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The Burmese government appeals for "understanding" after rare protests in Mandalay and Yangon over power shortages. | Burma's reformist, military-backed government has appealed for public understanding after rare protests by hundreds of people against chronic power shortages. The demonstrations were the largest since an abortive uprising led by Buddhist monks five years ago. A government statement carried by official media said high summer energy consumption had led to rationing. It also accused ethnic minority rebels of blowing up electricity pylons. Only a fraction of Burma's population have access to electricity, with much of it exported to neighbouring China.
Several hundred people took to the streets holding candles in the city of Mandalay on Sunday and Monday in contravention of strict laws about public gatherings. The appeal for understanding was made by the country's power ministry and was carried in all three state-owned newspapers. Under the headline "Plea to the public", it was explained that a combination of factors had led to electricity rationing. Hot weather had reduced the level of water at dams, it said, while a bomb attack by rebels had damaged the power grid.
There was no mention of the demonstrations in Mandalay in which people carried placards in protest over receiving as little as four hours of power a day. "The people are requested to understand the current situation in which electricity is being alternately supplied to the public," the English-language New Light of Myanmar newspaper said, urging people to conserve power. The BBC's Jonah Fisher in Bangkok says such protests are unusual for Burma.
Under new laws accompanying a dramatic period of political change, public gatherings like these are no longer illegal - but do require several days' notice. Officials say the Mandalay protest did not have prior approval.
People in Burma are increasingly testing the boundaries of their freedom under the quasi-civilian government which took power last year following decades of military rule, correspondents say.
About 10 members of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party (NLD) were detained for questioning, NLD Mandalay MP Ohn Kyaing told the AFP news agency.
"The authorities treated them well and released them afterwards," he said.
| Protest_Online Condemnation | May 2012 | ['(BBC)', '(VOA)'] |
Japan's first jury trial for more than 60 years ends with a man in his 70s being sentenced to 15 years in prison for murder. | Little marks the case out except its almost banal brutality: Two Tokyo pensioners argued for months before a final confrontation ended in the death of 66-year-old Mun Chun Ja after her 72-year-old neighbour, Katsuyoshi Fujii, plunged a knife into her back. That deadly squabble, however, became part of a radical legal experiment that has held Japan in thrall all week.
Fujii admitted the charge but claims he intended to threaten, not kill – and for the first time in the nation's judicial history, ordinary people decided how he should be punished.
Six citizen judges joined three professionals today in handing down a 15-year jail term to Fujji in the Tokyo District Court. The verdict was the climax of five years' preparation and sometimes tortuous discussion on the introduction of the nation's first lay judge system. The judges declared it a success, defying its many critics.
"It was a precious and worthwhile experience," one told a press conference today. Despite worries that the judges, chosen at random on Monday, would struggle to follow complex testimony or be intimidated by the court setting, they have earned universal praise for what the press is calling a skillful court performance.
All six asked questions through the three-day hearings, probing the extent of Fujii's premeditation. Why had he taken a survival knife if he merely intended to intimidate the victim? Why didn't he call an ambulance after the stabbing? In the end, the lay judges refused to believe that Fujii had simply snapped. "That probably accounts for the heavy sentence," said lawyer Tsutomu Hotta, who was watching the case.
Japan's old trial-by-jury system was abolished in 1943 as the country slipped deeper into military fascism. Most doubted it would ever return. Surveys suggest that over 80 per cent of the population opposes the new judicial experiment, and one in four won't serve if called as lay judges, despite the threat of penalties. Even Japan's justice minister said two years ago that the new system would probably fail.
Such was the level of concern when the 2004 law authorising the experiment was passed, that the legal establishment and courts demanded five years to prepare. Pundits speculated that ordinary people would baulk at the lifetime secrecy clause or at sending people to the gallows in murder cases. An overhaul of Japan's stuffy courts was ordered.
Lawyers were instructed to sit up, stop mumbling and use slides to help explain their arguments. The trial was shortened to minimise inconvenience to working citizens. Fujii had his cuffs and restraints removed to avoid biasing the judges in a system that declares over 90 per cent of defendants guilty. Such is the interest in the trial that state broadcaster NHK covered the entire four-day proceedings.
Today's verdict inaugurates a system that is expected to try 3,000 mostly serious criminal cases a year, but resistance is likely to continue. A recent survey found just one per cent of the population feels confident about judging someone. Opening day in the Fujii case was disrupted when a protestor shouted from the public gallery, warning people not to take part. For all its faults, however, lay-judges appear to be here to stay. "This has got to be an improvement on what we have now," says lawyer and reformer Takashi Takano. "It couldn't be much worse."
| Famous Person - Commit Crime - Sentence | August 2009 | ['(ABC News)', '(BBC)', '(The Guardian)', '(The Independent)', '(The New York Times)'] |
Thousands of people flee Maiduguri in Borno State after recent deadly attacks there. | Thousands of Nigerians are fleeing the north-eastern city of Maiduguri following a spate of recent attacks, which have killed at least 40 people.
Some of those leaving are students after the university was closed.
The attacks have been carried out by the radical Islamist group, Boko Haram, which opposes Western education and fights for Islamic rule. The security forces have been accused of firing indiscriminately and killing civilians after the raids.
Boko Haram has carried out most of its attacks in Maiduguri but has also bombed targets in the capital, Abuja, in recent months.
The BBC's Bilkisu Babangida in Maiduguri says the city is gripped by fear with many people staying indoors. Correspondents say bus stops are overcrowded as the exodus from the city grows. Some people are leaving on foot with their belongings and livestock. On Tuesday morning, a military patrol was targeted in Maiduguri and in the ensuing confusion, four people were shot dead and two soldiers wounded.
There has also been a blast at a church in the town of Suleja, near Abuja.
No casualties have been reported.
Our reporter says the university was closed following rumours that the group planned to attack the campus. University authorities said they had closed the campus because of the growing insecurity in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state.
Students were due to write end of term exams this week, but the authorities urged students to stay at home under the protection of their parents. A student, Leke Oshubu, told the BBC the campus was tense. "You can't read, you can't do anything in this kind of situation," he told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme. Several residents told the BBC that following Tuesday's explosion, soldiers fired indiscriminately.
"They just came, shouting 'Hands up' and then started shooting. They think people like us - civilians - are hiding militants," a resident, who asked not be identified, said.
Legislators from Borno state held a press conference on Tuesday in Abuja to condemn the military strategy and to call for an amicable solution to the conflict with Boko Haram, correspondents say. The head of the military task force in Maiduguri, Brigadier General Jack Okechukwu Nwaogbo, defended his men. "Soldiers are not animals who will be killing people indiscriminately. Anybody shot or killed by soldiers must have attacked them or is armed, which means he is part of the group we are out to tackle," he is quoted by the AFP news agency as saying.
On Saturday, residents told the BBC that soldiers had dragged men out of their homes before setting their properties on fire following a Boko Haram attack. Residents have also been ordered to walk with their hands raised as they approach military checkpoints in the city, correspondents say.
Last week, Maiduguri banned all motorbikes to prevent drive-by shootings by Boko Haram. Its gunmen often use motorbikes to assassinate security officers and politicians.
The group's official name is Jama'atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda'awati wal-Jihad, which in Arabic means "People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet's Teachings and Jihad".
But residents of Maiduguri, where it was formed in 2002, dubbed it Boko Haram. Loosely translated from the local Hausa language, this means Western education is forbidden.
Residents gave it the name because of its strong opposition to Western education, which it sees as corrupting Muslims. | Riot | July 2011 | ['(BBC)'] |
At least 43 people are now confirmed to have been killed by Hurricane Dorian in the Bahamas. The death toll is expected to rise further. | Hundreds of Hurricane Dorian survivors have fled affected areas of the Bahamas as thousands more anxiously await evacuation from the worst-hit islands.
The hurricane tore through northern islands earlier this week, leaving a trail of destruction and a humanitarian crisis in its wake.
The official death toll rose to 43 on Friday, but is expected to increase further, officials told local media.
With aid efforts under way, many survivors are scrambling to evacuate.
On Friday, crowds desperate to leave amassed in their thousands at ports in Great Abaco and Grand Bahama, the two worst-hit islands.
Frustrations mounted as survivors, carrying what few possessions they had left, complained of "chaotic" and slow evacuations.
As Gee Rolle, 44, waited for a private boat with his wife, he criticised the government, telling the Associated Press "only animals can live here".
Bahamian Prime Minister Hubert Minnis, speaking to survivors at the port in Abaco, called for calm and promised more free transport. Later on Friday, Mr Minnis confirmed the death toll had risen to 43, up from 30. In a statement he said: "The loss of life we are experiencing is catastrophic and devastating."
Tourism and Aviation Minister Dionisio D'Aguilar implored travellers to "continue visiting the Bahamian islands that were not impacted by Hurricane Dorian as this will help our people tremendously".
Now a category one hurricane, Dorian is currently churning along the Atlantic coast of North America, towards the Canadian province of Nova Scotia.
Earlier on Friday, hundreds who refused to evacuate Ocracoke Island in North Carolina were stranded when the hurricane made landfall.
On Friday, many of the evacuations were carried out by private boats and planes, as the Bahamian government awaited the arrival of other transport. Helicopters and boats had been deployed but could be delayed by severe flooding, the Bahamian Health Ministry said. Around 250 evacuees left Abaco on a boat bound for the Bahamian capital, Nassau. National Voice of the Bahamas radio reported that another boat with hundreds aboard was on its way. A further 200 people were evacuated from Abaco on Bahamasair flights. In Grand Bahama, a large cruise ship offering free passage to Florida allowed passengers with permission to enter the US to board. One survivor, 75-year-old Firstina Swain, told Reuters news agency the "people of Abaco need to get out" because "there are too many bodies". "Nobody can help anybody in Abaco, there's no place safe, everything is destroyed," she said.
According to the UN, at least 70,000 Bahamians are in need of immediate humanitarian relief after their homes were destroyed by the hurricane.
The PM and his government have been criticised for the speed of their response to the humanitarian crisis.
Chaotic air traffic control is said to be hampering relief and evacuations operations, the Miami Herald reports.
At 08:00 local time on Saturday (12:00 GMT Saturday) Dorian was south of Maine, moving north-east. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) said tropical storm conditions were expected in the extreme south-east of Massachusetts and Maine.
"On the forecast track, the centre of Dorian should pass to the southeast of extreme south-eastern New England Saturday morning, and then across Nova Scotia and Newfoundland later today and tonight," the NHC said.
The hurricane had maximum sustained winds of about 85mph (140 km/h), and was moving at a speed of 21mph (41km/h).
Forecasters said 10in (25 cm) of rain had fallen between Charleston in South Carolina and Wilmington, 170 miles away in North Carolina.
Dorian hit the Bahamas as a category five hurricane with winds reaching 185mph (298km/h). It matched the highest ever wind speed recorded at landfall, and stayed over affected areas for two days.
Officials say hundreds, possibly thousands, are still missing and the final death toll could be "staggering".
The International Red Cross fears 45% of homes on Grand Bahama and the Abacos - some 13,000 properties - were severely damaged or destroyed.
Parts of the Bahamas received up to 35in (89cm) of rain, leaving vast areas flooded.
The island of Great Abaco is virtually uninhabitable, with bodies piled up, no water, power or food, and militias formed to prevent looting, local media report.
Aerial images over the Abacos showed mile upon mile of destruction, with roofs torn off, scattered debris, overturned cars, shipping containers and boats, and high water levels.
Use our guide to see how these deadly storms form, their devastating effects and how they are measured:
A guide to the world's deadliest storms
Hurricanes are violent storms that can bring devastation to coastal areas, threatening lives, homes and businesses.
Hurricanes develop from thunderstorms, fuelled by warm, moist air as they cross sub-tropical waters. Warm air rises into the storm.
Air swirls in to fill the low pressure in the storm, sucking air in and upwards, reinforcing the low pressure.
The storm rotates due to the spin of the earth and energy from the warm ocean increases wind speeds as it builds.
When winds reach 119km/h (74mph), it is known as a hurricane - in the Atlantic and Eastern Pacific - or a typhoon in the Western Pacific.
"Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face. Well, we're about to get punched in the face." Florida Mayor Bob Buckhorn, ahead of Hurricane Irma (2017)
The central eye of calmer weather is surrounded by a wall of rainstorms.This eyewall has the fastest winds below it and violent currents of air rising through it.
A mound of water piles up below the eye which is unleashed as the storm reaches land. These storm surges can cause more damage from flooding than the winds.
"Urgent warning about the rapid rise of water on the SW FL coast with the passage of #Irma's eye. MOVE AWAY FROM THE WATER!"Tweet from the National Hurricane Center
The size of hurricanes is mainly measured by the Saffir-Simpson scale - other scales are used in Asia Pacific and Australia.
Winds 119-153km/hSome minor flooding, little structural damage. Storm surge +1.2m-1.5m
Winds 154-177km/hRoofs and trees could be damaged. Storm surge +1.8m-2.4m
Winds 178-208km/hHouses suffer damage, severe flooding Storm surge +2.7m-3.7m
Hurricane Sandy (2012) caused $71bn damage in the Caribbean and New York
Winds 209-251km/hSome roofs destroyed and major structural damage to houses. Storm surge +4m-5.5m
Hurricane Ike (2008) hit Caribbean islands and Louisiana and was blamed for at least 195 deaths
Winds 252km/h+Serious damage to buildings, severe flooding further inland. Storm surge +5.5m
Hurricane Irma (2017) caused devastation in Caribbean islands, leaving thousands homeless
"For everyone thinking they can ride this storm out, I have news for you: that will be one of the biggest mistakes you can make in your life." Mayor of New Orleans Ray Nagin ahead of Hurricane Gustav, 2008
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| Hurricanes_Tornado_Storm_Blizzard | September 2019 | ['(BBC)'] |
Protests occur in Kabul follow the announcement of most of the results of the Afghan parliamentary election. | KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan officials announced most of the long-delayed results from a September parliamentary election on Wednesday, but more disqualifications and protests and the emergence of a potential new opposition bloc clouded the poll.
A supporter of Afghan candidates for the parliamentary elections holds a banner during a protest in Kabul November 24, 2010. Afghan election candidates took to the streets of Kabul on Wednesday to protest against a polling process they say was corrupt and shameful ahead of the expected announcement of final results from the Sept.
The credibility of the result will weigh heavily on U.S. President Barack Obama’s review of his Afghanistan war strategy, due next month, amid rising violence and sagging public support, especially after a fraud-marred presidential election last year.
Consistent allegations of vote fraud in both polls have raised questions about the credibility of Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s government at a time when U.S. and NATO officials have been re-examining their long-term commitment in Afghanistan.
Wednesday’s events will not have helped that process. The Independent Election Commission (IEC) had promised full results more than 10 weeks after the September 18 poll but IEC Chairman Fazl Ahmad Manawi said results in volatile Ghazni province southwest of Kabul still had to be determined.
The other 33 provinces plus one seat for Kuchi nomads were announced. IEC spokeswoman Marzia Siddiqi Salim said without Ghazni’s 11 allocated seats, 238 places in the 249-seat wolesi jirga, or lower house, had been decided.
“It might be in a week,” Siddiqi said when asked when a new parliament would be formed.
What shape that parliament might take looms as Karzai’s next big challenge, with senior opposition figure Abdullah Abdullah saying he would have the support of a loose coalition of more than 90 lawmakers in the new parliament.
“The presence of a bigger number of opposition members of parliament will certainly have an impact ... I think we will be able to introduce some checks and balances,” said Abdullah, who was runner-up to Karzai last year but did not contest the parliamentary ballot.
There were no major opposition blocs in the previous house, which critics say Karzai had ridden over roughshod. With no formal party representation, most alliances are issue-based.
Manawi said another three winning candidates had been disqualified over irregularities, taking the total thrown out to 24. Despite huge fraud concerns, and calls by protesters for the vote to be annulled, Manawi said there would not be another vote.
The United Nations mission in Afghanistan has cautiously congratulated Kabul on staging the poll despite widespread violence, but has also noted “considerable fraud.” It welcomed the declaration of results and backed the Ghazni decision.
“The formation of a new parliament will be a major step in Afghanistan’s path to improving its democratic governance and the capacity of Afghan institutions to deliver services to the Afghan people,” the United Nations said in a statement.
Disgruntled candidates, lawmakers and supporters have called for the September poll to be scrapped. Dozens took to the streets of Kabul on Wednesday to protest against a polling process they say was corrupt and shameful.
About 150 people gathered outside Karzai’s palace. Some carried banners saying “Hijacked parliament = collapse of democracy.” Roads around the palace were blocked.
“Blocking the road and launching violence because they have not got a seat is not the right thing to do and is a malicious act against the country,” Karzai said.
The protesters have warned that failure to address grievances about the poll would push Afghans toward the insurgency.
| Protest_Online Condemnation | November 2010 | ['(Reuters)'] |
Thousands of Indonesians protest in Jakarta for tolerance after a large protest rally against blasphemy on Friday. | JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Tens of thousands of Indonesians rallied in the center of the capital Jakarta on Sunday, calling for tolerance and unity after massive protests by conservative Muslims against the city’s minority Christian governor.
The crowds filled a major traffic circle in the heart of the city and sprawled into its main thoroughfares.
The demonstrators waved “We Are Indonesia” signs and a giant red-and-white national flag was held aloft by hundreds of people.
The capital of Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, has been rocked in the past month by two major protests against Gov. Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama, who is being prosecuted for alleged blasphemy. The movement against Ahok, who is the first ethnic Chinese to be governor of Jakarta and the first Christian in half a century, has raised communal tensions and challenged Indonesia’s reputation for practicing a moderate brand of Islam.
A demonstration against Ahok on Friday drew at least 200,000 people. An anti-Ahok protest on Nov. 4 attracted at least 100,000 people and turned violent, with one dead and dozens of protesters and police injured.
Hard-line Muslim groups are demanding Ahok’s immediate arrest. Police say his detention is not necessary and have called for the legal process to be respected.
Sunday’s rally coincided with a weekly car-free morning in Jakarta when a central artery of the city is handed over to pedestrians for a few hours.
Police estimated 30,000 people turned up, said Jakarta police spokesman Argo Yuwono.
Organizers called it the “Parade of Indonesian Culture” and it featured traditional dances from Sabang in westernmost Aceh to Merauke in easternmost Papua.
National leaders of political parties under the pro-government coalition behind President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, an ally of Ahok, delivered short speeches on the importance of keeping the ethnically diverse nation united.
“We have to fight to materialize the aims of our independence. That will not happen if we are scattered, blaspheming, humiliating each other and no longer trust each other,” Surya Paloh, chairman of the National Democratic Party, said from the main stage.
“Our main enemies are stupidity and poverty. Therefore we ask the current government to work harder and always consistently with the people’s aspirations,” Paloh said.
Blasphemy is a criminal offense in Indonesia and punishable by up to five years in prison.
comments
| Protest_Online Condemnation | December 2016 | ['(AP via WTOP)'] |
Current U.S. officials and former president Jimmy Carter disagree over allegations that the U.S. is deliberately keeping food aid from North Korea despite severe food shortages among people there. | US officials have denied an accusation from former President Jimmy Carter that the US is withholding food aid from North Korea.
A state department official said the North Korean government was responsible for the plight of its people.
US food aid was suspended two years ago after the North said it was not wanted. North Korea has warned of severe food shortages this year as a result of the harsh winter. The UN has announced plans to distribute emergency food aid.
The UN's World Food Programme said 3.5m people in the North who were suffering from malnutrition would be fed.
The WFP said the operation "will include the highest standards of monitoring and control to ensure that food gets to where it is needed".
A regular concern of donors to North Korea is that aid gets siphoned off to the large armed forces and does not reach those most in need.
US and South Korean officials have blamed North Korea's autocratic government for the chronic food shortages the country faces.
North Korea has been dependent on food aid since famine in the mid-1990s. After a three-day trip to North Korea last week Mr Carter accused the US and South Korea of human rights violations against North Koreans by withholding food aid. "One of the most important human rights is to have food to eat, and for South Korea and the US and others to deliberately withhold food aid to the North Korean people is really a human rights violation," he said. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | April 2011 | ['(BBC)'] |
Five other members of the Bureau of the Parliament and the Speaker face similar charges, but each case will be handled by the Supreme Court due to their parliamentary immunity. | Eight sacked Catalan ministers have been remanded in custody by a Spanish high court judge over the region's push for independence.
Prosecutors had asked the judge to detain eight of the nine former regional government members who turned up for questioning in Madrid. They are accused of rebellion, sedition and misuse of public funds.
Prosecutors are also seeking a European Arrest Warrant for ousted Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont.
The request also covers four other dismissed Catalan ministers who did not show up in court in Madrid as requested, but have been in Belgium since Monday.
Spain has been gripped by a constitutional crisis since a referendum on independence from Spain was held in Catalonia on 1 October in defiance of a constitutional court ruling that had declared it illegal.
Last week, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy imposed direct rule on Catalonia, dissolving the regional parliament and calling local elections for 21 December. This came after Catalan lawmakers voted to declare the independence of the affluent north-eastern region. The Catalan government said that of the 43% of potential voters who took part in the referendum, 90% were in favour of independence. Those detained are:
A ninth official, ex-Business Minister Santi Vila, was granted bail at the request of prosecutors. He resigned before the Catalan parliament voted for independence last Friday.
Catalan political parties and civic groups condemned the judicial move, while thousands of people gathered outside the Catalan regional parliament in Barcelona, demanding that they be freed.
In a statement broadcast on Catalan TV from an undisclosed location in Belgium, Mr Puigdemont described the detention of the eight ex-ministers as "an act that breaks with the basic principles of democracy".
He added: "I demand the release of the ministers and the vice-president."
Five other senior members of the Catalan parliament, as well as Speaker Carme Forcadell, are facing the same charges but, because of their parliamentary immunity, their cases are being handled by the Supreme Court. Their hearings have been postponed until 9 November.
Mr Puigdemont, who was spotted in a Brussels cafe on Thursday, has said he will not return to Spain unless he and four of his fellow sacked colleagues receive guarantees of a fair trial. He did not specify his exact demands.
Belgium's federal prosecutor has said the law will be applied once an arrest warrant is received, according to Efe news agency.
Mr Puigdemont's lawyer said the climate was "not good" for him to appear in court, but he also said his client would co-operate with the authorities in Spain and Belgium.
In addition to Mr Puigdemont, prosecutors have asked Spain's high court judge to issue European arrest warrants for the following Catalan officials:
If Spain's high court judge issues a warrant, a European Arrest Warrant (EAW) will be sent to Belgian prosecutors, who have 24 hours to decide whether the paperwork is correct. If they do, they then have 15 days to arrest Mr Puigdemont and the four others. If one or all of them appeals against it, that process could last another 15 days.
Belgium has a maximum of 60 days to return the suspects to Spain after arrest. But if the suspects do not raise legal objections, a transfer could happen within a few days. A country can reject an EU arrest warrant if it fears that extradition would violate the suspect's human rights. Discrimination based on politics, religion or race is grounds for refusal. So are fears that the suspect would not get a fair trial.
There is an agreed EU list of 32 offences - in Article Two of the EAW law - for which there is no requirement for the offence to be a crime in both countries. In other words, any of those offences can be a justification for extradition, provided the penalty is at least three years in jail.
However, neither "sedition" nor "rebellion" - two of the Spanish accusations against the Catalan leaders - are on that list.
Mr Puigdemont's handling of the crisis has drawn criticism among some other Catalan politicians, with left-wing parliamentary deputy Joan Josep Nuet criticising him for creating "yet more bewilderment".
Spain's central bank warned on Thursday of the "significant risks and economic costs" resulting from the crisis, and that Catalonia's economy could fall into recession. Early numbers suggest that the vital tourism sector of the region has already been affected by the ongoing uncertainty.
What next for Spain?
| Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | November 2017 | ['(BBC)'] |
A magnitude 7.3 earthquake strikes the town of Namche Bazaar, Nepal, near the Tibetan border and the base camp for Mount Everest. , , , | A second powerful earthquake in less than three weeks spread panic in Nepal on Tuesday, bringing down buildings weakened by the first disaster and killing at least 66 people, including 17 in neighbouring India and one in Chinese Tibet.
Most of the reported fatalities were in villages and towns east of Kathmandu, only just beginning to pick up the pieces from the April 25 quake that left more than 8,000 dead.
The U.S. military's Pacific Command said a Marine Corps helicopter involved in disaster relief had gone missing, with six U.S. Marines and two Nepalese soldiers aboard.
The new 7.3 magnitude quake was centred 76 km (47 miles) east of the capital in a hilly area close to the border with Tibet, according to coordinates provided by the U.S. Geological Survey, and unleashed landslides in Himalayan valleys near Mount Everest.
Villagers who watched their homes collapse said they only survived because they were already living in tents.
Aid workers reported serious damage to some villages in the worst-affected Charikot area and said some people were still trapped under rubble. Witnesses said rocks and mud came crashing down remote hillsides lined with roads and small hamlets.
"We still don't have a clear view of the scale of the problem," said Dan Sermand, emergency coordinator at medical NGO Medecins Sans Frontieres, which surveyed the area by air and saw multiple landslides.
The United Nations has only raised 13 percent of the $423 million it said was needed to help Nepal recover from the April quake, which measured 7.8. Relief workers said they were already suffering a lack of material before the new quake.
"Why are (internally displaced people) sleeping on our office floor? Where are our tents? Where are our tarpaulins? Where are our hygiene kits?" said Brian Kelly of the International Organization for Migration, at a large relief camp in the hill-top town of Chautara, hard-hit by both quakes. "They need to be paid for," he said.
A team of about a dozen volunteers searched the rubble for survivors in the town, the biggest in a district that suffered the worst casualties in April. Several people were believed to be trapped. "It's better to search at night so it's quiet," said Rejoien Guru, a volunteer from Kathmandu.
He and others pointed flashlights into the decimated buildings hit by the twin quakes, calling out for survivors. "If anyone is in there, make a sound!" he called in Nepali.
FAMILY WATCHES HOUSE DISAPPEAR
In the town of Sangachowk, residents were outside receiving government food aid when the new quake struck. A family sat on the edge of the road where their house had just fallen down the hill, rubble spread over hundreds of feet below.
"We watched it go down slowly, slowly," said Ashok Parajuli, aged 30.
In Charikot, where at least 20 bodies were recovered, hotel owner Top Thapa said the quake was at least as strong as last month.
"We saw houses falling, collapsing along the ridge," said Thapa, owner of Charikot Panorama Resort. He said he saw five or six multi-storey buildings come down.
Politicians dashed for the exit of Nepal's parliament building in Kathmandu, and office towers swayed as far away as New Delhi. The tremors that began at around 12.30 could be felt in Bangladesh and were followed by a series of powerful aftershocks.
Parents clutched children tightly, and hundreds of people frantically tried to call relatives on mobile phones. Shopkeepers closed their stores and the streets were jammed with people rushing to check on families.
Elsewhere, people huddled in public spaces, too nervous to venture inside.
"I am very scared and I am with my two sons. The school building is cracked and bits of it, I can see they have collapsed," said Rhita Doma Sherpa, a nurse with the Mountain Medicine Center in Namche Bazaar, a departure point for trekkers headed to Everest.
"It was lunchtime. All the kids were outside. Thank god."
"WE SAW THE MOUNTAIN FALL"
May is peak season for climbing and trekking in Nepal's high altitude valleys and peaks, but the usually bustling lodges and tea-houses were close to empty after thousands of tourists fled the April quake.
Dambar Parajuli, president of the Expedition Operators' Association of Nepal, said there were no climbers or Nepali sherpa guides at Everest Base Camp. Mountaineers seeking to scale the world's tallest peak called off this year's Everest season after 18 people died when last month's quake triggered avalanches on the mountain. "All of them have already left," Parajuli said.
In Lukla, the departure point for treks to Everest, buildings cracked and small landslides were triggered when the ground shook. At least three schoolchildren were injured.
Susana Perez from Madrid was on a 10-day trek with her husband to Island Peak in the Everest region and was about to reach Lukla.
"We saw the mountain in front of us fall down - earth and rocks. There were some houses underneath but it was not clear if they were hit," Perez said. In Nepal the death toll reached 48, with 1,176 injured, police spokesman Kamal Singh Bam said. Seventeen people were killed in the Indian states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, the home ministry said in a statement, and Chinese media reported one person died in Tibet after rocks fell on a car.
Indian and U.S. military aircraft flew more than 60 wounded people to Kathmandu from affected areas.
Nepal had barely begun to recover from the devastation caused by last month's earthquake, the country's worst in more than 80 years, which killed at least 8,046 people and injured more than 17,800. Hundreds of thousands of buildings, including ancient Hindu and Buddhist temples, were destroyed and many more damaged.
Some foreign rescue teams have returned home from Nepal, but may need to be pressed into service again.
At a welcoming ceremony for an Israeli military rescue delegation on Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: "I know that you are already prepared for the next mission, anywhere it might be required. And to judge by the news, it is possible that such a mission now faces us." | Earthquakes | May 2015 | ['(MSN)', '(BBC)', '(ABC News Australia)', '(Reuters via Daily Mail)'] |
Secessionists battle with forces from Somaliland near the border with Puntland in northern Somalia. | Hargeisa - The breakaway territory of Somaliland is battling its own secessionists in a dispute that has raised tensions with neighbouring Puntland, in an area of Somalia usually more peaceful than the rest of the country.
The fighting first erupted in January after the leaders of the northern regions of Sool, Sanaag and Cayn decided to band together into a new state called Khaatumo and declared they wanted to be an independent region within Somalia.
Somaliland's troops have since clashed with militia fighters loyal to Khaatumo, with reports of dozens of casualties. Puntland's President Abdirahman Mohamud Farole stepped into the row on Wednesday, accusing Somaliland of creating chaos.
“It is unfortunate that Somaliland is sowing seeds of insecurity in the peaceful towns of Puntland at a time the world is solving the entire country's violence,” he told reporters, calling for Somaliland to pull its troops back.
The newly declared Khaatumo state is near the border with Ethiopia and is a disputed area that Somaliland seized from Puntland in 2007, though relations between the two territories have improved since.
The chairman of Khaatumo's foreign relations forum, Osman Hassan, has said unless the dispute is resolved “it is bound to escalate into a wider regional conflagration as other clans related to one side or the other take sides”.
Both Somaliland and Puntland have enjoyed relative stability compared to the rest of the Horn of Africa country and international mining and oil exploration firms are prospecting in the region.
The fighting also comes ahead of a conference in London on Feb. 23 bringing together heads of government and international organisations to discuss ways to end the instability in Somalia.
Somaliland is an internationally unrecognised state that declared independence from Somalia in 1991.
Fighting between Somaliland forces and Khaatumo fighters flared up again on Wednesday near the border town of Buhoodle, after a week-long stalemate, forcing thousands to flee.
“Somaliland's national army has repulsed the attack by the Khaatumo militia, which attacked them in the early hours of the morning (on Wednesday), after the arrival of reinforcements,” Somaliland's Minister of Defence Ahmed Ali Adami told Reuters.
Adami said three government soldiers were killed and 12 wounded in Wednesday's fighting.
Mohamed Yousouf, a member of Khaatumo's new administration, told Reuters by phone from Buhoodle, they had lost six fighters and 11 were wounded. He said they had captured four Somaliland soldiers, while seven of their fighters had been seized.
“Somaliland and Puntland claim that the Khaatumo region is part of their territory, but we want to be an autonomous region that is part of the Federal Republic of Somalia,” he said.
“We have had no communication with the government in Puntland at all,” Yousouf said. - Reuters | Armed Conflict | February 2012 | ['(IOL)'] |
Thousands of people attend rival demonstrations for or against the policies of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, Spain, Honduras and in other Latin American capitals. | Thousands of people have taken to the streets in Venezuela at a series of rival rallies for and against President Hugo Chavez. Opponents of the left-wing leader were protesting against what they called his growing authoritarianism. At other rallies in the capital Caracas and elsewhere, Chavez supporters dressed in red and danced to salsa to counteract the opposition protests. | Protest_Online Condemnation | September 2009 | ['(BBC)', '(BBC video)', '(Associated Press)', '(El Universal)'] |
A fire along South Africa's Garden Route in the Cape Province, kills at least seven people. | At least seven people have been killed in a raging fire along South Africa's popular Garden Route in the Western Cape province, officials say.
A pregnant woman, two toddlers, and a baby are among the fatalities.
"The fire remains active on the slopes," Lauren Howard from Working on Fire said about their operation in the mountainous suburb in George city.
