title
stringlengths 1
7.43k
| text
stringlengths 111
32.3k
| event_type
stringlengths 4
57
| date
stringlengths 8
14
⌀ | metadata
stringlengths 2
205
⌀ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Thousands of people demonstrate in protest at the Pope's views on condom use, homosexuality, education, the ordination of women and the child abuse case. | Thousands have marched in London to protest against the Pope's visit. Organisers of the Protest the Pope event said they wanted to highlight his stance on controversial subjects, including the ordination of women.
Sex abuse and Catholic opposition to contraception have also been criticised. Organisers of the protest say 20,000 people took part in the rally; however, police say they are unable to confirm this figure. The march proceeded from Hyde Park Corner through central London to Whitehall where a rally was held with speakers including gay rights activist Peter Tatchell.
The event took place as Catholics gathered in Hyde Park for an evening prayer vigil led by the Pope.
Among the protesters was comedian Al Murray. He said: "Like a lot of people I am a perplexed that it is a state visit.
"The Pope's opposition to condoms kills people. It is all very well him lecturing us on morals but he should look at his own organisation's view."
Speakers at the rally included the human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson and atheist scientist and author of The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins.
At the rally, Mr Robertson said: "We are here today to celebrate our faith in liberty of conscience; our faith in equality; our faith in human rights. Of the Pope he said: "He's been met with the most utter, exquisite, grovelling politeness and with that somehow we are in an uncivilised third world country. "What is civilised about demeaning the women, demonising homosexuals, wishing that IVF children had never been born?... our only crime has been silence."
On its website, Protest The Pope says it opposes Pope Benedict's state visit because "he is going to use (it) to tell us how we all should live and to interfere in our laws. No other head of state would be allowed to do this".
In particular, the movement criticises the Vatican for:
While accepting Pope Benedict's right to visit the UK and to address his supporters, the Protest The Pope campaign opposes the fact that it is, in part, financed by UK taxpayers.
Mr Tatchell told the BBC News Channel: "We profoundly disagree with the Pope's opposition to women's rights, gay equality and the use of condoms to prevent the spread of HIV.
"This is not an attack on Catholic people or the Catholic faith. We are critical of certain policies of the Pope.
"When he says no woman is fit to be a priest, that's an insult to the whole of female humanity.
"When he says a husband must not use a condom to protect his wife from infection - even if he has HIV - that's irresponsible.
"And when he says that all gay people possess a tendency towards evil, that flies in the face of the Christian gospel of love and compassion.
"We know that many Catholics share our concerns. Only 5% of Catholics in this country agree with the Pope's ban on contraception. Only 11% of Catholics think that homosexuality is morally wrong. "So there is a great depth of Catholic opinion which is in disagreement with this Pope and we support those Catholic people."
'Accept traditional values'
In response to the Pope's public apology over child abuse within the Catholic Church made during a Mass at Westminster Cathedral, Mr Tatchell said: "The Pope keeps on apologising for the failings of everyone but himself."
Ahead of the march, protesters heard from a victim of clerical sex abuse. Sue Cox, 63, from Gaydon, Warwickshire, told the gathered crowds that the Pope's visit was "egotistical, arrogant and selfish".
She said: "How dare he suggest that secularism does not accept or tolerate traditional values?"
She added that her own experience from the Catholic Church was "pain, anger, fear, terror, disgust, lies, shame, violence, sneering, disdain, and disempowerment."
John Hide, one of the people attending the protest, told BBC News: "I am very much against the taxpayer having to pay for the Pope's visit.
"I have also just found out that the Queen has to wear black when she meets the Pope as a sign of deference. That is incredible."
Father Christopher Jamieson, a Benedictine monk and the director of the Catholic Church's National Office for Vocation, said the protest was part of living in a democratic country. He said people had every right to protest but "we feel he has been received very fairly and very warmly. "It's been a great affirmation not only for the Holy Father and church, but also for the country, that its political system is so capable of welcoming into the political platform a religious voice whose voice is not always welcomed to all parts of society. "That too is a great expression of democracy." Religion
| Protest_Online Condemnation | September 2010 | ['(BBC)'] |
Archaeologists believe to have uncovered the oldest Roman temple ever discovered. | It may only have been visible for a few days, but archaeologists have announced the discovery of what may be the oldest Roman temple ever found.
Located on the grounds of the Sant’Omobono church in central Rome, the ancient temple, which dates back to the early sixth century B.C., is believed to have been constructed near where the Tiber River once flowed. The location would have made the temple a sort of sanctuary and meeting place for merchants from as far away as Lebanon and Egypt.
“The religious dimension sort of sanctifies the trade,” archaeologist Albert Ammerman told the New Republic. “It’s like having money that says, ‘In God we trust.’”
The building’s foundations are below the water line — a factor that made excavation difficult for researchers from the city of Rome and the University of Michigan. Calling the ambitious project a “mission impossible,” Ammerman told NPR how the teams worked tirelessly over the summer to counteract the difficult conditions. “They’re digging at the very bottom of this trench, at about 7 and a half feet below the water,” Ammerman told the outlet. “You’re in a very deep hole, and although you know in theory that the sheeting is going to hold everything up, there is a primal part of your brain that tells you to get out of there, if the walls come closing in there’s not going to be any way out for you,” he said.
In the end, the temple’s foundations were only visible for three days this summer before the trench had to be filled back in, but the ongoing project is nonetheless proving to be a gold mine of information about this early period of Roman civilization. The Sant’Ombono Project website states:
The site thus offers both an important glimpse at the earliest phases of occupation at Rome in the latter half of the second millennium and an unparalleled opportunity to study the development of a major cult area in relation to the processes of urbanization and state formation from the eighth to the sixth centuries.
Although the site of the Sant’Omobono church was discovered during construction work in 1937, digging projects carried out in the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s were limited in scope due to a variety of logistical issues, according to the project’s website. | New archeological discoveries | February 2014 | ['(Huffington Post)'] |
Protests break out in London, New York City, and other cities across the world expressing solidarity with Palestine. In Manhattan, pro-Palestinian protesters gather at the Israeli consulate on East 42nd Street. Additionally, U.S. Reps Rashida Tlaib and André Carson participate in a protest at the State Department in Washington, D.C. | LONDON: Large protests were held in solidarity with Palestinians around the world, including in London, as well as in Muslim-majority countries including Kuwait, Oman, Pakistan, Tunisia and Turkey.
Protesters gathered outside Downing Street, the residence of Prime Minister Boris Johnson against an Israeli court ruling to evict Palestinian families from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in east Jerusalem.
Israel’s Supreme Court postponed a key ruling Monday that could have forced dozens of Palestinians from their homes, citing the “circumstances.”
The recent round of violence began when Israel blocked off a popular spot where Muslims traditionally gather each night during Ramadan at the end of their daylong fast. Israel later removed the restrictions, but clashes quickly resumed amid tensions over the planned eviction of Palestinians from Sheikh Jarrah.
The tensions in Jerusalem have threatened to reverberate throughout the region.
In Jordan, protesters gathered outside the Israeli embassy, burning Israeli flags and chanting “Shame, shame the embassy is still there” and “Death to Israel!“
Palestinians scuffled again with Israeli officers in riot gear on Tuesday evening, although less intensely than on previous nights.
Palestinian man Siraj, 24, said he had suffered a spleen injury from a rubber bullet fired by the police.
“They shot everyone, young and old people,” he said.
Amnesty International has accused Israel of using “abusive and wanton force against largely peaceful Palestinian protesters.” | Protest_Online Condemnation | May 2021 | ['(Arab News)', '(Gothamist)', '(Newsweek)'] |
Iraq War troop surge of 2007: Tens of thousands of people protest at Washington D.C.'s National Mall demanding the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. | Protesters energised by fresh congressional scepticism about the Iraq war demanded a withdrawal of US troops in a demonstration today that drew tens of thousands and brought actress Jane Fonda back to the streets.
Fonda was known in the Vietnam era for her outspoken opposition to that war, earning the derisive nickname "Hanoi Jane" from conservatives for travelling to North Vietnam during the height of that conflict. She has avoided anti-Iraq war appearances until now.
Demonstrators today carried signs to the National Mall that said "The surge is a lie" and "Clean water speaks louder than bombs".
On the stage rested a coffin covered with a US flag and a pair of military boots, symbolising the American war dead. On the Mall stood a large bin filled with tags bearing the names of Iraqis who have died.
United for Peace and Justice, a coalition group sponsoring the protest, said there has been intense interest in the rally since US President George W Bush announced this month he was sending 21,500 additional troops to Iraq.
The group said its internet site received more than five million hits this month, including 650,000 on Wednesday - the day leaders held a media briefing about the protest.
Other scheduled speakers included Danny Glover, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, National Organisation for Women President Kim Gandy and several members of the US Congress who oppose the war.
Standing on her toes to reach the microphone, 12-year-old Moriah Arnold told the crowd: "Now we know our leaders either lied to us or hid the truth. Because of our actions, the rest of the world sees us as a bully and a liar."
The sixth-grader, the youngest speaker on the stage, organised a petition drive at her school against the war.
"I encourage the youth of America to rise up and tell our government, 'Changes have to be made,"' she said.
The rally was scheduled as congressional opposition to the war is building. The US Senate is considering nonbinding resolutions that would state opposition to Bush sending the extra forces to Iraq.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi led a delegation to Iraq yesterday, while Bush met with military leaders in the Oval Office.
About 40 people staged a counter-protest today, including military family members.
As protesters streamed to the Mall, Bush reaffirmed his commitment to the troop increase in a phone conversation today with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
A small group of active-duty military troops also planned to attend today. A Defence Department spokeswoman said members of the armed forces can speak out, but they must not do so in uniform, and they must make clear that they do not speak on behalf of their military unit, their service or the Defence Department, unless authorised to do so. | Protest_Online Condemnation | January 2007 | ['(The New York Times)', '(BBC)', '(The Age)'] |
In Sunday's elections, Spain's center-right ruling People's Party wins 123 seats (35.1%), and the center-left Socialist Workers' Party takes 90 (25.7%) of the 350 seats in parliament, thereby ending Spain's two-party system since neither major party won an absolute majority. Turnout was 73 percent. Spain's new political forces, Podemos and Ciudadanos (C's), get 69 and 40 seats, respectively. Smaller parties split the remaining 28 seats, 17 to Catalonia parties which favor secession. It appears that a coalition government will be necessary. PSOE has declined to join the PP, which actually doesn't want that either. King Felipe, who ascended the throne in June 2014, is constitutionally empowered to mediate. | As Spain’s national parliamentary election results came in on Sunday night, TV news commentators repeated two concepts with notable frequency: “fin del bipartidismo” and “ingobernabilidad.”
Specifically, they noted that the Spain was ending its 33-year period with two party rule. Is the Eurozone’s fourth-largest economy threatening to become ungovernable, just as it emerges from a humiliating bailout and its worst economic crisis in over 20 years?
Now comes the difficult part: forming a government that can last. Before the election, it was widely expected that the PP and Ciudadanos together would reach a majority of 176 seats, and that in exchange for enacting some of its labor market and government transparency reforms, Ciudadanos and its head Albert Rivera would allow Mariano Rajoy to continue as Prime Minister.
But Ciudadanos missed expectations, leaving the expected alliance 13 seats short. And on the left, a combination of Podemos and the PSOE falls even shorter. So what happens now?
All signs point to a difficult period of negotiation, followed by either a weak minority or coalition government, or new elections. The problem is that of the 28 seats not accounted for by the four biggest parties—seats that could go toward making a majority—17 are held by parties in Catalonia that want their region to secede from Spain (or at least hold a referendum on the issue). The PP and Ciudadanos are dead set against that idea, and Socialist head Pedro Sánchez has said he “totally” opposes it.
At this point, the electoral math becomes diabolical. Prime Minister Rajoy could form a government with Podemos, a very unlikely partner given that Podemos was founded in order to overthrow the orthodox economics and austerity measures that the PP represents.
The PSOE could get together with Podemos and Ciudadanos, except that Ciudadanos leader Rivera has said he would never govern with Podemos or other parties that would hold a referendum on Catalan independence. (This is a sensitive issue for Rivera, an anti-secession native of Catalonia.)
An equally unlikely option is that the PP and the Socialists could get together and form a “grand pact,” like in Germany. The problem with that is that the two parties have spent their entire existence trying to tear each other down.
To underscore this tense relationship, in their one election debate last week, PSOE head Sánchez made repeated references to corruption scandals surrounding the PP and told Prime Minister Rajoy that the country needed a “decent” leader and he was not one. In response, Rajoy called Sánchez “despicable” and “miserable.”
This complex coalition calculus is unprecedented for Spain, which since 1982 has been governed by either the PSOE or the PP in outright majority or with minor support with regional parties.
But that two-party dynamic was broken when the country’s economic crisis began in 2008. Voters blamed the PSOE for the crisis, as it had been leading the country since 2004. Then, after they elected the PP in 2011, they blamed the conservative party for the austerity measures it put into place to deal with the crisis fallout.
That voter anger only deepened with a series of corruption scandals that have stained both the PP and the PSOE, leading to the arrest of, among others, former PP treasurer Luis Bárcenas.
Podemos and Ciudadanos have taken advantage of that anger, especially among young voters, to present themselves as untainted by corruption and interested in solving the economic problems that millions of Spaniards still face. While Spain’s economy has begun to grow during the last 18 months, unemployment is still over 20% and the GDP has not recovered its pre-crisis level.
In this complicated panorama, the oddest possible governing pact may be no coalition at all. Repeating elections is unlikely to help any party. And acting as an enabler for either of the historic parties would do little to help the upstart parties, which were founded and have sold themselves as a way to remake a clubby, corrupt political order.
It might just be easiest for the PSOE, Ciudadanos and Podemos to abstain when it comes time to vote for Prime Minister, allowing Mariano Rajoy to continue as the head of a weak minority government.
Rajoy would retain power, albeit less, and be able to propose legislation that appealed to a broad spectrum while trying to play the other parties against one another. The other three could mark their differences with the PP to build their own support; avoid alliances that could hurt them with their voters; and use their seats to push policies they supported.
And if it wasn’t working out, the government would fall.
“The next government will be fragile, and the political backdrop is set to become more volatile,” Antonio Barroso, a political risk analyst with Teneo Intelligence, wrote after the vote. “A new election should not be discarded.”
After the results came in, Ciudadanos head Albert Rivera addressed supporters and the media.
“Spain has changed. Enough of a red and blue Spain,” he said, echoing descriptions of the U.S. electorate.
He was right. The percentage of the vote received by the two big parties fell from more than 73% to barely over 50%. But how the mix of colors that comes next functions is far from clear.
| Government Job change - Election | December 2015 | ['(PP)', '(PSOE)', '(Stratfor)', '(Fortune)', '(International Business Times)', '(BBC)'] |
Papua New Guinea student protest leader Noel Anjo says demonstrations will continue despite the court order barring protests. "The students are not going to give up until and unless the prime minister resigns or surrenders himself to police and is arrested and charged," Anjo said. | SYDNEY (Reuters) - A Papua New Guinea court has granted an injunction barring university students from protesting on campus after dozens of people were wounded during clashes between student protesters and police in the capital, Port Moresby.
A groundswell of political unrest in recent weeks has surged in the country, just to Australia’s north, amid calls for Prime Minister Peter O’Neill to resign over corruption allegations.
Papua New Guinea is developing lucrative resource projects with energy majors ExxonMobil and Total that have made it a major gas producer. But corruption and violence are endemic in the island nation of seven million, raising concerns about its long-term stability.
The government said initial reports that up to four people had been killed in the clashes on Wednesday were incorrect. An official at the Port Moresby General Hospital said 38 casualties had been treated there, including four with bullet wounds, but no deaths.
Students and officials said police fired on the public and used tear gas to disperse crowds during a protest at the University of PNG’s Waigani campus in Port Moresby. Protests were later reported in the PNG highland cities of Goroka and Mt. Hagen, and in Lae on the north coast.
Papua New Guinea Higher Education Minister Malakai Tabar welcomed the court order blocking students from resuming their rolling protests.
“The overwhelming majority of students simply want to go to class, sit their exams and proceed to the next semester,” Tabar said, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported.
Thousands of students across PNG have been protesting and boycotting classes for weeks. They want O’Neill, who came to power in 2011 promising to reign in corruption, to face allegations he authorized millions of dollars in fraudulent payments to a leading law firm.
Student protest leader Noel Anjo told Reuters on Thursday the protesters had no intention of giving up.
“The students are not going to give up until and unless the prime minister resigns or surrenders himself to police and is arrested and charged,” Anjo said by phone from Port Moresby. “This fight will continue.”
O’Neill is facing multiple corruption investigations and has used the power of his office to avoid facing charges, said Paul Barker, director of the Institute of National Affairs think tank in Papua New Guinea.
“He has a strong vested interest in not stepping down because obviously if he steps down, his position to protect himself and deal with the public officers who are involved in investigations and prosecutions is substantially weakened,” Barker told Reuters from Port Moresby.
“There no doubt will be pressure from various parties, but it’s hard to see him readily responding to those pressures.”
| Protest_Online Condemnation | June 2016 | ['(BBC)', '(Reuters)'] |
Former United States Army general and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency David Petraeus pleads guilty of sharing classified information with his biographer and lover. He is given two years probation and a $100,000 fine. | Former US army general and CIA director fined $100,000 – $60,000 more than expected – after pleading guilty to leaking information to biographer and lover
First published on Thu 23 Apr 2015 20.15 BST
David Petraeus, the retired US army general and former CIA director responsible for the development of the hugely influential “counter-insurgency” strategy used in Iraq and Afghanistan, was sentenced on Thursday to two years’ probation and ordered to pay a fine of $100,000 for sharing highly classified information with his lover and biographer, Paula Broadwell.
The fine was $60,000 more than had been expected under the terms of a plea deal; the two years’ probation was as expected.
Outside the courthouse following his sentencing, Petraeus gave a short statement to the press in which he apologised “to those closest to me, and many others, including those with whom I was privileged to serve with in the military”.
He also thanked those who have supported him since the scandal broke in 2012. “In particular my family,” he said, “[and] former military colleagues, veterans … and those who I have worked with in the private sector.”
Having avoided jail time, he said he was looking forward to moving on with the next phase of his life, “and continuing to serve our great nation as a private citizen”.
Petraeus pleaded guilty in March in a federal court in Charlotte, North Carolina, to a misdemeanor charge of mishandling classified information. Under the terms of his plea deal, he escaped possible jail time and an embarrassing public trial.
He was easily the most influential US military figure of the post-9/11 era. While serving as commanding general of Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and the US combined arms training center there, Petraeus masterminded an update the army’s field manual on counterinsurgency strategy – usually shortened to COIN.
In doing so, he introduced a host of revolutionary ideas into US military operational doctrine – a collection of principles which later became known simply as the “Petraeus doctrine”. Later, in Iraq, Petraeus was able to put his ideas into practice in the field, when he was placed in command of multinational forces during the 2007 surge – which he was key in helping to orchestrate. Petraeus also served as commander of US central command, and then commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan before retiring from the army. He retired a four-star general – the highest nominal rank in the US army – and was unanimously confirmed as CIA director in October 2011.
But in 2012, personal affairs overtook his career when it emerged that he had been involved in a long-running affair with Paula Broadwell, a married academic and army reserve officer who had been writing a biography of Petraeus, titled All In: The Education of General David Petraeus.
The affair was discovered after Jill Kelley, a Florida socialite, was sent threatening messages from an anonymous email account in May. She notified a friend who worked at the FBI, who traced the emails to Broadwell.
The affair did not become public until after the presidential election in November, when Petraeus tendered his resignation to the White House. Obama later accepted his offer of resignation. But the saga wasn’t over. After Petraeus resigned, it emerged that Broadwell had been given a set of eight notebooks which contained classified information – including codewords and military strategy – by the general.
Initially Petraeus lied to investigators, saying that following his resignation from the CIA he had no classified documents in his possession. However, an FBI search of the general’s house in April 2013 found the notebooks in an unlocked drawer in his study.
Petraeus, who currently works for New York investment firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co as a consultant, pleaded guilty in March to the misdemeanour charge of mishandling classified materials.
Other leaks of classified information have led to heavy sentences. Chelsea Manning, who leaked a trove of classified documents to WikiLeaks, was sentenced to 35 years by a military court in August 2013. Stephen Kim, a former State Department official, was sentenced to 13 months in prison the same year after pleading guilty to discussing a classified report with a Fox News reporter in 2009.
Manning, Kim and Petraeus were all prosecuted under the same act – Title 18 of the US code, known as the Espionage Act. Lawyers representing Petraeus did not respond to a request for comment. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Sentence | April 2015 | ['(The Guardian)'] |
NASA astronauts on board Atlantis complete the final spacewalk of the Space Shuttle era, recouping an ammonia pump on the International Space Station . | The six-and-a-half hour excursion retrieved an ailing ammonia pump on the International Space Station (ISS), where shuttle Atlantis is docked.
The spacewalk is part of a busy schedule for the last shuttle mission, which will also see four tonnes of supplies delivered to the ISS. More than a tonne is enough food to sustain the ISS crew for a year; the balance is spare parts and equipment. Smaller supply ships developed by private companies are expected to supply the ISS when the shuttle programme retires.
The bumper crop of supplies delivered by Atlantis comes in anticipation of the end of the shuttle era, as it offer cargo capacity that currently no other spacecraft can provide.
The 160th spacewalk at the ISS has seen American astronauts Ron Garan and Mike Fossum - who were aboard the ISS before Atlantis arrived on Sunday - remove an ammonia pump from the station and place it in Atlantis' cargo bay.
The pump failed last year, disabling half of the station's cooling system.
The pair then attached the Robotic Refueling Mission - a joint US and Canadian experiment to test the idea of remotely repairing and refueling satellites using robots controlled from Earth.
The excursion also saw the Optical Reflector Materials Experiment installed, a part of Materials International Space Station Experiment 8 that evaluates how equipment stands up to the harsh environment outside the ISS.
Nasa extended Atlantis' mission by one day on Monday and it will head homeward for the last time on 21 July. | New achievements in aerospace | July 2011 | ['(ISS)', '(BBC)'] |
The U.S. Senate Budget Committee votes to move the Trump administration's tax bill to the full U.S. Senate. | The Senate Budget Committee on Tuesday voted to move the GOP's massive tax bill to the full Senate, clearing the last procedural hurdle before the whole chamber can debate it.
Republican leaders had been slightly worried when Sens. Ron Johnson and Bob Corker, both members of the committee, said on Monday that they would not vote for the bill, known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, in its current form.
Republicans met on Tuesday to hash out their concerns, and the bill passed the committee on a 12-11 party-line vote.
Despite the committee moving it forward, the bill is not guaranteed to pass on the broader Senate floor.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters Tuesday that Senate GOP leadership was still trying to procure enough votes for its massive tax bill.
The bill is being considered under budget reconciliation, a process that allows it to pass the Senate with a simple majority. That means Republicans, who control 52 seats, can afford only two defections, as the vice president would cast a tiebreaking vote.
At a press conference following the Senate Republicans' weekly lunch, attended this week by President Donald Trump, McConnell said that getting 50 Republicans on board to pass the tax bill had been a complicated process.
"It's a challenging exercise," McConnell said. "Think of sitting there with a Rubik's cube trying to get to 50. We do have a few members who have concerns, and we're trying to address them. We know we will not be able to move forward until we get 50 people satisfied."
At least eight Republican senators have expressed serious concerns about some part of the bill.
The White House applauded the legislation's passage in the committee.
"The momentum driving our shared priorities of job growth, economic competiveness [sic], and fiscal responsibility through tax reform is undeniable, and this Administration is encouraged by the progress the Senate has made toward achieving these priorities," the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said in a statement. | Government Policy Changes | November 2017 | ['(Business Insider)'] |
A motorist runs over pedestrians at the Las Vegas Strip between Planet Hollywood and Paris Las Vegas, killing one person and injuring at least 26 more. | A woman with a toddler in her car has "intentionally" rammed into pedestrians on the packed Las Vegas Strip, killing one person and injuring at least 26 others, police say.
"This was not an act of terrorism ... we've ruled that out," deputy police chief Brett Zimmerman told reporters, adding that an investigation was underway.
"We have determined that this is an intentional act."
Peter Boffelli from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said it was not immediately clear if the female driver was impaired.
He said she was being interviewed and tested for drugs and alcohol.
Police described her as an African American woman in her 20s who was driving a 1996 Oldsmobile with Oregon license plates.
"She went up off the street, onto the sidewalk, two or possibly three times," Las Vegas police lieutenant Dan McGrath told reporters.
He said the woman was expected to be charged within hours.
Urging more eyewitnesses to come forward, police said the driver was not from Las Vegas and had been there for at least a week. The toddler in the car was unharmed, they said.
"This is a huge tragedy that occurred on our strip," Mr Boffelli said.
An 11-year-old was among the injured, along with visitors from Montreal, Canada, University Medical Centre spokeswoman Danita Cohen said.
The crash occurred shortly after 6:30pm (local time) between Planet Hollywood, where the Miss Universe pageant was taking place, and the Paris Las Vegas Hotel.
Citing a witness, local media outlet 8 News NOW said some men tried to stop the car.
The suspect initially left the scene, it reported.
Witness Rabia Qureshi, a tourist from Wisconsin, told the local NBC station KSNV that the vehicle in question looked like "a bowling ball and the human bodies were like pins".
"You think it's a show, because you're in Vegas," she said.
"But then I saw some people fly in the air."
Police warned people to avoid the area and said the strip had been closed to traffic in the vicinity.
The United States is on high alert after 14 people were killed in an attack in the Californian city of San Bernardino earlier this month. | Road Crash | December 2015 | ['(ABC)'] |
Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of the Opposition, sacks Shadow Foreign Secretary Hilary Benn after Benn's support for a "no-confidence motion" after Corbyn's perceived poor campaign for Remain. | Shadow foreign secretary Hilary Benn has been sacked from the shadow cabinet amid claims he was encouraging ministers to resign should Jeremy Corbyn ignore a vote of no confidence.
Labour's leader faces a vote of no confidence over claims he was "lacklustre" during the EU referendum.
A Labour source told the BBC Mr Corbyn had "lost confidence" in Mr Benn.
Mr Benn said there was "widespread concern" about Mr Corbyn's "leadership and his ability to win an election".
He added: "There is no confidence to win the next election if Jeremy continues as leader.
"In a phone call to Jeremy I told him I had lost confidence in his ability to lead the party and he dismissed me."
The Labour party campaigned for Remain during the referendum, which saw the UK voting to leave the EU by 52% to 48% on Thursday.
Senior Labour sources also told the BBC that a significant number of shadow cabinet resignations were likely if Mr Corbyn were to ignore the result of the confidence vote. In other developments:
Labour MPs Dame Margaret Hodge and Ann Coffey submitted a motion of no confidence against Mr Corbyn - who campaigned on the losing Remain side - in a letter to the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) chairman John Cryer on Friday.
The motion has no formal constitutional force but calls for a discussion at the next PLP meeting on Monday.
The chairman will decide whether it is debated. If accepted, a secret ballot of Labour MPs could be held on Tuesday.
Labour MPs reacted with criticism to Mr Corbyn's move to sack Mr Benn.
Shadow housing minister Roberta Blackman-Woods said: "This is sad news indeed and I cannot understand how Jeremy thinks it will help his worsening position with the PLP."
Wes Streeting, Labour's MP for Ilford North, said: "Lots of good people chose to serve in shadow cabinet to keep the show on the road. There are no longer good reasons for good people to stay."
By BBC political correspondent Iain Watson
So what is significant about Hilary Benn's departure? Although Jeremy Corbyn was close to Mr Benn's late father Tony, the political differences with his shadow foreign secretary became startlingly clear last December. Mr Corbyn and Mr Benn spoke on opposite sides of the debate on the bombing of Syria. Mr Benn's support for air strikes lost him some support on his party's left but he is hardly a Blairite, so when he publicly loses confidence in Jeremy Corbyn he might well cause others to have - or articulate - concerns of their own. His friends say he holds no leadership ambitions himself - he simply thinks that a disastrous referendum campaign has convinced him that Mr Corbyn is not up to the job. And other shadow cabinet members are now considering their positions. Some tell me their local party members - including previous supporters of Mr Corbyn - are becoming more hostile to the leadership.
So the question is whether Hilary Benn's departure will strengthen Jeremy Corbyn's position or, in turn, hasten his own?
Meanwhile, Labour former culture secretary Ben Bradshaw urged the shadow cabinet to act swiftly to "save" the party.
He said: "The Labour shadow cabinet must now act to save the party and for the sake of the country. Otherwise we will never be forgiven."
Dame Margaret, the MP for Barking, said Mr Corbyn should resign because the EU referendum had been a "test of leadership" that he had "failed".
She argued that Labour voters were left "not getting a clear message". In a piece for the New York Times former Prime Minister Tony Blair described Mr Corbyn as "lukewarm about remaining in the union".
On Saturday, Mr Corbyn vowed to fight off any leadership challenges and told one activist who heckled him as he attended a Pride march in London: "I did all I could."
The Labour leader vowed to ensure the party's voice was heard on workers' rights, protecting the environment and human rights in the negotiations on Britain's exit from the EU - and he suggested those negotiations should happen soon.
Quizzed afterwards about claims he had run a "half-hearted" campaign for a Remain vote, he said: "Two-thirds of Labour voters voted for Remain in response to our party's call for that."
He added: "There are some people in the Parliamentary Labour Party who would probably want somebody else being the leader of this party, they have made that abundantly clear in the past few days."
Mr Corbyn was confronted by Labour Party activist Tom Mauchline at the Pride event, who shouted: "It's your fault, Jeremy. When are you resigning? You need to resign."
However, an online petition on the website of campaign organisation 38 Degrees calling for Mr Corbyn to remain as leader has attracted more than 160,000 signatures from the general public.
In a joint statement, union leaders have also backed Mr Corbyn to continue as leader, saying the "last thing Labour needs is a manufactured leadership row of its own".
They called for Labour to "unite as a source of national stability" and challenge any attempt to use the referendum result to "introduce a more right-wing Conservative government by the backdoor".
Meanwhile, the Conservative Party faces a leadership battle of its own with former London Mayor Boris Johnson and Home Secretary Theresa May emerging as the frontrunners to replace the outgoing Prime Minister David Cameron, who announced he would stand down on Friday shortly after losing the EU vote.
The Sunday Times reports that Michael Gove has thrown his support behind Mr Johnson, while Cameron loyalists will favour Mrs May, who is expected to enter the leadership race in the coming days.
| Government Job change - Resignation_Dismissal | June 2016 | ['(BBC)'] |
A mass shooting on a Greyhound bus headed from Los Angeles to San Francisco leaves one dead and five wounded; the motive remains unknown. | Updated on: February 4, 2020 / 4:11 AM
One person was killed and five others were wounded when gunfire erupted on an overnight Greyhound bus traveling from Los Angeles to San Francisco, CBS LA reported. The bus left Los Angeles at 11:45 p.m. Most of the passengers were asleep when they heard shouting and gunshots around 2 a.m.
The passengers sought safety at the back of the bus. The bus driver immediately pulled over to the side of the freeway.
Investigators said heroic passengers disarmed the gunman and started helping the wounded. He was later taken into custody by police.
The suspect was identified as Anthony Devonte Williams, 33, of Capitol Heights, Maryland and charged with one count of first degree murder and five counts of attempted murder.
California Highway Patrol Sgt. Brian Pennings told the Associated Press, "There's no indication that he knew anybody on there."
The driver continued to the next exit and pulled into a Valero gas station in Lebec, which has been sealed off for the investigation.
A 51-year-old woman from Colombia was killed. Five others were wounded and taken to hospitals, one of whom was airlifted. Two of the wounded are in critical condition.
It was unclear if the gunman was targeting someone, or if the shooting was random. The gunman left the weapon on the bus, CBS affiliate KBAK-TV reported.
"I've been on 25 years, I've never seen this happen," California Highway Patrol Sergeant Brian Penning said.
