after the area of western Germany where three of them were arrested in 2007, the men had trained at camps in Pakistan and procured some 700kg (1,500lbs) of chemicals to produce 410kg (900lbs) of explosives, prosecutors said. Such a quantity would have been 100 times the amount used in the 2005 London bombings, which killed more than 50 people. They had allegedly planned to use vehicles loaded with the explosives to kill or injure large numbers of people at locations visited by Americans, the US military base in Ramstein and Frankfurt airport. But the security services uncovered the plot in December 2006 and conducted one of the biggest surveillance operations in post-war German history. The men's movements were monitored around the clock for nine months, until it became clear that they were planning to move their huge stores of hydrogen peroxide and an attack was imminent. Gelowicz, Schneider and Yilmaz were arrested at a rented cottage in Sauerland on 4 September 2007, while Selek was detained in Turkey in November 2007 and later extradited to Germany. At the time, they were described as "very dangerous terrorists" with a "profound hatred of US citizens", acting on the orders of an "international network". The BBC's Steve Rosenberg in Berlin says the participation of Gelowicz and Schneider in the plot has shocked Germans and raised concern that militant groups abroad are actively seeking out and signing up Muslim converts to attack the West. Germany, which has soldiers in Afghanistan as part of Nato but did not send troops to Iraq, has been largely spared militant attacks. But nine years ago, it emerged that an al-Qaeda cell had used the city of Hamburg as a base for planning the 11 September attacks. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | March 2010 | ['(BBC)'] |
Armand Duplantis sets the outdoor pole vault world record at 6.15 metres at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome, eclipsing the previous record held for 26 years by Sergey Bubka. | Swedish pole vaulter Armand Duplantis has broken Sergey Bubka's 26-year-old outdoor world record at the Diamond League in Rome.
Duplantis cleared 6 metres, 15 centimetres at the Golden Gala Pietro Mennea meet in Rome with his second attempt, beating Bubka's mark of 6.14m set in Sestriere in July 1994.
Armand Duplantis (SWE) - 6.15m (2020)
(i) = height set indoors
Nicknamed "Mondo," Duplantis already holds the indoor world record of 6.18 metres set in Glasgow in February — when he broke the world record twice in a week — but Bubka's classic outdoor mark was viewed by many as the ultimate test.
World Athletics has not distinguished between indoor and outdoor records in pole vault since 2000.
"World record — finally! It is so cool," Duplantis said.
"I wanted to get over 6.15 so badly. Everybody kept talking about it, it was a big chip on my shoulder … When I did it, it was more relief than joy."
The 20-year-old Duplantis, who was born and raised in the United States, came agonisingly close on his first attempt before clearing the bar on his second.
"It is crazy," Duplantis said. "It has been a long time coming.
"Coming into the season we did not know if we were able to do any competition at all. This world record is really unexpected and I am very grateful."
The son of an American pole vaulter who grew up with a pole vault pit in his garden at home in Louisiana, he was vaulting higher than a London double-decker bus as a teenager and at 17, he had already cleared 5.90m.
He chose to compete internationally for Sweden, his mother's home country, and won the silver medal at last year's world championships.
| Break historical records | September 2020 | ['(ABC)'] |
The first round of the latest Senate elections are being held in the Czech Republic. The voters can decide over the composition of a third of the Senate's 81 total seats. | Voting for the first round of Czech Senate elections will begin today. The elections will determine the composition of a
Voting for the first round of Czech Senate elections will begin today.
The elections will determine the composition of a third of the Czech Republic’s 81-seat Senate. Following this weekend’s vote, the two candidates with the highest tallies in each race will compete in a second round to be held on October 9-10.
The elections will mark an important test for ruling ANO party leader and Prime Minister Andrej Babis, serving as a referendum as to whether the PM’s attractive anti-establishment rhetoric and populist economic policies can override the distrust caused by fraud allegations. In November, over 200,000 people took to the streets of Prague demanding Babis’s resignation.
Despite a May poll showing support for ANO slipping from 33.7% to 28.4% due to mismanagement of a second COVID-19 outbreak, ANO maintains a healthy lead on opposition parties and is expected to emerge victorious. The pro-European liberal Pirate Party is likely to make significant gains while the Social Democrats and Communists are slated to endure tough losses. Despite expected low voter turnout, the results of the elections will provide key insights regarding the upcoming 2021 general election that will determine whether ANO and Babis retain power.
| Government Job change - Election | October 2020 | ['(Foreign Brief)'] |
It is announced that Isabella Rossellini is to chair the judging panel at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2011. | Actress Isabella Rossellini accepts an award for Best Individual Performance at the Webby Awards in New York June 14, 2010. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson
BERLIN (Reuters Life!) - Italian-American actress and director Isabella Rossellini will head the jury at the 2011 Berlin film festival, organizers said on Monday.
The annual event, one of the world’s top film festivals, runs from February 10-20 next year.
“She (Rossellini) is a multifaceted, creative film artist with extensive experience in European, American and international cinema,” said festival director Dieter Kosslick.
The daughter of Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman and Italian director Roberto Rossellini, Isabella started her career as a fashion designer and journalist working mainly in New York.
Her acting debut came in 1976, when she appeared alongside her mother in “A Matter Of Time.”
Rossellini rose to prominence internationally with her performances in David Lynch’s films “Blue Velvet” (1986) and “Wild at Heart” (1990).
The actress can next be seen in Saverio Constanzo’s “The Solitude of Prime Numbers,” a film adaptation of Paolo Giordano’s novel of the same name, screening in the upcoming Venice film festival.
Berlin did not announce any other members of the jury which will decide the main prizes, including the Golden Bear for best film. This year’s festival jury was headed by Werner Herzog.
Reporting by Mike Collett-White; editing by Patricia Reaney
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
. | Government Job change - Appoint_Inauguration | August 2010 | ['(BBC)', '(Reuters)', '(UPI)', '(AFP via The Independent)'] |
A roller coaster derails and crashes at M&D's theme park in Motherwell, Scotland. Ten people are reportedly injured. | Eight children and two adults have been injured after a rollercoaster derailed and crashed at a theme park in North Lanarkshire in Scotland.
Police said the injured were all being treated at local hospitals.
Six ambulances and six fire engines were at the M&D's park near Strathclyde Park, Motherwell, after being called at 15:37. It was evacuated shortly after.
One adult and one child are in a stable condition and three children are expected to be allowed home later. The injured are being cared for at Glasgow Royal Infirmary, Wishaw General and the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, although details of their injuries have not been released.
The incident involved the Tsunami ride, which can travel at up to 40mph through corkscrew turns and loops. One eyewitness said "people were trapped upside down on the ride" following the crash.
Police Scotland revised down the number of injured from its initial estimate of 11 and confirmed there were nine passengers on the ride at the time.
Ch Insp David Bruce of Police Scotland said: "On arrival it became clear a series of five gondolas connected on a train on the Tsunami ride have detached from the rails, struck the superstructure and then struck the ground.
"They [the gondolas] fell less than 20 feet. It would appear that they have been coming round a bend and at that point it has detached. "It's an inverted rollercoaster which means that the riders hang in gondolas below the rails rather than sit above them.
Mr Bruce could not say what speed the passengers had been travelling at when the carriage left the rails, but he confirmed it "hadn't struck anything on the ground".
'People were crying with shock'
Caitlin Barnes, 13, had been on the ride twice during a day out to the park with three friends. She was standing nearby when it crashed.
She said: "I heard first of all a loud bang. At first I thought it was part of the ride because it had been a very loud ride the whole day.
"But when I turned around to look at it I saw the carriage just hurtling to the ground and then it crashed on top of another ride.
"I could see that there was lots of people trapped - probably up to 10 - and I saw a girl upside down, stuck.
"A lot of people in the park ran over and tried to help and there was loads of people just running about trying to tell people to call ambulances and call emergency services.
"When the emergency services got here they were just shouting at us all to leave the park and they evacuated the whole park and cordoned off around the carriage.
"I saw one boy who was probably about 11, I would have said, who got out and he was sitting just next to it - shocked obviously - with his parents.
"Everybody was shocked and upset and a lot of them were crying with shock."
The theme park is now closed but Police Scotland, the Scottish Ambulance Service, Scottish Fire and Rescue Service and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) remain on site this evening.
A joint investigation is being conducted by police and the HSE.
Eyewitness Katie Burns said she had just finished riding the Tsunami and was walking past when the carriage crashed with children on board.
On Facebook, she said: "Literally got off the Tsunami at M&Ds and then walking past and the next lot of people get on and the full thing goes off the tracks.
"Honestly never been so scared in my life, with this weather they should not be on.
"Kids and adults are still on it upside down, it's like something out a horror film, children crying and everything.
"Literally can't believe this, my heart goes out to everyone on it, a full load came off the track and on the pavement, like a horror film worse thing ever heard and seen, can't get over this."
First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon said: "My thoughts are with everyone involved in this terrible incident at M&D's theme park, especially those injured."
And Ruth Davidson, leader of the Scottish Conservative Party, said: "Awful news coming from M&Ds. Deeply concerning - our thoughts are with those affected and with emergency responders."
Richard Lyle MSP, whose constituency includes Strathclyde Country Park where the theme park is situated, called for a "full investigation" into the incident, saying he was "horrified at this terrible accident".
It is not the first time the park has experienced problems with its rides, including Tsunami.
Nine passengers, including children, were stranded for eight hours on the ride in July 2011 when it came to a halt 60 ft (18.2m) above the ground. The malfunction was blamed on a broken lift chain.
In March, eight people had to be rescued by firefighters when the park's Tornado rollercoaster ground to a halt 20 ft (6m) in the air.
| Train collisions | June 2016 | ['(BBC)'] |
Cyclone Marcia is expected to strengthen to category 5 before making landfall in Central Queensland. , | Updated 20 Feb 2015, 1:48amFri 20 Feb 2015, 1:48am
Tropical Cyclone Marcia is slowly tracking towards Central Queensland and is due to make landfall as a category five system on Friday morning.
It is due to hit between St Lawrence and Gladstone.
So far residents in St Lawrence, Clairview, Ogmore and Marlborough have been asked to evacuate.
Police Constable Matt McKinnon said it was in the best interest of locals who had homes built before 1984 to go to shelters.
"The pre-1984 homes are not structurally sound to take that amount of wind gusts," he said.
A very destructive central core of the cyclone could generate gusts up to 295 kilometres an hour, the Bureau of Meteorology warned.
Late Thursday night the cyclone warning zone was outlined as between Mackay to Double Island Point, extending inland to Blackwater, Moura, Biloela, Monto, Taroom, Mundubbera, and Murgon.
Once the cyclone makes landfall it is due to track south to reach Biloela as a category one system about 10:00pm.
BoM regional director Rob Webb said Cyclone Marcia started tracking south late on Thursday night.
"It was a remarkable intensification, we still do feel that it could cross as a category five," Mr Webb said.
Scores of schools and regional airports will be closed on Friday and the Whitsunday Islands are in lockdown.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk was briefed by the state's disaster management committee at Kedron, in Brisbane's north, late on Thursday afternoon.
She said Queenslanders not only had to brace for the destructive winds, but for heavy rain.
"This is a serious event," she said.
"Queenslanders need to be prepared now."
Heavy rain may be experienced from Mackay to the New South Wales border which could cause flash flooding.
Some 24-hour totals are expected in excess of 300 millimetres on the coast and nearby ranges.
BoM regional director Rob Webb said the cyclone would dump between 200 millimetres and 300 millimetres of rain but some areas may record higher than that.
"Those falls up to 500 millimetres or more are possible," he said.
A flood watch is current for the Wide Bay and Burnett, south-east coast and the Darling Downs and Granite Belt districts.
Gladstone residents have also been warned to expect a massive storm tide at 10:00am on Friday, which is expected to be 70 centimetres above the highest tide of the year.
More than 200 swift water rescue officers have been sent to flood-prone areas.
Abnormally high tides were experienced on Thursday, expecting to continue Friday with water levels expected to rise above the highest tide of the year on the high tide.
Residents between Mackay and Double Island have been warned of the potential for a dangerous storm tide.
Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate said the city's northern beaches were likely to bear the brunt of the big seas and erosion.
Closures were expected to be in place for several days.
"From Main Beach, Surfers Paradise all the way to Nobbys is where it's going to be hit the hardest," Cr Tate said.