The Garden Route is a 300km (185 mile) scenic stretch of road popular with tourists.
It is not clear whether any foreign nationals have been affected by the fires.
George city officials say at least 200 residents have been moved to a hall and that three suburbs, housing more than 1,500 people, have been evacuated as a precaution.
"There will be food, a place to sleep and social services... the medical services are there to look at people who may be struggling to breathe. They will be referred to hospitals in the area," Brent-Styan from Western Cape Local Government Department said. More than 400 firefighters have been battling the blaze 450 km (280 miles) east of Cape Town, which has so far burned over 16,600 hectares since last week.
A fire fighter pilot died last week after his helicopter went down in the Vermaaklikhei area along the Garden Route.
Working on Fire has been tweeting about its operations:
Our Teams are currently active in George, Windmeulnek, Garcia Pass, Jonkersberg, Karatara, Grootvadersbos and Potberg.Working on Fire Aerial Resources consisting of 2 Huey Helicopters, 2 fixed wing air tractor bombers & spotter plane, will be redeployed to attend to other fires The pregnant woman who was killed in the fire was eight months pregnant, Colin Deiner, head of Western Cape provincial disaster management services, told AFP news agency. Students from one campus of the Nelson Mandela University, situated at the foot of the Outeniqua Mountains near George were also evacuated, local media reported. Windy conditions are however complicating efforts to put out the fire which authorities blame on a heatwave sweeping across the Western Cape. "The strong winds are our biggest problem at the moment and lightning is also causing more problems," Mr Deiner said.
Why Cape Town's trains are on fire
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. | Fire | October 2018 | ['(BBC)'] |
Five men arrested in 2004 as part of Operation Crevice are convicted at the Old Bailey of a plot to explode fertiliser bombs in the UK. | LONDON, England (CNN) -- Five Britons have been jailed for life after being found guilty of plotting to carry out al Qaeda-inspired bomb attacks across Britain on targets ranging from a nightclub to a shopping mall.
The gang planned to use 600 kg (1,300 lb) of fertilizer to make explosives to be used in bombings in revenge for Britain's support of the United States in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, prosecutors said.
Details of the case -- previously kept secret to ensure a fair trial -- reveal previously undisclosed ties between the five men, the suicide bombers who attacked London's transport network in 2005, and other al-Qaeda linked cells. Spies had seen Mohammed Sidique Khan, the suspected ringleader of the July 7 bombings, and accomplice Shehzad Tanweer with the men in the days leading up to their arrest, but discounted them because they were not involved in the plot. (Watch how British security forces encountered two men who went on to carry out suicide attacks )
Opposition parties and survivors of the bombings demanded a public inquiry into the July 7 attacks in response to the news. British Home Secretary John Reid said he was "open to an inquiry into all of this."
"We should congratulate the police and MI5," he said.
Omar Khyam, Waheed Mahmood, Anthony Garcia, Jawad Akbar and Salahuddin Amin were convicted on Monday of conspiring with Canadian Mohammed Momin Khawaja to cause an explosion likely to endanger life.
Garcia and Khyam were found guilty of possessing an article for terrorism -- the fertilizer, and Khyam was also convicted of having aluminum powder -- an ingredient in explosives.
The men denied all charges.
Sentencing the men, Judge Michael Astill said: "The sentences are for life. Release is not a foregone conclusion. Some or all of you may never be released. You are considered cruel, ruthless misfits by society." Khyam's brother Shujah Mahmood and another man Nabeel Hussain were found not guilty of involvement in the plot.
During the UK's longest terrorism-related trial, lasting more than a year, prosecutors said the men had only to decide on a target when they were arrested in 2004 before carrying out what would have been the first homegrown attack by Islamist militants.
Police swooped on the suspects about 16 months before four British Islamists carried out suicide bombings on London's transport system in July 2005, killing 52 commuters. The prosecution said the men had discussed targets including London's biggest nightclub -- the Ministry of Sound -- gas, water and electricity supplies, synagogues, trains, planes, and a large shopping center, Bluewater, east of the capital.
British police said the scale of their operation, codenamed "Crevice" was, at the time, the largest anti-terrorist action they had carried out. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, Head of the MPS Counter Terrorism Command and National Coordinator of Terrorism Investigations, said the case marked a breakthrough in tackling al Qaeda's presence in the UK.
He also defended the failure by British security forces' to prevent the July 7, 2005 attacks despite the links between the suicide bombers and those under surveillance as part of the "Crevice" operation. "This case marked a new stage in our understanding of the threat posed by al Qaeda to this country.
"The investigation showed the links that these men had with al Qaeda in Pakistan.
"Most of them had attended a terrorist training camp in Pakistan in 2003, and were taught how to make explosives; some had been involved in extremism as far back as 2001.
"This was not a group of youthful idealists. They were trained, dedicated, ruthless terrorists who were obviously probably planning to carry out an attack against the British public.
"It was the first time since 9/11 that we in the UK had seen a group of British men intent on committing mass murder against their fellow citizens.
"While under surveillance they were heard discussing possible targets such as shopping centres, nightclubs, trains -- all heavily crowded places where the loss of life and destruction could have been massive.
"We now know that two of the people who attacked London on July 7, 2005 met with Khyam's group during the Operation Crevice surveillance operation. They were not part of that plot, and at that time were not a threat to public safety.
"In every case, and Operation Crevice was no exception, decisions have to be made as to who poses a threat to the public, and how resources should be used.
"It is a grave disappointment and a matter of great regret to everyone involved in counter-terrorism that we were not able to prevent the attack on 7th July 2005. What this case and others in the future will show is that we are dealing with a threat posed by interlinked networks of terrorists."
| Famous Person - Commit Crime - Sentence | April 2007 | ['(BBC)', '(Guardian)', '(CNN)', '(SMH)'] |
As the Florida Senate election heads to a mandatory recount, United States President Donald Trump and Rick Scott claim, without evidence, that widespread voter fraud occurred in Florida during the recent midterm election. |
President Trump speaks to reporters at the White House on Friday. The president has joined Florida Gov. Rick Scott in amplifying claims of voter fraud in the state's Senate race despite lack of evidence.
Days after midterm voting, as ballots are still being counted, Republican lawmakers who are holding on to tight leads in midterm states are alleging foul play and voter fraud. The claims were amplified by President Trump, without evidence, on Friday morning.
"You mean they are just now finding votes in Florida and Georgia — but the Election was on Tuesday?" he wrote in a tweet. "Let's blame the Russians and demand an immediate apology from President Putin!"
Current Florida Gov. Rick Scott, locked in a tight Senate race, said in a news conference Thursday night that "the people of Florida deserve fairness and transparency and the supervisors are failing to give it to us."
"Every Floridian should be concerned there may be rampant voter fraud in Palm Beach and Broward counties," he said. "I will not sit idly by while unethical liberals try to steal this election from the great people of Florida."
Scott's race against Democratic incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson seems to be headed toward triggering a mandatory recount. Florida law says any race within a 0.5 percent margin must go to a recount, and as of 9 a.m. Friday, Nelson trailed Scott by 0.18 percent.
Meanwhile, A Florida circuit court judge has ordered Broward County Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes to provide records on the total number of ballots cast, the number counted and uncounted, and data on vote by mail for the county by 7 p.m. ET tonight, siding with Scott. At an emergency hearing on Friday, Snipes' attorneys suggested this could slow counting.
GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz said to reporters outside the courtroom "We're here to get her records to show that there is fraud or there isn't fraud." Scott has asked state law enforcement to investigate the elections offices of Palm Beach and Broward Counties for wrongdoing, without evidence of what should be investigated. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement has said they are not investigating, that no allegations of fraud have been brought forward and there has been no written request from Scott yet. Nelson released a videotaped statement Friday afternoon accusing Scott of abusing his office to undermine democracy and "stop a complete and accurate counting of all the votes in Florida."
Previous claims of widespread voter fraud, including Trump's claim that millions of people voted illegally in 2016, are considered false by voting experts. One investigation, published in 2014, found 31 possible cases of in-person voter fraud out of more than 1 billion ballots cast over a 14-year period.
Scott claimed victory Tuesday night and has filed lawsuits against two county election officials, in Palm Beach and Broward counties, alleging their offices have withheld voting records. Trump echoed Scott's claims Thursday night, tweeting that "Law Enforcement" would look into election fraud in Florida.
Nelson's election attorney, Marc Elias, tweeted Friday that "as the counties continue their work, I expect that margin will narrow further. And then the State will conduct an orderly recount."
Trump has a history of calling out fraud, without providing evidence to back up his claims. No widespread claim of voter fraud by the president has ever been proved true. He even created a commission to investigate alleged fraud after the 2016 election, but it dissolved without releasing any findings.
"They're finding votes out of nowhere, and Rick Scott who won by — it was close, but he won by a comfortable margin, he easily won but every hour it seems to be going down," Trump said outside the White House Friday. "I think that people have to look at it very, very cautiously."
In the case of Florida still counting ballots more than 48 hours after polls closed, David Becker, the executive director for the Center for Election Innovation and Research, told NPR it is extremely common for a voting jurisdiction to be taking as long as Broward County is.
"Election officials are literally just counting the ballots. This isn't corruption or fraud," Becker said. "It is literally the best of democracy. Let election officials do their job and count the ballots."
Georgia: Republican Kemp claims Abrams trying to "create new votes"
In Georgia, gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams is hoping to force a runoff with her Republican opponent, Brian Kemp, who resigned his post as the state's secretary of state on Thursday. Kemp has already claimed victory, and his campaign released a statement saying Abrams was trying to "steal" the election in a courtroom.
"Abrams campaign is trying to create new votes, because they know it's their only remaining hope," said Ryan Mahoney, the Kemp campaign's communications director, in the statement. But Abrams' campaign maintains it just wants all provisional and absentee ballots to be counted before she decides to concede. The Associated Press has not called the race, and votes have continued to be counted this week. Kemp holds about a 63,000-vote lead, with 50.3 percent of almost 4 million votes. He needs to finish above 50 percent to avoid a runoff election.
Lauren Groh-Wargo, Abrams' campaign manager, wrote on Twitter that if Kemp "cared about Georgians and being a legitimate [governor], he would wait until results are certified."
Abrams' campaign has questioned a number of aspects of the state's election administration, which Kemp oversaw until Thursday, including the fact that hundreds of votes came in from absentee ballots in Cobb County, according to the AP, after Kemp's office said all absentee ballots had already been counted.
"He is making a joke of our elections system and stepping on basic rights," Groh-Wargo said. "This is despicable."
She noted that many jurisdictions across the country are still tabulating results as well. Overnight Thursday for instance, the lead swapped in the Senate race in Arizona, with Democratic nominee Kyrsten Sinema pulling slightly ahead of Republican Martha McSally.
In California, more than 4 million votes have yet to be counted.
Florida's governor's race also looks headed to a mandatory recount, as the votes that have trickled in this week have also pushed the race between Republican Ron DeSantis and Democrat Andrew Gillum under the 0.5 percent threshold. Gillum already conceded the race on Tuesday night, but he tweeted Thursday night after Scott announced his lawsuits against the two elections supervisors. | Government Job change - Election | November 2018 | ['(NPR)'] |
Chile's Supreme Court strips former military ruler Augusto Pinochet of his immunity from prosecution, allowing him to be prosecuted for alleged crimes including involvement in murder and torture. | The decision paves the way for the former president, now 88, to be tried for an alleged campaign of repression in the 1970s and 1980s.
Relatives of alleged victims cheered the decision, which confirmed a lower court's ruling in May.
"We're happy and we're going to keep pushing," said Lorena Pizarro, president of the Association of Relatives of the Disappeared, quoted by the Reuters news agency.
Previous attempts to prosecute Gen Pinochet in Chile have been dismissed on medical grounds, with judges persuaded that he is suffering from dementia. Similar arguments presented by defence lawyers this time were rejected by a majority of just one judge on the panel.
Commentators suggest the appearance of an apparently lucid Gen Pinochet on a Miami TV show last year may have undermined his lawyers' claims of dementia.
Public opinion has also shifted further against Gen Pinochet since the publication in July of a US Senate report, which gave details of secret bank accounts he holds containing millions of dollars.
Thousands killed
The Supreme Court ruling means Gen Pinochet could now face trial for charges of human rights abuses committed during his 1973-1990 military rule.
During this time, more than 3,000 supporters of the previous government were killed, thousands more tortured, and many thousands more again forced into exile.
LIFE OF PINOCHET
Born 1915; mother later pushes him into a military career
1950s: Leads clampdown on Chilean Communist party
1973: As army chief, leads coup against left-wing President Salvador Allende
1988: Loses public plebiscite on rule
1990: Steps down as president
1998: Steps down as commander-in-chief of the army. Arrested in UK.
Profile: Augusto Pinochet
Your views: Pinochet ruling
Unlike previous cases, the charges this time centre on the Operation Condor campaign - a co-ordinated effort by South American military regimes in the 1970s and 1980s to eliminate their opponents. Under Operation Condor, secret police serving military dictatorships in Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Brazil in the 1970s exchanged prisoners and information. The BBC's Clinton Porteous in Santiago says the next step will be for Judge Juan Guzman to restart his investigation into the general, subject to appeal. The judge could formally question him or order new medical examinations. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | August 2004 | ['(BBC)'] |
The People's Alliance for Democracy leaves protesting at the Thai Government House and distributes protesters to Bangkok's two airports, Suvarnabhumi and Don Muang, for security reasons. | PAD's co-leader Chamlong Srimuang informed anti-government protesters to abandon the Government House and move to gather at either Don Muang or Suvarnabhumi airports."I will lead you to continue the rally against the government at either airport. We will abandon the Government House. PAD's guards are assigned to supervise moving of the equipments and tents to the new rally sites," Chamlong said.PAD had started the seizure of the Government House on August 26, forcing the prime ministers; Samak Sundaravej and incumbent Somchai Wongsawat, to work somewhere else including Supreme Command office. Somchai who was appointed to the position late October has never had chance to work there.Chamlong said the Government House was no longer secure as it risked being attacked by pro-government supporters. "I already alerted police about the insecurity and dangers on protesters protesting in the Government House, but they have done nothing," he said.Security and protection at Don Muang and Suvarnabhumi airports are much better and Upon hearing Chamlong, some protesters said they would continue the protest there and would not move to new site."It is up to you if you wanted to stay here, but I would not guarantee your security. I don't you to die here," he said.There would be no protesters but PAD's guards staying overnight at the government House. The move will mean the end of live broadcast of ASTV at the Government House. PAD provided many vehicles, including six-wheeled trucks, vans and pickups for protesters who wanted to go to the airports. | Protest_Online Condemnation | December 2008 | ['(Nation Multimedia)'] |
Aaron Schock, a former U.S. representative from Illinois's 18th congressional district, pleads not guilty on 24 charges including Mail fraud and tax evasion. . | (Reuters) - A former U.S. representative whose lavish Washington office raised questions about use of taxpayer money pleaded not guilty on Monday to charges of defrauding the federal government and campaign committees, then trying to cover it up.
Aaron Schock, a 35-year-old former Republican congressman from Illinois, was indicted in November by the U.S. Department of Justice on 24 counts, including wire fraud, theft of government funds and filing false federal income tax returns. He entered his plea in a federal court in Springfield, Illinois.
“I look forward to the truth and all the facts coming out in this case. I have complete faith in my legal team, the good people of this community, and that justice will ultimately prevail,” Schock said in an emailed statement.
Schock, elected to the, U.S. House of Representatives in 2008 at the age of 27, gained a following by posting flashy photos on social media of himself traveling around the world.
But he was hounded with questions after The Washington Post reported last year about lavish decorations in his Capitol Hill office based on the PBS period melodrama “Downton Abbey.”
Although staff told the Post that the interior design work had been done for free, the story prompted more investigations into Schock’s spending habits, with several media outlets reporting he failed to disclose some expenditures and had to repay others after improperly using taxpayer funds.
| Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | December 2016 | ['(Reuters)'] |
A magnitude 5.8 earthquake strikes near Mineral, Virginia; a nearby nuclear reactor is automatically shutdown due to the quake. This is the most powerful earthquake to hit Virginia since 1897. | A 5.9-magnitude earthquake centred in Virginia has shaken much of Washington DC and was felt as far north as New York City and Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, where the US president, Barack Obama, is on holiday.
The US Geological Survey said the earthquake was half a mile (800 metres) deep. Tremors were felt at the White House and all over the east coast as far south as Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
Parts of the Pentagon, White House and Capitol were evacuated. There were no immediate reports of injuries.
The quake was centred north-west of Richmond, the capital of Virginia, and south of Washington.
Obama and many of the nation's leaders were out of Washington and on holiday when the quake struck at 1.51pm EDT (5.51 GMT). The shaking was felt on the Martha's Vineyard golf course as Obama was starting a round.
The east coast gets earthquakes, but they are usually smaller and the area is less prepared than California or Alaska.
At Reagan National airport, outside Washington, ceiling tiles fell during a few seconds of shaking. All flights were put on hold.
At the Pentagon, in northern Virginia, a low rumbling built and built to the point that the building was shaking. People ran into the corridors of the government's biggest building and, as the shaking continued, shouted: "Evacuate! Evacuate!"
In New York, the 26-storey federal courthouse in Lower Manhattan began swaying and hundreds of people were seen leaving the building.The social media site Twitter filled with reports of the earthquake from people using the site up and down the US east coast.
"People pouring out of buildings and onto the sidewalks in downtown DC …" tweeted the Republican strategist Kevin Madden.
"Did you feel earthquake in ny? It started in richmond va!" tweeted Arianna Huffington, the editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post. | Earthquakes | August 2011 | ['(New York Times)', '(The Guardian)'] |
Police arrest six people in connection with a mass shooting last month in Fresno, California, that left four people dead and another six injured. | FRESNO, Calif. – Six suspected gang members were arrested in a shooting that killed four people and injured several others during a backyard party, the Fresno Police Department said Tuesday.
Police Chief Andy Hall said that the suspects are all self-admitted Mongolian Boys Society gang members and that they carried out the shooting to retaliate against a rival gang, the Asian Crips, that they believed was responsible for the death of a member of their gang.
At least one of the people who attended the backyard party was a former member of the Asian Crips, Hall said. He would not say whether any of the dead or wounded from the mass shooting were Asian Crip members.
"We see them as victims," Hall said during a news conference Tuesday.
Background:4 dead in 'mass casualty shooting' at Sunday Night Football party in California
The investigation that led to the arrest of the six alleged gang members took 5,000 investigative hours and included local, state and federal law enforcement agencies. Fresno police served 19 search warrants, recovering two guns used in the slayings, including one that was stolen from Oklahoma.
All six men are held on $11 million bail and could face the death penalty, the Fresno County District Attorney’s Office said.
Mayor Lee Brand said the arrests could "bring closure" to the victims' families and the Valley's Hmong community.
"We will work hard to bring peace and comfort to the city of Fresno as we close the page on a very difficult year," the mayor said of what he called a "terrible event that shook Fresno to its core."
"The promise of protection can’t stop with arrests," he said. "We have to remain vigilant and stay alert."
On Nov. 17, at least two suspects entered the backyard of a home in southeast Fresno and opened fire. Ten people were shot, and four died.
All the victims were of Hmong descent. Fresno is home to the second-largest Hmong community in the USA. The men killed were Xy Lee, 23; Phia Vang, 31; Kou Xiong, 38; and Kalaxang Thao, 40.
Police reported that the two suspects had automatic weapons and snuck into the backyard party while people watched the Los Angeles Rams-Chicago Bears Sunday Night Football game.
About 35 people were at the party when the shooting began. The suspects fired on the 16 people in the yard, while the rest of the partygoers – mostly women and children inside the house – were unharmed. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Arrest | December 2019 | ['(USA Today)'] |
U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, the last surviving Kennedy brother, dies at age 77, after battling brain cancer. | Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, a son of one of the most storied families in American politics, a man who knew acclaim and tragedy in near-equal measure and who will be remembered as one of the most effective lawmakers in the history of the Senate, died late Tuesday night. He was 77.
The death of Mr. Kennedy, who had been battling brain cancer, was announced Wednesday morning in a statement by the Kennedy family, which was already mourning the death of the senator’s sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver two weeks earlier. | Famous Person - Death | August 2009 | ['(New York Times)'] |
At least 12 police officers are killed and many more people wounded by a suicide bombing outside a police station in the town of Vavuniya in northern Sri Lanka. | At least 12 policemen have been killed and many more wounded in a suicide bombing in Sri Lanka's northern town of Vavuniya, police say.
A man on a motorcycle reportedly detonated explosives in front of a police office in the town, 250km (120 miles) from the capital Colombo. The area has been sealed off and the injured have been taken to hospital. It is not clear who carried out the attack but suspicion has fallen on Tamil Tiger rebels.
The rebels have been blamed for a recent series of bombings in Sri Lanka. School children were among around 40 victims being treated for their wounds after Monday's attack, hospital officials said. Intense fighting
There has been intense fighting between the rebels and the army in the north of the island over the last month. The military is carrying out an offensive which it says is aimed at crushing the rebels by the end of this year. Troops drove the Tamil Tigers from strongholds in the east last year. Both sides in the war in the north claim to have inflicted heavy casualties on the other in recent weeks. It is impossible to verify either account because the government bars journalists from the frontline areas. Tamil Tiger rebels have also been blamed for a spate of recent bomb attacks in and around Colombo, mainly targeting buses and trains. Dozens have been killed and many more wounded. The rebels have accused the military of the roadside bombings which have killed many civilians in the rebel-held north. The government has denied the allegations. Sri Lanka's civil war has intensified since the government formally ended a ceasefire with the rebels in January. In practice, the truce had been dead for months. The rebels have fought for a generation for an independent state for the Tamil minority in the island's north and east. | Armed Conflict | June 2008 | ['(BBC News)', '(AFP via Yahoo! News)'] |
At least 17 are killed and 12 others are injured in a fire at a drug rehabilitation clinic in Guayaquil, Ecuador. Officials said the blaze took hold after patients set mattresses on fire in a bid to escape the facility. | Ecuador's president expresses his solidarity with the victims' families as officials say patients set fire to mattresses.
By Ajay Nair, news reporter Saturday 12 January 2019 16:57, UK
At least 17 people have died and 12 others have been injured in a fire at a drug rehabilitation clinic in Ecuador, authorities have said.
Officials said the blaze took hold after patients set mattresses on fire in a bid to escape the facility in Guayaquil - the country's biggest city.
Police chief Tania Varela said the centre lacked the necessary permits required to operate. Makeshift treatment facilities are common in the South American nation.
In a statement, the Guayaquil fire department said: "We regret the loss of 17 human lives in this tragedy, and we reject the negligence of the owners."
Officers are hoping to question the owners and operators of the rehabilitation facility.
A tweet translated from Ecuador's President Lenin Moreno read: "My fraternal embrace and endearing solidarity with the relatives of the victims of the fatal fire in Guayaquil.
"Those responsible have already been detained. We will not allow the death of innocents to remain in impunity. The government is with you!"
Domenica Tabacchi, the vice mayor of Guayaquil, expressed her solidarity with the families affected.
In a translated tweet, she wrote: "I deeply regret the tragedy that occurred today in the suburb of Guayaquil. | Fire | January 2019 | ['(Sky News)'] |
French aid worker, Laurent Maurice, kidnapped in Chad last November, is released after 89 days of captivity, described as "tired but appears to be in good health". | (CNN) -- A French aid worker was freed Saturday nearly three months after his abduction near Chad's border with Sudan, the International Committee of the Red Cross said.
Laurent Maurice "is tired but appears to be in good health," the organization said in a statement.
ICRC spokeswoman Carla Haddad Mardini would not elaborate on the circumstances of Maurice's release, only saying that the group did not pay a ransom and Sudanese authorities helped.
"It's very difficult to know the reasons why he was kidnapped," Mardini said in an interview from the ICRC office in Geneva, Switzerland. "We work in difficult areas."
Maurice, 37, was released in al Junaynah in west Darfur, Sudan, and is on his way to the Sudanese capital of Khartoum, Mardini said.
The group provides humanitarian assistance in many areas shaken by violence, including Sudan. An estimated 300,000 people have died and at least 2.5 million displaced in Sudan's Darfur region, where government forces and their Arab Janjaweed militia allies have battled rebels since 2003, according to the United Nations. More than 240,000 resettled in neighboring Chad, where violence in the east erupted and 180,000 Chadians were displaced.
Several armed men abducted Maurice on November 9 from Kawa, a village in eastern Chad near the border with Sudan where the aid group is supporting a primary health care center. Maurice, an agronomist, had worked in Chad for 10 months to evaluate the most recent harvests, the organization said. He was kidnapped in the evening while working with a team of Chadian colleagues, Mardini said.
Another French aid worker kidnapped in October has yet to be released, the group said Saturday. Gauthier Lefevre was taken by several armed men near the town of Al Geneina in West Darfur, along the border with Chad.
"This is a great relief for us," Mardini said about Maurice's release. "We hope the second one will be released, too." | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Release | February 2010 | ['(BBC)', '(CNN)', '(Philippine Daily Inquirer)', '(Reuters South Africa)', '(CTV News)', '(news.com.au)'] |
A Qatari court sentences two Russian intelligence officers to 25 years in prison for assassination of Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, a suspected terrorist and leader of Chechen separatists, on February 13, 2004. | Russian media contributed to the severe sentence of Qatar court for the two Russians suspected of assassinating ex-President of Chechnya Zelimkhan Yandarbiev.On June 30 the two Russians were sentenced to life imprisonment by Qatar court. Earlier, on June 8 Qatar office of public prosecutor requested death penalty for them. Meanwhile, the defendants’ lawyers said that the Russians had been tortured and forced to slander themselves.
Russian authorities did their best to protect our citizens in Qatar. On June 11 the spokesman for Russian Foreign Ministry Alexander Yakovenko said that “Moscow is still making efforts to release the two Russians”. Meanwhile, Russian media wrote that the men pleaded guilty of assassinating Yandarbiev and disclosed the details of the murder. I am not going the ethical aspect of similar statements of the press. It will be enough to recall the attempt of NTV senior reporter Leonid Parfenov to broadcast the interview with the wife of the international terrorist Yandarbiev. Another bad thing was arrival of Chechen militants’ leader Aslan Maskhadov spokesman, Akhmed Zakaev in Qatar on June 30. Grani.ru online newspaper wrote that one of the Chechen militant leaders considered the legal hearing as bigger event than “seeking the truth and punishing criminals”, as the defendants are the Russian special service officers following the orders of their government. The terrorist concludes, “Consequently, Russian authorities are tried in court along with the two men”.
Probably there is still a chance that Qatar authorities can hand the two prisoners to Russia. However, this possibility is less likely than it used to be, especially after the reports like the Kommersant did. This newspaper wrote that Qatar emir and Russian President had a conversation and agreed on the legal hearing outcome.
It goes without saying that Qatar court was pressed by separatists and radical Islamic groups. More than 20 Russian and foreign “human rights activists” signed the letter to Qatar emir with the request to punish the Russian prisoners strictly. The letter authors called the emir not to follow the Kremlin’s requests. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Sentence | July 2004 | ['(Pravda)', '(Washington Times)'] |
Protesters clash with police and gendarmerie members at the Harmanli refugee camp in Bulgaria following a quarantine placed on the camp amid fears of a disease outbreak. Prime Minister Boyko Borisov says five detainees would immediately be deported as a threat to national security. | Refugees rioted in Bulgarian and Greek camps late Thursday and early Friday. Bulgaria's Prime Minister said many now face expulsion.
Hungary could deport hundreds of Afghan refugees after 24 police officers were reported injured during violent clashes in Bulgaria's largest refugee camp late Thursday and early Friday.
About 2,000, mostly Afghan, refugees burnt tires and furniture and threw stones at some 250 police officers, gendarmerie members and firefighters at the Harmanli reception center.
More than 400 migrants were arrested as police quelled the protest with rubber bullets and water cannons.
The migrants were protesting recent bans on leaving the camp, imposed after alleged outbreaks of infectious disease within the center.
Arrested protesters face extradition to Afghanistan as early as next month, Prime Minister Boyko Borisov said on Friday after canceling a trip to Hungary.
"I am very worried ... You see there is no window left unbroken. The people who committed these acts of vandalism will be brought to justice," he told reporters.
"Based on an agreement between the European Union and Afghanistan we have asked for a plane to start extraditing people there in early December. As for the rest, all who have acted brutally and violated public order will be moved to closed camps."
Local police chief Nina Nikolova told the AFP news agency earlier Thursday that the situation was under control and the protesters were talking with the state refugee agency.
But clashes reignited in the evening when police used two water cannons to force the group back into the buildings and prevented them from leaving the center.
Infectious disease reports
Authorities had sealed the camp to investigate reports of contagious diseases in the center.
Last week Harmanli residents, supported by nationalists, held a protest calling for the camp's closure following local media reports of skin diseases such as chicken pox as well as viral infections in the camp population.
Residents demanding camp's closure The head of the Bulgarian Refugee Agency, Petya Parvanova, told BNR reports of disease were false and there was no medical reason to quarantine the camp.
Refugees clash with police in Greece
On the Greek island of Lesbos, dozens of frustrated migrants briefly fought police after two people were killed and two others were injured in an accidental gas canister fire at the Moria refugee camp late on Thursday.
A 66-year-old woman and a 6-year-old were killed, police said, while a 25-year-old woman and a 4-year-old were seriously injured and sent to Athens for medical treatment.
"We are not animals, we are human beings," a migrant told reporters. "You people say United Nations, United Nations has human right, but we don't see any human rights here. We don't see any freedom, we don't see any democracy here."
Dozens of tents were burned and container cabins with medical supplies, clothes and documents were damaged, a police official said.
aw/sms (AFP, dpa, AP, Reuters)
One of the more disturbing effects of the refugee crisis is the increasing number of unaccompanied minors. As Emanuela Barbiroglio and Ambra Montanari report from Sofia, the situation in Bulgaria is particularly bad. (02.09.2016)
Volunteers connected through social media have come to the aid of people seeking asylum in eastern Europe, where governments have failed. Peter Georgiev reports from Sofia. (24.12.2015)
A group of migrants was stopped by police as they attempted to cross from Serbia to Croatia on Monday. Migrants have become increasingly frustrated as Balkan borders remain closed. (14.11.2016) | Protest_Online Condemnation | November 2016 | ['(Deutsche Welle)', '(FOX News)'] |
Police in Mauritius arrest the Captain of the ship which spilled huge amounts of petrol off the coast of the country, causing a major environmental disaster. | (Reuters) - Mauritius has arrested the captain of a Japanese bulk carrier that ran aground off its coast, causing a devastating oil spill in one of the world’s most pristine maritime environments, police said on Tuesday.
Mauritius arrests captain of oil spill ship
01:14
The MV Wakashio struck a coral reef off the Indian Ocean island on July 25 and began spilling oil on Aug. 6, prompting the government to announce a state of environmental emergency.
Mauritius’ National Crisis Committee said two companies, International Tankers Owners Pollution Federation Ltd and Le Floch Depollution, will start cleaning three sites on the shoreline on Wednesday and will be joined by local groups including fishermen.
The spill spread over a vast area of endangered corals, affecting fish and other marine life in what some scientists have called the country’s worst ecological disaster. Emergency crews managed to remove most of the ship’s remaining oil before it split in two on Saturday.
“We have arrested the captain of the vessel and another member of the crew. After having been heard by the court they have been denied bail and are still in detention,” Inspector Siva Coothen told Reuters.
The Mauritius coastguard had repeatedly tried to reach the ship to warn that its course was dangerous but had received no reply, a maritime official with knowledge of the incident who asked not to be named told Reuters.
“The route set five days before the crash was wrong and the boat navigation system should have signalled that to the crew and it seems the crew ignored it. The boat did also fail to send out an SOS (when it ran aground), and did not respond to attempts by the coastguard to get in touch,” the official said.
The other man arrested was the deputy captain, he said, adding the two men were charged with endangering safe navigation.
The official confirmed that the crew had been questioned about reports they were having a birthday party on board, but said it was not clear yet if the party had been held at the same time that the ship ran aground or earlier in the day.
He also denied media reports that the ship had sailed close to land seeking a Wi-Fi signal, saying that looking for a phone signal would not have required sailing so close to land.
A national television network reported that the captain told the court the ship was sailing coastline to get a phone signal, something he had done before when sailing through those waters.
