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Three suspects appear in court in Apia, Samoa, where two of them enter not-guilty pleas and the other a guilty plea on charges of conspiracy to assassinate the Prime Minister of Samoa. The defendant who pleaded guilty is due to be sentenced on September 30. | One of three suspects facing charges of conspiring to assassinate Samoa's Prime Minister has pleaded guilty while two co-defendants have entered not guilty pleas on a charge of conspiring to commit murder.
Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegoai Photo: RNZ Pacific /Autagavaia Tipi Autagavaia
Taualai Leiloa, Malele Atofu Paulo and Lema'i Faioso Sione appeared in court together for the first time today.
Leiloa, from Laulii village, is accused of conspiring to commit murder with Talalelei Pauga, who resides in Australia, to assassinate Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi.
Police claim this is related to a time period between April and August this year.
Leiloa, who pleaded guilty, will be sentenced on the 30 September but a hearing date for Mr Paulo, also known as King Faipopo, and Mr Sione has yet to be confirmed.
The suspects' application to be released on bail will be heard next week.
They are currently in custody in a high security cell at Tanumalala prison.
Copyright © 2019, Radio New Zealand
Two men charged with conspiracy to assassinate Samoa's Prime Minister have pleaded not guilty to the crime.
Two men have appeared in the Samoan Supreme Court on a joint charge of conspiring to murder relating to the alleged plot against the Prime Minister, Tuila'epa Sa'ilele Malielegaoi.
A Samoan village has backtracked on a move to banish a villager allegedly involved in a plot to assassinate Prime Minister Tuila'epa Sa'ilele Malielegaoi.
In Samoa, two people will be facing charges relating to an alleged conspiracy to assassinate Prime Minister Tuila'epa Sa'ilele Malielegaoi.
In Samoa the sentence of Malele Atofu Paulo also known as King Faipopo on a charge of making false accusations and defaming Prime Minister Tuila'epa Sa'ilele Malielegaoi, has been set aside. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Sentence | September 2019 | ['(RNZ)'] |
Incumbent Taoiseach Leo Varadkar offers his resignation to President Michael D. Higgins, but will remain as Taoiseach in a caretaker capacity until the formation of a new government. | The resignation comes after party leaders were unable to secure enough votes in parliament to become prime minister.
Thursday 20 February 2020 23:36, UK
Ireland's Prime Minister Leo Varadkar has resigned following an inconclusive result of the country's recent general election.
Mr Varadkar, who has been in power since 2017, tendered his resignation on Thursday evening during a 45-minute meeting with the country's president Michael Higgins, RTE reported.
A government statement announcing the resignation said Mr Varadkar and his government would remain in their roles and continue duties as normal until successors are appointed.
It comes after no single party secured an outright majority in a general election earlier this month, with Mr Varadkar's Fine Gael party coming third behind Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein.
Talks are currently under way to try to form a coalition government, but the two main parties are so far refusing to govern with Sinn Fein, which has seen a surge of support at the ballot box.
Ireland's lower house of parliament, the Dail Eireann, has now been adjourned until March after a sitting earlier on Thursday ended with no party leaders able to gather enough votes to be elected PM or Taoiseach.
As the sitting came to an end, Mr Varadkar said: "The responsibility is now on all of us to provide good government and, indeed good opposition, because that's what the people have every right to expect.
"The government will continue to carry out its duties until a new government has been appointed. I will likewise continue as Taoiseach until the election of that new government." | Government Job change - Resignation_Dismissal | February 2020 | ['(Sky News)'] |
Kent County, Michigan special prosecutor Bill Forsyth charges William Strampel, the former dean of the Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine, in the United States District Court for the Western District of Michigan in East Lansing, Michigan, with misconduct in office, fourthdegree criminal sexual conduct, and two counts of willful neglect of duty in connection with the Larry Nassar scandal. | That's clear if the accusations are true about William Strampel, the former dean of the Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine.
Strampel wascharged Tuesday in East Lansing District Court with misconduct in office,fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct and two counts of willful neglect of duty in connection with the Larry Nassar scandal.
As Nassar's boss, Strampelappears to have turned a blind eye to years ofsexual misconduct involvingNassar, arenownedsports medicine doctor who abused hundreds of student athletes and Olympic gymnasts inthe guise of medical care.
Worse, the allegations against Strampel suggest he did more than look the other way when it came to Nassar's decades-long pattern of sexual assault. He might also have been a willing participant in the abuseof young women at MSU.
Bill Forsyth, a retired Kent County prosecutor, was hired in January by state Attorney General Bill Schuette to serve asaspecial prosecutor toinvestigate howNassar was able to prey on girls and young women on the East Lansing campus for so long. He has built an investigativeteam that includes the Michigan State Police and several assistant state attorneys general.
The first thing Forsythdid was ask MSU to provide Strampel's computer, cell phone, work-issued calendar and documents,he told journalists Tuesday at a packed news conference in Lansing.
"Before MichiganState was able to respond, ... we received a credible tip with respect to Dean Strampel,whichwe felt to be time-sensitive,"Forsyth said. "In response to that, we issued a search warrant andtook them."
Discovered on Strampel's computer was apornographic video of Nassar performing a so-called treatment on a young female patient.
Investigators also found "approximately 50 photos of bare vaginas, nude and semi-nude women, sex toys and pornography. Many of these photos are what appear to be 'selfies' of female MSU students, as evidenced by the MSU clothing and piercings featured in multiple photos. Forensic examination shows someone attempted to delete some of the photos contained in a file folder on the computer's hard drive."
Three femalemedical school students also told investigators of instances when Strampel assaulted them, solicited nude photos or harassed them.
"As dean of the college, Strampel abused the authority of his public office, through threats and manipulation, to solicit, receive and possess pornographic images of women who appear to be MSU students in violation of his statutory duty as a public officer," the affidavit reads.
And that's a big, big problem for one of the state's largest and most prestigious public universities, which nowfaces lawsuits brought by dozens of girls and women who say MSU knew or should have known Nassar was sexually abusing them, and failed to protect them.
According to the affidavit, this case appears to offer evidence that someone high up in the university's administration knew about Nassar. And not only did he fail to take action to protect women and girls, he may have engaged in similar behavior.
In April 2014, when a patient complained about Nassar's sexual misconduct during a treatment session in his MSU office, the university's Office of Inclusion and Intercultural Initiatives opened a Title IX investigation of the complaint.
Strampel told Nassar he couldn't treat patients during the investigation, but a few months later and before the investigation was complete Nassar was back to work.
Strampel authorized it, saying, "If you do have a patient scheduled, please be sure you have someone in the room with you at all times."
Following the 2014 Title IX investigation of Nassar's conduct, Strampel put some measures in place to protect patients, requiring that Nassar have another person (medical resident or nurse) in the room when performing a procedure "close to a sensitive area" and that he avoid skin-to-skin contact in those regions of the body. "Should this be absolutely necessary, the procedure will be explained in detail with another person in the room for both the explanation and procedure," Strampel wrote in an e-mail to Nassar.
However, Strampel didn't enforce or monitor those protocols involving Nassar, the court documents show. Strampelalso didn't alert other employees at the Sports Medicine Clinic about the new requirements, Forsyth's affidavit suggests.
Forsyth noted the investigation into wrongdoing at MSU continues, though he didn't offer any clues about whether more charges are likely.
It's also unclear whether MSU will face sanctions from the NCAA, although the latest allegations against Strampel certainly won't help the university's case.
The NCAA launched aninvestigation in January ofthe MSU athletic department's handling of claims of Nassar's abuse. Its board of governorsenacted a new policy earlier this monthrequiringpresidents, athletic directors and Title IX officers fill out formsthat show they are educating staff members and students aboutsexual violence.
And perhaps that's the only bit of good news in this ordeal:The Attorney General's Office andthe NCAA, are taking sexual assaulton campus moreseriously.
They're talking about it, and they'retaking steps to ensure that people understand all the foxeswill face consequences for what they knew and failed to act upon.
How to report a tip
As part of the ongoing investigation of Michigan State University, the state Attorney General's Office has established a tip line for people to come forward with information regarding William Strampel and his alleged criminal behavior. Tips may be called in to 844-324-3374. For details, go to mi.gov/MSUinvestigation. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | March 2018 | ['(Detroit Free Press)'] |
Sixteen survivors use anti-terror legislation to sue Google, Twitter and Facebook, alleging the firms "provided support and resources" to the Islamic State. | Sixteen survivors of the deadly 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting are suing tech giants Google, Twitter and Facebook, claiming the companies "provided support and resources to … ISIS," according to a court document released Thursday.
The suit, filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, claims the companies "have knowingly and recklessly provided the terrorist group ISIS with accounts to use its social networks as a tool for spreading propaganda, raising funds and attracting new recruits."
"This material support has been instrumental to the rise of ISIS and has enabled it to carry out, or cause to be carried out, numerous terrorist attacks," the lawsuit claims.
Attorneys for the Pulse survivors are using the Anti-Terrorism Act, enacted in 1992 and amended in 2016 by the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, to pursue the suit. The complaint is based on the companies providing “the infrastructure which provides material support to ISIS” and not on the content of ISIS’s social media posts.
"Despite extensive media coverage, complaints, legal warnings, petitions, congressional hearings and other attention for providing its online social media platforms and communications services to ISIS, prior to the Orlando attack, (the) defendants continued to provide these resources and services to ISIS and its affiliates, refusing to actively identify ISIS Twitter, Facebook and YouTube accounts, and only reviewing accounts reported by other social media users," according to the lawsuit.
"The explosive growth of ISIS over the last few years into the most feared terrorist group in the world would not have been possible" without the companies, the suit claimed.
The plaintiffs seek damages and a declaration from the court that the companies have and are continuing to violate the Anti-Terrorism Act.
The man behind the June 12, 2016, attack at Pulse nightclub, Omar Mateen, was killed by law enforcement officers on the night of the attack. The shooting left 49 people dead and 58 others injured.
Mateen’s wife, Noor Salman, was found not guilty last week on charges of obstruction of justice and providing material support to a terrorist organization. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | April 2018 | ['(WSB-TV)'] |
At least 29 miners are killed in a gas leak in a colliery in China's Guizhou province. | Fifty-one people were rescued from the mine and another six were missing, Xinhua news agency said. Seven miners were being treated in nearby hospitals.
Officials are investigating the leak and have suspended operations at all county mines pending safety checks.
Two of those hospitalised were reported to be in a serious condition. A rescuer said that chances of finding the six missing miners alive were slim. According to Xinhua, the Qunli mine was a licensed colliery with an annual production of 300,000 tons. China's mines are among the most dangerous in the world. About 5,000 deaths are reported every year but independent groups say the annual death toll is much higher. Rising demand for energy and fuel means that owners and local officials often ignore safety issues in pursuit of profits. In August, 181 miners were killed when floodwater poured into a mine in Shandong province in the east of the country. The government warned recently that as mines increased output to meet demand in the winter months, more accidents were likely. | Gas explosion | November 2007 | ['(BBC)'] |
More than 140 people are killed after torrential rains leading to heavy floods sweep through parts of the south Russian Krasnodar region. | Flash floods caused by torrential rain have swept the southern Russian Krasnodar region, killing 144 people, officials say.
The floods, the worst there in living memory, struck at night, reportedly without warning.
TV pictures showed people scrambling onto their rooftops to escape.
President Vladimir Putin has flown over the region by helicopter and has had emergency talks with officials in the worst-hit town of Krymsk.
Most of those who died were in and around Krymsk, a town of 57,000 people. But nine deaths were reported in the Black Sea resort of Gelendzhik with a further two in the port town of Novorossiysk.
Russian TV showed thousands of houses in the region almost completely submerged and police said many of the victims were elderly people who had been asleep at the time.
"Our house was flooded to the ceiling," Krymsk pensioner Lidiya Polinina told the Agence France-Presse news agency.
"We broke the window to climb out. I put my five-year-old grandson on the roof of our submerged car, and then we somehow climbed up into the attic."
Dozens of people are reportedly missing, and there are fears that the death toll will rise further. Emergency teams have been sent from Moscow by plane and helicopter. Crude oil shipments from Novorossiysk have been suspended.
Regional governor Alexander Tkachev tweeted after flying over the affected area that there was "something unimaginable" going on in Krymsk.
He said, quoted by the Russian Itar-Tass news agency, that "no-one can remember such floods in our history. There was nothing of the kind for the last 70 years". Some users of social media networks in Russia said Krymsk looked like it was hit "by a tsunami". Others accused the authorities of not telling the whole truth about the disaster.
The head of the liberal opposition Yabloko party, Sergei Mitrokhin, said on his Twitter feed that local activists had blamed the ferocity of the flood on the opening of sluice gates at a reservoir.
But Krasnodar's regional administration dismissed the allegation as "absolute nonsense", Ria news agency said.
The Krasnodar-Novorossiysk motorway was cut, and the transport system in the region is said to have collapsed.
In a statement, the Krasnodar authorities said altogether 13,000 people had been affected by the floods.
They have declared Monday a day of mourning.
Up to 1,000 rescuers are involved in searching for victims and evacuating survivors.
More than 7,000 Russian children were attending summer camps in the area and one of the camps was evacuated, Russian media reported.
"The floods were very strong. Even traffic lights were ripped out," regional police spokesman Igor Zhelyabin told AFP news agency, adding that evacuations were under way. Anna Kovalevskaya, who says she has relatives in Krymsk, told the BBC her family was caught unawares by the floods.
"The water started flooding in at 02:00 [22:00 GMT Friday]," she said.
"People were running out into the streets in their underwear and wrapping their children in blankets. People were only able to save their passports.
"There is no electricity and the shops are shut. Many people have lost everything and are in a state of panic."
The rains dumped as much as 28cm (11 inches) of water on parts of the Krasnodar region overnight, forcing many residents to take refuge in trees or on house roofs.
Oil pipeline operator Transneft said it had halted crude shipments out of Novorossiysk, but that its infrastructure in the port had been unaffected by the weather.
"Of course, we limited shipments, the port is located in the lower part of town, the whole landslide has moved towards it. As we speak, the rain has started again," spokesman Vladimir Sidorov told Reuters news agency.
In pictures: Southern Russia floods
| Floods | July 2012 | ['(BBC)'] |
Beji Caid Essebsi of the secularist Nidaa Tounes party wins Tunisia's presidential election. | Tunisian veteran politician Beji Caid Essebsi has won the presidential election with 55.68 percent versus 44.32 percent for his rival Moncef Marzouki, Monday’s electoral results showed.
“I will be president for all Tunisians,” the 88-year-old Essebsi said in a brief speech on state television.
Outside the Nidaa Tounes headquarters in the capital Tunis, several hundred jubilant supporters took to the streets to celebrate with flares and music, waving Tunisia’s red and white national flag and honking car horns.
“He’s the right man for the right time,” said government finance specialist Sana Ben Said at the Essebsi rally.
The election of Essebsi, whose party dominated legislative elections back in October, completes Tunisia’s democratic transition after the overthrow of its dictator in 2011.
Voting was largely pronounced free and fair with a participation rate of 60 percent, less than the nearly 70 percent in the previous round and legislative elections, the Associated Press reported.
In a short television address Marzouki accepted his defeat despite what he said were suspected vote irregularities, which he would not challenge.
Read Also: Meet Tunisia's two presidential contenders: Marzouki and Essebsi. “Dr Moncef Marzouki has congratulated Mr Beji Caid Essebsi for his victory in the presidential election,” Marzouki’s campaign manager, Adnene Mancer, wrote on his official Facebook page.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi also congratulated Essebsi for winning the presidency.
The European Union also congratulated Essebsi on his victory. “Tunisians have written a historic page in the country’s democratic transition,” EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said in a statement. Earlier, Essebsi's campaign team said initial indications showed he had won Sunday's run-off election by a clear margin over Marzouki, in an announcement that was contested by the rival campaign team of the incumbent president.
Preliminary official results have still to be released by election authorities. But his campaign manager Mohsen Marzouk said "indications" showed Essebsi had won the first free presidential election since the country's 2011 uprising.
He gave no details, but Tunisian parties often have observers at polling stations to observe preliminary counting.
But Marzouki’s campaign said the announcement was baseless.
Polls opened Sunday in the second round of Tunisia's first free presidential election, in the final leg of an at times bumpy four-year transition from dictatorship.
The voting was mired by violence early in the day when Tunisian troops killed a gunman and captured three others after they attacked soldiers guarding ballot papers for the country's presidential vote, the defense ministry said. The pre-dawn attack targeted a school in the central region of Kairouan where the ballot papers had been stored under army guard. "The vigilance of the soldiers and the swiftness of their response thwarted this operation and led to the death of a man armed with a hunting rifle and the arrest of three suspects," ministry spokesman Belhassan Oueslati told AFP.
Essebsi, a former parliament speaker under Ben Ali, won 39 percent of votes in the first round in November with current president Moncef Marzouki taking 33 percent of the ballots. Essebsi dismisses critics who say he would mark a return of the old regime stalwarts. He says he is the technocrat Tunisia needs after three messy years of the Islamist-led coalition government that followed the revolt. Marzouki, a former activist during the Ben Ali era, has painted an Essebsi presidency as a setback for the “Jasmine Revolution” that forced the former leader to flee the country into exile. But many critics tie Marzouki’s own presidency to the Islamist party’s government and its mistakes.
| Government Job change - Election | December 2014 | ['(Al Arabiya English)'] |
A bus carrying volunteers crashes into emergency vehicles responding to an earlier accident near New Orleans killing two, including the St. John the Baptist Fire District Chief, and injuring 43 more. | (Reuters) - A bus with an unlicensed driver spun out of control near New Orleans on Sunday, killing two people and injuring 41, while taking volunteers to help with Louisiana flood relief, officials said.
St. John the Baptist Fire District Chief Spencer Chauvin was among those killed in the early morning crash after the chartered bus slammed into him as he tried to help victims of another accident, Louisiana State Police spokeswoman Melissa Matey told reporters at a news conference.
Two other firefighters were injured in the crash, one critically, and a passenger in another vehicle struck by the bus died at the scene, the spokeswoman said.
The driver, who was unauthorized to drive a commercial vehicle, was in custody and would be booked on suspicion of negligent homicide, reckless driving and driving without a license, Matey said.
“All three firemen were thrown over the guard rail and into the water below,” Matey said.
The incident started when a speeding pickup truck spun out of control, bouncing from one side of the road to the other before coming to rest along the right lane and shoulder of Interstate 10 near the community of Laplace, about 25 miles (40 km) northwest of New Orleans, Matey said.
The firefighters and state police troopers were on scene to investigate when the bus, also out of control, slammed into the fire truck and a Toyota Camry, Matey said. Jermaine Starr, a passenger in the Camry, was pronounced dead at the scene.
It was not immediately clear why the bus driver, Denis Yasmir Amaya Rodriguez, 37, lost control.
Rodriguez, who is from Honduras, was in the United States illegally and Homeland Security officials are assisting the state in its investigation, Matey said.
The Acadian Ambulance Service said on Twitter it had taken 38 people to hospitals and that a second ambulance company had transported three to hospitals.
Matey said at the news conference that most of the injuries to the 24 people on the bus were minor to moderate.
The bus, filled with volunteers to help residents recover from massive flooding in Louisiana earlier this month, was traveling westbound on Interstate 10 when it crashed into the fire truck and another vehicle, the television station and other media reported.
As many as 60,600 homes were reported damaged or destroyed in flooding that ravaged 20 parishes, or counties, in the southern part of Louisiana. About 3,000 residents were still living in shelters as of Aug. 22, officials said last week.
Reporting by Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, California; Editing by Alan Crosby and Bill Trott
s
| Road Crash | August 2016 | ['(Reuters)'] |
in the North American National Hockey League Stanley Cup Finals, the Boston Bruins beat the Vancouver Canucks 8–1 in Game 3 with the Canucks leading 2–1 overall. | Boston Red Sox vs Toronto Blue Jays (Kids run the bases at Fenway), 09/07/2014, at Fenway Park ... Find Tickets
By Chad Finn, Globe/Boston.com Staff
The date marks not just his birthday -- he turned 46 years old yesterday, and looks like he could still deliver a Gordie Howe hat trick if his legs would allow it -- but also the anniversary of his trade from the Vancouver Canucks to the Bruins 25 years ago. The Canucks hold a 2-1 advantage in the series, but every ounce of momentum is with the Bruins heading into Game 4 Wednesday. Mark Recchi scored twice, including on the no-longer-maligned power-play for the second straight game, Brad Marchand scored a spectacular shorthanded goal (one of two on the night for the Bruins), and Tim Thomas stopped 40 shots as the Bruins put on a show that seemed possible entering the game only in the minds of their most optimistic fans. After losing two heartbreaking one-goal games to the Canucks in Games 1 and 2 in Vancouver, the Bruins battled their Final nemesis to a draw through the first period tonight. The night did not start well for the Bruins, who lost first-line forward Nathan Horton to injury at the 14:53 mark of the first period after a vicious hit by Canucks defenseman Aaron Rome that left Horton prone on the ice for nearly 10 minutes. Horton was taken to Mass General hospital, where he has movement in all of his extremities, but will be held overnight for observation. There was concern in the early going not only for Horton, but how he would be replaced in the Bruins' lineup since he has eight goals, including three winners, this postseason. But his teammates answered that question with a four-goal onslaught in the second period. Defenseman Andrew Ference started the scoring 11 seconds into the period -- coincidentally, it was 11 seconds into overtime Saturday that Alex Burrows scored to beat the Bruins in Game 2. Then it was the rejuvenated Rechhi on the power play at 4:22, Marchand's shorthanded goal at 11:30, and David Krejci punctuated the explosive second-period performance with his NHL-leading 11th goal of the postseason at 15:47. The Bruins continued the onslaught in the third period, scoring four more times on suddenly shaky Canucks star goalie Roberto Luongo, who stopped 30 of 38 shots. Daniel Paille (shorthanded), Recchi, Chris Kelly, and Michael Ryder (power play) did the scoring honors in the third for the Bruins, who gave Neely a heck of a present. Final score: Bruins 8, Canucks 1: And it's officially a series. Mark Recchi scored twice, six other Bruins found the net, and Tim Thomas made 40 saves as the Bruins clobbered Roberto Luongo and the Vancouver Canucks in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final tonight, 8-1. What a spectacular performance all-around by the Bruins, who scored twice shorthanded, twice on the power play, and gained all the momentum heading into Game 4 Wednesday. We'll be back with more momentarily. 19:29: Bruins 8, Canucks 1: Spoke too soon, Michael Ryder adds what we really think is the punctuation mark. Wonder if this is going to carry over for Luongo. 18:06, Bruins 7, Canucks 1: Chris Kelly adds what we think is the puntuation mark, beating Luongo again. Paille, who has played a spectacular game, made it happen. 17:39 third period, Bruins 6, Canucks 1: Mark Recchi gets his second goal of the night and third in two games. R-O-U-T. 13:53 third period, Bruins 5, Canucks 1: The Canucks get one back on a nice cross-ice feed from Raffi Torres to Jannik Hansen. File under: Too little, way too late. 11:38 third period, Bruins 5, Canucks 0: If there had been any question remaining, the rout is officially on. Daniel Paille scores his third of the postseason, breaking in shorthanded, fending off a pair of Canucks defensemen, and while sprawling head-first, slides the puck past Luongo. 11:16: If you're a Bruins fan, you couldn't have imagined Game 3 going any better than this. The lastest evidence: Milan Lucic pointing his finger in Alex Burrows's face after a scrum (daring him to bite it, perhaps? ), then Dennis Seidenberg and Ryan Kesler dropping the gloves and wrestling each other to the ground. Every one of the Bruins has shown up tonight. 10:00: Thomas smothers a Chris Higgins bid on a mini-breakaway. Brilliant night for the Bruins goalie. 9:11: Kesler off for boarding. Bruins will have a power play for 1:13 if they kill off the last 10 seconds of Thornton's penalty. 7:58: Starting to get a little feisty here. Daniel Sedin and Ference get 10-minute misconduct penalties, while Shawn Thornton is also hit with a 10-minute misconduct for roughing. His penalty will be served by Michael Ryder. Vancouver is 0 for 6 on the power play and down a Sedin. 6:49: Henrick Sedin gets his best look of the night after a turnover in front, but Tim Thomas blasts him out of the crease, and while he's down, Dennis Seidenberg gives him a sly tap of the stick. Seconds later, Daniel Sedin puts Andrew Ference in a brief chokehold, leading to a brief scrum. 5:16: Michael J. Fox draws a huge roar when he's shown on the scoreboard. At some point Canucks fans will catch on that the British Columbia native is a Bruins fan because of his friendship with Neely. 3:46: Thomas makes it look easy with a glove save on a Christian Ehrhoff one-timer. Thirty-four saves so far for the the Bruins netminder. 3:33: Chara and Alex Burrows both hit with unsportsmanlike conduct penalties. 2:50: Ryder sent off for roughing. Start of the third period, Bruins 4, Canucks 0: Roberto Luongo remains in net for the Canucks. Thought former BC netminder Cory Schneider might give Luongo the rest of the night off with a four-goal deficit. Second intermission: A couple of quick stats: Ryan Kesler is minus-3 for the Canucks and has been on the ice for all four goals. Hard to believe he's had a game this ineffective all season . . . With four goals in the second period, the Bruins finished one shy of the Stanley Cup Final record for goals in a period, set by the '42 Leafs, '73 Blackhawks, and '94 Canucks) . . . The Bruins have an 8-1 record when scoring the first goal this postseason . . . Seidenberg continues to lead the Bruins with 18:16 of ice time . . . the Bruins have 33 hits so far. They had 31 in each of the first two games. Ference leads the way in Canuck-bruising with six hits . . . Patrice Bergeron is 6 for 6 on faceoffs, while David Krejci is 5 for 6, but the Canucks have won 24 of 37 overall. End of second period, Bruins 4, Canucks 0: Well, if a Bruins fan drew up an ideal period of play, it would probably look quite a bit like that. Mark Recchi scores a power play goal, Brad Marchand scores a dazzling shorthanded goal, David Krejci scores his postseason-high 12th, and Andrew Ference gets it all started with an ice breaker that serves as a reminder why Vancouver doesn't entirely trust gold-medal-winning goalie Roberto Luongo. The Bruins dominated on special teams, Tim Thomas faced just enough challenges to keep sharp, and suddenly all the Canucks fans in Boston might be wonder if all that loot they shelled out to come here is worth it. The Canucks will begin the third on the power play for a minute and 36 seconds, while the Bruins will be looking to carry all of their momentum from the momentous second period into the third. 18:00 Marchand tangles with Ryan Kesler after the whistle, the first real confirmation tonight that Kesler is indeed on the ice. 17:36: Johnny Boychuk gets a four-minute double minor for high sticking the Canucks' Victor Oreskovich. A decent chance here for Vancouver to stem the tide. 17:15: Krejci is now the NHL playoff leader with 11 goals. 15:47, Bruins 4, Canucks 0: And the Bruins continue to pour it on. David Krejci gets his 11th goal of the playoffs, rifling a rebound from the right faceoff circle past a suddenly shaky Luongo. Krejci ended up with the rebound right on his stick after Luongo deflected a shot from the slot by Michael Ryder, who stickhandled into shooting position around a Canucks defenseman. Zdeno Chara also picked up an assist. The Canucks are outshooting the Bruins, 24-20, but make no mistake. This game has been all Bruins since Horton's injury. 11:30, Bruins 3, Canucks 0: . . . and Brad Marchand makes sure the Bruins keep the momentum with a sensational individual effort that will be on all the highlight packages at the end of the playoffs. Outmaneuvering two Canucks for the puck in the neutral zone, he reverses direction, flips the puck off the right boards past Edler, breaks in on Luongo and waits for him to commit before flipping the puck over his pads at the left post for his seventh goal of the playoffs. The Bruins' special teams have been spectacular tonight, and no play signifies that more than Marchand's play right there. 10:30: Lucic sent off for slashing. Bruins still have all the momentum. 8:22: Fantastic penalty kill by the Bruins, limiting Vancouver to just a couple of harmless shots while generating a couple of decent shorthanded chances by Gregory Campbell and David Paille. The energy in the building and on the ice is palpable right now. 8:10: Scoring change on the second goal. Recchi gets credit -- it's his fourth of the playoffs and second on the power play in the past two games -- while Ryder and Ference get the assists. So in a way, Ference picked up an assist while sitting in the penalty box. 6:22 Ference gets two minutes of solitary for tripping Alexandre Burrows. The Canucks are 0 for 1 on the power play so far. 4:22, second period, Bruins 2, Canucks 0: Who says the Bruins don't have a power play? The Bruins capitalize on Jeff Tambellini's hooking penalty at the 2:42 mark when Rich Peverley scores his third of the postseason. He punched the puck between Luongo's pads after taking a nice feed from Michael Ryder. The Bruins moved the puck nicely on that power play, with Mark Recchi also picking up an assist. 0:11, second period, Bruins 1, Canucks 0: If you had Andrew Ference as the player who would score first tonight, congratulations. The Bruins defenseman notched his third goal of the playoffs on a play that initiated when Canucks defenseman Alex Edler's pass trickled off his stick to David Krejci, who immediately broke in gloveside on Roberto Luongo. His shot richocheted around the boards to Rich Peverley -- replacing the injured Nathan Horton on the top line -- and he quickly fed Ference for a one-timer from just inside the blue line that wobbled past Luongo. What is it about goals 11 seconds into periods in this series, anyway? First intermission: A couple of quick stats: The Bruins lead the Canucks in hits, 15-14. Andrew Ference has three to lead the Bruins, while a trio of Canucks (Ryan Kesler, Raffi Torres, Jeff Tambellini) have two. Patrick Bergeron is 5 for 5 on faceoffs and David Krejci is 4 for 5, while Henrik Sedin is 0 for 4 for the Canucks, who have lost nine of 13. Dennis Seidenberg, who might be a robot, has played a Bruins-high 8 minutes and 43 seconds. Alex Edler leads Vancouver with 8:13 of ice time. This is the 10th time this postseason the Bruins have been held without a goal in the first period. They are 4-5 in those games. The Canucks are 4-0 this postseason after playing a scoreless first period, and are 7-3 in games in which they've entered the second period without a goal. End of first period, Bruins 0, Canucks 0: The big news of an eventful but scoreless first period is the injury to Bruins forward Nathan Horton, who has eight goals this postseason, including three winners. Horton was belted by Vancouver defenseman Aaron Rome at the 5:07 mark and had to be carted off the ice and taken to Mass General. The Bruins reported he is moving all extremities, posting the update on the scoreboard here at the Garden. How the Bruins replace him on the ice tonight remains to be seen. Michael Ryder took his place on the first line alongside Milan Lucic and David Krejci. The Canucks have outshot the Bruins, 12-7, but the hosts played a strong first period. Tim Thomas made two sensational saves near the 2-minute mark on Mason Raymond, and the Bruins' power play got six shots (all of them decent opportunities) on the 5-minute man-advantage for Rome's penalty. If they can play the final 40 minutes with the intensity of the first period, Bruins fans should feel good about their chances. | Sports Competition | June 2011 | ['(Boston Globe)'] |
Alexanda Amon Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh, detained in Syria on suspicion of beheading hostages for Islamic State, claim their right to a fair trial has been breached by the government of the United Kingdom stripping them of citizenship. | Bethany Haines speaks out after Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh claimed they will not get a fair trial.
The daughter of a British aid worker who was executed by Islamic State has said his alleged killers should be "left to rot in Guantanamo Bay".
Bethany Haines has been angered by claims from Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh that they will not get a fair trial after being stripped of their UK citizenship.
The jihadists, who are accused of being part of a death squad nicknamed "The Beatles" because of their British accents, slammed the Government's "illegal" decision in an interview on Saturday.
Mrs Haines' father David was killed by the IS cell and said Kotey and Elsheikh had shown "no remorse".
She added: "As for them saying they have been stripped of rights, well when they held my father for 18 months with his family not knowing whether he was dead or alive, they stripped him of his rights.
"In my opinion they should be given an orange jumpsuit and stripped of all the things they hold dear and left to rot in Guantanamo Bay."
The IS cell also killed American journalist James Foley in 2014.
His mother Diane said: "They deserve to be held in solitary confinement for the rest of their lives and held accountable for the pain they've inflicted."
Kotey and Elsheikh spoke to the Associated Press while being held captive in northern Syria after they were captured in early January in eastern Syria by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
The pair used the interview to hit out at the "audacity" of the UK Government for its decision to strip them of their British citizenship in February.
Although it was widely reported, officials have not confirmed or denied it was the case.
"The Beatles" IS cell is believed to have captured, tortured and killed hostages, including aid workers and journalists.
The group included Mohammed Emwazi - dubbed "Jihadi John" - who died in a 2015 drone strike in Raqqa.
The pair have not admitted to being involved in any hostage-takings or beheadings and said the allegations against them were media "propaganda".
However they did speak of their membership of Islamic State.
Kotey, from west London, said the killing of western hostages in Syria was "regrettable" and could have been avoided, adding that many people within IS would have disagreed with the killings.
He said there was "probably more benefit" in those captured being used as political prisoners.
"I didn't see the benefit in executing them," he said, before blaming Western governments for failing to negotiate and noting that some hostages were released for ransoms.
The cell is believed to have kept more than 20 Westerners hostage, and tortured and killed American, British and Japanese journalists and aid workers in 2014 and 2015.
As well as David Haines and James Foley, their victims included American journalist Steven Sotloff, US humanitarian worker Peter Kassig, and UK aid worker Alan Henning.
Elsheikh, from west London, travelled to Syria in 2012, initially to join an al Qaeda branch before moving to IS, according to US State Department documents, which said he "earned a reputation for waterboarding".
They also claim Kotey served as a guard for the IS cell and was "likely engaged in the group's executions and exceptionally cruel torture methods".
The men criticised the media over the "Beatles" allegations and said the claims were concocted as a pretext to kill them with drone strikes.
"No fair trial, when I am 'the Beatle' in the media. No fair trial," Elsheikh said, who added the loss of their citizenship meant they were now open to "rendition and torture".
He said: "Being taken to any foreign land and treated in anyway and having nobody to vouch for you.
"When you have these two guys who don't even have any citizenship... if we just disappear one day, where is my mum going to go and say where is my son?"
The capture of Kotey and Elsheikh has since sparked a debate about where they should be tried.
The US has called for the home countries of foreign jihadis to take their nationals back for trial.
However, the UK Government has signalled the pair should not be allowed back into the country.
Haras Rafiq, chief executive of the Quilliam Foundation, a counter-extremism think thank, told Sky News: "The Government is well within its rights to take away their citizenship.
"They both have nationalities from other countries, and as consistent with other crimes that other people have committed, the home secretary has taken away citizenships before without leaving people stateless.
"If you look at what they're actually saying about fair trial, and the fact that they claim Britain has the audacity to take away their citizenship, this stinks to me like a PR stunt."
Associated Press reporter Andrea Rosa, who interviewed the pair, told Sky News: "It was a bit confrontational I would say at the beginning, they would not speak or even answer our questions at the beginning."
He added: "Because I felt that they were like afraid of something, of an interrogation, they looked at us more as if we were like interrogators rather than journalists."
Mr Rosa continued: "But eventually it was all good and I think they were kind of also probably happy to be out of the prison for a while."
When asked if he questioned the pair about the horrific crimes are they accused of, Mr Rosa replied: "We asked those sorts of questions of course but they would not comment on anything like that. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | March 2018 | ['(Sky News)'] |
Tens of thousands of people are being evacuated in Serbia and Bosnia as heavy rains cause floods. | Boats sailed through the streets of a Serbian town on Friday on a mission to rescue people trapped by rising waters as the worst floods ever recorded swept through Serbia and Bosnia.