Peter Sherriff's pineapple farm at Tansy, 10 kilometres from Yeppoon, was torn apart by Tropical Cyclone Marcia. (ABC Rural: Audience submitted)
Rockhampton resident Eric Stanley clears trees that fell on the roof of his home during Tropical Cyclone Marcia in central Queensland. (ABC News: Allyson Horn)
A gaping hole stands at one end of the shed on Peter Richardson's property in Marmor, south of Rockhampton, after Tropical Cyclone Marcia tore off the two roller doors and blew out the back wall. (ABC News: Giulio Saggin)
Powerlines remain down in Rockhampton in the wake of Tropical Cyclone Marcia. (ABC Open Capricornia: Lisa Clarke)
A damaged home in John St, Yeppoon. The family have returned to clean up damage caused by Cyclone Marcia, which hit the region the day before. (AAP Image: Karin Calvert)
Yeppoon residents begin cleaning up in the aftermath of Tropical Cyclone Marcia. (ABC News: Marlina Whop)
The Burnett River flows over the weir at Mundubbera following Tropical Cyclone Marcia. (ABC News: Kathy McLeish)
A downed tree in Rockhampton left in the wake of Tropical Cyclone Marcia. (ABC Open: Lisa Clarke)
Men assess damage on Archer Street in South Rockhampton. (ABC News: Lisa Clarke)
A damaged house in Agnes Street in Rockhampton. (Supplied: Michelle Landry)
There has been localised flooding in Gympie, where another 100mm of rain fell on Saturday. (ABC News: Kathy McLeish)
The bathroom in the home of Yeppoon resident John McGrath. (Supplied)
This spring-free trampoline in Yeppoon was snapped in half by Cyclone Marcia. (Supplied: Lindsay Kasprowicz)
Flooded town of Jambin, south of Rockhampton in central Queensland. (Audience submitted: Sue Wilkie, Jambin publican and farmer)
View down Murphy street in South Rockhampton where fallen trees and power lines cover the street. (ABC News: Lisa Clarke)
Damage from Cyclone Marcia outside a paint shop in Rockhampton. (ABC News: Paul Robinson)
Roofing tin on the ground outside the Heritage Hotel in Rockhampton. (ABC News: Paul Robinson)
Damage outside a cafe in Rockhampton after the cyclone hit. (ABC News: William Rollo)
A large tree was pulled out by the roots in Rockhampton's city centre. (ABC News: William Rollo)
A house destroyed by Tropical Cyclone Marcia in the Queensland coastal town of Yeppoon. (ABC News: Marlina Whop)
A house torn apart by Tropical Cyclone Marcia in Yeppoon. (ABC News: Marlina Whop)
Trees down in the Queensland town of Yeppoon during Tropical Cyclone Marcia. (ABC News: Marlina Whop)
The aftermath of Tropical Cyclone Marcia that hit Yeppoon. (AAP: Karin Calvert)
Great Keppel Island's beachfront is impacted by Tropical Cyclone Marcia. (Supplied: Margaret Gearin)
A house with its roof torn off by Tropical Cyclone Marcia in Yeppoon. (ABC News: Marlina Whop)
Trees down in the Queensland town of Yeppoon during Tropical Cyclone Marcia. (ABC News: Marlina Whop)
Children shelter behind a wall on Queensland's Gold Coast as Tropical Cyclone Marcia brings huge seas to south east Queensland. (AAP: Dave Hunt)
Beach at Great Keppel Island washes away as Tropical Cyclone Marcia passes through. (Supplied: Margaret Gearin)
Surfers take advantage of big seas at Mooloolaba on Queensland's Sunshine Coast, as Tropical Cyclone Marcia brings huge seas to south east Queensland. (AAP: Dan Peled)
The roller doors of an enclosed outside area at a motel in Yeppoon are blown open by winds from Tropical Cyclone Marcia. (AAP: Karin Calvert)
Surging tides from Cyclone Marcia hit Main Beach in Yeppoon. (AAP: Karin Calvert)
Waves break over the seawall at Yeppoon. (SBS World News: Stefan Armbruster)
A surfer battles winds at Yeppoon as Tropical Cyclone Marcia begins to cross the coast. (SBS World News: Stefan Armbruster)
A police car makes its way down a street in the centre Yeppoon. (ABC News: Marlina Whop)
Rangers and volunteers scramble to relocate turtle nests at Mon Repos Conservation Park near Bundaberg, ahead of the high tide and storm surge caused by Tropical Cyclone Marcia. (ABC News: Courtney Wilson)
Debris covers the footpath next to the shore at Bargara, near Bundaberg. (ABC Local: Ross Kay)
Waves pound the coast at Yeppoon, north Queensland. (ABC News: Marlina Whop)
One loaf of bread remains on a store shelf in Bundaberg ahead of the arrival of Tropical Cyclone Marcia. (ABC Local: Ross Kay)
A resident in Yeppoon tapes the windows of her house. (ABC News: Marlina Whop)
VIIRS infrared imagery of Tropical Cyclone Marcia as it approaches the coast of Queensland. (Twitter/@NASANPP)
Rock fishermen try to make the most of wild conditions at Kingscliff. (Audience submitted: Larissa Nicholson)
A resident in Yeppoon, north Queensland, loads sandbags into a ute. (ABC News: Marlina Whop)
Surfers brave the waves at Snapper Rocks on the Gold Coast ahead of incoming Cyclone Marcia. (ABC News: Damien Larkins)
Residents collect sandbags in the Brisbane suburb of Morningside. | Hurricanes_Tornado_Storm_Blizzard | February 2015 | ['(Brisbane Times)', '(ABC Australia)'] |
The British politician and former Cabinet Minister Robin Cook dies suddenly at the age of 59. | It is believed he was taken ill while walking with his wife Gaynor near the summit of Ben Stack, at around 1420 BST, Northern Constabulary said.
Mr Cook was flown by coastguard helicopter to Raigmore Hospital in Inverness, where he was pronounced dead, said an NHS Highland spokesman. Mr Cook quit as Commons leader in March 2003, in protest over the war in Iraq.
Following Mr Cook's death, former friends and colleagues paid tribute to him. I cannot support a war without international agreement or domestic support Tributes pour in for Cook
Cook's resignation speech
Resignation speech
Prime Minister Tony Blair said he was "an outstanding, extraordinary talent", in a statement released by Downing Street. The Conservative leader Michael Howard said: "He is a very great loss. He was someone who made an immense contribution to our political life."
Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy said: "Scottish, British and international politics have lost a good and gifted man."
Keen walker
RAF Kinloss Assistant controller Tom Docherty said the centre had received a call about a "collapsed male walker".
Mr Cook was walking near the summit of Ben Stack
"He was given CPR with instructions over the telephone from ambulance control staff at Inverness."
It is understood Mr Cook, who has two adult sons, arrived at hospital at 4pm, about 90 minutes after his collapse and was declared dead five minutes later, said an NHS Highland spokesman. It was more than three hours before police confirmed his death, as it is believed family members were being informed. Following Mr Cook's death, a report will be prepared for the Procurator Fiscal, as is usual in such circumstances. Landslide win
The Livingston MP, who lived in Edinburgh, was a keen walker and cyclist and a keen follower of horse racing. Robin Cook was flown from Ben Stack to Inverness
He first became an MP for Edinburgh Central in 1974 and was appointed the shadow health secretary in 1989, becoming shadow trade and industry secretary in 1992. In 1994, he became the shadow foreign secretary, a position he held until the 1997 election. After Labour's landslide win, he entered the Cabinet as foreign secretary. A Cabinet reshuffle after the 2001 Labour victory saw him replaced at the Foreign Office by Jack Straw, with Mr Cook instead given the job of Leader of the Commons. He resigned that position in the lead-up to the conflict in Iraq in protest over Tony Blair's decision to go to war. He had been an outspoken critic of the government's foreign policy from the backbench. | Famous Person - Death | August 2005 | ['(BBC)'] |
President Barack Obama cancels joint military exercises between the United States and Egypt. | CHILMARK, Mass. — President Obama announced Thursday that the United States had canceled longstanding joint military exercises with the Egyptian Army set for next month, using one of his few obvious forms of leverage to rebuke Egypt’s military-backed government for its brutal crackdown on supporters of the ousted president, Mohamed Morsi. Though the decision is an embarrassment to Egypt’s generals, and will deprive Egypt of much-needed revenue, it lays bare both the Obama administration’s limited options to curb the military’s campaign against Islamists in Egypt and the United States’ role as an increasingly frustrated bystander. Repeated pleas from administration officials to the generals to change course have gone unheeded, and the United States’ first punitive measure, a Pentagon delay in the delivery of four F-16 fighter jets to the Egyptian Air Force, also had no effect.
Mr. Obama, interrupting his vacation on Martha’s Vineyard to address the violence, struck a now-familiar balance. He expressed outrage at the harrowing scenes this week in Cairo and other cities, while taking pains to preserve the American relationship with the Egyptian armed forces, which are underwritten by the vast bulk of the $1.5 billion a year in military and economic aid.
With the death toll in Egypt soaring and no sign that the country’s generals are heeding American calls to stop the violence, however, administration officials said they now faced a more wrenching choice: to keep backing the generals, whatever the cost, or to admit that the current relationship is no longer tenable. “While we want to sustain our relationship with Egypt, our traditional cooperation cannot continue as usual when civilians are being killed in the streets and rights are being rolled back,” Mr. Obama said, reading a statement in front of his rented vacation house here, the sun-splashed trees an incongruous backdrop for his stark message.
In his remarks, Mr. Obama noted “it’s tempting” inside Egypt to blame the United States, saying that protesters accused it alternately of backing Mr. Morsi or colluding with those who ousted him. But Mr. Obama’s reluctance to be drawn into conflicts in the Mideast, from Syria to Bahrain, has frequently been criticized. Until the latest eruption of violence, White House officials were still uncertain whether the Egyptian military might yet rewind history and give democracy a fresh chance, or if it was simply restoring the sort of autocracy that has dominated Egypt in the past. Now they said they seem to have the answer.
But while their frustration is palpable, officials said there were voices in favor of working with Egypt and of cutting off its aid, and they expected the debate would take time to play out.
White House officials said Mr. Obama issued the order to pull the United States out of the military exercises, known as Bright Star, in a phone call with his national security adviser, Susan E. Rice, on Wednesday evening. The Egyptians were notified before the president’s announcement, and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel later spoke by telephone with Egypt’s defense minister, Gen. Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi. Despite the large scale of the exercises, and the fact that they date to the 1980s, administration officials said they had few illusions that the decision would by itself stop the crackdown. Egypt’s military leaders, they said, regard the Islamist protests as an “existential threat” to the nation, which they must crush at all costs.
Mr. Obama said he had instructed his national security staff to weigh additional measures. He did not specify what those could be, though he said nothing about suspending the military aid. “We’ll be looking at both the case-by-case examples but also the more fundamental relationship,” said a senior official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. “There’s a basic threshold where we can’t give a tacit endorsement to them.”
Cleanup in Cairo Given the deep schism in Egypt, this official said, the White House is still skeptical that cutting off aid would compel the generals to return the country to a democratic transition. And it could destabilize the region, particularly the security of Israel, whose 1979 peace treaty with Egypt is predicated on the aid.
For weeks, officials from Israel and several Arab countries have pressured the administration to maintain the flow of aid. If it were cut off, they said, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates would move quickly to make up the shortfall — and then some.
Saudi Arabia and the emirates pledged $8 billion in grants and loans to Egypt’s post-Morsi government last month: $5 billion from Saudi Arabia in grants and loans; $3 billion from the emirates. That is more than enough, analysts say, to offset any cutoff from the United States, even if the two countries do not fulfill their entire pledges. Shutting off the aid spigot now would not have an immediate impact on the Egyptian military, defense officials say, because this year’s military assistance has already been delivered. Beyond money, Arab officials worry that a rupture between Washington and the Egyptian military would further erode American influence in a country that has historically been a bellwether in the Arab world, and would open the door to rivals like Russia or China.
“If the aid gets cut, you can be sure that Putin will arrive in Cairo in two or three months,” one senior Arab official said. “And he will give aid with no strings attached.”
Still, even with the aid flowing, Defense Department officials fear that whatever leverage the Pentagon might have had with Egypt’s military leadership is ebbing quickly. Since the military’s ouster of Mr. Morsi on July 3, Mr. Hagel has had more than 15 phone calls with General Sisi, pleading in vain for him to change course.
Mr. Hagel, in a statement on Thursday, said that in his latest exchange with the general, “I made it clear that the violence and inadequate steps towards reconciliation are putting important elements of our longstanding defense cooperation at risk.”
While administration officials acknowledge that Egypt could replace the lost American military aid, they said it would pay a long-term price in lost foreign investment and a ruined tourism industry — a point that Mr. Obama made in his statement on Thursday.
Some analysts said the administration had hurt itself by not undertaking a thorough review of its policy toward Egypt after the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak in 2011. The United States, they said, was too wedded to the privileges it gained from the relationship, like fly-over rights and fast-track transit through the Suez Canal.
“They’ve limited their own options by believing the idea that in order to influence things, you need to remain engaged,” said Steven A. Cook, an expert on Egypt at the Council on Foreign Relations. “We’ve never tested the proposition of cutting them off.”
Other experts said Mr. Obama had few attractive alternatives and mainly wanted to keep out of the situation.
“Anything they do that is dramatic puts the United States in the middle of a story that we really don’t want to be in the middle of,” said Steven Simon, a former National Security Council official under Mr. Obama who is now head of the Washington office of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Heather Hurlburt, a former Clinton White House official who is now the executive director of the National Security Network, said the administration should cut off “targeted” cooperation with Egypt’s military without halting all aid. “No matter where you’re coming from ideologically,” she said, “the playing field we face in the Middle East is not the playing field we faced a month ago.”
Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican who just returned from a trip to Cairo at Mr. Obama’s request, was sharply critical of the president for not acting more forcefully against the military takeover, citing a law requiring the cutoff of American aid to countries where a military coup has dislodged an elected government. Mr. McCain has said the Muslim Brotherhood needs to accept that Mr. Morsi will not be returned to power, but he has also urged the military to establish a democratic process. “We violated our own rule of law by not calling it for what it is,” Mr. McCain said on CNN. “We undercut our own values.” | Military Exercise | August 2013 | ['(New York Times)'] |
South African police build a barricade from razor wire to curtail people scuffles outside Ventersdorp Magistrate's court where two farm workers, aged 15 and 28, are charged with Saturday's murder of white supremacist leader Eugène Terre'Blanche. |
Black and white South Africans have scuffled outside a court building as two farm workers were charged with the murder of a white supremacist leader.
Police stepped in to stop the face-off between people from the local black community and supporters of Eugene Terreblanche, found dead on Saturday. Officers built a barricade from razor wire to keep the two groups apart in the north-western town of Ventersdorp. The killing has raised racial tensions in the country.
But the authorities have played down any political motive to the killing, and police said the pair had admitted beating Terreblanche to death in a dispute over unpaid wages. Hundreds of AWB flags are flying and Afrikaner nationalist songs are playing as hundreds of Afrikaners protest outside the court. Some 200 police officers have formed a human barricade around the court. There is a smaller group from the local black community.
Tension fills the air as both groups begin to sing songs linked to their race - Afrikaners singing the old national anthem - the black group responded with anti-apartheid songs.
Many Afrikaners say the murder is proof of a "siege" against farmers in South Africa. There are placards in green and red ink, some accusing former President FW de Klerk of "selling out Afrikaners" to the blacks, referring to his partnership with Nelson Mandela to end apartheid.