He was not in charge of the ship at the time, he said, the ship was not on autopilot and there was bad weather, according to the report.
Scientists say the full impact of the spill is still unfolding but the damage could affect Mauritius and its tourism-dependent economy for decades. Removing the ship is likely to take months.
The official noted it was the second accident in the area in four years and said the government might establish a signal station nearby to try to ward off future disasters.
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
| Famous Person - Commit Crime - Arrest | August 2020 | ['(Reuters)'] |
An American pediatrician from Delaware state is indicted by video evidence on 471 felony counts in the alleged rape and sexual abuse of 103 children. | Dec. 24, 2009 -- A popular Delaware pediatrician may have sexually assaulted more than 100 of his young patients and videotaped the acts in what officials are calling one of the largest sexual abuse cases in the state's history.
Dr. Earl Bradley, 56, is being held in the Vaughn Correctional Center on a $2.9 million cash bond after he was charged with 33 felony counts, including rape and sexual exploitation of a child, stemming from incidents at his Lewes, Del., practice, BayBees Pediatrics.
Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden told ABCNews.com that "this is a very very troubling case, and we here in the state of Delaware are pursuing it aggressively to the fullest extent of the law."
"The thing that makes this case so troubling and horrific is the alleged abuse of trust in this matter," said Biden. "These are highly specialized cases where no one in the community could believe someone could do this to a child, to a child who is voiceless."
Biden said that some of the alleged victims were just months old. If convicted, Bradley could face life in prison, according to Biden.
"Both as an attorney general and a father of two children it shocks the conscience," said Biden. "But I'd like to take this opportunity to tell parents that we are doing everything in our power to pursue this case to the fullest extent of the law."
Asked how the reported abuse was able to go on for so long, Biden responded, "The Delaware State Police has been aggressively investigating this and when they had evidence of crime they came to us and we filed charges. I have a great degree of confidence in the Delaware State Police and we are aggressively pursuing this investigation."
According to court documents obtained by ABCNews.com, the investigation was spurred after a 2-year-old girl told her mother that Bradley had touched her genitals and "hurt her" during a Dec. 7 appointment.
Bradley was supposed to appear at a preliminary hearing Wednesday, but it was rescheduled for Jan. 14, 2010, after Bradley was reportedly put on suicide watch.
The attorney representing Bradley, Eugene Maurer, called the suicide reports "bogus" in an interview with ABC News and said that his client is actually just isolated in the prison infirmary.
"I think he's sort of in shell-shock by everything that's happened so quickly," said Maurer. "He is well aware of what he's facing at this point."
"It seems to me that we need to do a very rigorous exploration of his mental health and see if there's any pathology there," he added. "This case kind of cries out for that kind of analysis."
According to the child's mother, who is not named in the court documents, Bradley first examined the toddler in her presence, but then "removed the victim to the basement of the office, where a toy room is located."
The mother told authorities that she permitted her daughter to be alone with Bradley "because of his position as a doctor" and because she "trusted him."
But on the way home from the doctor the mother alleges that her daughter said Bradley had sexually abused her while they were alone in the basement. The girl's father, who had taken to her to a previous appointment with Bradley, also told authorities his daughter had made a similar complaint to him in November. In 18 pages of disturbing court documents, Bradley is accused of videotaping sexual acts with his young patients and molesting them repeatedly while their parents waited in nearby examination rooms.
Bradley, who had been in the 1,300-person town of Lewes since 1994, is accused of abusing his patients for the past 11 years. These court documents refer to incidents that happened between August and December of this year, but authorities, who have taken videos and materials from Bradley's home, believe that hundreds of the doctor's massive client-base could be involved.
Mike Duckworth, treasurer of the Bethel United Methodist Church near Bradley's home, told The Associated Press that the charges brought "a lot of shock" to neighborhood residents.
"There was a time when Dr. Bradley was the new and exciting pediatrician in town," Duckworth said.
According to the documents, the examination room known as the Pinocchio Room because of its decorations was seen frequently on the video tapes obtained by authorities that reportedly show Bradley undressing his patients -- one as young as 3 months old -- and performing sex acts on them.
In another room decked out with "The Little Mermaid" paraphernalia, equally horrific abuse allegedly occurred at the hands of Bradley, who investigators said was seen on the tapes muzzling screaming children as they tried to flee the abuse.
Described as a large 6-foot, 225-pound man, Bradley allegedly had a "violently enraged expression on his face" as he yelled to a 2-year-old patient to perform sexual acts on him. That particular video was described by the investigating officer in court documents as "one of the most violent and brutal attacks on a child of any age" that he had ever seen.
Biden, who has set up a special victims unit division to deal with the Bradley case, is asking any parents with a child who is a patient or former patient of the doctor's to come forward and talk to police.
N.G. Berrill, a New York forensic psychologist who has not treated any of Bradley's alleged victims, said that the older a child gets the more likely they are to remember being abused.
"As the kids get older, obviously there is a higher likelihood that they'd know something went wrong," said Berrill. "Although, a pediatrician used to examining kids physically are probably pretty skilled at fondling a kid without the child knowing something was wrong."
Berrill added that the extent of the pain the child endured would also affect how likely it was for the child to report the abuse.
"What makes this so insidious is that the vast majority of people would not think this man would physically abuse their children because he was a doctor," said Berrill. "And a child's experience already is that sometimes, when you go to the doctor, they have to do something that will happen to hurt."
"Pediatricians are people, like piano teachers and coaches, who we would normally expect to be respectful with children and so when we hear them crossing the boundary and doing the worst, it unsettles everyone." | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | February 2010 | ['(CNN)', '(ABC)'] |
China successfully launches its Shenzhou 9 spacecraft, carrying three astronauts – including the first female Chinese astronaut, Liu Yang – to the Tiangong–1 orbital module. | By Jonathan AmosScience correspondent, BBC News China has launched its latest manned space mission - whose crew includes its first female astronaut, Liu Yang.
The Shenzhou-9 capsule rode to orbit atop a Long March rocket from the Jiuquan spaceport on the edge of the Gobi desert.
Ms Liu and her two male colleagues are heading to the Tiangong space lab.
They will spend over a week living and working on the 335km-high vessel, testing new systems and conducting a number of scientific experiments. Before leaving, the crew were presented to Communist Party officials, VIPs and the media.
Wearing their flight suits and sitting behind glass, they waved and smiled.
"We will obey orders, listen to directions and be calm; and co-ordinate together to successfully complete China's first manned rendezvous and docking mission," said Commander Jing Haipeng.
China's top legislator, Wu Bangguo, wished them well and told them: "We are expecting your safe return."
The Shenzhou-9 spacecraft lifted off on schedule at 18:37 local time (10:37 GMT; 11:37 BST).
All systems appeared to function normally and eight minutes later, the spacecraft had entered orbit. Very shortly after Shenzhou-9 had unfurled its solar panels.
It will take a couple of days to reach Tiangong. A docking is planned for Monday at 15:00 Beijing time (07:00 GMT; 08:00 BST).
Mr Jing, 46, is making his second spaceflight after participating in the Shenzhou-7 outing in 2008 - the mission that included China's first spacewalk.
His flight engineers are both first-timers, however.
Liu Wang, 42, a People's Liberation Army pilot, has got his chance after spending 14 years in the China National Space Administration's astronaut corps.
Thirty-three-year-old Liu Yang, also a military pilot, has on the other hand emerged as China's first woman astronaut after just two years of training.
Her role in the mission will be to run the medical experiments in orbit.
Shenzhou-9 follows on from the unmanned Shenzhou-8 venture last year that tested the technologies required to join a capsule to the Tiangong lab. Those manoeuvres went well and gave Chinese officials the confidence to send up humans.
When it arrives at Tiangong, the Shenzhou-9 craft is expected to make a fully automated docking, but there is a plan to try a manual docking later in the mission.
This would see the crew uncouple their vehicle from the lab, retreat to a defined distance and then command their ship to re-attach itself.
Liu Wang will take the lead in this activity. "We've done many simulations," he said during the pre-launch press conference.
"We've mastered the techniques and skills. China has first class technologies and astronauts, and therefore I'm confident we will fulfil the manual rendezvous."
Tiangong is the next step in a strategy that Beijing authorities hope will lead ultimately to the construction and operation of a large, permanently manned space station.
It is merely the prototype for the modules China expects to build and join in orbit. Mastering the rendezvous and docking procedures is central to this strategy.
At about 60 tonnes in mass, this proposed station would be considerably smaller than the 400-tonne international platform operated by the US, Russia, Europe, Canada and Japan, but its mere presence in the sky would nonetheless represent a remarkable achievement.
Concept drawings describe a core module weighing some 20-22 tonnes, flanked by two slightly smaller laboratory vessels.
Officials say it would be supplied by freighters in exactly the same way that robotic cargo ships keep the International Space Station (ISS) today stocked with fuel, food, water, air, and spare parts.
China is investing billions of dollars in its space programme. It has a strong space science effort under way, with two orbiting satellites having already been launched to the Moon. A third mission is expected to put a rover on the lunar surface. The Asian country is also deploying its own satellite-navigation system known as BeiDou, or Compass.
Before leaving Earth, Liu Yang said the Shenzhou-9 mission would generate further pride in Chinese people. "When I was a pilot I flew in the sky; now as an astronaut, I'm going into space. It's higher and it's farther," she said.
"I have a lot of tasks to fulfil, but besides these tasks I want to feel the unique environment in space and admire the views. I want to explore a beautiful Earth, a beautiful home. "I want to record all my feelings and my work, to share with my friends, and my comrades and my future colleagues." | New achievements in aerospace | June 2012 | ['(BBC)', '(Al Jazeera)'] |
Voters in the US states of Michigan and Arizona go to the polls for Republican Party primaries. Mitt Romney wins both states. | U.S. Republican presidential hopefuls Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum are competing in two closely watched state primaries Tuesday after a day of campaigning in one of them — Michigan. Michigan and the southwestern state of Arizona hold Republican primaries Tuesday, a week before the much-anticipated “Super Tuesday,” when 10 states hold presidential nominating contests. Republicans are selecting a candidate to face Democratic President Barack Obama in the November election.
Opinion surveys from Arizona show Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, with a clear lead over Santorum, who was a U.S. senator from Pennsylvania.
Polls from Michigan show the men in a virtual tie, while Texas Representative Ron Paul and former House speaker Newt Gingrich trail. Although Romney was born in Michigan, he is having difficulty winning the support of social conservative voters who are rallying behind Santorum. On Monday, Romney criticized Santorum on the campaign trail, saying the former senator is not spending enough time talking about the economy. Romney said Santorum has never had a job in the private sector and he touted his own ability to create jobs.
“I happen to believe that if we want to have a strong economy and good private sector jobs, it helps to have a president who's had a private sector job and I have.”
Santorum told supporters in Michigan that his campaign did not expect to be doing so well in the state. He said this fact shows the potential his campaign has. He said his plan for improving the economy includes reducing the size of government. “We will hit the ground running on lowering the budget. Every year we will spend less money in Washington than we did the year before. That's the budget I will propose. We will shrink the size of government.”
Paul also campaigned in Michigan Monday, while Gingrich focused on the state of Tennessee, before beginning a tour Tuesday of Georgia, the southeastern state he represented in Congress. | Government Job change - Election | February 2012 | ['(Voice of America)'] |
Protesters storm a government building in Yerevan, Armenia, to demand Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's resignation. | Protesters stormed a government building in the Armenian capital on Monday, escalating a months-long political crisis over Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s handling of the recent Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Demonstrators forced their way into the building in Yerevan to demand Pashinyan quits, Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported.
Social media footage showed a few protesters in the building, one with a megaphone, as police watched on.
The demonstrators left shortly after without violence, the Associated Press news agency reported.
Monday’s drama came after thousands participated in rival demonstrations in Yerevan on Thursday; anti-government crowds had called for the premier to resign, while Pashinyan managed to rally many supporters behind him on the streets.
The street protests followed what Pashinyan described as an attempted coup after the army also called for his resignation.
Anger is boiling as critics lament Pashinyan’s management of the bloody six-week conflict with Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, which killed thousands on both sides and saw swathes of territory ceded to Azerbaijan.
It was ended in November when both sides signed a Russian-brokered peace deal.
Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan, even by Armenia, but has been dominated by ethnic Armenians since the early 1990s.
In response to the military’s demand, Pashinyan dismissed Onik Gasparyan, chief of the army’s General Staff, on Thursday.
Armenian President Armen Sarkissian on Saturday refused to formally approve Gasparyan’s sacking. Sarkissian said the move was unconstitutional and that the army should be kept out of politics.
Pashinyan retorted, saying on Facebook that the president’s decision “doesn’t contribute to the solution of the current situation at all”.
On Saturday, about 15,000 people rallied again in Yerevan seeking Pashinyan’s resignation.
The demonstrations against the 45-year-old had gone dormant for a spell in the depth of Armenia’s winter.
Further rival rallies were expected in Yerevan on Monday.
Pashinyan, who came to power spearheading peaceful protests in 2018, has urged his supporters to gather in the capital’s Republic Square.
The opposition has called its own rally in another area of the city.
Pashinyan has faced calls to quit from critics angered by his handling of last year’s Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Amnesty says rival sides attacked civilians, as it called on both countries to investigate use of ‘inaccurate’ weapons.
Rivals meet in Kremlin months after Russia brokered a truce that ended weeks of deadly fighting.
Azerbaijan bet on sophisticated, pricey weapons, while Armenia relied on old Russian-made arms and obsolete strategy.
| Protest_Online Condemnation | March 2021 | ['(Al Jazeera)'] |
Thailand's Supreme Court issues an arrest warrant for former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, who didn't appear in court for the verdict in her negligence trial regarding a rice subsidy program for farmers. The court also issued a statement questioning her attorney's report that she is unwell and a potential flight risk, citing the lack of a physician's certificate. The reading of the verdict has been rescheduled to September 27. Sources within Shinawatra's party Pheu Thai Party have said that she has allegedly fled the country, though not saying where to, in response current prime minister Prayuth Chan-ocha has ordered the border checkpoints to be closely monitored to prevent Shinawatra leaving the country if she has not already. | Former Thai PM Yingluck Shinawatra has fled abroad, sources say, ahead of a verdict in her trial over a rice subsidy scheme.
Sources in her party say she made the decision to leave unexpectedly, shortly before she was due to appear at the Supreme Court on negligence charges. Her lawyers told the court she had been unable to attend because she was ill.
But when she failed to appear, the court issued an arrest warrant for her and confiscated her bail.
Judges also postponed the verdict until 27 September.
Ms Yingluck has denied any wrongdoing in the scheme which cost Thailand billions of dollars. If found guilty at the end of her two-year trial, she could be jailed for up to 10 years and permanently banned from politics.
Sources within Ms Yingluck's Puea Thai Party told Reuters that she had "definitely left Thailand" but did not give details of her whereabouts.
Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, who heads Thailand's military government, said all routes out of the country were being closely monitored.
"I just learned that she did not show up [at court]," he told reporters. "I have ordered border checkpoints to be stepped up."
Deputy PM Prawit Wongsuwan initially said he had no information on Ms Yingluck's whereabouts but as he left a meeting in Bangkok he said: "It is possible that she has fled already." Analysis by Jonathan Head, BBC News, Bangkok
Yingluck Shinawatra was the most high-profile criminal defendant in Thailand and was constantly monitored by the military authorities. So how was she able to leave the country just hours before the verdict was due to be read out? Immigration authorities say they have no record of her leaving the country.
However, it is a poorly-concealed secret that some in the military government would have been happy to see her leave the country before the verdict. Had she been convicted and jailed, she could have been seen as a victim by her supporters. The government was nervous about their reaction. Acquitting her, though, would have been equally unacceptable to her hard-line opponents, many of them very influential. That would also have undermined the justification for the military coup which overthrew her government. So it is unlikely anyone tried to stop her leaving, or that they will try to get her back.
She could have gone to the VIP area of one of Bangkok's airports and taken a private jet out of the country or she might have driven across the border into Cambodia or Laos.
However she is most likely to have joined her brother, former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who has been living mainly in Dubai since he went into exile, fleeing a Supreme Court verdict, in 2008.
Ms Yingluck's lawyer had requested a delay in the ruling, telling the Supreme Court that she had vertigo and a severe headache and was unable to attend.
But the court said in a statement it did not believe she was sick as there was no medical certificate and that the claimed sickness was not severe enough to prevent her travelling to court.
"Such behaviour convincingly shows that she is a flight risk. As a result, the court has issued an arrest warrant and confiscated the posted bail money," the statement said.
Ms Yingluck posted $900,000 (£703,000) bail at the beginning of her trial.
Friday's turn of events took many by surprise, including the hundreds of people who turned up outside the Supreme Court in Bangkok to support Ms Yingluck.
BBC Thai reporter Nanchanok Wongsamuth said the announcement prompted shocked reactions in the courtroom, and then a flurry of activity as journalists ran out to report the news.
Ms Yingluck, who became Thailand's first female prime minister in 2011, was impeached in 2015 over the rice scheme by a military-backed legislature, which then brought the legal case.
The scheme, part of Ms Yingluck's election campaign platform, launched shortly after she took office.
It was aimed at boosting farmers' incomes and alleviating rural poverty, and saw the government paying farmers nearly twice the market rate for their crop.
But it hit Thailand's rice exports hard, leading to a loss of at least $8bn and huge stockpiles of rice which the government could not sell.
Though it was popular with her rural voter base, opponents said the scheme was too expensive and open to corruption.
During her trial, Ms Yingluck had argued she was not responsible for the day-to-day running of the scheme. She has insisted she is a victim of political persecution.
In another development on Friday, former Thai minister Boonsong Teriyapirom was jailed for 42 years in connection with the rice subsidy scheme.
The BBC's Jonathan Head in Bangkok says the exceptionally heavy sentence for Mr Boonsong suggests the court would not have been lenient with Ms Yingluck and it is possible she was warned about this before making her decision to flee.
Ms Yingluck's time in office was overshadowed by controversy as well as strong political opposition.
The youngest sister of Mr Thaksin, she was seen by her opponents as a proxy for her brother, who was controversially ousted by the military in 2006.
Both siblings remain popular among the rural poor, but are hated by an urban and middle-class elite.
Their Puea Thai party has - under various different names - won every election in Thailand since 2001.
Some of Ms Yingluck's supporters outside the court on Friday expressed understanding at her failure to show.
"The Thai prime minister has done her best, she has sacrificed a lot," said Seksan Chalitaporn, 64. "Now the people have to fight for themselves."
Telecommunications billionaire Mr Thaksin, who once owned Manchester City FC, has lived in self-imposed exile since leaving Thailand. It is believed he travels between homes in London, Dubai, Hong Kong and Singapore.
May 2011- Yingluck Shinawatra is elected PM, and shortly afterwards begins rolling out her rice subsidy scheme.
January 2014 - Thailand's anti-corruption authorities investigate Ms Yingluck in connection to the scheme.
May 2014 - She is forced to step down from her post after Thailand's constitutional court finds her guilty of abuse of power in another case. Weeks later the military ousts what remains of her government.
January 2015 - An army-backed legislature impeaches Ms Yingluck for corruption over her role in the rice scheme, which effectively bans her from politics for five years. It also launches legal proceedings against her.
August 2017 - Ms Yingluck fails to appear at court for the verdict, claiming ill health. What Yingluck's fate might mean for Thailand
Profile: Yingluck Shinawatra
Profile: Thaksin Shinawatra
Setback for EU in legal fight with AstraZeneca
The EU loses a bid to make the company deliver 120m doses of Covid-19 vaccine by the end of June. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Arrest | August 2017 | ['(Reuters)', '(The Sydney Morning Herald)', '(The New York Times)', '(BBC Asia)'] |
Suspected PKK militants blow up an oil pipeline carrying oil from Iran. | ANKARA, Turkey, July 21 (UPI) -- Turkish authorities said Wednesday the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party is to blame for at attack on a natural gas pipeline from Iran.
A statement from the governor's office in the eastern Turkish province of Agri said the Wednesday attack on the pipeline was the result of attacks by "separatist terrorist organization's members."
Militant activity from the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, is on the rise in 2010, with the militant group launching attacks on Turkish military bases in recent months.
The explosion Wednesday struck a pipeline that carries gas from the Iranian border to the Turkish town of Dogubayazit near the eastern border with Iran.
Officials from Turkey's state-owned pipeline operator BOTAS said the blaze was under control but it could take as long as six days to resume operations, CNN International reports.
The official Anatolian Agency said authorities were shifting reserve gas capacity from nearby Azerbaijan to make up for the shortfall. | Riot | July 2010 | ['(Hurriyet)', '(UPI)', '(Times of India)'] |
The New York Times reports the U.S. Navy covered up a Naval Criminal Investigative Service report on Afghan detainee abuses. The NCIS investigation found that Navy SEAL Team 2's abuse resulted in the death of a 24-year old married Afghan detainee with a new baby, and that the SEALs failed to restrain the Afghan Local Police's detainee abuses. This drove some previously cooperative Afghans to leave for Taliban-controlled areas, the Times reports. Their commander in Afghanistan recommended these men be forced out of the elite SEAL teams. Two of the SEALs and their lieutenant have since been promoted. Rachel E. VanLandingham, former United States Central Command’s chief legal adviser on detainee and interrogation issues from 2006 to 2010, and other military lawyers, have called for the case to be reopened. (Headline & Global News) | A new report was released on Thursday outlining the abuse, reportedly perpetrated by SEAL Team 2, of Afghan detainees in 2012 and its subsequent cover-up. A 24-year-old Afghan man, Muhammad Hashem, who was married and had a newborn son, was beaten to death by Navy SEALs at an American outpost in Afghanistan, according to the Sky Valley Chronicle. The SEAL Team members were never charged for the homicide due to an alleged U.S. Navy cover-up. When some soldiers initially complained, SEAL command, instead of issuing a court-martial, went with a closed disciplinary process, which is usually reserved for less egregious offences.
"It's unfathomable," said Donald J. Guter, a retired rear admiral and former judge advocate general of the Navy, according to the report from the New York Times. "It really does look like this was intended just to bury this."
The incident occurred on May 31, 2012, after Afghan police allied with the SEALs were bombed at a checkpoint, killing an Afghan officer. Angered, they rounded up half a dozen suspects, and transported them to an American outpost, beating them with rifle butts and car antennas along the way. When they arrived, an American medic, Specialist David Walker, expected SEAL Team 2 to stop the beatings, but he reported one of them "jump-kicked this guy kneeling on the ground", according to the report. Two other SEALs joined the fray, and along with the Afghan militiamen, beat one of the suspects to death.
Later that evening, "[t]he three Navy SEALs stomped on the bound Afghan detainees and dropped heavy stones on their chests, the witnesses recalled. They stood on the prisoners' heads and poured bottles of water on some of their faces in what, to a pair of Army soldiers, appeared to be an improvised form of waterboarding," according to the report. Even prior to these incidents, SEALs were acting inappropriately, as "they had amused themselves by tossing grenades over the walls of their base, firing high-caliber weapons at passing vehicles and even aiming slingshots at children, striking them in the face with hard candy."
Not only did the abuse lead to a death, but arguably worse is the detrimental hit the U.S. is taking in gaining the Afghan people's approval, according to the Washington Times. Villagers are feeling alienated, and some that had been cooperative, now flee for Taliban controlled regions. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Investigate | December 2015 | ['(NCIS)', '(The New York Times via Tampa Bay Times)', '(Sky Valley Times)', '(The New York Times - synopsis)'] |
At least 21 miners die after a roof collapses in a coal mine in Shenmu, China. | At least 21 miners died when a roof collapsed in a coal mine in northern China, officials say.
Sixty-six miners were rescued after the accident on Saturday at the Lijiagou mine near the city of Shenmu in Shaanxi province.
The cause of the collapse is under investigation, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
Mining accidents in China are quite common despite efforts to improve safety.
The Lijiagou mine is operated by the Baiji Mining Company, Xinhua said. No further details of the incident were available.
Last October, 21 coal miners were killed when an underground rock fall blocked a shaft in eastern Shandong province.
According to the latest figures from China's National Coal Mine Safety Administration, there were 375 deaths in coal mines in 2017, a fall of about 28% on the previous year.
In a statement last January, the bureau said the "situation of coal mine safety production is still grim" despite improvements.
| Mine Collapses | January 2019 | ['(BBC)'] |
The death toll from yesterday's earthquake rises to over 50 people. , , | Mexico’s state oil company is reassuring the country that fuel supplies will not be interrupted despite a magnitude-8.1 earthquake that killed at least 61 people and a hurricane that’s slamming the oil-rich Gulf coast.
Petroleos Mexicanos says supply is “guaranteed.”
Pemex reports that a refinery in the southern city of Salina Cruz, Oaxaca state, was shut down automatically for safety reasons after the late Thursday quake off the southern Pacific coast.
But an inspection turned up only minor damage to power generators, and the facility should come back online once that’s solved.
Pemex also said in a Friday night statement that the company has “established a strategy to supply gasoline, diesel and jet fuel from other markets” so that “inventories are sufficient to cover demand.”
___
9:50 p.m.
Forecasters say Hurricane Katia is making landfall on Mexico’s Gulf coast as a Category 1 storm.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center says Katia’s maximum sustained winds have dropped to 75 mph (120 kph) as it hits land north of Tecolutla, in Veracruz state.
Forecasters have predicted damaging winds, drenching rains and a dangerous storm surge from the Gulf of Mexico.
Mexican emergency workers are also scrambling to respond to an 8.1-magnitude earthquake that struck off the country’s southern Pacific coast late Thursday, killing at least 61 people.
___
7:55 p.m.
Mexico’s president says the death toll in the powerful earthquake that struck off the country’s southern coast has risen to 61.
Enrique Pena Nieto says the toll includes 45 in Oaxaca state, 12 in Chiapas and four in Tabasco.
The Oaxacan city of Juchitan was hardest hit, with 36 of the fatalities occurring there and numerous buildings collapsing, including a hospital and part of the city hall.
Pena Nieto spoke in a televised address Friday evening after touring the city and meeting with residents amid the debris. He declared three days of national mourning, vowed that the government would help rebuild and called for solidarity.
Pena Nieto said “the power of this earthquake was devastating” but Mexicans’ response “will be greater.”
___
3:15 p.m.
The head of Mexico’s civil defense agency says the death toll from the magnitude 8.1 earthquake has risen to 58.
Luis Felipe Puente says officials have confirmed 45 dead in the southern state of Oaxaca, the hardest-hit by the temblor.
Another 10 people died in Chiapas and three more in the Gulf coast state of Tabasco.
___
1:40 P.M.
The death toll in Mexico’s magnitude 8.1 earthquake has risen to 35.
Chiapas state Gov. Manuel Velasco now says 10 people have died in his state, which was closest to the epicenter of late Thursday’s quake off the Pacific coast.
Officials say at least 23 people died in neighboring Oaxaca state and two others in Tabasco.
___
1:15 p.m.
Hurricane Katia is strengthening as it bears down on Mexico’s Gulf coast. And it’s likely to strike land just about a day after the country was hit by a major, magnitude 8.1 earthquake.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center says Katia had winds of 105 mph (165 kph) early Friday afternoon, with strengthening expected.
It says the storm was centered about 130 miles (210 kilometers) north of the port of Veracruz and it seems headed for strike early Saturday in an area known as the Emerald Coast that is popular with Mexican tourists.
Katia could bring life-threatening flash floods to areas in the mountains just to the west.
___
1 p.m.
Mexico’s magnitude 8.1 earthquake appears to have hit hardest in the city of Juchitan, a township of almost 100,000 people that’s a center of the Zapotec culture.
The Oaxaca state government says 23 people died in the quake that hit just before midnight, and 17 of those were in Juchitan.
State spokesman Alfonso Martinez spoke by phone as he walked through the streets on Friday and said entire buildings had crumbled onto the sidewalks, reduced to scraps of bricks, adobes and wooden roof beams.
He said he saw “a very high percentage of homes damaged or destroyed,” many of them built 30 to 50 years ago.
Martinez said “It’s not just the roofs that have collapsed. In many cases the walls have cracked or collapsed completely.”
He said it’s unlikely more dead will be found in the town, but said soldiers were still digging through the rubble.
___
11 a.m.
Chiapas state civil defense director Luis Manuel Moreno says seven people are known dead and about 120 people have been injured across his state, the closest to the magnitude 8.1 quake that hit off of Mexico’s Pacific coast just before midnight.
At least 32 are known to have died across the region as a whole.
Many buildings in the area are constructed of thick, unreinforced masonry walls, with timber roof beams supporting clay tile roofs. That appears to have contributed to the injuries.
___
10:25 a.m.
The magnitude 8.1 quake that hit Mexico overnight occurred within a seismic hotspot in the Pacific where one tectonic plate dives under another. These so-called subduction zones are responsible for producing some of the biggest quakes in history, including the 2011 Fukushima disaster and the 2004 Sumatra quake that spawned a deadly tsunami.
Scientists are studying how this latest quake happened. But a preliminary analysis indicates the quake was triggered by the sudden breaking or bending of the Cocos plate, which dives beneath Mexico. This type of process doesn’t happen often in subduction zones; usually, big quakes in subduction zones occur along the boundary between the sinking slab and the overriding crust.
Seismologist Susan Hough of the U.S. Geological Survey says, “It’s unusual, but it’s not unheard of.” She adds that “you get stresses on the seafloor and we know that can produce big earthquakes.”
___
9:40 a.m.
The death toll from Mexico’s huge earthquake has risen to 32.
Oaxaca state Gov. Alejandro Murat told local news media Friday that at least 23 people in his state died after the magnitude 8.1 quake that hit just before midnight.
Civil defense officials say at least seven people died in the state of Chiapas, which borders Guatemala. Two others died in the Gulf coast state of Tabasco.
___
7:45 a.m.
The quake that struck Mexico overnight matches the force of a magnitude 8.1 quake that hit the country on June 3, 1932, roughly 300 miles (500 kilometers) west of Mexico City.
A study by Mexico’s National Seismological Service says that quake is believed to have killed about 400 people, causing severe damage around the port of Manzanillo.
A powerful aftershock that hit 19 days later caused a tsunami that devastated 15 miles 25 kilometers of coastline, killing 75 people.
Both the Mexican and U.S. services say Friday night’s quake matches the magnitude of the 1932 temblor. The U.S. Geological Survey puts both at 8.1 while, though the Mexican seismologists calculate them at 8.2. It’s common for different agencies to arrive at slightly different calculations of quake magnitude.
___
6:45 a.m.
Mexico’s civil defense chief says the death toll from the earthquake that hit off southern Mexico has risen to at least 15.
Luis Felipe Puente told the Televisa network that 10 had died in Oaxaca state, three in Chiapas and two in Tabasco.
The magnitude 8.1 quake struck shortly before midnight Friday near the Guatemala border.
___
5 a.m.
Authorities in Mexico say they are evacuating residents in Puerto Madero in Chiapas as a precaution due to a tsunami alert put in place after a major earthquake struck the country.
Chiapas’ civil protection agency tweeted that the evacuation was underway and posted photos of residents getting off a truck and going into what appeared to be a shelter. No further details have been provided.
A tsunami warning was put in place after the earthquake hit Mexico’s southern coast. The U.S. Geological Survey says that the quake had a magnitude of 8.1, while Mexico’s president says it was 8.2. At least five deaths have been confirmed in Mexico, with the death toll expected to rise.
___
3:50 a.m.
Authorities in Mexico say that a hotel in Oaxaca has collapsed in the major earthquake that hit the country, but no one has been reported dead.
Civil Defense photos showed the crumbling facade of the Anel hotel in Matias Romero and split in half. President Enrique Pena Nieto said no one was reported dead at the hotel.
Earlier, Oaxaca Gov. Alejandro Murat said that some people were able to escape from the hotel and authorities were working to determine if they were any casualties or missing people.
Pena Nieto says that the magnitude of the earthquake that hit the country is 8.2, the biggest the country has seen in a century.
___
2:50 a.m.
Mexico’s president says that the magnitude of the earthquake that hit the country is 8.2, the biggest the country has seen in a century.
Enrique Pena Nieto confirmed that at least five people have died in the temblor. He also said that major damage has been caused and that 1 million initially had been without power following the quake, but that electricity had been restored to 800,000 of them.
He said that there have been 62 aftershocks and it’s possible one as strong as 7.2 could hit.
The U.S. Geological Survey has reported that the quake had a magnitude of 8.1. It hit off the coast of southern Mexico, toppling houses in Chiapas state, causing buildings to sway violently as far away as the country’s distant capital and setting off a tsunami warning.