Some residents of Obrenovac, 30 kilometres south-west of the capital Belgrade, were stranded on the roofs of their homes, calling for help. Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said all 25,000 citizens would have to be evacuated.
At least five people have died in the unfolding disaster this week. Thousands have been evacuated from homes in central and western areas of Serbia and in neighbouring Bosnia.
Around 135,000 households were without power across Serbia and the government approved emergency electricity imports. Another 65,000 were without electricity in Bosnia.
"This is a catastrophe. Nature has never been so cruel to us," Serbian energy minister Aleksandar Antic said.
Reuters: Marko Djurica
The heaviest rains since records began almost 120 years ago have hit Serbia and Bosnia this week. Three people, including a rescue worker, drowned in Serbia. At least two villagers died in landslides near the northern Bosnian town of Bijeljina.
The deluge has made many hillsides unstable in the mountainous region. Several people were injured when houses were destroyed by a landslide on the edge of the Bosnian capital Sarajevo.
Bosnia's Centre for the Removal of Landmines warned that mines laid during the country's 1992-95 war could be moved by floods and landslides.
In Bosnia, an army helicopter evacuated a pregnant woman in labour from her flooded house in the town of Doboj and took her to hospital in the central town of Zenica. Low clouds and fog were making rescue efforts difficult.
In the village of Topcic Polje, near Zenica, a landslide devoured dozens of houses and water flooded the main road.
Villagers fled on foot along railway tracks with bags and babies in their arms.
"The people are walking to Zenica, all the roads are jammed, we are stuck here and there is no help from anyone," villager Asim Skopljak told Reuters by telephone from Topcic Polje. "There is no electricity and no drinking water."
Surges of high water were expected to reach the major rivers Sava and Danube later in the day and over the weekend, threatening thousands more people and roads, meteorologists in Serbia said.
Bosnia's central government appealed on Friday for international help. Russian emergency teams with rescue boats arrived in Serbia on Friday and were heading for Obrenovac to help with the operation there.
Israel, Turkey, Slovenia, Croatia, Austria and Luxembourg have pledged to send aid including expert teams, water pumps, helicopters and rescue boats.
The United States said it would send 13 motor boats needed for evacuations in Bosnia.
Poland also saw less severe flooding after the torrential rains across eastern Europe.
The road to the Slovak border crossing in the southern village of Leluchow was closed and dozens of houses on the bank of the river Poprad were inundated.
Some local trains were out of service, Poland's state railways PKP said.
News agency PAP reported that 21,000 people in the south had no electricity. 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.
| Floods | May 2014 | ['(ABC)'] |
Former United States President Bill Clinton is to receive urgent heart bypass surgery as early as Monday. He was admitted to New York Presbyterian Hospital on Friday after an angiogram showed lesions in multiple coronary arteries. | NEW YORK (CNN) -- Former President Bill Clinton said he feels "a little scared, but not much" as he waits to undergo heart bypass surgery scheduled for early next week.
Clinton was in New York-Presbyterian Hospital on Friday after complaining the previous day about chest pain and shortness of breath.
He called in to CNN's "Larry King Live" from the hospital.
Clinton seemed to be in good spirits as he joked with King.
"Let me just say this, Republicans aren't the only people who want four more years here," Clinton said.
Clinton is at the hospital with his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, and daughter, Chelsea.
"I feel really blessed, you know, because a lot of people who have a heart attack never get any advance warning," Clinton said.
Earlier, Clinton's office issued this statement:
"The former president went to Northern Westchester Hospital yesterday afternoon after experiencing mild chest pain and shortness of breath. Initial testing was normal and he spent the night at home in nearby Chappaqua, New York. After undergoing additional testing this morning at Westchester Medical Center, doctors advised he should undergo bypass surgery."
Clinton described how he decided to see a doctor.
"I just had a feeling a couple of days ago I had to have it checked, when I finally got some tightness in my chest. And I hadn't done any exercise. That's the first time that ever happened to me, and we did this angiogram and found out I had blockage that was too significant to open and put a stent in. We had to do the whole surgery," Clinton said.
Senator Clinton said during an afternoon press conference that there would be no further reports on his health until after the surgery.
"He's going to be fine," she said. "He's going to be back in fighting form before very long."
She said her husband was grateful for the "outpouring of concern." She also asked that anyone wishing to offer support should send a personal message through his Web site, clintonfoundation.org.
Clinton said he is familiar with the procedure and isn't as frightened "as I thought I'd be."
"I guess I'm a little scared, but not much," he said. "I'm looking forward to it. I want to get back -- I want to see what it's like to run five miles again."
The Clintons had been scheduled to tour the New York State Fair in Syracuse on Friday afternoon.
Senator Clinton cut the fair visit short. She said the former president had expected to join her, but after the tests, his doctors had advised him to have the bypass surgery "as soon as he could."
President Bush and his Democratic rival, Sen. John Kerry, both wished Clinton well from the campaign trail.
"He is in our thoughts and prayers. We send him our best wishes for a swift and speedy recovery," Bush told an audience in West Allis, Wisconsin.
"Every single one of us wants to extend to him our best wishes, our prayers and our thoughts," Kerry said during a rally in Newark, Ohio. "And I want you all to let a cheer out and clap that he can hear all the way to New York, all the way to New York."
Clinton, 58, has been in good health with no known history of heart problems. A medical report in January of 2001 showed he had an above-normal cholesterol level and borderline high blood pressure.
During his presidency, Clinton had a reputation for eating fast-food meals. "Some of this is genetic, and I may have done some damage in those years when I was too careless about what I ate," Clinton said Friday night. "So for whatever reason, I've got a problem, and I've got a chance to deal with it." Since leaving office, Clinton has lost weight, and he told talk show host Oprah Winfrey that he had gone on The South Beach Diet.
Sunday, Clinton delivered what was described as an energetic and forceful speech at the historic Riverside Church in Manhattan.
Clinton was on the campaign trail Monday in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, stumping for Rep. Joe Hoeffel, the Democratic U.S. Senate candidate running against incumbent Arlen Specter. (Special report: America Votes 2004, Pennsylvania's races)
And Wednesday, Clinton attended a book signing in New Orleans, Louisiana.
During that appearance, Clinton was asked about his weight loss after leaving office.
"I work out a lot, and I went on The South Beach Diet for a while, that helped, but the combination -- I have a wonderful man that comes in two or three times a week and we work out," he said. "You know when you get older you really got to watch it. It gets harder. The older I get, the harder it is [to watch my weight]." | Famous Person - Sick | September 2004 | ['(AP)', '(CNN)'] |
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis declares a state of emergency in anticipation of Hurricane Dorian, which is expected to make landfall in the state within days. | Hurricane Dorian is expected to swell to a Category 4 hurricane, and its powerful winds could begin bashing the Florida coast as early as Saturday night.
By Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs
| Hurricanes_Tornado_Storm_Blizzard | August 2019 | ['(WOFL)', '(The New York Times)'] |
A car bombing at Kabul University kills eight and injures dozens. | KABUL (Reuters) - A powerful bomb blast outside the gates of Kabul University in the Afghan capital on Friday killed at least eight people and wounded 33, as students and lawyers waited to take an examination, officials said.
Taliban militants are carrying out almost daily attacks, despite reported progress in efforts by the United States to broker an end to Afghanistan’s nearly 18-year war.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Friday’s blast. On Thursday Taliban insurgents set off two car bombs outside police headquarters in the southern city of Kandahar, killing at least 12 and wounding more than 80.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said he was not aware of any Taliban involvement in Friday’s attack.
Health ministry spokesman Wahidullah Mayar said there were students among the 33 injured taken to hospital after the blast, which a student at the university campus said occurred while some were waiting to take a law exam.
An eyewitness and an interior ministry official said a vehicle caught fire after a bomb stuck to its underside exploded.
“The blast happened when hundreds of students were entering the campus. We were scheduled to appear for the law exam but the blast shook all of us,” said Karima Wardak, a student at the Kabul University.
A police team defused a second bomb placed near the explosion site, Kabul police spokesman Faramarz Firdaws said.
Also on Friday, a roadside mine killed five people who were riding in a car in central Ghazni province.
Reporting by Abdul Qadir Sediqi; Writing by Rupam Jain; Editing by Clarence Fernandez, Christian Schmollinger and Raissa Kasolowsky
| Armed Conflict | July 2019 | ['(Reuters)'] |
Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai H.H. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum met today Queen Elizabeth II of Britain on the sideline of the English Derby at Epsom Racecourse. | Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai H.H. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum met today Queen Elizabeth II of Britain on the sideline of the English Derby at Epsom Racecourse. Present were H. H. Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, HRH Prince Haya bint Al Hussein, wife of Sheikh Mohammed and H.H. Sheikh Majed bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Chairman of Dubai Culture and Arts Authority.
Queen Elizabeth praised the Al Maktoum for their engagement in the development of the British horse racing sports through their strong participation in these meetings especially the English Derby.
The Queen commended Sheikh Mohammed's role in advancing the world horse race championships. Sheikh Mohammed's role in building Meydan, one of the world's largest integrated horse-racing facilities, has also drawn praise from the Queen who said the Meydan racecourse is a wonderful gift to the world horse racing sports. | Diplomatic Talks _ Diplomatic_Negotiation_ Summit Meeting | June 2010 | ['(uaepm.ae)'] |
NBC News announces that it has terminated their employment of Matt Lauer after a female employee filed a complaint about him conducting "inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace". | Matt Lauer’s Rise and Fall at ‘Today’ By Ellen Gabler, Jim Rutenberg, Michael M. Grynbaum and Rachel Abrams
The fast-moving national reckoning over sexual harassment in the workplace toppled another television news star on Wednesday when NBC fired Matt Lauer, the co-host of its most profitable franchise, “Today,” after an allegation of inappropriate sexual behavior with a subordinate.
The downfall of Mr. Lauer, a presence in American living rooms for more than 20 years, adds to a head-spinning string of prominent firings over sexual harassment and abuse allegations. NBC News said it had decided to dismiss its star morning anchor after a woman met with network executives on Monday to describe her interactions with him.
“While it is the first complaint about his behavior in the over 20 years he’s been at NBC News, we were also presented with reason to believe this may not have been an isolated incident,” Andrew Lack, the NBC News chairman, wrote in a memo to staff.
On Wednesday, NBC received at least two more complaints related to Mr. Lauer, according to a person briefed on the network’s handling of the matter. One complaint came from a former employee who said Mr. Lauer had summoned her to his office in 2001, locked the door and sexually assaulted her. She provided her account to The New York Times but declined to let her name be used.
She told The Times that she passed out and had to be taken to a nurse. She said that she felt helpless because she didn’t want to lose her job, and that she didn’t report the encounter at the time because she felt ashamed.
On Thursday, Mr. Lauer issued an apology, expressing “sorrow and regret for the pain I have caused.”
News of Mr. Lauer’s sudden downfall shook the television world, where he had established himself as one of the most powerful men in his industry. Even President Trump — who himself has denied multiple allegations of sexual misconduct — weighed in, seizing on Mr. Lauer’s firing to denounce NBC News’s coverage and call for other senior figures at NBC News to be ousted.
Mr. Lauer, 59, joins an ignominious group of media figures felled by the recent spate of harassment claims, including the studio mogul Harvey Weinstein, the comedian Louis C.K., the CBS host Charlie Rose and the political journalist Mark Halperin. Journalists at several news outlets had recently conducted interviews with former and current NBC employees about Mr. Lauer’s behavior, alerting the network to potential articles about him. But it was the formal complaint on Monday that prompted NBC to take action.
In an editorial meeting on Wednesday, Mr. Lack said that Mr. Lauer’s involvement with the woman who made the complaint began while they were in Sochi, Russia, to cover the Winter Olympics in 2014, and that their involvement continued after they returned to New York, according to two people briefed on the meeting.
Other “Today” hosts learned of Mr. Lauer’s termination around 4 a.m. on Wednesday; staff members were told just minutes before the show went on the air at 7 a.m. Savannah Guthrie, Mr. Lauer’s co-anchor, was visibly shaken when she delivered the news to viewers, describing Mr. Lauer as “a dear, dear friend” and adding that she was “heartbroken for the brave colleague who came forward to tell her story.”
Soon after announcing the dismissal, Ms. Guthrie gripped the hand of Hoda Kotb, who was rushed in as an emergency substitute host. The network did not name a replacement for Mr. Lauer.
Ari Wilkenfeld, a civil rights lawyer with the firm Wilkenfeld, Herendeen & Atkinson in Washington, said on Wednesday that he represented the woman who had made the initial complaint to NBC, but declined to identify her. In a statement provided to The Times, he praised the courage of his client and said:
“My client and I met with representatives from NBC’s human resources and legal departments at 6 p.m. on Monday for an interview that lasted several hours. Our impression at this point is that NBC acted quickly, as all companies should, when confronted with credible allegations of sexual misconduct in the workplace.”
The woman met with reporters from The Times on Monday, but said she was not ready to discuss it publicly.
Lauer, O’Reilly and Rose: The Fall of Male Media Stars Besides his “Today” perch, Mr. Lauer was a genial co-host of events like the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade and the Winter and Summer Olympics, and he conducted countless interviews with celebrities. He also contributed to NBC News’s political coverage, although he was widely panned after a debate last year in which he appeared to go easy on Mr. Trump while asking aggressive questions of Hillary Clinton.
The “Today” show caters to — and relies on — an overwhelmingly female audience, and Mr. Lauer is part of a cast that presents itself as a tight-knit family. Behind the scenes, however, the on-set environment could sometimes resemble a boys’ club, particularly in the years before Comcast completed its acquisition of NBCUniversal in 2013, according to interviews with more than half a dozen former staff members. Jokes about women’s appearances were routine, the former employees said. One former producer recalled a director saying he “wanted some milk” in reference to one woman’s chest and making inappropriate comments about women over an audio feed with multiple people listening. Two former employees recalled colleagues playing a crude game in which they chose which female guests or staff members they would prefer to marry, kill or have sex with.
The former employees spoke anonymously because they feared their career prospects in the industry could be harmed.
Other current and former staff members, however, described a more professional work culture, and said they did not witness harassment. An NBC spokeswoman declined on Wednesday to comment on the “boys’ club” characterization, but pointed out that 13 of 19 senior-level female producers at “Today” had been promoted since 2015.
The woman who described the encounter in 2001 with Mr. Lauer in his office told The Times that the anchor had made inappropriate comments to her shortly after she started as a “Today” producer in the late 1990s.
While traveling with Mr. Lauer for a story, she said, he asked her inappropriate questions over dinner, like whether she had ever cheated on her husband. On the way to the airport, she said, Mr. Lauer sat uncomfortably close to her in the car; she recalled that when she moved away, he said, “You’re no fun.”
In 2001, the woman said, Mr. Lauer, who is married, asked her to his office to discuss a story during a workday. When she sat down, she said, he locked the door, which he could do by pressing a button while sitting at his desk. (People who worked at NBC said the button was a regular security measure installed for high-profile employees.)
The woman said Mr. Lauer asked her to unbutton her blouse, which she did. She said the anchor then stepped out from behind his desk, pulled down her pants, bent her over a chair and had intercourse with her. At some point, she said, she passed out with her pants pulled halfway down. She woke up on the floor of his office, and Mr. Lauer had his assistant take her to a nurse.
The woman told The Times that Mr. Lauer never made an advance toward her again and never mentioned what occurred in his office. She said she did not report the episode to NBC at the time because she believed she should have done more to stop Mr. Lauer. She left the network about a year later.
On Wednesday, the episode in Mr. Lauer’s office was reported to NBC News after the woman told her then-supervisor, who still works at the network. The woman said an NBC human resources representative had since contacted her.
The woman, who was in her early 40s at the time, told her then-husband about the encounter, which The Times confirmed with him in a phone call. The couple was separated at the time, and later divorced. She also described it to a friend five years ago, which the friend confirmed to The Times.
NBC News has suffered other black eyes, as well. Last year, the network reviewed 2005 footage from the NBC-owned show “Access Hollywood” that revealed Mr. Trump bragging about grabbing women’s genitalia. But the footage was released first by a competitor, The Washington Post, embarrassing the NBC news division.
In recent weeks, NBC News was criticized for passing on an exposé of Mr. Weinstein by an MSNBC contributor, Ronan Farrow. Mr. Farrow’s reporting later appeared in The New Yorker, and helped set off the current wave of revelations about abuses by powerful men in media and entertainment.
| Government Job change - Resignation_Dismissal | November 2017 | ['(CNN)', '(The New York Times)'] |
Seven defendants are found guilty of abusing children in the Casa Pia child sex abuse trial in Lisbon, Portugal. | Six Portuguese men have been jailed after they were found guilty of sexual abuse at a state-run children's home.
Carlos Silvino was given an 18-year sentence after confessing to 639 charges relating to the abuse of children or procuring them for others.
His co-defendants, including the former TV presenter Carlos Cruz, were jailed for between five and seven years.
The boys, now aged between 16 and 22, were all residents at the Casa Pia children's home in the capital, Lisbon.
The panel of three judges in the case spent most of the day reading the full verdict in each of the hundreds of sexual abuse accusations.
After ruling that the vast majority of the charges had been proven, they handed down guilty verdicts to six of the seven people on trial.
Silvino, a 54-year-old former driver for Casa Pia who abused boys on hundreds of occasions and later offered them to other men for cash, was convicted on all charges.
Cruz and Joao Ferreira Diniz, a doctor, were each given seven-year sentences, while retired ambassador Jorge Ritto got six years and eight months.
Hugo Marcal, a lawyer, was sentenced to six years and two months, while former Casa Pia governor Manuel Abrantes was sentenced to five years and nine months.
But Gertrudes Nunes, a woman who was alleged to have allowed her house in Elvas to be used by the abusers, was acquitted on all charges.
The six had denied the allegations and said their lives had been ruined.
"This is one of the most monstrous judicial mistakes in Portuguese history," Cruz said, dismissing the verdict as built on "lies and manipulation" and part of a "vendetta" against him.
One of the victims, Bernardo Teixeira, hailed the sentences.
"It was very good to hear our names as a proven fact, and to know that really somebody believes us, principally the panel of judges," he told RTP Internacional TV.
"People said we were lying, that it was all made up, and so it is very healthy and positive for us finally to have proof that we were not lying."
Another victim, Bernardo Tavares, said: "It is difficult, but... when we hear our name linked to proven facts this gives us more strength."
"There is anxiety, tensions are running high in there, our seats are probably the hottest because we have waited many years for this day. It is one of the days we have most looked forward to, the day when finally justice will be done and when finally those who have committed crimes will be sentenced for them."
Pedro Namora, a lawyer and former pupil who helped expose the scandal in 2002, earlier said: "I hope this day will allow us to show the country that the boys have told the truth from the start."
"These men have to be condemned, they committed barbarous crimes against humanity."
The case is one of the longest-running in Portuguese history, lasting more than five years, with testimony from more than 800 witnesses and experts.
During the trial, the 32 victims gave gruesome testimony about being raped by adults in dark cellars, cars and secluded houses.
"Some of the accounts could be considered pornographic," the lead judge, Ana Peres, told the courtroom on Friday.
One of the victims, now in his early 20s, was so seriously abused that he was now incontinent, a lawyer told the BBC.
Almost all of them identified their abusers by pointing them out in the courtroom.
However, the BBC's Sarah Rainsford in Lisbon says it is thought that there may be many other victims who are still too frightened to speak out.
The abuse at Casa Pia is said to have started in the mid-1970s, but was not discovered until 2002, when the mother of a boy placed at a state-run home in Lisbon said he had been abused by staff there.
Casa Pia, or Pious House, is a 230-year-old institution which cares for about 4,500 orphans and underprivileged children through a network of homes and schools.
This case is not the only one spawned by the investigation that began in 2002.
Seven other trials have already run their course, with some of those found guilty themselves former Casa Pia pupils.
In March 2006, a court ordered the Portuguese government to pay 2m euros (£1.66m) in compensation to 44 former Casa Pia residents, saying it had failed in its duty to protect them.
| Famous Person - Commit Crime - Sentence | September 2010 | ['(BBC)'] |
Three people are shot dead and dozens are injured by riot police clashing with at least 20,000 protesters gathered outside the prime minister's office in Tirana, Albania. Deputy prime minister Ilir Meta has resigned after becoming embroiled in a fraud scandal and protesters have called for the rest of the government to resign. | Tirana, Albania (CNN) -- At least three protesters were shot dead from close range in a clash with police Friday outside the Albanian prime minster's office, a hospital official said, an escalation of some of the worst politically fueled tension to wrack the southern European nation in 14 years.
The face-off also left 23 demonstrators hurt, including three in critical condition with head injuries at Tirana Military Hospital, according to its emergency unit chief, Sami Koceku. He said that at least 17 police officers also injured in the confrontations were at that hospital, one of the city's main medical facilities.
A report from state-run network TVSH had a slightly higher injury toll from hospitals throughout Tirana, Albania's capital and most populated city. It put the count at 35 demonstrators and 27 police.
The opposition Socialist Party claimed, on its website, that around 250,000 people gathered outside Prime Minister Sali Berisha's office to implore him to resign amid allegations of corruption and fraud related to the June 2009 election.
Some of the protesters threw stones and Molotov cocktails at some of the more than 1,000 police who were at the scene, ostensibly to provide security. Authorities responded by using water cannons in an attempt to disperse the crowds.
Afterwards, Albania's current president, Bamir Topi, issued a statement urging all political parties to resume talks soon and not to reopen old wounds -- referring to a 1997 at-times violent crisis that also targeted Berisha, who was then the nation's president.
Topi urged "calm and self-restraint" by all Albanians, as well as support for the police and governmental institutions. The U.S. Embassy in Tirana issued a like-minded statement on Friday, expressing "deep regret that (the protest) was not peaceful" and calling on all sides "to abstain from provocations." Rather, the embassy pushed for "constructive dialogue and compromise to resolve the existing political differences."
And the European Union, which has been considering adding Albania as a member, also "urgently" appealed to "all political forces ... to engage in a constructive (dialogue) and to mobilize the countries' energies" to resolve the political stalemate.
"Demonstrators are instruments of freedom of expression and peaceful assembly for citizens," said EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and Stefan Fule, commissioner for enlargement and the European neighborhood policy, in a statement. "We deplore that today's event has spiralled into violence."
Yet key players in Friday's incident, and in the long-brewing political friction in Albania, showed no signs of backing down Friday.
Berisha directly blamed the casualties on his chief political rival, Socialist Party leader Edi Rama, whom he accused of scheming to have demonstrators take over the prime minister's office, parliament and key ministries, state-run ATA news agency reported. Rama "will take full responsibility," Berisha told reporters, adding that Friday's actions "will not be accepted, but punished."
For his part, Rama -- who is also the mayor of Tirana -- accused government forces of going overboard, and blamed police for provoking protesters by using the water tanks and tear gas.
Earlier this month, in an interview quoted in a Socialist Party newsletter, Rama reiterated long-standing claims that Berisha's ruling Democratic Party had rigged the most recent election.
"Are there any Albanians who have not yet understood that (Berisha) stole the elections in order to rob Albania?" he said. "That was clear to us from the very beginning, but by now it has become clear to every reasonable Albanian."
The country's supreme court determined that the elections were orderly, and the ballots were burned by the Central Election Commission. The Socialist Party boycotted Albania's parliament between September 2009 and February 2010, according to the U.S. State Department. Efforts since then to resolve the long political stalemate have been unsuccessful, with opposition parties continuing to push hard against the Democrats in alleging corruption. On Friday, Berisha guaranteed that there would "be no early elections" and that "general elections will be held in 2013," a rebuttal to the timeline being pushed by the opposition.
The tensions escalated in the past two weeks, after a former government minister sent the media a secret recording that allegedly documented an illicit back-room deal.
In the video, then-Deputy Prime Minister Ilir Meta asked Dritan Prifti, who at that point was Albania's economic minister, to arrange for irregular contracts and have the government hire hacks who belonged to his small party, the Socialist Movement for Integration. Meta later replaced Prifti, a member of that same party, as economic minister. He resigned from that position last week, even as he claimed that the tape featuring him and Prifti had been manipulated with bits edited in and out, out of context.
Still, the opposition largely has focused its wrath on Berisha. This is not his first time under fire: In 1997, for instance, angry mobs protested against Berisha -- then the nation's president -- after voting irregularities and costly Ponzi schemes plunged Albania into near-anarchy and led to snap elections.
The animosity, and harsh rhetoric, have heightened in recent weeks. In addition to increasingly pointed, accusatory barbs between Rama and Berisha, personal slurs marred a parliamentary session this week meant to settle governmental changes following Meta's resignation. | Protest_Online Condemnation | January 2011 | ['(AP via France24)', '(BBC)', '(Radio New Zealand)', '(AFP via Google News)', '(CNN)'] |
US withdraws from part of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations that gave the International Criminal Court the right to intervene in cases of foreigners held in death rows in US jails | MEXICO CITY, Mexico (CNN) -- The United States has withdrawn from an international agreement that gives the International Court of Justice the right to adjudicate violations of the Vienna Convention regarding the incarceration of non-U.S. citizens, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice said Thursday.
Rice said the United States remains a signatory to the convention, which mandates that jailed foreigners have a right to see a diplomat from their home country, but has withdrawn from an optional protocol to the convention making the ICJ the arbiter of violations.
Last week, President Bush asked the state of Texas to order new hearings for 51 death row inmates from Mexico, as the ICJ had ordered.
"The decision the ICJ handed down is a decision we don't agree with," said State Department spokesman Adam Ereli in Washington. "Yet, in respect of the optional protocol and our international commitment, the president has determined that the United States will comply and our state courts will review the cases."
"But we're also saying in the future we're going to find other ways to resolve disputes under the Vienna Convention other than the ICJ," he said.
Ereli disputed that the decision to withdraw from the protocol is not an example of unilateralism or "cherry-picking" what international laws the United States will or won't abide by.
"I don't think anybody should conclude ... that we are any less committed to the international system or that we are in any way walking back from international community," he said. "To the contrary. We remain part of the Vienna Convention. We remain committed to fulfilling its provisions, and we stand by it."
Ereli said the United States, which ratified the convention in 1969, "never anticipated ... that the ICJ would be used to review cases of domestic criminal law."
"This is a really unexpected and unwelcome precedent where people who don't like decisions of our state courts can use an international court as their court of appeal," he said. "We have a system of justice that provides people with due process and review of their cases, and it's not appropriate that there should be some international court that comes in and reverses decision of our national courts." | Tear Up Agreement | March 2005 | ['(CNN)', '(Reuters)', '(BBC)'] |
Thousands of protesters take to the streets of Hong Kong to oppose a controversial national security law expected to be passed by China's National People's Congress. | Police in Hong Kong have fired tear gas and water cannon at protesters rallying against China's plans to impose a new security law on the territory.
Thousands of demonstrators have been marching through the city centre. Police say 120 have been arrested.
Earlier, 200 senior politicians from around the world issued a joint statement criticising China's plan. But China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi said the legislation should be brought in "without the slightest delay".
China is seeking to pass a law that would ban "treason, secession, sedition and subversion" in the territory. Activists fear it is an attempt to limit freedoms and silence Beijing's opponents.
Hong Kong's leader Carrie Lam, who is seen as part of the pro-Beijing political establishment, has pledged full support for the proposed law and said the city's rights would remain unchanged.
China has dismissed concerns the legislation would harm foreign investors in Hong Kong, an important financial centre, and lashed out at "meddling" countries.
Protesters gathered in the busy Causeway Bay and Wan Chai districts of the city on Sunday, chanting slogans against the government and waving banners.
Riot police fired tear gas and water cannon at demonstrators, who were wearing face masks to protect against the spread of coronavirus.
The rally comes despite earlier warnings from authorities against unauthorised assembly and a ban on large public gatherings to enforce social distancing.
Some protesters threw objects such as umbrellas and water bottles at officers, and used bins and other debris to set up road blocks.
Reports say Sunday's protest followed a similar pattern to many of last year's demonstrations, many of which turned violent.
More than 8,400 people have been arrested in Hong Kong since pro-democracy protests erupted last year. Danny Vincent, BBC News, Hong Kong
For many protesters Sunday's protest was seen a stress test. They wanted to see how the police would react to large scale demonstrations following months of relative quiet. The young and old chanted familiar slogans from last year's movement. They called for the Hong Kong government to respond to the five political demands they set out last year. But there were new slogans, too. Some protesters called openly for Hong Kong independence. They claimed that it was now the only way forward for the semi-autonomous city. The police were quick to disperse the crowds. They fired several rounds of tear gas before charging towards the protesters. The national security proposal has united protesters willing to risk both breaking the law and social distancing measures in order to show their anger at plans that many fear could spell the end to one country two systems.
The "draft decision" - as it is known before approval by China's National People's Congress - includes an article that says Hong Kong "must improve" national security.
It adds: "When needed, relevant national security organs of the Central People's Government will set up agencies in Hong Kong to fulfil relevant duties to safeguard national security in accordance with the law."
That means China could potentially have its own law enforcement agencies in Hong Kong, alongside the city's own.
Earlier this week, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo condemned the plans, which he described as a "death knell" for the city's freedoms. The UK, Australia and Canada have also expressed their "deep concern".
Relations between Washington and Beijing are already strained over trade disputes and the coronavirus pandemic.
The US is currently considering whether to extend Hong Kong's preferential trading and investment privileges. President Trump has also weighed in, saying the US would react strongly if the law went through - without giving details.
Speaking on Sunday, Mr Wang accused countries said "some political forces in the US" were pushing the two countries "to the brink of a new Cold War".
The Chinese government argues the law is necessary to "prevent, stop and punish" protests such as those that rocked Hong Kong last year. They were sparked by a bill that would have allowed extraditions to mainland China.
The statement was drafted by former Hong Kong Governor Christopher Patten and former British Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind, and signed by 186 policy makers and politicians from 23 countries.
It describes Beijing's plans as a "flagrant breach" of the Sino-British Joint Declaration, under which Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
"If the international community cannot trust Beijing to keep its word when it comes to Hong Kong, people will be reluctant to take its word on other matters," the signatories wrote.
They include 17 members of the US Congress, and 44 UK MPs.
The NPC is expected to vote on the draft law at the end of its annual session, on 28 May. It will then be forwarded to the NPC's Standing Committee, China's top legislature, which is expected to finalise and enact the law by the end of June.
| Protest_Online Condemnation | May 2020 | ['(BBC)', '(CNN)', '(Reuters)'] |
Australia, the second largest wheat exporter in the world, cuts its forecast production by 30 per cent due to an ongoing drought. | Australia has slashed its official forecast for wheat production because of the ongoing drought. The government said it expected farmers to grow 15.5m tons of wheat, a 30% reduction from its previous forecast. The news will put further pressure on the global price of wheat, which is already at record highs. The problems have been compounded by crop failures in the northern hemisphere and an increase in demand from developing countries.
Australia is normally second only to America in the amount of wheat it exports. So when farmers harvest less than they expect it has a knock-on effect around the world, prompting things like food protests over the price of pasta in Italy. Global shortage
After one of the best starts to a growing season for years, dry weather in recent weeks has forced the Australian government to slash its crop forecasts. It said the amount of wheat harvested would be 30% lower than it originally predicted.
Even that might prove an optimistic assessment with farmers warning that if there is not heavy rain over the next few weeks, their crops will be even more meagre. Up until now, September's rainfall has been below average and adverse weather has already reduced harvests in Europe and North America. International wheat prices have risen by over 350% in the past five years, with global reserves now at their lowest level since the early 1980s. At a time of shortened supply, the world is also experiencing an increase in demand. Eating habits are changing in emerging countries like China with improved diets and a greater preference for meat, which drives up the demand for feed for livestock. The growing popularity of biofuels which can be made from wheat has added to the pressure on prices. Cars are now competing with cattle and consumers for access to these dwindling crops. | Droughts | September 2007 | ['(BBC)'] |
A six–year–old boy whose parents refused to have him vaccinated dies of diphtheria, the first case in Spain since 1987. | The child had not been vaccinated against the disease amid controversy over the potential side-effects of the jab, and had been fighting the bacterial infection for a month.
The Vall d'Hebrone hospital in Barcelona confirmed on its Twitter account "the death of a patient with diphtheria" who had been hospitalised at the end of May.
An infection that mostly affects the nose and throat, diphtheria is highly contagious but has become increasingly rare in western Europe in recent decades due to high rates of vaccination.
The little boy's treatment had suffered delays due to the difficulty in finding the right antitoxin in Europe. It was finally provided by Russia.
Nine other children and an adult were exposed to the bacteria but did not develop the disease, having all been vaccinated, according to health services in Spain's northeastrn Catalonia region.
The decision by the boy's parents not to vaccinate him has raised a fresh debate in #Spain over the risks of the vaccine versus the risk of not having it.
"We are appealing to parents to have their children vaccinated," Catalonia's health chief Boi Ruiz told a press conference.
"The risk is not zero. But we cannot use the fact that the risk isn't zero to create fear amongst parents over the vaccine," he added, noting that the level of vaccination is "very high" in Spain.
In France, the debate over vaccinations has surged anew after the death of a seven-month-old baby who had received two injections against whooping cough, hepatitis B, polio, tetanus and diphtheria.
According to the World Health Organization, in 2013 about 84 percent of infants worldwide were immunised against diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough, all infectious diseases that can potentially be fatal. Severe reactions to the vaccine are extremely rare. | Famous Person - Death | June 2015 | ['(AFP via MENA–FN)', '(Fox News Latino)'] |
Opposition leader Kizza Besigye is arrested while trying to obtain copies of the official election results. | KIZZA Besigye, Uganda's main opposition leader, has been arrested after alleging massive vote rigging and calling the election results fraudulent.
UGANDA'S main opposition leader has been arrested while trying to leave his home near the capital.
KIZZA Besigye had planned to visit the election commission's headquarters in Kampala on Monday to get detailed copies of the results from the country's presidential election.
Originally published asUganda's opposition leader arrested
A NOTE ABOUT RELEVANT ADVERTISING: We collect information about the content (including ads) you use across this site and use it to make both advertising and content more relevant to you on our network and other sites. Find out more about our policy and your choices, including how to opt-out. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Arrest | February 2016 | ['(AAP via News Limited)'] |
The United States Justice Department, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Commerce and Federal Bureau of Investigation announces 23 criminal charges against China's telecom Huawei and its chief financial officer Wanzhou Meng, which include banking and financial fraud, money laundering, wire fraud, conspiracy to defraud the United States, theft of trade secret technology, provided bonus to workers who stole confidential information from companies around the world, obstruction of justice and sanctions violations. | The US Justice Department has filed a host of criminal charges against Chinese telecoms giant Huawei and its chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou. The charges against the world's second largest smartphone maker include bank fraud, obstruction of justice and theft of technology. The case could ratchet up tensions between China and the US, and impact the firm's global expansion efforts. Both Ms Meng and Huawei deny the allegations. Ms Meng was arrested in Canada last month at the request of the US for allegedly evading sanctions on Iran.
"For years, Chinese firms have broken our export laws and undermined sanctions, often using US financial systems to facilitate their illegal activities. This will end," said US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. In a statement, Huawei rejected the charges, saying it didn't commit "any of the asserted violations" and that it "is not aware of any wrongdoing by Ms Meng".
It said the allegations were already the subject of a settled civil suit, in which a jury found "neither damages nor willful and malicious conduct on the trade secret claim".
The indictment alleges Huawei misled the US and a global bank about its relationship with two subsidiaries, Huawei Device USA and Skycom Tech, to conduct business with Iran. US President Donald Trump's administration has reinstated all sanctions on Iran removed under a 2015 nuclear deal and recently imposed even stricter measures, hitting oil exports, shipping and banks. A second case alleges Huawei stole technology from T Mobile used to test smartphone durability, as well as obstructing justice and committing wire fraud.