The passengers were transferred to another Greyhound bus to resume their journey.
Greyhound identified the bus as traveling on schedule 6848-1 and said in a statement, "We are gathering details and will assist the Kern County police in every way possible during their investigation."
A woman working at a fast-food restaurant next door to the gas station told CBS LA she saw a mother and her children get off the bus and they looked "shocked and traumatized." | Riot | February 2020 | ['(CBS News)', '(NBC News)'] |
Following the U.S. military withdrawal from northern Syria, the United States is to deploy more troops to Syria's eastern Deir ez-Zor Governorate to secure the country's petroleum gas and oilfields, according to a senior Department of Defense official. | Analysts question latest Trump policy shift that reportedly includes deployment of more troops alongside Kurdish forces.
The United States will station additional forces in eastern Syria to protect oilfields in another policy shift that one former senior American official called a “shocking ignorance” of history and geography.
The planned reinforcement will take place in coordination with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to prevent the oilfields from falling into the hands of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS), a Pentagon statement said.
No details were provided on how many or what kind of forces would be sent, or whether decisions on those details have been made.
“The US is committed to reinforcing our position, in coordination with our SDF partners, in northeast Syria with additional military assets to prevent those oilfields from falling back into the hands of ISIS or other destabilising actors,” it added.
This is a modal window.
Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window.
End of dialog window.
Earlier on Thursday, US President Donald Trump said on social media the US “will never let a reconstituted ISIS have those fields”.
The latest announcement, however, contradicts Trump’s controversial decision earlier this month to withdraw forces from northeast Syria, which paved the way for Turkey‘s military operation in the area.
In an interview with Al Jazeera, Joshua Landis, a Middle East expert at the University of Oklahoma, said the announcement was “emblematic of the chaos that has set in in the American foreign policy process”.
“It is in free-fall and the president is going back and forth,” Landis said. “This doesn’t really make much sense.”
The new deployment could mean US forces would be like “sitting ducks” being stationed in an area, in which the borders are guarded by Russian and Syrian troops, he added.
“Who is going to safeguard them? The Kurds will have nothing to do with America. They have now made a deal with the Assad government. The whole thing makes no sense.”
Marwan Kabalan from the Arab Center for Research told Al Jazeera the latest move to re-deploy forces to Syria reflects the contradictions in US foreign policy.
“US policy on Syria has been so inconsistent, it’s very difficult to predict whether the United States will stay or leave,” Kabalan said.
“The conflict is in Washington between President Trump and the foreign policy establishment, particularly the Pentagon. His eyes have always been on the upcoming election, he wants to boost support from his political base.”
This is a modal window.
Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window.
End of dialog window.
Brett McGurk, the top US official leading Trump’s anti-ISIL campaign until January, also criticised the latest shift in a social media post.
“The president of the United States of America appears to be calling for a mass migration of Kurds to the desert where they can resettle atop a tiny oilfield. Shocking ignorance of history, geography, law, American values, human decency, and honour.”
Trump had justified his earlier decision to withdraw US forces from Syria, saying he sought to bring about 1,000 troops home and end American involvement there.
Trump said previously a “small number” of US troops would remain in Syria to secure the oilfields. An American official told the Washington Post earlier this week a proposal calls for 200 US troops to remain in the area.
News reports from Newsweek and US broadcaster Fox said a new deployment may include dozens of tanks and hundreds of soldiers. The Turkish assault on northeastern Syria and the US-allied Kurdish forces has been halted after the US brokered a ceasefire.
Ankara also brokered a deal with Russia that saw the evacuation of Kurdish forces from a vast area along Syria’s border with Turkey.
This is a modal window.
Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window.
End of dialog window.
The Kurdish forces seized control of small oil fields in northeastern Hassakeh province after Syrian government troops pulled out of most of the Kurdish-majority regions in 2012 to fight rebels elsewhere.
After expelling ISIL from southeastern Syria in 2018, the Kurds seized control of the more profitable oil fields in Deir Az Zor province.
A quiet arrangement has existed between the Kurds and the Syrian government, whereby Damascus buys the surplus through middlemen in a profitable smuggling operation that has continued despite political differences. The Kurdish-led administration sells crude oil to private refiners, who use primitive homemade refineries to process fuel and diesel and sell it back to the administration.
The SDF currently sells Syria’s oil for about $30 per barrel.
The oil was expected to be a bargaining chip for the Kurds to negotiate a deal with the Syrian government, which unsuccessfully tried to reach the oil fields to retake them from ISIL. With Trump saying he plans to keep forces to secure the oil, it seems the oil will continue to be used for leverage – with Moscow and Damascus.
McGurk said on Monday: “Oil, like it or not, is owned by the Syrian state. Maybe there are new lawyers, but it was just illegal for an American company to go and seize and exploit these assets.”
Before the war, Syria produced about 350,000 barrels per day, exporting more than half of it. Most of that oil came from eastern Syria. Foreign companies, including Total, Shell, and Conoco, all left Syria after the war began more than eight years ago.
US Senator Lindsey Graham said after meeting with Trump on Thursday that he urged him to stay engaged in Syria.
“If you can find a way to secure the oil fields from Iran and ISIS, that’s in our national security interest,” Graham said.
US president says Turkey has informed the United States it will make the ceasefire in Syria ‘permanent’.
Russian, Syrian security forces aim to push Kurdish fighters back from the border as part of deal reached with Turkey.
In a special address from the White House, president says it is not the job of the US military to ‘police the world’.
| Government Policy Changes | October 2019 | ['(Al Jazeera)'] |
A "White Lives Matter" gathering takes place in Shelbyville, Tennessee, with 200+ WLM protestors met by 700+ counter-protesters. | MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — Opponents outnumbered white nationalists Saturday in peaceful "White Lives Matter" rallies in Tennessee that were punctuated by taunts and chants from both sides.
In Shelbyville, the site of the first rally, some 200 white nationalists — met by nearly twice as many counter protesters — carried a Confederate flag and chanted for closed borders and deportations at a mid-morning gathering.
As Brian Culpepper of the National Socialist Movement took the microphone to speak, counter protesters played Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech over their own speaker system, largely drowning out Culpepper's words.
At one point, counter protesters' shouts of "Black Lives Matter" were met by white nationalist chants of "blood and soil."
The two sides, however, were kept well apart as law enforcement officers funneled them onto sidewalks on opposite sides of a four-lane road.
The protesters showed up here and in Shelbyville, 25 miles south, despite comments by Gov. Bill Haslam that "these folks" were not welcome in the state. The rallies had raised fears in the community of a repeat of the Charlottesville, Va., rally in August that turned deadly.
In Murfreesboro, a town of 130,000 people, wary business owners had boarded up windows downtown and residents held a prayer vigil Friday night near the rally site.
On Saturday afternoon, about 600 people — but only around 30 white nationalists — lined Church Street, one of the city's busiest corridors, as counter protesters chanted "refugees are welcome here" and "this is what democracy looks like."
When the formal rally kicked off, the demonstration largely fizzled as the outnumbered white nationalists faced counter protesters across a downtown square with only a 15-foot gap between them.
After exchanging taunts, with counter protesters chanting "Nazis go home" and "shame," most of the crowd dispersed within a half hour.
Organizers of the rallies had said they aimed at protesting refugee resettlement and immigration to Middle Tennessee, specifically noting the presence of Somali and Sudanese people in the region.
In Shelbyville, police Lt. Brian Crews said one man was arrested for disorderly conduct and exhibiting "threatening behavior." While Crews would not identify the man, it was clear that the arrest was made on the white nationalist side of the demonstration, although it was not certain if he was participating with that group.
Members of the League of the South, the white nationalist group that helped organize the "White Lives Matter" rally, carried a sign calling "southern cultural genocide." Michael Hill, president of the league, said "Hail Dixie" and "Hail victory!" over the loudspeakers.
The crowd of mostly men in Shelbyville at mid-morning included some carrying shields or covering their faces with masks or bandanas. Before marching toward the security checkpoint, an organizer asked the group to put their weapons back in the car.
Thor Henderson, a grand officer in Georgia for the International Keystone Knights, a Ku Klux Klan group, said he was marching to bring awareness to the September shooting at a Nashville church.
Some people there had "tradworker" written on their shields — alluding to the Traditionalist Worker Party, another white supremacy group. On their website, that group also listed the shooting as a reason to participate in the rally.
One woman was killed and seven others were injured in the shooting at the Antioch church last month. The suspect, Emanuel Kidega Samson, is a legal U.S. resident from Sudan.
"We've been here marching for the white peoples' rights," said Henderson. "Making a stand and bringing awareness to what's going on ... and maybe we can wake up the general public and just open their eyes."
Some 300 counter protesters were also on hand early, heading to a separate staging location designated by police.
Vegas Longlois came from Birmingham with other members of the Democratic Socialists of America.
“We can't let hate go unchecked in the nation,” said Longlois. The 23-year-old said refugee populations need to know they are supported.
Gov. Haslam said state and local law enforcement officials would be out "in full force" for both rallies.
"We want to send a really clear message that these folks are not welcome in Tennessee," the governor told reporters Friday in Gatlinburg. "If you’re part of the white supremacist movement you’re not somebody that we want in Tennessee."
More:'This movement is evil': Religious leaders denounce White Lives Matter rallies
In addition to demonstrators from the League of the South and the Traditionalist Worker Party, affiliate groups including the National Socialist Movement and Vanguard America, all collectively known as the Nationalist Front, were expected to attend. All are classified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as white nationalist and white supremacist groups.
The counter protesters include the loosely organized anti-Fascist group commonly known as Antifa, local faith leaders, interfaith and community organizers as well as other anti-racist organizations.
Officials have said they expect counter protesters to outnumber rally attendees by as much as four times.
The clashes in Charlottesville, Va., in August left a 32-year-old woman dead after a speeding car driven by a white nationalist rally goer slammed into a throng of counter demonstrators. Nineteen people were injured.
| Protest_Online Condemnation | October 2017 | ['(USA Today)'] |
A 15-year-old boy from Liberia's Paynesville district, who tested positive for Ebola last week, dies of the disease at a treatment center near the capital, Monrovia, just over 11 weeks after the World Health Organization declared the country free of the virus. The boy's father and brother, who also tested positive, are at the center; his mother and two other siblings were admitted for observation. In addition, 160 people who came in direct contact with the boy, are being monitored. | A 15-year-old boy has died of Ebola in Liberia less than three months after the country was declared free of the virus, officials have told the BBC.
He tested positive last week and died late on Monday at a treatment centre near the capital, Monrovia, Francis Kateh, the chief medical officer, said.
His father and brother are being treated for Ebola at the centre.
Liberia has seen more than 10,000 Ebola cases and more than 4,000 deaths since the West Africa outbreak began in 2013.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has twice declared Liberia to be Ebola-free, once in May and again in September.
The teenage boy's mother and two other siblings have also been admitted to the treatment centre to be monitored, health ministry spokesman Sorbor George said.
He told the BBC that eight healthcare workers "who are at high risk because they came in direct contact with the boy" were also under surveillance.
The BBC's Jonathan Paye-Layleh in Monrovia says nearly 160 people are now being monitored since the new cases were confirmed last week.
Radio and television stations have resumed broadcasting Ebola awareness messages, he says.
Civil society groups have also stepped up a campaign to get volunteers to be vaccinated against the disease in a joint US-Liberia Ebola trial, our reporter says.
On Monday, Liberia said the US had agreed to send two experts to the country to help investigate the sequence of the outbreaks.
Liberia recorded its first Ebola case in March last year and analysts believe the latest cases are a serious set-back for the country. Sierra Leone was declared free of Ebola on 7 November. More than 11,000 people have died of the disease since December 2013, the vast majority of them in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.
| Disease Outbreaks | November 2015 | ['(WHO)', '(Reuters)', '(BBC)', '(AP via ABC News)'] |
The government of Greece shuts down the public radio and television broadcaster ERT, calling it a "haven of waste". | Greek state TV and radio were gradually pulled off the air late on Tuesday, hours after the government said it would temporarily close all state-run broadcasts and lay off about 2,500 workers as part of a cost-cutting drive demanded by the bailed-out country's international creditors.
TV and radio stations of the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation, or ERT, were pulled off the air in several parts of the country from about 11pm (9pm BST), about an hour before the government said all signals would go dead, although satellite broadcasts continued.
The conservative-led government said ERT would reopen "as soon as possible" with a new, smaller workforce. It wasn't immediately clear how long that would take, and whether all stations would reopen.
"Congratulations to the Greek government," newscaster Antonis Alafogiorgos said toward the end of ERT's main TV live broadcast. "This is a blow to democracy." "I was hoping up until the last minute that the reports were not true. It's unbelievable," news reader Stavroula Christofilea said moments after the move was announced.
A Finance Ministry statement said ERT has been formally disbanded, and authorities would "secure" the corporation's facilities. Riot police deployed outside ERT buildings in several parts of Greece, but no clashes were reported.
Thousands of media workers and supporters protested against the closure outside the company's headquarters in the Athens suburb of Aghia Paraskevi. Unions representing ERT workers at three terrestrial TV stations, one satellite station and its national and regional radio network said they would keep the stations on air. Protesting employees were joined by opposition politicians and union leaders. Both minority government partners of the ruling conservative coalition condemned the suspension.
Government spokesman Simos Kedikoglou – a former state TV journalist – described ERT as a "haven of waste". He said its employees would be compensated.
Kedikoglou said in a televised statement aired on the state broadcaster: "At a time when the Greek people are enduring sacrifices, there is no room for delay, hesitation or tolerance for sacred cows.
"ERT is a typical example of unique lack of transparency and incredible waste. And that ends today," Kedikoglou said. "It costs three to seven times as much as other TV stations and four to six times the personnel – for a very small viewership, about half that of an average private station."
ERT has long been seen as a bastion of quality programming in a media landscape dominated by commercial stations. But it was also used by successive governments to provide safe jobs for political favourites, and, while nominally independent, devoted considerable time and effort to showcasing administration policies.
The broadcaster is largely state-funded, with every Greek household paying a fee through its electricity bills whether they have a TV set or not.
It is the first case of mass public sector layoffs in Greece , which has pledged to cut 15,000 state jobs by 2015 as part of its bailout commitments.
Debt-stifled Greece has depended on rescue loans from its European partners and the International Monetary Fund since May 2010. In exchange, it imposed deeply resented income cuts and tax hikes, which exacerbated a crippling recession and forced tens of thousands of businesses to close, sending unemployment to a record 27%.
Greece's POESY media union accused the government of sacrificing the broadcaster to appease its creditors.
"Bailout creditors are demanding civil service layoffs and the government, in order to meet its obligations toward foreign monitors, is prepared to sacrifice the public broadcasting corporation," a union statement said. | Organization Closed | June 2013 | ['(The Guardian)'] |
President Rodrigo Duterte admits in a speech to a group of businessmen that he "personally" killed suspected criminals when he served as Davao City's mayor. | Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte delivers a statement prior to his departure for Cambodia and Singapore for official visits to the ASEAN neighbors, Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2016, at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Pasay city, south of Manila, Philippines. Duterte said his trip to the ASEAN neighbors is in preparation for the upcoming ASEAN summits which the Philippines is hosting late next year.(AP Photo/Bullit Marquez)
Just hours after declaring he was “not a killer,” President Duterte told a group of business leaders on Monday night that he “personally” killed drug suspects when he was mayor of Davao City.
Mr. Duterte said he rode a big bike—presumably his street-eating Harley-Davidson motorcycle—to patrol the streets, spoiling for a fight and seeking to kill.
He was defending his scorched-earth policy in the fight against illegal drugs for which he had drawn criticism from the United Nations, United States, European Union and international human rights groups.
Mr. Duterte said one-third of the nearly 6,000 drug suspects slain in his war on drugs were killed in legitimate police operations.
“I know it because—I am not trying to pull my own chair—in Davao I used to do it personally. Just to show to the [policemen] that if I can do it, why can’t you?” Mr. Duterte said during the Wallace Business Forum in Malacañang.
“I go around in Davao (on) a big bike and I would just patrol the streets and looking for trouble. I was really looking for an encounter to kill,” he said.
For that approach to fighting crime in the Philippines’ “murder capital,” Time magazine called Mr. Duterte “The Punisher” in an article in 2002.
The magazine echoed the moniker in another article after Mr. Duterte’s election as President in May.
In his speech to businessmen on Monday night, Mr. Duterte said allegations of human rights violations hurled at him by local and international groups would not stop him from pursuing his campaign against the illegal drug trade.
“If I am afraid [and] stop because of the human rights … sorry, I am not about to do that,” he said.
“You [want to] arrest me? Oust me? Go ahead,” he added.
“So fine. Oust me? Good. Assassinate me? Better. I have this migraine every day [anyway],” he said.
Barely five months into his six-year term, Mr. Duterte has gained notoriety for backpedaling on controversial policy statements.
After drawing fire for his outrageous comments, Mr. Duterte would later dismiss them as a “joke.”
Or his aides would explain his comments as “hyperbole,” even though his comments were quite plain statements.
Shortly before addressing the businessmen, Mr. Duterte rebuffed insinuations that he was a “killer” for condoning extrajudicial killings in his war on drugs and encouraging police to kill suspects who would resist arrest.
“I am not a killer. I do not relish or enjoy [seeing] a Filipino sprawled there with all the blood,” Mr. Duterte said in a speech during The Outstanding Filipino Awards for 2016 in Malacañang.
“I do not want you to die, that is not my order,” he stressed. “And even if Congress would give me a carpet authority to kill everybody, I won’t have the time nor the bullets to do it.”
He added: “You know every time I decide on things to buy guns and bullets, there is always in my mind that these things would be used against the Filipinos …. I don’t enjoy it.”
As in his previous speeches, the President took out a sheaf of documents and showed it to his audience during his talk at both events in the Palace.
“This [is] the drug industry in this country,” Mr. Duterte said. “I would like to get advice. What should I do? I really want to cry. I feel as if I can’t do it.”
He said he gave copies of the documents to House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez and Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III to seek help in dealing with the drug menace, which he described as “a threat to national security.”
But Mr. Duterte has some ideas of his own, including making the rich adopt drug addicts.
He also had a few words for the Catholic Church, one of the strident critics of his bloody war on drugs: “Check out your flock and look for the lost sheep.”
“They say, ‘Why did Duterte have to kill them? Why not just send them to [rehabilitation centers]?’ Son of a bitch. They did not know I have nowhere to go,” he said.
“If you want to help me, make available your houses. To the rich people, those who have mansions with four, five or six rooms, give up one of the rooms. Adopt an addict and see what happens,” he said, eliciting giggles from his audience.
For the nth time, he said the Aquino administration left him funds good only for maintenance and operations, and nothing for building rehabilitation centers for drug addicts.
“So to the bleeding hearts, if you really want to stop the violence, do it. You adopt an addict and share the love [with] your fellowmen,” he said.
“It’s for you to understand the perdition of a drug addict. If you want, I will start with those from Tondo. Choose what you want, boy or girl. It’s just the same [anyway]. If they go crazy, they will stab you dead. It leads to a massacre. Do you think it’s that easy?” he said.
DOST-Pagasa weather update on TS ‘Dante’, May 31, 2021
Signal No. 1 in 4 areas in Mindanao as tropical depression Crising nears
WATCH: DOH: LAHAT NG COVID-19 VACCINES EPEKTIBO PARA MAIWASAN ANG SEVERE EFFECTS NG COVID-19
WATCH: COVID-19 VACCINATION PARA SA FILIPINO SEAFARERS, OFWS NAGKAGULO | JAN ESCOSIO
WATCH: Seafarers, OFWs lining up for inoculations in a chaotic scene
Subscribe to INQUIRER PLUS to get access to The Philippine Daily Inquirer & other 70+ titles, share up to 5 gadgets, listen to the news, download as early as 4am & share articles on social media. Call 896 6000. | Famous Person - Give a speech | December 2016 | ['(INQUIRER.net)', '(The Guardian)', '(NBC News)'] |
Blaise Compaoré resigns as President of Burkina Faso following the 2014 Burkinabé uprising. General Honoré Traoré assumes leadership on a transitional basis. | Burkina Faso's President Blaise Compaore has announced his resignation following violent protests over his attempt to extend his 27-year rule.
Mr Compaore issued a statement saying the presidency was now vacant and urging elections within 90 days.
Army chief Gen Honore Traore said he had taken over, but it was not clear if he had the backing of all the military.
Crowds danced and cheered in the capital, Ouagadougou, after Mr Compaore's resignation was broadcast.
On Thursday, protesters angry at his attempt to amend the constitution set fire to parliament and government buildings.
At the scene: BBC's Yacouba Ouedraogo, Ouagadougou There was a euphoric atmosphere in the Place de la Nation as the thousands of protesters heard that Blaise Compaore was no longer their president.
But the crowds have no intention of going home, as they are unhappy that Gen Honore Traore has been appointed as transitional head.
He is seen as too close to the ousted president - he was Blaise Compaore's aide de camp - and for these demonstrators that is not enough of a rupture with the past. "This is not a coup - this is a popular uprising," one man in the crowd said. How Blaise Compaore sparked his own downfall
Mr Compaore had earlier vowed to remain in power until a transitional government completed its work in 2015, although he had agreed not to seek another term.
However, the opposition continued to demand that he resign - a key leader, Zephirin Diabre, urged protesters to occupy public spaces.
After the resignation, Mr Diabre told the BBC's Focus on Africa radio programme that he was relieved by the resignation and called on opposition groups to "work on the transition to take care of our country". It could be a year before elections are held, he said, "because you need to revive the constitution, maybe draw up a new constitution. That would take at least 12 months".
Mr Compaore's statement, which he read on television, said: "In order to preserve the democratic gains, as well as social peace, I declare a power vacuum to allow the establishment of a transition leading to free and fair elections within a maximum of 90 days."
He added: "For my part, I think I have fulfilled my duty."
His whereabouts now remain unclear.
However, media reports said a heavily armed convoy believed to be carrying Mr Compaore was travelling towards the southern town of Po, near the border with Ghana.
One protester, Sam, told the BBC: "Blaise Compaore has gone away, he's running away and we are happy. The words are not coming so easy because I'm very happy, my children are going to know another president."
Under Article 43 of the constitution, the president of the senate should take over after the president resigns, and elections should take place between 60 and 90 days afterwards.
However, the military announced a state of emergency and the dissolution of both houses of parliament on Thursday - effectively leaving a power vacuum.
In his statement, military chief Gen Traore said: "In line with constitutional measures, and given the power vacuum... I will assume as of today my responsibilities as head of state."
But army spokesman Lt Col Isaac Zida later told reporters the constitution had been suspended.
"The civilian and armed forces have decided to take the destiny of the nation in hand," he said.
The "length and makeup of the transitional body [responsible for organising elections] will be decided later," he added.
It was unclear whether Lt Col Zida was speaking on behalf of Gen Traore, or as a rival.
The BBC's Yacouba Ouedraogo, in Ouagadougou, says there may be a split in the army, with Lt Col Zida saying he will lead the transition, not Gen Traore.
BBC's James Copnall on Blaise Compaore's career
Blaise Compaore was a young army officer when he seized power in 1987. A taciturn man, he became known as Beau Blaise - good-looking Blaise. The nickname did not necessarily suggest he was popular. Many blamed him for the death of his predecessor, the charismatic revolutionary Thomas Sankara, who was killed by soldiers in mysterious circumstances.
Controversy would be a perpetual feature of Beau Blaise's time in power. The president was accused of stoking rebellions around West Africa. Yet over time Mr Compaore oversaw a transformation of his image, internationally at least. This inflammatory figure became a man relied upon to put out fires around the region.
Mr Compaore won a series of elections, though the opposition always complained the odds were stacked dramatically in his favour. He largely followed the economic orthodoxy prescribed by international financial institutions. But Burkina Faso did not escape the poverty trap. It remains one of the least developed countries in the world.
| Government Job change - Resignation_Dismissal | October 2014 | ['(BBC)'] |
A man who plunged to his death from a seventh–floor balcony in Brisbane, Australia was participating in the internet craze of "planking", Australian police have said. | Australian police say a man who plunged to his death from a seventh-floor balcony on Sunday was participating in the internet craze of "planking".
Planking involves someone lying flat on their stomach in unusual and sometimes dangerous situations, and posting photographs on social media websites.
Police said the dead man, in his 20s, fell from a balcony railing in Brisbane while a friend photographed him.
The man's name has not been released pending notification of his family.
The craze has gone viral in recent weeks, with one Facebook page boasting 90,000 fans and hundreds of photos of people lying on chimneys, escalators, camels, and other objects.
"This morning we have seen a young man take this activity a step further and attempt to plank on a balcony," said Queensland Police Deputy Commissioner Ross Barnett.
"Unfortunately he has tragically fallen to his death."
Queensland police last week warned "plankers" of the dangers of the activity, after a man was caught allegedly planking on a police car.
The 20-year-old was charged with being on police equipment without lawful excuse.
Sergeant Matthew Russell, of Gladstone police, told the Brisbane Courier-Mail newspaper that planking could be dangerous, and practitioners may find themselves charged with "unauthorised high risk activity".
"While we appreciate the activity is light-hearted fun, putting yourself and others at risk and breaking the law will not be tolerated," he said.
Mr Barnett said the death on Sunday is "what we've been fearing".
"As planking gains popularity, there may be more injuries and potentially further deaths," he said.
Facebook: Planking
Setback for EU in legal fight with AstraZeneca
But the drug-maker faces hefty fines if it fails to supply doses of Covid-19 vaccine over the summer. | Famous Person - Death | May 2011 | ['(BBC)'] |
In Rwanda, defense minister Marcel Gatsinzi appears before the traditional gacaca court accused of failing to stop his troops during the Rwandan genocide. He says that one of his first orders was to stop the killing. |
Hirondelle News Agency
(Lausanne)
March 30, 2005
Posted to the web March 30, 2005
Butare
Thousands of people turned up outside the
stadium in the South western town of Butare to hear Defence Minister
General Marcel Gatsinzi defend himself against allegations that he
participated in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
"I did not participate in the genocide in any way", Gen. Gatsinzi told the
Gacaca courts after testifying for about one hour on his actions and
whereabouts during the genocide.
"Even though I was their soldier, I was considered as an accomplice of the
rebels", repeated the General several times. He was referring to the
Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF) rebels who had been fighting government
forces since October 1990.
When the genocide broke out in April 1994, Gatsinzi was the head of a
non-commissioned officers' academy- the école des sous officiers (ESO) -
in Butare, 120 km south of Kigali.
When the genocide ended in July 1994, the General joined the ranks of the
victorious RPF forces and was named Minister of Defence last year.
Gacaca, a blend of the conventional and Rwandan traditional justice
system, was set up about three years ago to speed up the genocide trials
and reconciliation.
In a hearing that lasted over three hours, General Gatsinzi outlined his
defence amidst occasional bouts of boos and murmurs of disapproval from
the crowd.
"I am not satisfied with his responses but at least I am pleased he
appeared here", Consolata Uwimana, a genocide survivor told Hirondelle | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | March 2005 | ['(AllAfrica)', '(Reuters AlertNet)'] |
United Nations diplomat Sahle-Work Zewde becomes the first female President of Ethiopia in its history after the resignation of Mulatu Teshome. | Ms Sahle-Work is an experienced diplomat who has now become Africa's only female head of state.
Her election to the ceremonial position comes a week after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed appointed a cabinet with half the posts taken up by women.
After being sworn in, President Sahle-Work promised to work hard to make gender equality a reality in Ethiopia.
Addressing parliament, she also pledged to promote peace: "I urge you all, to uphold our peace, in the name of a mother, who is the first to suffer from the absence of peace.''
By Bekele Atoma, BBC Afaan Oromoo
The new president was keen to make a point about gender equality right from the start, telling MPs that if they thought she was talking too much about women, she had only just begun. There may now be male-female parity in the new cabinet but elsewhere there is still a long way to go.
Ms Sahle-Work's appointment has been welcomed by Ethiopians on social media with many calling it "historic".
She has been described as Ethiopia's first female head of state of the modern era, with some remembering Empress Zewditu who governed the country in the early part of the 20th Century.
Ms Sahle-Work was voted in after the unexpected resignation of her predecessor, Mulatu Teshome.
The prime minister's chief of staff, Fitsum Arega, tweeted that "in a patriarchal society such as ours, the appointment of a female head of state not only sets the standard for the future but also normalises women as decision-makers in public life".
President Sahle-Work has served as an ambassador for Ethiopia in Senegal and Djibouti. She has also held a number of UN positions, including head of peace-building in the Central African Republic (CAR).
Immediately before becoming president, Ms Sahle-Work was the UN representative at the African Union.
In the Ethiopian constitution, the post of president is ceremonial with the prime minister holding the political power.
The last African female head of state was Mauritian President Ameenah Gurib-Fakim, who resigned in March over an expenses scandal.
a
| Government Job change - Appoint_Inauguration | October 2018 | ['(BBC)'] |
Israeli media reports that, on Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu secretly flew to Neom in Saudi Arabia for a meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Alternate Prime Minister Benny Gantz describes "the leak of the prime minister's secret flight to Saudi Arabia" as "an irresponsible move". Saudi Arabia denies that such a meeting occurred. On Saturday, Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud repeated the 2002 Saudi Arab Peace Initiative offer to fully normalize relations, only after the Palestinians achieve statehood. | Saudi Arabia's foreign minister has denied that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flew to the Gulf kingdom on Sunday to secretly meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
"No such meeting occurred," Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud tweeted.
Mr Netanyahu has declined to comment on the Israeli reports that he was on board a private jet that travelled from Tel Aviv to the Red Sea city of Neom. It would be the first known meeting between leaders of the historical foes.
US President Donald Trump has been pressing them to normalise relations after brokering deals between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan in recent months.
Saudi Arabia cautiously welcomed those moves, but indicated it would wait until there was a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.
Also on Monday, a delegation of senior Israeli officials travelled to Sudan on what would also be the first such visit to a formerly hostile country, an unnamed Israeli official confirmed. The countries are expected to map out areas of co-operation.
Citing unnamed Israeli sources, Israeli public broadcaster Kan and other media earlier reported that Mr Netanyahu and the head of the Mossad intelligence service, Yossi Cohen, attended talks in Saudi Arabia on Sunday evening with Crown Prince Mohammed and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
A senior Saudi adviser told the Wall Street Journal that the leaders discussed several issues, including normalisation of ties and Iran, but that no substantial agreements were reached.
However, the Saudi foreign minister later denied that any Israeli officials had attended the meeting between Prince Mohammed and Mr Pompeo.
"The only officials present were American and Saudi," Prince Faisal said.
The BBC's Chief International Correspondent Lyse Doucet, who is in Riyadh, says senior Saudi officials are denying this highly sensitive story, on and off the record. This has long been a matter of very delicate diplomacy for the kingdom, which has taken an awkward, if not embarrassing, turn, she adds. Mr Pompeo meanwhile tweeted that he held constructive talks with Prince Mohammed in Neom and posted a photograph showing them together. The reported trip was spotted by an Israeli journalist on a flight-tracking website; a private jet used by Mr Netanyahu was flying to the Saudi city of Neom. The Red Sea resort is a hi-tech and tourism hub planned by Mohammed bin Salman. It is close to the borders of Egypt and Jordan, and only some 70km (44 miles) from the southern tip of Israel - a symbolic destination for the leaders to discuss a changing Middle East, mediated by President Trump's outgoing team. With the UAE, Bahrain and Sudan signed up, normalisation between Israel and Saudi Arabia would be the big deal.
The agreements mark big diplomatic and trade wins; also in the background are some controversial US arms sales, and the Trump team's desire to consolidate its regional allies against Iran.
But Saudi Arabia will be cautious over going public with an Israeli rapprochement for fear of a backlash in the conservative nation. And the big hurdle comes back to a core issue - the Saudis still say there will be no deal before the Israelis reach a permanent peace agreement with the Palestinians.
Israeli media reported that Mr Netanyahu flew on a private jet belonging to Israeli businessman Udi Angel that the prime minister had used for previous overseas trips.