2:20 a.m.
Tsunami waves have been measured off Mexico’s Pacific coast after a major earthquake.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center says waves of 1 meter (3.3 feet) above the tide level were measured off Salina Cruz. Smaller tsunami waves were observed on the coast or measured by ocean gauges in several other places.
The center’s forecast said Ecuador, El Salvador and Guatemala could see waves of a meter or less.
No threat was posed to Hawaii and the western and South Pacific.
An 8.1-magnitude earthquake hit off the coast of southern Mexico, toppling houses in Chiapas state, causing buildings to sway violently as far away as the country’s distant capital and setting off a tsunami warning.
___
2 a.m.
The death toll in the massive earthquake in Mexico has risen to at least five people, including two children in Tabasco state.
Tabasco Gov. Arturo Nunez said that one of the children died when a wall collapsed, and the other was a baby who died in a children’s hospital that lost electricity, cutting off the supply to the infant’s ventilator.
The other three deaths were in Chiapas state, in San Cristobal de las Casas.
An 8.1-magnitude earthquake hit off the coast of southern Mexico, toppling houses in Chiapas state, causing buildings to sway violently as far away as the country’s distant capital and setting off a tsunami warning.
___
1:35 a.m.
The governor of the Mexican state of Chiapas says that at least three people have been killed in his region in a massive earthquake that hit off the country’s coast.
Gov. Manuel Velasco told Milenio TV that the deaths occurred in San Cristobal de las Casas. He also said that the quake damaged hospitals and schools.
An 8.1-magnitude earthquake hit off the coast of southern Mexico, toppling houses in Chiapas state, causing buildings to sway violently as far away as the country’s distant capital and setting off a tsunami warning.
___
12:15 a.m.
A powerful earthquake is shaking Mexico’s capital city, causing people to flee swaying buildings and knocking out lights to part of the city.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the earthquake had a magnitude of 8.0 and its epicenter was 165 kilometers (102 miles) west of Tapachula in southern Chiapas state. It had a depth of 35 kilometers.
Even in distant Mexico City the quake was felt so strongly that frightened residents gathered in the streets in the dark, fearing buildings would collapse. | Earthquakes | September 2017 | ['(AP)', '(AFP via Focus News Agency)', '(Sky News)'] |
Senior Syrian government official Mohammed Darrar Jamo is shot dead in Sarafand, Lebanon. | A senior Syrian official, Mohammed Darrar Jamo, has been shot dead in the southern Lebanese town of Sarafand.
Mr Jamo, a supporter of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, was attacked early on Wednesday morning as he entered his house.
Lebanese sources say gunmen opened fire on him but left his wife, who was with him at the time, unharmed. The attack is being seen as the latest sign of how the conflict in Syria is threatening to destabilise Lebanon.
The Syrian state news agency, Sana, said Mohammed Darrar Jamo was head of the political and international relations division of the International Organisation for Arab Immigrants. He had also frequently appeared as a political expert on Arabic-language television channels, defending President Assad. Hezbollah involvement
Clashes between groups backing different sides in Syria's civil war have become increasingly common in Lebanon.
On Tuesday, a convoy carrying members of the Lebanese Shia militant group Hezbollah was hit by a roadside bomb near the Syrian border. The blast hit a vehicle not far from the Masnaa border crossing, on a key route between Beirut and Damascus, killing one person and wounding two others. Officials were unable to confirm whether the dead man was a member of Hezbollah.
Several other vehicles have also been attacked recently in the same area. One of the blasts injured two Lebanese soldiers. The explosions took place in the Bekaa region, considered a Hezbollah stronghold.
Last week a car bomb injured more than 50 people in a southern suburb of the capital, Beirut - an area controlled by Hezbollah. In late May, rockets were fired in the same district.
| Famous Person - Death | July 2013 | ['(BBC)'] |
Jamaican reggae artist Buju Banton is released from a U.S. prison and deported back to Jamaica, after serving 7 years of a 10–year drug charge conviction. | Banton, who was convicted in a Tampa courtroom in 2011 on federal drug charges, was freed Friday from Georgia's private McMcRae Correctional Institute, a prison official told the Tampa Bay Times.
The 45-year-old music star was to return to his native Jamaica. A video of a man reported to be Banton boarding a plane was published on Twitter on Friday and #freebuju hashtags were all over social media.
Born Mark Myrie, he served seven years in federal prison in one of the most high-profile cases tried in the Sam M. Gibbons United States Courthouse in downtown Tampa.
The Guardian wrote that Banton would be the "most eagerly awaited arrival in Jamaica since Ethiopia's Emperor Haile Selassie touched down in April 1966." Jamaican officials confirmed to the British newspaper that the artist was expected to return to his native country.
The newspaper described Banton as "perhaps the most famous Jamaican artist whose name isn't Marley."
Reared in Kingston and nicknamed "Buju" by his mother, he rose to prominence at a young age in the 1990s as one of the premier dancehall artists. He overtook Reggae legend Bob Marley's record for No. 1 singles on the Jamaican charts in 1992, according to the Guardian.
But Banton was also the subject of international condemnation for a violently homophobic song that "openly incited the killing of gay people," according to the Guardian. As a result, 28 of his shows were cancelled from 2005 to 2011. In 2007, the newspaper said he vowed to never again incite "hatred or violence."
His legal troubles started on a 2009 flight from Spain to the United States. Banton was seated next to an informant who federal agents had paid $3.3 million over 14 years. The prosecution said Banton boasted of his role in a large cocaine smuggling ring, and talked to the informant about setting up a deal.
The trial started on Feb. 14, 2011, the day after he won a Grammy for best reggae album, Before the Dawn, recorded before his arrest.
At his Tampa trial, federal prosecutors showed the jury audio and video recordings of Banton that they said proved he was involved in the deal to buy 11 pounds of cocaine for $135,000.
One video showed the performer tasting cocaine at a Sarasota warehouse on Dec. 8, 2009, though he was not present when the deal was finalized.
Banton told the jury that he was just boasting to impress someone who he believed could help his music career.
The defense emphasized Banton's musical career, displaying his album covers, telling jurors about his Grammy award and even calling one of Bob Marley's sons to the stand.
"This is not about Buju Banton, the reggae singer," a prosecutor told the jury. "This is about Mark Myrie, the drug defendant."
In June 2011 he was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in federal prison.
During the trial, while Banton was being held in the Pinellas County jail, he wrote this letter to the court:
"The days that lie ahead are filled with despair, but I have courage and grace and I'm hopeful, and that is sufficient to carry me through. The man is not dead. Don't call him a ghost."
Banton's case and appeals would drag on for years in federal court, however, and even one of the jurors in his 2011 conviction would end up in serious trouble years later.
Former juror foreman Terri Wright was found guilty in 2015 of contempt for researching the case outside of court. U.S. District Judge James S. Moody Jr., who also presided over the Banton trial, sentenced her to five months of probation, 40 hours of community service and ordered her to research and write a report about the cost of Banton's high-profile trial.
Former Miami New Times reporter Chris Sweeney wrote a story in 2012 that suggested Wright ignored the court's order and researched the case on her own. The reporter even testified the juror.
Times staff writer Anastasia Dawson contributed to this report, which uses information from Times files and other news organizations. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Release | December 2018 | ['(Mark Anthony Myrie)', '(Tampa Bay Times)'] |
After a couple of days of delay, Zimbabwe frees 61 alleged mercenaries accused of connection to coup attempt in Equatorial Guinea and allows them return to South Africa. The men say they were told they were hired to guard mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. One man remains in Zimbabwe due to tuberculosis. | Johannesburg - All 61 alleged South African mercenaries were allowed into South Africa by immigration officials at the Beit Bridge border post on Sunday afternoon. Only three men were allowed into the country at first. The rest waited until after 15:00. Reports of their time of arrival at the border differ between about 07:00 and 10:00.
Home Affairs department spokesperson Nkosana Sibuyi said the delay was necessitated by checking that their South African passports were authentic. "This is part of the normal course of our work. Like any other country, we had to check and ensure that the men's documents were genuine. "This is standard procedure," said Sibuyi. Earlier reports had said there were 62 men in the group, but Sibuyi said the number was 61 as the other man was left behind because he was a Zimbabwean national. The SABC reported that the men's lawyer, Alwyn Griebenow, had arranged for a bus from Polokwane to transport the group and their families from Beit Bridge. The men were released from the Chikurubi maximum security prison outside Harare on Saturday night, where they spent a year after being convicted of violating Zimbabwe's immigration, aviation, firearms and security laws. The charges were related to an alleged plot to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea. The men were kept at Chikurubi for a few more days after their sentences expired on Tuesday. The two pilots who flew the men's aircraft into Harare in March last year will be released in two months' time.
The group was arrested at Harare International Airport when they apparently landed to refuel and pick up military equipment. Zimbabwean authorities said they were on their way to join 15 other alleged mercenaries - including eight South Africans - arrested in Equatorial Guinea around the same time. The men said the equipment found in their possession was to be used to guard mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The group in Equatorial Guinea was convicted and given long prison sentences for attempting to overthrow the country's long-time dictator, Teodoro Obiang Nguema. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Release | May 2005 | ['(News24)', '(Iafrica)', '(IOL)', '(Telegraph)', '(Reuters)'] |
Hundreds of Americans engage in heated competing demonstrations in New York City, blocking streets and being overseen by mounted police and dog units. | Competing demonstrations have been held in New York on the anniversary of 9/11 over plans for an Islamic cultural centre close to Ground Zero.
Hundreds of people attended both demonstrations which became heated but passed off without violent incident.
The radical Dutch politician Geert Wilders addressed one demonstration, calling for an end to the plans.
The demonstrations were held after ceremonies honouring those killed in the World Trade Center nine years ago.
New York authorities blocked off the street passing the site of the proposed Islamic cultural centre, a short walk away from Ground Zero.
Mounted police and dog units patrolled the streets, keeping the protests separated in two pens a distance away from the site of the former World Trade Center. The question of building a mosque and cultural centre so close to the scene of the devastation of the 2001 attacks has inflamed passions across US society. The competing protests attracted people from many different groups, from anti-war activists to Hell's Angels, former US Marines to Buddhists. Mr Wilders, a right-wing politician from the Netherlands who believes that Islam is comparable with Fascism, told the crowd that the planned cultural centre should not be allowed to go ahead.
"We must never give a free hand to those who want to subjugate us, draw this line so that New York will never become New Mecca," he said.
The rally was also addressed by the former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton and other Republican commentators.
But others said campaigners against the mosque were part of a hate campaign against Muslims.
"I'm really fearful of all of the hate that's going on in our country," Elizabeth Meehan, 51, told the Associated Press.
"People in one brand of Christianity are coming out against other faiths, and I find that so sad, Muslims are fellow Americans; they should have the right to worship in America just like anyone else."
But anti-mosque campaigners, some holding plaques that read "never forget", said the plans were an insult.
"This is hallowed ground. It's something like Gettysburg or Pearl Harbour. Why did they have to do it here? Be a little sensitive," said Theresa Angelo, 57. At the earlier ceremony relatives read out the names of those who died when hijacked airliners hit the World Trade Center.
Some of the families said the argument between both sides was disrespectful of their families' loss.
But others said that "now was the time to speak out" against the planned Islamic centre.
Earlier, the pastor behind the threat to burn Korans in Florida said the event had been cancelled permanently.
"We will definitely not burn the Koran, no," the Reverend Terry Jones told NBC's Today show. "Not today, not ever." Earlier, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg addressed the mourners. "No other public tragedy has cut our city so deeply, no other place is as filled with our compassion, our love and our solidarity," he said. Speaking at a memorial event at the Pentagon, also hit by a hijacked plane on 9/11, President Obama paid tribute to those who died.
He said that while it was tempting to dwell on their final moments, the memorial events were taking place "to remember the fullness of their time on Earth".
Mr Obama also repeated his recent calls for unity, saying: "It was not a religion that attacked us that September day. It was al-Qaeda."
"We will not sacrifice the liberties we cherish or hunker down behind walls of suspicion and mistrust."
Prominent New York Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is at the head of a group who plan to turn an abandoned factory building into a community centre and prayer space.
They say the centre will include facilities for all religions and be a place for reconciliation between faiths.
| Protest_Online Condemnation | September 2010 | ['(BBC)'] |
Queen Elizabeth II arrives in Malta for the Commonwealth summit what begins tomorrow. The then-future Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh lived on the island from 1949-51. The Commonwealth is a group of 53 nations; most member states were once part of the British Empire, and 16 retain the Queen as head of state. | Armed Forces band of Malta sets the tone as they chose to play Thanks For The Memory while Her Majesty inspects guard of honour in Valletta
Rain swirled through the sky as the Queen arrived in Malta for the Commonwealth summit, but the air was also filled with a distinct note of melancholy on what is likely to be her last trip to the island that was once her home. The band of 4th Regiment, Armed Forces of Malta set the tone when they chose to play Thanks For The Memory as Her Majesty inspected a guard of honour on her arrival in Valletta on Thursday. The lyrics of the Bob Hope hit talk of rainy afternoons, of motor trips, of candlelight and wine, sunburn at the shore; the sort of memories, indeed, that the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh will cherish from their carefree life on the island from 1949-51. But as the tune was played in the courtyard of the presidential palace of San Anton, it was the people of Malta, who so took the young Princess Elizabeth to their hearts, who seemed to be saying goodbye. The Queen, whose father George VI granted the George Cross to Malta for its heroism during the Second World War, has cut back on her foreign travel and may not have another chance to see the island of her youth. Arriving at the palace, she and the Duke narrowly avoided a torrential downpour that left a large puddle on the red carpet where VIPs were waiting to shake her hand. Memories were very much the theme as the Queen exchanged gifts with Malta’s president, Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca. The president had chosen a watercolour of Villa Guardamangia, the Queen and the Duke’s former home, which is now in such a poor state of repair that visiting it is out of the question. The picture imagines the villa as it was in the past, with a horse and cart outside the front door. “Oh look," said the Queen, clearly delighted. "Guardamangia!... That's very nice to have.”
Aware of the building’s current state, she added: “It looks rather sad now.” The Duke said: "It's falling down. There's some dispute about it." The president said: "We thought it would bring back memories."
The Queen gave the president a gold lace tablecloth from Nottinghamshire - a fitting gift, as the president's daughter is at university in Nottingham - and a Royal Crown Derby fruit bowl. She gave the president's husband Edgar a hamper from the Windsor farm shop. "Do you like fudge?" the Duke asked him. "It's rather bad for you." Meanwhile, the Duchess of Cornwall, who with the Prince of Wales has joined the Queen for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, was given a gift of her own on a visit to a glassware shop. At the Mdina Glass store in Ta’ Qali, the Duchess used the opportunity to start her Christmas shopping. “This is what I call retail therapy. I haven’t done any Christmas shopping yet,” she said. After watching glass being blown by craftsmen on site she browsed the shelves of glassware and bought a pair of green bowls costing 40 Euros each for herself and for her grandchildren chose two miniature glass horse and carriage sets which were blown by a glass maker in front. “I love these, they are so beautiful,” she remarked. There was more nostalgia at an evening reception at San Anton palace, where the Queen and the Duke were reunited with some old faces from their past. Freddie Mizzi, 81, was a clarinetist with the Jimmy Dowling Band when the Queen and the Duke used to go dancing at the Venetian Hotel in Valletta in the early 1950s. He said: “I reminded her that we used to play their favourite song, ‘People Will Say We’re In Love’, from Oklahoma, and she remembered. “She and the Duke used to dance a lot. She was always beautiful and always so nice and kind, and she hasn’t changed. She is still beautiful and when you talk to her it’s like talking to a member of your family. I always called her Auntie Lizzie.”
Frank Attard, 87, who spent 55 years working as a photographer for the Times of Malta newspaper, brought along some prints of some of his favourite pictures of the Queen and the Duke taken in the 1950s. They included pictures of them dancing together, a photo of the couple relaxing at the Villa Guardamangia and a shot of the Duke and his uncle Earl Mountbatten of Burma in military uniform. He said: “She had her best days on the island. She was so young and so lovely. When I showed her the pictures she started laughing. She said she could remember some of them being taken but not others.”
The Queen also met Robert and Dee Strickland who had earlier presented her with a box of oranges and another of avocados, reviving a tradition started by Robert’s great aunt Mabel Strickland. Owner of the Times of Malta, Mabel was a good friend of Princess Elizabeth and the Duke. After they left, she sent them oranges and avocados from her garden every year up to her death in 1988 and always received a thank you letter and Christmas cards. "The Queen was delighted that we have restarted the tradition," said Robert , a sculptor, who lives in her old home. "And she had lots of nice things to say about Mabel."
There, too, was Elizabeth Pule, 72, former nurse whose mother, Jessie Grech, had been housekeeper at the Villa Guardamangia. "She always stayed in touch with them afterwards and got invited to the Coronation," said Elizabeth, who is named after the Queen. In later years, Jessie was invited to the 25th anniversary of the Coronation and Elizabeth went too. Many years later when the Queen arrived in Malta on the Royal Yacht Britannia, Elizabeth held up a banner saying "Jessie Was My Mother" as the Queen drove through Valetta. "The next day I got a call and was invited on to the yacht with my husband for an hour," she said. "She never forgot us." • | Diplomatic Talks _ Diplomatic_Negotiation_ Summit Meeting | November 2015 | ['(U.K.)', '(Telegraph)'] |
President of Brazil Dilma Rousseff, speaking at a joint press conference with Rio de Janeiro state governor Sérgio Cabral, vows to build 8,000 houses to be given free to people made homeless by the recent floods and landslides in Rio de Janeiro state. | Brazil says it is going to build 8,000 houses to give free to poor people made homeless by floods and landslides in Rio de Janeiro state this month. President Dilma Rousseff said 6,000 homes would be paid for by the state and federal governments. The other 2,000 would be donated by a consortium of construction companies. Ms Rousseff said there would also be heavy investment in flood prevention measures. More than 830 people died in the floods and landslides.
They struck in a mountainous region north of Rio de Janeiro. Another 540 people are still missing.
President Rousseff announced the building programme at a joint press conference with Rio de Janeiro state Governor Sergio Cabral. She said the new houses would be given to families living in shelters after their homes were destroyed and to those who were being removed from areas considered at risk of further flooding and landslides.
"Their pain is insurmountable, and their loss has no price, but this initiative can improve the situation a little," Ms Rousseff said. The new homes will be built on public land and the construction cost subsidised by the federal government and private companies, with the Rio state government then paying the monthly purchase instalments on behalf of poor families who move in. Ms Rousseff said her government was also acting to prevent any repeat of the disaster, by mapping out areas that were prone to flooding and landslides and clamping down on unauthorised building in danger zones. Federal money is also being made available to rebuild roads and bridges and fund drainage and hillside stabilisation projects. Brazil landslide deaths top 800 | Famous Person - Give a speech | January 2011 | ['(BBC)'] |
The death toll from the Sumatra tsunami reaches 435 with 110 people missing and feared dead. | Indonesia has ramped up efforts to help those on remote islands hit by a devastating tsunami as an official put the latest death toll at 435, with 110 missing and feared dead.
Rescuers trying to reach isolated villages were hampered by torrential rains and heavy seas yesterday, as three-metre-high waves pounded the coastline.
But in a rare piece of good news, 135 people were found alive, hiding on high ground and too afraid of another wave to return to their shattered villages.
"So far, 435 people are known to have been killed by the tsunami and 110 people are missing," disaster management official Joskamatir said.
"We're still looking for them [but] there's a high likelihood they are dead, mostly buried in sand.
"The weather is better today, there's no rain. So we hope we will be able to send the supplies quickly.
"We're also expecting two more helicopters to arrive to air-drop relief supplies to remote areas."
The tsunami, which was triggered on Monday by a 7.7-magnitude earthquake, has displaced nearly 15,000 people on the Mentawai islands off the coast of Sumatra.
Emergency services in Indonesia are being further stretched by the continued eruption of Mount Merapi in central Java, where more than 50,000 people have been evacuated.
Australia and the United States have pledged aid worth a total of $3 million while the European Commission released 1.5 million euros ($2 million) for victims of both disasters.
| Tsunamis | October 2010 | ['(AFP via ABC News Online)'] |
The Iraqi cabinet agrees a draft law to restrict smoking in public places and ban tobacco advertising. | The Iraqi cabinet has agreed a draft law to restrict smoking in public places and ban tobacco advertising, a government spokesman has said.
If the law is approved by parliament, smoking would be banned in all government and public sector buildings. It would also be outlawed in theatres, clubs, offices and on the public transport network. Smoking is widespread in Iraq and it is unclear whether the ban will apply to cafes, bars and restaurants. "The purpose behind approving the draft law to fight smoking is to protect the people from the social, health, environmental and economic risks of smoking," said government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh in a statement. 'Not a priority'
The bill would also ban the sale of cigarettes to anyone under the age of 18 and fine anyone who is caught selling them to young people 5 million Iraqi dinars ($4,300; £2560). Baghdad resident Mohammed Hussein, 45, an oil ministry worker who has smoked for 25 years, told the Associated Press news agency that banning smoking should not be a priority. "The smoking law is not as important as many other laws with a higher priority for Iraqis." The draft bill would need to be approved by parliament which is in recess until September. The World Health Organization estimates that more than 41% of Iraqi men and nearly 7% of women are smokers. What are these? | Government Policy Changes | August 2009 | ['(BBC)'] |
Mexican Beltrán Leyva Cartel drug lord Alfredo Beltrán Leyva is sentenced to life in prison and ordered to forfeit $US529,200,000. | . Alfredo Beltran Leyva, also known as Mochomo, one of the leaders of the Beltran Leyva Organization, a Mexican drug-trafficking cartel responsible for importing multi-ton quantities of cocaine and methamphetamine into the United States, was sentenced today to life in prison for his participation in an international narcotics trafficking conspiracy.
Acting Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Blanco of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, Assitant Director Stephen E. Richardson of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division, Special Agent in Charge James J. Hunt of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) New York Division and Executive Associate Director Peter T. Edge of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) made the announcement.
“For well over a decade, the defendant commanded a major Mexican drug trafficking organization that imported ton-quantities of cocaine and methamphetamine into the United States and led a campaign of violence and fear that gripped communities across North America,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Blanco. “Through close cooperation with our foreign counterparts, the United States brought this international drug-trafficker to justice, significantly disrupted the flow of narcotics into the United States and stemmed the tide of destruction wrought by this violent cartel.”
“Alfredo Beltran Leyva spent decades at the head of a criminal organization responsible for trafficking large amounts of cocaine and methamphetamine into the U.S.,” said Assistant Director Richardson. “Today’s sentencing marks an end to Alfredo Beltran Leyva's reign of terror, and demonstrates that the FBI and our law enforcement partners around the globe will aggressively pursue and bring justice to those individuals who use violence and intimidation to threaten our communities.”
“Alfredo Beltran Leyva is one of the ‘Goliaths’ of Mexican drug traffickers known for his savage business tactics and responsible for flooding the United States with illegal drugs,” said Special Agent in Charge Hunt. “This sentencing exemplifies law enforcement’s commitment to bringing justice to the victims of drug abuse through successful prosecutions of the highest echelon of drug traffickers.”
“Today’s sentencing dealt a major blow to the Beltran Leyva Organization by taking out one of its leaders. It is with tireless joint enforcement efforts like this one that we can remove drugs from America’s streets and make our communities that much safer,” said HSI Executive Associate Director Edge. “HSI and our law enforcement partners, both in the United States and around the world, will not waver in our resolve to dismantle and cripple violent drug organizations, and remove their leadership.”
Beltran Leyva, 46, was indicted on Aug. 24, 2012, for conspiracy to distribute cocaine and methamphetamine for importation into the United States. The defendant was extradited from Mexico to the United States on Nov. 15, 2014, and pleaded guilty on Feb. 23, 2016, before U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon of the District of Columbia. Judge Leon imposed today’s sentence and ordered Beltran Leyva to forfeit $529,200,000.
In court, Beltran Leyva admitted that he was part of a conspiracy to import large quantities of drugs into the United States. At his plea hearing and during pre-trial conferences, the government proffered evidence that from the early 1990s until his indictment in August 2014, the defendant was a leader of the Beltran Leyva Organization, a global criminal enterprise responsible for importing multi-ton quantities of cocaine and methamphetamine into the United States. Beltran Leyva admitted that he and his organization obtained tonnage quantities of cocaine from South American suppliers, which the defendant and his organization helped finance and which were transported to Mexico via air, land and sea. Once the cocaine reached Mexico, the defendant’s organization transported it to key points in Mexico, including Culiacan, Sinaloa, which was also the central point for the collection of billions of dollars from drug trafficking proceeds in the United States. At sentencing, the government’s evidence showed that the organization used weapons and carried out acts of violence, including murders, kidnappings, tortures and violent collections of drug debts, in order to sustain the drug importation operation.
On May 30, 2008, the United States added the Beltran Leyva Organization to the Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control’s Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons list, pursuant to the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act. On Aug. 20, 2009, the United States specifically designated Beltran Leyva as a specially-designated drug trafficker under the same act.
The FBI’s El Paso, Texas, Division led the investigation in partnership with the DEA’s New York Division and HSI’s Special Agent in Charge, New York office as part of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force. Acting Deputy Chief Amanda Liskamm and Trial Attorney Adrian Rosales of the Criminal Division’s Narcotic and Dangerous Drugs Section and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Marcia M. Henry and Andrea Goldbarg of the Eastern District of New York prosecuted the case. The Criminal Division’s Office of International Affairs provided valuable assistance in the case. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Sentence | April 2017 | ['(U.S. Department of Justice)'] |
In association football, Toronto win their first MLS Cup defeating the Seattle Sounders 2–0 in the final, becoming the first MLS team to complete the domestic treble. | Montreal (AFP) - Toronto FC claimed their maiden MLS Cup crown on Saturday, capping a magical Major League Soccer season with a 2-0 triumph over Seattle Sounders in Toronto.
Jozy Altidore fired Toronto into the lead in the 67th minute and Vazquez sent the crowd at BMO field into a frenzy when he sealed the win in the fourth minute of second-half injury time.
Toronto, who endured a heartbreaking penalty shoot-out defeat to the Sounders in the title match in Toronto last season, became the first Canadian club to win the MLS Cup.
They added the league's ultimate prize to the Supporters' Shield they won as the team with the best record in the league. With their Canadian Championship they completed a historic MLS treble.
"This has been the dream for four years, since the day I got here," said Toronto midfielder Michael Bradley. "And for the last year, the dream has become an obsession.
"For this group of guys to work every single day having to remember last year, to get back here, to play that game in this atmosphere with that on the line -- it's unbelievable."
Seattle goalkeeper Stefan Frei, the hero for the Sounders in last year's triumph, again threatened to derail Toronto's challenge with save after save.
But Frei, who hadn't surrendered a goal in this season's MLS Cup playoffs, finally succumbed in the 67th as Sebastian Giovinco's pass found Altidore, who eluded Roman Torres and fired over Frei.
"Steph had to come up very, very big in the first half," Sounders coach Brian Schmetzer said. "I thought that once we were able to get into halftime, make some adjustments, I thought we would give ourselves a chance.
"The adjustments we made didn't work, and at some point if you're going to rely on your goalkeeper that often in so many critical moments, one of them was going to get through."
- Altidore MVP -
The eighth post-season goal of Altidore's career saw him named MLS Cup Most Valuable Player.
Vazquez converted from close range in the waning moments after a shot from Armando Cooper bounced off the right post.
Toronto were on fire early, and only Frei's heroics kept them at bay.
He dived right to deny Jonathan Osorio before closing down Giovinco, who had seized upon a ball from Vazquez but couldn't get the ball over the Sounders keeper.
Before halftime Frei pushed another effort from Giovinco over the crossbar and denied long-range efforts from Marco Delgado and Vazquez.
After the break he denied Bradley's long-range effort and turned away a blistering shot by Giovinco toward the bottom left corner.
Toronto had brought back much of the same team that reached last year's final, with Vazquez and goalkeeper Alex Bono notable additions.
A crowd of 30,584 turned out Saturday at BMO field, where it was the third time in league history that the same two teams faced each other in back-to-back MLS Cup finals.
The Houston Dynamo beat New England in both 2006 and 2007, while the Los Angels Galaxy beat Houston in 2011 and 2012.
The American's words preceded a shocking collapse from his fierce golfing rival at the US Open.
The Ukraine star couldn't help but do the opposite of Cristiano Ronaldo. Find out what he did here.
Referee John Cauchi found himself in a heated argument with one of Paul Gallen's advisers in the moments after ending the heavyweight bout against Justis Huni. Watch what happened here.
TV cameras busted the AFL players allegedly breaching protocol. Read on for the details.
In a remarkable twist, Aussie swimmer Matt Wilson broke down in tears after fulfilling his dream following a family tragedy. Find out what happened.
The tragic death of the father-of-two has left the motorsport world shattered. Read some of the tributes to the 28-year-old.
The Rabbitohs thrashed the Brisbane Broncos on Thursday and one star revealed the depths of the club's despair in a brutal live interview. Find out what he said here.
Players and fans united in a heartwarming show of solidarity for the stricken player. Check it out here.
The Japanese star's sad announcement does come with a silver lining. Read on for the details.
The 20-time major winner's shock decision has left the tennis world devastated. Read on for the reaction. | Sports Competition | December 2017 | ['(AFP via Yahoo! 7)'] |
Twenty three people are killed in an attack on two villages in northern Nigeria. | A gang of armed robbers has killed 27 people in remote villages in northern Nigeria, witnesses and police say.
An eyewitness told the BBC that about 80 people on motorbikes had attacked the villages of Dan-Gulbi and Guru in Zamfara state.
Some victims had their throat cut, according to reports.
The attack is believed to be in revenge for the killing of a suspected group of armed robbers by villagers and vigilante groups last year.
A policeman was said to be among the dead, who were primarily from the village of Dan-Gulbi.
Villagers had been preparing for a local market day when the killers struck, the Associated Press news agency reports.
According to a police officer who spoke to the BBC on condition of anonymity, at least 19 people died in Dan-Gulbi and four were killed in Guru. Attacks were also reported in the villages of Diya and Sabo Kasuwa.
"They went door to door shooting villagers and in some cases slitting their throats with knives," a police source told AFP news agency.
Talatu Mai Tasshi, a woman who escaped the violence, was quoted by AP as saying she had hidden in empty sacks as the gunmen stalked other people preparing to sell their goods. Islamist group Boko Haram has previously been responsible for a number of attacks in northern Nigeria, but there has been no suggestion that that it was connected to these murders.
Nigeria has one of the highest crime rates in Africa and is notorious for gun-related violence, including kidnapping and robbery. | Armed Conflict | June 2012 | ['(BBC)'] |
The UK Royal Air Force admits killing a civilian with a drone strike in Syria, the first time the force has accepted responsibility for civilian deaths in the country since starting operations there four years ago. | Casualty is first civilian death the MoD has admitted responsibility for since airstrikes in region began four years ago
First published on Wed 2 May 2018 14.36 BST
An RAF drone strike killed a civilian in Syria last month, the first time the Ministry of Defence has admitted responsibility for the death of a non-combatant since beginning air attacks in the region almost four years ago.
According to the MoD, a Reaper drone armed with a Hellfire missile fired at three suspected Islamic State fighters on 26 March. Almost simultaneously, a civilian on a motorbike entered the target area and was killed too.
The defence secretary, Gavin Williamson, in a written statement to parliament described the fatality as “deeply regrettable”.
The MoD has faced scepticism over repeated claims that not a single airstrike out of 1,600 in Iraq, and latterly Syria, had resulted in any known civilian deaths since strikes began in September 2014. The decision to admit responsibility in this case follows a review of aerial footage and other evidence.
Williamson, in the written statement, said: “We do everything we can to minimise the risk to civilian life from UK strikes through our rigorous targeting processes and the professionalism of UK service personnel.
“It is, therefore, deeply regrettable that a UK airstrike on 26 March 2018, targeting Daesh [Isis] fighters in eastern Syria, resulted in an unintentional civilian fatality. During a strike to engage three Daesh fighters, a civilian motorbike crossed into the strike area at the last moment and it is assessed that one civilian was unintentionally killed.”
Williamson added: “We reached this conclusion after undertaking routine and detailed post-strike analysis of all available evidence.”
A separate review will be carried out by the US-led coalition of which the UK is a part. If the family of the dead man comes forward, they will be receive compensation.