The T-Mobile tech, known as Tappy, mimicked human fingers to test phones. In all, the US has laid 23 charges against the company.
"These charges lay bare Huawei's alleged blatant disregard for the laws of our country and standard global business practices," said FBI Director Christopher Wray. Mr Wray said companies like Huawei "pose a dual threat to both our economic and national security". Huawei is one of the largest telecommunications equipment and services providers in the world, recently passing Apple to become the second biggest smartphone maker by volume after Samsung.
But the US and other Western nations have been concerned that the Chinese government could use Huawei's technology to expand its spying ability, although the firm insists there is no government control.
The arrest of Ms Meng, the daughter of Huawei's founder, infuriated China.
She was arrested on 1 December in Canada's western city of Vancouver at the request of the US.
She was later granted a C$10m (5.7m; $7.6m) bail by a local court. But she is under surveillance 24 hours a day and must wear an electronic ankle tag.
Analysis by Karishma Vaswani, Asia business correspondent
Huawei is what the Chinese call a national champion. A private firm, tasked with China's ambitions to go into the world and lead the way.
But now the full force of the US justice system is being hurled at the firm. The allegations by the US Department of Justice are the most serious Huawei has ever seen, and go to the heart of the trade war between China and the US.
Huawei has consistently denied the allegations, and the firm's boss says it is being used as a pawn in power games between the US and China.
While the US says the charges against Huawei aren't about trade war, it is unlikely the Chinese will see it the same way. The charges come as the US and China prepare to hold high-level trade talks in Washington this week. US commerce secretary Wilbur Ross stated that the Huawei charges were "wholly separate" from ongoing trade negotiations with China. However, the indictment focuses on the alleged theft of US technology, which has been a major sticking point in trade negotiations. President Trump's administration has imposed tariffs on $250bn (190bn) worth of Chinese goods, prompting Beijing to respond with its own tariffs. Both countries agreed last month to suspend new tariffs for 90 days to allow talks. No politics behind Huawei arrest - Trudeau | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | January 2019 | ['(BBC)'] |
A suicide bomber kills at least six people and wounds 18 near a Pakistan Army vehicle taking part in the census in the city of Lahore. | LAHORE, Pakistan (Reuters) - The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on army personnel that killed at least six people and wounded 18 in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore on Wednesday.
Punjab government spokesman Malik Ahmed Khan said the blast, which hit an army vehicle taking part in Pakistan’s census, killed four soldiers and two civilian bystanders.
Scores of people have been killed since the beginning of the year in a series of attacks that have dashed hopes of an end to the violence of recent years and stepped up pressure on Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s government to improve security.
TV footage showed security personnel blocking off the street around the site of the explosion, close to an elite police training school which was the site of a Pakistani Taliban attack in 2009.
The apparent targeting of personnel involved in the census, the first in 19 years, underlined the challenge to government institutions in Pakistan, a nuclear-armed state of some 200 million people.
Lahore, Pakistan’s second-largest city and capital of the Punjab region, was already on high alert following a bomb attack last month that killed at least 13 people.
Muhammad Khurassani, a spokesman for Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a banned Islamist movement often called the Pakistani Taliban, issued a statement claiming responsibility.
The spate of attacks has ratcheted up tensions with neighboring Afghanistan, which some Pakistani officials accuse of sheltering TTP militants. Afghanistan’s government, in its turn, accuses Islamabad of aiding the Afghan Taliban, a charge Pakistan denies.
| Armed Conflict | April 2017 | ['(Reuters)'] |
A meeting of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change starts in Bangkok to discuss approaches to climate change. | It is the third such summit this year held by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Those attending hope to finalise a report on how the world can mitigate rising levels of greenhouse gases.
A draft version of the report, seen by the BBC, says it is possible to make a real difference, but countries need to implement policies immediately.
Environmentalists argue that while it will need investment to put these policies into practice, the eventual consequences of doing nothing far outweigh the cost of tackling global climate change now.
'Compelling reasons' for change
At least 400 scientists and experts from about 120 countries are attending the third session of the IPCC, the UN's leading body on global warming.
Two reports issued earlier this year by the same UN panel warned that the earth was already warming considerably, and that mankind was almost certainly to blame.
They predicted severe consequences including droughts, floods, storms, heat waves and rising seas. The science certainly provides a lot of compelling reasons for action
Rajendrat Pachauri, IPCC chairman
This third report, which is due to be released on Friday, will lay out ways of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, while taking into account impacts on the economy.
"We look forward to very fruitful days ahead of us, so at the end of the week we can declare we are part of the solution, not part of the problem," Ogunlade Davidson, co-chair of the meeting, told reporters.
"The science certainly provides a lot of compelling reasons for action," Rajendrat Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC, told the Associated Press.
Exactly what action to take, and how much it will cost, is likely to be the main topic of debate during the closed-door meeting.
One of the key issues is the so-called carbon price - a way of making consumers and businesses pay for the pollution they create.
The draft refers to stabilising emissions between 450 and 550 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere. Anything less is unrealistic, economists believe. But correspondents say that both America and China are alarmed by any discussions of a safe limit because it increases pressure to curb their pollution levels. The draft suggests solutions to mitigate climate change, such as capturing and burying emissions from coal-fired power plants, shifting to renewable forms of energy and more use of nuclear power.
Making buildings more energy-efficient, especially in the developing world, could also lead to significant cuts in global warming, the draft report concludes, as would changes in agricultural practices and reduced deforestation. Influential report
The findings of the report will be used by governments and international organisations to map out their own plans for climate change mitigation.
"The IPCC plays an incredibly important role in the political negotiations so people can point and say 'Look, this is what is going to happen in 50 years, these are the options available for us to take actions'," said UN Environment Programme spokesman Michael Williams.
The report's conclusions will play a key role in negotiations on the Kyoto Protocol, which will take place in December on the Indonesian island of Bali.
It will also influence world leaders when they meet face-to-face over climate change at the summit of the group of eight most industrialised nations (G8) in June. 17,029 pages were read in the last minute. | Diplomatic Talks _ Diplomatic_Negotiation_ Summit Meeting | April 2007 | ['(BBC)'] |
Lehman Brothers files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after British bank Barclays and Bank of America pull out of emergency talks on a buyout. | WASHINGTON (AFP) — A last-ditch effort to find a buyer for troubled Wall Street investment bank Lehman Brothers appeared near collapse in a turbulent weekend for the finance sector.
As emergency weekend talks on Lehman's woes were being held in New York, a London source at British bank Barclays, who requested anonymity, said it walked away from negotiations because of concerns it would have to guarantee the 158-year-old US firm's trading commitments.
The news came as US Treasury and Federal Reserve officials scrambled to head off a collapse of Lehman Brothers which some say could send shockwaves through the global financial system.
Separately, reports swirled about a possible buyout of another troubled Wall Street giant, Merrill Lynch. And American International Group, the insurance giant, was set to unveil restructuring plans in the face of a massive share price drop.
"Clearly things are changing quickly and are very fluid," said David Kotok, chief investment officer at Cumberland Investments.
"The Fed and the Treasury are trying to get a deal done before the markets open on Monday. It now appears that this original effort to merge Lehman with one party has failed."
Meanwhile specter of liquidation loomed: the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, a group of market dealers, said it was holding a special trading session Sunday "to reduce risk associated with a potential Lehman Brothers Holding Inc. bankruptcy filing."
It said any trades were contingent on a bankruptcy filing Sunday.
"I think the most likely option for Lehman is a bankruptcy filing by the end of the day today," said Peter Cohan of the consulting firm Peter Cohan & Associates.
Barry Ritholtz of the research firm FusionIQ said a bankruptcy could mean further financial market turmoil.
"We are now on bankruptcy watch, with the midnight hour as the key line in the sand." he said. "The Wall Street open Monday in the event of a Lehman failure will be wild."
According to some analysts, the talks on Lehman Brothers were snagged over whether the Federal Reserve would guarantee a deal with Lehman's troubled mortgage securities as was done to avert a meltdown earlier this year of Bear Stearns, bought by JPMorgan Chase.
"We infer that the problem at Lehman is bigger or worse than at Bear Stearns or both," Kotok said.
Peter Morici, economist at the University of Maryland, said finding a buyer for Lehman Brothers may be difficult because of its "toxic" holdings in soured real estate assets.
"No other large firm should buy Lehman whole -- its toxic real estate and securities are too difficult to value," he said. "Only a fool would think he could fairly assess their value, unless those are assigned them a value of zero."
But Morici said Lehman's demise may hasten needed reforms on Wall Street.
"Sooner or later after enough dominos fall, compensation structures and business practices will return to more conservative norms of 10 and 20 years ago," Morici said. "Only then will the credit crisis resolve and the economy have a decent shot at full recovery."
Meanwhile Bank of America, described in recent days as a leading takeover candidate for Lehman Brothers, was now in advanced discussions to buy Merrill Lynch, another Wall Street giant ravaged by the subprime real estate crisis and credit crunch.
The New York Times said the talks centered around a buyout of Merrill at 25 to 30 dollars a share in stock, making the deal worth some 38 billion dollars. Merrill ended Friday at 17.05 dollars.
The Wall Street Journal reported that AIG, which has also been slammed by real estate losses, planned a comprehensive restructuring by early Monday morning that is likely to include the disposal of major assets including its aircraft-leasing business and other holdings.
Lehman shares have tumbled more than 90 percent this year and failed to recover on plans announced Wednesday to sell off key assets to shore up its finances.
The beleaguered Wall Street firm, seen as in desperate need for a capital injection, lost an estimated 3.9 billion dollars in its fiscal third quarter amid fresh writedowns on mortgage assets. | Organization Closed | September 2008 | ['(AFP via Google News)', '(The New York Times)'] |
2011 Lorca earthquake: At least ten people are killed and dozens injured in the Spanish city of Lorca following a 5.3 magnitude earthquake. | By Gerard Couzens for MailOnline Updated: 10:07 BST, 13 May 2011 120
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Questions over the Spanish earthquake death toll mounted last night as experts claimed that it should have caused no loss of life.
Seismologists said the quake, registering 5.2 on the Richter scale, which struck the town of Lorca, in the Murcia region, was 1,000 times smaller than the record 9.0 earthquake which sparked the tsunami in Japan in March.
Luis Suarez, President of Spain’s Association of Geologists, blamed faults caused by previous earthquakes for weakening buildings.
Distraught: A local policewoman tries to console the daughter of a victim in Lorca after an earthquake measuring 5.3 hit the town
Reduced to rubble: A man tries to salvage his belongings from a destroyed house in Lorca this morning
Aftermath: Police survey the damage wrought by yesterday's earthquakes
Mr Suarez said: ‘An earthquake of 5.2 on the Richter scale does not have sufficient intensity to collapse buildings so the damage is the result of previous damage.’
A 4.4 earthquake struck the area, which is popular with British holidaymakers, around 5pm local time on Wednesday, followed two hours later by the second quake which has claimed nine lives so far.
Lorca’s mayor Francisco Jodar has calculated 80 per cent of buildings in the town of 90,000 inhabitants have suffered structural damage.
Many homes in the worst-affected areas were built in the 1960s, before laws were passed to ensure buildings in areas with seismic activity were more earthquake resistant.
The death toll rose from eight to nine yesterday when a 41-year-old woman died from head injuries. The other victims include two pregnant women and a 14-year-old boy. More than 165 were injured, including a three-year-old who remains in a ‘serious condition’ in intensive care.
About 20,000 slept outdoors in cars and parks in the aftermath of the earthquakes.
Residents stay in the Huerto de la Rueda area of Lorca where many spent the night
Many families spent the night in the open in case aftershocks struck
Residents this morning waited to be sure it was safe to return to their homes
A young girl and her dog spent the night outside after yesterday's earthquake that shook Murcia
Experts are checking buildings one by one - and putting green stickers on those people can go back to and red stickers on those they say must stay empty for the time being.
Expat former PA Linda Cook, 63, who lives in a two story-villa five miles from Lorca said: “It was terrifying, absolutely awful.
'The whole house shook when the second earthquake struck, the ground shook. I was holding onto the table but that was shaking just as much as I was.
'My first reaction was ‘Oh my God! Earthquake!’ There was no mistaking it.'
The displaced gather near a Civil Defence tent in the Las Vinas neighbourhood of Lorca
A woman cries into her phone today as she tries to comes to terms with yesterday's quake
A woman wanders through the rubble-strewn streets
Rescue workers survey the damage to a building in Lorca after the town was hit by two earthquakes
David Bartram, 59, a retired accountant from Oxford, who lives six miles from the centre of Lorca added: 'When the first one struck I thought ‘Oh crikey!’
'Then the second one really put the frighteners in me.
'Plates fell down, tiles in the kitchen came off the wall. The whole house shook violently.
'It was really very frightening. I took my dogs and got out of the house.
'We had a minor quake about seven years ago and we often get little tremors, but I’ve never known anything like this.'
Shocked: Lorca residents comfort each other after the deadliest quake in Spain since 1956
A large church bell narrowly missed hitting a reporter who was broadcasting from the town
The town in Murcia is clouded in dust from the two quakes as residents survey the damage
Lorca has a mix of buildings that are vulnerable to earthquakes and quake-resistent, according to the USGS.
The quakes occurred in a seismically active area near a large fault beneath the Mediterranean where the European and African continents brush past each other, USGS seismologist Julie Dutton said.
The USGS said it has recorded hundreds of small quakes in the area since 1990.
Lorca dates back to the Bronze Age and probably gained its name from the Romans. The old part of the town is made up of a network of narrow alleyways.
The quakes were reportedly felt across Murcia, with tremors registered in Cartagena, Aguilas and as far away as Albacete.
In 2005, more than 900 homes in Lorca were wrecked by an earthquake measuring 4.7 on the Richter scale.
A terrified family flee their house. The first quake was followed by a second two hours later
Some buildings in Lorca collapsed completely in the quakes, with the wreckage shown in this Twitter picture
Crushed cars in a devastated street in Lorca, shown in another Twitter picture
The ancient town of Lorca is sited in a seismically active area where hundreds of small quakes have been recorded since 1990
Yesterday's earthquakes came as thousands fled Rome in fear that a 96-year-old prediction of a large earthquake would prove true.
The panic started after seismologist Raffaele Bendandi predicted in 1915 that a huge earthquake would strike Rome on May 11, 2011. Thanks to the internet, word quickly spread.
Officials at the National Vulcanolgy and Seismology Institute, which is based in Rome, held an open day to try and convince people that earthquakes could not be predicted and the council was flooded with worried calls.
Mayor Gianni Alemanno and Enzo Boschi, president of the institute, spent the day trying to reassure locals there really was nothing to panic about. Mr Boschi said: ‘Rome is not at risk of any earthquake.'
| Earthquakes | May 2011 | ['(AP via MSNBC)', '(Daily Mail)', '(BBC)'] |
US Secretary of State John Kerry arrives in Iraq on an unannounced visit to press for greater co–operation over the conflict in Syria. | US Secretary of State John Kerry has told Iraq's PM that allowing Iranian planes to use Iraqi air space to carry weapons to Syria was "problematic".
Mr Kerry, on an unannounced trip to Iraq, held talks with Prime Minister Nouri Maliki in a bid to boost co-operation over the Syria conflict.
He said Iranian arms were sustaining Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The US has accused Iraq of turning a blind eye to the flights, which Iran claims transport only humanitarian aid.
It is 10 years since the US-led invasion of Iraq that toppled former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
The trip is Mr Kerry's first to Iraq since taking office earlier this year, and the first by an American secretary of state since 2009.
"I made very clear to the prime minister that the overflights from Iran are in fact helping to sustain President Assad and his regime," Mr Kerry told reporters.
"I made it very clear that for those of us who are engaged in an effort to see President Assad step down... anything that supports President Assad is problematic."
An unnamed US official earlier told the AP news agency that Iranian planes were flying over Iraq into Syria almost every day.
The official said Iraq had promised to inspect the flights, but only two planes had been checked since last year.
The state department said Mr Kerry would also discuss democratic reforms in Iraq.
He was expected to suggest that Iraq's government reconsider a recent decision to delay provincial elections in Anbar and Nineveh provinces.
And he was also expected speak by phone to Massoud Barzani, president of the oil-rich autonomous region of Kurdistan, to stress the importance of maintaining Iraq's unity.
| Diplomatic Visit | March 2013 | ['(BBC)'] |
The Free Democratic Party , which was in discussions over forming a government with the CDU, CSU and Alliance 90/The Greens, announced that the party refuses further coalition negotiations. The main reasons for the failure were questions about the politics concerning migration and environment. | Chancellor Angela Merkel left facing prospect of forming minority government – or fresh elections – after FDP quits negotiations
First published on Sun 19 Nov 2017 19.10 GMT
Exploratory talks to form Germany’s next coalition government collapsed shortly before midnight on Sunday when the pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP) walked out of marathon negotiations.
“The four discussion partners have no common vision for modernisation of the country or common basis of trust,” the FDP leader, Christian Lindner, announced after the four parties involved missed several self-prescribed deadlines to resolve differences on migration and energy policy. “It is better not to govern than to govern badly.”
The euro slid in Asian trade overnight thanks to the uncertainty in Europe’s powerhouse nation. Against the yen, the euro was down 0.6% on the day to a two-month low and slipped 0.5% against the US dollar. It was down 0.43% against the pound at €1.125.
Chancellor Angela Merkel has been trying to forge a coalition between her Christian Democratic Union (CDU), its Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union (CSU), the pro-business FDP and the Green party, following federal elections at the end of September.
Announcing the collapse of talks as an “almost historic day”, Angela Merkel on Sunday night insisted that the parties would have been capable of reaching a compromise even in spite of their polarised views on migrations, and described the FDP’s walk-out as “regrettable”.
A so-called “Jamaica” coalition – so nicknamed because the parties’ traditional colours mirror those of the Jamaican flag – has only previously been tested at regional level but was the only plausible coalition option open to Merkel.
The Social Democrat leader, Martin Schulz, whose party has played junior partner to Merkel in the German government for the past four years, ruled out the possibility of another grand coalition under his leadership. “The voter has rejected the grand coalition,” Schulz said at a party conference in Nuremberg on Sunday. A repeat of the grand coalition between the two largest parties would also see the far-right Alternative für Deutschland, the third largest party in the Bundestag, become the official opposition. In a month of talks, Merkel has often cut a passive figure as party representatives found themselves at loggerheads over issues such as the question of how many of the migrants who found their way to Germany in 2015 and 2016 would be allowed to be reunited with their families.
Migration emerged as a contentious political issue in Germany following the refugee crisis, when 1.2 million migrants entered the country in 2015-16. The backlash against Merkel’s decision to keep open Germany’s borders has resulted in a far-right party entering the German parliament for the first time in more than 50 years.
In the coalition talks in Berlin, the CDU, the CSU and the FDP have, at times, worked to outdo each other on calling for a harder line on migration controls.
According to reports in German media, the Green party suggested a compromise over the weekend whereby they would agree to limit Germany’s annual intake of migrants to a benchmark figure of 200,000 – as long as other parties did not rule out allowing migrants with “subsidiary protection” status to be reunited with their families.
The parties have struggled to find a common ground on climate change, with the Greens calling for a reduction in coal-generated power of 8-10 gigawatts while its potential coalition partners have expressed concerns about job losses in the energy and manufacturing sectors. At the start of the weekend, the FDP leader, Christian Lindner, announced a deadline for the exploratory talks. “If we don’t work it out by 6pm on Sunday, the whole thing is dead,” his deputy, Wolfgang Kubicki, said. Yet the talks went on past that deadline.
If the parties had come to an agreement, negotiations would have moved to the next stage, in which a document with fundamental agreements provides the basis for the carving up of ministerial roles.
With talks now seemingly over, Merkel could seek to form a minority government, either with the FDP or the Greens, and gather support from other parties on individual policy votes.
Once all other options are exhausted, Germany’s president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, could dissolve the current parliament and call fresh elections. To get there, however, Steinmeier would need first to set into motion a complicated process that would involve a parliamentary vote on Merkel’s role as interim chancellor.
While the debate in Germany over the past few weeks has mainly focused on policy differences between the parties, it is likely to soon shift to the chancellor, and the question of whether or not she still commands sufficient power to hold together a strong government. | Diplomatic Talks _ Diplomatic_Negotiation_ Summit Meeting | November 2017 | ['(FDP)', '(The Guardian)'] |
U.S. President Donald Trump arrives in the UK for his presidential trip to the country amid widespread protests. | US President Donald Trump is set to arrive in the UK on Thursday for a two-day working visit.
Mr Trump is the 12th sitting US president to make such a trip and will spend time with the Queen and prime minister before flying to Scotland to spend the weekend at his golf resort.
It is his first visit to Britain since winning the 2016 presidential election.
Thousands are expected to protest against the president in London on Thursday and Friday.
BBC diplomatic correspondent James Robbins described the trip as "the most controversial visit ever made by an American president to Britain".
Mr Trump will fly to the UK on Thursday afternoon with First Lady Melania Trump, following a Nato summit in Brussels.
The couple will attend a black-tie dinner on Thursday at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire.
Invited guests - including a number of business leaders - will eat dinner to the sounds of the Countess of Wessex's Orchestra, which will play a "series of classic British and American hits", according to a spokeswoman for Prime Minister Theresa May.
After spending Thursday night as a guest of US ambassador Woody Johnson at his London residence, Winfield House, the president will join the prime minister to watch a UK military exercise, before the pair travel to Chequers - the PM's country residence in Buckinghamshire - for bilateral talks.
The president and first lady will then travel to Windsor to meet the Queen on Friday afternoon.
On the final leg of the tour, the couple will fly to Scotland, where they plan to spend the weekend at Mr Trump's Turnberry golf resort. The president's time in Scotland is not counted as part of the working visit.
A state visit is a formal visit by a head of state and is normally at the invitation of the Queen, who acts on advice from the government.
The Queen acts as the official host for the duration of the trip, and visitors usually stay at either Buckingham Palace or Windsor Castle.
There is usually a state banquet and a visit to - and speeches at - the Houses of Parliament may be included.
A working visit - like the one Mr Trump is making - may include some of the same activities as a state visit, but there are small differences. For example, on a working visit, the visiting head of state does not address Parliament, nor is their accommodation organised and funded by the UK. Travel plans on a working visit are also organised and funded by the visiting country.
Tens of thousands are expected to protest against the president in London on Thursday and Friday and in Glasgow on Saturday.
Police forces from across the country have been asked to send officers to assist the Metropolitan Police, including 400 from the West Midlands force.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan has granted permission for a giant inflatable figure depicting Mr Trump as a baby to fly over Westminster for two hours on the second day of the president's visit.
Smaller demonstrations are also expected to be held across the UK including Devon, Dundee, Edinburgh, Belfast, Norwich, Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool.
Shaista Aziz, a Labour councillor in Oxford, and one of the organisers of the Together Against Trump protest in London, said the demonstration was about saying "very clearly that we reject the policies of this administration".
British police have not revealed the exact number of officers required to work during Mr Trump's trip - but the Police Federation has warned the visit will put "unquestionable pressure" on UK police forces.
Forces from across the country have been asked to send thousands of officers to assist with protests. The Home Office said they can be "recompensed by the hosting force".
The Treasury has confirmed it will fund policing costs of up to £5m in Scotland.
The National Police Chiefs' Council said discussions were ongoing about "how the resource requirements of this massive operation will be met" but a spokesman said: "We are confident that forces will continue to maintain local policing services."
Mr Trump has a number of high profile supporters in the UK - including prominent Brexiteers Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson.
Speaking of Mr Johnson, who resigned as foreign secretary on Monday, Mr Trump said he was a "friend" and he hoped he might find time to speak to him during his visit.
"He's been very, very nice to me, very supportive," he said. "I like Boris Johnson, I've always liked him."
Republicans Overseas UK are organising a rally on Friday to welcome the president while a pub in west London has been renamed The Trump Arms in honour of the visit.
The US Embassy said it was looking forward to Mr Trump's arrival "as an opportunity to highlight the vitality of the special relationship" between the UK and US.
| Diplomatic Visit | July 2018 | ['(BBC)'] |
In Portugal, former prime minister Vasco Gonçalves, one of the figures of the Carnation Revolution, dies | Gen Goncalves was a member of the military committee that seized power in a bloodless coup in 1974.
He was close to the Communists and as prime minister introduced radical reforms, including nationalisations.
But growing unease about his policies led to his eviction by moderate Socialists in late 1975.
No third way
Gen Goncalves was a leader of the Movement of Armed Forces (MFA), a group of left-wing officers that carried out the April 1974 coup known as the Carnation Revolution.
He was prime minister in four of the provisional governments which led the country in the restive months that followed.
As the revolution gathered pace, the general headed the Revolutionary Council, a governing body set up by the MFA in early 1975.
It dismantled Portugal's empire, nationalised banks, insurance companies and many industries, and organised elections.
[Gen Goncalves] was a man of conviction who was prime minister at a troubled time for Portugal
Jose SocratesPrime Minister
At the time Gen Goncalves was known for telling political rallies: "You are either with the revolution or with reaction. There is no third way."
However the election showed waning support for MFA hardliners and their Communist allies.
The general was forced out of politics in November 1975, when moderates defeated a left-wing coup attempt.
In his condolences, Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates described Gen Goncalves as "a man of conviction who was prime minister at a troubled time for Portugal". | Famous Person - Death | June 2005 | ['(Guardian Unlimited)', '(BBC)'] |
A global day of action, dubbed the 'International Day for Darfur' by Amnesty International, takes place with prayer vigils and demonstrations in 30 of the world's cities to highlight the plight of refugees and victims of genocide in the region. | Activists rallied in several major cities, calling on Sudan to allow UN peacekeepers into Darfur, where tens of thousands of people have been killed.
In London, there was a rally outside the Sudanese embassy, while thousands protested in New York's Central Park.
Khartoum has dismissed the protests, saying those taking part have been misled by the international media.
Up to two million people have been displaced in three years of conflict in Darfur.
The US and France have both said a genocide is taking place, with the US directly accusing Khartoum of responsibility.
On Saturday UK Prime Minister Tony Blair wrote to leaders of the European Union, calling the situation in Darfur "unacceptable" and urging them to take a common stand on the issue.
'Misunderstanding'
Rallies took place in some 30 cities around the world.
Unfortunately, the people in the West, in Europe and the United States are moved by the media
Ali KartiSudanese junior foreign minister
In pictures: Darfur rallies
Bleak outlook for Darfur Send us your views
Among those involved were the South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Canadian General Romeo Dallaire, who headed the UN peacekeeping force in Rwanda during that country's genocide in 1994.
About 20,000 people gathered in Central Park to press the US government for action.
Former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said: "The world must act and it must do so now because time is not on our side."
BBC world affairs correspondent Mike Wooldridge says the issue is likely to be a key one at this week's UN General Assembly.
In Cambodia, devastated by the Khmer Rouge genocide in the 1970s, a candle-lit vigil was held in the capital, Phnom Penh.
Speaking ahead of the protests, Sudan's junior foreign minister, Ali Karti, said the demonstrators were misunderstanding the situation in Darfur.
"Unfortunately, the people there in the West, in Europe and the United States are moved by the media and the media is unfortunately moved by political agendas," he said.
Khartoum says it is defending the territorial integrity of Sudan against rebels backed by neighbouring Chad.
Peacekeeper doubt
Steve Ballinger, a spokesman for Amnesty International, rejected Mr Karti's interpretation of events.
Refugees from fighting in Darfur tell their stories
In pictures
"The situation is dire already in Darfur, and it is only going to get worse when the African Union troops leave at the end of this month, unless the UN peacekeeping mission is allowed back in," he said.
Seven thousand African Union peacekeeping troops are due to leave Darfur at the end of September, but Khartoum has refused to allow UN peacekeepers to take their place.
The government has stressed that any UN troops entering Darfur would be met with armed resistance.
On Saturday 1,000 volunteers from a pro-government militia marched through the streets of Khartoum threatening to kill any uninvited UN visitors, the BBC's Jonah Fisher reports from the city.
Violence in the region is reported to be rising again, drawing criticism from figures as diverse as the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, and actor George Clooney, who this week implored the UN Security Council to act. | Protest_Online Condemnation | September 2006 | ['(BBC)'] |
Typhoon Bopha makes landfall on the Philippines island of Mindanao with reports of floods and landslides. Authorities confirm at least 81 deaths amid widespread property damage. | The state weather service said Bopha made landfall on Mindanao island's east coast at dawn, raking across the island of 10 million people, packing gusts of up to 210 kilometres (130 miles) an hour and bringing heavy rain.
There were no immediate reports of casualties or serious damage but Mindanao was in lockdown with residents of coastal and flood-prone areas moving into shelters as floods hit some areas.
Aviation and shipping were suspended, with 80 flights grounded and thousands of ferry passengers stranded at ports as the coastguard ordered vessels to stay in port, the civil defence office said.
More than 41,000 people had moved into nearly 1,000 government shelters across the island by early Tuesday, it said in its latest bulletin.
The commercial centre of Cagayan de Oro, one of Mindanao's largest cities, was hit by flooding as rivers overflowed following heavy rain.
School holidays were declared in Mindanao and large areas of the central Philippines.
President Benigno Aquino led calls for evacuations on Monday, saying: "(Bopha's) destructive potential is no laughing matter. It is expected to be the strongest typhoon to hit our country in 2012."
The Philippines is battered by about 20 typhoons a year, some of them destructive. Bopha is the sixteenth so far this year.
In August, nearly 100 people were killed and more than a million were displaced by heavy flooding caused by a series of storms.
Nineteen typhoons struck the country last year, of which 10 were destructive, leading to more than 1,500 deaths and affecting nearly 10 percent of the total population, according to the government.
A leader of Myanmar's 2007 monk rallies has been arrested, an official said Tuesday, in his latest brush with the law since being freed from jail along with hundreds of other political prisoners this year.
John Travolta and his "Grease" on-screen love Olivia Newton-John have recorded together for the first time in 30 years, making a Christmas album honouring the US star's late son Jett. | Hurricanes_Tornado_Storm_Blizzard | December 2012 | ['(AFP via MSN Malaysia)', '(ABC News Australia)', '(Reuters)', '(Bangkok Post)'] |
Seminole County, Florida prosecutors charge five underage Winter Springs High School students with the alleged gang rape of a 16yearold girl in November 2014. Prosecutors charge two suspects as adults and three as juveniles. The remaining suspect is as yet uncharged. | Gang rape suspect Torreano Batton makes his initial appearance with a public defender at the Seminole County Jail.
ORLANDO, Fla. Seminole County prosecutors have charged five underage Winter Springs High football players with gang rape.
Two are now being prosecuted as adults.
Three will be prosecuted as juveniles. Those three are scheduled to be in juvenile court Tuesday for arraignment. The other two may appear in adult court.
A sixth suspect the only adult, 18-year-old Torreano Batton has not been charged. He's due back in adult court Tuesday for his arraignment.
In his case, prosecutors are expected to ask Circuit Judge Donna McIntosh for more time to make a charging decision.
If convicted as charged, the two juveniles being prosecuted as adults face a maximum of four years in the adult prison system, far less than the normal maximum of 30 years, because they are "youthful offenders."
The other three juveniles, if convicted, could be placed in a juvenile facility until age 19.
All six were arrested after a 16-year-old girl told police she was sexually assaulted by each of them on Nov. 13 in a patch of woods near Winter Springs High School, in Winter Springs, northeast of Orlando.
She was raped by three of them as she walked from the high school to a nearby McDonald's, she said, and was raped again on her way back when two of those boys caught up with her and pulled her into the woods, where others were waiting, according to the arrest report.
Three of the underage suspects told police the sex was consensual. Two said they did not take part. Batton told police he was not involved.
Two suspects assaulted her twice, she said.
The girl video-recorded part of what happened on her iPod. According to a police report, her recording shows the boys asking her to perform sex acts, her telling them, "No," and saying she wants to go back to school.
"The males are circling her and appear to be trying to intimidate her into performing the acts and keeping her from leaving," according to the report.
On the recording they can also be heard telling her to succumb because it was the 17th birthday of one of the suspects.
The five underage suspects were members of the Winter Springs High football team. Four of them are from Sanford. The fifth is from Winter Springs.
Batton also is from Sanford. He has been free on $35,000 bond since Dec. 12, according to court records. McIntosh ordered him to wear a GPS monitor and to stay away from Winter Springs High. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | January 2015 | ['(Orlandoarea)', '(The Orlando Sentinel via MSN)'] |
Voters in Uruguay go to the polls for a general election with the presidential election expected to go to a second round. | Tabare Vazquez of the Broad Front party has emerged as the winner of the first round of voting in Uruguay's presidential election.
But Mr Vazquez, the candidate of President Jose Mujica's party, fell short of an outright majority.
He will face Luis Lacalle Pou of the right-wing National Party, in a run-off election on 30 November.
President Mujica is barred by the constitution from running for a second consecutive term.
With most of the votes counted, Mr Vazquez had won over 46% of the vote.
Mr Lacalle Pou trailed behind with over 30%, but he swiftly secured the endorsement of the third placed candidate Pedro Bordaberry, of the conservative Colorado Party.
Uruguay's outgoing president, Jose Mujica, told Gerardo Lissardy of BBC Mundo that he was confident his party would continue leading the country.
However, he said that the election of Mr Vazquez would not necessarily mean there would be no change in policy.
"Every government is unique," he said."Probably a new government with Tabare would have the advantage of experience, from his previous period in power. Remember the presidency is not a profession, nor is it training. It's simply how you perform." Tabare Vazquez served as president of Uruguay in 2005-2010 and remains one of the most popular politicians in Latin America.
BBC correspondent Ignacio de los Reyes says the presidential run-off is expected to be tight. Mr Vazquez's young contender, Luis Lacalle Pou, is the son of a former president and has become a rising political star in recent months.
Both candidates have promised to keep social spending high and boost the economy.
Mr Mujica remains popular after leading Uruguay through a period of economic growth and wage rises, but he is barred by the constitution from running for a second consecutive term. His government was behind social reforms such as the legalisation of marijuana, abortion and gay marriage.
But critics say it has failed to deal with problems in education, security and the environment.
Uruguayans were voting for their choice of president, vice-president and members of parliament at the same time. The Broad Front retained its majority in the senate and the chamber of deputies.
They were also voting in a controversial referendum on whether to lower the age at which a person can be criminally charged as an adult from 18 to 16. The proposal did not get more than the 50% vote it needed to be approved.
| Government Job change - Election | October 2014 | ['(BBC)'] |
The discovery of two sunken World War II Japanese submarines off Oahu, Hawaii, is announced. | Researchers on Thursday announced the discovery of two World War II Japanese submarines, including one meant to carry aircraft for attacks on American cities and the Panama Canal, in deep water off Hawaii, where they were sunk 63 years ago. The submarines, among five that were captured by American forces at the end of the war and taken to Pearl Harbor for study, were found off Oahu at a depth of about 2,600 feet using submersibles from the Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory, which is financed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and located at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. The five were towed to sea in 1946 and torpedoed, and the researchers said one probable reason for that was to avoid having to share any of the technology with the Russian military. | New archeological discoveries | November 2009 | ['(NY Times)', '(The Christian Science Monitor)'] |
Indonesia's anti-corruption agency arrests South Sulawesi Governor Nurdin Abdullah and several other people for alleged corruption in Makassar. Abdullah's arrest came as a surprise to many with his track record as an anti-corruption champion. | Jakarta. The anti-corruption agency has arrested South Sulawesi Governor Nurdin Abdullah and several others for alleged corruption in Makassar on Friday.
The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) arrested Nurdin while sleeping at the governor's residence in the South Sulawesi capital and flew him overnight to Jakarta.
"I was sleeping, [when they came] to pick me up," Nurdin told reporters when he arrived at KPK headquarters in Jakarta on Saturday.