According to data from FlightRadar24.com, a Gulfstream IV jet took off from Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion International airport on Sunday afternoon and flew south along the eastern coast of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula before heading towards Saudi Arabia's north-western Red Sea coast.
The aircraft landed in Neom just after 18:30 GMT and remained there until 21:50, according to the data. It then returned to Tel Aviv via the same route.
Mr Netanyahu said he would not comment, adding only that he was "working on broadening the circle of peace".
But in an interview with Army Radio, Israel's Education Minister Yoav Gallant appeared to confirm the meeting took place, saying talks between Mr Netanyahu and Crown Prince Mohammed were an amazing achievement. Mr Netanyahu's social media adviser, Topaz Luk, meanwhile tweeted: "Gantz is playing politics while the prime minister is making peace". Mr Luk seemed to be referring to a decision by Defence Minister Benny Gantz, Mr Netanyahu's rival, to establish a commission of inquiry into a $2bn (£1.5bn) submarine deal with Germany that has been described by some as the biggest corruption scandal in Israeli history. President Trump has said he expects Saudi Arabia to normalise relations with Israel, but such a move faces big hurdles.
Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud said in an interview on Saturday with Reuters news agency during the G20 summit - hosted by Saudi Arabia but with world leaders participating virtually - that the kingdom's position had not changed.
"We have supported normalisation with Israel for a long time, because we are the authors of the 2002 Arab Peace initiative, which envisioned complete normalisation with Israel."
"But there is one very important thing that has to happen first, which is a permanent and full peace deal between the Palestinians and Israelis that delivers a Palestinian state with dignity within the 1967 borders to the Palestinians." | Diplomatic Talks _ Diplomatic_Negotiation_ Summit Meeting | November 2020 | ['(BBC)', '(The New York Times)'] |
Somali pirates hijack an Iranian fishing vessel in the Gulf of Aden. | On Wednesday, Iraina vessel was hijacked off the coast of Somalia by armed fishermen reports the Seafarers Assistance Program office in Mombasa, Kenya. Andrew Mwangura, program coordinator for the Seafarers’ Assistance Program in Kenya, told the press that a group of angry Somali fishermen have hijacked an Iranian fishing vessel near the coast of Somalia.
Early reports say the hijacking took place after the fishermen confronted the ship for fishing illegally in Somali waters, according to Mr.Mwangura.
“I hear that the villagers have taken it because of fishing illegally or for damaging fishing equipment,” Mwangura said. “Vigilantes usually move when you destroy their nets or boats and hold the ship until they are paid back.” Said Mr.Mwangura
A surge in piracy off Somalia has caused international alarm and warships from several countries have tried to curb the hijacks in Somali waters. Somali leaders have said that piracy was merely a symptom of a wider problem - illegal fishing and dumping. | Armed Conflict | March 2009 | ['(Horseed)'] |
At least one person is killed and more than 40 left wounded after hundreds of Christian protesters clash with riot police in Cairo, Egypt. | At least one person has been killed and more than 40 have been left wounded after hundreds of Christian protesters clashed with riot police in Egypt.
The scuffles began after authorities halted the construction of a church in Cairo, claiming workers did not carry a valid permit.
Riot police were seen hurling rocks and firing tear gas into the crowds of protestors.
Sectarian tensions simmer below the surface in Egypt, but the Christian protesters said this wasn't aimed at Muslims - targeted instead at the authorities and their mishandling of those tensions, Sky News Australia reports.
The attorney general decided to hold the 156 protesters for 15 days on suspicion of inciting the riots, MENA reported. It did not say whether they had been formally charged.
Some Christians demonstrated near the church and others near the Giza governor's office. Christians make up 10 percent of Egypt's 79 million people.
The Interior Ministry said on Wednesday that at least 112 protesters had been detained in the Giza area, where the authorities had halted construction of the church although the Copts said they had an official permit, Reuters says.
| Riot | November 2010 | ['(Pravda)'] |
An 82-year-old Brazilian Catholic priest from Arapiraca is defrocked after being filmed on camera engaging in sexual activity with a male teenage altar attendant. The activity was filmed by an alleged abuse survivor and broadcast on a news channel this week. | Child sex scandals roiling the Roman Catholic church spread to Brazil Tuesday after the Vatican said three priests were under investigation following allegations of child abuse.
The Vatican's acknowledgement takes controversies that have rocked the church in the United States and more recently in Europe to the country with the largest Catholic population in world. About 74 per cent of Brazil's 140 million people identify as Catholics.
SBT television last week aired video from a hidden camera showing father Marques Barbosa, 82, having sex with a 19-year-old boy in the northeastern state of Alagoas.
After the act, the priest's face is identified as he looks toward the camera and says "Who's there?" "Who is it?"
The report on the program Conexao Reporter also included charges by three former altar boys that they too had been sexually abused by local priests.
After the show was aired, Alagoas bishop Valerio Breda ordered the removal from church work of priests Luiz Marques Barbosa, Edilson Duarte and Raimundo Gomes.
"One was removed from his parish and faces charges in the civil justice system," Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi told AFP, adding that the other two had been suspended from their duties pending an investigation.
Graphic video of Marques Barbosa's abuse last year with a victim identified as Fabiano is being sold on the streets of the town of Arapiraca, website Alagoas 24 horas reported.
Elsewhere in Latin America, a Spanish religious instructor was reported to have been jailed in Chile for possession of pornographic images of children.
A prosecutor said the priest, Jose Arregui, 53, would be tried for child pornography possession on March 24, the newspaper La Tercera's website reported.
Paedophile priest scandals have rocked several churches in Europe since the Irish government released two explosive reports in November.
Revelations followed in Switzerland, The Netherlands, Austria and Germany - the homeland of Pope Benedict XVI.
Both the pope and his older brother Georg Ratzinger were caught up in the spiralling scandal in Germany.
The pope's former diocese of Munich confirmed a report that, as Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger in 1980, he had approved housing so that a known paedophile priest could seek therapy, while Georg directed a boys choir whose members later suffered abuse.
Vatican spokesman Lombardi charged at the weekend that there had been a "dogged focus" on the Ratzinger brothers in a bid "to personally implicate the Holy Father in questions of abuse." | Government Job change - Resignation_Dismissal | March 2010 | ['(AHN)', '(CNN)', '(Radio Netherlands Worldwide)', '(The Sydney Morning Herald)'] |
At least 10 people are killed in a prison riot between rival gangs in Natal, Brazil. | At least 10 prisoners have been killed in fighting between rival gangs at the largest prison in the north-eastern Brazilian city of Natal, police say.
It took 14 hours for police to regain control of Alcacuz jail.
"The operation is still ongoing but the situation is now calm", a spokesperson told BBC Brasil.
This is the third major riot in Brazil this year. Nearly 100 inmates died in riots earlier this month in prisons in the states of Amazonas and Roraima.
The violence inside Alcacuz jail, in Rio Grande Do Norte state, began on Saturday afternoon, when members of one of the powerful criminal organisations present in most Brazilian jails attacked rivals in a separate wing.
"We could see the heads ripped off'' three of the dead prisoners, said Zemilton Silva, coordinator of the prison system.
Security forces managed to enter the outer area of the prison but decided to wait for daylight hours before going in on Sunday morning.
Brazil prison riots: What's the cause?
No prisoners were reported to have escaped. Police say the number of dead could go up.
Riots are not uncommon in Brazil's overcrowded jails, which are largely controlled by powerful criminal gangs. But the scale of the violence this year has put pressure on President Michel Temer to address the problem.
After the Amazonas prison riot, the government announced plans to build five more high security jails and to create new intelligence units to try to curb the power of the gangs behind bars.
Brazil prison riots: What's the cause?
Brazil steps up search for fugitives
Drug gang beheads dozens in Brazil jail
Brazil jail riot kills at least 56
Brazil gang threatens rivals in song
. | Riot | January 2017 | ['(BBC)'] |
An unknown shooter kills a newspaper publisher in Mindanao, Philippines. | Police say a motorcycle-riding gunman has killed the publisher of a small newspaper in the southern Philippines.
Colleagues of Gregorio Ybanez, publisher of Kabuhayan News Services and president of a media club in southern Davao del Norte province, say they suspect his killing was linked to his other job as a director of an electric cooperative. Investigators say they are looking into all possible motives.
The gunman fled after shooting Ybanez as he entered his house in Tagum city on Tuesday night. Ybanez died in a hospital on Wednesday.
Presidential spokesman Herminio Coloma Jr. condemned the killing.
The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines said Ybanez would be the 28th Filipino journalist killed since 2010 if his death is related to his media job. | Armed Conflict | August 2015 | ['(ABC News)'] |
At least 15 people are killed near the town of Landi Kotal in Pakistan after a bomb destroys an Afghanistan–bound oil tanker. | At least 15 people were killed in an oil tanker blaze after a bomb exploded on the Afghanistan-bound NATO vehicle near a Pakistani border town on Saturday.
The victims were young people who had gathered to collect oil leaking from the tanker near Landi Kotal town in the northwestern tribal region of Khyber, local administration official Shafeerullah Wazir said.
''The oil tanker caught fire after a blast caused by a small bomb before dawn,'' he said.
''Villagers from nearby houses rushed and started collecting oil coming out of the destroyed tanker after the fire had been extinguished,'' he said.
''Suddenly the fire erupted again and at least 15 people including five young boys who had been collecting oil in their buckets were burnt to death,'' he said.
| Shipwreck | May 2011 | ['(AFP via WA Today)'] |
More than 300,000 people are evacuated in Bangladesh as Cyclone Mora approaches. | DHAKA: Bangladesh has evacuated nearly 300,000 people as Cyclone Mora barrelled towards its southeastern coast at speeds of more than 85kmph, officials said Monday. The cyclonic storm was 385km from the port city of Chittagong and likely to make landfall early Tuesday, meteorologists said. Evacuation efforts were ongoing, with nearly 300,000 people already shifted to cyclone shelters, disaster management authority spokesman Abul Hashim said. "We are targeting zero casualties and we will try our best to evacuate more than a million before the landfall," he told AFP. Meteorologist Abdur Rahman said estimated wind speeds were between 89kmph to 117kmph, with torrential rain and thunder expected across the South Asian nation. The met office warned coastal districts could face flooding as a result of storm surges along the seafront. "We have advised the ports to hoist great danger signal number 10," Rahman said. The local administration has called in all fishing vessels from the sea and advised them to remain anchored, while the Chittagong port authority has postponed activities. Bangladesh is routinely hit by bad storms between April and December that cause deaths and widespread property damage. In May last year, Cyclone Roanu hit the southern coast of Bangladesh leaving 20 people dead and forcing half a million to flee their homes. Flash floods and excessive rain led to landslides in hilly areas, which caused most of the casualties. "But this time we are more prepared," Hashim said. — AFP | Hurricanes_Tornado_Storm_Blizzard | May 2017 | ['(AFP via Malaysia Sun)'] |
Two police officers are killed and four others are wounded in the western Venezuelan city of San Cristóbal after they were run over by a bus driven by young men protesting a hike in public transport fares, according to government officials and Reuters witnesses. | SAN CRISTOBAL, Venezuela (Reuters) - Two police officers were killed and four wounded on Tuesday in the western Venezuelan city of San Cristobal after they were hit by a bus driven by young men protesting a hike in public transport fares, according to government officials and Reuters witnesses.
Protesters hijacked a passenger bus from a nearby terminal and attempted to drive it through a police cordon to a university where about 70 demonstrators were rallying against a nationally decreed bus fare hike.
“We regret the loss of life of police officers who were carrying out their duties,” state Governor Jose Vielma tweeted.
More than 1,000 protests were reported in the first two months of this year by the Venezuelan Observatory of Social Conflict. The unrest has been driven by a deep recession, triple-digit inflation and scarcity of food, medicine and other necessities.
San Cristobal was the epicenter of nationwide anti-government protests in 2014 that left more than 40 people dead but failed to push President Nicolas Maduro from office.
.
Exclusive: Fed’s Neel Kashkari opposes rate hikes at least through 2023 as the central bank becomes more hawkish | Riot | March 2016 | ['(Reuters)'] |
A suspected arsonist is arrested after a fire destroys a mosque in Bellevue, Washington. | One man is under arrest for investigation of arson. Officials said he had been at the mosque before and had previously been arrested there.
Firefighters arrived at the Islamic Center of the Eastside in the 14700 block of Main Street at 2:49 a.m. to find 40-foot flames coming from the rear of the building. Firefighters managed to save half of the building and conducted salvage operations to preserve holy books and electronic equipment.
"We view this as an attack on our entire community," said Mylett. He said a 37-year-old man was arrested in a parking lot behind the mosque. He was lying down when found, Mylett said.
He was jailed for investigation of second-degree arson and on a warrant for malicious mischief from Seattle.
Mylett declared the fire arson, saying he based that conclusion on evidence from the scene, including video footage, and what the suspect told officers.
He said the arson was not an act of terrorism or part of some sort of a coordinated attack but added the suspect's motive was unclear.
Deputy prosecutor Mike Hogan said the suspect had prior contacts with the mosque. In fact, police said the suspect had previously been arrested for making a disturbance at there.
Hogan said he expects arson charges will be filed Tuesday.
Firefighters arrived at the Islamic Center of the Eastside in the 14700 block of Main Street in Bellevue.
The fire left members of the mosque stunned.
"It makes us feel terrible, you know?" said Fazal Hassan, the imam at the mosque. "Disappointed."
He later urged the community to pray for peace.
Noman Noor has been coming to the mosque since 1997. "We'd like to know why. What was the reasoning?"
Prayers were held Saturday at the Highland Community Center because of the fire.
The "cowardly act of one individual has impacted a house of worship," said Bellevue Mayor John Stokes, who called the fire "a terrible incident."
There were no injuries in the fire. No one was inside the building.
Police and fire investigators were on the scene throughout the day to investigate the possible arson. Investigators from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) joined them.
Meanwhile, members of the community have been dropping off flowers and balloons.
There have been repeated incidents of threats and vandalism at the Bellevue mosque and others in recent months. A man was charged this week with a hate crime for threatening people there on Jan. 6, and a granite sign outside the Muslim Association of Puget Sound in neighboring Redmond was damaged twice. | Armed Conflict | January 2017 | ['(Seattle Post-Intelligencer)'] |
North Korea's state media reports Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un, in comments released today, states the country has miniaturized nuclear warheads to be mounted on ballistic missiles, and has ordered improvements in the power and precision of its arsenal. | SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his country has miniaturized nuclear warheads to mount on ballistic missiles and ordered improvements in the power and precision of its arsenal, state media reported on Wednesday.
Kim: North Korea has a mini-nuclear warhead
Kim has called for his military to be prepared to mount pre-emptive attacks against the United States and South Korea and stand ready to use nuclear weapons, stepping up belligerent rhetoric after coming under new U.N. and bilateral sanctions last week for its nuclear and rocket tests.
U.S. and South Korean troops began large-scale military drills this week, which the North called “nuclear war moves” and threatened to respond with an all-out offensive.
Kim’s comments were his first direct mention of the claim, made repeatedly in state media, to have successfully miniaturized a nuclear warhead, which has been widely questioned and never independently verified.
“The nuclear warheads have been standardized to be fit for ballistic missiles by miniaturizing them,” KCNA quoted Kim as saying as he inspected the work of nuclear scientists, adding “this can be called a true nuclear deterrent”.
“He stressed the importance of building ever more powerful, precision and miniaturized nuclear weapons and their delivery means,” KCNA said.
Responding to the KCNA report, a U.S. State Department spokeswoman, Katina Adams, repeated a call on North Korea to “refrain from provocative actions and rhetoric that aggravate tensions.”
Kim also inspected the nuclear warhead designed for thermo-nuclear reaction, KCNA said, referring to a miniaturized hydrogen bomb that the country said it tested on Jan. 6.
Rodong Sinmun, official daily of North Korea’s ruling party, carried pictures of Kim in what seemed to be a large hangar speaking to aides standing in front of a silver spherical object.
They also showed a large object similar to the KN-08 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) previously put on display at military parades, with Kim holding a half-smoked cigarette in one of the images.
South Korea’s defense ministry said after the release of the images that it did not believe the North has successfully miniaturized a nuclear warhead or deployed a functioning ICBM.
That assessment is in line with the views of South Korean and U.S. officials that the North has likely made some advances in trying to put a nuclear warhead on a missile, but that there is no proof it has mastered the technology.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, speaking by telephone to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, described the situation on the Korean peninsula as “very tense” and called for all parties to remain calm and exercise restraint, China’s foreign ministry said.
North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test on Jan. 6 but its claim to have set off a miniaturized hydrogen bomb has been disputed by the U.S. and South Korean governments and many experts.
Following on from the U.N. sanctions, South Korea on Tuesday announced further measures aimed at isolating North Korea by blacklisting individuals and entities that it said were linked to Pyongyang’s weapons program.
China also stepped up pressure by barring a North Korean freighter from one of its ports.
But a U.N. panel set up to monitor sanctions under an earlier Security Council resolution adopted in 2009 said in a report released on Tuesday that it had “serious questions about the efficacy of the current U.N. sanctions regime.”
North Korea has been “effective in evading sanctions” by continuing to engage in banned trade, “facilitated by the low level of implementation of Security Council resolutions by Member States,” the Panel of Experts said.
“The reasons are diverse, but include lack of political will, inadequate enabling legislation, lack of understanding of the resolutions and low prioritization,” it said.
Additional reporting by Ju-min Park and James Pearson in Seoul, Jessica Macy Yu in Beijing and David Brunnstrom in Washington; Editing by Michael Perry, Nick Macfie, Grant McCool
| Famous Person - Give a speech | March 2016 | ['(Reuters)'] |
North Korea fires a missile which lands in the exclusive economic zone of Japan, according to Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga. | TOKYO (Reuters) - One North Korean missile appears to have fallen into Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) on Wednesday morning, Japan’s top government spokesman said, adding there were no reports so far of any impact on aircraft or ships in the vicinity.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said that particular missile fell at 7:27 a.m. local time, or 2227 GMT, while another one a few minutes earlier fell outside of Japan’s EEZ.
Reporting by Chang-Ran Kim; Editing by Shri Navaratnam
. | Armed Conflict | October 2019 | ['(Reuters)'] |
In Zimbabwe, new electoral court rules that jailed opposition politician Roy Bennett, member of the Movement for Democratic Change, can take part of parliamentary elections on March 31. | Harare — Zimbabwe's Electoral Court today ruled that incarcerated Movement for Democratic Change MP Roy Bennett is eligible to contest the parliamentary elections scheduled for March 31. He will now square up against ruling Zanu PF's Samuel Undenge.
Justice Tendai Uchena, in the first case to be heard before the court, said Bennett was not a criminal as his offence, that of pushing Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs minister Patrick Chinamasa in parliament, was not covered in the criminal statutes. The court ruling comes after Bennett had appealed to the Election Court against the nullification of his candidacy.
Bennett's legal counsel, Beatrice Mtetwa, said Justice Uchena had ordered that the decision of the nomination court, which sat on February 24, be set aside.
"The election day for the Chimanimani constituency has therefore been moved to April 30 to allow all parties time to campaign," said Mtetwa. The judge ordered the constituency election officer to hold the nomination court for the constituency on April 4.
Bennett had submitted his papers to stand on an MDC ticket in the constituency, but the election officer ruled him ineligible saying he was serving a prison sentence. Under Zimbabwe's constitution, if one is sentenced to a prison term of six months and above, one cannot stand as a parliamentary candidate.
Bennett's wife, Heather, immediately filed her papers to stand as a candidate in the March 31 poll. She would have been representing the constituency on an MDC ticket.
Bennett, the only white rural MP, is serving a 12-month prison sentence imposed by Parliament for a scuffle he was involved in with Justice minister Chinamasa. He is serving out the sentence at a rural prison in the backwoods of Mutoko, some 220km north-east of the capital Harare.
Ruling ZANU PF party members used their superiority in numbers to send Bennett to jail under the Parliamentary Privileges and Immunities Act which empowers the House to discipline or even jail its members.
"Said Mtetwa: "Bennett, under the constitution of Zimbabwe, has the right to contest the election. He will of course be fighting an unfair fight as he will not be released to campaign for the poll. But it will be interesting if he wins the seat from the confines of his prison cell."
All efforts by Bennett to be released before the March 31 poll date have to date been in vain. Bennett had argued in the High Court that because his sentence could only be up to March 30 - the day Parliament steps down - or a total of about 153 days from the date he was committed to jail last October, he should therefore have been released earlier this month because of good behavior.
Bennett says his imprisonment should therefore end on March 30 and if a third of his sentence was knocked off for good behaviour in terms of the Prisons Act, he should have been out of jail on February 7.
In his affidavit, Bennett argued that although Parliament had committed him to an effective 12 months in jail, the sentence automatically expires at the expiry of the life of the Fifth Parliament according to the Parliamentary Immunities and Privileges Act. | Government Job change - Election | March 2005 | ['(AllAfrica)', '(Reuters AlertNet)', '(BBC)'] |
Voters in Lithuania vote to elect representatives for the 141-seat parliament. | It's seven years since Lithuania became a trailblazer for European Union austerity amid an unprecedented slump. Despite uninterrupted economic growth since, disquiet over pay and opportunities in the tiny Baltic nation has left Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevicius' job in the balance.
While narrowly leading polls before elections on Sunday, support for Butkevicius' Social Democrats has shrunk on persistent emigration, sluggish salary growth and a procurement scandal that's worsened already frosty ties with President Dalia Grybauskaite. His coalition allies have also lost ground, while his two closest challengers could forge an alliance to usurp him.
Lithuania, a euro-area and NATO member that borders Russia and Poland, won plaudits for its response to one of the continent's worst recessions after the 2008 crisis. But the recovery hasn't stemmed an exodus of workers or triggered the kind of wage growth seen elsewhere in the region. Campaigning, rocked by graft scandals at parties including the Social Democrats, has focused on pledges of future prosperity, though tight fiscal is set to stay.
"Jobs and wages dominate voters' concerns, but high-profile corruption caseshave significantly rocked the political scene over the past year," said Otilia Dhand, senior vice president at Teneo Intelligence in Brussels. "The outlook for the formation of the next cabinet is unclear."
The Social Democrats will get 15.6 percent of the national vote, the Peasants & Green Union 14 percent and the conservative Homeland Union-Christian Democrats 13.7 percent, an Oct. 4 poll showed. Butkevicius' coalition partners -- the Labor Party and Order & Justice -- are near the 5 percent entry barrier, according to the survey, which had a 3.1 percentage-point margin of error.
Parties can also win seats in single-mandate constituencies, which account for 71 of parliament's 141 seats and where the Social Democrats have traditionally outperformed. A second round of voting in individual constituencies will be held Oct. 23.
Butkevicius, 57, wants more increases in the minimum wage to help lift average monthly salaries to 1,100 euros ($1,230) by 2020 from 772 euros now. He'll also skew taxation from labor to property. Homeland Union, popular among urban voters, pledges to boost average salaries to 1,250 euros. Having secured investment from the likes of Barclays when last in power, it promises 147,000 new jobs, a higher cutoff for untaxed earnings and the return of 80,000 emigrants to the nation of 3 million.
"You don't need to pack your suitcases and leave," Homeland Union head Gabrielius Landsbergis said Thursday evening during a televised debate. "You have to come back because there will be jobs."
The balance of power will probably lie with the Peasants & Greens, who advocate less red tape and a more technocratic government. While they haven't specified a preferred coalition partner, they may be a better fit for Homeland Union, according to Ramunas Vilpisauskas, director of the Institute for International Relations and Political Science at Vilnius University.
Whatever the result, a budget stance that's reigned the deficit back within EU limits is unlikely to change with the big parties shunning major additional expenditure beyond meeting NATO-mandated defense outlays by 2020 in the wake of Russia's Crimea annexation. Economic growth, while curbed by EU sanctions against Russia that Grybauskaite strongly backs, is set to top 3 percent in 2017 and 2018. Government bond yields are near all-time lows.
Fitch Ratings said last month in a report that it's "not expecting a new government to diverge from the current economic, fiscal and social-policy agenda, regardless of the outcome of upcoming parliamentary elections." | Government Job change - Election | October 2016 | ['(Bloomberg via The Chicago Tribune)'] |
Author Lee Child – creator of the Jack Reacher series – wins the novel of the year award at the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival for his book 61 Hours. | Author Lee Child, who is behind the best-selling Jack Reacher series, has won the novel of the year award at the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival.
Child has sold 50 million books around the world and Tom Cruise is to play Reacher in a major Hollywood film.
Speaking after the ceremony, he hit out at "snobbery" surrounding crime novels.
"The literary writers are seeing lots of people reading us and relatively few people reading them, and they're cross about it," Child told BBC News.
Real name Jim Grant, he has written 16 books about the former military policeman who roams the US, combating crime rings and conspiracies.
The author, who started writing after being fired from his job as a presentation director at Granada Television in 1995, recently became the first British author to sell a million e-books for Amazon's Kindle reading device.
His book 61 Hours won the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award on the opening night of the festival on Thursday.
It beat other shortlisted entries by Mark Billingham, SJ Bolton, Stuart MacBride, William Ryan and Andrew Taylor.
The veteran author PD James, 90, was at the event to accept an outstanding contribution accolade.
Baroness James, who wrote the Adam Dalgliesh detective novels, told the nominees: "You won't win the Booker [Prize] I'm afraid. But don't worry about that.
"But you will be bringing entertainment and relief from the problems of the world to millions of people."
Earlier this year, author Peter James, chairman of the Crime Writers' Association, said a Booker judge told him "hell would freeze over before a popular crime writer wins the Booker Prize".
Asked whether crime fiction was subjected to snobbery from the literary establishment, Lee Child said: "There definitely is. Not among the mass of the readers, obviously, because they're reading us and not them."
Child said he was "thrilled" that Tom Cruise would be taking the role of Jack Reacher in the film One Shot, which starts shooting in September.
Some fans have complained that Cruise, who is 5ft 7in (170cm) tall, is not the right person to play the 6ft 5in (195cm) Reacher.
"It's completely impossible to literally transfer the page to the screen," Child said. "Ironically, to capture the feel of a book on the screen, you have to change almost everything about it.
"People think we should have had an actor that looks more like Reacher is described in the books.
"First of all there aren't any such actors, so it's much more a question of which actor has the talent and screen presence to create what Reacher does on the screen, and that really comes down to finding the actor with the most talent."
Last month, Child became the fifth author to pass a million sales in the Amazon Kindle store.
He said he did have concerns that the rise of electronic alternatives to paper books could cut off an important outlet for new authors.
"This business is absolutely populated by a whole bunch of wonderful people - booksellers, bookstore owners - who are going to suffer, and that's very sad," he said.
"These people are very passionate and they created the new authors. All the writers at the festival got our start because a small handful of brick-and-mortar retailers got passionate about our books, talked to their customers face-to-face and spread the word.
"And it is uncertain how that mechanism going to be replicated in the future."
The festival continues until Sunday and includes appearances from authors including Martina Cole, David Baldacci, Linwood Barclay and Dennis Lehane.
It is taking place at the Old Swan Hotel, where Agatha Christie was found after going missing for 11 days in 1926.
| Awards ceremony | July 2011 | ['(BBC)'] |
Hundreds of right–wing activists gather to protest the court–ordered demolition of the Israeli settlement Ofra, which was built on private Palestinian land in the West Bank. Israeli police are evacuating nine homes in the settlement, despite hunger strikes and people barricading themselves inside. | The Israeli Supreme Court ruled that the homes were illegally built on private Palestinian land and ordered them evicted by March 5. The court rejected last minute petitions to halt the demolition or have the buildings sealed off.
Dozens of youths barricaded themselves in some of the houses, climbing on the roofs, shouting slogans at the police officers, and calling them “Nazis.” A 17-year-old was arrested after he attacked the police. Three officers were slightly injured, Haaretz reported.
Police had to carry some of the residents out of their houses as they refused to leave on their own. Some of the settlers even announced hunger strikes in protest of the evacuation.
“We feel that this is not right at all, what’s being done here: the destruction of these homes in the center of a Jewish town, in the center of a populated town that was established legally 42 years ago,” said Eliana Passentin, a spokeswoman for the local settler regional council, Reuters reports.
Leading rabbis have also gathered at the West Bank settlements to support the families from the nine homes. Earlier this month, over 5,000 people protested the evacuation at a demonstration in Ofra, with the leader of the National-Religious rabbis, Haim Druckman, addressing the public and saying “we will continue to settle the Land of Israel… We are not thieves.”
All Israeli settlements are considered to be illegal according to international law, yet there are around 550,000 Israelis living in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. | Protest_Online Condemnation | February 2017 | ['(RT)'] |
At least 38 people were killed in a suspected Boko Haram attack on two villages in Niger. | An attack by suspected Islamist Boko Haram fighters in Niger has killed at least 38 people, officials say.
It took place late on Wednesday night, according to a security source quoted by the Reuters news agency.
Local MP Bulu Mammadu told the BBC that the victims included women and children who had been shot dead in two different villages.
Boko Haram is based in Nigeria but is being tackled by a multinational force, including soldiers from Niger.
On Monday, there was a suspected Boko Haram suicide attack in Chad, which is also supplying soldiers to the multinational force.
Chad responded to that attack with air strikes on suspected Boko Haram positions.
BBC Nigeria correspondent Will Ross says that by attacking Niger, Chad and Nigeria this week, Boko Haram appears to be hitting out at a region which is determined to unite and fight the jihadists. In Niger, Mr Mammadu said that, as well as killing people, the militants had burnt down several houses in the two villages of Lamina and Ungumawo in the Diffa region, close to Nigeria's border.
Boko Haram first attacked Niger in February when the government said it repulsed an attack, killing more than 100 of the group's fighters.
Since being sworn in last month, Nigeria's new President Muahammadu Buhari has pushed ahead with plans to beef up the multinational force which will be made up of 7,500 troops. The US has backed the force and offered $5m (3.2m) to help get it established.
President Buhari promised in a message on his Twitter feed on Thursday that the "efforts to strengthen security cooperation with our neighbours and adjust our own response to Boko Haram will yield results very soon".
Boko Haram was founded in northern Nigeria in 2002 with the aim of creating an Islamic state, and has since caused havoc through a wave of bombings, assassinations and abductions. | Armed Conflict | June 2015 | ['(BBC)'] |
A Bangladeshi blogger known for his atheist views is hacked to death by a gang armed with machetes, the fourth such incident this year, in the capital Dhaka. , , | A Bangladeshi blogger known for his atheist views has been hacked to death by a gang armed with machetes in the capital Dhaka, police say.
Niloy Neel was attacked at his home in the city's Goran area.
He is the fourth secularist blogger to have been killed this year by suspected Islamist militants in Bangladesh.
Imran H Sarkar, head of the Bangladesh Blogger and Activist Network, told the BBC that Mr Neel had been an anti-extremist voice of reason.
"He was the voice against fundamentalism and extremism and was even a voice for minority rights - especially women's rights and the rights of indigenous people," he said.
BBC World Service South Asia editor Charles Haviland says that, like previous victims, Mr Neel was not only secular but atheist and, like two of the others, he was from a Hindu, not a Muslim, background. All four men killed were on a list of 84 "atheist bloggers" drawn up by Islamic groups in 2013 and widely circulated. It was originally submitted to the government with the aim of having the bloggers arrested and tried for blasphemy. The groups which wanted bloggers arrested told us they have no knowledge of who is behind the killings.
There is also a more complex backdrop to the killings. Islamic groups label all these bloggers "atheists" - and many did indeed use the internet to criticise those who believe in God. But in fact, not all the bloggers were atheists. What they did have in common was they were part of a wider, secular movement that took to the streets in protest in 2013.
The BBC's Akbar Hossain in Dhaka says Mr Neel had filed a police report expressing fear for his life, but his complaints had not been not followed up.
Police said about six attackers had tricked their way into Mr Neel's home by saying they were looking to rent a flat.
"Two of them then took him to a room and then slaughtered him there," deputy police commissioner Muntashirul Islam said.