The suspects, aged 28 and 15, did not enter a plea but face four charges, including murder, housebreaking with intent to rob, attempted robbery with aggravating circumstances and crimen injuria - assaulting the dignity of the victim. "After they assaulted the deceased, they pulled down his pants and exposed his private parts," said chief prosecutor Menzi Simelane. Terreblanche's paramilitary group AWB (Afrikaner Resistance Movement) had threatened to take revenge for the killing, but retracted their threat on Monday. The BBC's Jonah Fisher in Ventersdorp says about 500 people gathered outside court - divided equally between white supremacists, local black residents and the police. Pushing, shoving and scuffles broke out after a woman in the crowd of AWB supporters appeared to throw a drink at a group of black people. The police stepped in and coiled razor wire between the two groups to keep them apart.
Pieter Steyn, an AWB leader, apologised for the drink-throwing incident. He had earlier reiterated that the AWB was not a violent group. "As soon as the court proceedings are completed, we will all disperse and go home and gather again on Friday for the funeral," he told AFP news agency. The group blames ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema for contributing to the killing by recently singing a song from the anti-apartheid struggle called "Shoot the Boer". Boer is an Afrikaans word for farmer, which has become a derogatory term for all white people. Mr Malema has denied any responsibility for Terreblanche's death and the ANC argues that the song does not incite people to kill but is part of the country's history and the fight against white minority rule. It is planning to appeal against a court judgement banning the song as hate speech. President Jacob Zuma has appealed for calm and condemned the killing. Past conviction
Terreblanche, 69, was fiercely opposed to the end of apartheid in South Africa, which led to the ANC winning the country's first democratic elections in 1994 and Nelson Mandela becoming the country's first black president. He served three years in jail after being convicted in 2001 of the attempted murder of a farm worker. Court papers identified one of those suspected of his murder as 28-year-old Chris Mahlangu. Because the other suspect is classed as a minor, his identity is not being released and the case is being held behind closed doors. The pair are due to appear in court again on 14 April. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | April 2010 | ['(BBC News)', '(IOL)', '[permanent dead link]'] |
Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo declares a state of emergency in the entire Maguindanao province in southern Philippines following the bloodiest electionrelated massacre in Philippine history which left at least 40 people dead, including a local politician and about a dozen journalists. | Posted at Nov 24 2009 05:23 PM | Updated as of Nov 25 2009 06:32 PM
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MANILA - The death toll from the savage political massacre in Maguindanao rose to 46 on Tuesday, as President Arroyo placed the area under an indefinite state of emergency.
Philippine National Police (PNP) spokesman Chief Superintendent Leonardo Espina told reporters in Manila that 24 bodies had been recovered on Tuesday, on top of 22 that had been found on Monday.
Regional police commander Chief Superintendent Josefino Cataluna described a grisly search operation along an unpaved road in the isolated rural village of Saniag, saying 17 bodies had been pulled from just one grave.
"They were piled on top of each other. It looked as if they were buried hurriedly," he told reporters from the scene.
The scale of Monday's massacre, as well as the targeting of apparently unrelated people, has shocked and deeply angered the country.
Fourteen of the victims were women and some of them were journalists with no apparent links to the clan war, the police and military said when the death toll stood at 22.
PNP chief Jesus Verzosa, who flew to the south to supervise the investigation, said he feared the death toll could rise with several other members of the kidnapped party of more than 40 people still missing.
"We still have to check one other suspected mass grave," he added.
Journalists on the scene said a mechanical digger was emblazoned with the name of the Maguindanao provincial governor, Andal Ampatuan, whose bodyguards had been blamed by the military as being behind the massacre.
'Indefinite' state of emergency
Police on Mindanao island pulled bullet-ridden bodies from shallow graves in this remote farming area after gunmen allegedly employed by a local political chief abducted then shot dead a group of rival politicians and journalists.
As thousands of troops fanned out across the ultra-tense Maguindanao province, President Gloria Arroyo declared a state of emergency for the area that would allow curfews and road checkpoints to be imposed.
"No effort will be spared to bring justice to the victims and hold the perpetrators accountable to the full limit of the law," Arroyo said on national television.
"No effort will be spared to bring justice to the victims and hold the perpetrators accountable to the full limit of the law," she said at the start of a special cabinet meeting to discuss ways to control the violence.
The Maguindanao provincial police chief was sacked.
Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno said investigations would be completed within a couple of days and arrests made.
"There are no sacred cows," he told television. "It is going to be a direct investigation of the crimes committed. We have some information about specific names, not just those who ordered this thing, but also those who committed it."
President Arroyo also placed the provinces of Maguindanao and Sultan Kudarat and Cotabato City under emergency rule on Tuesday.
"There is an urgent need to prevent and suppress the occurrence of several other incidents of lawless violence," Press Secretary Cerge Remonde told reporters.
The said areas will be under an indefinite state of emergency, which gives the military and police wide powers of arrest and detention.
Crisis management committee
Jesus Dureza, presidential adviser on Mindanao affairs, told the ABS-CBN News Channel (ANC) that Mrs. Arroyo has instructed him to act as head of a crisis management committee that would oversee military and police operations in the three areas.
Dureza assured that there would be no warrantless arrests as he clarified that a state of emergency declaration "does not suspend any existing laws."
He said the military and the police have been ordered to disarm all residents in the three areas who are holding unlicensed firearms, including members of private armies affiliated with political clans.
"Holding of firearms without authority should be addressed through normal law enforcement. It (the massacre) has put this issue up front. The government has to do what is necessary," he said.
Dureza said he is setting up base at the Philippine Army's 601st Infantry Brigade headquaters in Tacurong, Sultan Kudarat.
Clan war
Military officials said the dead included Genalyn Tiamzon-Mangudadatu, who was on the way to file the nomination of Esmael, her husband, to contest the governorship of Maguindanao against Datu Andal Ampatuan, the head of a powerful local family.
Ampatuan has been elected governor of Maguindanao three times previously, always unopposed, although he resigned from the post earlier this year, apparently to circumvent term limits on elected officials.
One of his sons is the governor of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, an area which covers six provinces, and the family is politically allied to Arroyo.
None of the Ampatuans made any coment to local or foreign media.
Esmael Mangudadatu, Genalyn's husband, told radio that four people who escaped the massacre in Maguindanao province were under his care. "They will come out at the right time, they are safe with us," he said.
The election process for the May 2010 national polls began last week with the filing of candidacies for more than 17,800 national and local positions.
Elections in the Philippines are usually marred by violence, especially in the south, where security forces are battling communist rebels, Islamic radicals and clan rivalries.
The southern Philippines is riven by clan rivalries, including one between the Mangudadatus and the Ampatuans. Many politicians and elected officials in the region maintain well-equipped private armies. | Armed Conflict | November 2009 | ['(ABSCBN News)'] |
Chairman Justice Markandey Katju of the Press Council of India, defends Aseem Trivedi: "he did nothing illegal". Since September 9th, the Indian cartoonist Aseem Trivedi is detained in Mumbai on charges of sedition related to the content of his work. | Aseem Trivedi was arrested on charges of sedition and insulting national honor, raising concerns in India that the government is increasingly intolerant of dissent.
September 10, 2012
A political cartoonist in India has been arrested on charges of sedition, violating an online content law, and insulting national honor for a series of cartoons sharply critical of corruption in the government.
Aseem Trivedi's arrest Saturday took place nine months after he displayed the cartoons at a demonstration in Mumbai calling for the creation of an anticorruption ombudsman in the Indian government to punish officials for graft.
Outrage over Mr. Trivedi's arrest spread across social media and dominated headlines here over the weekend. Trivedi was quickly offered bail, but the cartoonist has decided to keep the spotlight on the government's actions by refusing bail and staying behind bars. Trivedi is arguing that the onus is on the government to drop the case. The three charges, if actually prosecuted, would carry up to three years in jail.
The arrest of a cartoonist on such serious charges unnerves some observers who argue the embattled elected government is increasingly harassing its opponents.
“The police is obliged to study the law before acting on a complaint. The sedition law clearly states it applies only when there is violence or threat of violence,” said Sukumar Muralidharan, South Asia program coordinator with the International Federation of Journalists. “The misuse of the law suggests there may be a deeper political purpose to the arrest. There has been increasing intolerance toward dissent by the ruling government in India and this may be seenas part of that,” he said.
Other recent examples of government combativeness with critics include an effort by the prime minister's office to get the Washington Post to apologize for a story that described Manmohan Singh as a "tragic figure," and the defense of new Internet content laws that allow the government and individuals alike to ask for "offensive" online content to be removed.
In an interview before taking a train from Delhi to Mumbai to surrender to the Mumbai police, Trivedi said his cartoons could at best be described as "bold," as they depicted politicians as being disrespectful of the country, but that he in no way intended to insult national symbols.
There are several controversial cartoons that petitioners have objected to. The first one is titled “Gang rape of Mother India." It shows a woman dressed in the colors of the Indian flag being assaulted by a politician and a bureaucrat, as a beast labeled "corruption" looks on gleefully.
Two other cartoons mock the Indian Parliament, one shows it as a commode and another as a sewage tank. These cartoons demand, in addition to an anticorruption ombudsman, the right to recall, which allows citizens to disqualify an elected representative mid-term.
Some Indian officials like Maharashtra state minister R. R. Patil have spoken out against Trivedi's arrest, and it's not clear the government drove the case forward. The petitioner who pushed for Trivedi to be arrested is Amit Katarnawre, a 27-year-old railway employee in Mumbai. Mr. Katarnawre said on the phone from Mumbai he believed the cartoons intended deliberate insult to India’s national symbols.
Katarnawre hails from the Dalit (formerly "untouchable") community whose icon, B. R. Ambedkar, was chairman of the drafting committee of the Indian Constitution and was opposed to Mahatma Gandhi. The protest where Trivedi displayed his cartoons were led by Anna Hazare, a Gandhian social activist.
Trivedi's banners also gave the address of the website,cartoonsagainstcorruption.com, which the domain registrar immediately suspended on orders of the Mumbai police. The cartoons, however, are still available atcartoonsagainstcorruption.blogspot.com. Since then, Trivedi became a full time campaigner against Internet censorship in India. In May, he sat on a hunger strike for seven days to demand the annulment of Internet censorship laws | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | September 2012 | ['(Christian Science Monitor)', '(First Post)', '(Indian Express)'] |
Typhoon Koppu makes landfall in northern Luzon in the Philippines with forecasters warning it could stay in the area for several days. Thousands of people have been evacuated or are stranded. , | As Typhoon “Lando” (international name: Koppu) pummels northern provinces, thousands of people have been evacuated while others remained stranded in several ports.
: Lando wreaks damage even before landfall
But as of latest, National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council Executive Director Alexander Pama said no casualties have been reported so far.
In a press briefing on Sunday morning, Pama said 1,760 families sought refuge in evacuation centers in the provinces of Aurora, Isabela, Quirino, and Cagayan.
Meanwhile, 5,039 passengers were stranded in several ports as well as 65 motorized vessels, 43 motor bancas, and 467 rolling cargoes.
Two cities and 22 municipalities in northern Luzon also lost power due to the typhoon.
At least eight bridges in Casiguran, Aurora, where Lando made its first landfall, have also been rendered impassable.
However, Pama said that the Department of Public Works and Highways has begun its clearing operation in areas affected by the typhoon.
Thirty flights, 28 of which were domestic, were canceled.
READ: Typhoon ‘Lando’ slightly weakens as it makes landfall
In its 5 a.m. bulletin, the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) said the slow-moving typhoon slightly weakened, packing maximum sustained winds of 175 kilometers per hour near the center with gusts of up to 210 kph.
On Saturday night, Lando packed maximum sustained winds of 185 kph with gusts of up to 220 kph.
It also slowed from 12 kph to only 3 kph on Sunday morning. It continues to move westward.
The eye of the typhoon was located 135 km east northeast of Baler, Aurora or 90 km east southeast of Casiguran, Aurora.
Storm surge in affected areas were expected to a maximum of 3 to 4 meters in Aurora and neighboring provinces while wave height in open sea may reach up to 14 meters or higher.
READ: ‘Lando’ to linger for 3 days
Pagasa also advised fisherfolk not to venture out over the seaboards of Luzon, Visayas and the northern and eastern seaboard of Mindanao.
Signal No. 4 Aurora was still raised over Aurora.
Signal No. 3 was up in Isabela, Quirino, Nueva Vizcaya, Nueva Ecija, Ifugao and Northern Quezon including Polillo Island.
Meanwhile, Metro Manila was still at signal no. 2 as well as in Cagayan including Calayan and Babuyan Group of Islands, Benguet, Mt. Province, Kalinga, Apayao, Pangasinan, Tarlac, Pampanga, Bulacan, Rizal, and the rest of Quezon.
Signal no. 1 was up in Zambales, Ilocos Norte, Ilocos Sur, La Union, Abra, Camarines Norte, Bataan, Cavite, Laguna, Batangas and Batanes .
Storm signals elsewhere were now lowered.
Provinces under signal no. 2, 3 and 4 will experience stormy weather while the rest will experience occasional rains and gusty winds.
Residents in low lying and mountainous areas of the affected provinces were also alerted against possible flashfloods and landslides. RAM
e
| Hurricanes_Tornado_Storm_Blizzard | October 2015 | ['(Lando)', '(AFP via Yahoo)', '(The Inquirer)'] |
Suspected members of Boko Haram attack the northern Nigerian city of Potiskum, destroying several buildings and leaving at least 23 locals dead. | At least 23 people killed and several buildings destroyed after suspected Boko Haram fighters mount attack in Potiskum.
At least 23 people have been killed after suspected BokoHaram fighters attacked a town in northeastern Nigeria, a hospital official has said.
Hospital officials said on Saturday thatthe fighters had wreaked havoctwo days before, destroying several buildings in a town regarded as a hotbed for Boko Haram activity.