Ali Fikri, KPK's spokesman, said the agency arrested five others in Friday's operation, including South Sulawesi senior officials and business people.
Ali refused to reveal more details about the cases, saying the investigators are still working to gather more evidence.
Nurdin's arrest came as a surprise to many with his track record as an anti-corruption champion. The 57 years old governor won the prestigious Bung Hatta Anti-Corruption Award in 2017 when he was still a district head in Bantaeng, South Sulawesi.
The previous winner of this award include President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo, former Jakarta governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati and Social Affairs Minister Tri Rismaharini, who was a former Surabaya mayor.
The Bung Hatta Anticorruption Award jurors at the time were impressed by Nurdin's initiatives to revamp the district budget management and transparency by involving the police and the state prosecutor's office for its supervision. The jurors also said that Nurdin managed to strengthen the district's inspectorate department, closing many corruption opportunities.
Bivitri Susanti, one of the 2017 award jurors, said at the time, the award went to public officials who "created an anti-corruption system," and they extend their leadership's impact to their constituents.
"We feel disappointed over the arrest of the South Sulawesi governor," Bavitri said on Saturday.
"The election process [for the Bung Hatta Anti-Corruption Award] was very rigorous. In addition to input from the public, [his] track records are also verified directly in the field," Bivitri said.
She said the jurors hoped at that time that Nurdin, as well as other award recipients, could be a driving force and inspiration for anti-corruption attitudes for other government officials.
"The hope is that at that time, the recipients of the award from the government will be an encouragement and inspiration for anti-corruption in the government. But the development after the award cannot be controlled, even though they signed an integrity pact when they received the award," he said.
Under two periods of Nurdin's leadership, Bantaeng's regional per capita income grew almost six times to Rp 41.6 million ($2,910) in 2018 from Rp 7.1 million in 2008, the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) data showed.
The share of poor households dropped to 9.2 percent of the total households in the district from 40 percent over the period, according to the Jakarta Globe's calculation based on the agency data.
Nurdin then runs for the South Sulawesi governor seat in 2018, pairing with Andi Sudirman Sulaiman, the younger brother of the former agriculture minister Amran Sulaiman, as his deputy.
The Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), the National Mandate Party (PAN), and the Social Justice Party (PKS) backed Nurdin in the election, which he won by a landslide victory against three other candidates. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Arrest | February 2021 | ['(Jakarta Globe)'] |
At least nine people are missing following the crash of a Russian military plane in the Pacific Ocean. | A Russian military plane carrying 11 crew members has crashed into the sea in the far-east of the country.
The Tu-142 plane disappeared from radar over the Tatar Strait, near the island of Sakhalin, military officials say. Search operations continue although an emergency ministry official has said all the missing are presumed dead. Some reports suggest the plane's fuselage has already been found. Just last week a Russian cargo plane crashed in eastern Yakutia, killing 11 people. According to one report, an object which could be the missing plane's fuselage has been found in 44 metres (144 ft) of water. All flights of Russia's Pacific Fleet have been suspended pending the results of an investigation into the accident, reports say. | Air crash | November 2009 | ['(RIA Novosti)', '(BBC)'] |
In horse racing, the 141st running of the Kentucky Derby occurs at the Churchill Downs racecourse in the American city of Louisville, Kentucky with American Pharoah ridden by Victor Espinoza and trained by Bob Baffert winning in front of a record crowd. , , | Kentucky Derby winner American Pharoah, ridden by Victor Espinoza, comes out of turn 4 at Churchill Downs on Saturday.
Shortly after riding California Chrome to victory in last year’s Kentucky Derby, jockey Victor Espinoza ran into Bob Baffert, the trainer who put Espinoza on 2002 Derby winner War Emblem more than a decade before.
“Congratulations, Victor,” Baffert said. “That was amazing.”
“Thanks, Bob,” Espinoza said.
“Next year,” Baffert joked, pointing at the jockey, “You and me.”
“OK,” Espinoza said. “I’m ready for it.”
UPDATE: American Pharoah crosses finish line first in Kentucky Derby
A year later, Espinoza is once again aboard the favorite, riding Baffert-trained American Pharoah in Saturday’s 141st Kentucky Derby.
But it was only by chance that the 42-year-old Espinoza wound up on the colt who became the darling of this year’s pre-Derby chatter.
“Who thought we could be here in this situation?” Espinoza said.
American Pharoah finished fifth in a 6 1/2-furlong maiden race at Del Mar under jockey Martin Garcia, and Baffert was unsure whether he would enter the colt in last September’s Grade 1 Del Mar Futurity. When he made a late decision to do so, Garcia was already committed to another mount, Baffert said. Another top jockey, Rafael Bejarano, also was unavailable.
So Baffert turned to Espinoza.
“I told his agent, ‘I’m thinking of running a horse who was sort of a problem child,’” Baffert said. “War Emblem was a problem child. [Victor’s] pretty good with those problem-child horses.”
Espinoza rode American Pharoah to victory at Del Mar — “I was like, ‘Wow, that’s the real deal,’” Espinoza said — and then three more, including one by eight lengths at the $1-million Arkansas Derby.
So, just as he did last year, Espinoza is riding the horse to beat in the 1 1/4-mile Run for the Roses.
Derby favorites appeared jinxed from 1980 to 1999, when none won. But 54 favorites have claimed victories in 140 races, including Orb in 2013 and California Chrome last year.
Baffert acknowledges that American Pharoah has yet to be severely tested. He is expected to receive a challenge from undefeated barnmate Dortmund, the $1-million Santa Anita Derby winner who is also trained by Baffert.
“Dortmund goes over this track much better than Santa Anita,” Baffert said.
Espinoza, in his seventh Derby, is prepared for any challenge after winning last year.
“He’s a cool customer,” three-time Derby winning jockey Gary Stevens said of Espinoza. “He’s not fazed by the atmosphere.”
Stevens, who will be aboard 12-1 shot Firing Line, is among those trying to prevent Espinoza from becoming one of the few to win consecutive Kentucky Derbys.
Calvin Borel was the last one, riding longshot Mine That Bird in 2009 and Super Saver in 2010. Borel was scheduled to be aboard El Kabeir, who was scratched Friday after a deadline that would have allowed for an alternate entry.
On Thursday, after Stanford scratched and Frammento was added, American Pharoah’s starting position moved from 18th, which has produced only one Derby winner, to No. 17, which has produced none. El Kabeir’s scratch from the No. 7 post enabled horses 1 through 6 to move one spot away from the rail.
American Pharoah moved to No. 16, with 14 horses to his left after International Star scratched on Saturday. International Star had arrived at Churchill Downs as the leader in the standings, but was scratched because of a quarter crack in his hoof.
“It’s a devastating blow to come this far,” owner Ken Ramsey said. “I thought I had a decent shot at winning the race. But it happened to A.P. Indy and a lot of other horses before.”
Baffert had said American Pharaoh’s initial starting post at No. 18 would not be an issue against one of the deepest and most talented fields in years.
Ocho Ocho Ocho and Todd Pletcher-trained Carpe Diem and Materiality are in the first three starting spots.
“This is going to be a very fast pace,” Stevens said.
Firing Line is considered a threat because of his close losses to Dortmund in the Robert B. Lewis Stakes at Santa Anita and the Los Alamitos Derby. Stevens’ experience also figures in the equation.
“It’s going to be ugly the first sixteenth of a mile,” he said, noting the expected rush by the field to avoid potential trouble, “but it’s going to be fun.”
Highly regarded Upstart was to start just to the right of American Pharoah. Three spots to his left will be Frosted, winner of the Wood Memorial.
Baffert’s dream scenario is to see American Pharoah and Dortmund in front as they come out of the final turn.
“I just hope they get a clear shot,” he said.
Baffert is not worried about Espinoza, who rode Baffert-trained Sinister Minister in the 2006 Kentucky Derby and Midnight Interlude in the 2011 race.
“He’s been here at the big dance,” Baffert said. “It’s up to him. I can’t really tell him anything.”
Espinoza is hoping for another smooth ride aboard American Pharoah, but he is prepared for the unexpected.
“Nothing is easy in the Kentucky Derby,” he said. “It’s just a matter of if he can run his race.”
| Sports Competition | May 2015 | ['(The Guardian)', '(Los Angeles Times)', '(AP)'] |
A drought causes at least 10 billion yuan ($1.46 billion) in direct economic loss at Fanaga village of Luquan county, near Kunming, capital of Yunnan. | A farmer points to a piece of dried-up land yesterday in a village in Guiyang, capital of Guizhou province. [China Daily]
More than half of those affected by the dry spell are in Yunnan province, which is suffering its worst drought in six decades. Nearly 6 million people and 4 million heads of livestock in Yunnan do not have adequate drinking water, the provincial civil affairs bureau said yesterday. In total, nearly 14 million people are affected by the drought. "Senior villagers said the only brook passing our village had never dried before, but it dried out last year," said Xi Xiaoyang from Fanaga village of Luquan county, near Kunming, capital of Yunnan. The water cellar of her family, which is used to store rainwater for daily use, has been dry for four months. Every day, Xi and other fellow villagers walk to a neighboring village 4 km away to fetch water from a brook. Water has become so precious for them that the water they wash their face with is recycled to feed their chickens and pigs. However, no rain is expected to arrive anytime soon and the drought might stretch to May, when the rainy season begins for Yunnan, the provincial meteorological bureau said. About 85 percent of the crops in the province are also suffering from water shortages. The drought has caused at least 10 billion yuan ($1.46 billion) in direct economic loss for the province's agricultural sector, said provincial governor Qin Guangrong. The weather has also halved hydropower generation and affected related enterprises. Related readings: Drought hitting Yunnan Severe drought hitting southwest China 7.5M people lack water due to drought in SW China Parched throats struggle to sip water as drought bites
Besides Yunnan, the drought has also hit the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region and Guizhou, Sichuan, Shanxi, Henan and Shaanxi provinces, as well as the Chongqing municipality. Official statistics showed that at least 3.56 million hectares of farmland were affected and 11.88 million people and eight million heads of livestock nationwide did not have adequate drinking water as of Feb 20. Wei Chao'an, deputy minister of agriculture, was quoted by People's Daily yesterday as saying that the latest ministry survey showed winter wheat growth was the worst in five years partly because of the drought. The ministry has taken measures to fight the drought and help drought-hit areas prepare for planting later to make up for the losses, he said. But Zhang Hulin, professor with the Party School of Central Committee of CPC, said the impact on crop yield will be contained as the regions affected by the drought are limited. He suggested that the ministry invest more on infrastructure to help fight drought more effectively. Jin Zhu contributed to the story
Wang Xiaoying, a bankrupt businesswoman in Heilongjiang province, used up all of her savings to set up a home for the aged.
McDonald's on Wednesday allowed coupons issued by its competitors to be used on its McWings or fried chicken wings, stepping up the fierce competition in the country's fast-food industry.
Paris Hilton has a Britney Spears moment - luckily she is wearing a pair of pantyhose as she heads to a meeting in Hollywood, Ca.
Brad Pitt and Jolie walk aboard a taxi boat with their son and daughter in Venice Feb 16, 2010.
My choice is Church Marriage and Naked Marriage. I choose church but I’m not a bit religious. I’m also not that kind of guy who worships foreign things. | Droughts | February 2010 | ['(China Daily)'] |
Beau Biden, U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden's son, who had served in the Iraq War and for multiple terms as the Attorney General of Delaware, dies at Walter Reed Medical Center after a battle with malignant brain cancer. | Joseph Robinette “Beau” Biden III, the son of Vice President Biden and former state attorney general of Delaware, died Saturday after battling brain cancer for several years.
Biden, 46, the oldest son of the vice president and the rising star of a family dynasty, had been admitted recently to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Washington as he fought the cancer, a battle that his father largely kept private in the last weeks as his son clung to his life.
“The entire Biden family is saddened beyond words. We know that Beau’s spirit will live on in all of us—especially through his brave wife, Hallie, and two remarkable children, Natalie and Hunter,” Vice President Biden said in a statement that was released Saturday night.
[The Biden family's statement]
Beau Biden, a major in the Delaware Army National Guard’s Judge Advocate General Corps, became one of his state’s most popular public figures and had been considered the frontrunner for the 2016 race to become the state’s next governor, but in August 2013 he was admitted into one of the world’s most renowned cancer treatment centers, University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in the Texas Medical Center in Houston, to begin his fight with the disease.
Biden is survived by his wife, Hallie, and two children.
President Obama released a statement late Saturday saying that he and first lady Michelle Obama calling him “a good, big-hearted, devoutly Catholic and deeply faithful man, who made a difference in the lives of all he touched – and he lives on in their hearts.”
“But for all that Beau Biden achieved in his life, nothing made him prouder; nothing made him happier; nothing claimed a fuller focus of his love and devotion than his family,” Obama’s statement said.
Beau Biden became a national political star in 2008 after delivering a stirring introduction of his father at the Democratic National Convention in Denver the night Joe Biden accepted the nomination as vice president. A little more than a month later, Beau Biden deployed to Iraq and served there for one year — except for a trip home in January 2009 to see his father take the oath of office as vice president. He was awarded the Bronze Star.
In Denver seven years ago, Beau Biden told the tragic family story that became the emotional foundation for his father’s 36 years of service in the Senate and the past six-and-a-half years as vice president. Shortly after winning his Senate race, in December 1972, Joe Biden received a call while in Washington interviewing staff.
His wife, Neilla, and three children had been in a horrible car crash on the way home from purchasing the family Christmas tree. His wife and daughter had died, and his two sons, Beau and Hunter, were clinging to their life. Having just turned 30, Biden raced home to Wilmington and considered never taking the oath of office.
Through the support of other senators, Biden agreed to be sworn in the next month, at the hospital bedside of Beau and Hunter. Eventually venturing to Washington, Biden decided that he would take the train every morning from Wilmington and return every night.
“As a single parent, he decided to be there to put us to bed, to be there when we woke from a bad dream, to make us breakfast, so he’d travel to and from Washington, four hours a day,” Beau Biden told the Denver crowd on Aug. 27, 2008, an emotional speech that introduced the world to a story that his father had told many times.
In recent weeks, the vice president’s public schedule had declined as he regularly visited his son. Two weeks ago, during Yale University’s graduation ceremonies, he delivered a deeply personal speech to thousands of students and parents who had no idea what the vice president was personally enduring.
Close advisers viewed it as the closest Joe Biden ever came to fully explaining how much his personal life and tragedy informed his own career. Of his Amtrak ride home every night to see his two sons, he said it wasn’t for them.
“The real reason I went home every night was that I needed my children more than they needed me,” he told the Yale crowd.
Beau Biden attended his father’s high school, Archmere Academy, was class president and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania. He then got his law degree from Syracuse University, out of devotion to his deceased mother, who graduated from that colleage. Joe Biden, originally considering other law schools, decided to attend Syracuse Law after falling in love with Neilla.
Beau Biden was elected Delaware’s attorney general in 2006, and was considered the likely candidate to take his father’s Senate seat after he left to become vice president. Ted Kaufman — the vice president’s closest confidant and former chief of staff — was appointed as an interim senator, but eventually Beau Biden decided to run for re-election as attorney general in 2010 rather than try to claim his father’s Senate seat, charting his own political path toward one day becoming governor.
In recent weeks Kaufman has returned to Vice President Biden’s side, working with him again as he dealt with the looming tragedy of his son’s death.
“More than his professional accomplishments, Beau measured himself as a husband, father, son and brother. His absolute honor made him a role model for our family. Beau embodied my father’s saying that a parent knows success when his child turns out better than he did,” the vice president said Saturday in his statement. | Famous Person - Death | May 2015 | ['(MSN)'] |
An explosion at a khat market in Wanlaweyn, Lower Shabelle, Somalia, kills five people and injures ten others. | An explosion killed at least five people and wounded 10 on Wednesday in a market for the stimulant leaf khat in southern Somalia, police and residents said.
The blast, whose cause was not immediately clear, occurred in the busy market in the town of Wanlaweyn in the Lower Shabelle region, about 90 km (55 miles) to the northwest of the coastal capital Mogadishu.
Given Wanlaweyn’s lack of hospitals able to take in multiple casualties, residents said they took many of the wounded to their homes for the time being after the afternoon blast near a busy cluster of khat kiosks.
The blast at the khat kiosks killed at least five civilians and injured more others including soldiers. We are investigating whether there are more casualties and the cause of the blast.
Police said they were investigating whether the explosion was caused by a planted bomb or by a suicide bomber.
“The blast at the khat kiosks killed at least five civilians and injured more others including soldiers. We are investigating whether there are more casualties and the cause of the blast,” police Captain Farah Ismail told Reuters.
“The death toll may rise,” he added.
Residents said the kiosks were busy with soldiers buying khat. “I counted five dead people, including two shoe shiners, a mother who sold khat and two customers. There were 10 other injured civilians,” shopkeeper Ahmed Mohamud told Reuters.
“I could also see several soldiers in uniform being transported from the blast scene but I could not confirm whether they were dead or wounded.”
It was not immediately clear who was behind the blast. In past incidents, the al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab militant group has claimed responsibility. Al Shabaab is fighting to overthrow Somalia’s central government and establish its own rule based on its interpretation of Islamic law.
Since being pushed out of Mogadishu in 2011, the group has lost control of most of Somalia’s cities and towns. But it retains a strong presence in regions outside the capital. | Riot | May 2018 | ['(Africa News)'] |
A pickup truck hurls off San Diego, California's Coronado Bridge, plummets some 60 feet, and crashes onto a park where hundreds of people had gathered for a motorcycle rally, killing four people in a vendor's booth and injuring eight others. | SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - A U.S. Navy serviceman was under arrest on Sunday after a pickup truck he was driving while intoxicated hurtled off a ramp leading to San Diego’s Coronado Bridge and killed four people at a motorcycle rally and festival in a park below the span, police said.
The four victims were in a vendor’s booth at about 3:30 p.m. PDT when the truck plunged off the bridge’s on-ramp and fell 60 feet (18 m) into Chicano Park, the California Highway Patrol and local media reported.
Stunned witnesses described seeing the truck flying from overhead and crashing into a crowd of hundreds of people who were gathered below.
The truck “was going so fast it flew over the stage and landed in front of the stage on a tent,” Chase Dameron told the San Diego Union-Tribune.
“It was like a movie. It was like in slow motion,” he added, describing the scene as “instant chaos and panic.”
In addition to the four fatalities, nine people, including the driver, were injured but authorities did not disclose their conditions.
“They are innocent people that are just down here having a good time, and now they’re gone,” said CHP public information officer Jake Sanchez. “It’s horrible. It’s horrific.”
Sanchez said the truck was traveling northbound on Interstate 5 when the driver lost control while exiting the freeway and crashed into a guardrail, sending the vehicle plummeting into the park below.
The driver, a Navy sailor named Richard Sepolio, according to local media, was charged with driving under the influence of alcohol, Sanchez said. He was being treated for serious injuries at a University of California at San Diego hospital.
The suspect is either 24 or 25 years old, Sanchez said, and assigned to the North Island Naval Air Station on Coronado Island. He did not disclose his rank or hometown. Navy officials were not immediately available for comment.
The air station, one of several large naval installations in the Southern California city, lies across San Diego Bay from the downtown. It is about four miles from the crash site.
The fatalities included a 62-year-old man and a 50-year-old woman from Chandler, Arizona; and a 59-year-old woman and 49-year-old man from Hacienda Heights in Los Angeles County, California, an NBC News-affiliate reported.
The California Highway Patrol was not immediately available on Sunday for further comment.
.
| Road Crash | October 2016 | ['(Reuters)'] |
At least 339 people are killed at a stampede during Bon Om Thook celebrations in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. | At least 345 people have been killed in a stampede during festival celebrations in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, Prime Minister Hun Sen has said.
Huge crowds had gathered on a small island for the final day of the Water Festival, one of the main events of the year in Cambodia.
The stampede took place on a bridge, which eyewitnesses said had become overcrowded.
Hundreds more people were injured in the crush.
Hun Sen described the stampede as the "biggest tragedy" to hit Cambodia since the mass killings carried out by the Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s.
He said he had ordered an investigation and declared a national day of mourning for later in the week. He ordered all government ministries to fly the nation's flag at half-mast.
Government spokesman Khieu Kanharith told AFP news agency that more than 400 people had been injured.
"Most of the deaths were as a result of suffocation and internal injuries," he said.
Authorities had estimated that more than two million people would attend the three-day festival.
Panic broke out after a concert on Diamond Island, which followed a boat race on the Tonle Sap river regarded as a highlight of the festivities.
Sean Ngu, an Australian who was visiting family and friends in Cambodia, told the BBC too many people had been on the bridge.
He said some of the victims were electrocuted.
"There were too many people on the bridge and then both ends were pushing," he said.
"This caused a sudden panic. The pushing caused those in the middle to fall to the ground, then [get] crushed. "Panic started and at least 50 people jumped in the river. People tried to climb on to the bridge, grabbing and pulling [electric] cables which came loose and electrical shock caused more deaths."
Witnesses spoke of bodies littering the area.
Calmette Hospital, Phnom Penh's main medical facility, was filled with dead bodies as well as the injured, some of whom had to be treated in hallways. | Riot | November 2010 | ['(Khmer Water Festival)', '(BBC)', '(Xinhua)', '(AP)', '(Reuters)'] |
Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams remains in custody in connection with the IRA murder of Jean McConville. | Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams continues to be questioned by Northern Ireland police in connection with the 1972 murder of Jean McConville.
Mr Adams has spent the night in custody after going to Antrim police station, where he was arrested.
Speaking before his detention on Wednesday evening, Mr Adams said he was "innocent of any part" in the murder.
Mrs McConville, a 37-year-old widow and mother-of-10, was abducted and shot by the IRA. Her body was recovered from a beach in County Louth in 2003.
Police said a 65-year-old man presented himself to officers at Antrim police station and was arrested.
In a statement, Sinn Féin said: "Last month Gerry Adams said he was available to meet the PSNI about the Jean McConville case. That meeting is taking place this evening."
Mr Adams added: "I believe that the killing of Jean McConville and the secret burial of her body was wrong and a grievous injustice to her and her family. "Well publicised, malicious allegations have been made against me. I reject these.
"While I have never disassociated myself from the IRA and I never will, I am innocent of any part in the abduction, killing or burial of Mrs McConville." His party colleague Alex Maskey condemned the timing of the arrest, just over three weeks from the European and local government elections.
However, Mrs McConville's son Michael, who was 11 when his mother was murdered, welcomed the arrest.
"We're just happy to see everything moving as it is moving at the minute," Mr McConville said.
"Me and the rest of my brothers and sisters are just glad to see the PSNI doing their job. We didn't think it would ever take place [Mr Adams' arrest], but we are quite glad that it is taking place.
"All we're looking for is justice for our mother. Our mother, on the seventh of next month, would have been 80 years of age. "Although we didn't spend much time with our mother, we'd have like to have spent a lot of time with her. If the IRA hadn't have killed our mother, God knows, she still might have been alive today." Mr McConville said what he really wanted was for the perpetrators to be tried as "war criminals" at the international court in the Hague, rather than being brought before courts in Northern Ireland.
Northern Ireland's First Minister Peter Robinson said he "commends the police for the action they have taken".
Speaking to the media on Thursday, he said: "It strengthens our political process in Northern Ireland for people to know that no one is above the law, everyone is equal under the law and everyone is equally subject to the law."
Prime Minister David Cameron said there had been "absolutely no political interference in this issue".
Taoiseach (Irish prime minister) Enda Kenny also rejected suggestions from senior Sinn Féin figures that the arrest of Mr Adams had been politically motivated.
"This is still a live murder case, this is still a live investigation," he said.
"All I can say is that I hope the president of Sinn Féin answers in the best way he can, to the fullest extent that he can, questions that are being asked about a live murder investigation."
Mrs McConville, one of Northern Ireland's Disappeared, was kidnapped in front of her children after being wrongly accused of being an informer.
The claim that she was an informer was dismissed after an official investigation by the Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman.
Mrs McConville was held at one or more houses before being shot and buried in secret. The Disappeared are those who were abducted, murdered and secretly buried by republicans during the Troubles. The IRA admitted in 1999 that it murdered and buried at secret locations nine of the Disappeared. The Independent Commission for the Location of Victims' Remains was established in 1999 by a treaty between the British and Irish governments.
It lists 16 people as "disappeared". Despite extensive searches, the remains of seven of them have not been found.
On its website, the commission said all information it received was privileged - it can not be passed on to other agencies or used in a court of law. It can only be used to try and locate the remains of the Disappeared.
Jean McConville's remains were found in 2003 by a man walking at Shelling Hill beach, near Carlingford. It is understood that because Mrs McConville's body was found by accident by a member of the public rather than through information given to the commission, a criminal investigation can take place.
Last month, Ivor Bell, 77, a leader in the Provisional IRA in the 1970s, was charged with aiding and abetting the murder.
There have also been a number of other arrests over the murder recently.
The case against Bell is based on an interview he allegedly gave to researchers at Boston College in the US. The Boston College tapes are a series of candid, confessional interviews with former loyalist and republican paramilitaries, designed to be an oral history of the Troubles.
The paramilitaries were told the tapes would only be made public after their deaths. However, after a series of court cases in the United States, some of the content has been handed over to the authorities.
Mr Adams has never been charged with membership of the IRA. He was, however, interned in 1972 under the controversial Special Powers Act, but briefly released in order that he could take part in talks in London between representatives of Sinn Fein and the then Home Secretary Willie Whitelaw.
He was later re-arrested and interned at Long Kesh. Following an aborted escape attempt he received a prison sentence. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Arrest | May 2014 | ['(BBC)'] |
Thomas Lubanga, former leader of the Union of Congolese Patriots militia in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, becomes the first person arrested on behalf of, and then referred to the International Criminal Court for war crimes. | On 17 March 2006, in Kinshasa, Mr Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, a Congolese national and alleged founder and leader of the Union des Patriotes Congolais (UPC) was arrested and transferred to the International Criminal Court as part of the judicial proceedings under the Rome Statute (the “Statute”). Thomas Lubanga is alleged to have committed war crimes as set out in article 8 of the Statute, committed in the territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo since July 2002.
Pre-Trial Chamber I issued a sealed warrant of arrest against Mr Lubanga on 10 February 2006. The Chamber found that there were reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Lubanga had committed the following war crime: conscripting and enlisting children under the age of fifteen years and using them to participate actively in hostilities. The Chamber also requested that the Democratic Republic of the Congo arrest and surrender him to the Court. The Registrar notified the Congolese authorities of the decision on 14 March 2006, as instructed by the Pre-Trial Chamber.
On 17 March 2006, Pre-Trial Chamber I unsealed the warrant of arrest against Mr Thomas Lubanga.
As provided under article 59 of the Statute, Mr Lubanga appeared before the competent judicial authority in Kinshasa. The Congolese authorities cooperated with the Court in the spirit of the Statute by promptly executing its request. The French Government agreed to cooperate with the Court and, for the purpose of executing the decision of Pre-Trial Chamber I, provided a military aircraft to transfer Mr Lubanga. MONUC also provided support to the operation.
Mr Lubanga is the first person to be arrested and transferred to the International Criminal Court since the entry into force of the Statute in July 2002. The Prosecutor of the Court initiated investigations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2004 after the Congolese Government referred the situation in that country to the Court.
The Court issued its first warrants of arrest in July 2005 in the situation in Uganda against five leaders of the Lord’s Resistance Army. Investigations are also ongoing in the situation in Darfur which was referred to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court by the United Nations Security Council on 31 March 2005. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Arrest | March 2006 | ['(ICC)'] |
The death toll from the earthquake has reached 154 with the final toll expected to be around 240. |
The death toll from the Christchurch earthquake is likely to be about 240, police say.
At a joint media conference this morning, Superintendent Dave Cliff said the death toll remained at 154, after more bodies were found overnight. Three of the recovered bodies had been found in the PGC building.
But Mr Cliff said the number of dead was expected to rise. He said a figure of around 240 was "solidifying" but could still change.
Police would officially release the names of at least three more victims later today, he said.
Mr Cliff warned that it was not going to be possible in all cases for the bodies of dead - some of which had received horrific injuries - to be returned to families.
Identifying victims was "really emotionally charged and draining work", he said, and the process took time.
But Mr Cliff reiterated that the process was "absolutely robust" and was the same as used overseas.
If the death toll did reach 240, the Christchurch earthquake would be New Zealand's third worst death toll from a disaster.
The 1979 Mt Erebus air crashed left 257 dead on November 28, 1979, while the 1931 Napier earthquake killed 256 and levelled much of the city's centre. Russell Wood from the Fire Service told the conference he had toured the Pyne Gould Corporation building last night and that Urban Search and Rescue (Usar) workers at the site believed they would find more victims. In a statement, police said there would be a controlled felling at the top of the building due to safety concerns about its stability.
Mr Wood said 30 cubic metres of concrete had been pumped into the base of the Hotel Grand Chancellor building yesterday to stabilise it so that Usar workers could enter it.
A key wall in the Christchurch Cathedral, where up to 22 bodies still lay, would be shored up today to allow better access for the Usar teams, he said.
Mr Wood said recovery efforts at the CTV building remained a daylight operation only.
Water supply Steve Brazier, acting national co-ordinator for the Civil Defence operation told media 66 per cent of the city had water.
He said there were 67 tankers in areas which did not have water and desalination plants were being organised, but he said it would be "some weeks" before water was fully restored to the city.
About 500 people were in the city working on repairing water infrastructure today, he said.
"There are many breaks but there are many people who are really dedicated to getting these things fixed."
Mr Brazier said without water, there was no sewerage and the aim was to get one chemical toilet into every house without a toilet after the earthquake.
In the meantime, Mr Brazier suggested residents without toilets use plastic bags in their existing toilets.
Civil Defence said all water in Christchurch would be chlorinated today in an effort to combat contamination from broken sewers and waste water pipes.
The treatment is likely to continue for months while the city's infrastructure is restored, it said in a statement.
"Chlorine is a highly efficient disinfectant, and adding to public water supplies helps to kill disease-causing bacteria that may exist in the water or in transport pipes."
The chlorination is expected to be an issue for people receiving dialysis treatment. A free-phone dialysis helpline has been set up at 0800 881919.
Two minutes' silence Prime Minister John Key has asked all New Zealanders to observe two minutes' silence today, in honour of the victims of last week's magnitude 6.3 earthquake.
The tribute will begin at 12.51pm today - exactly one week since the quake hit.
Mayor Parker this morning said people should not head into central Christchurch to observe it.
He told TVNZ's Breakfast programme that roads into the city were still in an appalling state and people reflect "in their own way", rather than entering it.
"We're in traffic chaos," Mayor Parker said, stressing that roads were still acting as life-lines for emergency workers to use and should not be congested.
He said the silence was about everyone "standing together", regardless of where they were.
"The two-minute silence at 12.51pm is really about whatever you are doing, stop ... and we all stand together as one," he said.
"This is the first time we will all reflect in a month."
Disaster victim identification teams from Thailand and Israel last night joined the operation, Civil Defence said.
A four-strong disaster victim identification team from Queensland had also arrived, taking the number of people working to identify the dead to 170.
Aftershocks Aftershocks are continuing to shake Christchurch with the latest a 4.3 magnitude earthquake at 9.10am.
GNS Science reported the earthquake was centred 10km east of Lyttelton at a depth of 2km.
GNS Science seismologist John Ristau said this morning's large and shallow aftershock could have pushed earthquake damaged buildings to breaking point.
The Geonet website has already received reports of damage and slight damage in its wake.
"If you have something that's ready to topple then all it takes is a little push.
"Depth plays a huge factor in how strongly an earthquake is going to be felt. Just a few kilometres of depth can make a huge difference."
Mr Ristau said the number of large aftershocks in Christchurch was trending downward.
It was encouraging that this morning's quake came more than 24 hours after a 4.1 aftershock that hit 10km south-east of Christchurch at 7.55am yesterday, he said.
But he warned a magnitude 5 or more quake was still possible in the next few days.
"The aftershock sequence is dying off fairly quickly. Hopefully things will start to quiet down in the next couple of days. But that magnitude 5 is still possible."
Residents took to Twitter to report this morning's aftershock, saying it shifted furniture, rocked cars from side to side and made roads seem like they were swaying.
Twitter user invervegas KDP said: "Sitting in my car for that one.. Felt like two guys were rocking it!".
gutterkitten ashley t said "That came out of no where, made me jump out of my skin". | Earthquakes | March 2011 | ['(New Zealand Herald)'] |
French national public television broadcaster France Télévisions fires France 2 TV channel's weatherman Philippe Verdier, who has been suspended since mid–October. Verdier, known as “Monsieur Météo” , has been promoting his recently published book, Climat Investigation , in which he throws doubt on the global warning findings of leading climate scientists and political leaders. France Télévisions said its rules, "prevent anyone using their professional status … to push forward their personal opinions." | TV weatherman Philippe Verdier was taken off air by the France 2 channel after writing a book in which he pooh-poohed global warming and questioned the probity of the 830 scientists who comprise the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Photograph: Bertrand Guay/AFP
If you were the head of French state television and your leading weatherman started preaching climate skepticism in the run-up to the UN climate conference in Paris, you would probably sack him too.
Philippe Verdier, “Monsieur Météo” (Mr Weather) at France 2, published a book titled Climat Investigation last month, in which he pooh-poohed global warming and questioned the probity of the 830 scientists who comprise the UN’s intergovernmental panel on climate change.
The panel says if nothing is done to reduce carbon emissions, the world’s temperature could rise by up to 4.8 degrees by the end of this century. It is 95 per cent certain that most of the global warming since 1950 has been caused by man-made greenhouse emissions.
Verdier used his position as Monsieur Météo to promote his book. “Every night I address five million French people to talk to you about the wind, the clouds and the sun,” he said in a promotional video. “Yet there is something important, very important, that I haven’t been able to tell you… We are hostage to a planetary scandal over climate change. A war machine intended to keep us in fear.”
At the root of this conspiracy, Verdier claimed, “are scientists who are manipulated, politicised, conflicts of interest, corruption, sex scandals, politicians who think only of their image and their thirst for power, blind media who get carried away and censor under the pressure of shareholders and advertisers, contradictory financial interests, mercantile NGOs and religions in search of new beliefs”. In his book, Verdier vaunted the “merits” of climate change – the attraction to tourists, lower heating costs in winter, better wine and champagne. No one denounced him as a nut case. He told Les Inrockuptibles magazine he decided to write his book when foreign minister Laurent Fabius, who will preside the COP21 climate change conference in December, urged weathermen to report on “climate chaos”. Fabius appeared on a magazine cover as a weatherman with the title “500 days to save the planet”. “If a minister decides he is Mr Weatherman, then Mr Weatherman can also express himself on the subject in a lucid manner,” Verdier said.
Asked about Verdier, Fabius said, “If one is a serious scientist, there is no debate… Of course, in history there have been famous precedents of minorities who were right. But one mustn’t invert reason and say that just because they are a tiny minority, they are scientifically right.”
On November 1st, Verdier posted a video in which, dressed in black, he read his dismissal notice in silence. Delphine Ernotte, chief executive of France Télévisions, told Paris Match that her employees “must distinguish between personal opinions and what may be attributed to the company. He confused these, and that’s a problem for me.”
Daniel Schneidermann, an editorial writer for Libération newspaper, warned of the “Streisand effect” whereby attempted censorship merely amplifies the internet audience. “Firing [Verdier] will make the presenter an instant martyr of climate skepticism,” he predicted.
“I didn’t know there was an editorial line to weather reporting,” said Éric Vial, a delegate with Force Ouvrière labour union, which supports Verdier. A “Collective of Climate Realists” has posted 17,000 signatures on an internet petition demanding that Verdier be reinstated.