"His wife was in the flat but she was confined to another room."
In May, secular blogger Ananta Bijoy Das was killed by masked men with machetes in Sylhet. He was said to have received death threats from Islamist extremists.
In March, another blogger, Washiqur Rahman, was hacked to death in Dhaka. Blogger Avijit Roy, who courted controversy by championing atheism and also tackling issues such as homosexuality, was killed in Dhaka in February.
Bangladesh is officially secular but critics say the government is indifferent to attacks on bloggers by Islamist militants.
Two people have been arrested, but no-one charged, in connection with this year's killings, our correspondent adds.
Bloggers killed for their beliefs
Clear pattern to Bangladesh blogger killings
| Armed Conflict | August 2015 | ['(BBC)', '(The Telegraph)', '(The Hindu)'] |
Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards signs an anti-discrimination order protecting the rights of gay and transgender people that rescinds one his immediate predecessor, Bobby Jindal, signed that sought to limit same-sex marriage rights and the ability of transgender people to choose which public restrooms they may use. | April 13 (Reuters) - Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards on Wednesday signed an anti-discrimination order protecting the rights of gay and transgender people, aligning his state on the liberal side of a political divide playing out across the South.
The Democrat’s executive order also protects state employees and employees of state contractors against discrimination based on other criteria including race, religion, disability or age. It also bans state agencies from discrimination while offering an exemption for churches and religious organizations.
Edwards followed in the steps of previous Democratic Louisiana governors Edwin Edwards and Kathleen Blanco in signing such an order as there is no state law protecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) people from employment discrimination, the governor’s office said in a statement.
His order rescinds one signed by his immediate predecessor, Bobby Jindal, a Republican and onetime presidential contender, that was part of the “religious freedom” movement in some Southern states that seeks to limit same-sex marriage rights and the ability of transgender people to choose which public restrooms they may use.
Edwards said his order was good for business.
“The previous administration’s executive (order) I am rescinding was meant to serve a narrow political agenda,” he said. “It does nothing but divide our state and force the business community, from Louisiana’s smallest businesses to large corporations like IBM, to strongly oppose it.”
A number of measures have pitted equality rights against religious freedoms in state legislatures across the United States. Many of the more restrictive measures have come from states of the former Confederacy, where the Republican Party is strongest.
Laws curtailing LGBT rights have faced widespread criticism from corporate, entertainment and sports leaders, especially a North Carolina law that bars transgender people from using public bathrooms that do not match the sex on their birth certificates.
In North Carolina, Deutsche Bank announced it was freezing plans to create 250 jobs at a software application development center and PayPal Holdings canceled plans to open a global operations center. Rock star Bruce Springsteen canceled a concert in the state to protest the law. (Reporting by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Chris Reese and Bill Trott) | Government Policy Changes | April 2016 | ['(Reuters via Huffington Post)'] |
A shootout between rival cartel gangs in Chihuahua, Mexico, kills at least 19 people. | CIUDAD JUAREZ A shootout between suspected drug cartel hitmen has killed 19 people in the northern Mexico state of Chihuahua, the state government said on Saturday, in one of the country’s worst outbreaks of gang violence this year.
“They’re two criminal groups fighting over drug trafficking routes to the United States,” Chihuahua’s attorney general Cesar Peniche told Reuters.
Security forces found 18 bodies on Friday evening at the site of the gunfight in the municipality of Madera, and a wounded man picked up at the scene later died of his injuries, the state attorney general’s office said in a statement.
They also secured 18 long firearms, two vehicles and two grenades, the statement said, adding that the search for armed men and the investigation of the site was continuing.
Local media reported that the gunmen belonged to groups linked to the Juarez Cartel and the rival Sinaloa Cartel, which Peniche said was correct.
On Friday, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said violence among criminal groups has persisted despite the outbreak of the new coronavirus in the country.
“It seemed in late March, when the coronavirus had become more widespread, that we would have a considerable reduction (in violence,” Lopez Obrador said. “Unfortunately, it didn’t turn out that way.”
Last year, suspected drug cartel gunmen shot dead three women and six children, all members of a U.S.-Mexican Mormon community, in a daytime attack as they were traveling by car in the northern state of Sonora. | Armed Conflict | April 2020 | ['(Global News)'] |
Former Prime Minister of Australia Tony Abbott is appointed as an adviser to the United Kingdom's Board of Trade. | LONDON (Reuters) - Britain named former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott as a trade adviser on Friday, rejecting criticism that his conservative views on gender, same sex marriage and climate change made him unfit to represent the United Kingdom.
Some British lawmakers, including the leader of the opposition Keir Starmer, Scottish leader Nicola Sturgeon and a member of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s own party, Caroline Nokes, have said Abbott was not suitable for the job.
The 62-year-old, who led Australia from 2013-2015, supported Britain’s exit from the European Union. He joins Daniel Hannan, another Brexit supporter and former member of the European Parliament, in becoming advisers to Britain’s Board of Trade.
“The new Board of Trade will play an important role in helping Britain make the case for free and fair trade across the UK and around the world,” Secretary of State for International Trade, Liz Truss, said in a statement.
Board members and advisers meet quarterly to make a case for free trade and engage with industry.
Related Coverage
Abbott has attracted criticism from British opposition politicians and media outlets over his views on homosexuality, gender, climate change and COVID following reports he had been linked with the job. He has rejected accusations of misogyny.
The opposition Labour Party said Abbott was not experienced in detailed trade negotiations, had a history of offensive statements and questioned why he had been given the role.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who has repeatedly refused to bow to what he sees as fleeting media storms, defended Abbott before the appointment was announced on Friday.
“This is a guy who was elected by the people of the great liberal democratic nation of Australia,” he said.
Anne Boden, another adviser and head of Starling Bank, said she was pleased to have been selected and added that she supported diversity just like Julia Gillard. Gillard, Australia’s only female prime minister, attacked Abbott for misogyny in a parliamentary showdown that went viral on social media.
Reporting by Kate Holton; editing by Stephen Addison and Hugh Lawson
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
.
| Government Job change - Appoint_Inauguration | September 2020 | ['(Reuters)'] |
Labour's Emma Lewell-Buck retains the South Shields Parliamentary seat for the party following Thursday's by-election, but with a reduced majority after the UK Independence Party secures almost a quarter of the votes cast. | Labour has won the South Shields parliamentary by-election, retaining a seat it has held since 1935.
It saw its majority reduced in Thursday's poll as the UK Independence Party finished a clear second, with a 24% share of the total vote. The Conservatives were pushed into third while their Liberal Democrat coalition partners finished seventh.
Labour candidate Emma Lewell-Buck said she was "absolutely ecstatic" about her by-election victory. The South Shields contest was triggered by the resignation of former Labour Foreign Secretary David Miliband as an MP. UKIP also made significant gains in county council elections in England.
Ms Lewell-Buck argued that the result showed Labour was connecting with voters and the coalition government was taking the country in the "wrong direction".
As the result was announced, she said: "Mr Cameron, when working families needed a government on their side, you made them pay for a tax cut for millionaires. "When our young people needed jobs, you gave them a shrinking economy, and when the most vulnerable people in our society were really struggling you gave them the bedroom tax." Ms Lewell-Buck added: "I will help get people back to work, champion our wonderful town and never give the Tory government one moment's peace." However, her majority of 6,505 - on a turnout of 39.2% - was significantly down on the 11,109 achieved by Mr Miliband three years ago.
UKIP candidate Richard Elvin came second with 5,988 votes. The party, which did not even stand in the constituency in the last general election, won 24% of the vote, marginally lower than its record 28% vote share in March's by-election in Eastleigh, Hampshire, when it also came second. UKIP's deputy leader Paul Nuttall said the performance, which came on the heels of strong showings in other by-elections in the north of England last year, proved it was on "an upward trajectory" and the party's appeal spread across the country.
"UKIP is here and it is here to stay," he told the BBC.
And he claimed it would not be long before his party had its first MP elected.
"We have been knocking on the door of Westminster for the past two years. I predict very soon that we will kick that door in," he said.
The Conservatives came third with 2,857 votes, 5,000 fewer than they received in 2010 and it was an even more miserable night for the Lib Dems, who were beaten into seventh, getting fewer votes than the BNP and two independent candidates.
The party lost its deposit, having secured less than 5% of the total votes cast.
Its candidate Hugh Annand said the result was "extremely disappointing but perhaps not surprising" given that the Lib Dems were in government and having to take tough decisions.
He told the BBC that some supporters had not adjusted to the degree of compromise required in coalition and those wishing to register a protest vote had gone elsewhere.
"We have disappointed and angered some people who have supported us in the past," he said.
Former Lib Dem MP Lembit Opik, a frequent critic of party leader Nick Clegg, described the result as "appalling" and said party members "deserve to know how this electoral crisis will be fixed".
But the party's deputy leader Simon Hughes said: "Let me congratulate the Labour winner in South Shields, the first woman MP for South Shields, which is progress. "This has been a Labour seat since it was created, certainly for years and years and years, and it's not a place where we had presence."
In the county council elections which coincided with the by-election, Conservative and Lib Dem vote share was significantly down, with UKIP and Labour the chief beneficiaries. Labour majority: 6,505 (26.30%), down from 11,109 (30.42%) in 2010
Electorate 62,979; Turnout 24,736 (39.28%, -18.42%), down from 36,518 (57.70%) in 2010 | Government Job change - Election | May 2013 | ['(BBC)'] |
Ed Sheeran wins Best British album for x. | With his second album, X, Sheeran beat competition from George Ezra and Sam Smith to claim the best album gong
Last modified on Thu 22 Feb 2018 11.51 GMT
Ed Sheeran has won the award for British album at the 2015 Brit awards with his second record, X.
Up against albums by Alt-J, George Ezra, Royal Blood and Sam Smith, the awards held at London’s O2 Arena on 25 February saw the hit album by the 23-year-old triumph.
This win should be particularly sweet for the Suffolk singer-songwriter, who failed to take home a Grammy at this year’s ceremony. X was a success on both sides of the Atlantic following its release in June, but failed to pick up any of his three nominations. Topping the UK chart in 2014, and a mainstay in the top 5 since its release last summer, the album features the same acoustic R&B stylings as debut album +, and included a cameo from Pharrell Williams.
It features the singles Sing, Thinking Out Loud and Don’t, all three of which were hits: Sing became Sheeran’s first UK No 1 single and his second US Billboard Hot 100 top 20 hit, Don’t peaked at No 8 in the UK and Thinking Out Loud was a sleeper hit, entering the No 1 spot after 19 weeks in the charts. “I feel like, with the first album, there were a lot of people who didn’t get it and didn’t really understand the whole thing, and therefore didn’t like it,” Sheeran told Digital Spy ahead of the release of X. “This time around everyone knows what I’m about, and they’ve kind of accepted the sort of artist I am … some people are going to like [the album] and some people are going to hate it. But no one’s going to have a problem with it doing well, whereas first time around people were confused about that.”
This is the latest Brit scoop for the artist, who took home a Brit award for British breakthrough act and British solo male artist in 2012. | Awards ceremony | February 2015 | ['(The Guardian)'] |
Tripoli is hit by successive NATO air strikes, including a rare daytime strike. | By Daily Mail Reporter Updated: 09:27 BST, 8 June 2011 120
View comments
Britain is hitting Libya with 50 air strikes a day, the Foreign Secretary revealed yesterday.
William Hague reported that Nato has flown 10,000 sorties against Colonel Gaddafi’s regime and is now bombing key targets every half an hour.
He spoke as allied warplanes carried out the heaviest daylight bombing raids of the war so far.
Smashed: Smoke rises from explosions as Nato airstrikes hit Tripoli. The alliance is stepping up their air campaign in the country
Targets: Smoke billows from the site of an explosion across a district of Tripoli near Colonel Gaddafi's own compound
Strike: Smoke rises in Tripoli after a NATO bombing
Blasts: Buildings are reduced to rubble by the NATO air strikes in Tripoli
In the distance: Smoke billows across the Tripoli sky after the NATO bombings
Yet despite the onslaught, Gaddafi announced in a speech on state TV that he would fight ‘to the end’, adding: ‘We welcome death.’
Mr Hague told MPs that Britain is joining with the EU to pile pressure on the tyrant. Six Libyan port authorities have been added to the EU sanctions list to stop arms imports.
The Foreign Secretary also hinted that he wants a further UN resolution on Libya that would allow funds seized from Gaddafi’s henchmen under existing sanctions to be passed to the opposition council.
Mr Hague said: ‘We have increased the tempo of air strikes against regime forces. These are currently taking place at a rate of approximately 50 strike missions per day.
A Libyan soldier stands outside Gaddafi's Tripoli compound after it was hit by NATO air strikes in rare daytime raids
A building destroyed inside Gaddafi's Tripoli compound. Four explosions were heard earlier in the day in the Libyan capital, three of them in Bab al-Aziziya
Distant devastation: Journalists stand on the roof of a hotel and watch smoke rising in the sky after Nato warplanes hit Tripoli with 11 day time strikes
‘They include the targeting of military command and control sites in Tripoli, regime tanks, artillery, rocket launchers and armoured fighting vehicles.
‘Nearly 10,000 sorties have been carried out since March 31, including more than 3,700 strike sorties, on top of operations to disrupt regime military activity and arms shipments at sea.’ Civil war: Rebel fighters fire rockets from the frontline, outside the Bir Ayyad gate near the city of Zintan in the Western Mountains, some 75 miles south-west of Tripoli
The rebels, led by the National Transitional Council, now control nearly a third of the inhabitable part of Libya
A Libyan soldier flashes the victory sign as he stands amid rubbles inside Gaddafi's Tripoli compound
Waves of Nato aircraft hit Tripoli yesterday, striking different parts of the city several times an hour, sending clouds of smoke into the sky.
Some of the bombs hit in the vicinity of Gaddafi’s vast Bab al-Aziziya residential compound.
Colonel Gaddafi responded by giving a bizarre impromptu speech to state television via telephone. He branded rebels seeking to oust him as ‘b******s’ and urged his followers to flock to the Bab al-Aziziya compound as human shields.
‘We will not kneel!’ he shouted, ‘We will not surrender: we only have one choice to the end! Death, victory, it does not matter, we are not surrendering!’ In a warning to the West, he added: ‘We are stronger than your weapons, than your planes.’ Last night state TV allegedly showed him meeting with tribal leaders in an unknown location. But in a sign of Gaddafi’s waning influence, both Russia and China revealed yesterday that they have opened talks with the rebel leadership in Benghazi.
Defiant: Gaddafi announced in a speech on state TV that, despite the onslaught, he would fight to the end
Mr Hague also spoke out yesterday against the Syrian crackdown on demonstrators, calling on president Bashar al-Assad to reform or quit the first time Britain has proposed that the dictator should step down. There are fears of another massacre in the country after the regime vowed to retaliate against alleged attacks on state forces in the northern town of Jisr al-Shoghour.
Further east, Colonel Gaddafi's troops and the rebel forces fighting to overthrow his regime have been in stalemate for weeks. Allied forces are assisting a four-month old insurgency that has seized swathes of eastern Libya and pockets of the country's west, where the regime has its stronghold. The revolt against Colonel Gaddafi came after popular uprisings which ousted the long-time rulers of both Tunisia and Egypt, and which continue to reverberate across the Arab world. But neither side has been able to hold territory on a road between Ajdabiyah, which the colonel's forces shelled yesterday, and the government-held oil town of Brega further west. The rebels, led by the National Transitional Council, now control nearly a third of the inhabitable part of Libya. Western governments and rebels say a combination of Nato air strikes, diplomatic isolation and grassroots opposition will eventually bring down the Gaddafi regime. But the colonel refuses to step down, saying he is supported by all Libyans apart from a minority of 'rats' and al Qaida fighters, and that Nato strikes are a Western plot to steal Libya's oil.
Diplomatic mission: Libyan foreign minister Abdul-Ati al-Obeidi has gone to Beijing for a three-day visit
Other world powers are increasingly making diplomatic overtures to the rebels, including Russia and China - despite misgivings about interference in Libya's sovereign affairs. Mikhail Margelov, Special Representative for the President of Russia for Africa, told journalists in Benghazi that Gaddafi can no longer claim to represent Libya. 'We highly believe that Gaddafi has lost his legitimacy after the first bullet shot against the Libyan people,' he said. 'Russia is ready to help politically, economically and in any possible way ... That is why we have established a direct relationship with the national council here in Benghazi.' Tripoli dispatched foreign minister Abdul-Ati al-Obeidi to Beijing for a three-day visit, apparently seeking to defuse a setback delivered by China to the Gaddafi regime last week. Chinese officials announced on Friday that they had reached out to the rebel forces, a move commentators saw as an effort to boost China's engagement in the Libyan conflict and possibly jostle for a mediator role. Beijing had stayed on the sidelines for the first few months since the revolt erupted in mid-February, pointedly shunning international calls for Colonal Gaddafi to step down and saying that is for the Libyan people to decide. China also abstained in the United Nations Security Council vote authorising the use of force in Libya, and has repeatedly criticized the Nato bombing campaign against the Libyan government. But last week, Beijing said the head of Libya's rebel council met with China's ambassador to Qatar in Doha - the first known contact between the two sides. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said that talks with Mr al-Obeidi would focus on the need for a political solution to the Libyan crisis. He also reiterated China's appeals for an immediate cease-fire and called on all parties to 'fully consider the mediation proposals put forward by the international community so as to defuse the tensions as soon as possible.' Under pressure: A man paints a caricature of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in the Libyan town of Ar Rujban, some 165 km (103 miles) southwest of the capital Tripoli
Meanwhile, in a report on Monday, the International Crisis Group (ICG) urged the rebels and their Nato allies to propose a ceasefire. It argued demands that Colonel Gaddafi step down as a pre-condition of ending hostilities and threats of war crimes charges had forced him into a corner. 'The (rebels) and their Nato supporters appear uninterested in resolving the conflict through negotiation,' it said. 'To insist that he (Colonel Gaddafi) go now, as the precondition for any negotiation ... is to render a ceasefire all but impossible and so to maximise the prospect of continued armed conflict. 'To insist that he both leave ... and face trial in the International Criminal Court is virtually to ensure that he will stay in Libya to the bitter end and go down fighting.' In Brussels, Nato Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said he would repeat calls for Nato allies to boost involvement at an alliance defence ministers meeting this week. Nato decided last week to extend operations in Libya until the end of September.
. | Armed Conflict | June 2011 | ['(The Daily Mail)'] |
The Guardian Council announces it will randomly recount 10% of ballot boxes. | Tehran: Iran's Guardian Council will recount 10 percent of the ballot boxes in last week's disputed presidential election, the state television reported Saturday.
"The Guardian Council is ready to recount randomly up to 10 percent of the ballot boxes in last week's disputed presidential election," council's spokesman Abbas Ali Kadkhodai said. "We will recount the votes in the presence of the three (defeated) candidates," he said, adding that whenever the recount is completed the council will announce its final decision. Witnesses report fierce clashes on Tehran streetsIran's former Revolutionary Guards chief Mohsen Rezaei, one of the defeated candidates in the June 12 election, Saturday attended a special meeting of the Guardians Council, the state media reported. Two other defeated candidates, former prime minister Mir-Hossein Moussavi and former parliament speaker Mehdi Karroubi, were also invited but did not attend the meeting. Kadkhodai said Moussavi and Karroubi still have time to express their opinions until Wednesday. Earlier, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had ordered the Guardian Council, an influential body that wields considerable power in the Islamic Republic, to investigate the claims of "fraud" in the presidential election. | Government Job change - Election | June 2009 | ['(China Daily)', '(Sify)'] |
The Mexican Navy recaptures escaped drug lord Joaquín Guzmán, also known as "El Chapo", in Los Mochis, Sinaloa. |
Guzman was arrested on Friday in the town of Los Mochis, Sinaloa, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto announced in a news conference. He said the capture of the 58-year-old infamous drug lord should restore faith in the government and security forces.
“Today Mexico confirms that their institutions have the capacity to overcome the threats. Mexico has the ability to deal with situations like these,” he said, adding that the arrest is “important” for state institutions as it shows that people “can rely on them.”
Earlier on Friday the president took to Twitter to break the news.
Misión cumplida: lo tenemos. Quiero informar a los mexicanos que Joaquín Guzmán Loera ha sido detenido.
“Mission completed: we've gothim. I’d like to inform the Mexicans that Joaquin Guzman Loera has been detained,” Enrique Pena Nieto wrote.Niento also expressed his appreciation to the Secretariat of Public Security for the capture.
Five people were killed and one marine was wounded in a shootout which occurred during an operation to capture the kingpin in the city of Los Mochis, in his home state of Sinaloa, an official told AP on condition of anonymity.
Benjamin Bergman, a spokesman for the Mexican marines said that Guzman was in "good condition."
Mexican marines raided El Chapo’s home, acting on a tipoff, before dawn, the navy said in a statement adding that five suspects had been killed and six arrested. Two armored vehicles, eight long guns, one handgun and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher were seized in the operation.
Among the seized arms were .50-caliber sniper guns capable of penetrating most bullet-proof vests and cars, AP reported. The assault rifle had a .40 mm grenade launcher, and at least one grenade, and another grenade launcher was found loaded, with an extra round nearby.
“This ends the impunity that seemed to exist when the second escape of this criminal took place…” said the president of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, as quoted by local media.
El Chapo (aka “Shorty”) is considered to be Mexico’s top drug lord and head of the Sinaloa cartel. The US Drug Enforcement Administration has called El Chapo the biggest drug lord of all time. In 2011 he reportedly surpassed the infamous “cocaine king” Pablo Escobar. He was wanted by Mexico, Interpol and the US, which had offered a $5 million reward for any information leading to his capture.
Washington has called the capture of Guzman a victory and triumph for the rule of law.
El Chapo's arrest is "a victory for the citizens of both Mexico and the United States, and a vindication of the rule of law in our countries," Attorney General Loretta Lynch said.
Guzman also faces charges in the US. She said he "will now have to answer for his alleged crimes," but stopped short of asking Mexico for the drug lord to be extradited.
He was first arrested in 1993 and spent almost a decade in a maximum-security prison near Mexico City before escaping in 2001. After 13 years on the run he was recaptured in 2014.
However, last July a new prison break made the headlines again. He escaped through a 1.5-kilometer long, 10-meter deep tunnel dug from within his cell, despite being incarcerated in the country’s highest-security federal prison.
The tunnel from the facility led to a half-constructed empty house in nearby fields. Chapo reportedly paid as much as $50 million in bribes to facilitate his escape.
His latest jail break sparked one of the largest manhunts in the country’s history and spurred major criticism about the government’s ability to safeguard the drug lord. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | January 2016 | ['(RT)'] |
Troy Buswell resigns as the Treasurer of Western Australia following a mental breakdown and a car accident. | TREASURER Troy Buswell, 47, has suffered a mental health breakdown and has resigned from the WA Cabinet, effectively ending his political career.
Premier Colin Barnett yesterday faced an extraordinary press conference, revealing the Treasurer has suffered a “mental health’’ breakdown and had been admitted to hospital in Perth and then Sydney, where he remained for about 10 days.
Mr Barnett says Mr Buswell called him at home on Sunday afternoon to advise him of his decision to resign immediately as a Cabinet Minister.
The Premier said Mr Buswell had crashed his ministerial car into the front fence of his Subiaco home in the early hours of February 23.
IN FULL: Premier Colin Barnett’s press conference JOE SPAGNOLO: ‘See no evil’ method not good enough
POLICE RESPONSE: Commissioner launches probe
OPPOSITION: Mark McGowan calls for ‘immediate’ release of police records
A witness who called police over Mr Buswell’s driving said he had to stop his vehicle to avoid being struck by Mr Buswell’s white Holden Caprice on Roberts Road.
The witness said Mr Buswell then crashed into the front fence of his home and spun the car’s tyres before managing to park in the driveway.
Mr Buswell was reportedly returning from a wedding reception at Kings Park.
Police have not charged him with any offences but began taking photos of the damaged car and fence this morning - more than a fortnight after the accident.
Police Commissioner Karl O’Callaghan said he had also asked police to speak to the witness who first called in the “erratic driving’’ report.
There was no chance of a drink-driving charge, given that it was now three weeks past the incident, he said.
The Police Commissioner said two officers went to Mr Buswell’s house, but had no information who the car or house belonged to.
The house was in darkness and they did not speak to the former Treasurer.
Mr O’Callaghan said the car was registered to the Office of State Aministration, not in Mr Buswell’s name.
Mr Barnett said Mr Buswell’s chief-of-staff informed him on February 24 that he had suffered a breakdown, but the premier’s first knowledge of ``anything to do with erratic driving’’ was on Sunday afternoon.
Last week, when reporters noticed Mr Buswell was absent from cabinet, the Premier said he was on personal leave for health reasons and asked for his privacy to be respected.
``Troy had had a breakdown and asked to keep that private, which I did,’’ Mr Barnett said.
``I knew Troy had been out the night before.
``I was not prying into the particulars.
``My concern was about his care and welfare.’’
He said Mr Buswell had been in hospital in Perth as well as a clinic in Sydney, and remains under medical care.
``He is not in a good place,’’ Mr Barnett said.
``It was later in that first week when he was admitted to hospital that it was more serious.
``It is a very sad day, and a sad situation he found himself in.’’
Mr Barnett said he didn’t regret standing by Mr Buswell during his many controversies over the years.
``Troy has had a turbulent career - tragically maybe it all became too much.
``People in high profile positions are vulnerable, under scrutiny continuously, and if someone is prone to depression, it might bring it on.
``He is a brilliant person, (he has) an enormous capacity for work. Unfortunately, he’s also got a serious health issue.’’
Mr Barnett said Mr Buswell had no excuse or explanation for the accident, and very little recollection of it.
He was very remorseful.
``I think he feels like he has let me down - I don’t think that. I don’t see it that way,’’ the Premier said.
Mr Barnett is temporarily taking on Mr Buswell’s roles as treasurer and transport minister, and does not yet know who will deliver the state budget in May.
He’ll remain the MP for Vasse and it’s uncertain whether he’ll stay in politics.
A permanent replacement is expected to be announced later this week.
This afternoon, Opposition Leader Mark McGowan said all police records surrounding Mr Buswell’s driving incident should be released immediately.
Mr McGowan said it would “help clear the air” over the February 23 incident in which Mr Buswell was seen driving erratically before crashing into his fence.
At a press conference this afternoon Mr McGowan said he wished Mr Buswell and his family “all the best” with regards to his health.
But Mr McGowan used the majority of his press conference to ram home his view the State Government had further explaining to do on the matter and that all police records pertaining to the Subiaco incident should be released.
POLICE AT BUSWELL’S HOUSE Police have not charged Mr Buswell with any offence but were at his Subiaco house taking photos of the damaged car and fence yesterday morning, more than a fortnight after the accident.
The day’s drama followed media reports that Mr Buswell — also WA’s Transport Minister — had crashed his car in the early hours of Sunday, February 23, after being at a wedding, where he was seen drinking throughout the evening.
The wedding was at Kings Park, just a short drive from Mr Buswell’s Subiaco home.
The Treasurer went on personal leave the day after the reported crash, which happened in Subiaco near Mr Buswell’s home.
Cabinet members, including Police Minister Liza Harvey, Attorney General Michael Mischin, Helen Morton and Kim Hames, arrived at the Premier’s Hale House, West Perth office, to a flurry of questions from a waiting media pack.
All declined to answer questions as they went into the building.
But Troy Buswell’s long-time friend Education Minister Peter Collier said: “I found out about it last night . . . a friendship is not a part time commodity . . . Troy is my friend.”
Corrective Services Minister Joe Francis said: “ I’m not going to comment on something I don’t know anything about.’
FEBRUARY 22 WEDDING Mr Buswell attended a wedding on Saturday, February 22.
At 1.28am the following day a member of the public called police to report that a white Holden Caprice was being driven erratically on Roberts Road, Subiaco, near Patersons Stadium.
The person who rang police also contacted several media organisations, saying Mr Buswell’s driving forced him to stop to avoid a collision.
The Caprice had earlier been seen obstructing the left lane of Roberts Road, sitting perpendicular to the kerb.
The witness said the Caprice, believed to be Mr Buswell’s Ministerial car, then veered across from the left to the right lane nearly colliding with parked cars.
It then pulled into Mr Buswell’s Roberts Road driveway, where it allegedly hit a metal fence.
Police confirmed they were called to a traffic incident in Subiaco in the early hours of February 23.
Following Mr Buswell’s absence from work on the Monday following the crash, Premier Colin Barnett made a statement last week declaring Mr Buswell had taken three weeks personal leave for a “health related issue’’ and would be back at work at the end of this week.
He asked that Mr Buswell be given privacy to deal with his “health’’ issue.
Last week on radio he commented further that the Treasurer was doing well and would definitely return to work and would more than likely reveal what was wrong.
“Well I’ve been aware of Troy’s condition for some time and I expect him to return to work in a week’s time,” Mr Barnett told ABC radio last week.
“He will be fine. But he has asked for some privacy so I am going to give him that privacy. As I said publicly, it’s a health-related issue.
“I expect him back in a week’s time and I’m sure Troy will say what was wrong with him then.”
Mr Buswell’s time in WA politics has been marred by controversy, having been forced to resign as Opposition leader in 2008 over the infamous chair-sniffing incident, when he admitted sniffing the chair of a female colleague.
In February this year he settled the defamation case with former lover and ex-Greens MP Adele Carles over claims she made in the media alleging inappropriate behaviour from Mr Buswell at a party. Mr Buswell’s absence comes at a critical time for the State Government with the May budget looming, at a time when WA is desperate to regain its AAA rating.
The Premier is acting as Treasurer and Transport Minister while Mr Buswell is on leave.
TROY BUSWELL TIMELINE
January 2008: Mr Buswell admits to and apologises for an incident the previous year where he snapped the elastic bra strap of a Labor staffer.
April 2008: Mr Buswell admits he sniffed the chair of a Liberal staffer in 2005.
August 2008: Mr Buswell resigns as Liberal leader.
April 2010: Mr Buswell admits to having an affair with then Fremantle Greens MP Adele Carles. He later apologises over the affair resigns as treasurer.
February 2011:Mr Buswell, as transport minister, admits to clocking up nine speeding fines in three years.
December 2012: Mr Buswell is accused by Adele Carles of alleged inappropriate behaviour at a Christmas party the year before. Mr Buswell sues Ms Carles over the allegations but the case is later dealt with via an out-of-court settlement. March 2014: Mr Buswell takes immediate personal leave for “health related” reasons. Reports then emerge Buswell was involved in a late-night car crash the night before he took leave. | Government Job change - Resignation_Dismissal | March 2014 | ['(Perth Now)'] |
Kyrgyz Prime Minister Mukhammedkalyi Abylgaziev resigns from in connection with allegations against the government in a criminal case on the extension and renewal of radio frequency resource. | BISHKEK, June 15 (Reuters) - The prime minister of Kyrgyzstan, Mukhammedkalyi Abylgaziev, resigned on Monday, citing a corruption probe against his former subordinates which he said undermined trust in the cabinet and limited its ability to combat the coronavirus pandemic.
Abylgaziev, who had already taken a two-week leave of absence, said he was leaving to avoid hindering the progress of a criminal investigation into the assignment of radio frequencies by his government.
Abylgaziev denied any involvement in the case.
“In today’s difficult environment when the country is dealing with the threat of coronavirus and its impact on the economy, the government must be stable and have the citizens’ full trust, while uncertainty hinders the cabinet’s work,” he said in a statement.
President Sooronbai Jeenbekov’s Social Democratic party leads a majority coalition in parliament which must now nominate a new prime minister. | Government Job change - Resignation_Dismissal | June 2020 | ['(Reuters)'] |
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani begins his first official visit to Iraq to boost bilateral ties and trade amid re-instated U.S. sanctions on Iran. | Iran's President Hassan Rouhani has begun his first official visit to Iraq since taking office five years ago.
After meeting his Iraqi counterpart, Mr Rouhani said he wanted deeper political and economic ties between their states, which fought a bloody war in the 1980s.