A nurse at the Potiskum general hospital spoke of 20 bodies being brought to the morgue, while residents said three bodies were buried by their families following explosions and shootings in the restive city on Thursday.
“We now have a total of 20 bodies brought in yesterday from the attacks of the previous night. Initially 11 bodies were brought and nine more were received later,”a nurse, who asked not to be named, told the AFP news agency.
“Most of them have gunshot wounds but some had their throat slit. The bodies included that of a police sergeant and a prison warder,” he said.
Residents said the toll could be higher as some family members had taken some bodies from the streets for burial.
Explosions and gunfireshook Potiskum on Thursday, with residents reporting that several schools and a government building were burnt.
In the city of Maiduguri, also in the northeast anda base ofBoko Haram, petrol bombs exploded, leading to a fire that burned down 11 roadside shops, the military said in a statement.
One civilian was also shot dead and four others were wounded, it said.
Boko Haram arrest
Meanwhile, in a separate development,Nigeria’s military said soldiers had arrested amember ofBoko Haram at a prominent senator’s home on Friday.
Colonel Sagir Musa, a military spokesman,issued a statement on Fridaysaying soldiers caught Shuaibu Muhammed Bama “in a serving senator’s home”.
The only senator who has a home in the area where Bama was arrested isSenator Ahmed Zanna of Nigeria’s National Assembly.
Zanna and his officials inhis office could not be immediately reached for comment Saturday morning. The arrest fuels further speculation of high ranking officials being in league with Boko Haram.
Northeastern Nigeria has been the region hardest hit by Boko Haram, though its attacks have also spread to other areas of the north and centre.
The group has claimed to be seeking an Islamic state in Nigeria, though itsdemands have repeatedly shifted. Boko Haram is believed to include a number of factions in addition to imitators and criminal groups who carry out violenceunder the guise of the group. | Armed Conflict | October 2012 | ['(Al Jazeera)'] |
Thirty firefighters die in southwestern China after a forest fire trapped them due to a sudden shift in winds. | Fire crews had been battling the blaze in the mountains of Sichuan province on Sunday when a change in wind direction caused "a huge fireball", trapping them, the emergency ministry said.
Contact with 30 firefighters was lost. All were confirmed dead on Monday and their bodies were retrieved from the mountain, state TV said.
The blaze broke out on Saturday.
About 700 firefighters have been trying to control the flames in a remote area of Muli county, state media reported.
26 firefighters are confirmed to have died while battling a forest fire in Sichuan, China pic.twitter.com/vmXUxGhOGN
A separate forest fire in the northern province of Shanxi was brought under control on Sunday after burning for two days, the official Xinhua news agency said.
No casualties were reported from that fire, but at least 9,000 people were evacuated from their homes.
| Fire | April 2019 | ['(The New York Times)', '(BBC)'] |
The U.S. Transportation Department's emergency order banning Samsung Galaxy Note 7 from aircraft in the United States goes into effect. | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Samsung Galaxy Note 7 smartphone devices will be banned from aircraft in the United States starting on Saturday at noon EDT (1600 GMT) under an emergency order, regulators said on Friday after numerous reports of the devices catching fire.
Samsung Electronics Co Ltd 005930.KS scrapped its flagship Galaxy Note 7 smartphone on Tuesday because of incidents where the phones began smoking or caught fire, dealing a huge blow to its reputation. The decision came after reports of fires in replacement devices prompted a new round of warnings from regulators, phone carriers and airlines.
The order from the U.S. Transportation Department and other agencies bars owners from carrying on the devices or stowing them in checked baggage during flights.
“We recognize that banning these phones from airlines will inconvenience some passengers, but the safety of all those aboard an aircraft must take priority,” said Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx.
“We are taking this additional step because even one fire incident inflight poses a high risk of severe personal injury and puts many lives at risk.”
The Transportation Department warned that passengers who packed the devices in checked luggage raised the risk of “a catastrophic incident.”
“Anyone violating the ban may be subject to criminal prosecution in addition to fines,” the department said in a press statement.
The agency said that the phones might be confiscated from passengers attempting to take them onboard, and that people found onboard with the phones might face fines.
In another statement issued late Friday, the department clarified that owners who attempt to travel by air with Samsung Galaxy Note 7 devices would only be “denied boarding.”
The world’s largest phone maker this week said it was also expanding a U.S. recall of the fire-prone model to a total of 1.9 million Note 7 phones, including the 1 million Galaxy Note 7s it recalled on Sept. 15.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said on Thursday the Note 7’s battery “can overheat and catch fire, posing serious fire and burn hazard to consumers.”
It added that Samsung had received 96 reports of batteries in Note 7 phones overheating in the United States, including 23 new reports since the Sept. 15 recall announcement.
| Government Policy Changes | October 2016 | ['(Reuters)'] |
Government forces and the Southern Resistance backed by coalition forces wrest control of the strategic strait of Bab Al Mandab and a small Mayoun Island in the Red Sea from Houthi militants. , | Al Mukalla: Yemeni government forces and the Southern Resistance backed by coalition forces wrested controlled of the strategic strait of Bab Al Mandab and a small island in the Red Sea from Al Houthi militiamen after brief clashes, a senior army official told Gulf News by telephone from the area.
“We cleared the coastline and entire mountains that overlook Bab Al Mandab region. We also drove Al Houthis out of Mayoun Island,” Major General Ahmad Saif, the commander of the military campaign and Aden-based 4th Military Region.
The coalition troops launched the campaign on the rebels’ military positions on Thursday morning following relentless airstrikes that paved the way for their advance.
Arrest
“We also destroyed Al Houthi forces inside Brigade 17 and arrested some of them. We advanced after coalition warplanes and cannons strafed the area,” the general said, adding that "many" UAE troops have actively taken part in the operation.
A couple of days ago, residents in the port city of Aden reported seeing a large convoy of armoured personnel carriers and tanks carrying hundreds of soldiers leaving the city.
“When I saw the huge numebr of troops, I predicted that the Al Houthis would not resist and the area would be liberated easily.”
Yasser Al Yafae, a local journalist told Gulf News.
After driving Al Houthis out of the strait, government forces have secured Aden and are getting closer to pushing the rebels out of the densely-populated Taiz province.
In New York, Yemeni President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi, has received UAE Foreign Minister Shaikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan on the sidelines of the 70th session of the UN General Assembly.
UN meeting During the meeting, Shaikh Abdullah congratulated President Hadi on his return to Aden, currently the temporary capital of Yemen.
Hadi thanked the UAE for its unwavering support for the Yemeni government.
President Hadi and Shaikh Abdullah discussed the latest developments in Yemen, bilateral relations, and ways to strengthen them, especially in the humanitarian area, to ease the suffering of the people of Yemen.
The Yemen News Agency quoted Hadi as praising the the UAE.
“This position bolsters cohesion between the two countries, thanks to the late Shaikh Zayed, who rebuilt the Marib Dam. And now the UAE is back to support Yemen and retake the Marib Dam from Al Houthi rebels who tampered with Yemen.”
| Armed Conflict | October 2015 | ['(AP via Fox News)', '(Gulf News)', '(Al Jazeera)'] |
Former bishop Fernando Lugo is elected as the President of Paraguay. | ASUNCION (AFP) — Leftist former bishop Fernando Lugo won Paraguay's presidential vote Sunday, beating rival Blanca Ovelar by 39-33 percent and ending her Colorado Party's 61-year rule in government, according to official preliminary results.
Lino Oviedo, 64, a retired army chief who helped stage a coup that ended the 35-year miltiary dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner, trailed in third place with 21 percent, according to the Electoral Tribunal's Quick Preliminary Result Broadcast hotline (TREP).
Lugo, addressing jubilant supporters at his campaign headquarters, said the election showed that "the little people can also win."
"You are responsible for the happiness of the majority of the Paraguayan people today," he said as supporters chanted his name. "This is the Paraguay I dream about, with many colors, many faces, the Paraguay of everyone."
Exit polls earlier gave Lugo, 56, a 43-37 percent lead over Ovelar, 51, of the ruling Colorado Party who was vying to be Paraguay's first woman president. Oviedo had 16 percent, according to ABC/Nanduti radio.
There is no runoff vote in Paraguay.
Polling stations in this landlocked South American nation of six million people were open nine hours, in an election that also selected a new congress.
The left-leaning opposition spearheaded by Lugo, 56, who was suspended from his religious order by the Vatican in late 2006 for his entry into politics, had feared fraud would mar the vote.
But as 70 observers from the Organization of American States monitored ballot stations, electoral court chief Rafael Dendia said voting went smoothly.
Former Colombian President Alfredo Pastrana, one of the observers, said turnout in the election among the 2.9 million eligible voters was high: "it's going to reach 60, 65 and hopefully even 70 percent."
Lugo supporters began celebrating their anticipated victory setting off fireworks one and a half hour after polls were closed.
The Colorado Party has been in power since 1947, including 35 years of Stroessner rule from 1954 to 1989. Paraguay chose its first democratically-elected president in 1993.
Outgoing President Nicanor Duarte constitutionally could not seek re-election after serving a five-year term.
International Transparency, an organization monitoring for voter fraud, reported some cases of corruption.
"We've seen voting cards being bought and money going around in some polling booths," one of the group's observers, Pilar Callizo, told Channel 4.
"We also saw Colorado Party teams inside and outside some polling stations creating an atmosphere of intimidation," she added.
Lugo's opponents have said he is in line with leftwing presidents Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Evo Morales of Bolivia.
But Lugo, while championing the rights of the poor, says he is more centrist as he seeks to overhaul a country with a per-capita income of just 1,900 dollars.
Ovelar, 51, a former education minister and the first woman to run for Paraguay's presidency, had asked voters to show her the same consideration as her male counterparts.
"If I lose the election, I will accept the result. But I ask for the same openness and the same objectivity as the other candidates," she said last week.
Oviedo was released from his last stint behind bars last September by a court that found he had been the victim of political persecution, leaving him able to pursue his long-held ambition of becoming head of state.
While Paraguay's formal economy relies on agriculture, corruption is pervasive.
Duarte made little headway in stamping out graft, which also sullied his own administration. Paraguay is a prime source of contraband electronics and cigarettes, most smuggled into neighboring Brazil, Argentina and Bolivia. | Government Job change - Appoint_Inauguration | April 2008 | ['(AFP via Google News)'] |
A S7 Airlines Airbus A310 crashes on landing in Irkutsk, Siberia, with many of the 200 passengers feared dead. , , | The S7 Airlines Airbus was flying from Moscow when it crashed on landing at Irkutsk airport.
The plane reportedly slid off the runway and hit a building at about 0800 on Sunday (2300 GMT Saturday).
About 55 people were injured, Russian officials said. The plane was carrying 192 passengers and eight crew. All the crew were said to have died.
Many of the passengers were reported to be children travelling to the nearby popular holiday destination of Lake Baikal.
The A-310 - operated by S7, known until recently as Sibir Airlines - appeared to veer out of control on landing. It was terrible, really terrible because people were shouting, people were on fire
Margarita Svetlova, crash survivor
In pictures: Siberian crash
It overshot the runway then crashed through a concrete wall, before hitting a building close to the airfield. It then broke up and burst into flames.
The cabin was wrecked and passengers were evacuated via the rear of the aircraft, according to rescuers.
Several passengers were seen jumping from the wreckage. Most of those being treated in hospital were suffering from burns.
"It was terrible, really terrible because people were shouting, people were on fire," said crash survivor Margarita Svetlova.
"Someone shouted that it was all going to blow up. So I ran out of fear, I ran out," she told Russia's Channel One Europe TV.
The fire took three hours to put out, authorities said.
Investigation
Rescue workers are sifting through the wreckage, and have recovered about 120 bodies so far.
The precise cause of the crash remains unclear. Officials said the two flight recorders had been recovered and an investigation is under way.
Eleven of the passengers were foreigners, from Poland, Germany, Moldova, South Korea and China, an airline official said. It was not immediately known if any of them were among the dead. Irkutsk airport was the scene of another fatal crash, in July 2001, when a Tu-154 plane fell to the ground on its final approach, killing all 145 on board. Authorities blamed pilot error.
Just two months ago, on 3 May, an Armenian Airbus A320 flying to Sochi in Russia crashed into the Black Sea killing all 113 people on board.
And in August 2004, 89 passengers and crew died when two aircraft - a Tu-134 and a Tu-154 - crashed about 800km (500 miles) apart on the same night after leaving Moscow's Domodedovo airport. | Air crash | July 2006 | ['(ABC News America)', '(CNN)', '(BBC)'] |
The United States, Canada and several Latin American nations recognize opposition leader Juan Guaidó as President of Venezuela. | CARACAS, VENEZUELA — Venezuela's crisis quickly escalated on Wednesday, as an opposition leader backed by the Trump administration declared himself interim president in a direct challenge to embattled socialist Nicolas Maduro, who retaliated by breaking off relations with the United States, his biggest trade partner.
For the past two weeks, ever since Maduro took the oath for a second six-year term in the face of widespread international condemnation, the newly-invigorated opposition had been preparing for nationwide demonstrations Wednesday coinciding with the anniversary marking the end of Venezuela's last military dictatorship in 1958.
While Maduro has shown no signs of leaving, his main rival, National Assembly President Juan Guaido, upped the ante by declaring himself interim president before masses of anti-government demonstrators — the only way, he said, to rescue Venezuela from "dictatorship."
The U.S. led a chorus of Western hemisphere nations, including Canada, Brazil, Argentina and Colombia, that immediately backed the bold challenge, with President Donald Trump calling on Maduro to resign and promising to use the "full weight" of the U.S. economic and diplomatic power to push for the restoration of Venezuela's democracy.
"The people of Venezuela have courageously spoken out against Maduro and his regime and demanded freedom and the rule of law," Trump said in a statement.