In other “climate chaos”, socialist politicians have clashed, yet again, over air pollution in Paris. In the face of predicted peak levels of pollution on Monday and Tuesday, Anne Hidalgo, the socialist mayor of Paris, and Jean-Paul Huchon, the socialist president of the Île-de-France (Paris) region, demanded that environment minister Ségolène Royal activate a plan to limit traffic to cars with odd or even plate numbers on alternate days.
Royal, in Beijing with President François Hollande, said the plan would not be activated before Wednesday, and only if peak levels were reached. (They were not.) As accusations of incompetence and bureaucracy flew, it became clear no one is certain who holds ultimate responsibility for activating the anti-pollution plan.
In an earlier clash over anti-pollution measures last spring, Hidalgo said “the health of Parisians is non-negotiable”, while Royal said it was not reasonable to impose the hardship of odd/even car days on residents of the suburbs.
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Stay on top of the latest news with our daily newsletters each morning, lunchtime and evening | Government Job change - Resignation_Dismissal | November 2015 | ['(Mr Weather)', '(Climate Investigation)', '(Irish Times)', '(The Guardian)'] |
Liberia and Sierra Leone declare a state of emergency in response to the Ebola virus disease by sending in troops and ordering the closure of schools and markets and the quarantining of affected communities. | Liberia and Sierra Leone have declared states of emergency, ordering the closure of schools and markets and the quarantining of affected communities, in an attempt to halt the Ebola epidemic that has claimed more than 700 lives across three west African nations.
The leaders of both countries have cancelled planned trips to Washington for a US-Africa summit next week so they can meet on Friday in Conakry, the capital of Guinea, to discuss the crisis.
They will be joined by the leader of the Ivory Coast, which has porous frontiers with Liberia. Remote border officials say they've recently begun turning away people fleeing from affected communities. The World Health Organisation has also launched a $100m special fund to tackle the outbreak.
In Nigeria, where a Liberian civil servant died of Ebola after flying to the commercial hub of Lagos, airport authorities began screening passengers for high temperatures who were arriving from places at risk.
Liberia's president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, announced the emergency measures after a closed-door meeting earlier this week in which medical officials painted a stark picture, according to an aide present at the meeting.
Internal ministry of health reports obtained by the Guardian show health workers saw 606 people suspected of having the extremely contagious virus in a single day this week.
In Bomi county, one of the areas recommended for quarantine, the report noted "both probable and negative cases are being held in the same room with no attention". Health officials there were requesting training, it added.
"It's a dire situation. The spread is overwhelming health workers and facilities. We need all the help and support we can get from the international community," said Lewis Brown, Liberia's information minister. He said communities hit hardest would be quarantined for as long as necessary by security forces. "It's an emergency, so we hope people will understand."
Sierra Leone's president, Ernest Bai Koroma, said the state of emergency would last between 60 and 90 days. House-to-house searches to trace victims will be conducted and new at-risk neighbourhoods will be placed under quarantine if necessary.
A nationwide hunt was sparked in the capital, Freetown, when a patient was forcibly removed from hospital last week. She was reported to have died while being returned to the facility in an ambulance two days later.
The latest action comes as senior western officials, including from the US and UK, held meetings to assess the risk of Ebola reaching their shores. The US has recalled its Peace Corps volunteers from the region.
The measures taken are similar to those that rapidly ended a 1997 Ebola breakout in Uganda, which has sent in a medical team to help.
Many rural communities view Ebola with much the same fear and misunderstanding as westerners did when the Aids epidemic began, and have sometimes attacked overstretched health officials struggling to contain the epidemic. Those on the frontlines have been among the hardest hit by the disease, which has claimed the lives of Liberia and Sierra Leone's most experienced Ebola doctors.
There are signs that some public awareness campaigns are yielding results. Doctors were forced to turn patients away at one of Liberia's main Ebola isolation wards in a sign many were belatedly coming forward. Some residents in the capital, Monrovia, initially protested against a new ward being set up, fearing it would endanger them.
Sylvia Johnson, a Monrovia resident, pulled her grandson out of summer school at the beginning of the week after seeing a government poster of graphic corpses of Ebola victims. "He cried, but no child will control me. It will be better for him to live and attend many more vacation schools than get sick from Ebola," she said.
Spread by contact with bodily fluids of infected patients, bush meat or surfaces, this Ebola outbreak has killed 729 people since it originated in Guinea, where health officials took several weeks to pinpoint the source to a remote village in the country's forest hinterlands. By then, it had spread to Sierra Leone and Liberia.
Nigerian authorities have mobilised unusually swiftly, underlying concern about an outbreak in the continent's most populous nation and major commerce hub. Officials began printing information leaflets, including in widely-spoken pidgin English.
Akintayo Ugwani, a businessman, said: "It's terrifying. I have to get on a flight every couple of days and each time now I'm just wondering, am I entering a flying coffin?"
The country's main airline, Arik Air, has suspended flights between Nigeria, Liberia and Sierra Leone, while international airports and seaports have been placed on red alert, with passengers being monitored. Ghana also began screening passengers.
Philip Hammond, the British foreign secretary, chaired an emergency Cobra meeting amid warnings that the virus could be a threat to Britain, although health experts said the country was well prepared to deal with any potential cases.
Hammond said no British national had been affected by the outbreak and there had been no cases in the UK.
The UK announced a 2m package of assistance to the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC) and Mdecins sans Frontires, which are tackling Ebola in Sierra Leone and Liberia. The European commission said it would allocate an additional 2m (1.6m) C on top of 1.9m C to help contain the spread of the epidemic. | Disease Outbreaks | August 2014 | ['(Reuters)', '(The Guardian)'] |
A court in Oslo, Norway, deems Anders Behring Breivik sane and sentences him to 21 years' imprisonment for intentionally killing 77 people in two terror attacks in July 2011. | A Norwegian court has found that mass killer Anders Behring Breivik is sane and sentenced him to 21 years in jail.
Breivik, who admitted killing 77 people when he bombed central Oslo and then opened fire at an island youth camp, told the court he would not appeal.
He insisted he was sane and refused to plead guilty, saying last year's attacks were necessary to stop the "Islamisation" of Norway.
Prosecutors had called for him to be considered insane.
Breivik was convicted of terrorism and premeditated murder, and given the maximum sentence of 21 years' imprisonment. However, that can be prolonged at a later date if he is deemed to remain a danger to society. Delivering the verdict, Judge Wenche Elisabeth Arntzen said that the court considered Breivik to be suffering from "narcissistic personality characteristics" but not psychosis.
She imposed a sentence of "preventive detention", a special prison term for criminals considered dangerous to society.
She set the minimum length of imprisonment to 10 years.
Afterwards Breivik said he did not recognise the court, which he contended had "sided with the multicultural majority in parliament", but said he would not appeal as this would legitimise the proceedings.
Prosecutors - who had argued the defendant was insane - also said they would not challenge the verdict.
Some of the survivors and relatives of his victims welcomed the verdict and the end of the trial. "Now we can have peace and quiet," Per Balch Soerensen, whose daughter was among those killed in the shootings on on Utoeya island, told Denmark's TV2. "He doesn't mean anything to me; he is just air."
Court-appointed psychiatrists disagreed on Breivik's sanity. A first team which examined him declared him to be a paranoid schizophrenic, but the second found he was sane. Before the verdict, Breivik said psychiatric care would be "worse than death".
He will serve his sentence at Oslo's high-security Ila Prison, where he has been held in isolation for most of the time since his arrest. Initially he will be kept isolated from casual contact with other prisoners.
Breivik, 33, carried out the meticulously planned attack on 22 July 2011, wearing a fake police uniform, and methodically hunted down his victims.
He accused the governing Labour Party of promoting multiculturalism and endangering Norway's identity.
Some victims at the Labour Party youth camp on Utoeya island were shot in the head at point-blank range. Ahead of the verdict, security barriers were put up outside the district court in Oslo. A glass partition separated Breivik from relatives of victims in a courtroom custom-built for the trial.
Remote-controlled cameras filmed the proceedings, sending the images to courtrooms around Norway where other relatives could watch the hearing live.
Breivik's trial, which began in March and lasted for 10 weeks, heard graphic testimony from some of the survivors of his attacks. Mohamad Hadi Hamed, 21, who is now in a wheelchair, told the court how his left arm and his left leg were amputated after he was shot by Breivik.
Another survivor, Einar Bardal, 17, described how he was trying to escape when he heard a loud bang, followed by a loud noise in his head.
Experts in far-right ideology told the trial Breivik's ideas should not be seen as the ramblings of a madman.
Breivik's attacks ignited a debate about the nature of tolerance and democracy in Norway. Kim ready for 'dialogue and confrontation' with US | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Sentence | August 2012 | ['(BBC)'] |
Sandiaga Uno, businessman and former candidate of the 2019 presidential election, is appointed as the new Tourism and Creative Economy Minister. It is the first time in Indonesian history that all candidates who previously ran in a presidential election serve together in the same cabinet. | New Tourism and Creative Economy Minister Sandiaga Uno at the State Palace, Jakarta, on Dec. 22, 2020. (JG Screenshot)
BY :JAYANTY NADA SHOFA
DECEMBER 22, 2020
Jakarta. President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo has appointed former presidential election rival and businessman Sandiaga Uno as the new Tourism and Creative Economy Minister in a recent cabinet shake-up, which also sees a former top banker become the new health minister.
Jokowi announced a revamp for his Indonesia Onward cabinet by introducing six new ministers, including Sandiaga, at the State Palace on Tuesday.
"I would like to introduce, but I believe all of us already know him, Sandiaga Salahudin Uno. He is the former deputy Jakarta Governor and the chairman of Indonesian Young Entrepreneurs Associations (HIPMI). He will take the responsibility of heading the Tourism and Creative Economy Ministry," Jokowi said.
In 2018, Sandiaga withdrew from his deputy governor position to step in as the vice president candidate for the 2019 presidential election. But Sandiaga, along with his former running mate and now Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto, lost in votes. Since his defeat, Sandiaga has been focusing on empowering micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs).
Also in the revamped cabinet is the State-Owned Enterprise Deputy Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin to replace Health Minister Terawan Agus Putranto. Prior to his ministerial position, Budi was once the president director of Bank Mandiri. He also oversaw Indonesia Asahan Aluminium (Inalum), a state-owned mining holding company.
Terawan's replacement comes as no surprise. Since the Covid-19 pandemic dawned in Indonesia, Terawan had been under fire for his handling of the virus outbreak. As of Monday, Indonesia has a total of 671.778 confirmed Covid-19 cases. On Sunday, Indonesia broke their record of daily deathtoll with 221 coronavirus-related deaths.
Furthermore, Jokowi announced the replacements for his two ministers who have been arrested over corruption.
Surabaya Mayor Tri Rismaharini, better known as Risma, will replace the former Social Affairs Minister Juliari Batubara who was recently caught in a Covid-19 aid graft case. The current Defense Affairs Minister Sakti Wahyu Trenggono will be in charge of the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry, replacing the disgraced Edhy Prabowo.
Jokowi also appointed the Yaqut Cholil Qoumas, the head of Islamic youth organization Ansor Youth Movement to replace Religious Affairs Minister Fachrul Razi. Last but not least is former Indonesia ambassador to Japan and the US, M Lutfi, who will take the place of Agus Suparmanto as the Trade Minister. | Government Job change - Appoint_Inauguration | December 2020 | ['(Jakarta Globe)'] |
The World Meteorological Organisation reports that the ozone layer is damaged to its worst extent ever in the Arctic. | The stratospheric ozone layer, which shields the Earth from the Sun's harmful ultraviolet rays, has been damaged to its greatest-ever extent over the Arctic this winter.
The protective layer of gas, which can be destroyed by reactions with industrial chemicals, has suffered a loss of about 40 per cent from the start of winter until late March, exceeding the previous seasonal loss of about 30 per cent, according to the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO).
The phenomenon is annual in the Antarctic, where after its discovery in the 1980s it came to be known as the "ozone hole". Although CFC levels are now dropping, they remain in the atmosphere for so long that they will still be causing ozone depletion for decades in certain conditions, particularly the intense cold of the stratosphere.
Arctic ozone conditions vary more and the temperatures are always warmer than over Antarctica, where the ozone hole forms high in the stratosphere near the South Pole each winter and spring. Because of changing weather and temperatures, some Arctic winters experience almost no ozone loss – but others with exceptionally cold stratospheric conditions can occasionally lead to substantial ozone depletion.
This is what has happened over the Arctic this winter; for while at ground level the Arctic region was unusually warm, temperatures 15-20km above the Earth's surface plummeted. WMO officials say the latest losses, which are unprecedented, were detected in observations from the ground and from balloons and satellites over the Arctic.
"The Arctic stratosphere continues to be vulnerable to ozone destruction caused by ozone-depleting substances linked to human activities," said the WMO's secretary general, Michel Jarraud.
Loss of ozone allows more of the Sun's harmful ultraviolet-B rays to penetrate the atmosphere. They have been linked to increased rates of skin cancer, cataracts and immune system damage.
In late March, winds blew the ozone-depleted region over Greenland and Scandinavia, and the WMO is warning people there to heed national alerts and forecasts of ozone levels. The development is unlikely to be risky for humans as the depleted ozone will soon merge into the background atmosphere, according to one of the world's leading ozone experts, Professor John Pyle, professor of chemistry at Cambridge University and co-director of the National Centre for Atmospheric Science.
| Environment Pollution | April 2011 | ['(The Independent)'] |
Leaders from the Group of Seven meet in La Malbaie, Quebec, Canada to discuss issues facing their countries, including trade between the United States and European Union. | - The United States and European Union will establish a dialogue on trade within the next two weeks, a French official said on Friday, signaling a modest step forward for bitterly divided allies at a Group of Seven summit in Canada.
Trump's attacks on trade set icy tone for G7
02:19
U.S. trading partners have been furious over President Donald Trump’s decision last week to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from Canada, the European Union and Mexico as part of his “America First” agenda. Some countries have retaliated with their own levies on U.S. imports.
“The principle of a dialogue was agreed this afternoon,” the French official told reporters. “Everyone agreed, including President Trump.”
While G7 leaders confronted Trump with a slew of data on imports and exports in a bid to sway his thinking, Trump countered his own numbers and held his position that the United States was at a disadvantage on international trade, an official who followed the talks said.
But Trump struck a more affable tone after a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, saying the French leader was helping work out trade issues.
“Something’s going to happen. I think it will be very positive,” Trump said, without giving details.
Macron said it was possible to advance the trade issues that have split the U.S. and its allies.
“I think, on trade, there is ... a way to progress all together,” he told reporters after his meeting with Trump. “I saw the willingness on all the sides to find agreements and have a win-win approach for our people, our workers, and our middle classes.”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday floated an idea to set up a way to resolve trade disputes between the United States and its allies. An official described Merkel’s suggestion as a “shared assessment and dialogue” mechanism, but gave no further details. It was unclear if the technical talks were part of her initiative.
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The proposal was supported by other leaders present, the official said. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker offered to visit Washington for an assessment of EU-US trade to help resolve the dispute, an official said.
Expectations for a major breakthrough on trade at the summit, however, remain low, with U.S. allies focused on avoiding rupturing the G7, which in its 42-year history has tended to seek consensus on major issues.
“It’s highly unlikely there will be a final communique,” a G7 official said on condition of anonymity.
Merkel said it was not clear whether the group would issue a final directive, adding that failure to do so would be an honest reflection of the lack of agreement among Canada, the United States, Japan, Britain, Italy, France and Germany. The EU is also attending the summit.
Trump had set a combative tone before leaving Washington on Friday, saying he was “going to deal with the unfair trade practices” of other G7 members.
But he was more affable after meeting Macron and Trudeau, swapping jokes with the latter before the media though neither budged on their trade positions.
“We’ve had really a very good relationship, very special,” the U.S. president said of Macron, a day after the two leaders had exchanged terse messages on Twitter. “We have little tests every once in a while when it comes to trade.”
Merkel and Trump also had a brief conversation at the summit but no bilateral meeting.
Trump’s “America First” message to allies has hardened since he brought hardline national security adviser John Bolton on to his team.
Trump plans to leave the summit four hours earlier than originally planned to fly to Singapore to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, the White House said.
G7 chiefs have largely praised Trump for his efforts to stabilize the Korean peninsula, but they are unhappy he pulled out of an international agreement to limit Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
Canada and the EU have denounced the U.S. tariffs and Ottawa has proposed levies on a range of U.S. goods next month while the EU has pledged its own retaliatory measures.
British Prime Minister Theresa May on Friday warned both Trump and the EU of the dangers of entering a tit-for-tat trade war over tariffs, urging both sides to instead focus on China’s excess steel production.
Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said her country “will not change its mind when it comes to the illegal” application of tariffs.
The spat has financial markets worried about tit-for-tit escalation.
Investors are also concerned about the future of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which Trump has threatened to terminate. Canada and Mexico, the other members of the 1994 pact, have been frustrated by the slow pace of talks to renegotiate NAFTA.
A Canadian official said Trump and Trudeau discussed accelerating NAFTA talks.
Relations with Russia also became an issue at the summit after Trump on Friday said the country should be allowed to again attend meetings with the G7, an idea that did not gain much traction at the meeting and was not formally raised.
Russia was suspended from group in 2014 because of its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. Trump said Russia should be readmitted, but even Moscow seemed to reject that suggestion.
Merkel said EU countries at the summit agreed that the conditions to readmit Russia had not been met.
Trump’s presidency has been clouded by a federal investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, and possible collusion by his campaign. Both Moscow and Trump have denied the allegations. | Diplomatic Talks _ Diplomatic_Negotiation_ Summit Meeting | June 2018 | ['(Reuters)'] |
Protests occur in the city of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, U.S., after a man, Alton Sterling, is fatally shot by a police officer. | Two officers on administrative leave after man was shot ‘four to six times’ in chest and back after altercation with police outside convenience store
Last modified on Fri 14 Jul 2017 20.07 BST
A white Louisiana police officer shot and killed a black man following a confrontation outside a Baton Rouge convenience store, authorities said. An autopsy showed Alton Sterling, 37, of Baton Rouge, died on Tuesday of multiple gunshot wounds to the chest and back, said East Baton Rouge parish coroner Dr William Clark.
Officers had responded to the store at about 12.35am on Tuesday after an anonymous caller indicated a man selling music CDs and wearing a red shirt had threatened him with a gun, said corporal L’Jean McKneely.
Two officers responded and there was an altercation with the man, then one officer fatally shot the suspect, McKneely said. Both officers were placed on administrative leave under standard department policy, he said. The store’s owner, Abdul Muflahi, told WAFB-TV that the first officer used a Taser on Sterling and the second officer tackled the man. Muflahi said that as Sterling fought to get the officer off him the first officer shot him “four to six times”. Video of the shooting that circulated on Twitter sparked outrage.
Muflani said Sterling did not have a gun in his hand at the time but he saw officers remove a gun from Sterling’s pocket after the shooting. McKneely said late on Tuesday that he could not confirm Muflahi’s description of the alleged event or any other details of the investigation. On Tuesday night about 150 protesters took to the streets of Baton Rouge chanting “Black Lives Matter” and “No justice, no peace”.
People in Baton Rouge taking to the streets in response to the shooting of #altonsterling pic.twitter.com/OavspeoMra
Protestors now parking in street to block traffic, raising fiats & chanting "black lives matter" #AltonSterling pic.twitter.com/aGu463ZTN4
The protest continued past midnight and demonstrators said they would hold a rally outside city hall on Wednesday morning. “We’ve seen a video that’s disturbing, and gruesome,” Mike McClanahan, Baton Rouge president of the NAACP, who was among the protesters for much of the evening, told the Advocate. “We know that justice must be served.” | Protest_Online Condemnation | July 2016 | ['(The Guardian)'] |
Buddy Rice wins the 2004 Indianapolis 500 driving for Rahal Letterman Racing. | INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- Buddy Rice watched the darkening horizon and kept his foot on the pedal.
He had to beat 32 other drivers and the rain to win the Indianapolis 500 on Sunday.
With menacing clouds closing fast, the 28-year-old Rice grabbed the lead for good in a final flurry of pit stops and took his first career victory under a yellow caution flag as the rain that first delayed the race and then interrupted it for almost two hours finally ended it 50 miles short of the scheduled finish.
"This is unbelievable," said Rice, who drives for the team co-owned by TV talk-show host David Letterman and Bobby Rahal. He got his ride only because 1999 Indy winner Kenny Brack was out with injuries.
"This is everything you work for," Rice said. "It's the biggest race in the world."
Michael Andretti, scion of Indy's most famous hard-luck family, suffered the same also-ran fate in his second year as a team owner as he had in 14 years behind the wheel: ever so close, but not first. Three of his drivers -- Tony Kanaan, Dan Wheldon and Bryan Herta -- finished second, third and fourth.
Rice was the surprise pole winner earlier this month and started Sunday's race like a rocket, driving off to a lead of more than three seconds -- nearly a straightaway on the 2 1/2-mile oval -- before the first caution flag came out on lap 11 when A.J. Foyt IV hit the wall.
It wasn't going to be that easy, though.
As fast as Rice's Honda-powered G Force was, he had to overcome a stall in the pits, win a gamble on fuel and then hold off the Andretti trio.
"It's indescribable," Letterman said. "I don't think the rain made any difference. We could have gone the full 200 laps. My God! What a job Buddy did. It's a thrill to be a part of this."
The drama was enhanced by the weather.
The race started two hours and nine minutes late because of rain and was halted again for an hour and 47 minutes after the 27th lap.
The last 40 laps were a race to beat the rain, with six lead changes.
First, Bruno Junqueira gambled and lost that the rain would hit before he had to pit for fuel. Kanaan took over for a lap before Rice passed him, and Rice kept it until he had to pit 15 laps later. Then it was Herta and Adrian Fernandez until, with the storm clouds no more than 5 miles away, they gave way to Rice one last time.
Rice is the first American to take the checkered flag at Indy since Eddie Cheever in 1998. He finished 11th as a rookie last year while driving for Cheever, who fired him with three races remaining in the season.
"There is no question about it, it was a dream month," said Rahal, who committed last month to keeping Rice on for the rest of the season, no matter when the recuperating Brack returns.
Asked what he saw in Rice, Rahal grinned at his driver and replied: "I saw a lot of things. This is what happens when you wear your hat the right way, Buddy."
Rahal was referring to last season, when the now clean-shaven Rice drew criticism for wearing spikey hair, a soul patch and his hat on backward.
"It's not an issue," Rice said, shrugging. "Nothing changed. I mean, it doesn't change my attitude. It doesn't change my approach or my lifestyle. It's just a little bit of a cosmetic change."
It certainly hasn't changed his hard-charging driving style. Rice, the first driver to win from the pole since Arie Luyendyk in 1997, led a race-high 91 laps Sunday and made only one mistake.
He was leading on lap 95 when rookie PJ Jones hit the wall, bringing out one of the eight cautions in the race. During the ensuing pit stops, Rice stalled his engine and came back onto the track eighth.
"We knew traffic was going to be a problem, but there was no reason to panic," Rice said. "Maybe if there were 20 laps to go we would have gotten nervous. But, hey, these guys have been fighting all year. We had a couple of these deals won, but we had little mishaps that weren't our fault, so this is great."
Junqueira, the only driver from the rival Champ Car series, was never in contention until later in the race. His Newman/Haas Racing team made an early fuel stop that put him out front when the leaders pitted on lap 135.
"We tried to outsmart them on the fuel and we came close," said Junqueira's team manager, Jim McGee. "But we still outsmarted a lot of them to finish fifth."
Racing with a light fuel load, and hoping for rain to give him a victory, Junqueira built a huge lead before finally having to pit on lap 151. That gave the lead to Kanaan, but Rice charged past him on the next lap to grab the top spot.
The rain held off and Rice came in for fuel on lap 166. Herta and Fernandez then took turns in the lead before they too had to pit, finally giving the top spot back to Rice, who took control until the rain began for the final time on lap 174.
Six laps later, it was over.
Vitor Meira, one of Rice's teammates, finished sixth, followed by Fernandez, reigning Indy Racing League champion Scott Dixon and two-time Indy winner Helio Castroneves.
Castroneves and new teammate Sam Hornish Jr. came up well short of giving car owner Roger Penske an unprecedented fourth straight Indy victory -- and 14th win at the Brickyard -- in part due to mistakes in the pits.
Castroneves stopped short of his pit stall and had to be pushed by his crew. A piece of fuel hose broke off in Hornish's car during one of his stops and the two-time IRL champion had to come back in several times for repairs.
Hornish then got caught up in a frightening crash involving Greg Ray and rookie Derrick Manning in turn four that sent all three sliding onto pit road.
Kosuke Matsuura, one of the fastest drivers in practice, finished 11th, the best of eight rookies in the 33-car field. Six of the first-year drivers were involved in crashes, including Larry Foyt, Ed Carpenter, Mark Taylor, Marty Roth, Jones and Manning.
The only injuries were to Taylor, who limped away from his crash and was taken to a hospital for further examination, and a safety worker whose foot was injured when he was hit by flying debris on pit lane.
The last Indy 500 shortened by rain was in 1976, when Johnny Rutherford took a 102-lap victory. | Sports Competition | May 2004 | ['(VOA)', '(Sports Illustrated)'] |
Suspected Somali insurgents target a peace meeting with mortar fire but accidentally kill six children. | MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Suspected Islamist insurgents targeted a major reconciliation meeting in Somalia with mortar bombs on Thursday, missing the venue but killing at least five children playing nearby, residents said.
Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi told delegates gathered at a former police compound in northern Mogadishu Somalia must redress its reputation as a terrorist haven.
"We have lost trust. We need to return Somalia's reputation back to the world," Gedi said in a brief speech. A security source said Gedi left the venue before the mortar attack.
"At least six mortars were fired at the conference. They missed their target and hit Shibiz district. At least five children died. There was also an elderly person who died," resident Abdi Aziz Hussein told Reuters.
The conference, billed as the interim government's best hope of boosting its legitimacy, had resumed amid tight security after explosions echoed across the capital's biggest market in the heaviest fighting in 15 days of non-stop violence.
Suspected insurgents fired rockets, mortars and grenades at Somali forces patrolling the sprawling Bakara Market in central Mogadishu, following up with machinegun fire for nearly an hour.
Conference organizers read out a sweeping agenda designed to end 16 years of clan-based anarchy including sharing of national resources, disarmament, and the nature and impact of radical Islam. The talks are set to resume on Saturday.
Somali soldiers, backed by Ethiopian troops, blocked all entry points to the conference venue, which was targeted with mortar bombs during an opening ceremony on Sunday before being postponed until Thursday to await missing delegates.
Thursday's death toll could not immediately be verified. But Asha Hussein, an aunt of one of the dead children, said a mortar shell detonated near where the youngsters were playing.
Diplomats say the Mogadishu peace meeting is the last best hope for the interim government -- a 14th attempt at forging national rule since 1991 -- to win the support it needs to bring peace among Somalia's many factions and clans.
"Once this conference ends successfully we will organize another, political conference," Gedi said.
Political talks will centre on a roadmap for a federal constitution, creating regional authorities, organizing a census and national elections, he said.
Formed in late 2004, the government is half-way through a five-year mandate, and critics say it is determined to cling to power.
Opponents accuse it of trying to evade serious power-sharing negotiations, saying the reconciliation talks amount to lip service for the benefit of the United States and African Union which has deployed 1,600 Ugandan peacekeepers.
Daily attacks involving landmines and assassination attempts against the government and their Ethiopian allies have become a feature of daily life in Mogadishu.
Much of the violence has centered around Bakara -- home to one of the world's biggest open-air weapons markets, where one man was killed and a woman wounded when a grenade was hurled at soldiers who retaliated with gunfire late on Wednesday.
| Riot | July 2007 | ['(Reuters via Canada.com)'] |
A bomb explodes at a People's Democratic Party rally in Suleja Nigeria killing at least three people. | A bomb has exploded during a political meeting near the Nigerian capital Abuja, killing at least three people, police say.
The blast happened during a rally for the governing People's Democratic Party (PDP) in Suleja, about 40km (24 miles) from Abuja, officials say.
National elections are due to be held in Nigeria next month.
Central Nigeria has seen a recent upsurge in violence between rival ethnic, religious and political groups.
The device - thrown from a vehicle - missed the centre of the rally but landed close to a market, national police spokesman Olusola Amore said.
"Three people were killed on the spot and 21 wounded," Mr Amore added.
He said no group had so far claimed responsibility for the attack and no arrests had been made.
Niger state police spokesman Richard Oguche said PDP candidate Babangida Aliyu was not hurt.
Mr Aliyu became governor of Niger state in 2007.
Yushua Shuaib, spokesman for the National Emergency Management Agency (Nema), said the attack happened after the main part of the rally had ended.
Earlier, opposition parties accused the PDP of obstructing their campaign rallies in the run-up to the election. Presidential candidates from three opposition parties - the ACN, CPC and ANPP - said they were having trouble obtaining rally permits in the states of Ebonyi, Benue and Niger.
The PDP - led by President Goodluck Jonathan - has won every presidential election since Nigeria returned to civilian rule in 1999 and is favourite to win April's poll. | Armed Conflict | March 2011 | ['(BBC)', '(Al Jazeera)'] |
Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister has left Tehran for Saudi Arabia for participation in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation ministerial meeting in Jeddah which was called for by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to discuss the consequence of attack at Saudi Embassy in Tehran following the execution of Shia Muslim cleric Sheikh Nimr. | Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs Abbas Araqchi has set off for Saudi Arabian port city of Jeddah to attend an emergency meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).
Araqchi left the Iranian capital for Saudi Arabia on Tuesday to participate in an OIC ministerial meeting in Jeddah, which will be convened to discuss the recent diplomatic row between Tehran and Riyadh following the January 2 execution of prominent cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr in Riyadh.
According to a press release by the OIC, foreign ministers and representatives from 40 member states of the organization are expected to attend the meeting on Thursday.
It added that OIC Secretary General Iyad Madani received a letter from Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir, in which he had called for the emergency meeting.
Saudi Arabia severed diplomatic relations with Iran on January 3 following demonstrations held in front of the Saudi embassy in Tehran and its consulate in the northeastern city of Mashhad by angry protesters censuring the Al Saud family for the killing of Sheikh Nimr.
Some people mounted the walls of the consulate in Mashhad while incendiary devices were hurled at the embassy in Tehran. Iranian officials strongly denounced the raids and have arrested over 150 people over the incidents. | Diplomatic Talks _ Diplomatic_Negotiation_ Summit Meeting | January 2016 | ['(IRIB World Service)', '[permanent dead link]', '(OIC)', '[permanent dead link]'] |
Hungarian American actress Zsa Zsa Gabor is reported to be in an "extremely serious condition" after further surgery yesterday and has requested the Last Rites. | SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Actress Zsa Zsa Gabor, a fixture in Hollywood for six decades, asked that a priest read her the last rites on Sunday, following hospitalization two days earlier due to complications from hip surgery.
The 93-year-old Gabor, whose string of movies, television shows and wealthy husbands dates to the 1950s, was visited by a priest at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, her husband Frederick Prinz von Anhalt, told Reuters.
Gabor was able to speak “very little,” though she was conscious, he said.
Gabor was admitted on Friday to the hospital to treat two blood clots, only two days after being released for hip replacement surgery. Gabor broke her hip on July 17 when she fell out of bed while watching the television game show “Jeopardy,” said her publicist John Blanchette.
“Her health has been up and down ever since,” he said.
The Hungarian-born Gabor has appeared in more than 30 movies, and her penchant for calling everyone “dah-ling” in her Hungarian accent made her a well-known Hollywood personality.
She, along with her two glamorous sisters Eva and Magda made several appearances on radio and television shows in the 1950s in the 1950s and 1960s. Zsa Zsa’s first starring role in the movies was in “Moulin Rouge,” followed by “Lili” and later “Touch of Evil.”
Married nine times to a string of husbands that included a Turkish diplomat and the hotel magnate Conrad Hilton, Gabor celebrated her 24th wedding anniversary to Von Anhalt in the hospital on Saturday, said Blanchette.
Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
All quotes delayed a minimum of 15 minutes. See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays.
Exclusive: Fed’s Neel Kashkari opposes rate hikes at least through 2023 as the central bank becomes more hawkish | Famous Person - Sick | August 2010 | ['(The Daily Telegraph)', '(Reuters)', '(AFP via news.com.au)', '(CNN)'] |
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, after failing to achieve support from the Unidas Podemos alliance, announces the calling for a snap election on 10 November, which would be the fourth general election in 4 years. , | Acting Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez made the announcement on Tuesday, having failed to secure enough support in parliament to form a government.
King Felipe VI, the head of state, spent two days consulting with rival party leaders, but no consensus could be found on a candidate for prime minister.
The election will take place on 10 November. The last one was in April.
Mr Sánchez's socialist PSOE party gained the most seats in that election, but it fell short of a majority in Spain's 350-seat parliament. In an evening press conference, Mr Sánchez blamed the opposition for the political deadlock. "It has been impossible to complete the mandate given to us by the Spanish people on April 28. They [the rival parties] have made it impossible for us," he said.
The acting PM had been seeking to find a political solution for several months. His preferred partners, the left-wing Podemos party, had already rejected any arrangement short of a formal coalition. A potential alliance between PSOE and the centre-right Ciudadanos party also fell through. El País newspaper reported that attempts to reach a deal went up until the last minute.
After the announcement, Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias blamed Mr Sánchez for the impasse, saying he had "arrogance and disdain for the basic rules of parliamentary democracy". Pedro Sánchez: The rise of Spain's battle-scarred PM
Hardliner Raisi set to win Iran election
Vote-counting shows Ebrahim Raisi - Iran's top judge - has so far received 62% of the vote.
| Government Job change - Election | September 2019 | ['(Reuters)', '(BBC)'] |
Gatlinburg, Tennessee, is evacuated as wildfires approach the city. Widespread property damage is reported. | GATLINBURG, Tenn. — A calamitous and deadly wildfire engulfed two tourist towns near the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, along with much of the surrounding timberlands, destroying more than 150 homes and businesses, displacing thousands of residents and visitors and shutting down one of the nation’s most popular natural attractions.
The fire has killed at least three people and injured at least 14 others, officials said Tuesday. The victims have not yet been identified.
Search and rescue efforts were underway throughout Sevier County as dusk arrived in the charred, smoke-choked mountains, but some areas remained unreachable, authorities said late Tuesday afternoon.
The blaze forced more than 14,000 people to flee the area and left “in excess of 150″ buildings in ruin, officials said.
“People were basically running for their lives,” Gatlinburg Mayor Mike Werner said at a Tuesday afternoon news conference.
The “unprecedented” fire — which started on the Chimney Tops mountain, one of the most popular hiking destinations in the Smokies — was still burning Tuesday afternoon, emergency officials said. Strong winds and dry ground had carried the flames into the resort towns of Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, moving too fast and too far to contain.
“This is a fire for the history books,” Gatlinburg Fire Chief Greg Miller said at a news conference Tuesday.
This is how the devastating Gatlinburg wildfire erupted overnight
Miller said that the Chimney Tops fire, which was reported Sunday, started to rage Monday night when winds climbed to 87 mph, carrying away fiery embers and knocking trees and power lines to the ground.
Officials at Great Smoky Mountains National Park said Tuesday morning that the extensive fire and fallen trees had forced the temporary closure of the most-visited national park in America. In the surrounding towns, the sky was smoky and the ground wet with rain. Officials said the wind had died down, but a handful of buildings continued to burn.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam (R) said Tuesday afternoon that the state was sending resources, including the National Guard, to help those who had been affected by the fires.
“We will do all we can to help these communities rebuild & recover,” Haslam wrote on Twitter.