He noted that Iran had come to Iraq's aid in recent years when it was threatened by the Islamic State group.
Iranian officials see Iraq as a way to mitigate the US sanctions reinstated by President Donald Trump last year.
Mr Trump's decision, made after he abandoned a 2015 nuclear deal, has led to a sharp downturn in Iran's economy, pushing the value of its currency to record lows, quadrupling its annual inflation rate, and driving away foreign investors.
Mr Rouhani began his three-day visit to Iraq with a visit to the shrine of Shia Muslim Imam Moussa al-Kadhim in northern Baghdad. He was then greeted by his Iraqi counterpart, Barham Saleh, at the presidential palace.
At a joint news conference, Mr Rouhani said: "We want to forge very close relations with Iraq. We do not seek to be allied against others, but rather seek to invite other regional states to our alliance as well."
He pointed out that Iran had stood by Iraq in "difficult" times - a reference to its training and arming of thousands of Iraqi Shia paramilitary fighters who have helped drive Islamic State (IS) militants out of the large parts of Iraq they seized in 2014.
Mr Saleh said he agreed with the "necessity of enhancing trade" and "setting up related economic infrastructure between our countries and peoples".
Iran's president later held talks with Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, whose governing coalition includes Shia parties with deep links to Tehran.
Before leaving Tehran, Mr Rouhani said Iraq's ties with Iran could not be compared to its links with an "occupying country" like the US that was "hated in the region". The US, which invaded Iraq in 2003 to overthrow President Saddam Hussein, has sent thousands of troops to the country to advise and assist security personnel battling IS. But it and Iran back opposing sides of the conflicts in Syria and Yemen. A senior Iranian official accompanying the president told Reuters news agency that Iraq was "another channel for Iran to bypass America's unjust sanctions" and that his trip to Baghdad would "provide opportunities for Iran's economy".
Economic ties between the neighbours are already extensive.
In the 12 months up to March 2018, Iraq imported about $6bn (£4.6bn) of goods from Iran, including food, agricultural products, household appliances, air conditioners and car parts. Iraq paid another $6bn to Iran for natural gas, petroleum products and electricity. Mr Rouhani has said he wants to increase bilateral trade from $12bn to $20bn annually. However, Iraq has faced pressure from the US to stop doing business with Iran.
Iraq discontinued crude oil swaps with Iran in October and did not receive an exemption when a new wave of sanctions came into effect the following month. It was, though, reportedly granted a limited waiver to give it time to find alternative supplies of electricity. No. Under Saddam - who was a Sunni - Iraqi forces invaded Iran in 1980, sparking an eight-year war that left a million people dead and devastated both countries.
Bilateral relations only began to improve after Saddam was toppled and an Iraqi government led by Shia parties - many of them backed by Iran - came to power.
Iran later armed Shia militants who attacked US forces in Iraq to press them to withdraw and targeted Sunnis in a brutal sectarian conflict.
In last year's elections in Iraq, parties linked to Iran-backed paramilitary groups won the second largest number of seats in parliament. But the largest number went to a bloc led by the Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who opposes US and Iranian influence.
Europe creates pay system for Iran trade
Iran vows to 'break' US sanctions
US sanctions on Iran come into force
Iranians describe impact of US sanctions
| Diplomatic Visit | March 2019 | ['(BBC)'] |
Police across the nation arrest a total of 29 alleged coup participants on suspicion of terrorism. | At least 29 people were arrested in Turkey over their suspected links to Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO), the group behind the 2016 defeated coup, security sources said on Wednesday.
The arrest came after Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office in western Izmir province issued arrest warrants for 35 suspects in 11 provinces as part of the investigation into terror group’s “NGO structure.” During the operations, the police arrested 21 FETO-linked suspects accused of using ByLock -- an encrypted mobile phone application used by coup plotters -- and financing the terror group, said the sources, who asked not to be named due to restrictions on talking to the media. The security forces are hunting for the remaining 14 suspects. In a separate operation in northwestern Bursa province, anti-terror police units apprehended at least eight people, including two Turkmen nationals, on the charges of using ByLock, the sources added. Also, in the eastern province of Erzincan, Deputy Governor Yasar Kemal Yilmaz was suspended from his post over his suspected links to the terrorist group. Yilmaz was appointed deputy governor on Dec 1, 2016. FETO orchestrated the defeated coup of July 15, 2016 in Turkey, which left 250 people martyred and nearly 2,200 injured.
Ankara also accuses FETO of being behind a long-running campaign to overthrow the state through the infiltration of Turkish institutions, particularly the military, police, and judiciary. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | April 2018 | ['(Anadolu Agency)'] |
Tropical Storm Gordon forms in the Florida Keys and is forecast to strengthen over the next 48 hours as it brings strong winds and heavy rain to the Gulf of Mexico. | Follow NBC News Parts of the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts were under a hurricane warning Tuesday after fast-developing Tropical Storm Gordon moved across South Florida on its way to the northern Gulf of Mexico.
Dozens of schools in Louisiana and Mississippi were closed as a precaution after Gordon became a tropical storm late Monday afternoon, NBC affiliate WDSU of New Orleans reported.
The National Weather Service issued a hurricane warning for the mouth of the Pearl River, which divides Louisiana and Mississippi.
Gov. John Bel Edwards said Tuesday that Louisiana would likely miss the worst of the storm, but he encouraged residents to remain vigilant and prepared. He earlier issued a state of emergency and authorized the activation of 200 National Guardsmen to be positioned in southeastern Louisiana.
"We still have some nasty weather headed our way," Edwards told reporters, adding that the state could expect winds of 40 mph to 70 mph. "We're not out of the woods," he added.
At 11 a.m. ET, Gordon's top sustained winds were at 65 mph. It was about 130 miles south-southeast of the Mobile, Alabama, and was moving northwest at 15 mph.
Tropical storm and storm surge warnings were also in effect along a long stretch of the central Gulf Coast from Morgan City, Louisiana, including Lake Pontchartrain, to the Alabama-Florida border. Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant and Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey declared states of emergency as the storm moved closer.
Gordon is expected to strengthen into a hurricane when it makes landfall along the northern Gulf Coast, sometime late Tuesday or early Wednesday, but is then forecast to immediately weaken, according to the National Hurricane Center.
The center said tropical storm-force winds would hit parts of southeast Louisiana and the Mississippi coast by late Tuesday, with hurricane conditions also expected in the central Gulf Coast. The Mississippi coast can expect 4 to 7 inches of rain, with locally higher amounts, it said.
Tropical-storm-force winds (39-plus mph) from #Gordon are expected to reach the northern Gulf Coast by Tuesday afternoon, with hurricane-force winds (74-plus mph) expected by Tuesday evening. Power outages are possible in many areas: https://t.co/myUKr4N7ok pic.twitter.com/cqig0XPFvV
The Mississippi cities of Gulfport, Biloxi and Long Beach ordered mandatory evacuations of their harbors and marinas, and the U.S. Coast Guard temporarily closed the ports of New Orleans, Mobile and Pascagoula, Mississippi.
The storm was projected to become a depression as it moved farther north over Oklahoma and Arkansas.
All tropical storm warnings were canceled for South Florida and the Florida Keys as Gordon moved away, but not until after it had battered the region with heavy rain and winds.
Authorities in South Florida and across the Gulf Coast urged people to stay out of the water — warnings that beach lovers like Cameron Armstrong and Matthew Ewbanks ignored on their visit to Gulf Shores on the Alabama Gulf Coast.
"We got caught up in the undertow, and we almost died," Armstrong told NBC affiliate WPMI of Mobile on Monday.
Ewbanks said: "It almost pulled us straight underneath. I literally had to grab his hand and help him. We got out of it barely alive."
Jeff Collier, mayor of Dauphin Island, Alabama, in the Gulf, said the storm was approaching just as the island was finishing up recovery from Hurricane Nate last year.
"We've just about got things cleaned up," Collier told WPMI. "It's been a good summer, and hopefully this won't do too much damage."
Ray Coleman, a spokesman for the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, said residents should be on highest alert.
"My worry is that people might get hurricane amnesia, where they feel like, 'Oh, last year wasn't so bad,'" Coleman told NBC affiliate WLBT of Jackson. "My thing is, no two storms are alike. Just because you made it through Hurricane Nate last year doesn't mean that this one will be the same."
As those on the Gulf Coast prepared for Tropical Storm Gordon, another storm was brewing in the Atlantic: Hurricane Florence formed Tuesday and was about 1,240 miles west-northwest of the Cabo Verde Islands, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Early projections show Florence — the third hurricane of the 2018 Atlantic hurricane season — weakening into a storm before restrengthening as it heads northward. | Hurricanes_Tornado_Storm_Blizzard | September 2018 | ['(KXLY)', '(NBC News)'] |
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay condemns both Israel's military actions in the Gaza Strip and Hamas for "indiscriminate attacks" on Israel, and warns that war crimes may have been committed. | The UN's top human rights official has condemned Israel's military actions in the Gaza Strip, saying that war crimes may have been committed.
Navi Pillay told an emergency debate at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva that Israel's military offensive had not done enough to protect civilians.
She also condemned Hamas for "indiscriminate attacks" on Israel.
Israel launched its offensive on 8 July with the declared objective of stopping rocket fire from Gaza.
"There seems to be a strong possibility that international law has been violated, in a manner that could amount to war crimes," Ms Pillay said.
However Israel, which claims the UN Human Rights Council is biased, is unlikely to co-operate with any authorised UN investigation, the BBC's Imogen Foulkes in Geneva reports.
Israel's Justice Minister, Tzipi Livni, said her country was acting according to international law. "It is regrettable civilians are killed, but when we call on them to vacate and Hamas calls on them to stay, then that is what happens," she told Israel radio. Ms Livni also described the UN Human Rights Council as an "anti-Israel" body.
At least 649 Palestinians and 31 Israelis have been killed in the past 15 days of fighting, officials say. A foreign worker in southern Israel was also killed by a rocket fired from Gaza on Wednesday, police said.
The UN says about 74% of those killed in Gaza are civilians, with medical clinics among the facilities hit by air strikes.
Kyung-wha Kang, the assistant secretary-general at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said civilians in Gaza had no safe to place to go "as 44% of the land has been declared a 'no-go zone' by the Israeli army".
"Families are taking the heart-wrenching decision to split to different locations - mother and son to one; father and daughter to another - hoping to maximise the chance one part of the family survives."
There was heavy fighting in the town of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on Wednesday. At least five people died in an air strike in the town overnight. An Israeli soldier was also killed.
Witnesses say around 5,000 Palestinians, some waving white flags, are fleeing in a state of panic following a ground incursion by Israeli troops, the BBC's Paul Adams in Gaza reports.
A Palestinian woman whom the BBC filmed being pulled from the rubble of a Gaza blast on Sunday also died from her injuries, her doctor said. Ten of her relatives were killed in the blast.
A number of airlines are still operating in and out of Tel Aviv. Many of the passengers we've spoken to appear relaxed about possible security risks and delays. But there hasn't been this much disruption at Ben Gurion Airport since the First Gulf War in 1991. This is a major transport hub and many Israelis are concerned that the decision by some airlines to suspend flights hands Hamas a symbolic victory. A headline in the Haaretz newspaper put it succinctly: "Frightening airlines into suspending flights to Israel, Hamas scores a major achievement." Israel, the paper remarks, can cope with a "temporary blip". But a longer suspension, it says, could hurt the economy and damage the country's self-confidence. Israel's leaders say Ben Gurion airport is safe. They are putting pressure on the United States for flights to resume as quickly as possible. Meanwhile US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Israel on Wednesday to try to help negotiate a truce.
Mr Kerry flew by military plane to Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv. Several US and European airlines continue to suspend civilian flights into Israel after a rocket from Gaza landed near the airport.
German airline Lufthansa announced on Wednesday it would extend the ban for another 24 hours. Referring to a 16 July Israeli air strike that killed children playing on a beach in Gaza, Ms Pillay said "the disregard for international humanitarian law and for the right to life was shockingly evident".
She also condemned rocket attacks from Gaza into Israel, accusing Hamas and other armed Palestinian groups of failing to observe "the principles of distinction and precaution". Despite her condemnation of Hamas attacks on Israel, Ms Pillay clearly views Israel's actions in Gaza as disproportionate, our correspondent says.
Earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Hamas should be held accountable for rejecting an Egyptian ceasefire proposal.
A 2009 UN human rights report said that Israel's military and Hamas had each committed potential war crimes during Israel's 2008-2009 offensive in Gaza. The Goldstone report was rejected by Israel and the US as biased and flawed. In 2011, the report's author, South African judge Richard Goldstone, said that new accounts indicated Israel had not deliberately targeted civilians.
| Armed Conflict | July 2014 | ['(BBC)'] |
Fidel Castro is expected to address the Cuban national assembly on Saturday for the first time in four years; his speech is anticipated to talk of a possible nuclear war involving the United States, Israel and Iran. | The former Cuban president, Fidel Castro, is expected to address the national assembly this weekend for the first time in four years. Cuban state media said a special session of the assembly on international affairs, requested by Mr Castro, would be held on Saturday. Fidel Castro, 83, ceded power to his brother Raul in 2006 after falling ill.
But he now says he has fully recovered and has made frequent public appearances over the past month. The official announcement of the special parliamentary session does not mention Mr Castro by name, or say who will be speaking.
In recent speeches Fidel Castro has warned against what he sees as the danger of imminent nuclear war involving the United States, Israel, Iran and North Korea. On Tuesday he made a direct appeal for world peace to US President Barack Obama. "You should know that it is in your hands to offer humanity the only realistic possibility of peace," he said.
Mr Castro's apparent recovery has surprised many in Cuba, and fuelled speculation that he may once again be exerting a strong influence on government policy. Supporters of reform fear he may be blocking reforms aimed at reviving the communist island's struggling economy. But he has not so far appeared alongside his brother, Raul, and has not yet commented on domestic affairs. For his part, Raul Castro, 79, has dismissed any suggestion that there is a divide in the communist party leadership over the direction of policy. Fidel Castro to release memoirs
Fidel's timely TV interview
Cuba's ex-leader Castro 'strong'
Fidel: | Famous Person - Give a speech | August 2010 | ['(The Daily Telegraph)', '(BBC)', '(The Star)'] |
In U.S. college basketball, Wichita State defeats Indiana State 83–69 to win the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament, becoming the first Division I men's team to enter the NCAA Tournament unbeaten since UNLV in 1991. | Cleanthony Early (11) and Wichita State toughed out a strong MVC title win over Indiana State. (Dilip Vishwanat/Getty Images)
For the first time since 1991, a team will enter the NCAA tournament with an unblemished record. That team, the UNLV Runnin’ Rebels, has gone down in history as one of the best not to win the national championship. For this year’s Wichita State Shockers, the end to their story remains unwritten.
The Shockers moved to 34-0 and wrapped up a perfect regular and conference season by knocking off Indiana State, 83-69, in the Missouri Valley Conference tournament championship. It was their first conference tournament championship since 1987.
Fred VanVleet, the conference player of the year, led the way with 22 points on 9-of-14 shooting. Tekele Cotton had 20 points and drained four of his six attempts from behind the arc. The Sycamores hung with the Shockers for most of the game, and trailed by just four points with 13 minutes left in the game. After that, however, Wichita State went on a 21-7 run over the next seven minutes to take control of the game.
With the win, the Shockers almost certainly locked up one of the four No. 1 seeds in the tournament. They still have their doubters, thanks primarily to a strength of schedule that ranks 102nd in the country. Their season to this point has been a major accomplishment, but the questions are valid. They have just one win over a team that is a lock for the tournament, a road victory over a Saint Louis team that has really struggled down the stretch. They have two other wins against top-50 RPI teams, but both of this victims — BYU and Tennessee — could end up in the NIT. Is that a better resume than, say Wisconsin’s, which boasts eight wins over teams in the top 50? Or what about Kansas, a team that has lost eight times but has 12 top-50 wins and 17 top-100 wins? That debate will rage until Selection Sunday, and may continue until the tournament starts.
Wichita State probably won’t win over its critics unless it makes a trip to Dallas at the end of the month. That UNLV team of 1990-91 likely doesn’t take any solace in being remembered as one of the best non-champions ever. History won’t even be that kind to the Shockers if they come up short over the next three weeks.
How far they go this year depends on who else is seeded in their bracket. It all feel together for them last year, with strong teams eliminating each other. Put a Duke or Kansas in their bracket and they won't be going to the Final Four again.
Who is this team gonna play next? The Globetrotters?
Strength of Schedule would ordinarily be a solid argument against Wichita State, but they went to the Final Four last year. I'm pretty sure that dismisses that argument.
If people don't think Wichita State is a strong team, they haven't been paying attention.
Wichita State is this year's Gonzaga. Until they reach the championship and win they will be perceived as a circus act, sideshow. Their SoS pretty much sums up why the skeptics doubt them. Michael Beller doesn't know what makes a team of "mutts", (as the Shockers have been described recently by some critic/analysts) win 34 games out of 34. Regardless of the "calibre" or "quality" of any of their opponents, and many were formidable, he has no clue as to the guts, desire, and resolve it takes team-wide to win every time they take the court. RPI not withstanding, I hope he has played organized basketball at some point in his life to give him a less jaded view of some intangibles that the Shockers demonstrate game after game. They care about winning, but not at the expense of respect and unselfish attitude toward each other and all their opponents.
All due respect Mr. Beller, you are missing the point. Winning is a demonstration of confidence, skill, and a love of the game. They are enjoying what they are doing, and it shows. Can't you see it??
@clt0002 They never make national TV playing their schedule. How can you blame the public for not paying attention?
@MrArlington I'm confused. When has Gonzaga reached the championship, or even the Final 4? You apparently didn't watch last year's tourney.
@MrArlington Did you see what they did last year? I know it shouldn't have any bearing on what's happening this year but WSU has more than proved its worth.
@rmcginnis456 @MrArlingtonReaching the Final 4 means nothing. It is often times dependent on luck and who is in your bracket. Until you win the NC as a #1 seed that you get taken seriously .
@clt0002 @MrArlingtonWho say's it was anything other than a fluke last year. It is not a surprise that teams of their caliber never WIN the NC. You can win a few games but it is no surprise that teams like Wichita State (despite their high seed) never win the NC.
Coastal Carolina, Mercer end long tournament droughts Going Dancing: Every team receiving an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament Wichita State reigns as MVC champions, finishes regular season at 34-0 Maryland upsets No. 5 Virginia in Terps' final ACC regular season game No. 10 San Diego State tops No. 21 New Mexico for Mountain West crown Get SI’s Latest | Sports Competition | March 2014 | ['(Sports Illustrated)'] |
Israel announces that it will ban Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip from entering Israel during the upcoming Purim holiday. (People's Daily) | Israel is imposing a full closure on the West Bank and Gaza Strip starting Wednesday morning to secure Purim festivities, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz declared Tuesday. As a result of the closure, which will last until Sunday,Palestinian workers and merchants in the territories will not be able to enter Israel. In the meantime, Israeli defence ministry had finalized its security plan during the festive period, including reinforcing police patrol at sensitive sites. Purim, a holiday of costumes and merry-making that celebrates the salvation of the Jews in Persia during the Second Temple period, takes place on Thursday night and Friday and lasts through Sunday in Jerusalem. Purim celebrations have previously been the targets of Palestinian attacks. Earlier Tuesday, Brigadier General Yossi Kuperwasser told the Knesset (parliament) Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that the Palestinian National Authority security forces are foiling just asmany terror attacks as Israeli forces are since the Egypt's Sharmel-Sheikh summit. | Government Policy Changes | March 2005 | ['(RTE)'] |
Wu Shuchen, the wife of the President of the Republic of China, is indicted on corruption charges by Taiwan prosecutors. President Chen Shuibian is not indicted due to presidential immunity, but prosecutors say he will be charged once he is no longer president. | They have filed corruption charges against first lady Wu Shu-chen and three former presidential aides over the alleged misuse of state funds.
Taiwan's opposition immediately called for the president's resignation.
President Chen has been undermined by a series of scandals involving his family and his office in recent months.
He has already survived two opposition attempts, including one last month, to remove him from office. The ruling Democratic Progressive Party said it was meeting on Friday evening to discuss the latest developments.
The charges relate to the handling of a secret presidential fund used for diplomatic work overseas. Officials say around US$500,000 could not be properly accounted for.
During the four-month investigation, officials looked at six separate cases involving the use of the fund. They said the president's explanation for two were verified, but three were questionable and one was described as pure fiction.
SCANDAL TIMELINE
March 2004: President Chen narrowly wins re-election
May 2006: President's son-in-law held over insider trading claims. Charged in July
Allegations of improper conduct involving Chen's wife and senior aides also surface
June: Chen cedes some powers to PM amid outcry
Unprecedented opposition motion to oust him, which fails
September: Two weeks of pro and anti-Chen marches
Opposition launch new bid to recall Chen. Again fails
October: Wu Shu-chen cleared of accepting shop vouchers in return for influence
November: Wu Shu-chen charged with corruption over handling of secret presidential funds
Prosecutors say enough evidence to indict Chen, but he is protected by presidential immunity
The Public Prosecutor's Office of the Taiwan High Court announced on Friday it was filing charges of embezzlement and forgery of documents against Wu Shu-chen.
"Prosecutors found that Wu and three other suspects jointly claimed 14.8m Taiwan dollars (US$448,484) with false receipts... between July 2002 and March 2006," Chang Wen-cheng, of the prosecutor's office, said.
The first lady has previously denied any wrongdoing.
"Evidence also showed Chen is suspected of graft and forgery... but since he is protected by constitution against criminal charges, he can only be prosecuted after he leaves office," Mr Chang said.
Undermined
Ma Ying-jeou, of the opposition Nationalist Party, said Mr Chen must resign as soon as possible.
"He has lost the people's trust and respect, and as he is burdened with scandals, he can no longer lead the people nor effectively represent the country," he said. There was no immediate comment from the presidential office.
President Chen has been facing growing calls for his resignation in recent months over the scandals to hit his family and office.
Last month, Wu Shu-chen was cleared of accepting vouchers from a department store in return for her influence.
In May, her son-in-law, Chao Chien-ming, was arrested and later charged with insider trading. Mr Chen, whose term of office is due to run until 2008, has apologised for the scandals and did cede some powers to Prime Minister Su Tseng-chang in June to placate his critics, but has refused to resign. The scandals have brought tens of thousands of people - both supporters and opponents of the president - out on to the streets to voice their views. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | November 2006 | ['(BBC)'] |
A trial for the murder of Janelle Patton on Norfolk Island starts with the defendant pleading not guilty. The murder was the first on the island for 150 years. | Glenn McNeill, a former chef, pleaded not guilty to charges of murdering 29-year-old Australian restaurant manager Janelle Patton.
Patton was found stabbed to death on the Pacific island in March 2002. The murder shocked the community of 1,800 people - many of whom are descendants of the mutineers on the British warship The Bounty.
The community is so closely-knit that the judge at McNeill's trial decided to close the court to the media and public while it heard legal arguments and began selecting a 12-person jury.
"Given the circumstances on the island, the fact that virtually everybody knows everybody, there would be a risk that a potential member of the jury might hear something that they ought not to hear," Judge Mark Weinberg told reporters.
McNeill was arrested last February at his home in Nelson, on New Zealand's South Island. He is accused of killing Patton and leaving her body with broken bones and stab wounds near a local waterfall.
He faces a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. Norfolk Island is an Australian territory situated about 1,900 km (1,180 miles) north-east of Sydney. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | February 2007 | ['(BBC)'] |
Russia's FSB state security agency says it has arrested a U.S. citizen "caught spying" in Moscow. According to former CIA officials the arrest was done as a retaliation for the arrest of alleged Russian spy Maria Butina. | Russia's FSB state security agency says it has arrested a US citizen "caught spying" in Moscow. It named him as Paul Whelan, saying he was arrested in Moscow on 28 December and charged with "espionage".
The FSB gave no further details. The US state department says it has requested consular access for the man held in Moscow, Reuters news agency reports. The US has not confirmed his name, but says it has been officially notified about the arrest.
If found guilty, he faces between 10 and 20 years in jail, Russia's Tass news agency reports. Spying accusations have been a persistent feature of Russia's relations with the US and UK this year. Associates of President Donald Trump are under investigation in connection with Robert Mueller's special counsel inquiry into possible Russian ties to the Trump presidential campaign.
Earlier this month a Russian gun rights activist held in the US, Maria Butina, pleaded guilty to conspiracy. US prosecutors say she acted as a Russian state agent, infiltrating conservative political groups.
In March the UK and its Western allies expelled more than 100 Russian diplomats, in response to the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury. The UK government accused the Russian state of carrying out the nerve agent attack.
Russia denied this and retaliated by expelling dozens of Western diplomats.
| Famous Person - Commit Crime - Arrest | December 2018 | ['(BBC)', '(Daily Beast)'] |
The Ugandan army announces it has killed Bok Abudema, a senior member of the Lord's Resistance Army, in the Central African Republic. | The Ugandan army says that it has killed a senior commander of the Lord's Resistance Army militant group in the Central African Republic (CAR).
Bok Abudema was killed on Friday along with one of his fighters, while two women found with them were freed, an army spokesman told the BBC. The army said LRA leader Joseph Kony was moving between the CAR and Sudan. Ugandan forces have been operating outside the country's borders for a year in a campaign to destroy the LRA. They have been deployed in northern Democratic Republic Congo and southern Sudan as well as the CAR to track down the LRA, which once operated in northern Uganda. Army spokesman Lt Col Felix Kulayigye said that Mr Kony was moving between the CAR, Darfur and southern Sudan in order to escape Ugandan army patrols. Bok Abudema is only one of a number of senior LRA commanders who have been cornered and killed, says the BBC's Africa editor, Martin Plaut. Others have surrendered but the LRA is scattered across a remote region of dense forests and swamps, savannah and deserts - ideal territory for guerrilla operations, our editor says. Last month the UN human rights commissioner, Navi Pillay, demanded the capture of LRA leaders for crimes against humanity and gave details of the killings, torture and rape of hundreds of civilians by the rebels. She accused the movement of killing at least 1,200 civilians between September 2008 and June 2009. What are these? | Famous Person - Death | January 2010 | ['(AFP)', '(BBC)'] |
At least 40 people are killed by paramilitary forces in eastern Ethiopia, in the latest spate of violence driven by ethnic divisions. | ADDIS ABABA - At least 40 people were killed by paramilitary forces in eastern Ethiopia over the weekend, a senior regional official said on Monday, in the latest spate of violence driven by ethnic divisions.
Unrest first broke out along the border of the country's Somali and Oromiya provinces in September, displacing nearly a million people, though the violence had subsided by April.
On Monday, the Oromiya regional administration's spokesman Negeri Lencho said heavily armed members of a paramilitary force from the Somali region had carried out cross-border attacks in Oromiya's East Hararghe district.
"We still do not know why Liyu forces raided the areas on Saturday and Sunday," he said, referring to the paramilitary soldiers. "But we know that all the victims were ethnic Oromos. At least 40 were killed in the attacks."
A week earlier, mobs looted properties owned by ethnic minorities in the Somali region's capital Jijiga. The central government said the unrest had been stoked by regional officials who had fallen out with central authorities trying to address rights abuses in the region.
The spokesman said the officials had said the government was illegally forcing them to resign, and that Liyu forces had taken part in the attacks under their orders.
The forces are seen as loyal to the region's leader Abdi Mohammed Omer, who has since resigned.
Authorities in the Somali region were not immediately available for comment.
Ethnic violence has spread in the diverse country of 100 million people, where anti-government protests broke out in the Oromiya region over land rights in 2015. Hundreds were killed by security forces over a two-year period.
The violence is the biggest domestic challenge facing reformist prime minister Abiy Ahmed, who took office in April.
In a separate incident, a stampede among thousands who attended a visit by a prominent political activist in the town of Shashemene killed three people on Sunday, officials from the Oromiya regional government said.
The event was held to mark the return to Ethiopia of Jawar Mohammed, an activist who had been in exile in the United States but played a key role in mobilizing Oromo youths through social media.
Amid the chaos, another person was beaten to death by a mob after rumors circulated he had carried a bomb, residents said.
"Police did not take action while all that took place," the witness told Reuters. "It is an example of the lawlessness that is taking root in the country." | Riot | August 2018 | ['(Voa News)'] |
Thailand is preparing for the December 1, 2016, ascension of Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn to the throne, according to senior military sources. | BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand is making preparations for Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn to ascend the throne on Dec. 1, two senior military sources with knowledge of the matter said.
The death of King Bhumibol Adulyadej on Oct. 13 at the age of 88 has plunged the Southeast Asian nation of 67 million people into a year of mourning.
News of the December timeframe follows the prince’s departure for Germany at the weekend where he had personal business to attend to, one senior military source told Reuters, adding that the prince would return in November.
“We are making preparations. Everything is being prepared for Dec. 1,” said another senior military source who declined to be identified. “But this timeframe also depends on His Royal Highness.”
Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha had said the prince’s formal ascension could be within seven to 15 days of the king’s death, or later.
Speaking on behalf of the prince hours after King Bhumibol’s death, Prayuth said the prince wanted to grieve with the people and leave the formal succession until later, when parliament will invite him to ascend the throne.
His formal coronation, however, cannot take place until after the king’s cremation in a year’s time.
Prem Tinsulanonda, 96, who was head of the powerful Privy Council and is known as the face of Thailand’s traditional establishment, is acting as regent until the new king is named.
Thailand’s strict lese-majeste laws have left little room for public discussion about the succession. The laws have also severely curbed public discussion about the prince, who does not enjoy the same level of public support as his father.
Thailand has weathered more than a decade of political upheaval that has pitted the royalist-military establishment against populist political forces.
The latest chapter was a May 2014 military coup which removed the government of prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra and which the military said it carried out to end Thailand’s cycle of political instability.
Kan Yuenyong, executive director of the Siam Intelligence Unit think-tank, said he did not foresee any political violence over the next year but added that political divisions would resurface if the succession did not go smoothly.
“Political tensions might warm up again and struggles could follow,” he said.
Thailand’s baht has slid 0.9 percent throughout October amid concern the king’s death may increase political uncertainties and hurt economic activity in the near term.
Reporting by Amy Sawitta Lefevre; Editing by Bill Tarrant, Robert Birsel
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 | Government Job change - Appoint_Inauguration | November 2016 | ['(BBC)', '(Reuters)'] |
Northern Ireland Police have charged Marian Price with encouraging support for an illegal organisation following a recent dissident republican rally in Derry. Price, who is secretary of the 32 County Sovereignty Movement, was jailed for her part in the bombing of the Old Bailey in the 1970s. | A woman has been charged with encouraging support for an illegal organisation following a dissident rally in Londonderry. Marian Price, 57, is secretary of the 32 County Sovereignty Movement, a political group linked to the Real IRA.
At the rally a man read a statement saying dissident republicans would target more police officers.
Ms Price was jailed for the IRA bombing of the Old Bailey in the 1970s, and is due in court on Monday. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Arrest | May 2011 | ['(BBC)'] |
The Brazilian presidential election heads for a second round, with Dilma Rousseff polling most votes. | Brazil's presidential election will go to a second round after Dilma Rousseff failed to gain the 50% of votes needed for an outright victory.
With 98% of votes counted, President Lula's former cabinet chief has 47% with Jose Serra trailing on 33%.
The two will contest a run-off vote in four weeks' time. A strong showing by the Green Party candidate, Marina Silva, who polled 19%, may have cost Ms Rousseff a first-round win.
"We can confirm there will be a second round in the presidential elections," Ricardo Lewandowski, the president of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, told reporters in Brasilia late on Sunday. Workers Party candidate Dilma Rousseff is the favoured successor to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who has completed two terms, and cannot run for a third.
"We are warriors, and we are accustomed to challenges," she said in a speech in Brasilia after the result was announced. "We do well in second rounds."
Ms Rousseff was the front runner for much of the campaign and benefited from Lula's widespread popularity and the country's booming economy.