The former defence secretary, Michael Fallon, was met with scepticism in 2015 when he told the BBC: “Our estimate is that there hasn’t yet been a single civilian casualty because of the precision of their strikes.”
Independent data at the time suggested the US-led coalition’s overall record of civilian casualties was roughly about 6%-8%.
The MoD later elaborated to say that while it could not state definitively that no civilian had been killed, no one had come forward until this latest incident with evidence of a single death attributable to an RAF strike.
The MOD says it uses precision weapons and there are elaborate checks before a strike is ordered, in order to avoid civilian casualties.
The use of drones is controversial, with repeated questions about their legality. As with strikes from planes, there are also questions about the accuracy of the intelligence on which attacks are based.
Chris Cole, who runs Drone Wars, a UK-based organisation that monitors their use, said that based on recent freedom of information requests there had been a dramatic increase in UK drone strikes in Syria in the first quarter of this year 92 in total.
Cole said this was as many as the total number for the previous 18 months and more than those fired from RAF Tornado and Typhoon aircraft.
He also said the RAF had confirmed the use of the thermobaric version of the Hellfire missile, the first time it has publicly acknowledged using them in Syria. The MoD acknowledged in 2009 their use from helicopters in Afghanistan.
Human rights groups have criticised the use of thermobaric weapons, which create a pressure wave that sucks the air out of victims, rather than more traditional weapons that pierce armour or blast fragments over a wide area. | Armed Conflict | May 2018 | ['(The Guardian)'] |
Several people are wounded in clashes outside the Turkish consulate in Brussels. | One of the three victims was slashed in the stomach and is in a serious condition.
Turkish people were standing outside waiting to vote in the Turkish constitutional referendum, LaLibre.be reported.
The vote is over a decision on whether to grant Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan more powers.
According to reports three Kurds were attacked by supporters of President Erdoğan.
"We had to intervene because there were incidents, there were wounded and they were taken to be treated, and an investigation is under way," police spokesman Ilse Van de keere said.
Demonstrators have gathered outside the building on Rue Montoyer.
Some Kurds have been taking part in a violent insurgency in Turkey in an effort to create an independent state.
Turkey has been accused of brutally suppressing them both in its border and in Syria.
Kurdish forces in Syria have been vital in battling ISIS militants.
| Riot | March 2017 | ['(Daily Star)'] |
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant claims responsibility. | The Westminsterterrorist who instigated theLondon attack has been named by police asKhalid Masood, a British-born criminal with a string of previous convictions. After Isil claimed the attacker was a "soldier" of the terror group,Scotland Yard formally identified the 52-year-old - saying hewas not the subject of any current investigations and there was "no prior intelligence about his intent to mount a terrorist attack". But the man who killed four people - including a police officer - in the shadow of the Houses of Parliamenthada range of previous convictions for assaults, including GBH, possession of offensive weapons and public order offences. He had not been convicted of any terrorism offences. It comes as police said a fourth innocent victim died on Thursday night. The 75-year-old man died from his injuries in hospital. A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "The man had been receiving medical treatment in hospital following the attack and life support was withdrawn this evening. "Next of kin have been informed and are receiving support from specially trained family liaison officers." As long as a decade ago, Masood’s “violent extremism” had caused security services sufficient alarm to put him under investigation. But by the time Masoodwent on the rampage on Wednesday, driving a car at 50 miles an hour along Westminster bridge, murdering three innocent pedestrians before plunging his knife repeatedly into a police officer guarding the Houses of Parliament, he had dropped off their radar. Masood, a father of three, was no longer considered a threat. The Telegraph can disclose that Masood was not using his birth name. He was born Adrian Elms in Dartford, Kent. Just two hours after Theresa May told the Commons the killerwas a British citizen who had been investigated by MI5 over violent extremism, Isilsaid that the attacker answered "calls to target citizens of coalition nations". Isil had vowed that the UK was its next target following the Paris attacks in 2015. The Prime Minister earliersaid the attacker was known to the police and security services, as she defiantly vowed:"We are not afraid and our resolve will never waiver in the face of terrorism." It comes as Scotland Yard disclosed that the eight people -three women and five men -arrested in London and Birmingham are being held on suspicion of preparation of terrorist acts. Detectives are continuing to search a number of addresses linked to the investigation: one inCarmarthenshire, three in Birmingham; and one in east London. Three of the victims were named asPc Keith Palmer, who the suspect stabbed; Aysha Frade,a Britishmother of two, and American tourist Kurt Cochran- both of whom wheremown down as the terrorist sped across Westminster Bridge in his car. A total of 29 people were treated in hospital following the carnage, with five people remaining in a critical condition on Thursday evening - two of them with life-threatening injuries. Among the injured were 12 Britons, including three police officers who were returning from an event to recognise their bravery. Meanwhile, at the scene of one of the police raids -a flat in Hagley Road, Birmingham, where the attacker is believed to have lived - witnesses told howblack-clad officers equipped with machine guns smashed their way into the property. One neighbour told The Telegraph:"It's left me so scared and I don't know what to tell the children. He seemed like a normal calm and kind family man, always with a smile on his face." The attacker mowed down pedestrians with a car on Westminster Bridge before crashing at the railings in front of Parliament. Bursting through the gate to the Palace of Westminster, he stabbed Pc Palmer before being shot dead by a close protection officer, who The Telegraph understands is Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon's bodyguard. A minute's silence was held in Westminster at 9.33am to pay respects to the victims, before acandlelit vigil will be heldin Trafalgar Square on Thursday evening. Stay with us for the latest updates throughout the day. The Sun has reported that Masood visited Saudi Arabia in 2005. According to a CV that the newspaper claims it obtained, he was working in Yanbu, Saudi Arabia, then teaching workers at the General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) in Jeddah. If confirmed, it would raise questions as to whether he was radicalised before or during his time abroad. The Telegraph has reported he is understood to have gone to jail in the past, where there is a good chance he was radicalised. It is at that stage, it is thought, he came onto MI5’s radar. Read here for the full background of Masood, including his criminal past. Tomorrow's front page pic.twitter.com/zDDeGhenSh
A British boxing team have recalled the horror of witnessing Pc Keith Palmer being stabbed as they secured victories in the ring a day after the attack. Coach Tony Davis was outside the Houses of Parliament after attending a community event with the British Lionhearts team when terror unfolded in front of him. The four fighters at his side spoke of their trauma after seeing the hopeless efforts to revive the officer. Flyweight and 2016 Olympian Muhammad Ali, who won his fight by unanimous decision on Thursday night, said: "All day, I couldn't get it out of my head because we saw everything." Fellow member of the British Lionhearts, welterweight Pat McCormack, added: "I didn't really sleep much. My head was a bit all over and I couldn't really stop thinking about it but I'm just glad I've come, got the job done and the win." Davis told Press Association Sport:
"We had just attended a PR event at the Houses of Parliament and as we were leaving we could just see straight in front of us, on the outside of the perimeter fence, a bit of a fracas. "It was loud volume, but I didn't think much of it. I thought it must be a student demonstration but then the mood changed as I saw someone come through the gate with knives above his head and start attacking the police officers. "When I saw that I jumped over what was maybe a 4ft fence to try to give assistance but a lot of things happened in a few seconds. "As the assailant was advancing he got taken out by one of the police marksmen. Then I just tended to Keith Palmer, who was collapsing on the floor." Neighbours of Masood have told how he had a“split personality” and that he would change instantly when talking about religion. Anna Goras, 32, told The Sun:“His face would change in a moment and his eyes would go hard and look evil. “He often went off about how British people didn’t bring up their kids right and sent them to poor standard schools." The suspect told staff at a budget hotel in Brighton where he is thought to have spent his last night that "London isn’t what it used to be," The Sun reports. Robert Mendick writes:
As long as a decade ago, Khalid Masood’s “violent extremism” had caused security services sufficient alarm to put him under investigation. But by the time Masood, 52, went on the rampage on Wednesday, driving a car at 50 miles an hour along Westminster bridge, murdering three innocent pedestrians before plunging his knife repeatedly into a police officer guarding the Houses of Parliament, he had dropped off their radar. Masood, a father of three, was no longer considered a threat. The Telegraph can disclose that Masood was not using his birth name. He was born Adrian Elms in Dartford, Kent. Read the full story. Masood had been "hanging out" with would-be jihadis who wanted to travel to fight abroad, a US government source told Reuters. There was no indication Masood had himself gone abroad to fight but people he associated with had wanted to. "The people he was hanging out with did include people suspected of having an interest in travelling to join jihadi groups overseas but the attacker himself never did so," the source said. The 75-year-old man who has died tonight as a result of the attack was being treated atKing's College Hospital, a spokesman has said. The decision was taken tonight to withdraw his life support. Raids took place today in Birmingham, Luton and East London. Our Deputy Political EditorSteven Swinfordoutlines the areas'previous links with extremism here. Records suggest that Masood was married to a 39-year-old woman namedRoheyHydara. Police confirmed that a 39-year-old woman held in east London was among the eight people arrested. Police were tonight searching a flat believed to be her home, a newly built property in the heart of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford, east London. Residents of the nine-storey block near to the Eurostar Stratford International Station said police had been in the building all day. A neighbour at an address Ms Hydara is believed to have previously lived at in Forest Gate said three children lived in the home with their mother, aged between eight and 15. He said they moved out in the last two years to the Olympic Village. Police have said another victim of the attack has died tonight. In a statement the Metropolitan Police said: "Detectives investigating the terrorist attack in Westminster on Wednesday, 22 March can confirm that a 75-year-old man died tonight, Thursday, 23 March. "The man had been receiving medical treatment in hospital following the attack and life support was withdrawn this evening. "Next of kin have been informed and are receiving support from specially trained family liaison officers." Worshippers at the Al-Tawhid mosque in Leyton were surprised to learn of Masood's alleged links with the mosque,Rozina Saburreports. One,Abdul Abdul, told the Telegraph: "We condemn this attack. A true Muslim would never do this. He's not one of us, he's not a representative of us". A peace vigil is to be held in Birmingham on Friday to promote unity, after the city's most prominent mosque issued a statement condemning the Westminster terror attack as "barbaric and heartless". The city centre vigil has been organised by the Stand Up To Racism group and MEND (Muslim Engagement and Development) and will begin at 5pm in High Street. Officials at Birmingham Central Mosque Trust recently published a 12-page booklet entitled Terrorism is not Islam, endorsed by West Midlands Police and 29 other major mosques in the city. Birmingham central mosque chairman denounced terrorism, said they don't know who terrorist is & gave me leaflet on "Terrorism Is Not Islam" pic.twitter.com/1GUhaj82Ba
In a statement, mosque chairman Muhammad Afzal said of Wednesday's atrocity in London: "Nothing justifies taking lives of innocent people. "Those responsible must be brought to justice to protect good, in our constant fight to eradicate evil within humanity." Last night Birmingham Library was lit up in the colours of the Union Flag. Proud that the Library of Birmingham Brum is lit in the colours of the Union flag #solidarity #PrayforLondon #PrayforPeace #StanduptoTerror pic.twitter.com/D3L5CfGVzU
Urging calm within all communities and offering condolences to those bereaved by the attack, Mr Afzal added: "The Islamic faith does not allow anyone to take the life of others. "No religion justifies the indiscriminate killing of individuals in such a barbaric and heartless way, and such acts only serve to differentiate between the misguided and the just. "We call upon those that may have even a shred of sympathy for the like-minded terrorists to shake their conscience and realise that such acts are the work of evil and not the work of God-fearing people." In a statement on Facebook, the organisers of the vigil wrote: "Our thoughts are with all those affected by what has happened. "Birmingham is a united city and we will not let anyone use these terrible events to divide us. Please come and join us on Friday for a unity vigil." According to reports Masood had previously worked as an English teacher. However, it is understood he never worked as a teacher in any of England's state schools. A controlled explosion on a suspicious package is believed to have taken place near Downing Street tonight. The BBC News Channel reported that a loud bang had been heard within earshot of their live broadcast. Officers said it had taken place on Birdcage Walk, not far from the Houses of Parliament and Downing Street. Police say they've just carried out a controlled explosion within earshot of our live point #Westminster pic.twitter.com/bEPkkvFIDn
The Metropolitan Police told the Telegraph that officers had found a suspicious package. The spokesman said the force had been receiving a lot more phone calls since the attack as they have told the public to be vigilant. However he said the package was not believed to be anything out of the ordinary and such incidents are routine for officers. Unattended bag found Birdcage Walk/Horseguards was not suspicious. All cordons put in for safety being lifted. Thanks for your patience. Police said earlier that the attacker went by a number of aliases. Scotland Yard now say that they believe Khalid Masood was not his birth name. A spokesman for the force saidresearch into Masood's aliases was ongoing, adding: "Khalid Masood is not at this early stage believed to be his birth name." The message from Londoners in Trafalgar Square tonight is clear, writesEleanor Steafel:"We are not afraid". After Wednesday's events, there was a determination throughout the city to carry on in the face of it all. The mood at Trafalgar Square was sombre but defiant, as people of all ages and backgrounds stood together, many of them Muslims holding up signs saying: "Love for all, hatred for none". Among those who came to pay their respects was Jess Okpere, whose teacher Aysha Frade lost her life on Westminster bridge. Carrying a bunch of daffodils and clearly very emotional, the 18-year-old said: "I cried this morning when I found out. I've had a very long day filled with a lot of tears. I'm here to show that we're not going to let these people win." Standing on the steps in front of the National Portrait Gallery, faith leaders joined Home Secretary Amber Rudd, Acting Met Commissioner Craig Mackey and Mayor of London Sadiq Khan. Three large candles in glass hurricane lanterns sat before them. The respectful hush in the square was broken only by applause, as the Home Secretary praised PC Keith Palmer. "He was courageous, he was brave and he was also doing his duty," she said. "It reminded us of how we are all connected." In an impassioned address, Ms Rudd said: "The terrorists will not defeat us, we will defeat them." Sadiq Khan spoke of how Londoners had come together in the aftermath of the attack. He said: "London is a great city full of amazing people from all backgrounds, and when Londoners face adversity, we always pull together. "Our response to this attack on our city, on our way of life, our shared values, shows the world what it means to be a Londoner." The crowd fell quiet as a minute's silence was observed in honour of the victims. | Armed Conflict | March 2017 | ['(The Telegraph)'] |
Former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling surrenders to the FBI in Houston and is arraigned on charges of fraud and insider trading. Skilling pleads not guilty and the judge sets bail at $5 million and confiscates Skilling's passport. | HOUSTON (CNN) - Ex-Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling was charged with fraud and insider trading Thursday, making him the highest ranking former executive charged in the collapse of the once-mighty energy company.
The indictment unsealed in Houston lays out 36 charges against Skilling, as well as new charges against Richard Causey, Enron's former chief accounting officer, who pleaded not guilty to six charges last month.
The charges against Skilling and Causey allege that from 1999 to 2001 the two men used various devices and schemes to manipulate Enron's financial results.
The indictment came just five weeks after former Enron CFO Andrew Fastow pleaded guilty to wire and securities fraud and agreed to cooperate with investigators probing the accounting scandal.
Skilling, 50, has become the highest-ranking ex-official charged in the government's investigation of Enron. He faces 10 counts of insider trading; 15 counts of securities fraud; four counts of wire fraud; six counts of making false statements to auditors, and one count of conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud.
In an arraignment hearing at a Houston courthouse Thursday morning, Skilling pleaded not guilty to all the charges.
U.S. Magistrate Frances H. Stacy set bail at $5 million and revoked Skilling's passport. His travel was confined to the continental United States.
If convicted on all charges he could face the rest of his life in prison and a maximum of $80 million in fines.
Speaking outside the federal courthouse, Skilling's lawyer accused the federal government of making his client a "scapegoat."
The government has spent 2-1/2 years and "millions of dollars" digging for evidence against Skilling, Daniel Petrocelli told reporters. "And it doesn't exist because Jeff Skilling did nothing wrong.
"I guess they need a scapegoat. I guess Jeff Skilling is their scapegoat." He said Skilling will prove his innocence in court.
In Washington, federal law enforcement officials said the indictment pushed forward efforts to stamp out corporate fraud.
"This indictment marks an important milestone in the life of the president's Corporate Fraud Task Force," said Deputy Attorney General James Comey, who heads the unit.
"Our investigators were able to cut through the maze of paperwork and financial trickery to get to the bottom of the scheme and charge Skilling, once the top executive at Enron, with fraud and other crimes that contributed to Enron's collapse," he added. (For more on the comments from both sides, click here).
Skilling's lawyers have repeatedly said he relied on his subordinates, lawyers and accountants at Enron, where he relinquished the No. 2 post just months before the company's finances collapsed in late 2001.
That collapse has come under scrutiny by the Justice Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission and numerous congressional committees seeking answers as to how the company that once stood at No. 7 on the Fortune 500 could fall so quickly.
The collapse left thousands of employees jobless, and those whose 401(k) plans were invested in Enron stock were wiped out. But many top executives unloaded their stock before the bottom fell out. Prosecutors said company leaders purposely kept employees in the dark about Enron's real financial situation.
Skilling, unlike other top Enron officials, did not invoke his Fifth Amendment rights when questioned by Congress in early 2002. He has blamed Enron's death spiral on what he has called a classic "run on the bank."
"It is my belief that Enron's failure was due to a classic run on the bank, a liquidity crisis spurred by a lack of confidence in the company," he testified before Congress.
"At the time I left the company, I fervently believed that Enron would continue to be successful in the future. I did not believe the company was in any imminent financial peril."
Skilling served as president and COO of Enron from late 1996 to early 2001. He was then appointed CEO, but resigned six months later, in August 2001, just five months before Enron filed for bankruptcy.
The only person higher up the Enron chain than Skilling is its former chairman and longtime CEO, Kenneth Lay, who has not been charged and whose attorney has denied he was involved in any wrongdoing.
According to congressional investigators, Skilling sold more than 500,000 shares of Enron stock for more than $21 million in 1999 alone, and profited greatly by cashing in more stock in the months before the collapse.
Enron's questionable partnerships hid more than $1 billion in debt, ultimately plunging the company into bankruptcy.
"I spent probably most of my professional life helping to build Enron Corporation," Skilling told CNN's Larry King in 2002. "I don't think there was anyone that was as shocked by the collapse of the company as I was."
Pressed on the matter, Skilling was asked, "You didn't see anything coming?"
"Not only that, Larry, I'd go even farther than that. I think we had made some tremendous progress in the six months before I left," the former CEO said.
King asked, "Then why did you leave?"
"I was tired," he replied.
| Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | February 2004 | ['(CNN)'] |
German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder warns the U.S. to back away from the possibility of military action against Iran over its nuclear program. | His comments come a day after President Bush reiterated that force remained an option but only as a last resort.
Iran has resumed what it says is a civilian nuclear research programme but which the West fears could be used to develop nuclear arms.
Germany, France and the UK have led efforts to end the crisis peacefully.
Mr Schroeder's rejection of force came at the official launch of his party's election campaign.
The BBC's Ray Furlong - reporting from Hanover - says there was an echo of his last election campaign three years ago, when his steadfast opposition to the use of force against Iraq helped get him re-elected.
Mr Schroeder directly challenged Mr Bush's comment that "all options are on the table" over the Iran crisis.
"Let's take the military option off the table. We have seen it doesn't work," Mr Schroeder told Social Democrats at the rally in Hanover, to rapturous applause from the crowd.
Mr Schroeder said it remained important that Iran did not gain atomic weapons, and a strong negotiating position was important. "The Europeans and the Americans are united in this goal," he said. "Up to now we were also united in the way to pursue this."
Schroeder wants military action "off the table"
Mr Schroeder reiterates his views in an interview to be published Sunday in the German weekly Bild am Sonntag, labelling military action "extremely dangerous". "This is why I can with certainty exclude any participation by the German government under my direction," Mr Schroeder tells the paper.
Mr Schroeder was among Europe's sternest critics of the Iraq war, causing a bitter rift with the US which poisoned relations between the two countries. His opposition, in tandem with that President Jacques Chirac's France, led to US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld's stinging attack on "old Europe".
Mr Bush's comments about the military option came in an interview on Israeli TV.
The BBC's Jonathan Beale in Washington says the president wants to send a clear warning to Tehran, although in reality the US already has its hands full in neighbouring Iraq. Mr Schroeder is lagging well behind his conservative rivals in the German election campaign, but has been narrowing the gap in recent days.
In the 2002 poll, he came from behind to snatch victory after anti-Iraq war feeling - and an outbreak of serious flooding in Germany - helped him attract last-minute support. | Famous Person - Give a speech | August 2005 | ['(BBC)'] |
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland James Brokenshire announces a snap election is to take place on March 2 to elect members to the Northern Ireland Assembly after the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Féin failed to agree on a power-sharing agreement. | Vote will take place on 2 March, James Brokenshire says, after deadline for deal passes, triggering collapse of power-sharing executive
Elections to a new Northern Ireland assembly will take place on 2 March, James Brokenshire has announced. The Northern Ireland secretary was forced to call the poll after 5pm on Monday when it became clear there would be no 11th-hour deal to bring the Democratic Unionist party and Sinn Féin together to save power sharing in the region.
Brokenshire was obliged by law to declare an election date after the deadline this evening, drawning a curtain over nearly a decade of cross-community coalitions between unionists and nationalists.
The present assembly will sit until 26 January, when it will be dissolved. The new election takes place just 10 months after the previous one, which resulted in a joint Sinn Féin-Democratic Unionist party government.
The devolved administration fell after a row over a bungled green energy scheme and the Democratic Unionist first minister’s refusal to temporarily stand down from her post.
Sinn Féin earlier on Monday refused to nominate a new deputy first minister in the Stormont parliament, thus triggering an election. The Democratic Unionists had once again put forward Arlene Foster as first minister.
But under the complex rules of power sharing in the province, a government could not survive if the main political representatives of one section of the community refused to participate in the administration.
Announcing the election, the Northern Ireland secretary said: “I am now obliged under relevant legislation to propose a date for the next Northern Ireland assembly election. The election seeks to have the views of the future of Northern Ireland and bring people back together again and assures those lines of communications remain open.”
Just before the collapse of the power-sharing coalition between Sinn Féin and the DUP, Theresa May telephoned Martin McGuinness and Arlene Foster to encourage them to reach a last-minute deal to save the devolved institutions. May told them that they needed to do so to strengthen Northern Ireland’s voice in the forthcoming Brexit negotiations with the EU.
A spokeswoman for the prime minister said: “She spoke to both Arlene Foster and Martin McGuinness to encourage them to use what time was left today to try to find a resolution to the situation in Northern Ireland, outlining the importance of finding a way forward – particularly in the context of wanting to make sure that Northern Ireland has a voice in the UK’s exit from the European Union as we approach the critical period before triggering article 50.”
Her appeal failed to sway Sinn Féin, and the party declined to nominate a deputy first minister. Shortly afterwards, Foster appeared in Stormont’s Great Hall surrounded by DUP stalwarts including several of the party’s MPs at Westminster. She said: “Northern Ireland does not need an election; it needs stable government.”
The first minister said Sinn Féin had forced the election on Northern Ireland. “They have forced an election that risks Northern Ireland’s future and stability and which suits nobody but themselves,” she said.
If the DUP and Sinn Féin are once again returned as the two largest parties in the new assembly, the chances of them forming a fresh cross-community government appear at this stage to be remote. The atmosphere between the two parties remains toxic. McGuinness, who is in ill health and being treated for a rare condition that attacks the heart and other vital organs, resigned as deputy first minister last Monday. He took the action in protest at Foster’s refusal to step aside while a public inquiry is held into the renewable heat incentive (RHI), an energy scheme whose costs have spiralled out of control.
It is unclear whether McGuinness will stand himself as a candidate in the forthcoming electoral contest. While Sinn Féin is keen for his name to be on the party’s slate in Foyle, it is understood that his family are concerned about his health and the impact a bruising election campaign could have on it. If McGuinness does not stand again, one of the frontrunners to succeed him is Michelle O’Neill, the Sinn Féin health minister in the outgoing government. On Monday she highlighted the difficulties in piecing together a new power sharing arrangement with the DUP.
“Sinn Féin will only be part of institutions which work and deliver for all in the community,” she said. “There can be no return to the status quo. If something is broken, you stop and you fix it.”
The cross-community Alliance party said it wanted to keep the focus during the campaign on allegations of corruption and cronyism associated with the RHI scheme as well as other scandals. Naomi Long, the Alliance leader, said: “Our party isn’t to blame for the snap election called as a result of the DUP’s and Sinn Féin’s mess.
“But unlike some, we are not running scared of an election. We will be facing the people confident – and offering the electorate an alternative to the secrecy, corruption and cronyism that they are sick of at Stormont.” | Government Job change - Election | January 2017 | ['(DUP)', '(The Guardian)'] |
800 gambling dens are raided in Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and China, and 5,000 people arrested for illegal betting on the 2010 FIFA World Cup. | More than 5,000 people have been arrested across Asia as part of a World Cup operation against illegal gambling.
Almost $10m was seized during the crackdown in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand, the international police force Interpol said. Police in those countries "identified and raided nearly 800 illegal gambling dens", Interpol announced. It is not clear whether results on the pitch were influenced - Interpol said that would form part of a wider probe. In the past, so-called spot bets have been placed on things like the first corner or the first booking, much easier to fix than a match involving 22 players, says the BBC's Christian Fraser in Paris.
During Operation Soga III, which ran from 11 June to 11 July, police seized assets including cars, bank cards, computers and mobile phones.
The dens handled more than $155m (£100m) in bets, Interpol said. Interpol, which facilitates international police co-operation, is based in the French city of Lyon. Police forces around the world now hope that the information gathered will lead them to more people involved in illegal football gambling. The crackdown would also have a long-term impact on organised crime gangs, said Interpol's chief of police services, Jean-Michel Louboutin.
"The results we have seen are impressive, not only in the number of arrests and seizures made across the region in just one month, but in terms of the police co-operation which made this possible."
He added that the operation had also been a blow to corruption, money laundering and prostitution, and said football gambling had clear connections to those offences. Interpol co-ordinated similar crackdowns in 2007 and 2008, codenamed Soga I and Soga II. In total all three Soga operations have led to nearly 7,000 arrests and the seizure of more than $26m (£17m), Mr Louboutin said.
Last week details emerged of a Chinese gang accused of running a sophisticated online betting network in the run-up to the World Cup. The gang, which was broken up last month, was alleged to have accumulated more than 100bn yuan (£9.7bn; $14.8bn), Chinese state media reported. China foils online gambling ring | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Arrest | July 2010 | ['(including Hong Kong and Macau)', '(Aljazeera)', '(BBC News)'] |
Debbie Wasserman Schultz resigns from her position as Chairperson of the Democratic National Committee. Wasserman Schultz had reportedly been removed from a speaking role after a WikiLeaks email leak proved her implicit support of Hillary Clinton's campaign during the primaries. Her resignation will take effect upon the close of the convention. Donna Brazile will serve as interim chair. | PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - The head of the Democratic Party resigned on Sunday amid a furor over embarrassing leaked emails, hoping to head off a growing rebellion by Bernie Sanders supporters on the eve of the convention to nominate Hillary Clinton for the White House.
Lingering bitterness from the heated primary campaign between Clinton and Sanders erupted after more than 19,000 Democratic National Committee emails, leaked on Friday, confirmed Sanders’ frequent charge that the party played favorites in the race.
In a statement, DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz said the best way for the party to accomplish its goal of putting Clinton in the White House was for her to step aside after the convention. Sanders had demanded earlier in the day that Wasserman Schultz resign.
The furor was a blow to a party keen on projecting stability in contrast to the volatility of Republican candidate Donald Trump, who was formally nominated at a raucous convention in Cleveland last week.
It also overshadowed preparations in Philadelphia for Clinton’s coronation as the nominee to face Trump in the Nov. 8 presidential election. She will be the first woman nominated for president by a major U.S. political party.
The four-day Democratic convention will open on Monday. In some good news for Clinton, The New York Times reported that businessman and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg will endorse her in a prime-time speech on Monday, saying she will be the best choice for moderate voters in 2016.
The cache of emails leaked on Friday by the WikiLeaks website disclosed that DNC officials explored ways to undermine Sanders’ insurgent presidential campaign, including raising questions about whether Sanders, who is Jewish, was really an atheist.
Sanders said Wasserman Schultz, a U.S. representative from Florida, had made the right decision for the future of the Democratic Party. “The party leadership must also always remain impartial in the presidential nominating process, something which did not occur in the 2016 race,” he said.
‘RUSSIAN CONNECTION?’
The Clinton camp questioned whether Russians may have had a hand in the hack attack on the party’s emails and were interested in helping Trump, who has exchanged words of praise with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“What’s disturbing to us is that experts are telling us that Russian state actors broke into the DNC, stole these emails and other experts are now saying that Russians are releasing these emails for the purpose of helping Donald Trump,” Clinton campaign chairman Robby Mook said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort said the Clinton camp was trying to distract from its party discord ahead of the convention.
“What’s in those emails show that it was a clearly rigged system, that Bernie Sanders ... never had a chance,”
Manafort said on ABC.
Clinton, 68, a former secretary of state, and Sanders, 74, an independent U.S. senator from Vermont who ran for president as a Democrat, waged a bruising months-long battle for the nomination. Branding himself a democratic socialist, Sanders galvanized young and liberal voters with his calls to rein in Wall Street and eradicate income inequality.
But Sanders repeatedly voiced frustration with a DNC and party establishment he felt was stacked against him, and the resentment from Sanders and his supporters threatened to disrupt the convention.
“I’m not shocked but I’m disappointed,” Sanders said of the emails earlier on Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”
The emails showed DNC officials pondering various ways to undercut Sanders. Brad Marshall, the DNC’s chief financial officer, apologized on Facebook on Saturday for an email in which he discussed how some voters in upcoming nominating contests in Kentucky and West Virginia would reject an atheist.
“He had skated on saying he has a Jewish heritage,” Marshall wrote in a May 5 email to three top DNC officials. No names were mentioned, but Sanders was the only Jewish candidate.
“I think I read he is an atheist. This could make several points difference with my peeps. My Southern Baptist peeps would draw a big difference between a Jew and an atheist.”
Clinton told CBS’s “60 Minutes” in an interview that aired on Sunday that she had not read any of the emails but it was “wrong and unacceptable” to bring religion into the political process.
The emails angered many Sanders supporters who were already dismayed by Clinton’s choice on Friday of low-key U.S. Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia as her vice presidential running mate. Kaine, 58, who could appeal to independents and moderates, has never been aligned with party liberals.
Sanders, who has endorsed Clinton and will speak on her behalf to the convention on Monday, said he would have preferred she pick U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a favorite of the party’s liberal wing, as her No. 2.
“I have known Tim Kaine for a number of years. ... Tim is a very, very smart guy. He is a very nice guy,” Sanders said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“He is more conservative than I am. Would I have preferred to see somebody like an Elizabeth Warren selected by Secretary Clinton? Yes, I would have,” he said.
Carrying pitchforks meant to portray Clinton as the devil, hundreds of Sanders supporters took to the streets of Philadelphia earlier on Sunday to say they felt betrayed by the DNC.
“It just validated everything we thought, everything we believed to be true, that this was completely rigged right from the beginning, and that you know it was really about what they were doing everything to set it up so she would win,” Sanders supporter Gwen Sperling said.
DNC Vice Chairwoman Donna Brazile will serve as interim chair through the election, the DNC said on Twitter.
| Government Job change - Resignation_Dismissal | July 2016 | ['(Reuters)', '(The Washington Post)', '(CNN)', '(Fox News)'] |
Mandatory emergency evacuation is ordered for Outer Banks in North Carolina as Hurricane Ophelia approaches. , , | North Carolina's governor pleaded yesterday with the 70,000 people living along the state's coast to flee Hurricane Ophelia, the first major storm to hit the US since Katrina devastated Louisiana and Mississippi two weeks ago.
Ophelia was expected to strike North Carolina with a glancing blow late last night before spinning off into the Atlantic. It was considerably weaker than Katrina, with top sustained wind speeds of 85mph, but the governor, Mike Easley, said it was moving so slowly along the coast it would cause disproportionate flooding.
"These floods are going to be worse than anticipated yesterday," the governor said. "We're asking and begging [people to get out] because it's going to be hard to get them out later. Once the high winds come, we cannot get in and get you out - cannot get you by boat, cannot get you by helicopters, cannot get there by plane."