Residents evacuated the area as trees caught fire on the low slope of the hills and mountains on either side of the road — the flames’ orange tendrils licking at the asphalt and black smoke obscuring the sky.
“Fire was coming over the mountains, and the smoke was so bad we could barely breathe as we were trying to pack up,” Mike Gill, who was evacuating with his wife, Betty, told NBC News.
Katie Brittain, manager at the Dress Barn in Pigeon Forge, told The Washington Post that when she arrived at work Monday, the sky was brown and ash was raining down. Despite the ominous conditions, store employees weren’t sure whether they were supposed to evacuate from their location, not far from Dolly Parton’s theme park, Dollywood.
She said employees stayed put but grew increasingly nervous as the smoke thickened and the wind increased that afternoon. By the end of the day, she said, the inside of the store “smelled like a bonfire.”
“The smell was really, really bad,” she said. “My eyes were burning, and our throats were getting scratchy.”
“Everyone was kind of in a state of disbelief,” she added.
‘Hoping for a miracle’: A father’s desperate search for family after Tennessee wildfire
At least 14 people were transported from Gatlinburg for treatment, mostly for injuries that were not life-threatening, officials said Tuesday.
In Gatlinburg, flames began engulfing private structures, including the 300-room Park Vista hotel. Inside the hotel, dozens of guests were trapped Monday by a wall of flames around the building.
Logan Baker told NBC affiliate WBIR that the firefighters initially told guests that they would be safe inside the building, but a short time later, “they saw flames coming down the hill.” By the time guests had packed their cars with luggage, however, it was too late to escape, Baker told the station, noting that the only road out was covered in flames.
“When you opened the doors, it just blew you back,” he said. “Embers started flying into the hotel.”
Baker told WBIR he helped bring people back inside the hotel; once inside, firefighters told them to remain in the lobby while they fought the fire outside.
Video taken from inside the hotel lobby shows massive flames licking at the windows. Guests can be overheard discussing a plan to “dive into the pool.”
“Well, they locked the pool up,” one woman said.
Carol Lilleaas, a Gatlinburg resident, said she fled her home with only her animals and her husband’s ashes. She does not know what has happened to her house or what she might be returning to.
“It will be there, or it won’t,” she said.
Another resident, Jeff Barker, said that he did know the extent of the fire’s destruction in his life. When he was returning from work on Monday, people were being stopped from entering Gatlinburg, he said. So Barker said he set off on foot.
“By the time I arrived at my apartment, apartment’s gone, car’s gone, pets are gone,” he said.
The fire also forced employees at Ripley’s Aquarium of the Smokies to evacuate, leaving behind more than 10,500 animals, Ripley Attractions General Manager Ryan DeSear told WBIR.
DeSear said the blaze was about 50 yards from the building when employees had to evacuate.
“To them, every animal has a name,” he said. “You don’t give that up.” But he added: “Nothing is more important than human life. Fish can be replaced. It sucks.”
Late Tuesday morning, Ripley announced that the animals were “safe and under care.”
More than 10,000 aquarium animals, dozens of bald eagles spared as fires rage in Tenn.
Gatlinburg, with a population of about 4,000 about 43 miles south of Knoxville, is surrounded on three sides by the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The Smokies, part of the Appalachian mountain range, straddle the border between eastern Tennessee and North Carolina.
Considered the gateway town to the Tennessee side of the park, Gatlinburg draws more than 11 million visitors a year, according to tourism officials. It is known for its mountain chalets and ski lodge — drawing honeymooners and other visitors all year long.
Gatlinburg’s neighbor, Pigeon Forge, is home to Dollywood, country-themed music venues and attractions, and popular outlet malls.
According to the park officials, Great Smoky Mountains National Park logged more than 9.4 million visitors in 2013 — by far the most of any of the 59 national parks that year. “The second most heavily visited national park is Grand Canyon with 4.6 million visits,” according to the National Park Service.
On Tuesday, the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency and other officials urged residents in Sevier County to stay clear of roadways to make way for first responders and to stay off wireless devices, unless it was to make an emergency call, to keep systems clear for vital communication. The agency also announced a temporary flight restriction in the area “to prevent aircraft from complicating the response.”
“This is going to be a marathon, not a sprint,” Michelle Hankes, executive director of the American Red Cross of East Tennessee, said about the response effort.
Hankes, who recorded a video statement at an emergency shelter in Pigeon Forge, said that about 130 people, including children and pets, have turned up there while fleeing their homes. Hundreds of others were sheltered elsewhere.
“This fire is unpredictable,” Hankes said, crying. “We still have wind gusts — the rain has helped, but it’s still a devastating, devastating loss for the people here.”
Officials said the towns and surrounding area sustained widespread property damage.
“The center of Gatlinburg looks good for now,” Newmansville Volunteer Fire Department Lt. Bobby Balding told the Knoxville News Sentinel. But he added: “It’s the apocalypse on both sides.”
TEMA said Tuesday that “very preliminary surveys of damaged areas” suggested that “hundreds of structures are lost.”
“Westgate Resorts is likely entirely gone (more than 100 buildings),” TEMA said in a statement, “Black Bear Falls has likely lost every single cabin.” The agency initially said that Ober Gatlinburg Ski Area and Amusement Park “reportedly is entirely destroyed.” However, the mountain resort posted a video Tuesday morning showing the facility intact.
A curfew was in place for Gatlinburg, which was expected to last from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m., according to the TEMA.
Officials said in a statement that Dollywood, in Pigeon Forge — the largest theme park in the area — had sustained no real damage by late Monday but that 50 rooms in the park’s DreamMore Resort and 19 of its cabins were still evacuated.
“Dollywood crews and firefighters are working to protect the park areas adjacent to a fire burning on Upper Middle Ridge,” according to the statement.
Officials in Pigeon Forge estimated that about 500 people were evacuated on Monday night, according to TEMA. About 125 people were still displaced and in shelters, TEMA said in a statement.
“Local officials in Pigeon Forge [have] lifted the mandatory evacuation order,” it said in the statement. “Gatlinburg still remains under a mandatory evacuation order.”
Few women fight wildfires. That’s not because they’re afraid of flames.
National park officials explained that the severe wind gusts of more than 80 mph, combined with “unprecedented low relative humidity, and extended drought conditions,” caused the fire “to spread rapidly and unpredictably.”
“Wind gusts carried burning embers long distances causing new spot fires to ignite across the north-central area of the park and into Gatlinburg,” Great Smoky Mountains National Park wrote on its Facebook page Tuesday morning. “In addition, high winds caused numerous trees to fall throughout the evening on Monday bringing down power lines across the area that ignited additional new fires that spread rapidly due to sustained winds of over 40 mph.”
The conditions made it difficult — if not impossible — for firefighters to contain the flames.
“The wind is not helping, and the rain is not here yet,” Miller, the Gatlinburg Fire Department chief, said in a news conference on Monday night. “These are the worst possible conditions imaginable.”
A severe drought — a key competent to the devastating blaze — is ongoing in eastern Tennessee. All of Sevier County is in an “exceptional drought,” which is the worst on the U.S. Drought Monitor Scale. That means there are widespread crop and pasture losses, shortages in water reservoirs, streams and wells.
Weather Underground’s Bob Henson reports that this has been the hottest and driest fall in Gatlinburg’s history. In normal years, the town averages 56 inches of rain, “so it doesn’t take much time for a drought to hit this normally moist landscape hard,” Henson wrote.
The Southeast has spent much of the past few weeks battling forest fires, which began after one of its worst droughts on record. Several states have been affected.
As The Post reported Nov. 16, when there were 17 active fires in the southern Appalachians, “the entire state of South Carolina is covered in an unhealthy haze from fires burning in the Blue Ridge Mountains.”
At that time, more than 80,000 acres had been burned.
Bever, Andrews, Fritz and Holley reported from Washington.
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| Fire | November 2016 | ['(Washington Post)'] |
Thousands of teachers gather in the capital of Rabat, Morocco to protest working conditions and wages. | Several thousand Moroccan teachers are staging a protest in the capital, Rabat, hours after police dispersed an earlier demonstration. They are demanding permanent contracts, better working conditions, as well as protesting against the rising cost of living. Earlier, police in riot gear used water cannon to end an overnight sit-in outside parliament by 15,000 teachers.
Protesters have turned down government proposals to end the dispute.
The teachers on temporary contracts, who are mostly in their 20s and 30s, have been staging regular strikes over recent weeks.
Two weeks ago, they staged sit-ins at regional academies in different cities.
They earn the same wages as their colleagues on permanent contracts - about 5,000 dirhams (£400) a month - but are demanding full benefits and pension rights.
| Protest_Online Condemnation | March 2019 | ['(BBC)', '(France 24)'] |
On Divine Mercy Sunday, Pope Francis speaks at Santo Spirito in Sassia and warns about being struck by a worse virus of forgetting the poor and of “selfish indifference.” | An image of Jesus of Divine Mercy is seen before Pope Francis’ celebration of Mass marking the feast of Divine Mercy in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican April 8, 2018. (Credit: Paul Haring/CNS.)
ROME – Celebrating Mass on Divine Mercy Sunday, Pope Francis said the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic is an opportunity to practice mercy toward the poor and those who are suffering, particularly in the aftermath.
Noting that much of the world is preparing for a “slow and arduous recovery” from the crisis, Francis cautioned that as things move forward, “there is a danger that we will forget those who are left behind.”
“The risk is that we may then be struck by an even worse virus, that of selfish indifference,” he said, saying this attitude is spread “by the thought that life is better if it is better for me, and that everything will be fine if it is fine for me.”
“It begins there and ends up selecting one person over another, discarding the poor, and sacrificing those left behind on the altar of progress,” he said, insisting that the pandemic is a reminder to everyone that “there are no differences or borders between those who suffer. We are all frail, all equal, all precious.”
“May we be profoundly shaken by what is happening all around us,” he said, adding, “the time has come to eliminate inequalities, to heal the injustice that is undermining the health of the entire human family!”
Pointing to the day’s Gospel reading from John, in which the disciple Thomas does not believe that Jesus had actually appeared, the pope said, “On this feast of Divine Mercy, the most beautiful message comes from Thomas, the disciple who arrived late.”
“He was the only one missing. But the Lord waited for Thomas,” he said, noting that Jesus appeared to the disciples again with Thomas present, allowing Thomas to touch the wounds marking where he had been nailed to the cross.
“Mercy,” he said, “does not abandon those who stay behind.”
Pope Francis celebrated Sunday Mass in Rome’s Santo Spirito church, which is dedicated to the devotion to Divine Mercy, on April 19, marking the 20th anniversary of the canonization of Saint Faustina Kowalska and the institution of the Feast of Divine Mercy, celebrated the first Sunday after Easter and instituted by St. John Paul II in 2000.
Due to the coronavirus lockdown and restrictions on public gatherings, including ecclesial events, in Italy, the pope’s Mass and praying of the Regina Coeli Marian prayer were livestreamed, as were his Holy Week and Easter liturgies.
In his homily, Francis noted faced with Thomas’s disbelief in the day’s Gospel passage, Jesus “starts all over,” by returning to the same spot he had appeared to the others and allowing Thomas to touch his wounds.
“God never tires of reaching out to lift us up when we fall. He wants us to see him, not as a taskmaster with whom we have to settle accounts, but as our Father who always raises us up,” the pope said.
Noting how in one of St Faustina’s visions Jesus had asked her to give him her failings, Francis urged faithful to ask themselves, “Is there something I still keep inside me? A sin, a regret from the past, a wound that I have inside, a grudge against someone,” or “an idea about a particular person” that perhaps isn’t true but is hard to let go of?
“The Lord waits for us to offer him our failings so that he can help us experience his mercy,” he said, noting that even though the disciples had abandoned Jesus on the night of his arrest, Jesus appears to them and offers them peace and mercy.
Pointing to the pandemic, Francis said that just as the disciples were faced with their own failings after abandoning Jesus on the night of his arrest, the current crisis is a moment in which humanity has “experienced our frailty.”
“We need the Lord, who sees beyond that frailty an irrepressible beauty. With him we rediscover how precious we are even in our vulnerability,” he said.
Francis said the early Christian community both received mercy and lived it. Quoting scripture, he said, “All who believed were together and had all things in common; and they sold their possessions and goods and distributed them to all, as any had need.”
“This is not some ideology: it is Christianity,” he said, noting that in Thomas was the only one from the early Christian community that was “left behind,” as he wasn’t there when Jesus first appeared. But the others waited for him and were there with him when Jesus appeared again.
Today, Francis said, “the opposite seems to be the case: a small part of the human family has moved ahead, while the majority has remained behind.”
When it comes to global inequalities and problems that need solving, there are many who brush these off, insisting that it is not up to them personally to care for the poor or those in need.
However, quoting a line from the diary of Saint Faustina, the pope said that, “In a soul that is suffering we should see Jesus on the cross, not a parasite and a burden.” God, he said, gives each person “the chance to practice deeds of mercy, and we practice making judgements.”
“To everyone: let us not think only of our interests, our vested interests. Let us welcome this time of trial as an opportunity to prepare for our collective future,” the pope said, “Because without an all-embracing vision, there will be no future for anyone.” | Famous Person - Give a speech | April 2020 | ['(Crux)', '(NC Register)', '(America)'] |
Conflict in Iraq: At least 20 people are killed in Baghdad as United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld tours the country for a day. | A bomb in Baghdad also killed one US soldier as US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made a surprise visit to Iraq to inspect training for local forces.
Iraqis had to take the lead eventually in fighting the militants, he said.
A BBC correspondent suggests Friday's attacks may have been aimed at igniting sectarian violence among Iraqi Muslims.
The new killings contrast with attacks on Iraqi security forces earlier this week, says Jon Leyne in Baghdad.
Attack after prayers
A bomb went off outside the mosque in the town of Balad Ruz as worshippers were leaving after Friday prayers, killing at least 13 and injuring up to 40.
Armed families took away bakery victims for burial
Three children are believed to be among the victims, as well as a number of Iraqi National Guard troops.
According to witnesses, the bomb was hidden in a lorry carrying vegetables parked in front of the mosque. It went off when Iraqi troops approached it.
The attack on the Happiness Bakery took place in the Amin area of Baghdad, a predominantly Shia neighbourhood.
Gunmen killed at least nine people in the attack, shouting "God is great", a witness told Reuters news agency.
Police suggested a tribal dispute may have triggered the attack, in which a police station opposite was not touched, but local people blamed Sunni extremists.
"It's the Wahhabis who came to sow terror," Abu Fatima, a neighbour, told AFP news agency.
US officials gave no details of the attack in Baghdad which killed one American soldier.
'Liberators'
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made his eighth visit to Iraq on Friday before returning to Europe where he has been having security talks with Nato colleagues.
In an address to US troops upon landing at the Mosul airfield, he said they had shown "that America is in fact a land of liberators, not a land of occupiers".
But he underlined the importance of local security forces in taking control of the situation: "It is the Iraqis who have to, over time, defeat the insurgency."
Mr Rumsfeld was speaking hours after 10 Iraqi police were killed during a fierce gun battle late on Thursday in Salman Pak, south-east of Baghdad. He was due to attend an international security conference which opened in the German city of Munich on Friday. | Armed Conflict | February 2005 | ['(BBC)'] |
London's Metropolitan Police is to send a team of detectives to Libya to continue the investigation into the 1984 murder of PC Yvonne Fletcher. | A Metropolitan Police team is to fly to Libya to continue the investigation into the murder of PC Yvonne Fletcher, Prime Minister David Cameron has said.
PC Fletcher, 25, was shot while policing a protest against the Gaddafi regime at the Libyan embassy in London in 1984 and later died. Mr Cameron was speaking as Libya's interim Prime Minister Abdurrahim El-Keib visited 10 Downing Street.
He said the visit was a "really positive step forward" in the inquiry.
"I'm delighted that we're working closely together on issues of mutual interest including having a Metropolitan Police team going to Libya to continue the investigation into the murder of PC Yvonne Fletcher," he said.
"I think that is a really positive step forward and I know it will be welcomed by everyone in Britain."
Scotland Yard has never charged anyone with PC Fletcher's murder, even though the shots that killed her were fired from inside the Libyan embassy.
Staff there claimed diplomatic immunity and were deported. Mr El-Keib, who was in exile during Col Muammar Gaddafi's regime, promised Libya would "work very closely together" with the UK to help with any questions during the investigation. Diplomatic ties between Libya and the UK were severed following the murder of PC Fletcher. Her shooting sparked an 11-day siege of the Libyan embassy in St James's Square in London.
Mr El-Keib told Mr Cameron: "The Fletcher case is a case that is close to my heart personally. "I had friends who were demonstrating that day next to the embassy."
He said it was a sad story and expressed regret that it had anything to do with the Libyan people.
"I am here to tell you that we will work very closely together to resolve anything related to that issue."
Fresh hope that PC Fletcher's killer might be eventually found was raised in 2011, after Col Gaddafi was toppled in the Libyan revolution.
But plans to send UK police to the country have so far been delayed after officers failed to get permission from Libyan authorities. The Met said it welcomed any developments which could assist in furthering the investigation. "The investigation has always remained open and the inquiry team within the Counter Terrorism Command remains committed to identifying those people responsible", said a spokesperson.
"We look forward to travelling to Libya to discuss taking the inquiry further forward with the Libyan authorities."
Commander Richard Walton, head of the Counter Terrorism Command, added: "We have never lost our resolve to solve this murder and achieve justice for Yvonne's family. We see today's announcement as significant."
Meanwhile, Scotland's most senior law officer, Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland, has met Mr El-Keib in London to discuss further inquires into the Lockerbie bombing.
Mr El-Keib reaffirmed his commitment to co-operate with Scottish authorities but asked for clarification about any proposed investigation.
The meeting also involved the chief constable of Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary.
Libyan talks over Lockerbie bomb
Libya hope in PC Fletcher inquiry
Friend's 27-year quest for justice
Gaddafi death 'raises questions'
Libya 'will try' Fletcher suspect
Hunt for WPC murder suspect in Libya
Fletcher Libya suspect 'is dead'
Suspect emerges in Fletcher case
Yvonne Fletcher mother's new hope
UN calls for end of arms sales to Myanmar
In a rare move, the UN condemns the overthrowing of Aung San Suu Kyi and calls for an arms embargo.
The ethnic armies training Myanmar's protesters | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Investigate | May 2012 | ['(BBC)'] |
A U.S. drone attack kills at least nine insurgents in Pakistan's North Waziristan. | An American drone fired a volley of missiles into a house close to the Afghan border on Saturday, killing eight suspected militants and indicating US resolve to continue with the controversial attacks despite renewed Pakistani opposition.
The strike in North Waziristan was the second American drone operation in Pakistan this week.
The attacks come amid American efforts to rebuild its relationship with Pakistan, which in November blocked the passage of US and NATO war supplies to neighbouring Afghanistan. The country's parliament has called for an end to the drone strikes, which many here regard as an unacceptable violation of sovereignty.
Up to eight missiles were fired at a house in the Dra Nishtar area of North Waziristan early Saturday, Pakistani intelligence officials said. They didn't give their names because they were not authorised to be named in the media.
America is unwilling to stop the drone attacks because they have weakened al-Qaeda and associated groups in Pakistan's tribal regions, large parts of which are not under the control of the Pakistani state. In the past, Pakistan's intelligence agency has co-operated with the attacks, but the government has not publicly acknowledged this.
North Waziristan is a haven for Islamist militants from many parts of the world. It is also believed to be a key command and control centre for insurgents fighting American troops in neighbouring Afghanistan. The identities and affiliations of those killed on Saturday were not immediately known.
Civilians have also been killed in the drone attacks, but the United States does not publicly investigate or apologise for any mistakes it makes. The frequency of the strikes has significantly dropped this year. | Armed Conflict | May 2012 | ['(AP via The Guardian)', '(NineMSN)'] |
Runners in the American city of Boston take part in the annual Boston Marathon for the 119th time. Lelisa Desisa of Ethiopia wins the men's race while Caroline Rotich of Kenya wins the women's race , | Updated at 12:29 p.m. ET
Ethiopia's Lelisa Desisa has won the elite men's Boston Marathon and Caroline Rotich of Kenya finished first in the elite women's division.
Delisa, who previously won the race in 2013, won today with a time of 2:09:17. Yemane Adhane Tsegay (2:09:48), also of Ethiopia, finished second; Kenyans Wilson Chebet (2:10:22) and Bernard Kipyego finished third and fourth, respectively. Dathan Ritzenhein, seventh, was the highest-placed American. Defending champion Meb Keflezighi, also American, finished eighth in 2:12:42.
Rotich crossed the finish line on Boylston Street with a time of 2:24:55. Mare Didaba (2:24:59) and Buzunesh Deba (2:25:09), both of Ethiopia, finished second and third. American Desiree Linden finished fourth with a time of 2:25:39.
Desisa last won the race in 2013 — the same year as the deadly bombing near the race's finish line. He returned his medal to the city in honor of those killed and wounded.
Here are the results for the women's wheelchair division:
1 - Tatyana McFadden (USA) 1:52:54
2 - Wakako Tsuchida (JPN) 1:53:48
3 - Susannah Scaroni (USA) 1:57:21
4 - Amanda McGrory (USA) 1:57:21
The results for the men's wheelchair race are:
1 - Marcel Hug (SUI) 1:29:53
2 - Masazumi Soejima (JPN) 1:36:27
3 - Ernst Van Dyk (RSA) 1:36:27
4 - Kota Hotinoue (JPN) 1:36:29
Our original post continues
The elite female and male runners are off on a wet and windy day at the Boston Marathon.
Earlier this morning, competitors who are mobility impaired and contestants in wheelchairs began the 26.2-mile race from Hopkinton to Boylston Street in Boston.
The elite athletes will likely finish the course a little past noon ET. We'll update this post with the results.
Today's Boston Marathon is the second since the bombing at the finish line in 2013 — and though last year's marathon went off safely, reporter Rupa Shenoy of member station WGBH tells our Newscast unit that that doesn't mean police are backing off on security.
"They've been really careful to keep it low key," Rupa says. "Officials say they don't want to scare the public. So there are many plainclothes officers in the crowds. And a lot of the tactical teams and other emergency responders that would spring into action if something happened are not in sight. Officials say that they could be in place in a moment if something happened."
NPR's Tovia Smith reminds us that this year's race comes a day before the sentencing phase is to begin for convicted marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. The attack near the finish line killed three people and injured more than 260 others.
"They've put up extra checkpoints, extra undercover and uniformed police, bomb-sniffing dogs and cameras everywhere, but, officials say, at the same time they are trying to keep the open, festive feel of the marathon as it always has been for the million on so spectators who line the course to cheer on runners," Tovia says.
WBUR has key race times here.
The Boston Athletic Association, which organizes the annual marathon, is posting live updates on Facebook and Twitter.
The elite men's race was won last year by American Meb Keflezighi; Rito Keptoo was the first elite woman to cross the finish line, but her victory has been questioned after she failed a drug test last October. | Sports Competition | April 2015 | ['(CBS)', '(New York Times)', '(Boston Marathon)'] |
Former Congolese Vice President and warlord Jean–Pierre Bemba, sentenced last year by the International Criminal Court to 18 years in prison for war crimes, is given an additional 12 months and fined 300,000 euros for bribing witnesses during an earlier ICC trial. The court also handed jail terms and fines for alleged interference in his trial to members of his legal team. | DRC’s Jean-Pierre Bemba already serving 18-year term for war crimes, with new 12-month sentence to run consecutively
A former warlord and ex-vice-president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been sentenced by the international criminal court to a year in jail and fined €300,000 (£260,000) for bribing witnesses during an earlier war crimes trial at the ICC.
Jean-Pierre Bemba is already serving an 18-year sentence for war crimes committed by his marauding troops, which he sent into Central African Republic in 2002-03 to put down a coup against the then president. Wednesday’s verdict and sentence are the first of their kind in the history of the ICC. Bemba, 54, was convicted of masterminding a network to bribe and manipulate at least 14 key witnesses, and had “planned, authorised, and approved the illicit coaching” of the witnesses to get them to lie at his main trial.
The presiding judge, Bertram Schmitt, told Bemba the “substantial fine” was necessary “to discourage this kind of behaviour”.
The year-long sentence will run consecutively to his 18 years’ jail time.
Members of Bemba’s legal team also received jail terms. Aime Kilolo, his lawyer, received the heaviest sentence among four of the former vice-president’s associates: two years and six months for “abuse of trust” as well as “abuse of the lawyer-client privilege”. Kilolo, who was arrested in 2013, was also ordered to pay a €30,000 fine. Set up in 2002 to prosecute the world’s worst crimes, the ICC makes significant – if not always successful – efforts to try to protect witnesses and its trials from any interference.
In 2015, the ICC was forced to drop charges against Kenya’s president Uhuru Kenyatta, who had been accused of stoking ethnic violence after Kenya’s 2007 presidential election.
Prosecutors blamed their failure to put Kenyatta on trial on political interference and massive interference with witnesses, especially after Kenyatta was elected president in 2013. In April, charges against Kenyatta’s deputy, William Ruto, were also dropped for similar reasons.
“The type of sentence, whether heavy or light, will send a clear message about the gravity of the crime,” said Mariana Pena, from the Open Society Justice Initiative, an international law advocacy group.
Bemba became the third person convicted by the controversial “court of last resort” and his main trial was the first before the ICC to focus on sexual violence as a weapon of war, and the first to find a military commander to blame for the atrocities perpetrated by forces even though he did not order them. A series of rapes, murders and atrocities were committed in CAR between October 2002 and March 2003 by troops from Bemba’s Congolese Liberation Movement (MLC). The judges said Bemba could at any point have ended his militia’s five-month rampage, but chose not to.
A wealthy businessman who became a key player in the chaotic civil war in Congo between 1998 and 2002, Bemba rose to be one of four vice-presidents in the transitional government of DRC’s president, Joseph Kabila. In 2006, he lost to Kabila in a presidential election runoff and fled to Europe. He was arrested in 2008 in Brussels and handed over to the ICC.
His MLC militia has since morphed into a political party and is currently the second-largest opposition group in the national assembly.
Some analysts have said the conviction of Bemba merely highlighted the failure of ICC to punish anyone for the widespread and systematic human rights abuses committed by militia in DRC itself. The vast central African country remains mired in violence and political instability. Kabila has stayed in power despite his electoral mandate expiring in December last year. The government and a fragmented opposition have failed to come to a deal despite months of negotiations, though there remain hopes new polls may be held later this year. There is also rising unrest in the centre and east of DRC, raising fears of regional intervention and a possible return to civil war.
The ICC has repeatedly faced criticism by some in Africa who regard it as racist or imperialist. Burundi, South Africa and the Gambia have announced plans to leave the court, leading to concerns other states would follow.
In a boost for the ICC, however, Adama Barrow, the new democratically elected president of the Gambia, recently reversed that decision – made by Yahya Jammeh, the west African state’s former authoritarian leader – while the South African government was forced to abandon its notice of withdrawal after a judge found it unconstitutional. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Sentence | March 2017 | ['(ICC)', '(The Guardian)'] |
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky invites his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to a face-to-face meeting on the front line in the war-torn Donbas to negotiate an end to the conflict. | Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy invited Russian leader Vladimir Putin to meet in war-torn eastern Ukraine where Moscow has been moving troops in the tens of thousands in recent weeks to assist separatists.
The blunt offer for talks came following a flare-up in clashes between Ukraine's army and pro-Russian separatists controlling two regions in the country's east, raising concerns of a major escalation in the simmering war.
In an address to the nation, Zelenskiy said that Ukrainian and Russian negotiators had recently discussed plans for officials to travel to the front lines of the trench conflict to assess the situation. "I am ready to go even further and invite you to meet in any part of the Ukrainian Donbass where war is ongoing," Zelenskiy said.
The Ukrainian president, elected in 2019 on promises to bring an end to the conflict, accused Russia of participating in peace negotiations while gathering troops on Ukraine's border.
"A considerable number of Russian troops are concentrated near our border," he said. "Officially, Russia calls this military exercises. Unofficially, the whole world calls this blackmail."
"The Russian president once said that if a fight is inevitable, you need to hit first. But every leader needs to understand that a fight must not be inevitable when it... concerns a real war and millions of human lives," Zelenskiy said.
Ukraine, the European Union and the United States have recently sounded the alarm over renewed tensions and accused Russia of massing tens of thousands of military personnel on the northern and eastern borders of the ex-Soviet country.
The EU on Monday estimated the number of Russian troops along the Ukrainian border to be more than 100,000 during talks with Ukraine's foreign minister, who encouraged Western countries to hit Russia with a deeper package of economic sanctions over the conflict.
Kyiv has been battling pro-Russian separatists in the eastern Donetsk and Lugansk regions since 2014, following Moscow's annexation of the Crimean peninsula – a move that plunged Russia's ties with the West to new lows and led to economic penalties.
The conflict, which has claimed more than 13,000 lives, has seen 30 Ukrainian soldiers killed since the start of the year, compared to 50 in all of 2020. The escalation along the front line as well as sharp rhetoric has spurred fresh rounds of talks.
Ukrainian and Russian negotiators met earlier this week and also on Tuesday, although they have so far failed to secure any breakthroughs. Zelenskiy said in his address to the nation that although Ukraine did not want war, it was prepared to fight.
"Will Ukraine defend itself if something happens? Always. Our principle is simple: Ukraine does not start a war first, but Ukraine always stands to the last," he said. On the front line, however, fears were growing of a major escalation, with soldiers set to repel attacks and streets in towns near the front line empty over fears of a return to war.
Yuliya Yevchenko, 27, who lives in a partially destroyed residential building in Krasnogorivka under government control said the sounds of loud shelling could be heard recently in the town just kilometers from the front line.
"We had a truce, and now it is war again," the mother of four said, holding her one-year-old son in her arms. "I don't know what to do. We have nowhere to go at the moment." Faced with the largest deployment of Russian troops on Ukraine's borders since 2014, Zelenskiy has requested help from the West. But some of Ukraine's battle-weary soldiers did not appear optimistic.
"The world says it wants to help Ukraine," Taras, a 24-year-old soldier, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) in the front line village of Mariinka west of the separatist stronghold Donetsk. "But for now, we are fighting against Russia on our own."
| Diplomatic Talks _ Diplomatic_Negotiation_ Summit Meeting | April 2021 | ['(Daily Sabah)'] |
Russia announces that it will join the People's Republic of China in naval drills in the South China Sea in May 2016. |
Speaking on Saturday in Singapore, Antonov announced Russia's
planned participation in the May 2016 drills which have a focus
on counter-terrorism and naval security.
Antonov also said he was concerned about stability in the region,
naming the US as the main destabilizing factor. He said that
Washington's policies have been aimed against Russia and China:
"We are concerned by US policies in the region, especially
since every day it becomes increasingly focused on a systemic
containment of Russia and China."
"Despite our concerns about the US global missile defense
architecture, they continue a policy of disrupting strategic
stability, adding a regional segment of an anti-missile 'shield'
in the Asia-Pacific," he added.
READ MORE: Chinese mobile artillery placed on
reclaimed island, Pentagon says
He also blamed the US for interfering with the affairs of other
countries and said Russia is worried by the trend: “An
epidemic of 'color revolutions' swept the Middle East and, like a
hurricane, wiped out several states in the region. This disease
went across several European countries, where events are freely
controlled from the outside.”
The May 2016 exercises will take place in the South China Sea,
where Japan and several other Asian countries, along with the US,
have been pressuring China to stop the construction of artificial
islands in disputed waters. Beijing claims most of the sea's area
as its own, saying it is historically Chinese. The Philippines,
Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei also say parts of the area
belong to them.
RT News App | Military Exercise | May 2015 | ['(RT)'] |
The death toll for the Japanese earthquake and tsunami reaches 8,450, with 12,931 people missing. | Police in Japan say 15,000 people may have been killed in a single prefecture, Miyagi, by the huge quake and tsunami which struck nine days ago. The official death toll has now risen to 8,450, with 12,931 people missing.
But there was some good news after an 80-year-old woman and her grandson were found alive in the rubble of Ishinomaki city.
Attempts continue to stave off a meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear plant. Engineers are still working to restore power supplies to the plant's cooling systems, which were knocked out by the tsunami. But even when they do, there is no guarantee the cooling systems in the plant will work, says the BBC's Rupert Wingfield-Hayes in Toyko. Experts say that an improvised spraying operation using fire trucks may have to continue for months, our correspondent says.
But officials said conditions in reactor 3 - which has presented engineers with the most serious problems - appeared to have stabilised on Sunday, after they warned earlier that rising pressure might require radioactive steam to be vented.
The new figure of a possible 15,000 dead comes from police in the worst-hit Miyagi prefecture, and does not include the thousands more dead and missing in areas to the north and south. It is looking increasingly clear that the death toll will top 20,000 people at least, our correspondent says.
The disaster dwarfs anything Japan has seen since World War II and people are beginning to talk of the disaster in similar terms, he says. In a rare story of survival, an elderly woman and a 16-year-old boy, believed to be her grandson, were found alive in a house in Ishinomaki, Miyagi prefecture, nine days after the quake, said Japanese media and police.
Sumi and Jin Abe were trapped when their home collapsed in the quake but were able to get food from the refrigerator. They are both being treated in hospital.
The authorities have begun building temporary homes for some of the hundreds of thousands of people - including an estimated 100,000 children - still sheltering at emergency evacuation centres. Many survivors have been enduring freezing temperatures without water, electricity, fuel or enough food. The destruction of the mobile phone network means people are queuing for hours to make their allocated phone call of one minute. And crippling fuel shortages mean long queues at some petrol stations. Meanwhile, at the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant, firefighters have continued to spray water at the dangerously overheated reactors and fuel rods, in a desperate attempt to avert a meltdown.
Engineers hope that restoring power will allow them to restart pumps to continue the cooling process, and have attached power lines to reactors 1 and 2, but it is unclear when they will attempt to turn the power back on.
Kyodo news agency quoted Tokyo Electric Power Co as saying that previously overheated spent-fuel storage pools at reactors 5 and 6 had been cooled by Sunday morning. On Friday officials raised the alert level at the plant from four to five on a seven-point international scale of atomic incidents.
The crisis, previously rated as a local problem, is now regarded as having "wider consequences".
It has highlighted the debate about the safety of nuclear power generation. Some 2,000 anti-nuclear protesters took to the streets in the Taiwanese capital Taipei to protest against the construction of the island's fourth nuclear power plant, and anti-nuclear banners were also visible on an annual anti-war demonstration in Tokyo on Sunday.
Radiation levels have risen in the capital Tokyo, 240km (150 miles) to the south, but officials say the levels recorded are not harmful. Radioactive contamination has been found in some food products from the Fukushima prefecture, Japanese officials say.
The iodine was found in milk and spinach tested between 16 and 18 March and could be harmful to human health if ingested, the officials said. International nuclear experts at the IAEA say that, although radioactive iodine has a short half-life of about eight days, there is a short-term risk to human health if it is ingested, and it can cause damage to the thyroid. On Sunday, chief cabinet secretary Yukio Edano said the government would decide by Monday whether to restrict consumption and shipments of food products from the area in the vicinity of the Fukushima plant. But Reuters reported the health ministry had already prohibited the sale of raw milk from Fukushima prefecture.
Traces of radioactive iodine have also been found in tap water in Tokyo and five other prefectures, officials said on Saturday.
The traces are within government safety limits, but tests usually show no iodine.
Meanwhile, radiation has been detected for the first time in Japanese exports, with Taiwanese officials finding contamination in a batch of fava beans, although they say the amount is too small to be dangerous to humans.