Many analysts believe a scandal involving her directly would be the only scenario under which she could lose a runoff. "This is an electoral climate that favours the incumbent party," political analyst Luiz Piva told the Reuters news agency. "Brazilians are generally very happy with their government."
Centre-left candidate Jose Serra, the Social Democratic former governor of Sao Paulo state, had seen a boost in his support after corruption allegations surfaced involving a former aide of Ms Rousseff.
But Ms Silva seems to also have benefited. The third-place candidate's 19% share of the ballots was far higher than the 14% forecast for her. "We defended a victorious idea and Brazil heard our cry," Ms Silva said in reaction to the result. Brazil, one of the world's most populous democracies, was also choosing local and national representatives. Voting is compulsory in Brazil, with results coming quickly, thanks to Brazil's electronic voting system.
Ms Rousseff, 62, served as Lula's chief of staff from 2005 until this year, and is a career civil servant. Her run for the presidency is her first attempt at elected office.
During the 1960s and 1970s she was involved in the armed struggle against Brazil's military rulers, and was jailed for three years.
The 68-year-old Mr Serra is hugely experienced, having served as Sao Paulo mayor, Sao Paulo state governor and health minister under President Fernando Henrique Cardoso Mr Lula's predecessor. He lost the presidential election in a run-off to Mr Lula in 2002. | Government Job change - Election | October 2010 | ['(BBC)'] |
A strike by thousands of pilots at Lufthansa, one of the world's largest airlines, is suspended with negotiations expected to resume. | A strike by about 4,000 pilots at German airline Lufthansa has been suspended - with union officials agreeing to resume negotiations.
The action - which had been scheduled to run for four days - was called off after less than 24 hours of delays and cancellations for passengers. The pilots had walked out at Lufthansa, Lufthansa Cargo and Germanwings over job security and pay issues. There will be no further action until at least March 9, the union said. A spokesman for the Cockpit union added the two sides had reached an agreement after a two-hour long hearing at a Frankfurt industrial court. 'Disproportionate'
However the strike has already disrupted an estimated 10,000 passengers around the world, with the carrier trying to arrange alternative travel for them. It had been offering train journeys to domestic air travellers, and attempting to rebook international passengers on other airlines. The airline normally offers about 1,800 flights daily - of which 160 are long-haul trips. A Lufthansa spokeswoman said that about 960 flights had managed to go ahead. The strike will be officially lifted at midnight on Monday (2300GMT) - but it is not clear when services will return to normal. Lufthansa's earlier offer of negotiations with the pilots was not initially taken up on Sunday before the strike began.
Earlier a Lufthansa spokeswoman told the Associated Press that an injunction had been filed in Frankfurt, saying the action was "disproportionate". 'Unfounded'
German Transport Minister Peter Ramsauer had warned that the strike would hurt the country's economy as well as Lufthansa's reputation. The airline - one of the world's largest - feared the action could cost it about 25m euros (£21.9m; $34m) per day. The Cockpit union had arranged the action amid concerns the airline was increasingly relying on foreign pilots who fly for less pay. It is worried that the company could try to cut staff costs by shifting jobs to foreign subsidiaries such as Austrian Airlines or Lufthansa Italia, where wages are lower. The starting salary for a first officer in a Lufthansa cockpit is 62,000 euros, and 115,000 euros for a captain, according to the company's recruiting website. Media reports say pilots' salaries can rise up to about 325,000 euros. Cockpit has called for a 6.4% pay rise for pilots, more say in company decisions and commitments that pilots would keep their jobs when Lufthansa moves passengers to cheaper foreign affiliates. But Andreas Bartels from the airline told the BBC the pilots' fear that their jobs would be outsourced was unfounded. "That's what they fear but that's not reality. If you look to the reality, it's nothing like replacing or transferring jobs to other companies or other airlines [in] the Lufthansa airline system," he said. Last-minute failure
Like most other global airlines, Lufthansa has struggled in the downturn. Sales slumped 13% in the first nine months of 2009. As well as suffering from the more recent drop in consumer demand, the airline has also been facing the long-running threats posed by low-cost airlines and high fuel costs. The UK's flagship carrier British Airways has also been locked in a dispute with cabin crew over pay and changes to working conditions. Members of the Unite union voted overwhelmingly on Monday to take action - but did not immediately announce strike dates saying they hoped to negotiate with BA In France, air traffic controllers are planning a four-day strike at Paris' Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports. Unions have called for the strike from Tuesday to Friday in protest at plans to integrate European air traffic control, fearing it would lead to a loss of French jobs and civil servant benefits. What are these? | Strike | February 2010 | ['(BBC)'] |
Saudi Arabia reports eight more deaths and 16 more cases in the latest outbreak of the disease. | RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) Saudi Arabia's Health Ministry said Sunday that eight more people have died after contracting a lethal Middle East virus related to SARS as the kingdom grapples with a rising number of infections.
The ministry reported the deaths in a statement on its website late in the evening. It said it had detected a total of 16 cases of the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus over the past 24 hours.
The latest cases bring to 102 the number of people who have died after contracting the disease in Saudi Arabia since September 2012. A total of 339 cases have been recorded to date in the kingdom, which has been the site of the bulk of confirmed infections.
Among the latest dead were a child in the capital, Riyadh, and three people in the western city of Jiddah, which has seen a spike in infections in recent weeks. The ministry also reported confirmed cases in the city of Tabuk, near the border with Jordan.
On Saturday, the ministry reported that a Saudi man died in Riyadh and another in Jiddah.
Egyptian authorities on Saturday said officials there had detected the country's first confirmed infection in a 27-year-old civil engineer who recently returned from Saudi Arabia.
Other Mideast countries that have past reported cases of infection include Jordan, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar. A small number of cases have been diagnosed in Europe and Asia.
MERS belongs to the coronavirus family that includes the common cold and SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, which caused some 800 deaths globally in 2003.
There is no vaccine or cure for MERS, though not all those who contract the virus become ill. It is still unclear how it is transmitted.
| Disease Outbreaks | April 2014 | ['(AP via Yahoo! News)'] |
The United Nations says that they have discovered a mass grave containing 75 bodies in Unity State, and two other mass graves have been reported in Juba. | United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNAMIS) personnel guard South Sudanese people displaced by recent fighting in Jabel, on the outskirts of capital Juba. Photograph: James Akena/Reuters.
A mass grave containing some 75 bodies has been found in South Sudan’s Unity State and two other mass graves have been reported in Juba after ethnic violence, the United Nations said.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay today called on both sides to protect civilians and warned that political and military leaders could be held to account for crimes.
“Mass extrajudicial killings, the targeting of individuals on the basis of their ethnicity and arbitrary detentions have been documented in recent days,” Pillay said in a statement. “We have discovered a mass grave in Bentiu, in Unity State, and there are reportedly at least two other mass graves in Juba.”
A spokeswoman said that the bodies of 75 soldiers of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army were believed to be in the mass grave in Bentiu visited by UN rights officers.
UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon yesterday sought to nearly double the size of the UN peacekeeping force in South Sudan, as rebel leader Riek Machar and president Salva Kiir both indicated they were ready to talk to try to end a deepening conflict that has killed hundreds of people.
A government official, however, said South Sudan would not meet Mr Machar’s demand that detained opposition leaders be released.
Mr Ban asked the UN Security Council to send 5,500 more peacekeepers to South Sudan as soon as possible to protect civilians from the growing violence in the world’s newest country. There are now some 6,700 UN troops and 670 police officers making up the UN force in South Sudan.
Mr Ban told reporters earlier that some 45,000 civilians were seeking protection at UN bases in South Sudan.
Speaking from “the bush,” Mr Machar told Reuters he had spoken to US national security adviser Susan Rice and UN envoy Hilde Johnson about trying to end fighting that has killed hundreds of people and driven thousands from their homes.
“My message was let Salva Kiir release my comrades who are under detention and let them be evacuated to Addis Ababa and we can start dialogue straightaway, because these are the people who would (handle) dialogue,” he said by telephone.
Among those Mr Machar listed should be released were Pagan Amum, chief negotiator during the recent oil shutdown with Sudan, which hosts the sole oil export pipeline; and Rebecca de Mabior, the widow of former South Sudanese leader John Garang. “They are criminals who must be brought to the books, so there is no way we can negotiate with (Machar),” information minister Michael Makeui said. “We are only ready to negotiate with him unconditionally.”
He dismissed Mr Machar’s suggestion that the peace talks be held in Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, insisting they take place in Juba.
| Armed Conflict | December 2013 | ['(Irish Times)'] |
Indonesia's former anti–corruption chief Antasari Azhar is sentenced to 18 years for the murder of a businessman. | Former Corruption Eradication Commission chief Antasari Azhar, accompanied by his daughters Dita (center) and Ajeng, takes his lunch Thursday on the sidelines of his sentencing in a murder trial at South Jakarta District Court.
A court has found former antigraft chief Antasari Azhar guilty of masterminding the murder of businessman Nasruddin Zulkarnaen, dismissing speculation of a political plot during the trial. He was sentenced to 18 years in prison on Thursday, the same as an earlier verdict given to one of the five hitmen in the same case. The court ruled there were no considerations in favor of Antasari, for whom prosecutors had sought the death sentence. Earlier the South Jakarta District Court also sentenced three other defendan... | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Sentence | February 2010 | ['(Jakarta Post)', '(CNN)'] |
In tennis, world number one Novak Djokovic defeats Alexandr Dolgopolov at the 2012 Monte–Carlo Masters in Roquebrune–Cap–Martin, hours after his grandfather, who provided refuge for the Djokovic family in his Belgrade apartment during the 1999 NATO bombing raids, dies. | Last updated on 19 April 201219 April 2012.From the section Tennis
Novak Djokovic is into the Monte Carlo Masters last eight despite suffering the loss of his grandfather just hours before playing Alexandr Dolgopolov.
World number one Djokovic overcame his Ukrainian opponent 2-6 6-1 6-4 after turning the match around with a break and gutsy hold early in the second set.
The Serbian was crying as he left the court to thunderous applause.
Rafael Nadal cruised through his third-round match against Mikhail Kukushkin in just over an hour, winning 6-1 6-1. Elsewhere France's Jo-Wilfried Tsonga beat Fernando Verdasco 7-6 (9-7) 6-2 to also reach the quarter-finals.
Djokovic, who will play Robin Haase next after the Dutchman's 6-2 6-3 win over Thomaz Bellucci, was understandably distracted in the opening set of his match.
His grandfather Vladimir provided refuge for the Djokovic family in his Belgrade apartment during the Nato bombing raids on Serbia in 1999 and Djokovic has spoken of the influence he has had on his career.
The 24-year-old did not attend the usual media conference after his win with world tour organisers, the ATP, explaining that he "just felt totally exhausted physically, mentally and emotionally".
The first set slipped away from Djokovic as his groundstrokes sprayed long and wide, but he showed resolve at the start of the second set, breaking before clawing his way back from 0-40 adrift to cement his advantage at 3-0. After being swept away as Djokovic drew level in the match, Dolgopolov stayed in pursuit of an upset deep into the decider.
The 23-year-old held to love in the seventh game as the players traded serve, but was eventually unpicked by Djokovic in the match's penultimate game.
An obviously emotional Djokovic looked to the skies after nervelessly serving out for victory.
Second seed Nadal, chasing an eighth successive title at the event, enjoyed a far easier day as he lost just 22 points in beating Kazhakstan's Kukushkin.
The Spaniard is playing his first tournament since a recurrence of his knee problems forced him to withdraw from his semi-final against Andy Murray in Miami on 1 April.
Nadal will next face Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland for a place in the semi-finals.
"The match started in the perfect way," said Nadal, who improved his career record in Monte Carlo to 41-1, his only defeat coming against Guillermo Coria in the third round in 2003.
"I played much better than yesterday, in my opinion. More aggressive, more solid. My serve was much better. The return, too." Fourth seed Tsonga edged a first-set tie-break against Verdasco, after saving two set points, before racing away in the second to set up a meeting with fellow Frenchman Gilles Simon. | Sports Competition | April 2012 | ['(BBC)'] |
Three former aides to former Governor of New York Eliot Spitzer and the former head of the New York State Police are charged with ethics violations over improper use of travel records of former Republican New York State Senate majority leader Joseph Bruno. | Three former aides to ex-Gov. Eliot Spitzer and the former head of the state police were charged with ethics violations Thursday over travel records released to discredit a political rival, a scandal that consumed Spitzer's administration before it was wrecked by another involving a prostitute.
Spitzer himself was not charged. The state Public Integrity Commission harshly criticized the Democrat, saying he reneged on public promises to cooperate fully in the investigation, but said it did not have enough evidence to charge him over the misuse of travel records concerning then-Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, a Republican.
The commission found former Spitzer aides Darren Dopp, Richard Baum and William Howard and former state police head Preston Felton conspired to smear Bruno by releasing his travel records to a reporter. At issue were trips by Bruno in May and June 2007 to New York City on days he met with lobbyists and attended Republican fundraisers.
Felton, who was acting state police superintendent and had been appointed by Spitzer, faces two ethics violations that could each carry a $10,000 fine. Now retired, he is accused of working with Dopp, then Spitzer's communications director, to compile and in some cases re-create records of Bruno's travel on state aircraft operated by state police.
Dopp is accused of one violation of the code of ethics in the Public Officers Law. Baum, Spitzer's former secretary, and Howard, formerly a top public security aide, settled their cases by accepting charges that carry no penalty. None of those accused remain in state government.
The commission, created as part of Spitzer's early government reforms, found Dopp and Felton used the state police to serve Spitzer's and their own interests in a way that compromised the agency.
"Such misconduct erodes public confidence in the integrity and independence of the state police," the commission stated. Spitzer appointed the majority of its members.
By not charging Spitzer, the commission drew sharp criticism from former Ethics Commission Executive Director David Grandeau, whose panel was replaced by the Public Integrity Commission.
"The whitewash is continuing," Grandeau said Thursday. "It's been a year of making sure Eliot doesn't get blamed."
A spokeswoman for Spitzer said the report "makes clear there is no evidence that he violated the Public Officers Law."
"Indeed the report confirms what Governor Spitzer has said throughout: that he understood the information to be public and accordingly its release was proper and obligatory. He is saddened by the toll this investigation has taken on public servants who were simply trying to do their jobs," Brandy Bergman said in a written statement.
Spitzer resigned March 17 of this year after he was identified in a federal prostitution investigation. He has not been charged in that investigation, which is continuing.
Dopp didn't immediately respond to requests for comment. Howard declined to comment. Felton had no published telephone number and couldn't immediately be reached for comment.
Baum's attorney, Steven Reich, said in a written statement that his clien't settlement "allows Rich to avoid lengthy and expensive legal proceedings and move on to a new chapter in his life."
The commission said evidence shows Baum "received (and ignored) e-mail communications" that showed there was a plot to generate negative publicity about Bruno to Spitzer's benefit, even though the governor's aides had already concluded Bruno wasn't violating state policy on the use of state aircraft.
Dopp and Felton could request a public hearing to contest the findings. If more evidence comes out of those hearings, more charges could be brought, possibly against Spitzer, the commission said.
Dopp and the other aides had insisted they were following the legitimate request of an Albany Times Union reporter for public information.
In his testimony to the commission, Dopp "does not indicate Spitzer ordered the documents' release, but instead states Spitzer said the documents had to be released because according to Dopp they were public documents."
"According to Dopp, Spitzer and Baum relied on Dopp's judgment that the documents were public documents subject to disclosure," according to the report.
Of Spitzer, the commission said that failing to supervise subordinates was not in itself a violation. "Similarly, the release of information or documents to the media about a political opponent, without knowledge that such information was confidential or improperly compiled or created ... does not violate the Public Officers Law," the panel wrote.
The commission, however, criticized the Spitzer administration for claiming executive privilege and seeking to withhold 109 documents "without legitimate basis."
The report also complained that the executive chamber created "numerous improper obstacles" to the investigation by withholding documents and gradually releasing information over 10 months.
In 2007, state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's investigation of the case found improper conduct by Spitzer aides, but no crime. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | July 2008 | ['(AP via Google News)'] |
Voters re-elect Michael D. Higgins as President of Ireland and vote to remove the offense of blasphemy from the Constitution, with winning margins of over 30% in both votes, according to exit polls. | Ireland has voted to remove the crime of blasphemy from its constitution by a significant majority, according to exit polls.
The national broadcaster, RTÉ, suggested that just over 71% had voted yes on the question of whether or not to repeal the constitutional ban. The Irish Times poll predicted that 69% had backed the proposal.
Official counting of the votes beings on Saturday.
The blasphemy referendum was held alongside a presidential election, in which exit polls suggested the incumbent, Michael D Higgins, had won by a landslide.
Should the referendum figures be confirmed, the move would be the latest sign of the weakening of religious conservatism in the country.
The last prosecution for blasphemy in Ireland was in 1855, but three years ago Irish police investigated comments made by Stephen Fry on television in which the comedian described God as “capricious”, “mean-minded”, and an “utter maniac”. The investigation was later dropped after police decided insufficient numbers of people had been outraged.
Ireland voted to allow same-sex marriage in 2015, and nearly two-thirds of Irish voters backed the repeal of the country’s abortion ban in May this year, leading the taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, to proclaim the “culmination of a quiet revolution for the past 10 or 20 years”.
An RTÉ exit poll on the presidential election suggested Higgins had secured more than 56% of the vote. The results put the controversial businessman and former Irish Dragons’ Den investor, Peter Casey, in second with about 20% of the first-preference vote. It means Higgins is likely to be easily re-elected for a second seven-year term on the first count.
The results also indicate that the Sinn Fein MEP Liadh Ni Riada received 7.4% of the vote, senator Joan Freeman 6.3%, the businessman and former Dragons’ Den panellist Sean Gallagher 5.5% and businessman Gavin Duffy 2%.
The Irish Times poll, conducted by Ipsos/MRBI, questioned more than 4,300 voters outside 160 polling stations across the country. It produced broadly similar projections.
The results of both polls were published at 10pm as polling stations closedMore than 3.2 million people were entitled to vote in 40 constituencies across the country.
Opinion polls throughout the campaign consistently placed Higgins as the favourite, despite being plagued by questions over presidential expenses.If re-elected, the 77-year old will become the fifth Irish president to serve for two terms. | Government Job change - Election | October 2018 | ['(The Guardian)', '(BBC)'] |
Former First Lady of the U.S. Nancy Reagan dies at age 94. | Follow NBC News Nancy Reagan, one of the most high-profile and influential first ladies of the 20th century, has died. She was 94.
The cause of death was congestive heart failure, according to her rep Joanne Drake, a spokeswoman with the Reagan Library.
Photo Gallery: Nancy Reagan's Life From Hollywood to the White House
"Mrs. Reagan will be buried at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, next to her husband, Ronald Wilson Reagan, who died on June 5, 2004," Drake wrote in a statement.
"Prior to the funeral service, there will be an opportunity for members of the public to pay their respects at the Library."
"It is a very sad day," former Ronald Reagan Chief of Staff Ken Duberstein told NBC News. "Every time she was in the room, he was better, and every time he was in the room she was better. She brought a sense of class and dignity and elegance that everybody admired."
Her step-son Michael Reagan posted on Facebook: "She is once again with the man she loved. God Bless."
Related: Condolences Pour in for 'Tower of Strength' First Lady
"We remain grateful for Nancy Reagan's life, thankful for her guidance, and prayerful that she and her beloved husband are together again," President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama said in a statement.
Barbara Bush, another influential former first lady, said in a statement: "Nancy Reagan was totally devoted to President Reagan, and we take comfort that they will be reunited once more. George and I send our prayers and condolences to her family."
Reagan was a Girl Scout and named honorary president of the Girl Scouts as first lady. The Girl Scouts of America said in a statement that Reagan would be remembered for her "courage, confidence and character."
In lieu of flowers, Mrs. Reagan asked that contributions be made to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Foundation at www.reaganlibrary.com, Drake said.
Nancy Reagan was born in New York City and when she was six her mother, Edith, a stage actress, married Dr. Loyal Davis, a neurosurgeon. The doctor adopted Nancy and she grew up in Chicago. She later attended Smith College in Massachusetts, where she majored in theater.
Reagan was an actress when she met Ronald Reagan in the early 1950s, then an actor and president of the Screen Actors Guild, according to a White House bio.
She needed to talk to him because her name had been wrongly included on a published list of suspected communist sympathizers. They discussed it over dinner, and she later wrote that she realized on that first blind date "he was everything that I wanted."
They wed on March 4, 1952. Daughter Patti was born in October of that year and son Ron followed in 1958. Reagan already had a daughter, Maureen, and an adopted son, Michael, from his marriage to actress Jane Wyman.
Their marriage lasted 52 years, until Ronald Reagan's death in 2004.
While Ronald Reagan was governor of California from 1967 to 1975, Nancy Reagan worked with numerous charitable groups, and spent hours visiting veterans, the elderly, and the emotionally and physically handicapped.
"The movies were custard compared to politics," Mrs. Reagan once said.
When her husband became president of the United States, First Lady Reagan continued her interest in these groups continued, and arguably became best known for her "Just Say No" program fighting against drug abuse among youth.
When Ronald was shot in 1981 by a would-be assassin, Nancy rushed to his side immediately, and later endured his nearly decade-long battle with Alzheimer's disease.
Ronald Reagan writes to Nancy on Valentine’s Day: pic.twitter.com/MgBDfRWDYp
In recent years she broke with fellow Republicans in backing stem cell research as a way to possibly find a cure for Alzheimer's.
In announcing his Alzheimer's diagnosis in 1994, Reagan wrote, "I only wish there was some way I could spare Nancy from this painful experience."
Ten years later, as his body lay in state in the U.S. Capitol, Mrs. Reagan caressed and gently kissed the flag-draped casket.
"Nancy and Ronald Reagan were one of the great love stories of the American presidency," said Craig Shirley, Ronald Reagan biographer and presidential historian. "During the 1980 campaign, Governor Reagan was asked if Nancy Reagan would have a cause if he won and he joked, 'Probably me, mostly.'"
Elisha Fieldstadt is a breaking news reporter for NBC News.
Hasani Gittens is a Senior News Editor at NBCNews.com. Gittens, a WNBC veteran, joined NBCNews.com in January 2013. Before that he worked at The Daily — News Corp's short-lived "iPad newspaper" — where he spent two years also as a news editor.
Prior to that, he worked at WNBC as the managing editor of the station's website, and even longer ago he spent eight years as a reporter and eventually an editor for the New York Post. | Famous Person - Death | March 2016 | ['(NBC News)'] |
Thailand's Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva lifts a curfew imposed in the wake of deadly antigovernment protests but keeps emergency rule after two months of rallies by "Red Shirt" demonstrators paralyzed Bangkok and left almost 90 people dead. | Bangkok, Thailand (CNN) -- Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said the country was calm Sunday morning after the first night without a government-imposed curfew in 10 days, state media said.
In his weekly television address, Abhisit said the state of emergency could be lifted, but did not say when a relaxation or removal of emergency regulations would take place, the Thai News Agency reported.
Officials implemented the state of emergency on April 7 in Bangkok and nearby provinces, when thousands of anti-government protesters had amassed in the capital's central shopping district. They imposed a curfew in Bangkok and 23 provinces May 19.
Violent clashes between the demonstrators and government troops broke out earlier this month, killing at least 50 people and injuring nearly 400, government officials said.
Thai PM lifts curfew
More than 30 buildings -- including a bank, a police station, a local television station and Thailand's biggest shopping mall -- were set ablaze.
Abhisit said an independent committee would be established this week to examine the political unrest.
Thai investigators claim former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a bloodless military coup in 2006, helped mastermind and fund the Red Shirt anti-government protests, Thailand's state news agency said this week.
A Thai court issued an arrest warrant for Thaksin this week on terrorism charges connected to the clashes, the news agency said.
Thaksin has denied he was a leader of the Red Shirt demonstrations and said the charges in the arrest warrant show the government lacks legitimacy. | Armed Conflict | May 2010 | ['(The Australian)', '(CNN)'] |
Dilma Rousseff is sworn in as Brazil's first female President. | BRASILIA (Reuters) - Dilma Rousseff became Brazil’s first female president on Saturday and promised to build on an unprecedented run of economic success achieved by her popular predecessor and mentor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Brazil's President-elect Dilma Rousseff (R) and her vice-president elect Michel Temer greet Congress as they take their places for the swearing-in ceremony, in Brasilia January 1, 2011. REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino
Thousands of admirers braved a driving rain and cheered as Rousseff rode to her inauguration in a 1953 Rolls Royce flanked by an all-female security detail. The former guerrilla, who evolved over time into a pragmatic civil servant, vowed during her inaugural speech to focus on tax reform and other steps she said should help eradicate extreme poverty in the next decade.
“Many things have improved in Brazil, but this is just the beginning of a new era,” said Rousseff, who briefly choked up with emotion during the address to Congress.
“My promise is ... to honor women, to protect the most fragile, and to govern for all.”
Rousseff, 63, inherits an economy that still faces many challenges -- but is growing at a pace that would make most of the rest of the world green with envy.
More than 20 million Brazilians were lifted out of poverty during Lula’s eight years in office, thanks largely to his social welfare policies and stable economic management that made Brazil a darling among Wall Street investors.
The coming decade also looks bright, with massive, newly discovered offshore oil reserves due to be exploited and the World Cup and Olympics to be hosted here.
Among the tasks Rousseff must address are an overvalued currency that is hurting industry, rampant public spending that is fueling inflation, and notorious bureaucracy that stifles investment and discourages innovation.
Perhaps the biggest challenge will be living up to the example set by Lula, a former metalworkers’ union leader who leaves office with an approval rating of 87 percent and near folk-hero status -- especially among the poor.
“I’m here to thank Lula for all he’s done. If Dilma can do half of that, I’ll be happy,” said Izabel Rosales Figuereido, who traveled from the western state of Mato Grosso do Sul to attend Rousseff’s inauguration.
Rousseff vowed on Saturday that “Lula will remain with us” -- signaling that he is likely to play an important advisory role to her government.
Lula essentially hand-picked Rousseff, his former chief of staff, to be his successor. The career civil servant had never run for office before, and she remains somewhat of a mystery to many Brazilians, but her promise to continue Lula’s policies was enough to get her elected in October by a wide margin.
Rousseff now leads a country that, just four decades ago, persecuted her as an enemy of the state.
The daughter of a Bulgarian immigrant, Rousseff was active in the resistance to Brazil’s 1964-85 dictatorship. She was jailed on subversion charges for three years and tortured by her military captors. Several of her former cellmates were present at her inauguration on Saturday.
After democracy returned, Rousseff held a series of mid-level government jobs and acquired a reputation as a shrewd technocrat who is unafraid to call out underlings for shoddy work or incompetence, but often lacks a common touch when dealing with voters.
More recently, she overcame lymphoma in 2009 and she briefly wore a wig as she underwent chemotherapy. Her doctors have given her a clean bill of health.
After the swearing-in, the twice-divorced Rousseff rode through the streets of Brasilia in the Rolls Royce with the roof down, and her daughter by her side. Nine of her 37 ministers will be women -- a record for Brazil.
In her inaugural speech, Rousseff called for reform of Brazil’s onerous and complex tax system. She also called inflation a “plague,” vowing to keep prices under control, and referred the new oil reserves as “our passport to the future.”
Lula attempted several tax reforms with only limited success and pushing the changes through Rousseff’s 10-party coalition in Congress will be easier said than done.
“The question is whether she has the courage and support to stand up to vested interests,” said Pedro Simon, senator for the PMDB, the largest party in Rousseff’s coalition. “There’s already an army of scoundrels wanting the victory spoiled.”
Given the many pressing demands at home, she is likely to take a lower international profile and avoid courting controversy, like Lula did when he angered Washington with mediation efforts over Iran’s nuclear program.
Additional reporting by Ana Nicolaci da Costa and Leonardo Goy; Writing by Brian Winter; Editing by Todd Benson and Sandra Maler
| Government Job change - Appoint_Inauguration | January 2011 | ['(Reuters)', '(Xinhua)'] |
Voters in Croatia go to the polls for a parliamentary election with an exit poll showing the centre–left Kukuriku coalition set to win a majority. | With 70% of votes counted, the Kukuriku coalition is predicted to win 78 seats in the 151-seat parliament.
The ruling conservative HDZ party is likely to win only 48 seats. It entered the poll beset by corruption scandals and a poor economy.
"We will not let you down, I promise", said opposition leader Zoran Milanovic, as his victory seemed certain.
"We may make mistakes, but we must not stand still," he told his supporters. "There will be no excuses."
The next government is expected to lead Croatia into the EU in 2013.
The next government will have to push through a tough budget to avoid a downgrade in Croatia's credit rating, tackle rising unemployment and pursue the anti-corruption fight, says the BBC's Balkans correspondent Mark Lowen.
The Kukuriku alliance, led by Mr Milanovic's Social Democrats, has promised austerity measures and steps to revive industry and attract foreign investment.
Outgoing Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor has refused to approach the IMF for a loan, but Mr Milanovic says he would not rule it out as a "last resort". The economy is struggling out of recession, with growth in 2011 estimated at 0.5%-1% as the European sovereign debt crisis undermines its recovery.
Although the HDZ government has instigated an anti-corruption drive that has put party leader and former Prime Minister Ivo Sanader in court, a number of other officials have been implicated.
As the results came in, Mr Kosor said the "HDZ remains firmly on its feet," adding the party would now "serve Croatians in the opposition as well".
The HDZ has been in government for 16 of the 20 years since Croatia became independent during the collapse of the former Yugoslavia in 1991.
Croatia is due to sign a European Union accession treaty next week that will allow it to formally join in 2013. | Government Job change - Election | December 2011 | ['(BBC)'] |
NATO members gather in Warsaw, Poland, for a two-day summit. Much of the focus will be on Russia and NATO's commitments in bolstering its presence in Eastern Europe. Other issues to be discussed will include Europe's migrant crises, ISIL extremists, and the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union. | WARSAW -- NATO leaders have endorsed a major new deployment of armed forces to Eastern Europe, a direct response to growing belligerence from Russia and the largest such move by the alliance since the end of the Cold War.
The decision came as heads of state gathered in the Polish capital July 8 for a two-day summit that U.S. President Barack Obama said “may be the most important moment for our transatlantic alliance" in 25 years. Aside from Russia, the alliance faces a growing number challenges including Islamic State extremists, cyberattacks, and the influx of millions of people seeking refuge in Europe. Also looming in the background is Britain's vote last month to leave the European Union.
The leaders from the 28 members formally authorized four multinational battalions of up to 1,000 troops to be led by Canada, Germany, Britain, and the United States. They will be stationed in Poland and the three Baltic states. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg called the new deployments, which had been announced earlier, an appropriate deterrence against Russia.
"We have just taken decisions to deliver 21st century deterrence and defense in the face of 21st-century challenges," Stoltenberg told reporters.
Much of the summit’s focus is on Russia, which seized the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in March 2014 and backs separatists whose war with Kyiv’s forces has killed more than 9,300 people in Ukraine's east. Obama reiterated that in a commentary published on the Financial Times website shortly before the summit began.
“Russia’s aggression against Ukraine threatens our vision of a Europe that is whole, free, and at peace,” Obama wrote. He highlighted attacks that have been fueled by Islamic State militants’ extremist ideology, attacks that “slaughtered innocents in NATO countries, from Orlando to Paris to Brussels to Istanbul.” And he focused on Britain’s vote to leave the European Union, and conflicts “from Africa to Syria to Afghanistan” that have sent migrants to Europe.
“I believe that our nations must summon the political will, and make concrete commitments, to meet these urgent challenges,” wrote Obama, who also met with EU leaders. “In Warsaw, we must reaffirm our determination -- our duty under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty -- to defend every NATO ally.” No media source currently available
WATCH: Ukraine Hopes For Help Against Russian "Escalation" -- Deputy PM
The treaty’s Article 5 is the most important component of the alliance, obligating all members to come to the aid of another member if it is attacked. The clause has been invoked only once in the alliance’s 67-year history: after the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001. Russia’s interference in Ukraine has increased concerns in Poland and Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, which were under Moscow’s thumb until the disintegration of the Soviet Union a quarter-century ago. All are now NATO members. "We are witnessing the policy of aggression and notorious lack of respect for international law, internal sovereignty, and territorial integrity," the summit host, Polish President Andrzej Duda, said in opening remarks.