The stunning move, which to some recalled dark episodes of heavy-handed U.S. intervention in Latin America during the Cold War, drew a strong rebuke from Maduro. He responded by swiftly cutting off diplomatic relations with the United States, the biggest importer of the OPEC nation's oil, giving American diplomats 72 hours to leave the country.
"Before the people and nations of the world, and as constitutional president. .... I've decided to break diplomatic and political relations with the imperialist U.S. government," Maduro told a crowd of red-shirted supporters gathered at the presidential palace. "Don't trust the gringos. They don't have friends or loyalties. They only have interests, guts and the ambition to take Venezuela's oil, gas and gold."
The 35-year-old Guaido, a virtually unknown lawmaker at the start of the year, has reignited the hopes of Venezuela's often beleaguered opposition by striking a rebellious pose amid a crushing economic crisis that has forced millions to flee or go hungry.
Raising his right hand in unison with tens of thousands of supporters, the leader of the opposition-controlled congress took a symbolic oath to assume executive powers he says are his right under Venezuela's constitution and to take over as interim president until he calls new elections.
"Today, January 23, 2019, I swear to formally assume the powers of the national executive as president in charge of Venezuela," he told the cheering crowd as he stood behind a lectern emblazoned with Venezuela's national coat of arms,
"We know that this will have consequences," he shouted, moments before quickly slipping away to an unknown location amid speculation he would soon be arrested.
Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo all issued statements proclaiming U.S. recognition of Guaido and saying the U.S. would take all diplomatic and economic measures necessary to support a transition to a new government.
The price of oil slipped for the third time in four days Wednesday, an indication that international energy markets are not overly concerned yet that the situation in Venezuela will disrupt global crude supplies.
The bold challenge to Maduro's rule came after large crowds gathered in Caracas waving flags and chanting "Get out Maduro!" in what was the largest demonstration since a wave of unrest that left more than 120 dead in 2017.
While the protests were mostly peaceful there were no signs that security forces heeded Guaido's call to join the anti-Maduro movement and go light on demonstrators.
Hours after most demonstrators went home violence broke out in Altamira, an upscale zone of Caracas and an opposition stronghold, when National Guardsmen descended on hundreds of youths lingering in the street around a popular plaza. Popping tear gas canisters sent hundreds running and hordes of protesters riding two and three on motorcycles fleeing in panic.
Blocks away, demonstrators knocked a pair of guardsman riding tandem off their motorcycle, pelting them with coconuts as they sped down a wide avenue. Some in the group struck the two guardsmen with their hands while others ran off with their gear and set their motorcycle on fire.
The opposition has argued that Guaido is empowered by two articles of the constitution to take over as president on a temporary basis and hold elections as a result of Maduro's holding onto power illegitimately.
Amid the showdown, all eyes were on the military, the traditional arbiter of political disputes in Venezuela — and to whom Guaido has been targeting his message.
Maduro, who lacks the military pedigree of his mentor and predecessor, the late Hugo Chavez, has sought to shore up support from the armed forces by doling out key posts to top generals, including heading the PDVSA oil monopoly that is the source of virtually all of Venezuela's export earnings. He has also been playing commander in chief, appearing last week at a military command meeting wearing camouflage fatigues and receiving the blessing of the defense minister, Gen. Vladimir Padrino Lopez.
But beyond the public displays of loyalty from the top brass, a number of cracks have started to appear.
On Monday, Venezuelans awoke to news that a few dozen national guardsmen had taken captive a loyalist officer and seized a stockpile of assault rifles in a pre-dawn raid. The government quickly quelled the uprising, but residents in a nearby slum took to the streets to show their support for the mutineers by burning cars and throwing stones at security forces, who fired back with tear gas.
Disturbances continued into Tuesday, with small pockets of unrest in a few working-class neighborhoods where the government has traditionally enjoyed strong support.
Retired Maj. Gen. Cliver Alcala, a one-time aide to Chavez and now in exile, said the opposition's newfound momentum has reverberated with the military's lower ranks, many of whom are suffering the same hardships as regular Venezuelan families.
"I am absolutely certain that right now, especially younger troops are asking themselves whether Maduro is their commander in chief or a usurper," Alcala said.
Though intimidation has worked for the government in the past, it may not this time, said Dimitris Pantoulas, a Caracas-based political analyst. Discontent now appears to be more widespread and the ranks of security forces and government-allied groups have been thinned by the mass exodus of mostly young Venezuelans, he said.
"The government is resorting to its old tricks, but the people no longer believe them," Pantoulas said.
Associated Press writers Fabiola Sanchez in Caracas and Christine Armario in Bogota, Colombia, contributed to this report.
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At least 20 people are killed after a fire breaks out on a passenger train in Warangal, Andhra Pradesh, India. | At least 20 people have been killed after a fire broke out on a passenger train in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, railway officials say.
The fire started as the Gautami Express was passing through forest some 125 miles (200km) north of Hyderabad.
The cause of the fire is yet to be established but police said an electric short circuit might have been to blame.
India's state-run railways, which carry more than 13 million passengers a day, have a poor safety record.
Coaches gutted
Five coaches of the train were gutted in the fire, said police in Warangal district where the blaze broke out. "The fire started from S-10 coach of the Gautami Express at around 1:10 am local time (2040 GMT)," senior police officer VC Sajjanar told the BBC.
"The passengers pulled the chain to stop the train immediately after the fire broke out and people started jumping out of the train."
Among the dead were three handicapped people and a woman, police said. At least four of the injured have been taken to hospital.
Medical staff and emergency teams have been sent by train to the scene.
The BBC's Omar Farooq in Hyderabad, the state capital, says rescue operations are being hampered because the accident site is inaccessible by road. | Fire | August 2008 | ['(BBC News)'] |
Tashonty Toney, son of a police officer, was arrested for vehicular homicide, vehicular negligent injury, hit–and–run and reckless operation of a motor vehicle after he veered into a bike line near a Mardi Gras parade route in New Orleans. He accidentally killed 2 and injured 7 cyclists while drunk and drugged. | NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) - The man arrested in connection with a hit-and-run crash that killed two people and injured seven in Bayou St. John Saturday night (March 3) is the son of a New Orleans Police Department officer, NOPD spokesman Andy Cunningham said in a news release.
Tashonty Toney was arrested on two counts of vehicular homicide, seven counts of vehicular negligent injury, hit-and-run and reckless operation of a motor vehicle, Cunningham said.
Investigators believe Toney was intoxicated when he crashed into a total of nine pedestrians over a span of three blocks on Esplanade Avenue, according to police. The night of the crash was Toney’s 32nd birthday, according to NOPD. As of early Sunday, police were waiting for the results of his blood-alcohol tests.
Cunningham said the fact Toney’s father is an NOPD officer will not affect the way the department handles the investigation.
“This discovery does not change and will not impact our department’s investigation which will be open and transparent,” Cunningham said.
The department is working with the NOPD’s federal consent decree monitor, according to Cunningham, in order to “ensure a just and transparent investigation.” The monitors were on the scene Saturday night, Cunningham said, and NOPD Chief Shaun Ferguson has been in “constant contact” with them.
The crash was reported just after 8 p.m. and Toney initially fled the scene after hitting all eight victims between the 3400 and 3200 blocks of Esplanade Avenue. Toney was arrested a short while later, according to police.
New Orleans EMS spokesman Lt. Jonathan Fourcade said the fatal victims were a man and a woman who were both about 30 years old.
Two 28-year-old women were injured and brought to University Medical Center’s trauma center, as was a 53-year-old woman. Two men were also brought to UMC, one is 56 and the other is 62, Fourcade said.
EMS Director Emily Nichols said three of the five people brought to UMC were in critical condition.
A 65-year-old man was also injured, but was in stable condition and refused treatment on the scene, Fourcade said. Officials initially reported there were a total of eight victims involved in the crash, but the ninth victim later sought medical attention “out of an aubundance of caution," Cunningham said. He was brought to the hospital in a private vehicle.
At least two damaged Blue Bikes -- the city’s bike sharing service -- could be seen on the street while investigators worked the scene in the 3200 block of Saturday night. Ferguson said investigators were not sure if all the victims were on bicycles when they were hit, but confirmed at least five or six were. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Arrest | March 2019 | ['(fox8live)', '(Advocate)'] |
Indian guru Asaram Bapu is sentenced to life imprisonment for the rape of a child. | Asaram Bapu's arrest for raping a minor in 2013 triggered a spate of violence and some witnesses who dared to testify were killed.
By Neville Lazarus, India Reporter Wednesday 25 April 2018 11:49, UK
A self-styled "godman" has been given a life sentence in India for raping a minor at his monastery in 2013.
Asaram Bapu was given the maximum punishment by a special court after being convicted of assaulting the child, who was brought to his ashram by her parents for treatment.
They were told their daughter was possessed by an evil spirit and could be cured by the godman.
In her complaint to the police, the minor said she was sexually assaulted and threatened by the godman when she was alone with him.
Bapu has been in prison during the trial for fear of violence from his supporters.
Four North Indian states were put on high alert and thousands of policemen deployed as a precautionary measure.
Bapu has over 400 ashrams, or monasteries, in the country - and millions of followers worldwide.
His arrest in September 2013 triggered a spate of violence by his followers who stopped trains and blocked highways - attacking policemen and reporters who were covering the case.
The administration took no chances on Wednesday and took precautionary measures in all places where the godman had a large following.
Two of Bapu's close associates were also convicted for conspiracy and jailed for 20 years each, while two others were acquitted because there was a lack of evidence.
The victim's father said: "We are happy with the verdict. We have gone through a lot of hardships over the last five years, our lives were threatened."
Neelam Dubey, a spokeswoman for the Asaram Ashram, told reporters they will appeal against the verdict in a higher court after speaking with their legal team.
This case had generated a lot of controversy over the past five years.
Nine witnesses who dared to testify against the godman were attacked and three of them were killed.
Kartik Haldar, an associate of Bapu's, was arrested by the Gujarat anti-terror squad and charged with the alleged murders of the three witnesses.
In another case, police in Rajasthan filed a charge sheet against the godman for allegedly filming sexual assaults on women to blackmail them.
Two sisters from Surat in Gujrat have also filed cases of alleged rape and sexual exploitation against the godman and his family.
There have been several rape cases involving minors in recent weeks.
Earlier this month, there were nationwide protests against the rape and murder of a 12-year-old girl in Khatua in Jammu and Kashmir.
At the same time, a legislator of the ruling government was accused of raping a minor in Uttar Pradesh.
The accused in both cases have been arrested and cases have been filed against them.
The brutality of the cases generated a lot of pressure which has forced the federal government to promulgate an ordinance. Under the new law, the death penalty could be awarded to those convicted of raping girls below the age of 12.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called for a social movement to ensure safety for women and girls.
He said: "Families will have to enhance the honour and respect of daughters. Families should also make their sons more responsible."
According to the National Crime Records Bureau, a total of 34,651 rape cases were registered in 2017 - 96 a day on average.
Laws relating to crimes against women were changed in 2013 after the gang rape and murder of a medical student in Delhi in December 2012.
Since then, fast-track courts have been established to try cases of crimes against women, and laws have been made more stringent and punishments more severe. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Sentence | April 2018 | ['(Sky News)'] |
A Malaysian oil tanker, MT Vier Harmoni, is hijacked off the coast of Malaysia and is believed to have been taken to Indonesian waters near the island of Batam, according to the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency. The identity of the hijackers is not yet known. | A Malaysian oil tanker has not been hijacked as earlier reported, but taken to Indonesia by its own crew, officials in both countries say.
The MT Vier Harmoni, carrying 900,000 litres of diesel, is being searched in Batam Island, Indonesia.
Indonesian Navy spokesman Edi Sucipto said the confusion was due to an "internal management problem". Malaysia also said it was an "internal dispute". The tanker was reported missing off Kunatan port, Malaysia, on Monday.
Its cargo is reportedly worth about 1.57m ringgit ($392,795; 300,000).
The head of the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency said the dispute between the operator and the crew had been resolved but he did not outline what had happened to the ship's oil cargo, or whether it would sail back to Malaysia. | Armed Conflict | August 2016 | ['(BBC)'] |
Six people are charged with various offences including manslaughter by gross negligence following the Hillsborough disaster in 1989. | Former Ch Supt David Duckenfield faces 95 charges of manslaughter and five other senior figures will be prosecuted over the 1989 Hillsborough disaster.
Mr Duckenfield was match commander at the FA Cup semi-final when 96 Liverpool fans were fatally injured in a crush.
Ex-South Yorkshire Police (SYP) Ch Insp Sir Norman Bettison, two officers, a solicitor and a Sheffield Wednesday club secretary also face charges.
Campaigners said the charges "send a message about accountability".
Last year, new inquests into the disaster at the Liverpool v Nottingham Forest match, held at Sheffield Wednesday's ground, concluded the fans had been unlawfully killed.
The inquests found that Liverpool supporters were not responsible for the dangerous situation at the Leppings Lane turnstiles. For legal reasons, Mr Duckenfield cannot be charged over the death of the 96th victim, Tony Bland, as he died four years after the disaster, prosecutors said.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) must apply to the High Court to lift an order imposed after he was prosecuted privately in 1999, which must be removed before he can be charged.
An application will be made to the High Court in a matter of weeks and a senior judge will make a ruling in due course.
The full list of individuals and charges are:
The six men charged over Hillsborough
Hillsborough: Criminal charges explained The defendants, other than Mr Duckenfield, will appear at Warrington Magistrates' Court on 9 August.
No organisation will face corporate charges and no-one from the ambulance service will be charged, said Sue Hemming, head of special crime and counter-terrorism at the CPS.
She explained that Sheffield Wednesday is now a "different company" and, as it is not a successor organisation, is not criminally liable for any offences that might have been committed in 1989.
The CPS brought charges following referrals from the Operation Resolve investigation into the causes of the disaster and the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) probe.
Assistant Commissioner Rob Beckley, from Operation Resolve, said: "Our inquiry looked at all aspects of the event, including the planning and the preparation for the game, the safety of the stadium and the response by the emergency services."