International Atomic Energy Agency
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. | Tsunamis | March 2011 | ['(BBC)'] |
French police report multiple blasts and gunfire in Paris with at least 26 dead in a restaurant in the 10th arrondissement and an explosion near the Stade de France. | Paris is being attacked by terrorists in at least three separate locations on Friday, killing more than 20 people. The first known attack was allegedly on a restaurant, Petit Cambodge, in Paris's 10th arrondissement on Friday night. Another incident reportedly occurred at the Bataclan, where as many as 60 people are said to be held hostage after a performance by American rock band Eagles of Death Metal. Police say the gunmen—as many as six—were armed with kalashnikovs and grenades. They are all currently on the loose.
Other unconfirmed reports indicate several explosions were detonated outside the Stade de France, just north of the city, where there was a match between France and Germany. President François Hollande was reportedly in attendance at the match. Three people were reportedly killed at the stadium incident.
And there is a heavy police presence outside several restaurants near the Opéra metro stop in the 9th arrondissement. | Riot | November 2015 | ['(Daily Beast)', '(AP)', '(Washington Post)'] |
At least 26 people have died after a fishing boat capsized off the coast of Honduras. | At least 26 people have died after a fishing boat capsized off the coast of Honduras, officials say.
Another 47 people were rescued from the vessel, which sank off the country's eastern Mosquitia region on the Caribbean coast.
The 70-tonne boat was packed with fisherman after the government lifted a seasonal ban on fishing for lobster.
It is not clear what caused the accident and an investigation has been launched.
The captain of the boat sent out an SOS signal but died shortly after, local media report.
Jose Meza, a spokesman for the armed forces, told AFP news agency that the bodies and survivors would be taken to the nearby city of Puerto Lempira.
He said that shortly before the accident on Wednesday another boat - which had also been overcrowded - had sunk in the same area.
At least 40 people were rescued in that case and no deaths were reported.
| Shipwreck | July 2019 | ['(BBC)'] |
Uzbekistan holds a parliamentary election to elect members of the Supreme Assembly. | All 135 election districts, consisting of over 8,400 poling stations will open across Uzbekistan at 6 am on Sunday for election of deputies of the Legislative Chamber. 44 polling stations will open at Uzbekistan’s representations abroad. A total of 17,215,700 eligible voters will also cast their votes for the candidates to the local representative bodies of the state authority.
The 2009 parliamentary elections will be an important stage in the further democratization of the society, as well as renewal and modernization of the country. On the choice the voters will make depends the development of Uzbekistan and further reforms in the sociopolitical, economic and other spheres.
In the process of building a democratic state in Uzbekistan, the principle “from strong state to strong civil society” is being consistently implemented. As President Islam Karimov said at the celebrations of the 17th anniversary of the adoption of the Constitution, all reforms of the election system are aimed at guaranteeing transparency, freedom and justice of the election process.
During the years of independence, thanks to a step-by-step modernization of the political, state and legal system, an election system complying with the highest democratic requirements has been created in the country.
The present elections are being held in the qualitatively new political and socioeconomic conditions. The role of the two-chamber parliament and of the representative bodies of state authority in the regions has expanded and strengthened. The activity of the political parties and the level of inter-party competition have significantly increased.
To increase the level of the law-making work, the number of the deputies’ seats in the lower chamber of the parliament was increased from 120 to 150.
Only political parties now have the right to nominate candidates to deputies. An institute of the political party representative was introduced. This person can participate during the vote counting at polling stations. The possible number of the authorized representatives of the candidates has been increased from 5 to 10.
The opportunities of participation of other civil society institutes in the elections have also expanded. Taking into consideration the importance of the issues of environmental protection and people’s health, 15 seats in the Legislative Chamber will be given to deputies elected from the Environmental Movement.
The deputies from the Environmental Movement will be elected on the voting day by the movement’s higher body – the Conference, in which delegates from all regions of the country will participate.
Candidates from the social-democratic party Adolat (Justice), democratic party Milliy Tiklanish (National Revival), Liberal-Democratic Party (UzLiDeP) and the People’s Democratic Party are participating in the elections to the Legislative Chamber.
In accordance with the legislation, the parties and their candidates were provided with wide and equal rights to hold their pre-election campaigns, including meetings with voters and using the media to inform the public about their programs.
The publicity and openness of the elections are ensured by the institute of observers. The Central Election Commission registered more than 270 observers from 36 states and four international organizations, including OSCE ODIHR, CIS Executive Committee, Shanghai Cooperation Organization and Organization of the Islamic Conference.
About 630 representatives of the local and foreign media are participating in the coverage of the election process. All meetings of the election commissions were held with participation of journalists. The Central Election Commission press center provides the media with timely information. | Government Job change - Election | December 2009 | ['(Al Jazeera)', '(Uzbekistan National News Agency)', '(Reuters)'] |
A Maltese port manager is killed at a fish market in Puntland by Al-Shabaab militants disguised as fishermen. | A Maltese port manager has been shot dead in Somalia's northern semi-autonomous Puntland state, officials say. Paul Anthony Formosa, who was the construction project manager for P&O Ports, was killed near Bossasso port.
Islamist militant group al-Shabab has said it carried out the attack. Puntland, an arid region of north-east Somalia, declared itself an autonomous state in 1998, in part to avoid the clan warfare in southern Somalia. The state is a destination for many Somalis displaced by violence in the south.
Mr Formosa was waylaid by gunmen disguised as fishermen as he was heading to the port, news agency Reuters reports. "[He was killed] in the fish market as he was going to Bossasso port this morning. The men armed with pistols hit him [with] several bullets in the head," Yusuf Mohamed, governor of Puntland's Bari region, told Reuters. One of the gunmen involved in Monday's attack was caught alive and has been identified as a member of al-Shabab, Mr Mohamed said. Two guards at the port were also injured in the attack, he said. Al-Shabab said it carried out the attack, accusing developers of looting Somalia's resources. It accused Mr Formosa of being in Somalia "illegally". "We are behind the operation... we had warned him but he turned [a] deaf ear. He was illegally in Somalia," al-Shabab's military operations spokesman, Abdiasis Abu Musab, said.
Dubai-based DP World - one of the world's largest port operators - won a 30-year concession in 2017 worth $336m (£260m) to develop and manage the Bossasso port. Many residents opposed the deal and staged protests during which at least one person was killed. They said that the deal would increase taxes at the port. DP World has a similar agreement for Berbera port in the neighbouring region of Somaliland, which has declared independence from Somalia.
The federal Somali government declared the deals null and void, accusing the operator of violating the country's sovereignty. Subsequently, the Somali parliament passed a bill banning DP World from Somalia. P&O Ports is working in Somalia as a subsidiary of the Dubai-based Port, Customs and Free Zone Corporation (PCFC). Somalia has been caught up in the ongoing diplomatic spat between Saudi Arabia and Qatar, its two allies and benefactors. It has so far taken a neutral stance. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which includes Dubai, and Bahrain severed relations with Qatar on 5 June 2017. "Somalia has become a chessboard in the power game between Qatar and Turkey on the one side and Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and their allies on the other," Rashid Abdi, director of the Horn of Africa project at the International Crisis Group, told the BBC.
"There is no doubt that these rivalries are spilling over into Africa. Somalia is especially vulnerable because of its proximity to the Gulf and its long historical relationship with the region," he added. Corrected on 6/2/19 to clarify that P&O Ports is a subsidiary of PCFC, not DP World. | Famous Person - Death | February 2019 | ['(BBC)'] |
Justice Michael Alexander Soole sentences Paul Moore to lifetime incarceration with a minimum imprisonment of 20 years for using his car to attack Muslims following a string of terror attacks in 2017 linked to Islamic extremism. | A man has been jailed for life for ramming his car into one woman and trying to hit a schoolgirl in a series of Islamophobic hate crimes he intended as a retaliation for terrorist attacks carried out by Islamist extremists in the UK.
Paul Moore had shown no remorse over the attacks, the judge said, as he sentenced him to a 20-year minimum term for attempted murder, attempted grievous bodily harm with intent and dangerous driving at Nottingham crown court on Tuesday.
Zaynab Hussein, 47, sustained serious fractures to her leg, arm, pelvis and spine during the assault, in which Moore drove a car on to the pavement and hit her from behind, before turning it around and driving over her again.
Shortly afterwards, he drove the car at his second victim, a 12-year-old Muslim girl walking to school, knocking her bag out of her hand.
Both were targeted because they were wearing Islamic clothing, the judge said.
The court also heard that, after the incident, the 21-year-old from Leicester told friends the attacks were in retaliation for terrorist attacks in the UK. He also told a relative he intended to target Muslims and was seen laughing during the attack. In carrying it out, Moore saw himself as doing “the country a favour”, the court heard.
“The courage of your victims, and the compassion and courage of all those who came to the aid of Mrs Hussein in different ways – and who notably come from across the diverse range of this local community – stand in stark contrast to your wickedness that morning,” Mr Justice Soole told Moore .
“All pedestrians were at risk from you that morning. However, the fact remains that you ultimately launched your assault on those who were in Islamic clothing.
“Your intention to kill Mrs Hussein was underlined by your wicked decision to return for a second assault with the car. It was only luck and her quick thinking that saved your second intended victim from injury.
Days before Moore’s attack in September, Ahmed Hassan had planted a bomb on a tube train at Parsons Green station, in south-west London – a fact that was “no coincidence”, Jonathan Straw, prosecuting, told Moore’s trial.
“Paul Moore’s actions were undoubtedly fuelled by his hatred of Muslims and the intent to kill his first victim was clear,” said Janine Smith, of the Crown Prosecution Service, after the sentence was passed.
“Moore had expressed a desire to run someone over and the evidence was clear that his motivation for attacking these victims was hostility towards their ethnicity and perceived religion. We are clear that this was a hate crime and invited the judge to uplift and increase the sentence. He therefore placed this in the highest possible sentencing bracket.”
In a victim impact statement, Hussein said she remained incapacitated since the incident. “I don’t understand why someone would want to hurt me, especially somebody I have never met.” | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Sentence | March 2018 | ['(The Guardian)'] |
A shooting at a dormitory at Texas A&M University–Commerce, leaves two dead and one wounded. | The university said there were three gunshot victims at its Pride Rock residence hall, and two people were confirmed dead.
02/03/2020 03:04 PM EST
Two people were killed and a third person was wounded in a shooting Monday at a dormitory at a university in Texas, police said.
Students and employees were told to shelter in place as a precaution after the shooting at Texas A&M University-Commerce. The university said there were three gunshot victims at its Pride Rock residence hall, and two people were confirmed dead.
The third person was taken to a hospital. Classes were canceled for the day.
Commerce is about 65 miles (105 kilometers) northeast of Dallas.
Larry Cooper III, a freshman who lives in the Pride Rock residence hall, told the Dallas Morning News that he left his room Monday just before the shelter-in-place was announced. He said he was waiting in a friend's room on the first floor of the residence hall.
“There’s police blocking the doorways, but other than that we’re all just kind of sitting in and waiting on the news to happen,” Cooper said.
Last October, two people were killed and a dozen others injured in an off-campus shooting at a homecoming and Halloween party involving Texas A&M-Commerce students. | Riot | February 2020 | ['(Politico)', '(NBC News)'] |
Low–lying parts of the Western Australian town of Port Hedland are evacuated with Severe Tropical Cyclone Rusty expected to reach the coast tomorrow. | Residents in Western Australia's Pilbara region are on alert for destructive weather overnight as Tropical Cyclone Rusty moves slowly towards the coast.
A red alert has been issued for the Port Hedland area and locals are being warned they can expect to hunker down for more than 36 hours.
The category-three system is expected cross the coast tomorrow evening and forecasters predict it will intensify as it gets closer to land. Low-lying areas in the town have been evacuated with a storm surge expected when Rusty hits, and the weather bureau is also warning of phenomenal amounts of rain.
Latest BOM warning | Latest DFES emergency warning
The bureau's regional director, Mike Bergin, says Port Hedland will experience Perth's entire winter rainfall in just three days.
"It's going to be a long, protracted and quite dangerous experience," he said. "Storm surge is going to be a particular problem; rainfall, we still expect to see cumulative totals over the three days of over 500 millimetres, and perhaps up to 600."
Earlier, the bureau's Andrew Burton likened the system to a storm of biblical proportions.
"We are talking Noah's Ark here, we really are talking phenomenal amounts of rainfall," he said. The red alert is current for people living in, or near, communities between Pardoo and Whim Creek.
The Department of Fire and Emergency Services is advising people to remain in the strongest part of their house, making sure they have food and water.
A DFES spokesman, Phil Cribb, says residents should remain vigilant despite the long wait.
"There'll be buildings that may be damaged, there may be loose tin, flying objects," he said. "Power may be down and there may be airborne hazards from asbestos or septics and those sorts of things. "It's about listening and being vigilant to make sure that if something does happen, they're ready to act."
The strong winds have brought down some overhead power lines and hundreds of houses and businesses are without electricity.
Horizon Power's Roman Raudonikis says the lines cannot be repaired until after the cyclone has passed.
"We know where the fault is, it's just a case that we can't get into the air to safely repair the damage," he said.
"As soon as the all-clear is given the crews will be on site and working to repair that."
Emergency authorities say the South Hedland stadium, which is being used as an evacuation centre, is at capacity.
Port Hedland deputy mayor, George Deccache, says the stadium can hold more than 500 people.
"The welfare centres are available to everyone who are in temporary accommodation such as caravans, backpackers or anyone who needs a safer place to stay during this period," he said.
"Both cyclone welfare centres in Port and South Hedland will be well equipped with all the basics such as food, water, blankets, and sleeping mats."
NASA
Michelle Davison, a fly-in fly-out worker from Queensland, was one of the first to arrive at the Port Hedland evacuation centre. "When there's a cyclone on and you're told to evacuate, the smartest thing you can do is follow the directions you're given," she said. "That gives your family reassurance as well. "I phoned my partner and said we'd been evacuated and he said 'ok good you're going somewhere safer', so it gives them comfort." The Yandi Yarra and the Warralong Aboriginal communities have also been evacuated.
ABC News: Joanna Menagh Mining giants Fortescue Metals and Atlas Iron have both locked down all operations in Port Hedland, with all work suspended. The Port handles a fifth of all sea-borne iron ore, and the cyclone has halted the loading of millions of tonnes of the commodity. Rio Tinto says it has stopped ship loading at nearby Dampier and Cape Lambert, but all other operations including rail and stockpiling are continuing. Meanwhile eight schools in Hedland are closed until further notice, including Hedland Senior High School and Port and South Hedland primary schools.
The Yandi Yarra Remote Community School and Marble Bar and Nullagine primary schools have been closed due to a risk of flooding.
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AEST = Australian Eastern Standard Time which is 10 hours ahead of GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) | Hurricanes_Tornado_Storm_Blizzard | February 2013 | ['(AAP via SBS News)', '(ABC News Australia)'] |
Hurricane Lane enters the central Pacific as a category 4 hurricane. | Hurricane Lane, a powerful Category 3 storm, is moving west in the Central Pacific on a path that will take it south of the Hawaiian islands later this week.
Lane is packing maximum sustained winds of 125 mph with higher gusts and was about 1,180 miles east-southeast of Hilo moving west at 16 mph as of late Saturday night. Hurricane-force winds extend outward up to 25 miles from Lane’s center and tropical-storm-force winds of 39 mph or more extend up to 105 miles, according to the Central Pacific Hurricane Center in Hawaii.
The storm is forecast to follow a similar path as Hurricane Hector which passed safely south of Hawaii earlier this month.
The five-day forecast for Lane calls for it to weaken to tropical-storm strength south of the islands by midweek.
“Lane is forecast to pass south of the main Hawaiian islands Wednesday and Thursday, potentially causing local impacts as it tracks west-northwestward,” forecasters said at 11 p.m. Saturday. “Interests in those islands should watch the progress of Lane closely, since long-range forecast track and intensity errors can be large.”
5 p.m. Saturday
Hurricane Lane moved into the Central Pacific this afternoon as a category 4 hurricane.
Lane is located 1,050 miles east-southeast of Hilo and 1,260 miles east-southeast of Honolulu. It has maximum sustained winds at 130 mph and is moving toward the west at 16 mph. Hurricane-force winds extend outward up to 25 miles from the center.
A motion between west and west-northwest with some decrease in forward speed is expected over the next few days.
11 a.m.
Hurricane Lane is expected to cross into the Central Pacific basin in the next few hours.
The category 4 hurricane is located 1,135 miles east-southeast of Hilo with winds at 140 mph. Lane is moving toward the west-northwest near 15 mph. A motion between west and west-northwest with some decrease in forward speed is expected over the next few days.
6:19 a.m.
Hurricane Lane continued to strengthen this morning, now packing maximum sustained winds of up to 140 mph with higher gusts.
As of 5 a.m. Hawaii time, Lane was located 1,230 miles east of Hilo and forecasted to reach the Central Pacific basin later today. Forecasters are predicting little change to Lane’s strength today and a gradual weakening beginning Sunday, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Hurricane-force winds extend outward up to 25 miles from the eye of the hurricane and tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 105 miles. | Hurricanes_Tornado_Storm_Blizzard | August 2018 | ['(Honolulu Star-Adviser)'] |
Illinois Senator Barack Obama wins the Democratic caucus. | DES MOINES, Iowa (CNN) -- Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee have claimed victories in Iowa's first-in-the-nation caucuses.
With all Democratic precincts reporting, Obama had the support of 38 percent of voters, compared to 30 percent for John Edwards and 29 percent for Hillary Clinton.
"The numbers tell us this was a debate between change and experience, and change won," said CNN political analyst Bill Schneider.
Iowa delivered fatal blows to the campaigns of Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut and Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware. Both have decided to abandon their White House runs.
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who finished fourth, said his campaign plans to "take the fight to New Hampshire." New Hampshire holds the nation's first primary Tuesday. Clinton and Obama are in a statistical dead heat in New Hampshire, according to the latest CNN/WMUR poll. Watch where millions of dollars and months of campaigning have left candidates »
On the GOP side, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, whose campaign was languishing six months ago, and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney are now tied for first place in New Hampshire, according to the poll, which was released Wednesday.
McCain left Iowa before caucus night even began. He was already in New Hampshire by Thursday afternoon, trying to get a jump on his rivals. For the winners of both party's caucuses in Iowa, it's an age revolt for Democrats versus a religious revolt for Republicans, Schneider said. Among Democrats, Obama took 57 percent of the under-30 vote, according to CNN's analysis of entrance polls. Watch Obama celebrate his victory
Speaking to supporters, Obama called the night a "defining moment in history." "You came together as Democrats, Republicans and independents to stand up and say that we are one nation, we are one people and our time for change has come." Watch an audio slideshow of the candidates' speeches »
Huckabee's victory can be attributed to his overwhelming support among evangelical voters and women, the polls indicate. With 92 percent of Republican precincts reporting, Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas, had the support of 34 percent of voters, compared to 25 percent for Romney. Fred Thompson had 13 percent, McCain had 13 percent and Ron Paul had 10 percent. What do the results mean? »
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who has turned the focus of his campaign to the February 5 "Super Tuesday" primaries, trailed with 4 percent. "We've paid a lot of attention to states that some other candidates haven't paid a lot of attention to," Giuliani said, adding, "Time will tell what the best strategy is." Watch Giuliani describe his strategy »
Huckabee was vastly outspent by Romney, who poured millions of dollars into a sophisticated get-out-the-vote operation.
"People really are more important than the purse, and what a great lesson for America to learn," Huckabee said in thanking his supporters. Watch Huckabee claim victory »
For most of 2007, Huckabee languished in the single digits in the polls and had very little success raising money. But his momentum picked up in the final six weeks of the year when social conservatives -- an important voting bloc in Iowa -- began to move his way. "We won the silver ... You win the silver in one event. It doesn't mean you're not going to come back and win the gold in the final event, and that we are going to do," Romney said.
Clinton, speaking with 96 percent of the vote in, portrayed herself as the candidate who could bring about the change the voters want.
"I am so ready for the rest of this campaign, and I am so ready to lead," she said.
Clinton had worked to convince Iowa caucus-goers she has the experience to enact change, while Edwards and Obama preached that she is too much of a Washington insider to bring change to the nation's capital.
Edwards, in a tight race for second, said Iowa's results show that "the status quo lost and change won." Watch Edwards describe his next move »
"Now we move on ... to determine who is best suited to bring about the changes this country so desperately needs," he said.
McCain, who had largely abandoned Iowa to focus on the New Hampshire primary, said, "The lessons of tonight's election in Iowa are that one, you can't buy an election in Iowa; and two, that negative campaigns don't work." Watch what McCain says about the results »
With such a close race on both sides, voter turnout was key. The Iowa Democratic Party reported seeing record turnout. The party said there were at least 227,000 caucus attendees. The Iowa GOP projected that 120,000 people took part in the Republican caucuses. See how candidates courted voters »
The Iowa Democratic Party said 124,000 people participated in the 2004 caucuses, while the Republican Party of Iowa estimated that 87,000 people took part in the 2000 caucuses. (President Bush ran unchallenged for a second term in 2004.) Caucus-goer Kathy Barger, inside a Democratic caucus site in Walnut, Iowa, said the room she was in was packed to the brim with a line out the door. Watch what it was like inside the caucus »
"I don't know how they are going to be able to fit everybody in the room, much less count the votes," she said. "There are bodies in every available space in the room."
The White House hopefuls campaigned down to the wire in Iowa, determined to reach as many people as possible before the 1,781 caucuses that started at 7 p.m. Iowa Democrats, unlike Republicans, use a more complicated system to determine a candidate's viability. Republican caucus-goers are asked for their support for a candidate only one time during the event. Democrats are asked twice: an initial question of support, and a second if their first-choice candidate does not reach a 15 percent threshold to achieve viability.
Among Republican candidates, Thompson, a former senator from Tennessee, and Rep. Duncan Hunter of California needed strong showings in Iowa to keep their campaigns going, while Paul, a representative from Texas, is likely to ride his surge of popularity through February 5 -- "Super Tuesday," when 24 states hold their primaries -- no matter where he places in the early contests. | Government Job change - Election | January 2008 | ['(CNN)'] |
Saudi Arabia signs $20 billion dollars in deals with Pakistan. | Saudi Arabia has pledged investment deals worth $20bn (£15.5bn) with Pakistan which is seeking to bolster its fragile economy. The deals include funding for an $8bn oil refinery in the city of Gwadar.
It comes as part of a high-profile Asian tour by the kingdom's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Pakistan is suffering a financial crisis. It has only $8bn left in foreign reserves and is looking to international backers for support.
Prime Minister Imran Khan has been seeking help from friendly countries in order to cut the size of the bailout package his country is likely to need from the International Monetary Fund, under very strict conditions. The country is seeking its 13th bailout since the late 1980s and Saudi Arabia has already provided a $6bn loan.
Pakistan also said it would confer its highest civilian honour on the Saudi crown prince, the Order of Pakistan, a day after the investment deals were finalised. The move is at odds with other countries who have condemned the Kingdom over its role in the murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi last year.
Saudi Arabia and Pakistan signed provisional agreements and memorandums of understanding in the energy, petrochemicals and mining sectors, according to reports. Of the latest deals, Prince bin Salman said: "It's big for phase one, and definitely [our commercial relationship] will grow every month and every year, and it will be beneficial to both countries." Pakistan is the first stop on an Asian tour by the crown prince, known as MBS. He is scheduled to be in India by Tuesday and will visit China on Thursday and Friday. The prince is seeking to recast his international image in the wake of the Jamal Khashoggi affair. The journalist was murdered at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October.
Against this backdrop, the current tour can be seen as a charm offensive by MBS, who is seeking to bolster relationships with dependable allies as he doles out cash, says the BBC's Abid Hussain.
While Pakistan stands to benefit from Saudi Arabia's largesse, the south Asian country is also important to the kingdom. The two countries have a long-standing military relationship and the MBS visit comes at a time when geopolitics in the region are shifting - including concerns over the influence of Iran. | Sign Agreement | February 2019 | ['(BBC News)'] |
Four rabbis are killed, and eight other people wounded in a terrorist attack on a Jerusalem synagogue by two men armed with meat cleavers and guns. The two attackers were killed by police who arrived at the scene. One of the policemen died from his wounds. | Four Israelis were killed and several injured as two men armed with a pistol and meat cleavers attacked a West Jerusalem synagogue.
The two Palestinians who carried out the attack, Jerusalem's deadliest in six years, were shot dead.
Israel's PM Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed a harsh response.
He ordered the homes of the attackers to be destroyed and called for the people of Israel to stand together in the face of a "wave of terror".
Jerusalem has seen weeks of unrest, partly fuelled by tension over a disputed holy site.
Three of the victims were dual Israeli-US nationals, the US state department has confirmed, while the fourth was a dual Israeli-UK citizen. The funerals of the four men - all rabbis - have been held in Jerusalem, with thousands in attendance.
Mr Netanyahu said this was a "terrible attack at a time of prayer" and condemned what he termed the "shouts of joy" from the Palestinian-controlled Gaza Strip after the attacks.
He said he was strengthening security on the streets of Jerusalem, without giving details.
Mr Netanyahu called on the people of Israel to "stand together as one" but added that it was "forbidden for anybody to take the law into their own hands, even if their blood is boiling".
Earlier, the office of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas issued a statement saying: "The presidency condemns the attack on Jewish worshippers in their place of prayer and condemns the killing of civilians no matter who is doing it."
US President Barack Obama also condemned the attack, saying: "There is and can be no justification for such attacks against innocent civilians."
The Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, the military wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, said it had carried out the attack. | Riot | November 2014 | ['(three American and one British)', '(BBC)'] |
Two dragon boats capsize in the Taohua river in Guilin, China, resulting in at least 17 deaths. | Sixty paddlers practising for a race fall into river in southern city of Guilin as two boats capsize in strong current
Seventeen people died after two dragon boats capsized in southern China.
The boat crews were practising on Saturday for a race in the Taohua river in the city of Guilin when the accident happened, the city’s fire department said.
The accident happened where two flows of the river converge, causing a powerful current, the CCTV broadcaster said.
Television pictures showed one of the long, narrow boats packed with paddlers going over. Another dragon boat arrived at the scene, also full of paddlers, and it too capsized, the pictures showed. Most of those who went into the river were not wearing life jackets, media reported. The Guilin fire department said on the Sina Weibo social media site that search efforts ended late on Saturday and 17 people had been confirmed dead. A total of 60 people fell into the water.
The official Xinhua news agency said eight boats and more than 200 people had been deployed to the rescue.
Two organisers of the practice, from the village of Dunmu, were detained, Xinhua said.
The dragon boat festival, which this year is being held on 18 June, is a traditional holiday in China. | Shipwreck | April 2018 | ['(The Guardian)'] |
World leaders arrive in Japan for the G8 summit to be held in Tōyako, Hokkaidō. | CHITOSE, Japan (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush arrived in Japan on Sunday for the Group of Eight rich nations’ meetings where North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, soaring oil and food prices, and climate change top the agenda.
Six months before his term ends and shadowed by low job approval ratings, questions abound whether Bush and the other leaders can forge any major agreements, particularly on how to deal with unchecked oil prices and curbing greenhouse gases.
The Bush administration has also been under pressure from abroad to take action to stabilize the weak U.S. dollar, another issue likely to come up during the meetings at the luxury hotel overlooking the lakeside resort of Toyako on July 7-9.
Upon arriving, Bush headed to bilateral talks with Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda. Later this week he will also hold one-on-one talks with the leaders of Russia, China, Germany, India and South Korea.
Bush will want to rally support for pressuring North Korea to fully account for its nuclear weapons activities and finish dismantling its program. Other topics include Iran’s nuclear program, the political turmoil in Zimbabwe and aid to Africa. | Diplomatic Talks _ Diplomatic_Negotiation_ Summit Meeting | July 2008 | ['(Reuters)'] |
A bomb kills one person and injures 20 others in the Khan elKhalili souq of Cairo, Egypt. | CAIRO (Reuters) - A bomb killed a French teenager and wounded at least 20 other people in a crowded square near a popular tourist bazaar in the Egyptian capital Cairo on Sunday, officials said.
Egyptian plainclothes police secure the area near the site of an explosion in Cairo, February 22, 2009. REUTERS/Asmaa Waguih
The blast was the first fatal attack on tourists in Egypt since bombs killed at least 23 people at an Egyptian resort in the Sinai peninsula in 2006. Sunday’s bomb went off near the 14th-century Khan el-Khalili market in eastern Cairo, where tourists shop for trinkets and sit at outdoor cafes.
“I was standing in front of my store selling to the tourists and we heard a big explosion,” a shop owner told Egyptian state television. “We ran away, and when we came back we saw bodies lying on the ground.”
The Health Ministry said a 17-year-old French girl was killed and 13 French tourists, three Saudis and four Egyptians had been wounded. The German Foreign Ministry said one German had been injured.
Egyptian state new agency MENA quoted security officials as saying the bomb had exploded under a bench in a garden in the square, and that a second bomb had been defused by security forces.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but security sources said two suspects had been taken into custody.
Islamic militants have hit Egypt’s tourist industry in recent years through bomb and shooting attacks, though there has been a lull since 2006.
The bombing is embarrassing for the government, which has tried hard to project an image of security and stability, but angered public opinion at home and across the Arab world by helping Israel to enforce a blockade on the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, and failing to condemn its recent onslaught on the Palestinian territory more forcefully.
Security sources had earlier told Reuters that four people had died -- two tourists and two Egyptian street children. A similar blast in the same area killed three tourists in 2005.
The office of French President Nicolas Sarkozy said in a statement in Paris that one French national had died and seven others had been wounded.
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The attack happened just after dark as people were gathering around coffee shops to watch a televised soccer match, a witness, who did not give his name, told Reuters.
“There was a big noise but at first we thought it could be people celebrating,” he said. “But then some people running away started screaming and fell on the ground. There was a lot of screaming.”
Egyptian television showed spots of blood on the paved square as police officers combed the area, which was quickly cordoned off as ambulances and police cars poured in.
“We heard a huge sound but we didn’t know what it was,” a witness told state television. “These are just innocent tourists who are not involved in politics coming to visit our country.”
Some earlier witness reports cited by police or security officials had explosives being thrown from a motorbike or the upper storey’s of an adjacent hotel.
Tourism in Egypt, the most populous Arab country, reached record levels last year after the recent lull in attacks. Tourism is one of Egypt’s top hard currency earners.
The Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, a powerful opposition group whose members are often rounded up by Egyptian police, condemned the attacks.
“The Muslim Brotherhood parliamentary bloc condemns the criminal event ... and refuses all armed violence whatever its reasons,” it said in a statement.
Abdel-Monem Said, director of the state-funded center Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, said the attack did not appear to be the work of a well-organized group.
“They were primitive devices and one didn’t work,” he said. “The destruction was not large and it seems to be the work of some angry people,” he said, adding that tourism had in the past bounced back quickly from similar incidents.
“Tourism is bad lately because of the international crisis and also because of the Gaza war,” he said. “This could add to it, but in the past these kind of things haven’t had a big effect.”
Last September, masked gunmen seized 19 hostages, including 11 tourists, on a safari in a remote desert area of Egypt near the Sudanese and Libyan border. All were released unharmed.
Al Qaeda often condemns Egypt’s government as a corrupt U.S. puppet and calls for its overthrow. Its deputy leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, said last September that it was among governments “imposed (on Islam) by the Crusader-Zionist campaign.”
| Armed Conflict | February 2009 | ['(Reuters)'] |
The World Health Organization states that 92% of the world's population lives in air pollution levels surpassing the organization's limits. , | More than 1 million people died from dirty air in one year, according to World Health Organisation Last modified on Wed 14 Feb 2018 16.36 GMT
China is the world’s deadliest country for outdoor air pollution, according to analysis by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
The UN agency has previously warned that tiny particulates from cars, power plants and other sources are killing 3 million people worldwide each year.
For the first time the WHO has broken down that figure to a country-by-country level. It reveals that of the worst three nations, more than 1 million people died from dirty air in China in 2012, at least 600,000 in India and more than 140,000 in Russia.
At 25th out of 184 countries with data, the UK ranks worse than France, with 16,355 deaths in 2012 versus 10,954, but not as poorly as Germany at 26,160, which has more industry and 16 million more people. Australia had 94 deaths and 38,043 died in the US that year from particulate pollution.
Maria Neria, director of the WHO’s public health and the environment department, told the Guardian: “Countries are confronted with the reality of better data. Now we have the figures of how many citizens are dying from air pollution. What we are learning is, this is very bad. Now there are no excuses for not taking action.”
Gavin Shaddick, who led the international team that put together the data, said: “Globally, air pollution presents a major risk to public health and a substantial number of lives could be saved if levels of air pollution were reduced.”
Sixteen scientists from eight international institutions worked with WHO on the analysis, which gathered data from 3,000 locations, using pollution monitors on the ground, modelling and satellite readings. They looked at exposure to tiny particulates 2.5 microns in size, known as PM2.5s, which penetrate the lungs and are the air pollutant most strongly associated with an increased risk of death. “The real driver of ill health is ultra-fine particles, 2.5s – they have the ability to permeate the membrane of the lungs and enter our blood system,” said Shaddick, who is based at the University of Bath. “Increasingly there is an understanding that there are not just respiratory diseases but cardiovascular ones associated with PM2.5s.”
In the UK more than 90% of the population lives in areas with levels of PM2.5s above the WHO’s air-quality limits of 10 micrograms per cubic metre for the annual mean. The government is in the high court on 18 and 19 October facing a legal challenge by environmental law group ClientEarth, which says ministers’ clean-up plans for another pollutant – nitrogen dioxide – are inadequate.
Globally, 92% of the population breathes air that breaches WHO limits but the world map of deaths caused by PM2.5s changes when looked at per capita. When ranked by the number of deaths for every 100,000 people, Ukraine jumps to the top of the list at 120. It is followed by eastern European and former Soviet states, and Russia itself, probably due to a legacy of heavy industry in the region. China drops down to 10th, at 76 per 100,000, and India falls to 27th, with 49 per 100,000.
Most of the air pollution comes from cars, coal-fired plants and waste burning but not all of it is created by humans. Dust storms in places close to deserts also contribute to dirty air, explaining partly why Iran is at 16th highest for total deaths, at 26,000 a year.
Most of the total deaths worldwide – two out of three – occur in south-east Asia and the western Pacific, which includes China, Vietnam, Japan, Australia, South Korea and small Pacific island states.
Shaddick said: “We might think of [pollution in] Beijing as being very high, but when you fill in the gaps between the big [Chinese] cities, [air pollution in] regions [is] remarkably high compared to the WHO limits [10 grams per cubic metre for the annual mean], up in the 50s and 60s. That’s something we in the west can’t even comprehend. That was probably a bit of a shock [to me].”
The Pacific states of Brunei Darussalam, Fiji and Vanuatu have the lowest number of deaths from air pollution, the WHO found.
Anne Hidalgo, mayor of Paris and chair-elect of a network of cities combating climate change, said: “Fighting pollution is one of my top priorities as mayor of Paris. It is a vital public health issue and all mayors should take on their responsibility to deliver bold actions.”
The city of Paris voted on Monday to ban cars along a stretch of the river Seine to cut pollution, defeating a minority rightwing opposition.
Hidalgo added: “I have said it before and am saying it again: we cannot negotiate with Parisians’ health.”
Neira said Canada and Scandinavian countries deserved praise for curbing air pollution and singled out France too. “France is taking a lot of action, Paris is taking aggressive measures: aggressive in the good sense. [It] maybe unpopular because it’s for the health of people but they are putting some restrictions on individuals. We all need to understand this is a matter of public health,” she said. | Environment Pollution | September 2016 | ['(WHO)', '(CBC)', '(The Guardian)'] |
A roadside blast in the Balochistan Province kills two policemen and injures eight people. | Two of the attackers targeted an Eid prayer ground where one assailant blew himself up, injuring 10 people, two of whom were policemen. Karachi: At least two policemen were killed in a roadside blast in the troubled Balochistan province while 13 people were injured in two separate suicide bombings during Eid prayers on Tuesdaytargeting minority Shias in Pakistan's relatively peaceful southern Sindh province.