Mandatory evacuation orders were issued for the islands off the state's Outer Banks, and for the region's seaside resorts, but there were reports last night that many people had ignored the orders, barricaded their houses and stayed put.
Stung by criticism of its slow response to Katrina, the Federal Emergency Management Agency stationed 250 workers along the North Carolina coast, more than would normally be deployed for a hurricane of Ophelia's magnitude.
The main concern was flooding as the hurricane crept northwards up the North Carolina coast. The National Hurricane Centre predicted it would hover over the northern coast for 11 hours, dumping 38cm (15in) of rain and driving storm surges of more than three metres on the shore, and along North Carolina's rivers. | Hurricanes_Tornado_Storm_Blizzard | September 2005 | ['(Washington Post)', '(Reuters)', '[permanent dead link]', '(Guardian)'] |
An avalanche near the northern Italian town of Courmayeur, kills at least three people and injures another three, while two others are believed missing. | Three people have been killed, two are believed to be missing and three wounded in a major avalanche near the northern Italian ski resort of Courmayeur, reports say. The deaths are reported to have happened in an off-piste area as skiers made their way through fresh snow.
Officials said the injured skiers were hit by falling rocks and had been taken to hospital by helicopter.
There have been several skiing deaths in the Alps this winter.
Rescuers on Thursday said that skiers from Germany, Belgium, Sweden and Italy were caught up in the avalanche.
A second avalanche on Thursday was reported to have taken place in the same area soon after the first. Two off-piste skiers were caught up in it, but neither was reported to have been injured. France avalanche: Four killed at Tignes ski resort
Trapped skiers rescued from cable cars in Italian Alps
The avalanche risk - in one of the busiest weeks of the year for skiing in the Alps - has been assessed by officials to be three out of five, because of recent heavy snowfalls and powerful winds which have caused drifting in some areas.
Courmayeur - on the slopes of Mont Blanc - is renowned for the high difficulty levels of its skiing. Jersey man killed in skiing accident
| Hurricanes_Tornado_Storm_Blizzard | March 2017 | ['(BBC)'] |
Zach Johnson wins golf's 2007 Masters Tournament with a score of 289 . | Throughout this week, ESPN.com golf editor Jason Sobel will be live-blogging from the Masters, bringing you inside information and analysis from Augusta National Golf Club. Refresh this page often to keep track of all the entries during each round. Masters live blogs: Round 1 | Round 2 | Round 3
2 p.m.: Welcome back to Augusta, golf fans. The word of the week so far has been schadenfreude -- finding pleasure in other's despair. But take heart, because I believe there's a good chance someone is actually going to win this tournament today, rather than having everyone else in contention lose it. It's a little warmer here today (low 60s), with much less wind, potentially softer greens and, as is tradition around here, some hole locations that players can shoot for. Should make for a fun day. 2:03 p.m.: One quick thought on Tiger Woods before we get to some of the action already taking place on the course: I've seen a lot of these golf tournaments. And I've found that almost every time everyone figured a certain player would win, he doesn't. (That excludes, of course, runaway victories like Tiger had at the '97 Masters and '00 U.S. Open.) Right now, everyone is expecting Woods to win. It's an obvious scenario and honestly, if I had to pick a champion right now, I'd take him, too. But I've seen this before. After three rounds at the '05 U.S. Open, everyone was declaring Retief Goosen the winner. He lost. After three rounds at last year's U.S. Open, Phil Mickelson was the unanimous choice. He lost. Now, I know what you're thinking. Phil Mickelson and Retief Goosen aren't Tiger Woods. And you're right. But let's not give Tiger the green jacket just yet, either. 2:07 p.m.: So what makes me think there are numbers to be had out there today? Well, this, for one: Sandy Lyle shot a 1-under 71. That's right, Sandy Lyle. The guy who won here 19 years ago and currently owns no status on any major world golf tour. He's also the same guy who five-putted -- five-putted! the 16th green yesterday. If he shoots 71, there's a 67 to be had out there. Whomever shoots it may win this tournament. 2:09 p.m.: Entering today's round, there were a half-dozen heavy hitters tied at 6-over, four shots back of the lead, but very much in contention. Included in that mix -- and the man most folks thought could still make a run at this thing -- was defending champion Phil Mickelson, but he's already gotten himself into some major trouble. According to one of my spies out on the course:
That should just about do it for his chances. But the guy I really like at 6-over entering the day is Jim Furyk. He hasn't made a peep this week, just plodding his way around the course. Has their ever been a quieter second-ranked player in the world? He's already even-par for the day through three holes, but I wouldn't be surprised to see him make a nice run today. 2:15 p.m.: First tee shot of the day ... and Stuart Appleby blows one into the gallery. Yikes. Not a good start. And he's wearing the same pro shop-bought sweater as yesterday. Nice to see I'm not the only one recycling clothes this week. 2:17 p.m.: Speaking of sweaters, Tiger Woods claimed yesterday that he didn't pack a red sweater in his suitcase -- and he was serious. Tiger comes out in black sweater, black pants (with, of course, a red golf shirt underneath), proving that he can't get everything he wants. You mean Nike couldn't couldn't get a red sweater on a Gulfstream to Augusta this morning? 2:20 p.m.: Words of wisdom from the ink-stained wretch sitting next to me:
He may be right. Appleby's got to get up and down to save par -- a daunting task -- while Justin Rose just made a double to start his day. 2:31 p.m.: Right now, four players are at 2-under for their rounds today: Fred Couples (through 17), Mark Calcavecchia (through nine), Rory Sabbatini (through four) and Retief Goosen (through three). 2:33 p.m.: Here we go, folks: Exactly 18 minutes after the final group teed off, we have a six-way tie for first place. After Tiger Woods' bogey and Stuart Appleby's double, the leaderboard looks like this:
• T-1. Appleby +4
• T-1. Johnson +4
• T-1. Sabbatini +4
• T-1. Goosen +4
• T-1. Taylor +4
• T-1. Woods +4
2:37 p.m.: We've had a Zach Attack at the third hole. The Joaquin Phoenix look-alike makes his second birdie in a row to take sole possession of first place. If he wins and they make a movie about it, I know just the guy to play the lead role ...
2:40 p.m.: First e-mail of the day comes from Matt in Chicago:
When golf fans are strangely morphing the names of contenders Zach Johnson and Vaughn Taylor, you know something weird is going on at Augusta. But I understand your point. Crazy start to the round. But we never remember the beginnings of final rounds, do we? We only remember the results, and there's a long way to go in this one. 2:42 p.m.: Great pairing for Johnson and Taylor today. They're friends, about the same age, played on the U.S. Ryder Cup team together and have the same agent, so they should be pretty comfortable. I was asked yesterday if a guy would rather be paired with a friend in a pressure-packed round like this. We need only ask Phil Mickelson, who received Freddie Couples-given back slaps throughout the final round a year ago. So, yeah, playing with a friend certainly helps. 2:47 p.m.: I haven't said much about the TV coverage this week for one simple reason: I'm covering a golf tournament, not a golf telecast. But I couldn't let this go by without comment. Jim Nantz just made a "Dredge Report" reference. You're welcome, Jim. You're very welcome. 2:49 p.m.: Bogey-birdie start for Woods moves him back into a share of the lead. Wonder if he's nervous at all. Seriously. I know everyone out there is going to say, "Oh, Tiger has been-there, done-that. Nothing affects him. The guy's a machine ... yada, yada, yada." But really, he's got more pressure on him than anyone else. He's trying to win a fifth career green jacket and knows everyone expects him to win today. That's a lot for anyone to deal with -- even Tiger Woods. 2:53 p.m.: Haven't mentioned the Singh-Singh pairing yet today, with Vijay and Jeev Milkha playing together. (And just to make it funner, as Rich Beem might say, "Jeev" backwards is "Veej.") Though Jeev has blown up with a front-nine 41, Veej is right back in the mix. He's 2-under at the turn and just two back of the leaders. I'll bet he's still kicking himself for that 79 he shot yesterday. 3:02 p.m.: I've mentioned a few times this week that predicting a major championship through two rounds is like deciding the winner at halftime of an NBA game. Well, it's true. And right now, it's like there's about seven minutes left in that NBA game. Getting down to crunch time. And for the first time all week, Tiger Woods is your solo leader. Remember this moment. Could be a big one. 3:07 p.m.: Just a thought, but if you were in contention going into the final round of the Masters, wouldn't you wear something that would go nicely with a green jacket? Tiger's got his usually red shirt covered up by a black sweater; if he wins, the black will offset from his usual post-round green and red Christmas theme. Stuart Appleby's got a black sweater over a blue shirt. Vaughn Taylor is in all black, a la Gary Player. Retief Goosen and Vijay Singh each have white sweater vests over (I think) blue shirts. And not positive about Zach Johnson, but I think it's a darker color. Not sure any of those go too well, though I guess you can't go wrong with standard black. What goes with a green jacket anyway? 3:12 p.m.: E-mailer Brian picks up on a major theme we've had throughout the week:
Sure 'nuff, Furyk is now at 7-over after I said I liked his chances. I wonder if now would be a good time to remind everyone that I picked Tiger Woods to win in my pre-tournament rankings. 3:14 p.m.: Luke Donald is getting married soon and he'll be given a nice wedding present by the Augusta National folks at the end of the day: Four crystal goblets with the Masters logo on them. That would be two each for his two eagles this week, including the one he just made on the par-5 eighth hole to move to within one stroke of the lead. 3:18 p.m.: E-mailer Rick chimes in as the clubhouse leader for the Groveling E-mailer of the Week award:
If you don't care, I won't tell you. And no, you can't be in my blog, either. 3:20 p.m.: Mauricio e-mails with his answer to the question about what goes well with a green jacket:
If that means some guy is walking around this place in Sergio Garcia's British Open Tweety Bird outfit, no thanks. I'll pass. 3:23 p.m.: I was just approached by a fellow writer who told me:
Uh-huh. He thinks. He also said he likes Retief Goosen's chances right now. Thanks, Captain Obvious. 3:25 p.m.: First three rounds: 8 eagles. Today: 7. The latest of which comes from Rory Sabbatini at the par-5 eighth hole -- a brilliant, winding putt that found the bottom of the cup and prompted a big reaction from the crowd and an even bigger one from Sabbatini. If you don't know much about Sabbatini, he's about as non-traditional an Augusta National guy as anyone -- a loose cannon who speaks his mind (a little too much, some would say) and displays plenty of emotion. He's won three PGA Tour events, including last year's Nissan Open, but is more well known for a few incidents than anything else. A couple of years ago, playing with turtle-slow Ben Crane in the final round of the Booz Allen Classic after three days of playing behind him, Sabbatini walked ahead and played on his own, drawing plenty of criticism. He was also paired with somewhat slow Nick Faldo at one point, prompting his wife, Amy, to wear a shirt in the gallery that read, "Keep Up." | Sports Competition | April 2007 | ['(1 over par)', '(ESPN)'] |
Al-Shabaab militants attack two military bases in Lower Shabelle with suicide car bombings and mortar shells. Nine Somali soldiers are killed and eleven others are injured. An army general says 76 militants are killed in retaliation, and ten captured. | The militant group al-Shabab has launched attacks on Somali military forces in Lower Shabelle region, Somali regional officials said.
The attacks in the early hours of Saturday, around 4 a.m. local time, targeted military bases in the towns of Barire and Awdhegle in southern Somalia.
Al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the attacks.
The forward operating bases are manned by the Somali military to protect several bridges along the Shabelle river that authorities say are key to keeping vehicles carrying explosives from entering Mogadishu. Attacks started off with suicide car bombs on both bases, followed by infantry attack, regional officials said.
Speaking to VOA’s Somali Service, Abdulkadir Mohamed Nur Siidi, the governor of Lower Shabelle region, confirmed the attacks. Siidi said the militants fired mortars on the nearby villages of Sabiid and Anole. More mortar attacks were reported in the vicinity of Jannaale town. In recent years, the Somali National Army, in joint operations with forces of the regional peacekeeping mission, the African Union Mission in Somalia, or AMISOM has recaptured these villages that were previously under the control of Al-Shabaab militants.
The Saturday mortar attacks may have been an effort to disrupt possible reinforcements for government forces, Somali officials said.
Government forces appear to have repulsed attack on Awdhegle and defended a key bridge used by civilians and the military, but there was heavy fighting in Barire town, the officials added.
Al-Shabab claimed to have “overrun” the Barire military base. A regional official, who did not want to be named because he was not allowed to speak to the media, said Barire bore the brunt of the attack. Two officials said the militants entered Barire military base without providing further details. The militants have now been pushed out of Barire, an official said.
Awdhegle and Barire are located 75 kilometers and 60 kilometers southwest of Somalia’s capital city of Mogadishu, respectively.
State controlled national television has reported that government forces have “foiled” al-Shabab attacks on Awdhegle and Barire. Heavy losses have been inflicted on the militants, according to broadcasts on state TV.
Somali Army chief Brigadier General Odawaa Yusuf Rageh said “Somali Army killed dozens of terrorist militants including leaders after Shabab attacked SNA [Somali National Army] bases in Awdhegle and Barire in Lower Shabelle region,” on a Twitter post through the state-owned media, Somali National Television.
Somali Army killed dozens of terrorist militants including leaders after Shabab attacked SNA bases in Awdhigle and Bariire in Lower Shabelle region,Somalia’s Army chief GE.Odawa Yusuf told to State Media pic.twitter.com/ML2FIH1rpI
The commander of Somalia’s infantry forces, General Mohamed Tahlil Bihi, told The Associated Press that nine Somali soldiers had been killed and 11 injured.
Bihi said Somali forces had killed 76 of the al-Shabab militants and had captured 10 others.
Al-Shabab spokesman Sheikh Abdulaziz al-Musab maintained the group had killed 47 Somali government fighters and confirmed on the group’s Andalus radio station that the attacks began with suicide car bombs.
Barire was recaptured from al-Shabab in May 2019, while government forces retook Awdhegle three months later. The capture and holding of the towns was hailed as a test for Somali National Army efforts to “seize and hold” areas recovered from the militants. SNA is being rebuilt to have the capacity to overtake security responsibilities from the 22,000 AMISOM peacekeeping forces who have been in the country since March 2007.
In a separate but related incident, a suicide car bomb struck a military convoy travelling on the outskirts of Mogadishu on Saturday morning local time. The convoy was attacked in the vicinity of Lafole, about 20 kilometers from Mogadishu. The convoy was heading towards Awdhegle and Barire to reinforce government forces, officials told VOA’s Somali Service.
Police in Mogadishu said four youths and one child were killed in a second suicide bombing that occurred about7 p.m. local time at a tea shop in downtown Mogadishu. Young people were having tea when the blast occurred, police said.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
Government forces also seized a vehicle carrying weapon for the militants in Lafole area, an official said. | Armed Conflict | April 2021 | ['(VOA)'] |
Troops loyal to Bosco Ntaganda who is wanted by the International Criminal Court take two towns in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. | Troops loyal to Bosco Ntaganda, wanted by the International Criminal Court, have taken two towns in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
A BBC reporter in the area says thousands of people are fleeing the fierce fighting towards nearby Goma.
Hundreds of heavily armed soldiers loyal to Gen Ntaganda recently defected from the Congolese army.
Known locally as the Terminator, Gen Ntaganda has denied the ICC accusation that he recruited child soldiers. The Congolese army has admitted its troops were defeated and pushed out of the towns of Mushake and Karuba by Gen Ntaganda's men.
The government soldiers have retreated 12km east to Sake, 30km (18 miles) west of Goma, the regional capital, where they are regrouping for a counter-offensive.
The BBC's Thomas Hubert in Sake says local residents told him they heard the fighting between forces loyal to Gen Ntaganda and government troops going on well into Sunday night.
Our correspondent says he saw a constant stream of families loaded with mattresses, kitchen utensils and suitcases on the road between Sake and Goma. "There has been a lot of shooting, this is why we have fled," an elderly man who fled Mushake told the BBC. A woman who left the same area told the BBC she had seen the dead bodies of soldiers and civilians. Several thousand people have been displaced by the fighting, our correspondent says.
Many people told the BBC they fear a repeat of scenes in late 2008.
Then, Gen Ntaganda was a senior commander of the CNDP rebel group, which threatened to invade Goma.
This led more than a quarter of a million people to flee their homes.
In 2009, the rebels were integrated into the national army - and Mr Ntaganda was promoted to general.
The renegade soldiers, who deserted their Congolese army base in Goma earlier this month, number between 400-500, according to UN and Congolese military sources.
In another front, in the area of North Kivu province between Mweso and Kitchanga, Congolese army officials told our reporter that they had halted the progress of Gen Ntaganda's men.
From 2002-2005, Gen Ntaganda was chief of military operations for the Congolese UCP rebels, led by warlord Thomas Lubanga - who in March became the first person to be convicted of war crimes by the ICC, after he was found guilty of recruiting child soldiers.
Gen Ntaganda was his co-accused - but President Joseph Kabila has previously refused to arrest him for the sake of DR Congo's peace.
The president earlier this month called for his arrest - but says he will not hand him over to the ICC.
Despite the end of DR Congo's war in 2003, several armed groups still roam the mineral-rich east of the country despite attempts by the UN and army to disarm them.
| Armed Conflict | April 2012 | ['(BBC)'] |
The Governor General of Jamaica Kenneth Octavius Hall announces that the Jamaican general election, 2007 is postponed to September 3 due to the impact of Hurricane Dean. | KINGSTON (Reuters) - Jamaica has postponed a national election originally scheduled for next week until September 3 as it grapples with the clean-up from last Sunday’s encounter with Hurricane Dean, authorities said on Friday.
Governor General Kenneth Hall announced the new date, citing damage to infrastructure and rebuilding efforts after the storm, which killed at least 27 people in Mexico, Haiti, Jamaica and other parts of the Caribbean region.
Disaster officials say as many as 300,000 Jamaicans were displaced by Dean, which hammered the south coast of the Caribbean island nation with heavy winds and treacherous surf.
The national election had been scheduled for next Monday
The ruling People’s National Party is seeking a fifth consecutive five-year term and holds a slim lead over the opposition Jamaica Labour Party, according to opinion polls.
| Hurricanes_Tornado_Storm_Blizzard | August 2007 | ['(Reuters)'] |
Fugitive ex-minister Clara Ponsatí i Obiols says she will hand herself over to Police Scotland, who have received a copy of the European Arrest Warrant for her. | A former Catalan minister who fled Spain to return to Scotland is preparing to hand herself in to police.
A European arrest warrant was issued for Clara Ponsatí on Friday. Police Scotland confirmed they were in possession of the warrant and had attempted to trace the former Catalan education minister on Sunday.
After being contacted by her solicitor, police said arrangements were being made for Ms Ponsatí to hand herself in to police.
Clara Ponsatí was serving in the Catalan government when it declared independence from Spain in October.
She fled to Brussels with former leader Carles Puigdemont, then returned to the University of St Andrews where she had previously worked.
A Spanish judge reactivated warrants for Mr Puigdemont, Ms Ponsatí and three other former ministers on Friday.
Mr Puigdemont has now been detained in Germany, his lawyer confirmed on Sunday.
Scotland's first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, said she supported the right of the Catalan people to determine their own future but the Scottish authorities were obliged to follow due process and ministers were not permitted to intervene.
She added: "We strongly oppose the Spanish government's decision to seek the arrest and imprisonment of independence supporting politicians.
"The fact that our justice system is legally obliged to follow due process in the determination of extradition requests does not change those views."
Spain's central government took direct control of Catalonia and sacked officials, following the region's banned independence referendum in October.
Ms Ponsatí escaped to Belgium from Spain along with Mr Puigdemont and three of his former ministers days after the independence declaration. International arrest warrants were issued for all five but they were later withdrawn. Ms Ponsatí later returned to St Andrews University where she had been director of the school of economics and finance before taking up her role as Catalan education minister last summer.
A spokesman for St Andrews said: '"We're aware that a warrant has been issued, we're staying in close touch with Clara and will continue to monitor developments very carefully." | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Arrest | March 2018 | ['(BBC)'] |
The 2010 Summer Youth Olympics, the first of the Youth Olympic Games, begins in Singapore with 3,531 participating athletes aged 14–18 from 204 National Olympic Committees. | AS THOUSANDS of teenage athletes, fans and officials join five singers to belt out 'Everyone' at the Marina Bay floating platform tonight, Singapore would have come a long way on its Youth Olympic Games journey. And what an apposite title for the Games theme song it is: Think more than 3,000 athletes, 205 national Olympic committees represented and 400,000 spectators who will attend the Games events. Like the sensational sprinter Usain Bolt, the nation is coiled like a spring at the starting blocks, ready to show the world the quick feet and blistering agility that Singapore and Singaporeans are justly proud of.
Indubitably, the Youth Olympics has its detractors. Some say it is a pale copy of the 'senior' Olympic Games, and that the amount Singapore is spending on the event ($390 million) is three times the initial estimate. These criticisms should not be dismissed, but they miss the point. It is true that not many young hopefuls go on to become world beaters. That said, all adult champions - consider the Messis, Federers and Phelps of the world - were winning their spurs in their formative years. Besides, the lion's share of the increased budget was awarded to Singaporean firms.
Like music, the essence of sport is transcendental, lifting both participants and spectators to a higher, even spiritual, plane. The standard example is that of Jesse Owens. This was the black American who won four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics to disprove conclusively Hitler's assumptions of Aryan superiority. It is hoped that over time, the display of pure sportsmanship by young athletes at the inaugural Youth Olympics in Singapore will, through osmosis, inspire younger (and sometimes sedentary) Singaporeans to take the plunge, pick up a sport and excel at it. It is one thing for Singapore to host a major sporting event. It is quite another for it to be not just an efficient host, but a sporting power of some weight. The logic is appealing: If young Singaporeans see their teenage peers run the 100m in under 11 seconds and swim 100m in under 55 seconds, they would conclude they could do likewise.
There is a wider perspective. The Youth Olympics, together with other world-class events and facilities such as the Formula One Grand Prix and the casino resorts, will place Singapore firmly on the global fun map. By some measures, Singapore is the best country in Asia in which to live, work and play. That said, much is lost if Singaporeans do not play their part in the next fortnight of the Games: being gracious hosts and showing appreciation for the young competitors by filling the stadiums. As a line from 'Everyone' goes, it is time to 'fly way beyond the skies'. | Sports Competition | August 2010 | ['(BBC News)', '(The Straits Times)'] |
Israeli soldiers arrest 33 Hamas figures in Nablus, West Bank, including one cabinet member, Palestinian Education Minister Naser al-Shaer. | Israeli soldiers arrested 33 senior Hamas figures in the West Bank today in order to halt rocket attacks by Palestinian militants, an Israeli military spokesman says. The operation in the northern West Bank, mainly in the town of Nablus, netted Palestinian education minister Nasseredine al-Shaer, three law-makers and four mayors, among others. The Hamas officials had been arrested because they "supported the firing of rockets," said the Israeli military spokesman. Israel resumed air strikes against Gaza last week as militants fired scores of rockets towards the Jewish state, breaking a six-month truce. The air strikes in Gaza have killed 12 civilians and 25 militants, but have failed to halt the rockets. More than 120 have slammed into Israel over the past week, killing a woman, wounding 16 others and sending hundreds fleeing the town of Sderot that has borne the brunt of the fire. Israel has warned that no leaders in Hamas - the senior movement in the Palestinian coalition government whose militants have been mostly responsible for the rocket attacks - were immune from attack. Last year Israel arrested several Hamas leaders including Mr Shaer, who was detained in August and released the following month. Israel also arrested more than 60 Hamas leaders in the West Bank as part of its efforts to secure the release of a soldier who was captured by Gaza militants in June 2005. - AFP | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | May 2007 | ['(AFP via ABC Australia)'] |
France cancels the rescheduled 2020 Paris Marathon, which would have taken place on November 15, due to COVID-19. | Last updated on 12 August 202012 August 2020.From the section Athletics
The 2020 Paris Marathon, rescheduled for 15 November, has been cancelled.
The marathon was originally due to take place on 5 April but was postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Organisers said they had "tried everything to maintain the event" but felt "obliged" to call it off because of the difficulties faced by runners.
"There will be great disappointment among those who have sacrificed time training for what had become an autumn marathon," organisers said.
"We will be working side by side with the city of Paris to put on a 2021 edition that brings together the most passionate runners on the most beautiful streets in the world."
The Berlin and New York marathons, which were scheduled be held on 27 September and 1 November respectively, are among others that will not take place in 2020.
Last week it was announced that the London Marathon will go ahead on 4 October but only involve elite athletes.
Unlike London, Berlin and New York, the Paris Marathon is not one of the six major marathons.
Louis Theroux chats to the controversial comedian about his life on and off screen
Stream the chilling drama, starring James Nesbitt, on BBC iPlayer now
It has one of the widest ranges of choice in sport, from jumps and throws to sprints or distance and cross country running.
With latest scores and headlines sent straight to your device, personalisation and much more, ensure you have a great sporting life with BBC Sport. | Sports Competition | August 2020 | ['(BBC)'] |
An explosion at a chemical factory on the Songhua River in northeastern China releases high levels of benzene into the river water. Authorities shut off the water supply for the downstream city of Harbin. | The move came amid fears the city's drinking water could be contaminated after an explosion at a chemical factory upstream of the Songhua river.
Authorities in Harbin, home to 3.8m people, said the shut-off would last four days - though there are fears it could go on longer.
Schools and many businesses have shut, while flights from Harbin are sold out.
"Everyone wants to leave Harbin and it is very difficult to buy tickets," a factory manager told Reuters.
The chemical factory processed benzene, a highly poisonous toxin that is also carcinogenic.
Fifteen hospitals have been placed on stand-by to cope with possible poisoning victims.
More than 16,000 tons of drinking water is being brought in by road, the Chinese state news agency Xinhua said - though this is less than Harbin's residents habitually use in a day.
The government initially said the stoppage would last four days, but a water company official has told the BBC there is no set timetable for the resumption of supplies.
BBC Beijing correspondent Louisa Lim says residents of Harbin are mistrustful of government statements, having originally been told the stoppage was for routine maintenance. Hoarding supplies
The initial announcement of water stoppages led to panic buying of water and food, sending prices soaring.
Bottled water sold out at supermarkets and other shops in the city, but the China Daily reported that other beverages, including milk, were still available.
"All containers are being used to store water, including the bathtub. It will be OK for four days, but not longer than that," a factory manager said.
Local media showed pictures of dead fish in the Songhua River
There are also reports that some people have been sleeping outside in sub-zero temperatures after rumours of an imminent earthquake.
The order to cut off the water comes after a 13 November explosion at a petrochemical plant in Jilin city, about 380km (230 miles) up the Songhua river from Harbin.
Five people were reported to have been killed in the blast, and more than 60 injured. The explosion forced the temporary evacuation of some 10,000 residents, but people have since been allowed to return home.
The authorities gave no indication in the state media at the time that there were pollution fears.
However, the China Daily reported on Tuesday that the government had issued two statements. One simply spoke of water main maintenance and repair, but the other mentioned the Jilin blasts.
Harbin Water Supply Company refused to comment, the paper said.
The authorities said there was no sign that the city's water supply had been contaminated, but the Beijing News showed pictures of dead fish washed up on the banks of the Songhua river near Jilin city. Harbin is in China's north-east Heilongjiang province, and is one of the country's coldest cities, with overnight temperatures this week falling to -12C. It hosts an ice and snow festival each January.
Are you in the area? Have you or anyone you know been affected by the decision to cut off the water supplies? Send us your comments using the form below:
My son is an exchange student in Harbin. They have been told not to use the water for 10 days including showers, etc. Water from local wells are OK. All water is sold out, but fortunately, the locals haven't discovered Gatorade. Any confirmed details would be appreciated. Charlie Goodrich, Lexington, MA, USA
At first glance, the Harbin city authorities look not candid enough towards the residents. However, compared with all the other cities along the Songhua river between Jilin and Harbin, all of which should have already been affected by the polluted river water and yet have been quiet on this, the Harbin city authorities are still doing a better job. theo (Chinese national currently living in Singapore), I am just waiting for any news on this. My sister is in Harbin teaching and sent me a flurry of disturbing emails- the most perturbing is that there is brown oily water that smells of urine coming out of her pipes. Also some officials have left the city where she is. She has yet to respond to my seven emails and I am eagerly awaiting any news. She also said that she believes that they have known about this water situation days before announcing it. Kem Kramer , Toronto
I have my oldest brother who is currently working in Harbin, China. We contact him every couple of days and he has let us know of the devastation that is occuring due to there been no water. He has been told the shower he had the day before yesterday is the last one until the end of the week at the earliest. He lives with four other English boys, as they are all teachers working to teach Chinese children English. They had been told that there was no water but not given enough time to save clean water for them to live from. There seems to be a lot of anguish across the country but at least we know he is well so far. we just hope that the showers they all had when the chemicals went into the system will not harm them in any way.Victoria Hutchinson, Redcar, England
The BBC may edit your comments and not all emails will be published. Your comments may be published on any BBC media worldwide. | Environment Pollution | November 2005 | ['(BBC)'] |
English judge Christine Henson fines St. Michael's Hospice in St. Leonards, at East Sussex, over the July 2015 fire in which three residents died. | A hospice where three residents were killed by a fire has been fined £250,000 for its "woefully inadequate" safety measures.
The blaze at St Michael's Hospice in St Leonards, East Sussex, led to the evacuation of 23 people.
But, Hove Crown Court heard, staff were ill-trained to deal with such an event, and the main fire exit was locked.
Judge Christine Henson, who slammed the hospice's safety measures, also ordered it to pay £165,000 in costs.
Managers at the hospice admitted two fire safety breaches, and its denial of 11 other indictments was accepted by the court. Pearl Spencer, 78, Jill Moon, 62, and David Denness, 81, died in hospital after suffering smoke inhalation.
Patient Rodney Smith, 67, was charged with arson after the fire on 11 July 2015 but died in jail before his trial.
In pre-sentence reports for the prosecution, Mr Sailesh Mehta said it was clear that staff had "no appropriate training for the evacuation of residents, holes in the ceilings allowed smoke to spread, locked exit doors could not be readily opened".
He said the main fire exit was locked, and there was no proper evacuation training for staff.
"Nurses were in a state of panic - they tried to stop it [the fire] with towels to no avail.
"Some patients had to be put on a small filing cabinet to wheel them along as there were not enough wheelchairs available," he said.
Live: More news from across the South East
In its defence, the hospice said it was unaware of the defects "ruthlessly exposed" by the fire, and it accepted "blameworthiness for failing to make the premises as safe as it should have been".
Court proceedings were brought by East Sussex Fire Authority in May last year.
The hospice said the fine would be paid from reserves and costs from elsewhere. It was reduced by 30% due to St Michael's charitable status.
Mr Smith was a terminally ill patient at the hospice when the blaze broke out.
Twenty-three elderly patients, some of whom were terminally ill, and nine members of staff were forced to leave the building.
Ten residents had to be taken to hospital for treatment.
In a statement on Wednesday, chair of the hospice Irene Dibben, and chief executive Karen Clarke said: "We remain truly sorry for the pain and anguish caused by the fire. "We also share the pain of our own staff and volunteers, many of whom are still coming to terms with the full devastation of the fire. "We need to decide as an organisation the best way to settle the fine. In light of this, there will be no further comment at this stage." | Fire | March 2018 | ['(BBC)'] |
A bomb explodes at a Shi'a mosque in Karachi, Pakistan, during evening prayers. Around 15 people are killed, dozens more are injured, the building is seriously damaged, and rioting Shi'ites take to the streets. | President Pervez Musharraf responded by pledging to take firm action to deal with inter-Muslim sectarian violence.
The blast happened during evening prayers, causing extensive damage to the building.
On Sunday a top Sunni Muslim cleric, Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai, was shot dead as he drove to his religious school.
I heard a big explosion... and I saw two injured people falling on
the road bleeding, and one had no legs
Ghulam Hussain,Fruit vendor
Thousands of Pakistani troops had been deployed on the city's streets after the killing sparked rioting on Sunday.
Sunni-Shia sectarian violence has killed as many as 4,000 people in the past 15 years.
Mr Musharraf said he would take tough measures to restore order in the city, but did not specify what they would be.
"I will take serious action, this is the second incident
within 24 hours, following Mufti Shamzai's killing," Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed quoted him as saying.
Tear gas
The explosion was so powerful it knocked down a pillar and one of the side walls of the mosque.
An office building belonging to the trust that manages the mosque collapsed.