Further reflecting the unease many European nations are feeling toward Russia, the leaders of Finland and Sweden -- neither of whom are members -- were attending the summit for the first time. Governments in both countries have openly discussed the possibility of closer cooperation, or even outright membership, in the alliance, a possibility that prompted thinly veiled threats from Moscow. The U.S.-led battalion comes on top of an additional armored U.S. brigade, which U.S. officials announced earlier this year would begin rotating into Eastern Europe on a regular basis. That brings the number of fully manned U.S. combat brigades with a presence in Europe to three. A brigade comprises about 4,200 to 4,500 troops.
Stoltenberg and other leaders also tried to offer a fig leaf to Moscow, saying alliance would "continue to seek meaningful and constructive dialogue" with Russia, which he called “an integral part of European security."
WATCH: U.S. President Barack Obama said the United States and Europe were united in supporting Ukraine and maintaining sanctions on Russia, ahead of the annual NATO summit in Warsaw. (Reuters) No media source currently available
"NATO does not seek confrontation.... The Cold War is history and should remain history,” he said.
The NATO-Russia Council, which was set up in the 1990s to address Russia’s misgivings about the alliance expanding eastward, is to meet next week for the second time this year. The council was suspended in 2014 following Russia’s seizure of Crimea. French President Francois Hollande also sounded a conciliatory note toward Russia, saying it should not be considered a threat but rather a partner. "NATO has no role at all to be saying what Europe's relations with Russia should be. For France, Russia is not an adversary, not a threat," Hollande said. "Russia is a partner which, it is true, may sometimes, and we have seen that in Ukraine, use force which we have condemned when it annexed Crimea," he added.
Earlier, Duda took an even harder line, saying NATO must stand firm in the face of what he called Russian “blackmail and aggression.”
“Everyone who is tempted to apply the rule of force even for a moment” must be made to “understand quickly that is does not pay off,” Duda said.
Ben Rhodes, a top White House official, also reiterated the stern message intended for Russia, saying Moscow's continued aggression would provoke a NATO repsonse.
"What we are demonstrating is that if Russia continues this pattern of aggressive behavior, there will be a response and there will be a greater presence in Eastern Europe," said Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser.
Destabilization
In addition to military force, Western governments say President Vladimir Putin’s Russia has used cyberattacks, propaganda, and other methods in an effort to destabilize European countries and undermine Western unity.
In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that it was “absurd to speak of a threat from Russia” and that Moscow hoped "common sense" would prevail at the summit.
“Russia was and is open to dialogue and interested in cooperation -- but only on a mutually beneficial basis and taking into account mutual interests,” Peskov said in a conference call with journalists on July 8.
In an interview in the newspaper Kommersant, Russia's ambassador to NATO, Aleksandr Grushko, said the alliance has a “confrontational agenda" and that Moscow would take countermeasures.
NATO leaders, however, have said Russia’s aggression in Ukraine was what led to the deploying of additional forces. They have also taken Moscow to task for potentially dangerous maneuvers in recent months such as jets buzzing U.S. warships.
Critics of the increased NATO deployments say they are too small to serve as a serious deterrent and may only increase Russia’s ire.
But former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said that "Putin needs no provoking -- he is the provocateur.”
“We need to remember that Putin will be far less likely to engage in provocation if he sees a NATO that is unified, strong, and determined to push back against any aggressive move on his part,” Albright said at a discussion of experts held alongside the summit. One thing that is not expected is substantial movement toward NATO membership for Ukraine or for Georgia. Those two countries’ aspirations join the alliance were a catalyst of a five-day war in 2008 during which Russian forces drove deep into the former Soviet republic. Montenegro, however, is participating in the Warsaw Summit as an observer after signing a preliminary agreement in May. The Balkans nations is expected to formally join the alliance next year.
Beyond NATO, Obama said that “our alliance must do more on behalf of global security, especially on Europe’s southern flank. NATO should intensify its commitment to the campaign to destroy (IS) and do more to help the EU shut down criminal networks that are exploiting desperate migrants crossing the Mediterranean and Aegean seas.” He said his decision to maintain 8,400 U.S. troops in Afghanistan though the end of his presidency “should encourage more allies and partners to affirm their commitment to the NATO mission to train Afghan forces.”
| Diplomatic Talks _ Diplomatic_Negotiation_ Summit Meeting | July 2016 | ['(Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)'] |
Former National Rugby League player Craig Field is charged with murder following the death of a man allegedly assaulted in the Australian town of Kingscliff, New South Wales. | Former NRL player Craig Field has been charged with murder after a man he allegedly assaulted on the NSW north coast died in hospital, police say.
Kelvin Kane, 50, was found unconscious outside the Kingscliff Beach Hotel on Marine Parade, Kingscliff, by police and paramedics about 9.15pm yesterday. Police allege that he had been punched on the head before falling to the ground.Replay
1:00
Up Next
Charges against the former rugby league star are upgraded to murder after the alleged assault of a 50-year-old man in Kingscliff.
Mr Kane was given cardiopulmonary resuscitation and taken to Tweed Heads Hospital, where he remained in a critical condition this morning, a hospital spokesman said. He was placed on life support but died this afternoon, Tweed Heads Local Court was told.
Shaun Fathers, 41, and Field, 39, were arrested at a Kingscliff home and taken to Tweed Heads police station, where they were charged with assault occasioning grievous bodily harm this morning before Mr Kane's death, police said.
Accused ... former Souths player Craig Field.Credit:Steve Christo
The charges for both men were upgraded to murder this afternoon. Aboriginal Legal Service solicitor Tom Ivey did not apply for bail for Field in court, AAP reported.
Both men will remain in custody until they appear before Lismore Magistrates Court on August 21 through a video link.
A hotel staff member said this morning there was a fight but would not comment any further.
Roy Bartholomew, who sold cattle for Mr Kane last week, said he was a "man's man" who "loved company and loved life".
Kelvin Kane ... died after allegedly being punched by Craig Field.Credit:Sarah Coulton, Queensland Country Life
"He's very open and relaxed and happy-go-lucky," Mr Bartholomew said, adding that Mr Kane bred Charolais cattle and Charolais and Brahman cross cattle in Queensland, where he owned some property.
Mr Kane's relative said this afternoon that his family were too upset to speak publicly.
Police appealed for anyone with information to phone Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
Field, 39, started his league career with Souths in 1990 and was promoted to captain in 1994 before leaving them in 1996. He spent two seasons at Manly before joining Balmain Tigers, which became Wests Tigers in 2000. He was dropped from the club by 2002.
He had a playing and coaching stint with Pia in France in 2002 and 2003 before returning to Australia. Field had most recently been the head coach of the Cudgen Hornets A Grade side in the Gold Coast/Tweed Rugby League competition. | Armed Conflict | July 2012 | ['(Sydney Morning Herald)'] |
The Hay Festival announces it will cease hosting festivities in Abu Dhabi unless Emirati minister Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan resigns. Yesterday he was accused of sexually assaulting a female British curator last February. | The Hay literary festival has accused a senior Gulf royal of an "appalling violation" after he allegedly sexually assaulted one of their employees. Caroline Michel, Hay chair, said they would not work in Abu Dhabi again while Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan remains minister of tolerance.
Their employee, Caitlin McNamara, claims he attacked her earlier this year and is seeking legal redress.
Sheikh Nahyan, 69, has denied the allegations.
Ms McNamara, 32, told the Sunday Times that the alleged attack happened on 14 February at a remote private island villa where she had been summoned, she thought, to discuss preparations for the first-ever Hay Festival in Abu Dhabi, which was opening 11 days later.
She said she told both her employer and embassy officials soon after the attack, and went to the police in the UK when coronavirus lockdown restrictions lifted. According to the Sunday Times, Ms McNamara is waiting to hear whether the Crown Prosecution Service will take up her case, and said she had decided to waive her right to anonymity because "I feel I have nothing to lose".
"I want to do this because I want to highlight the effect of powerful men like him doing things like that and thinking they can get away with it," she told the newspaper. "It seemed clear from the set up I was not the first or last. It really took a massive mental and physical toll on me for what to him was probably just a whim."
The Sunday Times said Sheikh Nahyan had not responded to its approach for a comment on the allegations, but had received a statement from London libel lawyers Schillings which said: "Our client is surprised and saddened by this allegation, which arrives eight months after the alleged incident and via a national newspaper. The account is denied."
Schillings declined to give further comment to the BBC.
In a statement, posted on Twitter, Hay Festival Chair Caroline Michel, said: "What happened to our colleague and friend Caitlin McNamara in Abu Dhabi last February was an appalling violation and a hideous abuse of trust and position.
"Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan made a mockery of his ministerial responsibilities and tragically undermined his government's attempt to work with Hay Festival to promote free speech and female empowerment".
"We continue to support Caitlin in seeking legal redress for this attack and we urge our friends and partners in the UAE to reflect on the behaviour of Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan and send a clear signal to the world that such behaviour will not be tolerated. Hay Festival will not be returning to Abu Dhabi while he remains in position."
| Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | October 2020 | ['(BBC)'] |
India approves the use of remdesivir to treat emergency COVID-19 cases that require immediate attention. |
India's government said on Tuesday it has approved Gilead Sciences Inc's antiviral drug remdesivir for emergency use in treating COVID-19 patients.
Remdesivir is the first drug to show improvement in COVID-19 patients in formal clinical trials. It was granted emergency use authorization by the US Food and Drug Administration last month and has received approval by Japanese health regulators.
"[Remdesivir] approved on June 1 under emergency use with condition for five dose administration," the Drugs Controller General of India said in an email statement.
The drugmaker did not immediately respond to an email seeking further details.
As of Tuesday, India has 198,706 cases of coronavirus and has recorded 5,598 deaths, health ministry data showed.
Gilead Sciences had on Monday reported that remdesivir showed modest benefit in patients with moderate COVID-19 given a five-day course, while those who received it for 10 days in the study did not fare as well.
European and South Korean authorities are also looking at remdesivir, with South Korean health authorities last Friday saying they would request imports of the drug. Gilead is yet to gain regulatory approval in either market. | Government Policy Changes | June 2020 | ['(The Jakarta Post)'] |
John Earnest, a 19-year-old student at California State University, San Marcos, is arrested after Poway synagogue shooting. | A 19-year-old college student has been arrested in the synagogue shooting in Poway, California, accused of killing one person and injuring three more.
Authorities said John Earnest, an honor roll student at California State University, San Marcos, fled the synagogue Saturday, the last day of Passover, after the shooting, but called the 911 emergency number to report the shooting and his whereabouts. He surrendered minutes later without incident.
A person identifying himself as John Earnest posted an anti-Jewish diatribe online about an hour before the shooting unfolded at the Chabad of Poway synagogue. The person described himself as a nursing student and praised the suspects accused of the deadly attacks on Muslims at mosques in New Zealand last month and Jews at Pittsburgh's Tree of Life synagogue last October.
San Diego County Sheriff William Gore said hate crime charges are being considered against Earnest.
"Any time somebody goes into a house of worship and shoots the congregants, in my book, that's a hate crime," Poway Mayor Steve Vaus said.
A 60-year-old woman, Lori Kayne, was killed in the attack, with Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein, and two Israelis, an eight-year-old girl, Noya Dahan, and her uncle, Almog Peretz, 31, sustaining wounds.
"I was with my back to the shooter," Peretz told the Israeli YNet news site. "I heard a shot or two and then turned around to face him and that's when he fired at me. I ran quickly, picking up a small girl in my hands. He hit me once in the leg and I kept running. I didn't feel it much since there were so many bullets flying by. I heard them and I saw them right next to me."
Sheriff Gore said a white male entered the synagogue shortly before 11:30 a.m. PDT and opened fire with an AR-type assault weapon that may have malfunctioned after the first several rounds.
Gore said an off-duty border patrol agent working as a security guard who saw the man fleeing the scene fired on the suspect. The suspect was not hit but his car was struck.
President Donald Trump, speaking to reporters at the White House, said, "My deepest sympathies go to the families who were affected."
He added that the attack "looks like a hate crime."
Trump also said on Twitter, "Sincerest THANK YOU to our great Border Patrol Agent who stopped the shooter at the Synagogue in Poway, California. He may have been off duty but his talents for Law Enforcement weren’t!"
Sincerest THANK YOU to our great Border Patrol Agent who stopped the shooter at the Synagogue in Poway, California. He may have been off duty but his talents for Law Enforcement weren’t!
Kevin McAleenan, the chief of the U.S. Homeland Security agency, said his agency “will take every appropriate action to assist the investigation and ensure that those affected by this tragedy receive the closure and justice they deserve.” | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Arrest | April 2019 | ['(VOA News)'] |
UNESCO Director General Audrey Azoulay is expected to be reelected as head of the agency after no other candidates were nominated. | PARIS (Reuters) - The head of UNESCO, the United Nations’ cultural agency, is expected to win a second term later this year after nobody else submitted their candidacy for the position by the deadline on March 16, a UNESCO official said on Wednesday.
Outgoing Director General Audrey Azoulay was appointed in 2017 after a bitter campaign. Her mandate was to revive the organisation’s fortunes after the United States, which provided a fifth of its funding, pulled out.
The election is due in November, but without an opponent and a majority of the 58 Executive Board member states, including biggest financial contributor China, backing her, she should be elected for another four years.
The agency, founded in the ashes of World War Two to protect the common cultural inheritance of humanity, is best known for designating and protecting archaeological and heritage sites, from the Galapagos Islands to the tombs of Timbuktu.
Most of its activities are uncontroversial, but issues such as resolutions about how religious sites should be run in Jerusalem have been highly charged and the United States quit over accusations of anti-Israeli bias by the body.
The official told Reuters that the signals from the new U.S. administration were positive and that the objective was to make progress on the issue over the coming months.
UNESCO has had to fill a gaping financial hole. The United States left with $542 million in arrears. A U.S. return, done through a letter informing the body, would also mean that Washington would repay its arrears at some stage.
Things may still prove complicated given a U.S. law that forbids Washington from funding U.N. bodies that have admitted Palestine as a full member, although a waiver can be sought.
Reporting by John Irish; Editing by Alex Richardson
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
| Government Job change - Appoint_Inauguration | March 2021 | ['(Reuters)'] |
Former United States Senator and 1972 Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern dies at the age of 90 in Sioux Falls. | George McGovern, the United States senator who won the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 1972 as an opponent of the war in Vietnam and a champion of liberal causes, and who was then trounced by President Richard M. Nixon in the general election, died early Sunday in Sioux Falls, S.D. He was 90.
His death was announced in a statement by his family. He had been moved to hospice care in recent days after being treated for several health problems in the last year. He had a home in Mitchell, S.D., where he had spent his formative years.
An earlier version of this obituary misstated Mr. McGovern's age when he won the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 1972. He was 49, not 50.
An obituary on Monday about George McGovern, the United States senator who was the Democratic presidential nominee in 1972, misstated his wife’s maiden name in some editions. She was Eleanor Stegeberg, not Stageberg. The obituary also referred incorrectly in some editions to a World War II mission in which Mr. McGovern, a lieutenant in the Army Air Corps, crash-landed his plane after it was struck by enemy fire. His navigator was not killed in that incident. And the obituary misstated the number of great-grandchildren who survive Mr. McGovern. There are eight, not one.
David E. Rosenbaum, a Washington correspondent for The New York Times, died in 2006. | Famous Person - Death | October 2012 | ['(The New York Times)'] |
NASA GISS data shows that global temperatures in 2010 were tied with 2005 for the warmest year on record. | Global surface temperatures in 2010 tied 2005 as the warmest on record, according to an analysis released Wednesday by researchers at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York.
In 2010, global temperatures continued to rise. A new analysis from the
Goddard Institute for Space Studies shows that 2010 tied with 2005 as the
warmest year on record, and was part of the warmest decade on record.
The two years differed by less than 0.018 degrees Fahrenheit. The difference is smaller than the uncertainty in comparing the temperatures of recent years, putting them into a statistical tie. In the new analysis, the next warmest years are 1998, 2002, 2003, 2006, 2007 and 2009, which are statistically tied for third warmest year. The GISS records begin in 1880.
The analysis found 2010 approximately 1.13°F warmer than the average global surface temperature from 1951 to 1980. To measure climate change, scientists look at long-term trends. The temperature trend, including data from 2010, shows the climate has warmed by approximately 0.36°F per decade since the late 1970s.
"If the warming trend continues, as is expected, if greenhouse gases continue to increase, the 2010 record will not stand for long," said James Hansen, the director of GISS.
The analysis produced at GISS is compiled from weather data from more than 1000 meteorological stations around the world, satellite observations of sea surface temperature and Antarctic research station measurements. A computer program uses the data to calculate temperature anomalies — the difference between surface temperature in a given month and the average temperature for the same period during 1951 to 1980. This three-decade period acts as a baseline for the analysis.
The resulting temperature record closely matches others independently produced by the Met Office Hadley Centre in the United Kingdom and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Climatic Data Center.
The record temperature in 2010 is particularly noteworthy, because the last half of the year was marked by a transition to strong La Niña conditions, which bring cool sea surface temperatures to the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean.
"Global temperature is rising as fast in the past decade as in the prior two decades, despite year-to-year fluctuations associated with the El Niño-La Niña cycle of tropical ocean temperature," Hansen and colleagues reported in the Dec. 14, 2010, issue of Reviews of Geophysics.
A chilly spell also struck this winter across northern Europe. The event may have been influenced by the decline of Arctic sea ice and could be linked to warming temperatures at more northern latitudes.
Arctic sea ice acts like a blanket, insulating the atmosphere from the ocean's heat. Take away that blanket, and the heat can escape into the atmosphere, increasing local surface temperatures. Regions in northeast Canada were more than 18 degrees warmer than normal in December.
The loss of sea ice may also be driving Arctic air into the middle latitudes. Winter weather patterns are notoriously chaotic, and the GISS analysis finds seven of the last 10 European winters warmer than the average from 1951 to 1980. The unusual cold in the past two winters has caused scientists to begin to speculate about a potential connection to sea ice changes.
"One possibility is that the heat source due to open water in Hudson Bay affected Arctic wind patterns, with a seesaw pattern that has Arctic air downstream pouring into Europe," Hansen said. | Break historical records | January 2011 | ['(GISS Research News)', '(The Associated Press)', '(PR Newswire)'] |
A wildfire destroys one third of the Canadian town of Slave Lake, Alberta. | SLAVE LAKE, AB. (NEWS1130) - Almost one-third of Slave Lake, Alberta is gone and is in smoldering ruins after wildfires destroyed the town. Highways 2 and 88 are partially cut off and hundreds of buildings have been consumed, including the town hall and the radio station. The town's population of 7,000 people was ordered to move toward large green areas, beaches or big parking lots like Walmart or Canadian Tire. And the situation is so bad that people have been told they will be arrested if they don't leave the area. No deaths or injuries have been reported.
Canadian Press reporter Bob Webber has flown over what's left of a burning neighbourhood."The devastation here is truly complete. The smell of it is indescribable. It's smoke, rubber and plastic. It's sharp and nasty, and it will take days to get out of my clothes, I'm sure," he explains.
"When we stepped out of our vehicles, we were taken to a southeast neighbourhood where 50 per cent of the homes were completely flattened. These places were turned to ashes and vehicles were melted in their driveways. I've never seen anything like this before. It is definitely a devastating scene," describes City TV reporter Sarah Offin. The situation is a nerve-wracking one for a Vancouver woman. "The last I heard from my mom Sunday night was that my house in Slave Lake was still standing, but that could have changed," notes Cailin Perry. But some of her family members weren't so lucky."Not sure what is real or not. I'm just waiting to hear from family, my parents and my little brother at actually at the fire. They are on the volunteer fire department. They are actually in town and they are really difficult to get a hold of," Perry points out.
Help coming from BCOver one hundred firefighters from this province are being sent over to help. "We have on standby six twenty-person unit crews, six strike leaders and three agency representatives to assist with Alberta. They've got a changing situation in Alberta so we are working very closely with the Alberta ministry now to determine the best locations for those personnel," says BC forest minister Steve Thompson..Crews will descend on what has been described as a ghost town with only firefighters and essential staff left in the community.
The weather forecast is a mixed bag
Duncan MacDonnell with Alberta's Sustainable Resource Development tells News1130 they are battling unpredictable wildfires across the north.
"We've got some very large fires out there. The thing is with these freakish winds... Sunday we had gusts of up to 100 km/h. They ares driving the flames very fast and these fires are moving very quickly." Unfortunately, those winds prevented water-bombers from taking off to douse the flames.
Rob Harris with the Alberta Fire Services says the area is expecting a mixed forecast. "On Tuesday and Wednesday we're expecting lightning storms, which isn't going to help things either. We're expecting a few additional starts in the next few days that will be caused primarily by lightning."
There are roughly 1,000 firefighters in the area right now. "[We have] Twenty air tankers and we're bringing in resources from Ontario and BC," says MacDonnell.
The devastation brings back memories for BC town Barriere city councillor Ward Stamer remembers when his city was swept by fire in 2003. "I really feel for the people up there. Hopefully they can be in a safe enough spot that they can hunker down. We had support services and we had the Salvation Army and we had the Red Cross here." | Fire | May 2011 | ['(News 1130)'] |
Underdog AFC Ajax defeats defending champions Real Madrid 4–1, and advances to quarter-finals on aggregate 5–3, marking the end of Real Madrid's European dominance. | Electric Ajax stunned the 13-time European champions at the Santiago Bernabeu with a 4-1 (5-3 aggregate) victory, ending their reign of over 1,000 days as kings of the continent.
And Madrid’s veteran generals will fade too. Santiago Solari has started that process by dumping Marcelo, Gareth Bale and Isco on the bench - or in the case of the latter, in the stands - although he too will fall.
This result sealed Solari’s fate and he will not manage the club next season. He cannot, after presiding over the greatest humiliation in their recent history.
Two Clasico defeats by Barcelona and this elimination by Ajax saw Madrid’s entire season crumble in the space of seven days.
They have nothing left to play for, out of the Copa del Rey, 12 points behind leaders Barcelona in La Liga and eliminated from the Champions League in the last 16 for the first time since 2006.
Madrid have won the Champions League for three seasons in a row but were dismantled by Ajax as the Santiago Bernabeu’s nerves were shredded on a thrilling evening in the capital.
Solari’s side came into the last 16 second leg on Tuesday with the cushion of a 2-1 away triumph in Amsterdam, something captain Sergio Ramos deemed big enough to get himself booked for deliberately so as to be suspended for this clash.
It could have been far more uncomfortable, had VAR not ruled out a Nicolas Tagliafico goal in the first leg, or Kasper Dolberg not spurned a late chance when sent through on Thibaut Courtois’s goal.
Ramos was badly missed, with Ajax’s fancy footwork and nimble movement in attack terrifying his replacement Nacho Fernandez (who was sent off late on) and Raphael Varane.
Varane hit the bar early on with a header but Ajax bit back immediately with the phenomenal Dusan Tadic feeding Hakim Ziyech who stroked home the opener.
The Moroccan playmaker struck in the first leg and was a problem for Madrid’s defence all night - although former Southampton midfielder Tadic was even better.
Operating upfront in a false nine role, the Ajax No 10 played more like Barcelona’s No 10. His assist for David Neres’s second goal was remarkable, including a spinning roulette turn that left Casemiro dizzy and in the dust.
Gareth Bale, on as a substitute for the injured Lucas Vazquez, hit the post as Madrid tried to fight their way back into the game, but nothing went Los Blancos’ way on a frustrating night.
That was emphasised when Ajax scored their third, a sensational shot into the top corner from Tadic, his sixth goal of the competition. Along with three assists, that’s nine direct contributions to goals - no player has more in the Champions League.
Madrid quarrelled that the ball went out of play earlier in the move - and though the incident was referred to VAR, which seemed to show that the ball DID go out of play - eventually the goal was given.
Tagliafico’s first-leg goal was struck from the records using video, but this time the technology did not save Madrid’s bacon.
Nothing could, because they were outclassed and outfought, with this result and elimination a long time coming.
Madrid have enjoyed great luck over the past three seasons as they have won their trophies, with their Liga struggles showing that they are not a great side anymore, despite what the history books say.
Marco Asensio pulled one back for Madrid, giving them momentary hope, but Lasse Schone’s spectacular, dipping free-kick slammed that door in their face as soon as it opened, ensuring Madrid’s era of European dominance is finally at an end. | Sports Competition | March 2019 | ['(Goal.com)'] |
In England, Arsenal defeat Aston Villa 4-0 in the 2015 FA Cup Final at Wembley Stadium, with the victors playing in a record 19th final and achieving a record 12th win. | Last updated on 30 May 201530 May 2015.From the section FA Cup
The showpiece English FA Cup and Scottish Cup finals on Saturday will see Arsenal face Aston Villa at Wembley and Falkirk play Inverness Caledonian Thistle at Hampden Park.
A global TV audience of half a billion people is expected to watch the Gunners take on Villa.
Arsenal, seeking a record 12th FA Cup, face a club who last won it in 1957.
In Scotland, top-flight Inverness CT and second-tier Falkirk make for an unexpected final line-up. Arsenal are odds-on favourites to win the world's longest-running cup competition, which brings the English season to a conclusion. The London side, managed by Arsene Wenger, won last year's FA Cup to move level with Manchester United with 11 wins in the competition.
They beat Villa 3-0 and 5-0 in the league this season and finished 14 places above them, in third. Villa narrowly avoided relegation, ending the top-flight season one place above the drop zone.
Tim Sherwood's side have not reached this stage since 2000, when they were beaten 1-0 by Chelsea.
The BBC will be broadcasting the climax to the prestigious tournament for the first time since 2008.
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger:
"It's not easy to get to the FA Cup final and it's not easy to finish in the top three in England.
"We have been remarkably consistent since January and that's why I think we have a good chance next season."
Aston Villa manager Tim Sherwood:
"I know what the boys are capable of in one-off games. On big occasions, they've produced the goods and we need to do it one more time.
"The boys performed on a huge stage as underdogs against Liverpool [Villa recorded a 2-1 win in the semi-final], but we deserved to win that game and we're hoping we can do the same."
TEAM NEWS
Arsenal striker Danny Welbeck will miss the final after failing to recover from a knee injury.
Attacking midfielder Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, full-back Mathieu Debuchy and captain Mikel Arteta are in contention after returning to training following recent injuries.
Aston Villa goalkeeper Shay Given could be set to take his place in goal having recovered from a groin injury.
Full-back Aly Cissokho, midfielder Kieran Richardson and defender Jores Okore trained along with Given on Friday, but centre-back Ciaran Clark is out with a knee injury.
There will be a surprise name on the Scottish Cup as Premiership side Inverness Caledonian Thistle take on Championship club Falkirk.
League champions and 36-time winners Celtic were seen off by Caley Thistle following a dramatic semi-final that finished 1-1 in normal time and witnessed three more goals in extra-time, with defender David Raven grabbing the winner.
Manager John Hughes's side will be looking to go one better than in 2014, when they were beaten by Aberdeen on penalties in the Scottish League Cup final - their first major cup final. They have already secured a spot in the Europa League after finishing third in the Premiership.
Two-time winners Falkirk, meanwhile, came through three rounds before Craig Sibbald's 75th-minute effort saw off fellow Championship side Hibernian.
The Bairns won the trophy in 1913 and 1957, but they were in the final as recently as 2009 when they were beaten 1-0 by Rangers.
TEAM NEWS
Falkirk's fit-again striker Rory Loy is in the squad, but the Bairns' top scorer, who has not featured since injuring an ankle against Queen of the South in the quarter-final on 6 March, may start on the bench. Mark Kerr and John Baird are both cup-tied.
Inverness are without the suspended Gary Warren after the defender was booked in the semi-final win. Long-term absentee Richie Foran remains on the sidelines because of a knee injury.
Falkirk manager Peter Houston:
"I think we all agree that Inverness are overwhelming favourites as they are third in the Scottish Premiership and they are there for a reason - they are a really good side.
"I have a fair idea what team John Hughes will play and he might have a fair idea what we will play as well.
"But it is down to the Saturday afternoon and who handles it.
"In a one-off situation anything can happen and because you are underdogs it doesn't mean you can't win the match."
Inverness manager John Hughes:
"This year, getting that Europa League spot through the league placing for the first time in the club's history - that's your bread and butter. That tells you how good a team you are throughout the season.
"Then the Scottish Cup final. If we can go and win it, it would be remarkable." | Sports Competition | May 2015 | ['(BBC)', '(The FA via Twitter)'] |
Ethiopia's government declares a six-month state of emergency amid continuing protests, especially in the restive Oromia Region. | Ethiopia has declared a state of emergency following months of anti-government protests by members of the country's two largest ethnic groups.
The Oromo and the Amhara make up about 60% of the population. They complain power is held by a tiny Tigrean elite.
Violence has intensified since last Sunday when at least 55 people were killed in clashes between police and protesters at an Oromo festival.
Hundreds have died in months of protests, human rights groups say.
Tens of thousands have also been detained, they say.
Declaring the state of emergency, Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn said in a televised address: "We put our citizens' safety first. Besides, we want to put an end to the damage that is being carried out against infrastructure projects, education institutions, health centres, administration and justice buildings."
The state of emergency will last for six months.
BBC World Service Africa editor Mary Harper says the violent protests are the most serious threat to Ethiopian stability in a quarter of a century.
Source: CIA World Factbook estimates from 2007
The protesters have been attacking foreign companies, she says, threatening Ethiopia's reputation as a growing economy, ripe for international investment.
The details of the state of emergency remain unclear, but she adds that protesters have already shown they will not back down when faced with force.
Many roads into and out of the capital, Addis Ababa, are blocked by protesters.
The protests since last November are for manifold reason, and include:
In the most recent unrest in Oromia, at least 55 people were killed in a stampede. Opposition activists blame the police for causing panic at the annual Ireecha celebrations - a traditional Oromo religious festival. The government blames "anti-peace forces" demonstrating in the crowd.
Police fired tear gas to disperse protesters angered at their handling of the event, witnesses told the BBC.
Protesters say violence by the security forces led to the stampede, but the PM denied security forces had opened fire.
Correspondents say that while the ruling coalition has some solid achievements to show for its 25 years in power, it has been unable to manage the transition from being a secretive revolutionary movement to running an open, democratic government.
| Protest_Online Condemnation | October 2016 | ['(BBC)'] |
Voters in Mexico elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador as their new President in a landslide victory. Additionally, 128 senators and 500 deputies were also chosen. | Left-wing candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador has claimed victory in Mexico's presidential election, saying "profound change" is coming.
The ex-Mexico City mayor, known by his initials Amlo, is projected to win about 53%. His rivals have conceded in a crushing defeat for the main parties.
Mr López Obrador's key pledge has been to tackle the "evil" of corruption.
He has also been highly critical of President Donald Trump and ties with the US will now be closely watched.
Relations with Washington have been hugely strained, with Mr Trump strongly criticising Mexico over trade and migration. Mr Trump has sent a tweet of congratulations.
Late on Sunday, the 64-year-old promised to respect civil liberties and said he was "not looking to construct a dictatorship, either open or hidden".
Some opponents have expressed fears that his leftist and populist policies could damage the already sluggish economy and turn Mexico into "another Venezuela", which is suffering a deep economic crisis and rampant inflation.
Hailing a "historic night", Mr López Obrador called on all Mexicans to reconcile and repeated his campaign pledge to review energy contracts for signs of corruption.
"Corruption is... the result of a decadent political regime. We are absolutely convinced that this evil is the main cause of social and economic inequality, and also that corruption is to blame for the violence in our country," he said.
He has insisted that no-one involved in corruption will be spared, not even those he calls "brothers-in-arms".
On combating Mexico's record levels of violence, much of it related to drug cartels, Mr López Obrador said he would have daily meetings with his security cabinet, which under him, he said, would be under a "unified command".