Two police officials were killed and 10 other injured in a blast near a police training centre on Quetta's Sariab road when militants targeted a police patrol vehicle in the area, police said.
Representational image. AP
Also, four suicide attackers infiltrated Shikarpur district's Khanpur tehsil, 470 kilometres north of Karachi, police said.
Two of the attackers targeted an Eid prayer ground where one assailant blew himself up, injuring 10 people, two of whom were policemen. The other attacker managed to flee, they said.
Two other suicide bombers targeted a Shia mosque but they were stopped at the entrance by policemen, which led to one of them blowing himself up while the other was arrested. Three policemen were injured in the attack, one of whom was critical. Last year, at least 61 people were killed in a suicide attack on a mosque in the district.
"Alert" policemen at the venues prevented huge casualties, police officer Beherdin Kehrio told reporters. "If the policemen had not prevented these suicide bombers from entering the prayer venues there would have beenlargescale casualties because of the large gathering because of Eid prayers," he said.
He said the attackers at the Shia mosque were stopped by policemen as they looked suspicious and when confronted one of them detonated himself. "The other attacker was brought down and arrested," he added.
Those injured in the blast have been admitted to hospitals in Shikarpur for treatment. No group has immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
Pakistan has been frequently hit by sectarian violence in recent years, most of them perpetrated by hardline Sunni Muslim groups against minority Shia Muslims. However, Sindh is considered a relatively peaceful of Pakistan's four provinces and is highly influenced by Sufi doctrines and principles.
| Armed Conflict | September 2016 | ['(The News International)', '(First Post)'] |
Australia convicts a man it accuses of the 2001 smuggling more than 500 asylum seekers aboard a boat from Indonesia. | An Australian court has convicted an Iraqi man of smuggling more than 500 asylum seekers from Indonesia to Australia by boat in 2001. Hadi Ahmadi was found guilty on two of four charges of people smuggling by a jury in Perth.
He will be sentenced next month and faces a maximum prison sentence of 20 years.
Ahmadi was the first person to be extradited from Indonesia to Australia on people smuggling charges. He had pleaded not guilty to charges that he helped smuggle more than 900 asylum seekers on four boats over six months in 2001.
Following a 10-week trial, a jury at the District Court of Western Australia found him guilty of helping to organise two of the boats, which together carried more than 550 people.
He was found not guilty on one other charge and the jury could not reach a verdict on another.
The number of asylum seekers arriving in Australia by boat has increased sharply this year.
People from the Middle East and Asia often fly to Indonesia and pay people smugglers to ship them to Australian islands in the Indian Ocean.
Prosecutors said Ahmadi had been working for a leading Indonesian people smuggler, Achmad Olong, who is serving a five-year prison term in Australia.
Defence lawyer Jonathan Davies said Ahmadi was a refugee who had fled Iraq and had not been paid to help the asylum seekers.
| Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | August 2010 | ['(BBC)'] |
The wreckage of PMTair Flight U4 241 is discovered in Kampot Province, Cambodia; all 22 people on board are killed in the crash. | "All have died. It is confirmed," said Information Minister Khieu Kanharith. It took search teams almost two days to find the wreckage of the aircraft, which crashed in densely forested hills in the south-west of the country.
The plane lost contact on an internal flight in bad weather, and heavy rain and thick clouds hampered the search.
Thirteen of the passengers were members of a South Korean tour group who were heading for the beach after spending time at the Angkor temples. Three Czechs and the five-member Cambodian crew were also on board, as well as a Russian pilot. Maintenance review
Relatives of the passengers have been arriving in Kampot province close to Bukor mountain, where a helicopter found the wreckage of the An-24.
"We have located the crash site. It's high on the mountain," search pilot Tep Sitha told the Reuters news agency from the air.
A brief inspection of the site confirmed that none of the passengers or crew had survived. It has not been possible for helicopters to land at the site, because the tree cover is too dense. Rescue teams will have to cut through dense forest to reach it. NATIONALITIES ON BOARD
13 South Koreans
Five Cambodians (crew)
Three Czechs
Russian pilot
In pictures: Search for site The PMT Air flight had been making a short scheduled flight from Siem Reap to the coastal town of Sihanoukville when it disappeared from radar screens on Monday morning.
Aviation authorities suggested that bad weather might have played a part in the crash.
The director of PMT Air said that the plane had been in "good condition".
However, South Korean aviation authorities have ordered a maintenance review of the air carrier, as well as Royal Khmer Airlines.
The service has only been running since January and tourism officials had hoped it would encourage visitors to spend longer in the country, says a BBC correspondent in Phnom Penh.
Some 250,000 tourists visited Cambodia from South Korea last year - more than any other nationality. | Air crash | June 2007 | ['(BBC)'] |
Around 10,000 people demonstrate against austerity in Dublin amid calls for a general strike to shut the country down. | The march was organised by the Dublin Council of Trade Unions. Other groups were attending protesting over various cutbacks.
The aim of the protest was to highlight the impact of the Government's policies of austerity and cuts.
A Garda helicopter was circling over the march.
The president of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions joined in calls for a general strike in protest at austerity and cutbacks.
Eugene McGlone told a crowd the steps required to organise a strike starting in individual workplaces.
Mr McGlone was initially heckled when he took to the platform.
Other speakers echoed the call for a general strike that would shut the country down.
However, senior trade unionists have disassociated themselves from the call.
Jack O'Connor, the president of the country's largest union, SIPTU, said that as in France, Irish trade unions cannot call general strikes on political issues.
He said they would have to be convinced that there would be support for such action and that the demands were attainable.
Other senior sources pointed out that such a move would require approval by the ICTU executive council - which has never even discussed the prospect of a general strike.
Another source described Mr McGlone's comments as a "solo run".
Protest organiser Mick O'Reilly president of the Dublin Council of Trade Unions said today's protest was only the beginning of a sustained campaign and urged the crowd to attend a further protest at Leinster house on budget day. | Protest_Online Condemnation | November 2012 | ['(BBC)'] |
Russian journalist Konstantin Popov dies after being beaten by police in Tomsk, Siberia. | MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Russian journalist died on Wednesday after being beaten in police custody, authorities and colleagues said, deepening concern about police abuses after a string of scandals involving violence and corruption.
Journalists in the Siberian city of Tomsk, some 3,100 km (1,900 miles) east of Moscow, said Konstantin Popov, 47, was also tortured by his assailant. They also called for the dismissal of top regional police officials.
The federal Investigative Committee, which did not identify the victim except by age, said he was hospitalized on January 4 with severe injuries to internal organs after being beaten by an officer in a police holding cell for drunks.
He died without emerging from a coma, the committee said.
The chairman of the Tomsk branch of the Union of Journalists of Russia, Alexei Sevastyanov, said Popov was violated with an object he would not identify. “He was tortured,” he said.
The alleged assailant, police officer Alexei Mitayev, 26, was charged with aggravated assault and abuse of authority, the committee said. Mitayev admitted to the beating, citing stress, media said. He has been dismissed from the police force.
Popov was a co-founder of regional newspaper publisher and magazine, Tema. Its editor-in-chief Konstantin Karpachyov said it was unlikely Popov was killed because of his work.
“This could happen to absolutely anyone,” Karpachyov said. “It demonstrates the police terror is aimed against everybody.”
In an unusual outcry by the Russian media, which Kremlin critics say panders to the authorities, journalists on Wednesday condemned police and a Moscow court which fined a photographer for taking part in an unsanctioned opposition protest.
State-run RIA Novosti news agency denied its photographer, Andrei Stenin, took part in the protest and said he there was “on assignment”.
The court could not be contacted for comment on Wednesday.
More than 20 Russian editors, from state-run television channels, to popular daily newspapers, signed a petition asking Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev to check the behavior of the police who detained Stenin, news site newsru.com said.
“Hands off journalists!”, the non-governmental Union of Journalists said in a statement on its website.
Since 2000, at least 17 Russian journalists have been killed due to their work, and the killers have been convicted in only one case, the U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists said.
Recent outbursts of police violence, from drunken shooting sprees to bludgeoning a man to death, have added to widely negative perceptions of law enforcement officers in Russia, fueled by mounting evidence of corruption.
President Dmitry Medvedev said last month police misconduct was sparking public anger and undermining the state’s authority. He called for serious reform and ordered the 1.4 million-strong Interior Ministry staff cut by one-fifth by 2012. | Famous Person - Death | January 2010 | ['(Reuters)'] |
The death toll from the sinking of a ferry in Bangladesh on Tuesday rises to 116 with more people missing. | DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — The death toll in this week's ferry disaster rose to 116 on Thursday when villagers found four more bodies floating in the water, authorities said.
The decomposing bodies surfaced near the scene of the accident hours after the double-deck ferry was salvaged and the rescue operation was called off, local police chief Mohammad Shahabuddin Khan said. Rescuers recovered 112 bodies from inside the sunken boat Tuesday and Wednesday.
The ferry carrying about 200 people collided with a cargo boat and sank early Tuesday, sending scores of people into the Meghna River, just south of Dhaka. Khan said about 35 survivors were plucked from the water, while local media reported that another 40 managed to swim to shore.
Local media said dozens of people were still missing.
Hundreds of anxious people, many of them weeping, gathered near the scene of the accident to look for their loved ones. Some were angry, saying they blamed local authorities for the slow pace of the rescue operation.
Parul, who goes by one name, said she had been waiting at the shore since Tuesday night for news of her newly married brother, who was returning on the ferry with 16 others from his wedding party.
She said only four of the 17 had apparently survived. Two bodies had been recovered, but the bridegroom and others were still missing.
"Bring my brother back. Give them all back," Parul wailed as she beat her chest. "I want to see their faces. Please take me to them."
Rescue workers and divers called off the search late Wednesday after raising the wreckage, but police planned to stay in the area.
"There are no more bodies inside the ferry but police will remain deployed to check if there are any more bodies around," Khan said.
Ferry accidents are common in Bangladesh, a low-lying delta nation crisscrossed by more than 230 rivers. They are often blamed on overcrowding, faulty vessels and lax rules. In 2009, about 150 people died in three ferry accidents.
Khan could not specify how many people were still missing. Many passengers buy their tickets on board, and ferry operators rarely keep accurate passenger lists.
The MV Shariatpur-1 was traveling to Dhaka from Shariatpur district to the southwest. The accident occurred in Munshiganj district, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of Dhaka.
___
.
| Shipwreck | March 2012 | ['(AP via Yahoo News)'] |
Hurricane Florence makes landfall in Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, as a Category 1 hurricane. and leaves over 895,000 residences and businesses without electrical power. A 105 mph gust hits Wilmington, the strongest wind recorded there since Hurricane Helene in 1958. Florence is later downgraded to a Tropical Storm as it moves inland with sustained winds of 70 mph . | Tropical Storm Florence continues to flood roads and neighborhoods Hurricane Florence slammed into the East Coast, knocking out power in parts of the Carolinas, dumping torrential rains and inundating several areas with floodwater.
Here is a look at the dangerous storm by the numbers:
17: The number of fatalities as of the afternoon of Sunday.
A 41-year-old mother and her 7-month-old son were killed in Wilmington, North Carolina, when a tree fell on their home, officials said. The woman's husband was injured in the incident and taken to a nearby hospital, according to police.
A 78-year-old man in Kinston, North Carolina, was electrocuted when he tried to connect two extension cords outside in the rain, according to Lenoir County Emergency Services Director Roger Dail.
A 77-year-old man in Lenoir County, North Carolina, fell and died from "a cardiac event" while checking on dogs outside during the storm, officials said.
An 81-year-old man died in Wayne County when he fell and struck his head while packing to evacuate, officials said.
A 68-year-old man died when he was electrocuted while plugging in a generator in Lenoir County.
A husband and wife also died in a house fire in Cumberland County, officials said.
In South Carolina, a woman was killed when she struck a tree while driving, and a couple died from carbon monoxide poisoning from a generator being operated inside their home, officials said.
105 mph: As the storm made landfall Friday morning, Wilmington, North Carolina, was hit by a 105 mph wind gust, the strongest wind in the city since 1958.
100: The number of people who needed to be rescued in flooded New Bern, North Carolina, on Saturday morning.
"We have three rescue teams who are working around the clock to get into communities to retrieve people," the city said in a statement.
New Bern resident George Zaytoun, who chose not to heed evacuation warnings and was trapped inside his home, told "Good Morning America," on Friday, "It’s like a bomb has gone off."
“Everything around us is underwater," he said.
"This is twice the size of Hurricane Hugo," which tore through the Carolinas in 1989, New Bern Mayor Dana Outlaw told "Good Morning America."
65: Number of trees blown across roads in Raleigh, North Carolina, Saturday morning.
33.89 inches: As of Sunday, Swansboro, North Carolina, had received an unofficial total of 33.89 inches of rainfall, breaking the all-time rain record for North Carolina of 24.06 set in 1999 during Hurricane Floyd. Wilmington, North Carolina, had received 23.59 inches of rain, a record for a single weather event.
592,370: Number of customers without power in North Carolina on Sunday.
27,456: Number of customers without power in South Carolina on Sunday.
1 million: Up to 1 million people have evacuated their North Carolina homes, Gov. Cooper said Friday.
20,000: More than 20,000 people in six states -- North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, Maryland and Tennessee -- took shelter in 206 Red Cross and community shelters on Thursday.
730,000: The number of blankets available for evacuees. Six-thousand cots and 6 million meals have also been provided.
11 feet: Storm surge may reach this point in parts of North Carolina.
"People do not live and survive to tell the tale about what their experience is like with storm surge," FEMA administrator Brock Long told "GMA." | Hurricanes_Tornado_Storm_Blizzard | September 2018 | ['(169 km/h)', '(110\xa0km/h)', '(ABC News)', '(The Morning Call)', '(AP)', '(NHC)', '(Reuters)'] |
Michael Krohn-Dehli's first-half strike earns the Danes a shock win against the Dutch at the Metalist Stadium in Kharkiv. | Last updated on 9 June 20129 June 2012.From the section Euro 2012
Michael Krohn-Dehli's expertly taken first-half strike earned Denmark a shock win against a Netherlands side who missed a host of chances.
Krohn-Dehli drifted away from two defenders to fire home the winner.
But the Dutch dominated only to waste numerous efforts, with Arjen Robben and Robin van Persie the main culprits.
"It happened to Robin van Persie at the 2010 World Cup. He maybe takes on too much responsibility. He should be flying after a season like he has had [with Arsenal]. He's not relaxed enough. When he plays for Arsenal it's a different Van Persie."
Robben came closest when he shot against the post and the Danes survived a late handball appeal against Lars Jacobsen to hold on for victory.
Denmark coach Morten Olsen's pre-match warning that the Netherlands were simply better than his side could easily have been dismissed as mind games.
But for long spells of the opening Group B encounter at the Metalist Stadium in Kharkiv, the reality backed up Olsen's fears and the Danes struggled.
Netherlands, one of the pre-tournament favourites, combined their undoubted guile, creativity, pace and attacking quality with midfield grit and organisation.
Robben and Van Persie provided the cutting edge, and they had a series of opportunities to put Bert van Marwijk's side ahead before the Danes took the lead.
Van Persie, who scored 36 goals for Arsenal last season, sidefooted the first opening wide after a good early Robben run and Van Persie teed up a headed chance for Wesley Sneijder.
Robben and Van Persie then combined brilliantly on the right only for the Bayern Munich winger to fail to pick out one of two team-mates in the middle.
Sneijder also sent a header wide and as the pressure mounted, a Dutch goal looked inevitable.
But the Danes remained resolute in defence - largely thanks to a spirited display by captain Daniel Agger - and they went ahead with their first meaningful attack.
Krohn-Dehli took advantage of a lucky bounce of the ball after a battling run on the left flank by Simon Poulsen, dummied two defenders and shot low through goalkeeper Maarten Stekelenburg's legs after 24 minutes.
Niki Zimling did have a chance to double the lead soon after, but failed to properly connect with a difficult volleyed effort.
That was, however, a brief interlude to a series of Dutch attacks. Robben curled an effort against the foot of the post from the edge of the box after being gifted the ball by an abysmal clearance from keeper Stephan Andersen.
And Netherlands, backed by a typically noisy and colourful travelling support, started the second period in blistering fashion and could have had four goals within 10 minutes Robben shot over after cutting in from the left, and Van Persie miskicked dreadfully when in a good position and was also unlucky with another low effort.
Netherlands left-back Jetro Williams' inclusion means he is the youngest player to feature in the European Championship finals at just 18 years and 71 days old. Whose record did he eclipse? Enzo Scifo, the brilliant Belgian midfielder who was 18 years and 115 days when he faced Yugoslavia in 1984.
Mark van Bommel also went close with a fizzing 25-yard strike that drew a superb save from Andersen.
At the other end, goalscorer Krohn-Dehli's 20-yard strike brought a fine stop from Stekelenburg. And, although the Dutch started to look increasingly frustrated, they still created chances.
Johnny Heitinga headed over, substitute Klaas-Jan Huntelaar - left out of the starting line-up despite scoring 12 goals in qualifying - went through on goal but was denied by some alert and brave goalkeeping, and Huntelaar also had a decent claim for a penalty dismissed.
Defender Jacobsen handled the ball while under pressure from Huntelaar, but referee Damir Skomina waved away the Dutch appeals.
The Danes held firm and now have a great opportunity to progress to the quarter-finals, while the Dutch - runners-up at the last World Cup - must win at least one of their remaining two fixtures, against either Germany or Portugal, to have any hope. | Sports Competition | June 2012 | ['(BBC)'] |
Three tornadoes, two at least EF 3 in strength, rip through downtown Nashville and surrounding towns, killing 25 people. | NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Tornadoes killed at least 24 people, including several children, and shredded at least 140 buildings as violent storms roared through the state early Tuesday, part of a sprawling system that threatened more severe weather this week all the way from Texas to North Carolina.
Tuesday was the USA's deadliest day for tornadoes since March 2, 2012, when 40 people died in twisters that hit portions of the Midwest and South. Twenty-three people died in Alabama exactly one year ago, on March 3, 2019, according to the Storm Prediction Center.
A powerful and deadly storm moving through the middle of Tennessee spawned a tornado that touched down in Nashville early Tuesday morning, cutting a swath of destruction that stretched through the city for miles.
Gov. Bill Lee said "a number of people" were missing and many were injured. The governor, who declared a state of emergency, said 30 rescue workers suffered injuries. The number of dead has been difficult for officials to keep up with, and on Tuesday night, they revised the death toll from 25 to 24 after authorities said they miscounted one fatality that was later determined to be not storm-related.
"It is heartbreaking," Lee said at a news conference. “We have had loss of life all across the state. Four different counties, as of this morning, had confirmed fatalities.”
Lee said he was in touch with the White House "to ask for assistance." A number of missing people remained unaccounted for by early evening.
Schools, courts, transit lines and an airport were closed.
President Donald Trump tweeted his support Tuesday morning: "Prayers for all of those affected by the devastating tornadoes in Tennessee. We will continue to monitor the developments. The Federal Government is with you all of the way during this difficult time."
The president said he will travel to Tennessee on Friday to tour the damage.
Isolated tornadoes, damaging winds and flash flooding are possible across the southern USA through Thursday, Accuweather said.
The disaster affected voting in Tennessee, one of 14 Super Tuesday states. Some polling sites in Nashville were moved, and sites across Davidson and Wilson counties opened an hour late but closed at the scheduled time, Secretary of State Tre Hargett said.
The Nashville tornado "appeared to be quite large, although storm surveys will be conducted on Tuesday to determine the official intensity of the storm," AccuWeather said.
A preliminary survey indicated the tornado just east of Nashville was an EF-3 on the Fujita Scale, meaning it had winds of about 160 mph.
The tornado was the third to tear through downtown Nashville. Twisters ripped through the city in 1933 and 1998, the National Weather Service said.
In Putnam County, the number of deaths rose to 16. Three deaths were confirmed in Wilson County, two in Davidson County (where Nashville is) and one in Benton County.
Several children were reported among the dead in Putnam County, which includes the town of Cookeville. “This is an absolutely tragic and devastating day for our city and county,” Cookeville Mayor Ricky Shelton said.
The extent of the storm's physical damage was jarring.
At least 48 structures collapsed around Nashville, according to the Fire Department. Windows were blown out, and power lines were torn down in an area that stretched from the Germantown neighborhood, north of downtown, into the Five Points area of east Nashville and more than 20 miles to the east in Mount Juliet.
Drinking a Smirnoff Ice around 8 a.m. Tuesday, Nashville resident Domonique Hodge said he heard the roof come off his duplex that morning.
“That’s the roof right there," Hodge said, pointing to a massive pile of shingles and roofing material in the front yard.
He got in the closet, caught off guard by what was going on outside.
A tornado warning was in effect when the storm hit, according to Weather Channel meteorologist Greg Diamond, who tweeted that "the heart of Nashville had approximately a 5-10 minute lead time from when warning was issued to when tornado hit."
Officials scrambled to open emergency shelters around the metro area as sirens wailed and the smell of natural gas lingered.
Nashville Electric tweeted that four of its substations were damaged in the tornado. Power outages affected more than 47,000 customers Tuesday morning, the utility company said.
In east Nashville, Main Street was closed after the storm and covered in half-fallen trees and other debris.
Residents of Stacks On Main, near Nissan Stadium, reported their windows burst during the heavy winds, sending glass shards throughout their apartment, as well as minor flooding.
Apartment complexes off Main Street had siding, slabs of concrete and other material ripped away.
The storm also caused damage in Wilson County.
Emergency personnel assessed the damage, said Tyler Chandler, spokesman for the Mount Juliet Police Department.
Gas lines leaked and power lines were down, Chandler said.
"We have people missing, there are several homes flattened, so right now we are trying to establish a command post," Putnam County Sheriff Eddie Farris said.
The sheriff said all of his deputies were going house to house to check on residents as county and state crews worked to clear roads of debris and fallen power lines. | Hurricanes_Tornado_Storm_Blizzard | March 2020 | ['(WKRN)', '(USA Today)'] |
Three ETA militants, including one of its top leaders, Ibon Gogeascoechea, on the run since 1997, are detained in a FrenchSpanish raid in Cahan, Orne. | One of the top leaders of the Basque separatist group Eta has been arrested in north-western France, the Spanish interior ministry has said.
Ibon Gogeascoechea was held with two other suspected Eta members in a French and Spanish operation in Normandy. Madrid said the arrests had foiled a planned "commando" operation in Spain. A militant group fighting for an independent Basque homeland, Eta has been blamed for more than 820 deaths during its 41-year campaign in Spain. Eta called a short-lived truce in 2006, but broke it in December of that year.
The Spanish interior ministry said Ibon Gogeascoechea was the "most senior" member of Eta and its military chief. The arrests took place close to the small Normandy village of Cahan. The Spanish interior ministry said the three arrested men had raised suspicion after renting a rural home with false identities and using a car with fake number plates. Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said the operation was "very significant". One of the other men was named as Beinat Aguinalde Ugartemendia, 26. Initially police named the third man, but later said his identity could not be confirmed. Mr Rubalcaba said the pair "were part of a commando [unit] ready to enter Spain". They had come to "say goodbye to the military chief, who gave them their final instructions as Eta has a habit of doing", Mr Rubalcaba said. Ibon Gogeascoechea was born in 1965 and has been on the run since 1997 after members of the Eta group's Katu cell allegedly tried to kill King Juan Carlos when he attended the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. The cell is also wanted for attacks on Burgos and Majorca. French and Spanish authorities have maintained close cooperation to try to track down Eta members. Four suspected members of Eta were arrested in Portugal and France in January. Three weeks ago Portuguese police also seized half a tonne of explosives at a house they said was being used as a base by Eta. Although there have been a number of arrests of leaders, Eta has remained active - the group killed three Spanish police officers using car bombs in 2009. In December, Spain raised its terror alert level to two on a four-point scale. Mr Rubalcaba said that despite recent arrests, Spain did "not rule out an attack by Eta". Eta is considered a terrorist organisation by the European Union and the US. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | February 2010 | ['(BBC)', '(The Guardian)', '(The Daily Telegraph)'] |
The Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Olmert and the President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas meet to discuss the establishment of a Palestinian state. | Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday, in the West Bank for the first time, and told him he wanted to restart negotiations soon on establishing a Palestinian state.
Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert (L) stands with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas during their meeting in the West Bank city of Jericho August 6, 2007, in this picture released by the Israeli Government Press Office (GPO). Olmert met Abbas in the West Bank on Monday, opening talks on broad "principles" for a Palestinian state ahead of a conference later in the year. REUTERS/Amos BenGershom/GPO/Handout
After months of resistance, Olmert expanded the scope of discussions with Abbas to include so-called “fundamental issues” that are key to ending the conflict.
But aides to Olmert and Abbas emerged with differing explanations of what “fundamental” meant and whether the leaders were discussing any of the main final-status issues of borders and the future of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees.
The goal of the talks is to reach agreement on broad statehood “principles” by November, when the United States is expected to convene a Middle East conference, officials said.
A U.S. State Department spokesman said the focus on fundamental issues was positive because “ultimately it is going to be these two parties that are going to have to make the difficult decisions for peace”.
The two leaders met under heavy security at a resort hotel in Jericho, less than a kilometer (half a mile) from the last Israeli checkpoint at the entrance to the West Bank city.
The choice of venue was meant to bolster Abbas, the Fatah leader who dismissed a Hamas-led government after the Islamist group seized control of the Gaza Strip in June.
Olmert became the first Israeli prime minister to visit a West Bank city since 2000, when a Palestinian uprising broke out. An Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman said this showed a new level of trust between the sides.
“I came here in order to discuss with you the fundamental issues outstanding between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, hoping that this will lead us soon into negotiations about the creation of a Palestinian state,” Olmert said, with Abbas standing at his side, at the start of their talks.
Related Coverage
“I want to do this sooner rather than later,” a spokesman for Olmert quoted him as telling Abbas on Palestinian statehood during the three-hour meeting.
Salam Fayyad, whom Abbas appointed prime minister after Gaza’s takeover, said the leaders were looking at “how to reach an agreement on an independent Palestinian state as quickly as possible”.
Abbas aide Saeb Erekat said neither side came to the talks with “a magic wand”. “What we need now is to have mechanisms for implementation, timelines,” he said.
U.N. special envoy to the Middle East Michael Williams said an agreement on principles could be the starting point for more serious negotiations after the U.S.-sponsored conference.
If progress is made, Western officials said the parties would appoint groups to tackle the most divisive issues.
Israeli and Palestinian officials said they believed U.S. President George W. Bush was seeking a breakthrough in his last 17 months in office to bolster a legacy damaged by Iraq.
But it is uncertain whether Olmert, whose popularity plummeted after last year’s inconclusive war in Lebanon, can make major concessions, particularly on Jewish settlements.
It is also uncertain how Abbas can deliver on any deal with Hamas Islamists in control of Gaza.
Ismail Haniyeh, prime minister of the Hamas-led government which Abbas sacked, called the Jericho meeting a public relations gimmick that would yield nothing.
In the latest Israeli gesture for Abbas, Olmert agreed in principle to allow the return to the West Bank of 13 Palestinian gunmen exiled to European countries after a standoff with the Israeli army in Bethlehem in 2002, Erekat said.
Palestinian officials said they also received assurances from Olmert that Israel would approve as early as next week the removal of some of the hundreds of checkpoints, roadblocks and barriers that restrict Palestinian travel in the West Bank.
Abbas sought the release of more Palestinian prisoners but Olmert, who recently freed over 250 prisoners, was non-committal.
Israel made clear it remains wary of being drawn into final-status negotiations too soon. “If the process goes straight to the most difficult issues without the right groundwork...and you don’t reach an agreement, then the (Islamic fundamentalists) will say, ‘We told you so,’” Regev said.
| Diplomatic Talks _ Diplomatic_Negotiation_ Summit Meeting | August 2007 | ['(Reuters)'] |
U.S. Representative Chris Collins is arrested on charges of securities and wire fraud, conspiracy and lying to investigators. He is accused of passing nonpublic information about Innate Immunotherapeutics, a biotech company, to his son, who traded on the information and passed it along to others. Collins was a director of the company and also a major investor. |
Rep. Chris Collins delivers a speech at the Republican National Convention in 2016 in Cleveland. Collins was the first sitting member of Congress to endorse Donald Trump's presidential bid.
Rep. Chris Collins, R-N.Y., was arrested Wednesday on charges related to insider trading.
A federal grand jury accused the Buffalo-area lawmaker of passing nonpublic information about a biotech company to his son, who traded on the information and passed it along to others.
"Congressman Collins cheated our markets and our justice system," said Geoff Berman, the interim U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. "He placed his family and friends above the public good."
Collins was indicted along with his son, Cameron, and Stephen Zarsky, the father of Cameron's fiancée.
According to the newly-unsealed indictment, timely sales based on inside information allowed Cameron Collins, Zarsky and others to avoid losses totaling more than $768,000 when the biotech company, Innate Immunotherapeutics, failed a key clinical trial.
Rep. Collins was a director of the company and also a major investor.
According to the indictment, Collins was attending the congressional picnic at the White House on June 22, 2017, when he received an email from Innate's CEO, notifying him that a promising drug had failed a clinical trial. Within minutes, Collins telephoned his son, who then passed the information along to others.
"The crime that he committed was to tip his son Cameron so that Cameron and a few select others could trade on the news while the investing public remained in the dark," Berman said.
Collins and the other defendants are charged with securities and wire fraud, conspiracy and lying to investigators. The congressman pleaded not guilty and was released on bond.
"I believe I acted properly and within the law at all times with regard to my affiliation with Innate," Collins told reporters Wednesday night. "The charges that have been levied against me are meritless, and I will mount a vigorous defense in court to clear my name."
Collins stressed that he had not sold any of his own shares in the company. His stock lost 92 percent of its value after the adverse results of the clinical trial were made public.
According to the indictment, the elder Collins was not able to sell his stock because it was held in Australia, where trading had been halted in advance of the company's announcement. Over-the-counter trading continued, however, in the U.S., where Cameron Collins' and Zarky's shares were held.
Collins' dealings with Innate Immunotherapeutics are also the subject of an ongoing congressional ethics probe. He had promoted the stock to former Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga. Price's own holdings in the company became an issue when he was nominated to be President Trump's first secretary of health and human services.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., called on the House Ethics Committee to conduct its own review of the new allegations against Collins.
"While his guilt or innocence is a question for the courts to settle, the allegations against Rep. Collins demand a prompt and thorough investigation by the House Ethics Committee," Ryan said in a statement. "Insider trading is a clear violation of the public trust. Until this matter is settled, Rep. Collins will no longer be serving on the House Energy and Commerce Committee."
The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a parallel civil complaint that seeks to bar Collins from serving as an officer or director of any public company in the future.
Collins, who is one of the wealthiest members of Congress, was the first member to publicly endorse Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign. He also served on Trump's transition team.
Berman said prosecutors were mindful of the upcoming midterm election but added that did not color the timing of the indictment. Collins' Democratic challenger, Nate McMurray, called the charges "shocking and sad, but not surprising."
"Anyone who's been paying attention knows what's going on," McMurray said in a statement. "And now the jig is up, because no matter how this is spun, it's clear that the swamp is alive and well in Washington, DC."
The nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates the district as likely to remain in GOP hands.
Collins is believed to be the first member of Congress to face charges related to insider trading, even though lawmakers are privy to all kinds of inside information and some are active stock traders.
A study of stock trades by U.S. Senators in the 1990s found they outperformed the market by an average of 12 percent per year.
"They're either geniuses at the stock market, or they know something that we don't know," said Craig Holman, a lobbyist with Public Citizen's Congress Watch division.
In 2012, after a "60 Minutes" expose, Congress passed a law requiring members to disclose their stock trades within 45 days. Since that new transparency standard took effect, Holman said, the volume of trading on the Senate side has declined by more than two-thirds. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | August 2018 | ['(RNY)', '(NPR)'] |
Abraham Lauhenaspessy ("Captain Bram"), a suspected kingpin people smuggler, is detained in Indonesia. | A PEOPLE-smuggling kingpin has been detained in Indonesia in a breakthrough in efforts to disrupt the latest wave of asylum seekers coming to Australia.
Australian authorities last night intercepted another boatload of suspected asylum seekers off Ashmore Island, the 33rd for the year. The 39 passengers and three crew will be transferred to Christmas Island. An Australian naval ship took part in rescue efforts earlier yesterday after two boats carrying suspected asylum seekers sent out distress messages from Indonesian and Malaysian territorial waters. The Minister for Climate Change, Penny Wong, said HMAS Armidale had contacted one of the vessels and established that those on board were safe.
Caught ... Abraham Lauhenaspessy.
The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, will leave today for Jakarta, where he will seek a solution to the influx of asylum seekers into Australian waters.
Abraham Lauhenaspessy, known as Captain Bram, was discovered among 254 Tamils refusing to leave a boat at the Indonesian port of Merak in West Java. He duped the Tamils, who paid $US4 million ($4.3 million) to be taken to Christmas Island, apparently because he wanted to avoid arrest in Australian territory where he would face 20 years' jail.
Mr Lauhenaspessy has brought more than 1500 asylum seekers to Australia since he emerged as a pivotal organiser of Indonesia's people smuggling in 1999. The spokesman for the Tamils, known only as Alex, told the Herald Mr Lauhenaspessy turned the boat around five hours' sailing time from Christmas Island because he missed a rendezvous with a smaller boat that was to pick him up.
''There was a mix in the location for him to get off. If Bram had not turned the boat around we would have been at Christmas Island in five hours,'' he said by telephone from the boat. ''We are very upset this happened.''
The wooden boat was intercepted on October 11 by an Indonesian navy vessel heading away from Christmas Island.
Mr Lauhenapessy, who is about 60, has portrayed himself as one of the six Indonesian crew.
The asylum seekers say Mr Lauhenapessy was a key organiser on the boat who liaised with people smugglers in Malaysia, which they left on October 1. The Herald has confirmed Mr Lauhenapessy is in navy custody.
Mr Lauhenapessy, an Ambonese with strong links to a criminal network at Jakarta's main port, was a priority target for Australian Federal Police for more than five years. ''He was too slippery. We couldn't catch him,'' a federal police agent said yesterday. After eluding several elaborate sting operations by Australian and Indonesian police Mr Lauhenapessy was arrested in Jakarta in June 2007 after a joint operation between the federal and Indonesian police.
How he resumed his activities two years later highlights the different penalties for this crime between Australia and Indonesia.
In December 2007 an Indonesian court sentenced him to two years' jail and fined him the equivalent of $3110 on charges of hiding, protecting, harbouring or providing livelihood to people known to have entered Indonesia illegally.
The charges related to the arrival of 83 Sri Lankan asylum seekers in international waters off Australia in early 2007.
Alex said he would be prepared to reveal all the details about the man he knows as ''Bram'' when the week-long standoff at the boat was resolved.
As conditions deteriorated on board over the weekend, the Sri Lankans ended a 52-hour hunger strike and said they would be prepared to go ashore if they had assurances about their future from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
The Deputy Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, said the Government's policies aimed to treat refugees humanely while deterring people from entering the country illegally.
''We believe we've got the balance right through protecting our borders and deterring people from making risky and dangerous journeys, while treating people humanely,'' she said.
But the Opposition spokeswoman on immigration, Sharman Stone, said the flow of boat arrivals was ''back on full stream'' since the Government had softened its policy on asylum seekers last year.
Meanwhile, a ship suspected of carrying 76 illegal migrants from Sri Lanka has been intercepted in the Pacific off Canada's west coast, police say. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | October 2009 | ['(The Sydney Morning Herald)', '(The Australian)'] |
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