Police had being trying to protect Shia mosques
An emergency was declared at three hospitals and appeals were made for blood donations.
Hundreds of angry Shia youths rioted after the bombing, setting fire to two police vehicles and a petrol station, and ransacking offices.
Police fired tear gas in response.
The blast took place only 1km from the site of Mufti Shamzai's killing.
Police had been trying specifically to protect Shia mosques following Mufti Shamzai's death.
Interior ministry spokesman Abdur Rauf Chaudhry said it was too early to say who carried out the attack but said it appeared to be sectarian violence.
The authorities were investigating reports that a person pretending to be a worshipper had left a briefcase in the mosque shortly before the explosion.
Police taskforce
A coalition of six fundamentalist parties, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), had called for a nationwide strike on Friday in protest at Mufti Shamzai's killing.
A senior MMA leader, Maulana Fazlur Rahman, said: "We will not sit silent. We will protest against the brutal murder of a great religious personality.
The car of Mufti Shamzai was ambushed by up to six gunmen
"We will be forced to take other steps if the killers of Nizamuddin Shamzai are not arrested," he said.
A police taskforce has been formed to investigate the killing.
No one has yet said they carried out the attack.
Up to six gunmen ambushed the car of Mufti Shamzai, witnesses said.
One of the 75-year-old cleric's sons, a nephew, a driver and a police bodyguard were wounded.
Sunni Muslims, including his students, rioted at news of his death, attacking a police station and burning cars. The cleric's death came three weeks after at least 14 people were killed in Karachi when a man, apparently dressed as a Shia cleric, blew himself up in a Shia mosque. | Armed Conflict | May 2004 | ['(BBC)'] |
At least 15 Palestinians are killed and 200 injured in a strike on a UNRWA-run school in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza, crowded with hundreds of displaced civilians. UN condemns the shelling, saying it asked IDF for time to evacuate civilians. | International scrutiny of Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip intensified on Thursday when more than 15 Palestinians were killed and 200 injured in a strike on a UN school in northern Gaza crowded with hundreds of displaced civilians.
Most of the injured were women and children. Among the dead was a mother and her one-year-old baby. UN staff had been attempting to organise the school's evacuation when the attack took place.
Ban Ki-moon, secretary general of the UN, condemned the attack, which came hours after the agency had warned that Israel's actions in the Palestinian enclave could constitute war crimes. "Today's attack underscores the imperative for the killing to stop and to stop now," Ban said.
The Israeli military first claimed, in a text sent to journalists, that the school could have been hit by Hamas missiles that fell short. Later, a series of tweets from the Israel Defence Forces appeared to confirm the deaths were the result of an Israeli strike.
"Today Hamas continued firing from Beit Hanoun. The IDF responded by targeting the source of the fire."
"Last night, we told Red Cross to evacuate civilians from UNRWA's shelter in Beit Hanoun btw 10am & 2pm. UNRWA & Red Cross got the message. Hamas prevented civilians from evacuating the area during the window that we gave them."
Chris Gunness, spokesman for the United Nations Relief and Works agency said there had earlier been "firing around the compound" and his organisation had asked the Israeli army for time to evacuate civilians. "We spent much of the day trying to negotiate or to coordinate a window so that civilians, including our staff, could leave. That was never granted … and the consequences of that appear to be tragic." Gunness said the Israeli military were supplied with coordinates of UN schools where those displaced were sheltering. UN sources told the Guardian a call was placed to the Israeli military at 10.55am requesting permission to evacuate but their call was not returned.
The deaths in Beit Hanoun raised the overall Palestinian death toll in the conflict that began on 8 July to at least 751. Israel has lost 32 soldiers all since 17 July, when it widened its air campaign into a full-scale ground operation and three civilians.
Hours after the attack, a trail of bloody footprints could be seen crossing a deserted playground littered with abandoned possessions. There were pools of blood both inside and outside the school building; more blood splashed over wooden school desks.
The Israeli military, which said it was "reviewing the incident", claimed the incident had occurred during "heavy combat" in the area and accused "terrorists" of "using civilian infrastructure and international symbols as human shields".
Although missiles belonging to Hamas and other armed Palestinian groups in Gaza do sometimes fall short, there was no visible evidence of debris from broken Palestinian rockets in the school. The injuries and the number of fatalities were consistent with a powerful explosion that sent shrapnel tearing through the air, in some cases causing traumatic amputations.
The surrounding neighbourhood bore evidence of multiple Israeli attacks, including smoke from numerous artillery rounds and air strikes. One building was entirely engulfed by flames.
Thursday's assault on the school one of the grimmest incidents of the war occurred at about 2.50pm as the playground was crowded with families waiting to be ferried to safety. According to survivors, one shell landed in the schoolyard followed by several more rounds that hit the upper stories of the building.
Most of the wounded were moved initially to a local hospital where terrified women and children clung to each other, waiting for news of relatives. A shell exploded about 50 metres from the hospital building as they waited.
Nour Hamid, 17, was hoping for news of her sister. As she attempted to comfort her terrified nephew, she said: "We were packing up to leave when the attack happened. We were standing outside when they started hitting us, some of the women holding their babies. My sister-in-law was one of the injured. There were bodies everywhere, most of them women and children."
Laila al-Shinbari told Reuters: "All of us sat in one place when suddenly four shells landed on our heads… Bodies were on the ground, [there was] blood and screams. My son is dead and all my relatives are wounded including my other kids."
Sabah Kafarna, 35, had also been sheltering at the school. "At about 11.30 someone from the municipality came to tell us that we were going to be moved because it was too dangerous. But the buses didn't come. That's why [there were] so many people all outside when the shells landed," she said. "The shells came one after the other. I was inside by the windows when they smashed."
Ayman Hamdan, medical director at Beit Hanoun hospital, told the Guardian that medical staff were treating multiple shrapnel injuries and damage to internal organs. "Some of the bodies were blown apart. Such a massacre requires more than one hospital to deal with it," she said.
The dead were ferried along with the most seriously injured in a fleet of ambulances to the relative safety of the Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia. Frantic relatives crowded the morgue looking for loved ones. The hospital's emergency room was plunged into chaos as doctors struggled to cope with the influx.
One father, his white singlet stained with blood, sat on the floor cradling the body of his injured daughter as another relative held a drip above her. Two more children were brought in one girl injured by shrapnel, and another body whose torso was covered in blood.
Several UN schools have come under fire in the last week. On Tuesday, a school in Maghazi, central Gaza, sheltering about 1,000 people, was hit by Israeli shells as an UNRWA team inspected damage caused by an earlier strike. Thursday's strike occurred during a day of heavy fighting across the territory as Israel pressed ahead with its operation to halt rocket fire from Gaza and destroy a sophisticated network of cross-border tunnels. | Armed Conflict | July 2014 | ['(The Guardian)'] |
The Los Angeles Rams defeat the Kansas City Chiefs 54–51 on Monday Night Football in the third-highest scoring NFL game in history. | Jared Goff threw a 40-yard touchdown pass to Gerald Everett for the go-ahead score with 1:49 to play, and the Los Angeles Rams outlasted the Kansas City Chiefs for a 54-51 victory on Monday night in a high-octane NFL offensive showdown that somehow surpassed the hype.
Patrick Mahomes threw six touchdown passes in his latest jaw-dropping performance for the Chiefs (9-2), but he also threw two interceptions in the final 1:18 as the Rams (10-1) claimed the highest-scoring Monday night game ever played and the first NFL game with two 50-point performances.
Goff passed for 413 yards and four touchdowns, while Marcus Peters and Lamarcus Joyner came up with late interceptions as the Rams hung on.
The highest-scoring game in the league this season was an offensive fantasia featuring 1,001 combined yards and ingenious scheming from mastermind coaches Andy Reid and Sean McVay – along with three defensive touchdowns and 21 combined penalties.
“It was a whirlwind,” McVay said. “I feel like I might need a couple of beverages to relax tonight, but it was great. This is what you love so much about the game.”
The Coliseum’s first Monday night game since 1985 was worth the wait – and if this fascinating spectacle turns out to be a Super Bowl preview, Atlanta should prepare for an All-Madden-level show from two of the most exciting teams in the league.
“It was one of the most competitive games I’ve been a part of,” McVay said. “It was just a competitive game with a lot of high-caliber football in all three phases.”
Rams linebacker Samson Ebukam returned a fumble and an interception for the first two TDs of his NFL career, while Kansas City’s Allen Bailey returned Goff’s fumble for a go-ahead touchdown early in the fourth quarter.
Chiefs-Rams, by drive* TD* Punt* TD* TD* FG* FG* Fumble* TD* Punt* Fumble return for TD* TD* Kneeldown to end half* Fumble* TD* TD* FG* INT return for TD* Punt* Punt* TD* Fumble return for TD* TD* Punt* Punt* TD* TD* INT* Punt* INT* Kneeldown
The second half was an extended thriller featuring 59 combined points, but the Rams made slightly more big plays down the stretch.
After Goff led a 75-yard scoring drive in 89 seconds for the go-ahead TD to Everett, former Kansas City cornerback Marcus Peters intercepted Mahomes’ underthrown ball near midfield with 1:18 to play.
The Rams only managed to get 14 seconds off the clock on their next three plays, and the Coliseum roiled in anticipation of a big finish by Mahomes. But the Chiefs were pushed back to their 13 with 50 seconds left thanks to a booming punt by Johnny Hekker, and Joyner intercepted Mahomes’ final desperate heave with 13 seconds left.
This game has loomed in capital letters on the NFL’s regular season schedule ever since these teams confirmed their status as offensive powerhouses in September. Along with New Orleans and New England, the Rams and Chiefs are the league’s biggest favorites for long postseason runs. | Sports Competition | November 2018 | ['(The Guardian)'] |
Israel charges three Arab men with spying for Syria; they deny the charges and one is alleged to be a human rights activist. | Israel has charged three Arab men with spying for Syria, the Shin Bet security service says.
They include an Arab Israeli citizen, and a Syrian father and son from the Druze community in the Golan Heights.
They are charged with passing information to "the enemy" and plotting to kidnap a Syrian pilot who defected to Israel. They deny the charges.
The men were arrested in July, but a gag order had been placed on the details surrounding the case. The Israeli man, Mahmoud Masarwa, is said to be a human rights activist from a village near the northern Israeli city of Haifa.
The other two accused men, Majed Shaar and his son Fada, come from Majdal Shams, a Druze village in the northern Golan Heights, which was captured by Israel during the 1967 war.
Thousands of residents rioted last month when police conducted a search of one of their homes.
They surrounded the home, trapping the officers inside for several hours, before the standoff ended peacefully.
The Golan Heights is currently home to about 18,000 Israeli settlers and another 17,000 Syrian Druze.
Israel unilaterally annexed the territory in 1981, in a move that has not been recognised internationally. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | August 2010 | ['[clarification needed]', '(BBC)'] |
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and EU officials sign the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement . | The European Union and Canada have signed a long-delayed landmark trade deal, following weeks of uncertainty due to opposition in Belgium. The deal was signed in Brussels by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and top EU officials.
The signing ceremony initially planned for Thursday had been cancelled after Belgium's Wallonia region vetoed the agreement.
All 28 EU states approved the deal on Friday when consensus was reached.
The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, known as Ceta, required all EU member states to endorse it.
The deal removes 99% of tariffs - and officials hope it will generate an increase in trade worth $12bn (€10.9bn; £9.8bn) a year. The deal was due to be signed at 11:00 local time (10:00 GMT), but was postponed after Mr Trudeau's plane had to turn back to Ottawa airport after experiencing "mechanical issues" shortly after take-off.
After the agreement was finally signed several hours later, Mr Trudeau said: "Canadians and Europeans share the understanding that in order for real and meaningful economic growth, we need to create more good, well-paying jobs for our citizens. "Progressive trade agreements like the one signed today, will do just that."
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker referred to "a new chapter" in relations between the EU and Canada, which would open new opportunities "more than half-a-billion people on both sides of the Atlantic".
| Sign Agreement | October 2016 | ['(CETA)', '(BBC)'] |
The Indian Space Research Organization launches a mapping satellite, CARTOSAT–1 and an Amateur Radio satellite HAMSAT, into Earth orbit | natural disasters, map land resources and track environmental changes in South Asia, the country's space agency said.
"The
satellite, Cartosat-1, was launched successfully," S. K. Karimulla, an official at the launch pad on Sriharikota island off India's southeastern coast, told The
Associated Press.
The
remote sensing satellite will track the impact of natural disasters,
deforestation and forest fires, map wasteland and farmland, and help with crop
production estimates, an ISRO statement said.
The
Indian Space Research Organization now operates seven remote sensing satellites
including Cartosat-1. The rocket also carried a light satellite called Hamsat, exclusively for amateur radio operators in South Asia. | New achievements in aerospace | May 2005 | ['(Tribune)', '(Space.Com)', '(Hindustan Times)', '(Reuters)'] |
After Palestinians fire a Qassam rocket that explodes in an open area of the city of Ashkelon, Israeli planes launch air strikes on several targets in the Gaza Strip, in locations which include Gaza City, Khan Yunis and Rafah. | . The BBC's Jon Donnison says the strikes were on a "relatively small scale"
Israeli planes have carried out 13 air strikes on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, Palestinian sources have told the BBC.
Four of the strikes took place near the town of Khan Younis, where two Israeli soldiers were killed in clashes with Palestinian fighters last week. Israel says the operation was targeting four weapons factories. Reports say three children were injured. The latest violence is the most serious since the end of Israel's assault on Gaza in January 2009. Palestinians and rights groups say more than 1,400 Gazans died in the conflict, while Israel puts the figure at 1,166. Thirteen Israelis, including three civilians, were killed. Witnesses and Hamas officials said the latest Israeli raids targeted metal workshops, farms, a milk factory and small sites belonging to the military wing of Hamas. The director of ambulance and emergency, Muawiya Hassanein, said that three children including an infant were slightly injured by flying debris. Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniya has called on the international community to intervene in the latest cycle of violence between Gaza and Israel in order to avoid a possible escalation. "We are contacting the other Palestinian factions in order to reach an internal consensus as to the measures we may take in order to protect our people and strengthen our unity," Mr Haniya said. 'Retaliation'
Israel says there have been at least 20 rocket or mortar attacks in the past month that have landed on its territory, one of which killed a farm worker. The BBC's Jon Donnison, in Jerusalem, says Israel appears to be sending a signal that whenever there is militant activity inside Gaza it will respond.
The air strikes were not a surprise. Israeli officials say there is an equivalence: if it is quiet within Israel's borders, then it will be quiet in Gaza.
Among Gaza's leaders there was a slight difference in emphasis. Ismail Haniya, the top Hamas man in the territory, condemned Israel's "escalation". But Ayman Taha, a spokesman, also said that Hamas was "working hard to deter any faction from acting individually".
So both sides are insisting that they want calm. But it is dangerous - and historically inaccurate - to imagine that violence can be neatly calibrated in and around Gaza.
In any case, the received wisdom among Gazans and Israelis is that another major clash is inevitable at some point: there are just too many sources of tension, too many triggers across the region.
It makes the job of pushing ahead with Israeli-Palestinian dialogue, and a wider resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict all the more difficult, and all the more pressing.
In a statement released to the BBC, the Israeli military said Israel would "not tolerate terroristic activity inside Gaza that threatens Israeli citizens". Deputy Prime Minister Silvan Shalom told public radio: "If this rocket fire against Israel does not stop, it seems we will have to raise the level of our activity and step up our actions against Hamas." Correspondents say this kind of rhetoric has been heard in the past and should not be taken as a cue for imminent military action. But tension is growing between Israel and Hamas, and some analysts view wider operations against Hamas as inevitable. Palestinian news agencies reported that Israeli aircraft dropped leaflets over parts of Gaza on Thursday warning residents of retaliation for last Friday's killings of the soldiers in Khan Younis. They were the first Israeli soldiers to be killed in hostile fire in Gaza in over a year. The military wing of Hamas claimed responsibility for those attacks. Over roughly the same period, about 90 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed in a mixture of Israeli military operations and border clashes, according to the UN. Hamas said police stations and training facilities were among the targets of Israel's overnight raids. Khimar Abu Sada, professor of political science at al-Azhar university in Gaza City, told the BBC he had heard a number of explosions in the city.
"[On Thursday] the Israeli army distributed a number of leaflets in Gaza City warning the Palestinians to expect some kind of Israeli retaliation for the killing of two Israeli soldiers... so we were expecting something on Friday but not Thursday night," he said. Tensions in the region are running high after a recent Israeli government announcement of plans to build 1,600 new homes for Jewish people in East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want as a capital of a future state. The US has criticised the Ramat Shlomo project, which prompted the Palestinians to pull out of US-brokered indirect peace talks. The row has caused one of the worst crises in US-Israeli ties for decades, and the US is reportedly considering abstaining from a possible UN Security Council resolution against Israeli settlement expansion. The US usually blocks Security Council resolutions criticising Israel. Rocket fire
Militants in the Gaza Strip have recently stepped up rocket fire directed at Israel. On Wednesday, they fired a rocket into an empty field in southern Israel, but there were no reports of casualties or damage, military sources said.
In December 2008, the Israeli armed forces launched a 22-day offensive in the Gaza Strip, bombing Palestinian cities before sending in ground troops - in response, Israel said, to Hamas rocket attacks on southern Israel. After this, Hamas launched its rockets in increased numbers at Israeli towns near the Gaza Strip, before agreeing to a ceasefire. Our correspondent says that Hamas has tried to rein in rocket fire from Gaza, and that there has been a reduction in attacks in the last year. Israel would say that is a result of its military operations, our correspondent says. But there are many militant groups in Gaza and Hamas does not control all of them, our correspondent adds. | Armed Conflict | April 2010 | ['(The Jerusalem Post)', '(BBC)', '(Ynetnews)'] |
A three–panel Zhang Xiaogang oil painting sells for a record HK$79 million. | A work of art by Zhang Xiaogang became the world’s most expensive contemporary Chinese painting, fetching 79 million Hong Kong dollars (10.1 million U.S. dollars) at an auction in Hong Kong, Sotheby’s said on Monday.
The painting “Forever Lasting Love” sold for more than double its estimated price in fierce bidding at the auction on Sunday night.
The painting features three scenes of semi-naked figures in a sparse desert-like background surrounded by symbolic images.
It was one of 105 lots from the collection of renowned Belgian art collector Baron Guy Ullens.
The collection also set a record for a single-owner sale of Chinese contemporary art, bringing a total of more than 427 million Hong Kong dollars (54.77 million U.S. dollars).
“The legendary Ullens collection represented the visualisation of the Chinese nation’s history through works of art, with many works which traced the birth of contemporary Chinese art in the 1980s,” said Evelyn Lin, Sotheby’s head of contemporary Asian art.
The highlight of the series will be on Thursday’s auction of the Meiyintang collection, which is considered to be one of the grandest collections of Chinese art formed in the last century. It is expected to bring between 81 and 121 million U.S. dollars. | Break historical records | April 2011 | ['(BBC)', '(The Hindu)'] |
An attack by a suicide bomber in a café attached to a hotel in Dhusamareb, Somalia, causes an indeterminate number of fatalities, including according to witnesses two MPs, Yusuf Mire Seerar and Abdiweli Sheik Mohamud. | DHUSAMAREB (Sh. M. Network)- A suicide bomb blast ripped through a hotel in central Somalia town, causing several fatalities, including parliamentarians, witnesses said on Tuesday.
Witnesses at the scene said the apparent suicide attack took place at a café near a hotel in the heart of Dhusamareb town and that two MPs, Yusuf Mire Seerar and Abdiweli Sheik Mohamud and two guards were believed to be amongst the dead.
Ahmed Abdisalan, a politicianand lawmaker Hussein Warasme Samatar are reportedly seriously injured in the attack.
It was not immediately apparent how many the exact deaths,and who was behind the attack so far.
Islamist insurgents of Al shabab are increasingly turning to suicide bombings as they battle to oust the weak Western-backed government. | Armed Conflict | May 2012 | ['(Shabelle Media Network)'] |
American country music star Randy Travis suffers a stroke while being hospitalized for congestive heart failure. | NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- Country music star Randy Travis suffered a stroke while at a Texas hospital and was in surgery late Wednesday, the singer's publicist said. Publicist Kirt Webster said Wednesday night that the 54-year-old Travis suffered the stroke while he was being treated for congestive heart failure because of a viral illness. Webster said Travis was undergoing surgery to relieve pressure on his brain. He remains in critical condition. Find: Randy Travis music videos
"His family and friends here with him at the hospital request your prayers and support," Webster said in a news release. Earlier Wednesday, doctors said that Travis was showing signs of improvement but remained in critical condition with congestive heart failure because of a viral illness. Drs. William Gray and Michael Mack of the Baylor Health Care System in Texas described Travis' condition and hospitalization in a video statement. "His condition has stabilized, and he has shown signs of improvement," Mack said in the video. "On behalf of Mr. Travis' family, friends and associates, we would like to express our extreme gratitude for the overwhelming affection and support that Mr. Travis has received." The Grammy Award-winning singer was in good health until three weeks before he was hospitalized, when he contracted a viral upper respiratory infection, Gray said. The viral illness led to a weakened heart muscle that eventually worsened into heart failure. Travis was admitted to Baylor Medical Center McKinney near his home in Tioga, about 60 miles north of Dallas, through the emergency room on Sunday. The singer underwent a procedure to have a pump inserted by catheter that helps increase blood flow before being transferred to The Heart Hospital Baylor Plano. The North Carolina-born Travis is a traditional country purist who is a pivotal figure in the genre best known for his hits "Forever and Ever, Amen" and "Three Wooden Crosses." His Warner Bros. debut album "Storms of Life" sold 3 million copies and helped return country music to its roots. The illness comes as Travis has been trying to put his life back together after a series of embarrassing public incidents involving alcohol. Travis pleaded guilty to driving while intoxicated in January following an arrest last year and received two years of probation and a $2,000 fine. He was required to spend at least 30 days at an alcohol treatment facility and complete 100 hours of community service. He recently made several public appearances, including a spot on the Country Music Association Festival's nightly concert lineup and a poignant performance at George Jones' funeral. His peers and fans have been watching Travis' progress closely. "I always feel like he's part of our family, he's in our family," Keith Urban said Wednesday morning. "And I was one of those guys in Australia that bought 'Storms of Life' and became a Randy fan very quickly in late '80s, and I really feel for him right now." | Famous Person - Sick | July 2013 | ['(MSN)'] |
Mozambique police say 52 male villagers were killed by Islamist militants earlier this month in the Muidumbe District, Cabo Delgado Province, after they refused to join their ranks. | MAPUTO (Reuters) - About 52 villagers in Mozambique’s troubled northernmost province were killed by Islamist insurgents on April 7 after they refused to be recruited to their ranks, police said on Tuesday.
“The young men were about to be recruited but they resisted, which provoked the ire of the bandits that killed the 52 indiscriminately,” police spokesman Orlando Modumane said.
The killings took place in the village of Xitaxi in Muidumbe district in the province of Cabo Delgado, home to multi-billion-dollar gas projects led by oil majors such as Total.
Last Wednesday, national police commander Bernardino Rafael said no parts of the troubled province were under the control of insurgents. His comments came after an increase in the frequency of attacks in the province.
Security analysts say that in some cases insurgents have occupied parts of towns, villages or government buildings and hoisted a black-and-white flag.
| Armed Conflict | April 2020 | ['(Reuters)'] |
The Israeli military shoots dead an armed man who attacked a checkpoint near Mevo Dotan in the West Bank. | An armed Palestinian man has been shot dead at a military post in the northern West Bank in an exchange of fire with Israeli soldiers.
The shooting took place near the settlement of Mevo Dotan, south of Jenin.
"A man fired at an army post with an automatic rifle. The soldiers at the post returned fire and killed him," an Israeli military spokeswoman stated.
The dead man was identified as Salem Samudi, 24, from a nearby village.
A local witness said he was a friend of another Palestinian man, Khaldun Samudi, shot dead by Israeli troops at a checkpoint near Nablus on 8 January. Soldiers also shot and killed a 21-year-old Palestinian man at the Nablus checkpoint on 1 January.
In a separate development, an Israeli military official has confirmed to the BBC that IDF investigations suggest a woman who died after a Palestinian protest was killed by an overdose of a medical drug and not tear gas as was reported. The source said that hospital records had been obtained from the Palestinians and that a full report would be published in the coming days. Initial findings were leaked to the Israeli media.
Jawaher Abu Rahmeh, 36, took part in a weekly demonstration against Israel's separation barrier in Bilin on 31 December when soldiers used tear gas to disperse the crowd. She died the next day.
A doctor who treated Ms Abu Rahmeh denied that records were handed over to the Israelis and that his patient died from a medical error. He said she was given standard drugs after she arrived at the hospital unable to breath and that the cause of her death was heart failure.
Responding to the latest claims, the Palestinian Authority said it deplored "the continuing Israeli campaign to blame others".
The Authority also criticised as "unacceptable" a statement from the Israeli military announcing that the soldier who shot and killed a Palestinian civilian in his home in Hebron would not be discharged. An investigation by the Israeli military found that only a second officer who fired after the man was dead had acted "unprofessionally". It said he has had his military career "terminated". Amr Qawasme, 65, was killed in his bed in a raid on 7 January. Soldiers looking for a Hamas activist released from Palestinian custody the day before entered his apartment by mistake.
The IDF has stated that it "deeply regrets" the death of Mr Qawasmi.
Israel has occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since 1967, settling close to 500,000 Jews in more than 100 settlements. There are about 2.5 million Palestinians living in the West Bank. | Armed Conflict | January 2011 | ['(BBC)', '(Ynet)'] |
Huoshenshan Hospital, opening after ten days of construction, admits the first patients of the pandemic. | The first patients arrived Monday at a 1,000-bed hospital built in 10 days as part of Chinas efforts to fight a new virus.
Huoshenshan Hospital and a second facility with 1,500 beds that is due to open this week were built by construction crews who are working around the clock in Wuhan, the city in central China where the outbreak was first detected in December. Most of the citys 11 million people are barred from leaving the area.
The Wuhan treatment centre?mark the second time Chinese leaders have responded to a new disease by building specialised hospitals almost overnight. As severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, spread in 2003, a facility in Beijing for patients with that viral disease was constructed in a week.
Coronavirus outbreak: A first-hand account of living in self-quarantine in Shenzhen
The first patients arrived at the Huoshenshan Hospital at 10am on Monday, according to state media. The reports gave no details of the patients identities or conditions.
The ruling Communist Partys military wing, the Peoples Liberation Army, sent 1,400 doctors, nurses and other personnel to staff the Wuhan hospital, the official Xinhua News Agency said. The government said earlier some have experience fighting SARS and other outbreaks.
Authorities have cut most road, rail and air access to Wuhan and surrounding cities, isolating some 50 million people, in efforts to contain the viral outbreak that has sickened more than 17,000 and killed more than 360 people.
The Huoshenshan Hospital was built by a 7,000-member crew of carpenters, plumbers, electricians and other specialists, according to the Xinhua News Agency. Photos in state media showed workers in winter clothing, safety helmets and the surgical-style masks worn by millions of Chinese in an attempt to avoid contracting the virus.
About half of the two-story, 60,000-square-metre?(600,000-square-foot) building is isolation wards, according to the government newspaper Yangtze Daily. It has 30 intensive care units.
Doctors can talk with outside experts over a video system that links them to Beijings PLA General Hospital, according to Yangtze Daily. It said the system was installed in less than 12 hours by a 20-member commando team from Wuhan Telecom Ltd.
The building has specialised ventilation systems and double-sided cabinets that connect patient rooms to hallways and allow hospital staff to deliver supplies without entering the rooms.
The hospital received a donation of medical robots from a Chinese company for use in delivering medicines and carrying test samples, according to the Shanghai newspaper The Paper.
In other cities, the government has designated hospitals to handle cases of the new virus.
In Beijing, the Xiaotangshan Hospital built in 2003 for SARS is being renovated by construction workers. The government has yet to say whether it might be used for patients with the new disease. | Disease Outbreaks | February 2020 | ['(SCMP)', '(AP)'] |
Moroccan journalist and human rights activist Omar Radi is arrested and charged with rape and aiding foreign spies. The charges come after Amnesty International reported that the Moroccan government was using Israeli spyware to spy on dissidents like him. | RABAT (Reuters) - Moroccan police on Wednesday arrested a dissident journalist and charged him with rape and helping foreign spies, a prosecutor said, in a case worrying rights groups.
Omar Radi, a business journalist and critic of Morocco’s human rights record, was also accused of receiving funds from abroad to undermine Morocco’s security, the Casablanca prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
Radi, 33, denies all the charges, his lawyer Miloud Kandil told Reuters, adding that a first hearing would be on Sept. 22.
His arrest follows 10 summons for a police investigation over suspicions of receiving funds linked to foreign intelligence which he denied.The investigation came after rights group Amnesty International accused Morocco of using Israeli-made spyware to snoop on his phone. Moroccan officials deny that and have demanded Amnesty turn over proof.
Radi had already been given a four-month suspended prison sentence in March, on charges of insulting a judge, for Twitter comments criticising jail terms for people in 2017 protests.
Rights groups say Morocco increasingly uses detention to target dissent. Courts have sentenced a dozen individuals to terms of up to four years on charges from insulting institutions or public servants to inciting protests, a committee of rights activists said in January.
Morocco mostly sidestepped the turmoil of the 2011 Arab uprisings, responding to protests with reforms to cede some of King Mohammed VI’s powers to an elected government, though he remains the ultimate authority.
Reporting by Ahmed Eljechtimi; Editing by Angus McDowall and Andrew Cawthorne
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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Exclusive: Fed’s Neel Kashkari opposes rate hikes at least through 2023 as the central bank becomes more hawkish | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Arrest | July 2020 | ['(Reuters)'] |
Royal Norwegian Navy frigate HNoMS Helge Ingstad collides with a Maltese oil tanker in the Heltefjord while returning from NATO military exercises, prompting the evacuation of all 137 crew members. Seven sailors were injured in the collision. | Norway has evacuated all 137 crew from one of its warships after it collided in a fjord with a Maltese oil tanker.
Eight people were lightly injured in the collision in the Hjeltefjord near Bergen. The KNM Helge Ingstad frigate has been listing dangerously.
The warship had been returning from Nato military exercises. The tanker, the Sola TS, was slightly damaged and it appears that it did not spill oil.
The incident led to the shutdown of a major oil terminal and a gas plant.
The two vessels collided at about 04:00 local time (03:00 GMT) as the frigate was sailing inner fjords for training, officials say.
The tanker had already left Equinor's Sture oil terminal with a cargo of North Sea crude, Reuters news agency reports.
"Due to the damage to the frigate it was moved to a safe place," Nato's Allied Maritime Command said in a statement.
The tanker, which has a crew of 23, returned to port for inspection.
It was not immediately clear what had caused the collision. The Sture export oil terminal, as well as the Kollsnes gas plant and several offshore oilfields, were shut down as a precaution but resumed operation on Thursday afternoon, Equinor said in a statement.
The Sture terminal is a major tanker port, with almost 25% of Norway's oil production passing through the facility.
Meanwhile, the Kollsnes plant processes gas from several fields for a number of European countries, including the UK.
It was not immediately known how the temporary closure of the facilities would impact on wholesale gas prices.
An unnamed official told AFP news agency that a "small oil slick" had been detected from the frigate. "It took on a lot of water and there is a real danger that it sinks where it is," the official said. | Shipwreck | November 2018 | ['(BBC)'] |
At least 25 people have been killed and 22 injured at a fire in a furniture factory in Obour City near the Egyptian capital Cairo. | At least 25 people have died in a fire at a furniture factory north of the Egyptian capital Cairo, officials say.
A further 22 people suffered injuries from burns and smoke inhalation from the blaze in the city of Obour, media reports said.
The fire is thought to have started after a gas canister exploded while it was being transported in a lift.
The factory had not obtained a government safety certificate, Egyptian state media reported.
More than 20 fire trucks eventually brought the blaze under control.
Such accidents are relatively common in Egypt. A separate fire at a food market in Alexandria, Egypt's second-largest city, has injured at least 11 people.
| Fire | July 2015 | ['(Reuters via Egypt Independent)', '(BBC)'] |
In London, a uniformed soldier is murdered in the street. Two men carrying knives and a meat cleaver are subsequently shot and apprehended by police. The UK government is treating it as a terrorist incident. | A man wearing a Help For Heroes T-shirt has been hacked to death by two machete-wielding assailants in broad daylight in south-east London, in an attack condemned as ‘sickening and barbaric’.