Twelve individuals and three organisations were referred to the CPS by the Resolve team.
The IPCC investigated the conduct of both SYP and West Midlands Police (WMP) in the days and weeks afterwards.
Any decision regarding WMP, which was brought in to carry out the original investigation into the conduct of SYP officers, will be made at a later date.
Ms Hemming made the announcement of the intended prosecutions to victims' families at a private meeting in Warrington earlier.
She said: "Following our careful review of the evidence, in accordance with the code for Crown prosecutors, I have decided that there is sufficient evidence to charge six individuals with criminal offences. "Criminal proceedings have now commenced and the defendants have a right to a fair trial."
Campaigner Trevor Hicks, whose daughters Victoria, 15, and Sarah, 19, died in the disaster, said: "There will be six people facing criminal charges who might not have done if we hadn't been resilient and all stuck together and fought this long fight. "There are no winners in this, it doesn't bring anybody back. "What it does do is send a message about accountability, as we keep saying, that nobody but nobody is above the law; be it the police or anybody else."
Chairwoman of the Hillsborough Family Support Group, Margaret Aspinall, whose son James, 18, was killed, said: "This is definitely the start of the end. "I think everybody needs that, I think we all need peace from Hillsborough but we can never have peace until we've got truth, justice, accountability. "I think that's the time we'll all have peace."
Barry Devonside, whose son Christopher, 18, was killed in the disaster, said: "Everybody applauded when it was announced that the most senior police officer on that particular day will have charges presented to him."
Evelyn McDonnell Mills, whose brother Peter McDonnell, 21, died, said she was "really happy", but sad that her brother who campaigned for years and died during the new inquests never got to see their conclusion.
Pete Weatherby QC, who represents 22 of the victims' families, said they had "always known that accountability is the most difficult objective".
"They remain keen to see the criminal process properly pursued for those who have been charged... [and] hope that the memories of their loved ones and the integrity of the fans who attended Hillsborough will be respected during the process."
Lawyer Marcia Willis-Stewart, speaking on behalf other families, said: "The families are sensitive to the issues of fairness and due process and no-one wishes to prejudice or to jeopardise it. "There are of course various legal options open to the families where decisions have been made not to prosecute, in the form of the victim and judicial review process."
BBC News profiles of all those who died
At Prime Minister's Questions, Theresa May said: "I know from working closely with the families when I was home secretary that this will be a day of mixed emotions for them."
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn offered a "tribute to all of those that spent a great deal of time trying to ensure there was justice for those that died at Hillsborough".
Sir Norman has said he is "disappointed to be charged" and will "vigorously defend" his innocence.
Mr Duckenfield and Mr Denton's legal representative Ian Lewis, from JMW Solicitors said "it would be inappropriate for me as their solicitor, or for my clients themselves, to make any comment".
Mr Metcalf declined to comment.
Dr Alan Billings, the South Yorkshire police and crime commissioner, said he hoped the start of criminal proceedings would "lead to a measure of closure for the family members who have experienced a long and traumatic process".
Sheffield Wednesday said the club had no comment to make.
| Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | June 2017 | ['(BBC)'] |
U.S. President Barack Obama nominates John Kerry to succeed Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. | US President Barack Obama has nominated Senator John Kerry to succeed Hillary Clinton as his next secretary of state.
Mr Obama said Mr Kerry's "entire life" prepared him for the role, and praised him for the "respect and confidence" he has earned from world leaders.
Mr Kerry ran as Democratic presidential candidate in 2004 and is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
His nomination comes after the US ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, withdrew from consideration last week.
Republicans had fiercely criticised her role in the aftermath of the deadly attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya, in September.
Speaking at the White House, Mr Obama said Mr Kerry understood the need to "harness all elements of American power", and said the veteran senator was "not going to need a lot of on-the-job training".
The president added that he was sure Mr Kerry would be swiftly confirmed in the Senate.
Mrs Clinton, who is still recuperating from a stomach virus and concussion, was not present for the announcement.
But in a statement, Mrs Clinton said Mr Kerry was an "excellent choice" of head for the state department.
"He will be able to sustain and extend America's global leadership," she said.
Mr Kerry, 69, becomes Mr Obama's first new cabinet nomination since he won a second term in November.
The president will also have to name a new defence secretary to replace Leon Panetta, and a new director of the CIA to take over from David Petraeus, who quit last month after admitting an affair.
Mr Kerry, a decorated Vietnam veteran, lost a close presidential election to George W Bush in 2004 and had been a contender for the state department in 2008, before Mrs Clinton was chosen.
The BBC's Washington correspondent, Kim Ghattas, says Mr Kerry is well-steeped in the details of world affairs and diplomacy.
She says he has been the Obama administration's unofficial envoy to various hotspots, from Pakistan to Afghanistan.
If confirmed, he will face the problem of ongoing Syrian unrest and continuing concern over Iran's nuclear programme.
Mrs Clinton has indicated she will step down early next year.
Mr Kerry will have to give up his seat in the Senate, where he represents the state of Massachusetts. The Democrats may face a tough battle to keep it in the subsequent election.
Analysts say Mr Kerry's nomination is unlikely to face opposition from Republicans, who had threatened to oppose Ms Rice, despite the president's strong defence of her actions over Libya.
Mr Kerry himself had spoken up for Ms Rice, saying: "I've defended her publicly and wouldn't hesitate to do so again because I know her character and I know her commitment. She's an extraordinarily capable and dedicated public servant."
Ms Rice's troubles began days after the 11 September assault on the US consulate. She said in a series of TV interviews that it seemed to have developed out of protests over an anti-Islamic film.
But later intelligence reports suggested the attack was carried out by al-Qaeda affiliates.
Her comments triggered a major political row over who knew what and when, and whether the consulate was adequately protected.
The attack left four Americans dead, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens.
| Government Job change - Appoint_Inauguration | December 2012 | ['(CNN)', '(BBC)'] |
Mount Soputan, a volcano in Indonesia's North Sulawesi province, erupts. | AFP - A volcano on Indonesia's Sulawesi island erupted Sunday, spewing ash and smoke 5,000 metres into the air.
Mount Soputan in North Sulawesi province erupted at around 6:03 am (2203 GMT Saturday) but people living in the sparsely populated area have not been evacuated, Iing Kusnadi, a scientist at the volcano's monitoring post told AFP.
"The volcano erupted this morning. Besides spewing ash and dust particles, it also spewed hot gas but that's limited to around its crater," he said.
"The recommended evacuation zone is set at a six-kilometre radius around the volcano but there's only forest in that range," he added.
"At the moment, it is still a safe distance from people but we'll continue to monitor the activity," he added.
The nearest village is eight kilometres away on the western side of the volcano, which towers 1,783 metres (5,800 feet) over North Sulawesi province.
Soputan, one of Sulawesi's most active volcanoes, last erupted in 2008 with no fatalities recorded.
Indonesia sits on the Pacific "Ring of Fire" where continental plates collide, causing frequent seismic and volcanic activity. The archipelago nation is home to 129 active volcanoes, including 21 on Java. | Volcano Eruption | July 2011 | ['(AFP via France 24)'] |
Thailand's Constitutional Court dissolves the People's Power Party , the Thai Nation Party and the Neutral Democratic Party due to voter fraud and bans party leaders including the Prime Minister of Thailand Somchai Wongsawat from participating in politics for five years. A new party, Puea Thai is to be formed and a vote on a new PM is expected on 8 December. , | A Thai court has ruled that PM Somchai Wongsawat must step down over election fraud, a ruling he has accepted.
His governing People Power Party and two of its coalition partners have been ordered to disband and the parties' leaders have been barred from politics.
But it is unclear if the ruling ends a months-long political crisis, since other coalition MPs have vowed to form another government under a new name.
There are unconfirmed reports of a deal to open an airport closed by protests.
Anti-government protests at Bangkok's main Suvarnabhumi international airport, and the smaller Don Mueang airport, have stranded tens of thousands of travellers, bringing the country's important tourism industry to a standstill.
Agreement was reached to resume cargo flights from Suvarnabhumi on Tuesday, and a leader of the anti-government protesters was reported to say that passenger flights would be allowed as well.
Protesters angry at the decision demonstrate outside court, while those occupying the airports celebrate
Officials said the airport would be closed to passenger flights until 15 December, reports the BBC's Quentin Somerville at Suvarnabhumi.
Both airports have been occupied by the anti-government People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) since last week.
Just hours before the constitutional court's ruling, an anti-government protester was killed at Don Mueang airport, the country's domestic hub, in a grenade attack.
'Political standard'
PAD supporters accuse Mr Somchai's administration of being corrupt and hostile to the much-revered monarchy, and want the entire government to resign.
They also accuse Mr Somchai of being a proxy for his brother-in-law, exiled former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
Mr Somchai accepted the court's verdict, saying he was now "an ordinary citizen".
Earlier on Tuesday, a protest by hundreds of red-shirted, pro-government supporters forced the constitutional court to move its final hearing to Bangkok's administrative courthouse.
After fewer than three hours in session, the head of the nine-judge panel, Chat Chonlaworn, announced that the court had found the People Power Party (PPP), the Machima Thipatai party and the Chart Thai party guilty of vote-buying, and unanimously agreed to disband them.
Dozens of the PPP's executive members, including Mr Somchai, were also found guilty of personal involvement and banned from politics for five years.
Judge Chat said that he hoped the ruling would "set a political standard".
Outside the court, where a large crowd of pro-government activists had gathered after learning of the relocation, there was a furious reaction.
Prime Minister Somchai's supporters accused the judges of sabotaging democracy and going against the people's will.
One former minister said members of the PPP who had escaped the political ban imposed on its leaders would regroup and form another coalition government.
"The verdict comes as no surprise to all of us," Jakrapob Penkair told the Reuters news agency. "But our members are determined to move on, and we will form a government again out of the majority that we believe we still have."
Other PPP members said they would seek a parliamentary vote for a new prime minister on 8 December.
Under the constitution, the disbanded parties are legally allowed to re-form under different names and form a new coalition, says the BBC's Jonathan Head in Bangkok.
Divisions exposed
The court's ruling will provoke anger throughout the heartland of the government's supporters in the north and north-east, says our correspondent.
The ruling may not appease the PAD, especially if the governing coalition reforms under a new leadership without fresh elections being held.
Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play. Thailand has been in political turmoil since former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was ousted in a military coup in 2006.
The PAD - a loose alliance of royalists, businessmen and the urban middle class - claims that the government is corrupt and hostile to the monarchy.
They also accuse it of being a proxy for Mr Thaksin, who remains very popular among Thailand's rural poor.
Fresh elections at the end of 2007 failed to resolve the crisis, when a party made up of former allies of Mr Thaksin returned to power.
Mr Somchai's predecessor as prime minister, Samak Sundaravej, was thrown out of office in September, after being found guilty of violating conflict of interest rules by appearing in a television cookery programme.
Protesters occupied a central government complex for more than three months, only leaving on Monday to join the demonstrations at the airports.
Shortly after the constitutional court's ruling on Tuesday, the government announced it was postponing a summit of the Association of South-East Asian Nations, due for mid-December, until March. | Government Job change - Resignation_Dismissal | December 2008 | ['(PPP)', '(For Thais)', '(BBC)', '(Forbes)'] |
The Duterte administration suspends more Philippine mines for violating environmental regulations. | MANILA (Reuters) - The Philippines will suspend more of the country’s mines for violating environmental regulations after already halting operations at 10 sites, the mining minister said on Monday, as the government wrapped up a seven-week review.
The Southeast Asian nation, the world’s top nickel ore supplier, launched a review of the country’s 40 metallic mines on July 8. Eight of the 10 suspended so far produced nickel ore, and the closures and the risk of more mines being shuttered lifted nickel prices to a one-year high last month.
Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Regina Lopez declined to say how many more mines will be suspended but told Reuters that “there will absolutely be more suspensions”.
“All the suspensions are absolutely due to environmental reasons, and my particular interest is the wellbeing of the community, that’s my benchmark,” Lopez said in a text message.
“There will be large-scale mines to be suspended,” she told reporters later at a congressional hearing, without disclosing any names.
Three-month nickel on the London Metal Exchange was trading just above $10,000 a tonne on Monday, up about a third from February’s $7,550, its lowest since 2003.
Instead of this week as she had said earlier, Lopez said the additional mine suspensions will be announced next week.
“The audit is done. And it’s important to say that even as we suspend mines, we have put up an area development program. The commitment is in any suspended mines the people there will not lose work,” she said at the congressional hearing.
‘GAPING OPEN HOLES’
Lopez’s stance on mining is backed by President Rodrigo Duterte, who has previously warned miners to strictly follow tighter environmental rules or shut down, saying the nation could survive without a mining industry.
“We have had mining in this country for over a hundred years. And until now we don’t even have one rehabilitated mine site, not one,” Lopez said in the text message.
“Just gaping open holes, destroyed rivers, children with brain disease, so very sad,” she said, referring to sick children in the province of Marinduque, where a 1996 tailings leak at Canadian-owned Marcopper Mining Corp’s copper mine contaminated rivers.
Miners have claimed that the government’s environmental crackdown is a “demolition campaign” against them and have sought a meeting with Duterte.
The Philippines is the top nickel ore supplier to China, shipping 34 million tonnes in 2015.
| Government Policy Changes | September 2016 | ['(Reuters)'] |
Political activists Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, of the Russian band Pussy Riot, are given amnesty less than three months before the end of their sentences. They had been convicted of "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred". | Both jailed members of Russian punk band Pussy Riot, whose incarceration sparked a global outcry, have been released under an amnesty law.
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina dismissed the amnesty as a publicity stunt before the Sochi Winter Olympics in February.
They both promised to continue their vocal opposition to the government.
The women were jailed in August 2012 after performing a protest song in Moscow's main cathedral.
The act was seen as blasphemous by many Russians, and was condemned by the Orthodox Church.