Sunday's election followed one of Mexico's deadliest campaigns in decades with more than 130 political candidates and party workers killed.
During the campaign Mr López Obrador had often used confrontational language when referring to Mr Trump, but struck a more conciliatory note in his victory speech, saying he would seek "friendly relations".
He also tried to reassure the business sector, saying there would be no nationalisation and that he would respect private business. He also said his government would be fiscally disciplined and taxes would not be raised.
On social policies, he said he would double pensions for the elderly upon taking office on 1 December as a first step to reducing Mexico's disparate income levels. López Obrador, a winner at last
The latest figures from the Mexican electoral institute show Mr López Obrador has won more than double the votes of his nearest challenger. It is the widest victory since the 1980s.
Ricardo Anaya, candidate for the conservative National Action Party (PAN), looked set to be runner-up to Mr López Obrador.
"I recognise his triumph, I express my congratulations, and I wish him the greatest success for the good of Mexico," Mr Anaya said.
Ruling party candidate José Antonio Meade, who lies in third place according to initial results, told supporters that he wished the winner "the greatest success".
Mr Meade's Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) has dominated Mexican politics for much of the past century but has slumped in popularity.
The electoral institute figures put official turnout at 62.7%. As well as a new president, 128 senators and 500 deputies in Congress were elected, in addition to state and local officials.
Mr López Obrador's coalition is set to have a majority in the lower house and possibly the Senate.
Mr López Obrador had been the candidate most critical of Mr Trump and had said he would make the US president "see reason", branding his anti-immigrant policies "irresponsible" and "racist".
Congratulations to Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on becoming the next President of Mexico. I look very much forward to working with him. There is much to be done that will benefit both the United States and Mexico!
Mr Trump has riled Mexico by saying he will renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) and build a wall along the US-Mexico border.
His hardline stance on migration - particularly the separation of migrant families at the US border - has brought widespread condemnation.
Some 2,000 children remain separated from their migrant parents, despite Mr Trump agreeing to curtail the policy.
In his victory speech, Mr López Obrador said: "We will pursue a relationship of friendship and co-operation with the United States, always rooted in mutual respect and in the defence of our fellow Mexicans who live and work honourably in that country."
| Government Job change - Election | July 2018 | ['(Politico)', '(BBC)'] |
Simonetta Sommaruga is sworn in as President of the Swiss Confederation for second time. | GENEVA, Jan. 1 (Xinhua) -- Simonetta Sommaruga of the Swiss Social Democratic Party took office on Wednesday as President of the Swiss Confederation.
Sommaruga, who is also Minister of the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications of Switzerland, was elected president of the country for 2020 at a joint meeting of the two chambers of the Swiss parliament in December.
Born on May 14, 1960, Sommaruga used to be a concert pianist and president of the Swiss Foundation for Consumer Protection.
She has been a member of the Swiss Federal Council since 2010 and was elected as President of the Swiss Confederation for 2015.
Switzerland's Federal Council is elected by the two parliamentary chambers jointly. The election takes place every four years in December, following the election of the entire parliament.
Each year in December, the Swiss parliament elects the President of the Swiss Confederation from among the seven federal councillors for a 12-month term of office. Xinhua Headlines: Chinese president delivers 2020 New Year speech, vowing to achieve first centenary goal | Government Job change - Appoint_Inauguration | January 2020 | ['(Xinhua News Agency)'] |
Nepalese authorities ban rallies and mass meetings in Kathmandu prior to the first meeting of the Nepalese Constituent Assembly which is expected to declare Nepal a republic. | Authorities in the Nepalese capital, Kathmandu, have banned rallies and mass meetings in strategic areas. The prohibition comes into force two days before Nepal's newly-elected assembly is expected to meet to declare the country a republic.
Venues covered by the ban include the palace of King Gyanendra, the hall where the assembly will sit, and the residence of the prime minister. The aim is to frustrate protests planned before the vote.
Historic change is approaching in Nepal, but with surprisingly little fanfare.
Very little of the constitutional detail has been worked out; and continuing violence from the biggest elected party, the Maoist former rebels, has created widespread dismay. The assembly elected last month is instructed under the constitution to implement a republic, spelling the end of the centuries-old monarchy. But the mechanism has not been determined. Nor has a new government been formed, which many here say will have to happen before any motion on a republic can be drawn up. Up to now there is not even any indication of whether King Gyanendra will move out of the Royal Palace into one of the other residences which - at least for now - are still available to him. Despite all this there is a general belief that a republic will be declared on Wednesday when the assembly first sits. Perhaps fearing a confrontation or an attempt to storm the palace, the Kathmandu district government has banned rallies, mass meetings and protest programmes around the Royal Palace, the Crown Prince's house, the hall where the assembly will sit, and the prime minister's residence.
The ban, which the government says is to maintain security, will confound some of the plans by political and civil society activists to march to the assembly venue or the palace on Wednesday. | Government Policy Changes | May 2008 | ['(BBC News)'] |
The summit announces it is unable to gain agreement on climate change between the United States and the other 19 members of this international forum. | - Leaders from the world’s leading economies broke with U.S. President Donald Trump on climate policy at a G20 summit on Saturday, in a rare public admission of disagreement and blow to multilateral cooperation.
Final G20 statement exposes rift with the U.S.
01:49
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, keen to show off her skills as a mediator two months before a German election, achieved her primary goal at the meeting in Hamburg, convincing her fellow leaders to support a single communique with pledges on trade, finance, energy and Africa.
But the divide between Trump, elected on a pledge to put “America First”, and the 19 other members of the club, including countries as diverse as Japan, Saudi Arabia and Argentina, was stark.
Last month Trump announced he was pulling the United States out of a landmark international climate accord clinched two years ago in Paris.
“In the end, the negotiations on climate reflect dissent – all against the United States of America,” Merkel told reporters at the end of the meeting.
“And the fact that negotiations on trade were extraordinarily difficult is due to specific positions that the United States has taken.”
The summit, marred by violent protests that left the streets of Hamburg littered with burning cars and broken shop windows, brought together a volatile mix of leaders at a time of major change in the global geo-political landscape.
Trump’s shift to a more unilateral, transactional diplomacy has left a void in global leadership, unsettling traditional allies in Europe and opening the door to rising powers like China to assume a bigger role.
Tensions between Washington and Beijing dominated the run-up to the meeting, with the Trump administration ratcheting up pressure on President Xi Jinping to rein in North Korea and threatening punitive trade measures on steel.
Trump met Russian President Vladimir Putin for the first time in Hamburg, a hotly anticipated encounter after the former real estate mogul promised a rapprochement with Moscow during his campaign, only to be thwarted by accusations of Russian meddling in the vote and investigations into the Russia ties of Trump associates.
Putin said at the conclusion of the summit on Saturday that Trump had quizzed him on the alleged meddling in a meeting that lasted over two hours but seemed to have been satisfied with the Kremlin leader’s denials of interference.
Trump had accused Russia of destabilizing behavior in Ukraine and Syria before the summit. But in Hamburg he struck a conciliatory tone, describing it as an honor to meet Putin and signaling, through Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, that he preferred to focus on future ties and not dwell on the past.
“It was an extraordinarily important meeting,” Tillerson said, describing a “very clear positive chemistry” between Trump and the former KGB agent.
In the final communique, the 19 other leaders took note of the U.S. decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord and declared it “irreversible”.
For its part, the United States injected a contentious line saying that it would “endeavor to work closely with other countries to help them access and use fossil fuels more cleanly and efficiently.”
French President Emmanuel Macron led a push to soften the U.S. language.
“There is a clear consensus absent the United States,” said Thomas Bernes, a distinguished fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation. “But that is a problem. Without the largest economy in the world how far can you go?”
Jennifer Morgan, executive director at Greenpeace, said the G19 had “held the line” against Trump’s “backward decision” to withdraw from Paris.
On trade, another sticking point, the leaders agreed they would “fight protectionism including all unfair trade practices and recognize the role of legitimate trade defense instruments in this regard.”
The leaders also pledged to work together to foster economic development in Africa, a priority project for Merkel.
Merkel chose to host the summit in Hamburg, the port city where she was born, to send a signal about Germany’s openness to the world, including its tolerance of peaceful protests.
It was held only a few hundred meters from one of Germany’s most potent symbols of left-wing resistance, a former theater called the “Rote Flora” which was taken over by anti-capitalist squatters nearly three decades ago.
Over the three days of the summit, radicals looted shops, torched cars and lorries. More than 200 police were injured and some 143 people have been arrested and 122 taken into custody.
Some of the worst damage was done as Merkel hosted other leaders at for a concert and lavish dinner at the Elbphilharmonie, a modernist glass concert hall overlooking the Elbe River.
Merkel met police and security force after the summit to thank them, and condemned the “unbridled brutality” of some of the protestors, but she was forced to answer tough questions about hosting the summit in Hamburg during her closing press conference | Diplomatic Talks _ Diplomatic_Negotiation_ Summit Meeting | July 2017 | ['(Reuters)'] |
American journalist at WPLG, Cody Weddle, is released from Venezuela after being detained early Wednesday. | Updated on: March 7, 2019 / 5:50 PM
/ CBS/AP
An American citizen who working as a journalist in Venezuela has been freed after being detained by security forces early Wednesday. Weddle was at the main Caracas-area airport waiting for a U.S.-bound flight, according to the TV station he works for in Miami.
A doorman at Cody Weddle's residence said a squad of five men wearing black uniforms demanded entry and left with the journalist in custody.
A spokesman for the State Department said the U.S. was aware of the missing journalist and issued a warning to President Nicolás Maduro's government.
"We have no higher priority than the protection of U.S. citizens abroad," the State Department said in a statement. "Being a journalist is not a crime; the world is watching."
Kimberly Breier, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, earlier called for Weddle's "immediate release."
.@StateDept is aware of and deeply concerned with reports that another U.S. journalist has been detained in #Venezuela by #Maduro, who prefers to stifle the truth rather than face it. Being a journalist is not a crime. We demand the journalist’s immediate release, unharmed.
Tensions have been escalating by the day in Venezuela, where U.S.-backed opposition leader Juan Guaidó is seeking to oust Maduro.
Weddle has reported from Venezuela for more than four years, most recently working as a freelance journalist for WPLG-TV, the ABC affiliate in Miami, Florida. His hometown is Meadowview, Virginia.
The station's president said in a statement it can't reach Weddle and is concerned. WPLG-TV said Weddle's assistant was also detained.
Weddle's mother spoke to CNN and said she is "very, very, very worried" for her 29-year-old son. She said Weddle had been living in Venezuela since June 2014.
Cody Weddle's mother still hasn't heard from her son after the Local 10 reporter was detained in Venezuela this morning.
One of WPLG-TV's reporters said the mother has spoken to the U.S. Embassy in Venezuela.
UPDATE: I just spoke with Cody Weddle's mother by phone. She says she has spoken to the U.S. Embassy in Venezuela and they have reached out to Venezuela's Ministry of Foreign Affairs regarding Cody. She says they also told her it's not unusual for it to be a "slow process".
Republican Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott of Florida reacted to the news Wednesday, with Scott calling Weddle's detention "completely unacceptable."
Completely unacceptable for @NicolasMaduro and his thugs to detain @WPLGLocal10’s Cody Weddle for reporting on the successful return of the legitimate Venezuelan President @jguaido.
He must be released immediately and the U.S. will not stand for this kind of intimidation! Wednesday's news about Weddle comes on the heels of another incident in Venezuela concerning CNN journalists.
Maria Martinez-Guzman, one of Univision's executive producers, was among those detained last week along with anchor Jorge Ramos and five others by the Venezuelan government in Caracas. She told CBSN she felt outraged and robbed of her work. She described how they were put in a "dark room" and about $180,000 worth of equipment was "stolen."
Ramos and his crew, including Martinez-Guzman and several camerapeople, were interviewing Maduro at the Miraflores presidential palace about the instability in the country, but things went south 17 minutes into their conversation after he showed Maduro footage of Venezuelan youths eating from a garbage truck.
| Famous Person - Commit Crime - Release | March 2019 | ['(CBS News)', '(Fox News)'] |
Four Pakistani police officers are shot dead by a JamaatulAhrar splinter group. Three additional officers are injured. | DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan (Reuters) - Taliban gunmen opened fire on a police vehicle and killed four officers in northwestern Pakistan on Tuesday, officials said, in a region once riven by militant violence but since cleared following military crackdowns.
The ambush, claimed by the Hizbul Ahrar, a splinter group of the Pakistani Taliban, was the first major attack in the Dera Ismail Khan district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa since a suicide blast killed a candidate in the lead-up to the July general election.
“The officers were out patrolling the area when six to seven people who were waiting for them opened fire on their vehicle,” senior police official Mohammad Iqbal told Reuters.
“The assailants were seated at a local tea stall and opened fire when the police vehicle approached.”
Advertisement
Iqbal said four police were killed and three people were wounded. Among the wounded is a senior police officer said to be in critical condition.
“Today Hizbul Ahrar target killers ... made a police vehicle their target,” the group’s spokesman, Aziz Yousafzai, said in a statement sent to Reuters via Whatsapp.
Dera Ismail Khan is on the edge of Pakistan’s former tribal areas that border Afghanistan, large swaths of which were once controlled by the Pakistani Taliban before military operations in 2009 and 2014 ended militant control of the region.
Writing by Saad Sayeed; Editing by Nick Macfie and Clarence Fernandez
| Armed Conflict | February 2019 | ['(Reuters)'] |
Saturday's earthquake forces Sony to close its plant in the Kumamoto Prefecture. Toyota, Honda, and Nissan also stop work at several plants in the region. | TOKYO, April 16 (UPI) -- A 7.3-magnitude earthquake that struck southern Japan on Saturday has forced Sony and several Japanese automakers to close manufacturing sites in the region, disrupting supply chains.
A Sony plant in Kumamoto, near the epicenter of the quake, manufactures sensors used in smartphone cameras, particularly in iPhones. The plant is still being inspected for structural damage but analysts said the strength and frequency of aftershocks makes it unlikely the plant will return to being operational in the immediate future.
The closure will disrupt global production of smartphones, though analysts predicted Sony would be able to shift production of the smartphone camera sensors to other facilities, minimizing the problem.
A Sony spokesman tells Bloomberg there "hasn't been major damage to the building."
Toyota and Nissan have also suspended work at several plants in Kumamoto after an initial earthquake on Thursday caused damage.
Toyota closed a Lexus assembly plant in Fukuoka and an adjacent engine and transaxle factory after Thursday's magnitude-6.2 tremor.
Honda also closed a motorcycle assembly factory in the region, as well.
It was not immediately clear what additional impact the stronger Saturday quake had at the facilities, which had not reopened when the second tremor struck. | Organization Closed | April 2016 | ['(UPI)'] |
Surangel Whipps Jr. assumes the office of President of Palau succeeding Thomas Remengesau Jr.. | Former senator Surangel Whipps Jr promises to stand by allies US and Taiwan when he takes office on Thursday
Last modified on Mon 18 Jan 2021 01.10 GMT
Palau’s president-elect has vowed to stand up to Chinese “bullying” in the Pacific, and said the small archipelago nation will stand by its alliances with “true friends”, the United States and Taiwan.
Fifty-two-year-old Surangel Whipps Jr, a supermarket owner and two-time senator from a prominent Palauan family, will be sworn in as the new president on 21 January, succeeding his brother-in-law Tommy Remengesau Jr.
In a forthright interview with the Guardian, Whipps said the US had demonstrated over the years it was a reliable friend of Palau, most recently shown by its delivery of 6,000 doses of the Moderna coronavirus vaccine as part of the US’s Operation Warp Speed.
“It’s important for countries to have shared values support each and work together. There is a competition, yes [between the US and China] but that’s their competition. It’s about what we believe.”
“There are thoughts that the ‘United States and China are in a race’; I think what it is really about is freedom and the exercise of democracy and many times, we feel big countries want to bully small countries. It’s important to have a strong partner that is there for us.”
In December, the US Coast Guard and Palauan maritime authorities seized a Chinese fishing vessel suspected of illegally harvesting sea cucumber inside Palau’s territorial waters.
“This is about securing our borders, and other countries that don’t respect other countries’ borders are not acceptable,” Whipps said.
“Stealing and offering bribes, that’s just got to stop, illegal fishing has to stop. As countries, we should also be responsible to our people and tell them not to go to other countries and do these kinds of things,” he said.
Whipps said countries that wanted to be regarded as global leaders should take responsibility for the actions of their citizens.
He said the outgoing vice-president of Palau, also the country’s justice minister, had tried to contact the Chinese government about the vessel’s unlawful entry into Palau.
“But they don’t seem to care and that is unacceptable. They should take responsibility for their people, and it is like they encouraged them by ignoring them. It’s not good.”
Whipps also pledged Palau would continue formal recognition of, and its close relations with, Taiwan, despite the growing presence of China in the Pacific.
“Palau’s position, as a friend of Taiwan, has caused a lot of collateral damage for Palau. Other countries that do not like this relationship, do things in the international community, like the UN and other Pacific organisations, to try to disrupt what Palau is promoting. I think that’s the nature of larger nations who want to bully,” Whipps told the Guardian.
Palau is one of Taiwan’s 15 remaining diplomatic allies, and one of only four remaining in the Pacific (after Solomon Islands and Kiribati switched in 2019). As a pointed show of support, Taiwan’s foreign minister, Joseph Wu, will attend Whipps’s presidential inauguration this week, and the two administrations have been in discussions over a travel bubble, given low cases numbers in Taiwan and Palau , which remains Covid-free.
But Palau’s allegiance to Taiwan has not been without consequence: the nation is subject to an unofficial travel ban for Chinese tourists which has hurt the country’s tourism-dependent economy.
Whipps was portrayed as a generational change during the spirited, but comparatively good-natured, presidential campaign held over two rounds in October and November. Palau’s electoral cycle mirrors that of the United States, with which it has a compact of free association, which covers military co-operation and financial assistance.
Whipps said re-starting Palau’s tourism-dependent economy post-Covid was a priority, and that he hoped to vaccinate most of his country’s 18,000-strong population by the northern hemisphere summer.
But he said climate change presented Palau’s greatest long-term challenge. Most of the population lives close to the water, and the country’s only hospital is near the coast where it is at risk of being wiped out by a typhoon or storm surge.
“We see [climate change] on a daily basis, other people don’t,” Whipps said. “We need to make people understand, especially the larger countries, that the threat is real and we should work together to find a solution.” | Government Job change - Appoint_Inauguration | January 2021 | ['(The Guardian)'] |
At least 15 civilians are killed during a mass stabbing in Beni, North Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo. The ADF is suspected to be behind the attack. | Men armed with knives and other weapons attacked Bulongo village, in the latest attack blamed on notorious ADF fighters.
At least a dozen villagers have been killed in an overnight raid on a village in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, according to a witness and monitoring and civil rights groups, in an attack blamed on the notorious Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) armed group.
Men armed with knives and other weapons attacked Bulongo village, some 30km (18 miles) east of the city of Beni, late on Sunday.
“There are 12 bodies lying on the ground,” Mambo Kitambal, head of a civil society group in Bulongo, was quoted as saying by AFP news agency.
“We fear that this toll could increase, especially since the enemy operated for several hours. The victims were executed with pickaxes and machetes,” he said.
In a Twitter post on Monday, the Kivu Security Tracker (KST) monitoring organisation reported the killing of at least 15 civilians in Bulongo. “The ADF are suspects,” it said, without elaborating.
At least 15 civilians were killed last night in #Bulongo (#Beni territory, North #Kivu). The #ADF are suspects. #DRC pic.twitter.com/BzoF30sYHF
Baromètre sécuritaire du Kivu (@KivuSecurity) March 15, 2021
The ADF, a Ugandan militia active in the eastern DRC since the 1990s, has never claimed responsibility for attacks. It has been accused of carrying out dozens of brutal reprisal attacks on civilians since the Congolese army began operations against it in late 2019.
Last year, it is suspected of killing about 850 people, according to United Nations figures.
On Wednesday, the United States designated the ADF as a “foreign terrorist organisation”, accusing it of links to ISIL (ISIS). UN experts, however, have not found evidence of any direct relationship between the two groups.
The ADF has the reputation of being the bloodiest of some 122 armed groups active in the DRC’s four eastern border provinces, many of them a legacy of the Congo Wars of the 1990s.
“Here in the rain they savagely killed our brothers and sisters with knives and pickaxes,” Paul Sakata, a resident of Bulongo, told Reuters news agency.
“We regret that the army did not respond last night, which reinforces the fear in the heads of people in this part of the country, who were beginning to hope for peace.”
Last month, suspected ADF fighters decapitated at least eight people in Boyo village, in the northeast Ituri province, while two others were shot dead in Kainama village.
Suspected rebels decapitate eight people, shoot two others dead in separate attacks in eastern DR Congo, army says.
The victims were kidnapped and fatally shot while travelling in a UN World Food Programme convoy.
Deaths bring the number of civilians killed by armed groups in Beni since November 2019 to at least 1,013.
Luca Attanasio died of his wounds after a World Food Programme convoy came under fire near the eastern city of Goma.
. | Armed Conflict | March 2021 | ['(Al Jazeera)'] |
Two men are arrested in Paris for stealing Pablo Picasso paintings from the apartment of his granddaughter. | Two men arrested for stealing Picasso masterpieces from the Paris flat of the artist's granddaughter were planning to sell the works for a fraction of their value, police say.
Police surveillance teams arrested the suspected thieves on Tuesday morning as they prepared to strike a deal with a would-be buyer - himself a convicted burglar - in the upmarket 16th arrondissement of Paris.
The trio, aged 45 to 60, are expected to be brought before a judge later on Wednesday (local time) to face possible charges.
Two paintings and a drawing by the Spanish master Pablo Picasso, together worth more than 50 million euros ($80 million), were taken from the Left Bank apartment of Diana Widmaier-Picasso as she lay sleeping on February 26.
The thieves made off with the 1961 Portrait of Jacqueline, depicting Picasso's second wife and Maya with Doll, a painting of the artist's daughter from 1938. The stolen drawing was called Marie-Therese at age 21.
The suspects, described by police as "professional dealers in stolen goods," are thought to have been planning to sell the Picassos along with other stolen works on the European art market.
"They hoped to sell the works at a price well below their true value," said Loic Garnier of the BRB, an elite police unit that deals with serious crime.
"Two of the three stolen pieces are major Picasso works, and very easily recognisable. They would be extremely difficult to sell through official channels.
"This wasn't an amateurs' job, but I can tell these people were not art lovers."
Officers recovered the paintings - apparently in good condition - after a contact in the art world tipped off the OCBC, the French police unit dealing in stolen art.
The dealer said a Frenchman had offered to sell him a well-known bronze sculpture, stolen in Paris last month, according to the OCBC.
Together with the BRB, they mounted the surveillance operation that led to the arrests in western Paris.
The suspects were carrying the Picassos rolled up inside cardboard tubes at the time.
"We didn't want to turn the risk of seeing the works vanish. So as soon as we were sure they had them, we carried out the arrests," said Mr Garnier.
"The works are in good overall condition," he said, although they suffered slight damage from being rolled up the wrong way, with the paint on the inside, and too tightly.
The Portrait of Jacqueline has been slightly marked, but should be easy to restore.
Maya with Doll, however, suffered some cracks and shows signs of being roughly removed from its frame.
Maya with Doll is one of Picasso's classic oil paintings in bright shades of green, blue and red and depicting young Maya in pigtails holding a doll and a small wooden horse.
Maya was Widmaier-Picasso's mother, who was the daughter of Picasso and Marie-Therese Walter, one of Picasso's many female companions.
"It is a sign of ignorance and stupidity to do such damage to works of art - these are unique pieces," said the OCBC's deputy head Bernard Darties.
Widmaier-Picasso's lawyer Olivier Baraterie said the Picasso family were grateful for the police's work, and expected to recover the works within a fortnight.
According to one source close to the investigation, the paintings were not insured because of the prohibitive sums demanded to cover them.
| Famous Person - Commit Crime - Arrest | August 2007 | ['(AFP via ABC News Australia)'] |
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology of the Government of India bans 47 Chinese-origin apps on the grounds that these apps were clones of banned apps made by Chinese companies to circumvent bans. The ban comes less than a month after 59 apps were banned in June, including TikTok and Helo, as the government deemed them a "threat to national security". India also begins investigating over 250 Chinese apps over user privacy violations including popular Tencent-backed gaming app PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. The bans comes in the wake of a movement to boycott Chinese products in India following the 2020 China-India skirmishes. | India has banned 47 apps of Chinese origin in the country, nearly a month after banning 59 Chinese applications. Sources have told India Today TV that the 47 banned Chinese apps were operating as clones of the earlier banned apps. The list of the 47 Chinese applications banned by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology will be released soon.
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has banned 47 apps which were variants and cloned copies of the 59 Chinese apps that were banned in June. These 47 banned app clones include Tiktok Lite, Helo Lite, SHAREit Lite, BIGO LIVE Lite, and VFY Lite, news agency ANI reported.
India has also prepared a list of over 250 Chinese apps, including apps linked to Alibaba, that it will examine for any user privacy or national security violations, government sources told India Today TV. The list also includes Tencent-backed gaming app PUBG.
Some top gaming Chinese applications are also expected to be banned in the new list that is being drawn up, sources said. The Chinese applications, that are being reviewed, have allegedly been sharing data with the Chinese agencies.
Today's decision follows after a high-profile ban of 59 Chinese apps including TikTok, as border tensions continued in Ladakh after a violent, fatal face-off between the Indian and Chinese armies. The government said these apps were engaged in activities that were prejudicial to the sovereignty, integrity and defence of India.
A government press release announcing the ban stated: "The Ministry of Information Technology, invoking it's power under section 69A of the Information Technology Act read with the relevant provisions of the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking of Access of Information by Public) Rules 2009 and in view of the emergent nature of threats has decided to block 59 apps since in view of information available they are engaged in activities which is prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order".
A day later, Google said it has removed all the banned applications from the Play Store. Following the ban, TikTok refuted the claims that suggest it will pursue legal action against the Indian government for banning the app in India.
Reacting to the 59 apps banned by India, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said the country is "strongly concerned regarding the decision of the Indian government".
“China is strongly concerned, verifying the situation,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
"We want to stress that the Chinese government always asks Chinese businesses to abide by international and local laws-regulations. The Indian government has a responsibility to uphold the legal rights of international investors including Chinese ones," Zhao Lijian said. | Government Policy Changes | July 2020 | ['(India Today)'] |
The brother of Pakistani social media star Qandeel Baloch is sentenced to life in prison for her honour murder, while six others are acquitted. The case sparked international headlines and discussion of women's rights in the country. | The brother of Pakistani social media star Qandeel Baloch has been jailed for life, three years after her murder.
Waseem confessed to strangling Ms Baloch, 26, in July 2016. At the time, he said it was because the star had brought shame on the family.
He was reported to be upset by pictures she had uploaded to social media.
On Friday, a court acquitted six other men charged in connection with the killing, including religious scholar, Mufti Abdul Qavi.
Ms Baloch's family had initially pointed the finger at the mufti, saying he had instigated the murder after he was criticised for taking selfies with the social media star a month before her death.
He has always denied any involvement.
Her brother Waseem is able to appeal against the sentence. His lawyer, Sardar Mehmood, told news agency AFP that he hoped Waseem Baloch would be "acquitted by a high court".
Another brother, Arif, has been declared a fugitive in relation to Ms Baloch's death, the court said.
At the court in Multan, there were scenes of celebration over the acquittals - and tears over the conviction.
Photos shared on social media show Mufti Qavi being showered in rose petals as he left court, his supporters overjoyed with the verdict.
Meanwhile, Ms Baloch's mother wept tears for her son.
"He is innocent," Anwar Mai told reporters before the sentence was handed down. She and her husband tried to free Waseem last month, saying they forgave their son for killing their daughter.
Online, there was anger for Ms Baloch. Many described their reaction to the verdict as "bittersweet", and expressed fear that - despite the conviction - things may not change for women in Pakistan.
"It took three years to get a judgement for her brother," Sanam Maher - the author of a book on Ms Qandeel - tweeted.
"I wonder how long it will take us to recognise that we shouldn't let ourselves off the hook, that our social structure is rotten & works against people like #Qandeel who wish to make something of themselves on their own terms," she added.
Analysis by BBC Pakistan correspondent Ilyas Khan
Qandeel Baloch made headlines long before her murder shocked the country. Once, she offered on Facebook to "strip for the nation" if Pakistan beat India in cricket. Then she posted selfies with a known cleric, Mufti Abdul Qavi, in styles that conveyed intimacy.
So when she was killed, many - including her family - pointed fingers at Mufti Qavi. This was despite Qandeel's brother admitting on camera that he did it all by himself.
He did retract that statement during the trial - saying it was given under duress - which may be the reason he avoided capital punishment. He can appeal the judgment on the same ground.
But while there may be a sense of relief among quarters sensitive to human and women's rights, the twists and turns that afflicted Qandeel's parents are a sad reflection of life in rural Pakistan.
Qandeel Baloch was Pakistan's first social media star. She was born Fouzia Azeem, and came from a poor family in a town about 400km (248 miles) south-west of Lahore.
Often dubbed the Kim Kardashian of Pakistan, she had hundreds of thousands of followers on social media. She posted images and videos of herself twerking and singing, breaking strict taboos in socially conservative Pakistan. As she became popular, she was paid to promote products on her social media accounts and appeared in music videos. Following her rise to fame in 2014, it emerged that she had been married as a teenager and had a child. But she claimed her husband was a "savage man" who abused her and she fled with her son, residing for some time in a refuge. However, she was unable to support the baby and returned him to her husband, who has always denied treating her badly. By 2015, she was named one of the top 10 Googled people in Pakistan. As she continued uploading controversial posts, she was warned by her digital branding consultant that she was going too far. Junaid Qasi told the Guardian that she refused to listen. Ms Baloch was invited to meet Mufti Abdul Qavi in Karachi during the holy month of Ramadan. She posted selfies with him to her social media accounts. In one image, she is wearing his signature sheepskin cap. He was criticised for behaving inappropriately by associating with a disreputable woman. He was humiliated and his membership of a religious committee revoked. Soon after, Ms Baloch was found dead in her bed. Her brother Waseem said he drugged and then strangled her "for dishonouring" the family name.
According to the World Economic Forum, Pakistan is the second worst country in the world in terms of gender parity. Women hold fewer than 7% of managerial positions. Early marriage remains a serious issue in Pakistan, with 21% of girls in the country marrying before the age of 18, and 3% marrying before 15. More than five million primary school age children in Pakistan are not in school, most of them are girls, according to Human Rights Watch. There were 35,935 female suicides between 2014 and 2016 according to figures by White Ribbon Pakistan. Qandeel Baloch’s parents speak of pain
| Famous Person - Commit Crime - Sentence | September 2019 | ['(BBC)'] |
Seven people go on trial in Kuwait accused of spying for Iran against Kuwait and the United States; they deny all charges and say they were tortured into confessing. | Six men, including a Kuwaiti soldier, and one woman have gone on trial in Kuwait accused of spying for Iran.
The charges include passing on confidential information to the Iranian authorities about the Kuwaiti army and US troops stationed in the Gulf state. The defendants deny all the charges. Their lawyer has said they were forced to confess under torture, and has demanded a medical investigation.
Iran has denounced the case as a bid to create a "climate of fear" in the Gulf.
Three members of the alleged spy ring are Iranian, two are stateless, one is Kuwaiti and the other is Syrian, the AFP news agency reported.
The woman, an Iranian, was not present in court, it said. She had been freed earlier without bail.
Kuwaiti police uncovered the alleged spy cell in May. Local newspapers said the group was spying for Iran's Revolutionary Guards - a claim Iran has categorically denied.
Tehran's foreign ministry said in May that the allegations were aimed at "creating a climate of fear towards Iran," while a Revolutionary Guards official dismissed them as "baseless".
| Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | August 2010 | ['(BBC)'] |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.