But their conviction for "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred" was criticised by rights groups, anti-Putin activists and foreign governments.
The amnesty passed last week aimed to free some 20,000 prisoners.
And in a separate move, President Vladimir Putin pardoned former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who was once Russia's richest man, on humanitarian grounds.
He was freed after more than 10 years in prison for fraud and tax evasion and has since promised to stay out of politics. Both Pussy Riot members said their anti-government stance had not softened, and both promised to form a human-rights group to fight for prison reform.
Tolokonnikova shouted "Russia without Putin" as she emerged from a prison hospital in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk.
The 24-year-old said her time in jail had not been wasted, adding: "I became older, I saw the state from within, I saw this totalitarian machine as it is.
"Russia is built on a penal colony. That is why it is so important to change the prison system in order to change Russia."
Alyokhina, released in the city of Nizhny Novgorod, 400km (280 miles) east of Moscow, told Russian TV that the amnesty was "a profanation".
"If it were possible, if I had had a choice, I would have stayed in prison without a doubt," she said.
They were due to be freed in March.
But the amnesty law covered women who had children to look after. Both women have children, and so were freed early.
They were convicted after performing an obscenity-laced song called Punk Prayer in Moscow's Christ the Saviour cathedral in February 2012. The song was heavily critical of the Orthodox Church's support for the president, calling on the Virgin Mary to "throw Putin out". A third Pussy Riot protester, Yekaterina Samutsevich, was also jailed, but was released on appeal in October 2012. Charges against 30 people arrested while taking part in a Greenpeace protest at a Russian Arctic offshore oil rig may also be dropped later this week under the amnesty law.
The group - mostly foreign activists - have been charged with hooliganism.
| Famous Person - Commit Crime - Release | December 2013 | ['(The Guardian)', '(BBC)', '(The New York Times)'] |
Voters in the English constituency of Barnsley Central go to the polls for a by–election with Dan Jarvis of the Labour Party being elected with a strong swing in his favour. | Labour have won the Barnsley Central by-election, while the Lib Dems slipped to sixth in the South Yorkshire seat.
UKIP, the Conservatives, the BNP and an independent all finished ahead of the Lib Dems, who came second in the seat in last May's general election.
Winning candidate Dan Jarvis said it sent a message to the coalition but Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg said people should not "write off" the party.
UKIP reacted to coming second by saying they were "the winners" in the poll.
The by-election was caused by the conviction of former Labour MP Eric Illsley for dishonestly claiming parliamentary expenses.
Illsley - who quit as an MP in January - held Barnsley Central with a majority of just over 11,000 in last year's general election and 47% of the vote, with the Liberal Democrats in second place.
But the MP resigned his seat after pleading guilty to falsely claiming £14,000 in parliamentary expenses. He was later jailed for a year.
Labour got 14,724 votes in the by-election, extending their majority slightly to 11,771, but the turnout fell to 36.5%, compared with 56.4% at the last general election.
Labour took 60.8% of the vote, UKIP's Jane Collins 12.19%, the Conservatives' James Hockney 8.25%, the BNP's Enis Dalton 6.04%, Independent Tony Devoy 5.23% and the Liberal Democrats' Dominic Carman 4.18%.
Mr Carman lost his deposit as the party's share of the vote fell from 17.2% in the 2010 general election to 4.1%. He said: "The voters here in Barnsley have given me and the Liberal Democrats a kicking. We can take it."
Reacting to the result, Mr Clegg said there had been an "abysmally" low turnout and all the parties had been left to "pick up the pieces".
He told Sky News that he had no doubt people would seek to "write off" the Lib Dems on the basis of a single result. "We have proved them wrong in the past and we will prove them wrong again," he said, adding that the party was committed to continuing to work hard to clear up the "economic mess" the government had inherited.
Mr Jarvis, a 38-year-old former soldier who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, said the people of Barnsley Central were sending the "strongest possible message" to David Cameron and Nick Clegg.
"Your reckless policies, your broken promises and unfair cuts are letting our country down," he said. "I grew up in Margaret Thatcher's Britain. I remember how angry it made me feel. Whole communities abandoned to unemployment, public services run down, talents wasted, opportunities taken away.
"Thatcher was wrong then and Cameron is wrong now."
UKIP leader Nigel Farage welcomed the party's performance - which saw it nearly double its share of the vote. "We are the winners tonight," he said. "We have come from nowhere to come second in this election."
The by-election is only the second since the coalition government took power last May, the other being January's contest for Oldham East and Saddleworth which Labour also won comfortably.
BBC political correspondent Ross Hawkins said the result would be a real concern for the Lib Dems ahead of May's English council elections although it remained to be seen whether the slump in their support was a one-off or a sign of a wider trend. | Government Job change - Election | March 2011 | ['(BBC)'] |
Six men are indicted by a federal grand jury in the failed plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. | More than two months after their arrests, six men wereindicted late Wednesday on charges they plotted to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and possibly hold her for ransom or leave her in the middle of Lake Michigan, according to testimony and court records.
A federal grand jury concluded there is enough evidence to bind thesuspects over to trial in U.S. District Court on one count of kidnapping conspiracy, which carries a maximum prison sentence of life. This was the last day that the empaneled grand jury could deliver an indictment. Both sides had agreed to extend the deadline for prosecutors to secure an indictment due to the enormity of the case and the large volume of documents.
While the indictment did not add any new charges, more could beadded down the road in what is known as a "superseding" or new indictment.
However, one new detail that did surfacein the indictment is that one of the suspects allegedly instructed his cohortsin an encrypted video message that "if they encountered police during a reconnaissance, they should give the officers one opportunity to leave, and kill them if they did not comply."
Prosecutors allege that the suspects were part of a bigger group of 14 anti-government militants who were angry about the restrictions stemming from the pandemic, and wanted to harm Whitmer over Michigan's stay-at-home orders.
Whitmer was never harmed. The plot never materialized as a paid informant and undercover agents were embedded in the group and tracked their movements.
Defense lawyers have maintained that their clients were not part of any real plot to harm anyone, andthat they were merely engaged in puffery and tough talk.
Indicted are:
"The object ofthe conspiracy was to unlawfully seize, confine, kidnap, abduct and carry
away, and hold for ransom and reward, or otherwise, the Governor of the State of Michigan," states the indictment filed in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids.
As of late Wednesday, defense lawyers for the indicted suspects could not be reached for comment.
Prosecutors allege that the defendants planned the kidnapping scheme and communicated on social media, through text messages and held training exercises in Ohio and Michigan. In preparation for the abduction, the indictment states, the men practiced building and detonating explosives, and conducted surveillance of Whitmer's vacation home.
The planning started on June 6, when Fox and Croft. Jrmet in Dublin, Ohio to discuss anti-government actions, including the kidnapping of stategovernors, and recruiting like-minded individuals to their cause.
Weeks later, at an anti-lockdown rally outside the Capitol in Lansing, they met Garbin - a leader of a so-called militia group called the Wolverine Watchmen. Fox invited Garbin and other Wolverine Watchmen to meet him in Grand Rapids.
Over the next several weeks, multiple meetings and conversations were held among the suspects, whopracticed combat tactics, including assaulting motor vehicles using semiautomatic assault rifles and live ammunition.
It was on Aug. 9 that Fox actually proposed kidnapping the governor to the group, the indictment states, alleging the others agreed and were careful not to get caught.
On Aug. 29, Foxconducted a daytime surveillance of the Governor’s vacation home, and drew a map on which he noted how far the house was from police first responders. To slow down police, Garbin allegedly suggested blowing up a bridge near the Governor's home so that law enforcement couldn't get to the scene.
OnSept. 12, Fox, Croft Jr., Garbin and Franks conducted a nighttime surveillance of the Governor’s vacation home and a nearby public boat ramp, using two-way radios and a night-vision scope. On the way to the vacation home, Fox and Croft stopped to inspect them underside of a highway bridge near the vacation home for a place to mount an explosive.
Unbeknownst to the group, a paid informant and undercover federal agent were embedded in the group and had been tracking theirmoves.
The plan fizzled on Oct. 7, when four of the suspects traveled to an undisclosed location in Ypsilanti to meet up with an associate who was supposed to collect their down payment on explosives and other supplies. Instead, FBI agents were there waiting and arrested them. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | December 2020 | ['(Detroit Free Press)'] |
A military truck collides with a bus carrying members of the National Guard of Ukraine in Ukraine, killing 12 soldiers and injuring 20 others. | At least 12 servicemen in eastern Ukraine were killed and more than 20 injured when military trucks collided with their bus in bad weather, police and local media say.
They said the accident happened late on Monday in an area where the army is fighting pro-Russian separatists.
Authorities have urgently appealed for blood donations to treat the wounded.
Local media reports said that those killed in the bus crash were members of the National Guard.
"During a rotation of volunteers and servicemen in the area of anti-terrorist operations on January 5, military trucks and a bus collided in bad weather conditions," a police statement said. No other details of the accident were released.
Sporadic shelling between Ukrainian forces and separatists in the east has been reported despite a ceasefire. Ukraine and the West accuse Russia of sending heavy weapons and troops to help separatists in eastern Ukraine following the overthrow of pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014.
Nearly 5,000 people have been killed in the conflict, which has also led to a deterioration in relations between Russia and the West.
Russia admits that "volunteers" have gone to the east, but denies boosting the rebel ranks with regular troops and hi-tech equipment. It accuses the Ukrainian government of indiscriminate shooting in a "punitive" military campaign there.
| Road Crash | January 2015 | ['(BBC)'] |
The High Court of Kuala Lumpur rules that Malaysian Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim has a case to answer on sodomy charges. , | After 59 days of court hearing which began early last year, the Kuala Lumpur High Court has today found a prima facie case against Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim and ordered him to enter his defence.
Earlier today, the Jalan Duta court complex was under tight security as Anwar supporters arrived as early as 4.30am and gathered at the Federal Territory mosque which is adjacent to the court complex, to show their support for the opposition leader and PKR de facto leader.
Party supporters were at the mosque this morning for a
solat hajat
(special prayers) to seek divine intervention in the court case.
Some came as far as Anwar’s constituency of Permatang Pauh in Penang and there was also a bus filled with supporters from Gopeng, Perak.
Police presence outside the court complex was stronger than usual as Anwar's supporters milled outside the building.
Anwar, 64, has been charged with sodomising his former aide Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan, 25, at the Desa Damansara condominium on June 26, 2008.
If found guilty under section 377B of the Penal Code, Anwar could face a jail term of not less than five years and a maximum of 20 years.
High Court judge Mohamad Zabidin Mohd Diah took almost two hours in reading his judgment in which he said the prosecution has
established a prima facie case
and therefore Anwar's defence must be called.
LIVE REPORTS
7.36am:
There are hundreds of Pakatan Rakyat supporters in the lobby of the court complex. Some of the supporters are also seen at the Wilayah mosque and at the nearby food stalls for breakfast.
8.05am:
All foreign press representatives are already here.
The courtroom can fit about 75 people in the public gallery. Judging by the number of people queuing outside the courtroom on the fifth floor of the building, it appears that all the passes have already been taken up.
8.11am:
The police ban Pakatan supporters from entering the court building. A few police officers are stationed at the entrance to check those seeking to enter the building. They have to show court documents before be granted permission to enter.
All bags are inspected and journalists are not allowed to bring cameras into the court complex.
8.17:
Some 200 supporters outside the court complex shout ‘reformasi’, ‘hancur Najib’, ‘hancur BN’, ‘tangkap Najib, siasat Rosmah’, ‘tolak fitnah’ for five minutes.
Later packets of ‘nasi lemak’, wrapped in Umno-owned
Utusan Malaysia
newspaper, are distributed to the crowd (
right
).
Many of the supporters sit on the floor and have a short prayer before enjoying the nasi lemak. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | May 2011 | ['(Malaysiakini)', '(BBC)'] |
Police fire tear gas near the presidential palace where demonstrators have gathered. | Tear gas was fired near the presidential palace in Jakarta on Thursday (Oct 8) afternoon, where demonstrators have gathered to protest against the new Job Creation Law.
A large crowd of people took to the streets on the third day of heated protests over the omnibus job creation law passed on Monday which they said would favour businesses and investors at the expense of the workers.
Chaos erupted at 2pm when the protesters tried to breach a police barricade guarding the West Merdeka Street, where key government offices are located.
They hurled rocks and the police responded by firing tear gas, sending them scrambling to safety. A police outpost was set on fire.
Some protesters burned tyres, vandalised bus stops and dismantled partitions of a construction site while others were seen smashing bricks and concretes into smaller pieces to be hurled at the police.
At 4pm, more tear gas was fired as police tried to push protesters back from their original positions.
This sent some protesters fleeing as police sirens blared in the distance.
Earlier, more than 1,000 demonstrators protested near the parliament complex in Jakarta at noon.
The protesters arrived on motorcycles and immediately clogged Jakarta's Gatot Subroto street, but they were blockaded by hundreds of police officers armed with tear gas launchers and full combat gear.
A standoff ensued with some protesters shouting at the police officers, demanding them to open their barricade. Others chanted "long live workers", among other slogans, while honking and revving their motorcycles.
After a 10-minute standoff, the protesters agreed to move to the nearby Jakarta Convention Centre.
They disbanded about 40 minutes later after the police ordered them to leave on the reason that the protest had violated the physical distancing rule to stop the spread of COVID-19.
Elsewhere, there were numerous media reports of similar protests staged across the country which ended in violence.
There were also reports of hundreds of arrests made, including those who tried to breach police barricades and defied orders to disperse.
On Thursday morning, heavy security presence was seen near the parliament complex and around the presidential palace, with thousands of heavily armed officers in riot gear and armoured vehicles standing by. Streets and roads surrounding the two locations have also been barricaded with razor wires and concrete barriers.
Police have also deployed hundreds of officials to Jakarta's border areas to prevent people from outside of Jakarta from joining the protests.
Mr Iyut Bastcho of the Independent Labour Unions Confederation told CNA on Thursday afternoon that many demonstrators were stranded as police have completely shut off access from Cikarang, an industrial area 20km east of Jakarta, to the capital.
He expressed his disappointment that the Bill was passed on Monday despite widespread rejection.
"(Indonesian President) Jokowi still has the chance to do the right thing and veto the law and stop it from being enacted.
"He should listen to people's wishes. But we are pessimistic that he would do that," he said.
Moving forward, Mr Bastcho said the unions would consider challenging the law at the Constitutional Court.
"We have challenged the old labour law 13 times and some (attempts) were successful. And the old law is better than the new law. So we are optimistic that the Constitutional Court will repeal the law or some of the articles which hurt our rights as labourers," he said.
The Jakarta police arrested 450 people in the Thursday protests.
Jakarta police spokesman Yusri Yunus told CNA that about 20 of them received a positive result for their COVID-19 rapid tests and have to be quarantined.
"Jakarta is still under the PSBB (large-scale social restrictions). We have to disband them. We cannot afford another cluster. Jakarta is already recording 1,000 cases daily," he said on the police's decision to fire tear gas at the protesters.
Mr Yunus said the police believed that the individuals arrested were not students nor labourers, but school kids and the unemployed who infiltrated the protests to create chaos and unrest.
"We do not know if they were mobilised or paid. We do not know what their motivation was in joining the protests," he said. | Protest_Online Condemnation | October 2020 | ['(CNA)'] |
Investigations into a far-right organization whose members were arrested in Germany three days earlier reveal a plot, inspired by the Christchurch mosque shootings in March 2019, to carry out simultaneous, large-scale attacks on mosques across the country during prayers. | Muslim communities in Germany have called for more police protection after the arrest of members of a rightwing extremist group that is believed to have been plotting large-scale attacks on mosques around the country.
Twelve men who were arrested following police raids on Friday had been planning attacks using semi-automatic weapons on worshippers during prayers in 10 German states, said to have been inspired by those carried out in New Zealand last year, according to a government spokesman.
Investigators had been following the men for months, monitoring their conversations and online activity, after suspecting them of having formed a terror group.
They eavesdropped on a meeting in North Rhine-Westphalia earlier this month in which the alleged ringleader, 53-year-old Werner S, outlined the group’s concrete plans for “commandos” to attack Muslims in small communities across the country. Two of the men were elected to acquire weapons, and all members were expected to contribute towards a 50,000 (42,000) fund to finance the operation.
German prosecutors spoke of the planned attacks as “mosque massacres” inspired by the attacks on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in spring 2019, in which 51 people were killed by a gunman.
According to the men’s discussions, the attacks were intended to provoke revenge attacks and to evolve into a civil war, authorities said. Four of the arrested men are being treated as suspected terrorists, eight as accomplices, including an administrative police clerk.
The plot came to light after a police informer managed to infiltrate the group.
Bjrn Grünewlder, the interior ministry spokesman, said while there was relief that the plot had been foiled, he was alarmed by the speed in which the group had formed. “It’s shocking what has come to light here, and that there are cells which appear to have become radicalised in a very short length of time,” he said.
Angela Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert, insisted the government was committed to protecting religious groups. “It is the task of the state and naturally of this government, to protect the free practice of religion in this country, regardless of what religion that might be,” he said.
“Anyone practising their religion in Germany within our legal framework should be able to do so without being endangered or threatened,” Seibert added.
Police had raided homes of the would-be attackers early on Friday morning, aware that they might already have acquired weapons.
An attack last June on Walter Lübcke, a conservative local politician who had spoken out in defence of refugees, and the October attack on a synagogue in the eastern city of Halle have made German authorities increasingly aware of the threat of rightwing extremist crime.
Police are watching the activities of 53 men and women associated with the extreme right, who they say are capable of carrying out violence. In 2016, it was 22.
Der Spiegel reported that the group had formed last autumn, the majority of them meeting at an old saw mill in Baden-Württemberg, where the discussion focused on weaponry and how to obtain it. Werner S, who was nicknamed Teutonico by the group, tried to recruit like-minded men who he said had to be “intelligent, hard, brutal and fast”.
He talked about wanting to build an underground army, modelled on the so-called Freikorps or free corps the irregular German military volunteer units, which existed from the 18th century but were at their most powerful in the early 1900s fighting on behalf of the government against Soviet-backed German communists during the Weimar Republic.
Police investigators said to what extent the men just talked, and to what extent their intentions might have been realised, would be revealed during their investigation.
Among the finds during the raids was a 9mm pistol and ammunition at Werner S’s house. At other properties they seized homemade egg-shaped hand grenades, axes, crossbows, spiked maces and several knives. The group had intended to acquire “slam guns” as used by the antisemitic attacker in Halle. In their discussions, according to Spiegel, the men had used the codeword “electro-scooters” to describe the weapons, and referred to the accompanying munition as “batteries”.
The chairman of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany, Aiman Mazyek, said the planned attacks were “very alarming” and called for more security at the country’s mosques. He told the Berlin daily Taz: “Without state protection, the situation is getting ever more dangerous. What are the security authorities waiting for?”
Mohammad Dawood Majoka, a spokesman for the Ahmadiyya Muslim community, called for an “increased attentiveness by the police”. Zekeriya Altu, a spokesman for Ditib, the umbrella organisation for a large number of mosques in Germany, said the arrests highlighted “the seriousness of the situation … the point of no return is getting ever closer,” he said. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | February 2020 | ['(The Guardian)'] |
The Islamic State reportedly seizes control of the Iraqi city of Ramadi after the retreat of government forces. | The Iraqi city of Ramadi has fallen to Islamic State (IS) after government forces abandoned their positions, officials say.
The police and military made a chaotic retreat after days of intense fighting.
But the US refused to confirm the capture, saying the situation was "fluid and contested" and it was too early to make "definitive statements".
Ramadi is the capital of Iraq's largest province, Anbar, and is just 70 miles (112km) west of Baghdad.
A statement purportedly from IS said its fighters had "purged the entire city". It said IS had taken the 8th Brigade army base, along with tanks and missile launchers left behind by troops. A very well-placed source in the Anbar governor's office told the BBC Ramadi was now under the full control of Islamic State, and all government troops had withdrawn. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi had ordered troops to stand their ground, saying he was deploying Shia militia to the city. But an army officer told the BBC that most troops had retreated to a military base in the city of Khalidiya, east of Ramadi.
Government troops were running out of ammunition and could not repel the massive onslaughts by IS, he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Footage posted on social media showed military vehicles speeding away from Ramadi, with soldiers hanging off the sides.
Reports said Iraqi forces fled following a series of suicide car bomb attacks on Sunday.
Four almost simultaneous explosions hit police defending the Malaab district in southern Ramadi. Later, three more suicide bombers drove explosive-laden cars into the gate of the provincial military headquarters, the Anbar Operation Command, officials said.
Earlier, Mr Abadi called on pro-government forces to "hold their positions and preserve them and not allow Daesh (IS) to extend to other areas in Ramadi".
"There is continuous air cover that will help ground troops there hold their positions while waiting for support from other forces and the Popular Mobilisation Units," he said, referring to the umbrella group for Shia militias.
The militias played a key role in the government's recent recapture of the city of Tikrit from IS, but pulled out of the city following reports of widespread violence and looting. The loss of Ramadi represents a very serious setback for the government, and Iraqi officials are alarmed, the BBC's Ahmed Maher reports from Baghdad. However, the Pentagon said that, while IS had the advantage, there was still fighting in the city.
"We're continuing to monitor reports of tough fighting in Ramadi and the situation remains fluid and contested. It is too early to make definitive statements about the situation on the ground there at this time," said spokeswoman Maureen Schumann, quoted by AFP.
Anbar province covers a vast stretch of the country west from the capital Baghdad to the Syrian border, and contains key roads that link Iraq to both Syria and Jordan.
IS reportedly controls more than half of Anbar's territory.
The deputy head of Anbar council, Faleh al-Issawi, told the BBC that more than 500 people had been killed in the last two days of fighting in and around Ramadi, including policemen who had run out of ammunition, and civilians caught in the crossfire.
Some 8,000 people have been displaced over the same period, according to the International Organisation for Migration.
| Armed Conflict | May 2015 | ['(BBC News)'] |
Four people are arrested over a bus bombing in Matalam, the Philippines, that killed 10 people on Saturday. | COTABATO CITY, Philippines (UPDATE) Police arrested here on Saturday four suspects in the bus bomb attack in Matalam, North Cotabato, that killed 10 passengers and injured dozens others.
A raiding team, mostly agents of the police Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, collared four men at about noontime in a house in Shariff Nayon in Barangay (Village) Rosary Heights here, according to house owner Kasaluna Alimanan.
She said the raiders were led by a certain "police colonel Tagum" of the newly created "Task Force Rural," a group organized following the powerful blast that ripped apart a Rural Transit bus that was enroute to Tacurong City from Cagayan de Oro City on Thursday.
Senior Supt. Willie Dangane, the city police chief, refused to comment on the raid, which Alimanan claimed was staged without a court order.
Alimanan identified the arrested house occupants as Yasser Talusob, Allamin Samal, Ibrahim Alimanan and Abdul Alim Talusob, whom she claimed to be her relatives.
She said she would be filing a complaint before the Commission on Human Rights. Alimanan also alleged that CIDG agents forcibly seized the suspects from the house and threatened neighbors by firing a warning shot. She claimed the suspects were to be brought to the provincial police office in Kidapawan City which is directly in-charge of the investigation.
Lt. Col. Benjamin Hao, spokesperson of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, the suspects admitted being members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
“They all confessed to be members of the rebel group but when we verified with the rebel leaders they disowned them,” Hao told the Philippine Daily Inquirer by phone. Hao said a 16-year old suspect, who was earlier arrested by the police, claimed the four suspects ordered him to board the bus with the improvised explosive device. “Based on the revelation of (the suspect), he was tasked to carry and bring the bag that contained the bomb inside the bus,” Hao said. The rebel group, which has been talking peace with the government, denied having members involved in the bus bombing. Von Al Haq, spokesperson of the MILF, particularly disowned the four. “They are not members. We checked their names in our list but the results are negative,” Al Haq said. The Rural Transit bus was carrying more than 50 passengers when the explosion shook the rear part of the vehicle from the overhead compartment. An 81-mm mortar shell was used to make the improvised explosive device.
| Armed Conflict | October 2010 | ['(Philippine Inquirer)', '(Al Jazeera)'] |
California wants to schedule its primaries earlier than usual, possibly on March or Super Tuesday, to have much more influence in comparison to its weight and diversity and to help Californian candidates, such as Eric Garcetti and Kamala Harris. | Sen. Bernie Sanders during a campaign stop in Vallejo, Calif. ahead of California's June 2016 presidential primary. The state legislature is considering a bill to move the 2020 primary to March.
By springtime of 2016, it looked like California might have a decisive role in choosing the presidential nominee for a major party for the first time in several generations.
With the June primary approaching last year, Hillary Clinton toured the state, while Bernie Sanders spent nearly an entire month holding rallies and giving speeches. Meanwhile Donald Trump and his Republican rivals were building organizations in the state.
But by the time voters actually went to the polls, Clinton and Trump had already secured the nomination. For the sixth time in seven presidential campaigns, the nation's largest state wasn't relevant to the outcome of the primary.
"Our voters sit on the sidelines, almost every presidential election, and it's really disappointing," says Kim Alexander of the non-profit California Voter Foundation.
A proposal by Secretary of State Alex Padilla and authored by state Sen. Ricardo Lara, both Democrats, looks to change that. It would move California's primary from June to March, giving voters a head start in selecting nominees for president in 2020. It could also set off an arms race among states over which will vote earliest.
"We're the most populous state in the nation, the most diverse state in the nation, with the largest economy of any state in the nation," says Padilla. "We should have much more of a say in who the nominees for president are."
This is not a novel idea in California. The state has moved its primary to March, in 1996, 2000 and 2004, always for similar reasons. In 2008, the state held its presidential primary in February.
"It will encourage presidential candidates to campaign here and to debate and discuss issues and policies important to our people," former state Sen. Ron Calderon said in 2007, advocating for his bill to move the primary.
California Republican Party chair Jim Brulte says there are downsides to moving up — one reason the state has always come back to its traditional June election slot.
"Everything else gets backed up correspondingly," Brulte says. "Fundraising has to start earlier, organizational development has to start earlier. And then you have a huge gap from March until the November election."
Brulte also suggested moving the state's primary to March could benefit Sen. Kamala Harris, the state's junior U.S. senator who's been mentioned as a potential candidate.
Under the 2007 measure, California held two primaries the following year—the presidential primary in February, and then state races in June. Holding an extra election cost nearly $100 million more, and turnout in June was abysmal.
Still, on balance, Brulte also supports a single, consolidated early primary and as a member of the state legislature, he voted for it.
"You don't want a candidate just doing a drive by campaign in your state," Brulte says.
The last times California has moved its primaries, it did not have the effect lawmakers desired, says political scientist Josh Putnam, who writes the blog FrontloadingHQ about presidential party rules and primary elections.
"The times in the past where they have moved up, it's been a super-crowded week," Putnam says.
Smaller states have moved up their primaries so they don't get left behind —and then Putnam says candidates still avoid California.
"You know, it's not a situation where you can just drop-in on California in a week's time and campaign across a very big area, and a very diverse and populous state on top of that," Putnam says. "It's expensive to do that."
Should the California measure become law, Putnam expects a new round of jockeying among states for the right to go ahead.
Kim Alexander, the voter advocate, says even so, the state has little choice but to shift its primary.
"It's no guarantee, but if we keep our primary in June, we are guaranteed that we're not going to have a voice," she says.
The measure is expected to come up for final votes before the Legislature adjourns for the year on Friday. | Government Job change - Election | September 2017 | ['(NPR)', '(CNN)'] |
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