The two knifemen were shot by armed police and are currently being treated in separate hospitals.
Prime minister David Cameron has described the killing as ‘truly shocking’ and called an emergency Cobra meeting amid reports the attack was terror-related.
The Ministry of Defence said it was ‘urgently investigating’ reports the man killed was a serving member of the armed forces, with the attack taking place close to Royal Artillery Barracks.
Eyewitnesses said the two men had attacked the victim at around 2.20pm then dragged his body into the middle of John Wilson Street, before urging bystanders to take photographs of them.
When police arrived at the scene they then reportedly charged at them armed with machetes and at least one firearm.
The London ambulance service said both suspected assailants were in hospital, one in a serious condition.
Graham Wilders said he was returning from visiting his mother when he saw two men standing over another man in the street.
He told Metro: ‘I saw a car on the pavement and I saw a geezer lying on the floor and two geezers standing over him. I thought they were trying to revive him. I thought it was an accident.’
The 50-year-old drove back to his home nearby with his wife and parked the car and was about to return to the scene when he saw one of the two men brandishing what he believed to be a handgun.
He said: ‘The guy with the gun was dressed all in black. He was waving [the gun] all about. He pulled it out from the back of his trousers.
‘I went back towards my gate and I saw a bunch of school kids aged about nine or ten coming up and I told them to get in the school.
‘The next minute the police came up… and I heard four shots go off. I heard they went towards the police with a gun, machete and knife and then the police shot them.
‘I’ve seen things like this on TV and in films but never in real life. It’s unbelievable.’
James Heneghan told LBC 97.3 he and his wife had witnessed two men hacking at a third with two large kitchen knives.
‘We saw the whole incident,’ he said fighting back tears. ‘They were hacking at this poor guy, hacking him, chopping him.’
He went on to claim that after the men had attacked the victim they dragged him into the middle of the street ‘like a piece of meat’.
London mayor Boris Johnson said his thoughts were with the victim’s family and Labour leader Ed Miliband said the ‘whole country will be horrified’ by what took place, while home secretary Theresa May who said she had been briefed by the head of MI5 condemned the killing as ‘sickening and barbaric’.
Woolwich and Greenwich MP Nick Raynsford said that he understood the victim to be a serving soldier.
‘I’ll be talking to everyone who is involved, we will be trying to do everything possible to try and ensure calm in the area. People will be very, very shocked,’ he told BBC Radio 5 Live.
Councillor Chris Roberts, the leader of the Royal Borough of Greenwich, said: ‘We are deeply shocked by today’s events by the Barracks in Woolwich and our thoughts are with the family of the victim.
‘Greenwich is a borough whose history and evolution is intertwined with military, both army and navy and any attack by the barracks feels like a strike at the heart of our community.
‘The council will assist the police with their investigations and provide any support requested of us.’
The headteacher of the nearby Mulgrave primary school David Dixon said the air ambulance had landed in the school playground.
Mr Dixon told BBC News the school had followed its emergency procedures but had now allowed children to leave, apart from those who walk home by themselves.
Pictures posted by people on the scene on Twitter showed at least three men on the ground, although it was not certain what their condition was.
Two of the men appeared to be being restrained by police, while a third was surrounded by bystanders.
Twitter user @boyadee said he had witnessed two men decapitate another while he went to a nearby shop.
Scotland Yard commander Simon Letchford said the police investigation into the killing was at a ‘very early’ stage, and confirmed the Independent Police Complaints Commission had also launched a separate inquiry.
‘I can understand that this incident will cause community concerns, and I would like to reiterate that we are investigating what has taken place today,’ he said.
‘There will continue to be an increased police presence in this area, and the surrounding areas this evening. That presence will continue as long as is needed.
‘I am asking people to remain calm, and avoid unnecessary speculation.’
| Armed Conflict | May 2013 | ['(Metro)', '(BBC)'] |
Researchers with Stanford University report the discovery of the oldest known evidence of beer. Dating to approximately 11,000 BCE, the primitive brewery was located near modern Haifa, Israel. | Researchers say they have found the world's oldest brewery, with residue of 13,000-year-old beer, in a prehistoric cave near Haifa in Israel.
The discovery was made while they were studying a burial site for semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers.
Brewing beer was thought to go back 5,000 years, but the latest discovery may turn beer history on its head.
The findings also suggest beer was not necessarily a side product of making bread as previously thought. The researchers say they cannot tell which came first, and in October's issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, they suggest the beer was brewed for ritual feasts to honour the dead.
"This accounts for the oldest record of man-made alcohol in the world," Li Liu, a Stanford University professor who led the research team, told Stanford News.
Ms Liu said they were looking for clues into what plant foods the Natufian people - who lived between the Paleolithic and Neolithic periods - were eating, and during the search they discovered the traces of a wheat-and-barley-based alcohol.
The traces analysed were found in stone mortars - up to 60cm (24in) deep - carved into the cave floor, used for storing, pounding and cooking different species of plants, including oats, legumes and bast fibres, such as flax.
The ancient brew, which was more porridge or gruel-like, is thought to have looked quite unlike what we know as beer today. The research team has managed to recreate the ancient brew to compare it with the residue they found.
This involved first germinating the grain to produce malt, then heating the mash and fermenting it with wild yeast, the study said. | New archeological discoveries | September 2018 | ['(BBC)'] |
The Government of Brazil sues iron miner Samarco and parent companies Vale and BHP Billiton for 155 billion Brazilian reals ($43.5 billion US) for the collapse of a tailings dam that resulted in 19 deaths and caused major pollution to the Doce River. | Samarco and its owners Vale SA and BHP Billiton sued for 155bn real ($43.5bn), an amount calculated based on cost of Deepwater Horizon oil spill
Federal prosecutors in Brazil have filed a 155bn-real ($43.5bn) civil lawsuit against iron miner Samarco, and its owners Vale SA and BHP Billiton, for the collapse of a tailings dam in November that killed 19 people and polluted a major river.
The lawsuit, which is also against the two states impacted by the spill and the federal government, is the result of a six-month investigation led by a task force set up after the disaster, prosecutors said in a statement.
Vale said it had not been notified of the suit and was therefore unable to comment. BHP did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The total damages, they said, were calculated based upon the cost of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the United States. BP’s total pre-tax charge for that spill reached $53.8bn.
Prosecutors demanded an initial payment of 7.7bn reais.
The civil action is separate from the lawsuit that Samarco, Vale and BHP settled with Brazil’s government in March in which the companies would pay an estimated 20bn reais for damage caused by the spill. Federal and state prosecutors did not form part of that settlement. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | May 2016 | ['(The Guardian)'] |
The United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda sentences Mika Muhimana, former Hutu civic leader, to life imprisonment for his role in the Rwandan genocide. | Arusha — The UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda sentenced on Thursday a former Rwandan civic leader, Mika Muhimana, to life imprisonment for his role in the 1994 genocide in the central African country.
"His crimes rank among the gravest and deserve a heavy sentence," Khalida Khan, the presiding judge, said as she read out the court's decision.
Muhimana, 44, was found guilty of direct involvement in the murder and rape of Tutsi women during the genocide.
"The accused personally targeted Tutsi civilians by shooting and raping Tutsi victims," Khan said.
She added that instead of using his position to bring peace and reconciliation, Muhimana actually participated in "these awful acts".
Muhimana was a councillor in 1994 for Gishyita Commune in Rwanda's western province of Kibuye.
Khan said, "Muhimana raped several women, some several times, in his home, in churches and in hospitals."
She recounted how, in one incident, Muhimana had used a machete to hack off the breast of a heavily pregnant woman before splitting her open from the chest down to her private parts.
"The baby cried out for a few minutes before dying," Khan said.
The life sentence imposed on Muhimana is the highest possible under the UN statute.
A senior prosecutor, Charles Adeogun Philips, said he was pleased with the sentence, and that Muhimana deserved "the highest penalty for his cruel deeds".
Muhimana's defence team did not indicate whether or not they would appeal against the sentence.
The tribunal has so far handed down 25 judgments, including three acquittals. Trials are ongoing for 25 suspects of the genocide, in which up to 937,000 people were killed, according to official Rwandan estimates. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Sentence | April 2005 | ['(IOL)', '(AllAfrica)', '(Reuters AlertNet)'] |
Security forces opened fire on protesters, killing nine and wounding dozens. | BASRA, Iraq (Reuters) - Security forces opened fire on protesters in Baghdad and several cities in southern Iraq on Sunday, killing at least nine people and wounding dozens of others, police and medical sources said, the latest violence in weeks of unrest.
Iraqi protesters throw stones, battle teargas in Baghdad
01:10
Anti-government protests erupted in early October and have swollen into the largest demonstrations since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. A Reuters tally of the dead as given by security and medical sources shows at least 339 people have been killed.
Iraq’s state news agency quoted the health minister on Sunday as saying 111 people had been killed, including protesters and members from security forces, without breaking down the tally or elaborating over what period. It was the first official figure issued by a government official since Oct. 25.
A government report last month had said there were 157 deaths during the first week of October. Protests paused after then and resumed on Oct. 25.
Protesters are demanding the overthrow of a political class seen as corrupt and serving foreign powers while many Iraqis languish in poverty without jobs, healthcare or education.
In Nassiriya, security forces used live ammunition and tear gas canisters to disperse protesters who had gathered overnight on three bridges.
Police and health officials said three people were killed, and hospital sources said another person died later from bullets wounds to his head.
More than 50 others were wounded, mainly by live bullets and tear gas canisters, in clashes in the city, they added.
Three people were killed and around 90 wounded near the Gulf port of Umm Qasr near Basra when security forces used live fire to disperse protesters, police and medical sources said.
The protesters had gathered to demand security forces open roads that authorities have blocked to try to prevent protesters from reaching the port’s entrance.
Umm Qasr is Iraq’s largest commodities port, taking in grain, vegetable oils and sugar shipments that feed a country largely dependent on imported food.
In Baghdad, two protesters were killed during overnight demonstrations in central al-Rasheed street when police used live fire to disperse protesters, police and medical sources said.
Protests flared anew on Sunday on the street when security forces used live fire and tear gas to prevent protesters from trying to reach the road leading to the central bank. At least 15 protesters were wounded, police and medical sources said.
Medical authorities evacuated infants and children from a hospital in central Nassiriya overnight after tear gas spread inside hospital courtyards, two hospital sources said. Protests continued in the city on Sunday, with some government offices set on fire, sources said.
In Basra, hundreds of protesters burned tyres and blocked some roads, preventing government employees from reaching offices, police said.
Protesters set fire to a police vehicle in the city centre. At least 35 people were wounded by rubber bullets and tear gas canisters shot by security forces, said a Reuters reporter.
Protests continued in other southern regions, including Diwaniya, Kut, Amara and Najaf and schools and offices were partially opened on Sunday.
Security forces also wounded at least 24 people in the Shi’ite holy city of Kerbala overnight after opening fire on demonstrators to prevent them from reaching the local government headquarters, medical and security sources said.
| Protest_Online Condemnation | November 2019 | ['(Reuters)'] |
U.S. Senator Tim Johnson undergoes surgery after suffering a brain hemorrhage due to an arteriovenous malformation. If he is incapacitated, the Republican Party Governor of South Dakota, Mike Rounds, will be able to appoint his replacement, potentially changing the balance of the Senate. | WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Sen. Tim Johnson, who underwent brain surgery Thursday morning, is responding to word and touch, his doctor said.
The Democratic senator from South Dakota suffered a brain hemorrhage on Wednesday.
Johnson, 59, was in critical condition Thursday morning after surgery, said David Boyd, a spokesman in the nursing supervisor's office.
Adm. John Eisold, attending physician at the U.S. Capitol, said Johnson's post-operative recovery has been "uncomplicated." According to the senator's spokeswoman, Julianne Fisher, Eisold said the bleeding in the senator's brain was the result of pressure from blood vessels that are too close together, a condition known as congenital arteriovenous malformation.
Johnson was born with the condition, he said. (Interactive: What is congenital arteriovenous malformation?)
"He underwent successful surgery to evacuate the blood and stabilize the malformation," Eisold said. "The senator is recovering without complication in the critical care unit. "It is premature to determine whether further surgery will be required or to assess any long-term prognosis." Johnson's incapacitation raised questions about his seat in the Senate, where Democrats will hold a 51-49 edge in January. The party wrested both houses of Congress away from the Republicans in the November midterm election.
Should Johnson not be able to complete his term, which ends in 2008, South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds, a Republican, could appoint his replacement. (Time.com: As a senator is felled, a January vote looms big)
Such a move could shift the balance of power in the Senate.
The 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution allows states to choose how they replace a senator should he or she die or resign. In 43 states, including South Dakota, the governor can appoint a senator of his or her choosing. (Interactive:Can Johnson be replaced?)
South Dakota Secretary of State Chris Nelson said the appointment would fill the vacancy until a general election could be held in November 2008. There are no restrictions on whom the governor could appoint beyond meeting the legal requirements for Senate membership, Nelson said.
Although the definition of incapacitation is not spelled out in state law, Nelson said there would be "precedent at the federal level."
One precedent, however, is the case of Sen. Karl Mundt, also from South Dakota, who suffered a debilitating stroke in 1969. (Long-term senate absences)
He remained in office until January 1973, when his term expired.
Mundt offered to resign but only on the condition that the governor appoint his wife to fill the vacancy. The governor refused, and Mundt retained the Senate seat.
Referring to the question of what Johnson's condition will mean to the Senate, a Democratic leadership aide told CNN on Thursday that the Senate is "not changing hands any time soon."
Former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle, also a South Dakotan, said as he was leaving the hospital that "it looks encouraging." There's "no need" for Johnson to relinquish his seat, Daschle stressed.
Meanwhile, Johnson's wife, Barbara, issued a statement saying: "The Johnson family is encouraged and optimistic. They are grateful for the prayers and good wishes of friends, supporters and South Dakotans. They are especially grateful for the work of the doctors and all medical personnel and GWU hospital."
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, who visited Johnson on Thursday morning, told CNN that Johnson "looked very, very good." Reid, of Nevada, declined to answer specific questions about Johnson's condition.
South Dakota's other senator, Republican John Thune, spoke from Baghdad, where he is part of a delegation. "Right now all of us in South Dakota, across our state, are hoping and praying for Senator Johnson -- for the best possible outcome," he said.
He added, "We're praying and giving our best possible thoughts to him and his family."
Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who will become House speaker in January, extended "warm wishes and prayers" to the Johnsons. Johnson served in the House 10 years before moving to the Senate.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN's chief medical correspondent, said the bleeding apparently is on the left side of Johnson's brain, the part responsible for speech and strength on the right side of the body. (Watch CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta explain how speech difficulties indicated a problem )
The senator was in the Capitol conducting a conference call with South Dakota reporters on Wednesday when "his speech pattern slipped off," Fisher said. Johnson began slurring his speech and having difficulty finding words.
"This is frustrating," Johnson acknowledged toward the end of the call.
Several factors can cause the tangle of arteries and veins to place pressure on the brain, Gupta said, including hypertension.
Johnson's recovery would depend on the exact location where the bleeding occurred.
"We're talking about a long road here," to recovery, he said.
.
| Famous Person - Sick | December 2006 | ['(D–SD)', '(CNN)'] |
The Maldives government releases dissident Fathimath Nisreen. Two others, Mohamed Zaki and Ahmad Didi, remain in custody. (Minivan News, Maldives) | Reporters Without Borders expressed its profound relief at a presidential amnesty on 9 May for cyberdissident Fathimath Nisreen. "It’s a huge delight," said the organisation. "This courageous young woman can finally resume a normal life after three years in prison, banishment and then house arrest."
"We hope this amnesty will quickly be followed by that of Mohamed Zaki and Ahmad Didi, the other contributors to Sandhaanu".
Mohamed Zaki, Ahmad Didi, Ibrahim Lutfy and his assistant Fathimath Nisreen were all arrested in January 2002, for working on Sandhaanu, an email newsletter that exposed human rights abuses and corruption in the Maldives. Accused of "defamation" and "attempting to overthrow the government" Zaki, Lutfy and Didi were sentenced to life imprisonment, on 7 July 2002. Nisreen, who was only 22 at the time of the trial, was jailed for ten years.
"Despite everything let us not forget that the iniquitous justice system in this country has deprived Fathimath of three years of her life," said Reporters Without Borders. "At less than 25, she has already been sent twice to prison and been banished for long months on an island far from her family. We hope that the amnesty that has just been granted is the first sign of a commitment by Maldives President, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, to respect free expression in future".
Fathimath Nisreen was summoned on 9 May to the prison affairs department in the capital Malé. She had to sign a paper officially accepting the amnesty but in which she undertook to "respect the Islamic religion" and "the Maldives constitution".
She told Reporters Without Borders by phone that she wanted to send "a big thank you" to everyone who supported her during the ordeal. "It is certain that international pressure played a big part in my release," she added.
Ibrahim Lutfy, another contributor to Sandhaanu who managed to escape from prison 18 months after his arrest, told Reporters Without Borders that he hoped the president had realised "the imprisonment of his colleagues was totally iniquitous" and that he would "in consequence quickly and unconditionally release Mohamed Zaki and Ahmad Didi".
A year after her imprisonment, Nisreen had her sentence reduced to five years banishment on the island of Feeail, south of the capital. Since summer 2004, she had been allowed to return to Malé where she lived under house arrest.
Didi and Zaki have also been under house arrest since February 2004. Their sentences were reduced to 15 years in 2003.
Ibrahim Lutfy managed to escape from police custody on 24 May 2003, while he was in Sri Lanka for an eye operation. He now lives in exile in Switzerland.
Over 13 years ago, Reporters without Borders created its "Sponsorship Programme" and called upon the international media to select and support an imprisoned journalist. More than two hundreds news staffs around the globe are thus sponsoring colleagues by regularly petitioning authorities for their release and by publicising their situations so
that their cases will not be forgotten.
Currently, Fathimath Nisreen is sponsored by : NRJ (Belgium), Marie Claire, levillage.org, Marie Claire Espagne, categorynet.com, Flair, RTBF Télévision, Le Courrier, Fun Radio Belgium, Elle Québec, El Mundo, IPS, Tele 5, Diariocritico.com
Reporters Without Borders defends imprisoned journalists and press freedom throughout the world, as well as the right to inform the public and to be informed, in accordance with Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Reporters Without Borders has nine national sections (in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom), representatives in Abidjan, Bangkok, Istanbul, Montreal, Moscow, New York, Tokyo and Washington and more than a hundred correspondents worldwide. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Release | May 2005 | ['(Reporters Without Borders)', '(BBC)'] |
Police in Georgetown, Guyana, surround the nation's election commission after there are accusations that the elections results were altered to help incumbent President David A. Granger win the election. | GEORGETOWN (Reuters) - Guyanese police on Friday surrounded an elections council office amid accusations that the results of this week’s presidential election were altered to favor incumbent President David Granger, according to a Reuters witness.
Diplomats and opposition leaders on Thursday questioned official results of the vote in Guyana, held on Monday to choose who will oversee a nascent oil boom that has the potential to transform the economy of the poor South American nation.
The situation could fuel long-simmering ethnic tensions between the country’s Afro-Guyanese and those of Indian descent, who have grown suspicious that the other is seeking control over revenues from oil production.
Dozens of police officers remained outside the command center of the Guyana Elections Commission, known locally as GECOM.
Diplomats from the United States, the European Union, Canada and Great Britain on Friday expressed “deep concern over credible allegations of electoral fraud” and called on Granger “to avoid a transition of government which we believe would be unconstitutional.”
Granger’s office said in a statement that the president met with representatives of the Organization of American States and the Caribbean Community to insist that he could not intervene in the vote tallying process.
“The President has not acted unlawfully,” the presidency said in a statement.
Granger on Thursday night gave celebratory statements to a rally of supporters in which he said “We are here to serve you for the next five years.”
Late on Thursday night, the police had entered the GECOM command center charged with tallying votes and kicked out employees and observers, according to a video of the incident that was broadcast by local media.
Opposition leaders say the elections council inflated votes for Granger in an area known as Region Four, the country’s most populous electoral district, to give him a lead over opposition candidate Irfaan Ali.
Guyana, which has a population of less than 800,000, is expected to become a major oil producer in the coming years as a consortium of companies including Exxon Mobil Corp taps into 8 billion barrels of oil and gas off the country’s coast.
The country’s politics has remained divided along ethnic lines since Guyana’s 1966 independence from Britain.
Granger’s APNU-AFC coalition is largely made up of black Guyanese descended from African slaves while the PPP mostly represents descendants of Indian laborers who arrived in the 19th century to work on sugar plantations.
Former Attorney General Anil Nandlall on Friday said the opposition had obtained an injunction from the country’s top court blocking the elections commission from declaring a winner until it fully verified the votes in Region Four.
The elections commission did not respond to requests for comment.
| Government Job change - Election | March 2020 | ['(Reuters)'] |
Presidential candidate Marine Le Pen announces she is stepping down as leader of the National Front. | Far-right French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has announced that she is stepping aside as leader of her National Front (FN) party.
The move comes just a day after she reached the second round of the French election, where she will face centrist Emmanuel Macron. Ms Le Pen told French TV she needed to be above partisan considerations.
Opinion polls suggest Mr Macron is firm favourite for the second round but Ms Le Pen said: "We can win, we will win."
The French term she used signalled that the move to step aside would be temporary.
She told France 2 that France was approaching a "decisive moment".
Ms Le Pen said her decision had been made out of the "profound conviction" that the president must bring together all of the French people.
"So, this evening, I am no longer the president of the National Front. I am the candidate for the French presidency," she said.
The BBC's Hugh Schofield in Paris says this is a symbolic act intended to show her concerns are for the country as a whole and not for her party, and that she is reaching out for the voters of candidates defeated in the first round, particularly those of the Republicans' François Fillon.
Meanwhile, also on Monday, Mr Fillon told party leaders that he "no longer had the legitimacy" to take the party into legislative elections that will follow next month's presidential run-off.
He said he would become "an ordinary activist like any other".
%
Emmanuel Macron
%
Marine Le Pen
The polling average line looks at the five most recent national polls and takes the median value, ie, the value between the two figures that are higher and two figures that are lower.
Ms Le Pen took over the FN leadership from her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, in January 2011.
Marine Le Pen has gone straight on to the attack. If the polls are to be believed, she has a lot of ground to make up - and she wants to hit Emmanuel Macron hard and early.
The ideological battle lines are clear. From now until 7 May, she will portray her rival as representing a kind of anti-France. Nothing in his programme, she said in her TV interview, suggested he had one iota of love for France; she, by contrast, is the patriot.
The other line of attack is to play up his past associations with President François Hollande. Mr Macron is "Hollande's baby", she said in the interview. This is clever politics, because the same argument was used before the first round by François Fillon's Republicans, whose votes she now needs.
If Mr Macron was unacceptable then, she is saying, then he is still unacceptable now. So vote for me.
She won 7.6 million votes on Sunday - the strongest ever result for a FN candidate, and 2.8 million more than her father won in 2002.
Her party wants to slash immigration, clamp down on trade, and overturn France's relationship with Europe.
Her campaign has called for:
Mr Macron, a former economy minister, is widely expected to win the run-off vote on 7 May.
On Monday, he won the backing of President Hollande, to go with that of two defeated candidates.
President Hollande said the far right would threaten the break-up of Europe, "profoundly divide France" and "faced with such a risk, I will vote for Emmanuel Macron".
He said his former economy minister would "defend the values which will bring French people together".
Mr Fillon and Socialist Benoît Hamon both urged their supporters to vote for Mr Macron.
Mr Macron, 39, has never stood for election before, and if he wins would become France's youngest-ever president.
His campaign promises include:
| Government Job change - Resignation_Dismissal | April 2017 | ['(BBC)'] |
The BBC reveals that a secret deal in mid-October allowed hundreds of ISIL fighters and their families, including some of their "most notorious members", escape from Raqqa in a convoy that was between 6 to 7 km long. The United States government confirms that the deal with ISIL was made and that the evacuations took place. The possibility of a deal was previously reported as early as October 14. | Lorry driver Abu Fawzi thought it was going to be just another job. He drives an 18-wheeler across some of the most dangerous territory in northern Syria. Bombed-out bridges, deep desert sand, even government forces and so-called Islamic State fighters don’t stand in the way of a delivery. But this time, his load was to be human cargo. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters opposed to IS, wanted him to lead a convoy that would take hundreds of families displaced by fighting from the town of Tabqa on the Euphrates river to a camp further north. The job would take six hours, maximum – or at least that's what he was told. But when he and his fellow drivers assembled their convoy early on 12 October, they realised they had been lied to. Instead, it would take three days of hard driving, carrying a deadly cargo - hundreds of IS fighters, their families and tonnes of weapons and ammunition. Abu Fawzi and dozens of other drivers were promised thousands of dollars for the task but it had to remain secret. The deal to let IS fighters escape from Raqqa – de facto capital of their self-declared caliphate – had been arranged by local officials. It came after four months of fighting that left the city obliterated and almost devoid of people. It would spare lives and bring fighting to an end. The lives of the Arab, Kurdish and other fighters opposing IS would be spared. But it also enabled many hundreds of IS fighters to escape from the city. At the time, neither the US and British-led coalition, nor the SDF, which it backs, wanted to admit their part. Has the pact, which stood as Raqqa’s dirty secret, unleashed a threat to the outside world - one that has enabled militants to spread far and wide across Syria and beyond? Great pains were taken to hide it from the world. But the BBC has spoken to dozens of people who were either on the convoy, or observed it, and to the men who negotiated the deal. In a greasy yard in Tabqa, underneath a date palm, three boys are busy at work rebuilding a lorry engine. They are covered in motor oil. Their hair, black and oily, stands on end. Near them is a group of drivers. Abu Fawzi is at the centre, conspicuous in his bright red jacket. It matches the colour of his beloved 18-wheeler. He’s clearly the leader, quick to offer tea and cigarettes. At first he says he doesn’t want to speak but soon changes his mind. He and the rest of the drivers are angry. It’s weeks since they risked their lives for a journey that ruined engines and broke axles but still they haven’t been paid. It was a journey to hell and back, he says. One of the drivers maps out the route of the convoy
“We were scared from the moment we entered Raqqa,” he says. “We were supposed to go in with the SDF, but we went alone. As soon as we entered, we saw IS fighters with their weapons and suicide belts on. They booby-trapped our trucks. If something were to go wrong in the deal, they would bomb the entire convoy. Even their children and women had suicide belts on.” The Kurdish-led SDF cleared Raqqa of media. Islamic State’s escape from its base would not be televised. Publicly, the SDF said that only a few dozen fighters had been able to leave, all of them locals. But one lorry driver tells us that isn't true. We took out around 4,000 people including women and children - our vehicle and their vehicles combined. When we entered Raqqa, we thought there were 200 people to collect. In my vehicle alone, I took 112 people.” Another driver says the convoy was six to seven kilometres long. It included almost 50 trucks, 13 buses and more than 100 of the Islamic State group’s own vehicles. IS fighters, their faces covered, sat defiantly on top of some of the vehicles. Footage secretly filmed and passed to us shows lorries towing trailers crammed with armed men. Despite an agreement to take only personal weapons, IS fighters took everything they could carry. Ten trucks were loaded with weapons and ammunition. The drivers point to a white truck being worked on in the corner of the yard. “Its axle was broken because of the weight of the ammo,” says Abu Fawzi. This wasn’t so much an evacuation - it was the exodus of so-called Islamic State. The SDF didn’t want the retreat from Raqqa to look like an escape to victory. No flags or banners would be allowed to be flown from the convoy as it left the city, the deal stipulated. It was also understood that no foreigners would be allowed to leave Raqqa alive. Back in May, US Defence Secretary James Mattis described the fight against IS as a war of “annihilation”.“Our intention is that the foreign fighters do not survive the fight to return home to north Africa, to Europe, to America, to Asia, to Africa. We are not going to allow them to do so,” he said on US television. But foreign fighters – those not from Syria and Iraq - were also able to join the convoy, according to the drivers. One explains: . | Sign Agreement | November 2017 | ['(BBC)', '(Rudaw)', '(The Guardian)'] |
Netflix acknowledges it's been slowing its video transmission on wireless mobile carriers around the world, including Verizon and AT&T, for five years to "protect consumers from exceeding mobile data caps." Last week, these carriers were accused of this. The company told The Wall Street Journal that TMobile or Sprint users weren't affected because, "historically those two companies have had more consumerfriendly policies." In May, Netflix plans to shift some of that control to viewers themselves. (C|net) | The streaming service says that for five years it's been slowing down video to wireless users to save them from themselves.
Netflix says it has been slowing video speeds on Verizon and AT&T for five years.
If you watch Netflix on Verizon or AT&T, the streaming video service is keeping you from getting the full picture -- and it claims it's for your own good.
A week after the wireless carriers were accused of throttling video speeds on their networks, Netflix has stepped forward to take the blame for the degraded video quality. The popular streaming-video service told the Wall Street Journal on Thursday it has been slowing its video transmission on wireless carriers around the world, including Verizon and AT&T, for five years to "protect consumers from exceeding mobile data caps."
Netflix now plans to shift some of that control to viewers themselves. In May, it expects to make a "data saver" feature for mobile apps available to some subscribers that would let them choose either to stream more, but lower-quality, video if they have a smaller-capacity data plan or to increase video quality if they have a less-restrictive plan.
"It's about striking a balance that ensures a good streaming experience while avoiding unplanned fines from mobile providers," the company said in a blog post late Thursday.
Netflix has been a staunch supporter of Net neutrality, the idea that all traffic on the Internet should be treated equally. That means broadband providers can't block or slow down the online services or applications you use. It also means your Internet provider can't create so-called fast lanes that force companies like Netflix to pay an additional fee to speed up delivery of content to you.
However, the Net neutrality rules approved a year ago by the Federal Communications Commission don't apply to content companies like Netflix.
Controversy flared up last week when T-Mobile CEO John Legere alleged that Verizon and AT&T were throttling video speeds. The companies denied the accusation. Los Gatos, California-based Netflix said that, to protect customers from overage charges, it caps video streams for mobile users at 600 kilobits per second, much slower than what's possible on today's wireless networks. Watching two hours of HD video on a wireless network would eat up 6 gigabytes of data, the allotment included in Verizon's $80 monthly plan.
But not every carrier is getting this treatment. T-Mobile and Sprint customers are exempt from the policy because "historically those two companies have had more consumer-friendly policies," Netflix told the Journal. Rather than hit their customers with extra costs when they exceed their data limits, those carriers throttle wireless speeds. Mobile users typically consume an average of 3 gigabytes of data a month.
Netflix's reasoning doesn't take into account that AT&T has millions of customers on unlimited data plans who have been receiving degraded video quality despite not being subjected to data caps.
The revelation did not sit well with AT&T, the second largest US wireless carrier after Verizon.
"We're outraged to learn that Netflix is apparently throttling video for their AT&T customers without their knowledge or consent," Jim Cicconi, head of legislative affairs for AT&T, said in a statement. Verizon representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Netflix said in its blog post that it would provide more details about its data saver feature as it gets closer to the launch date.
| Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | March 2016 | ['(PC Magazine)'] |
A thousand protesters enter the headquarters of the Royal Thai Army. | About 1,500 anti-government protesters have forced their way into the compound of the Royal Thai Army headquarters in Bangkok.
The move is the latest escalation in a city-wide demonstration seeking to topple Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra.
In another area of the city, hundreds of protesters have gathered outside the prime minister’s ruling party headquarters.
They accuse her of abusing her party's parliamentary majority to push through laws that strengthen the behind-the-scenes power of her self-exiled brother and former prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra.
Protesters rejected her call yesterday for dialogue, deepening a conflict that broadly pits the urban middle class against the mostly rural supporters of Mr Thaksin.
The divisive billionaire was ousted in a 2006 military coup.
Protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban, a deputy prime minister in the previous government, told thousands of supporters occupying a state office complex late last night that "the end game will happen in the next day or two".
The prime minister has ruled out resigning or dissolving parliament, and appears intent on riding out the storm.
As tension mounts, her government has urged its supporters and the police to avoid confronting the demonstrators, who it says are running out of steam.
She had governed for two years without a major challenge until last month, when her party tried to push through an amnesty bill that would have expunged her brother’s 2008 fraud conviction and cleared the way for his political comeback.
The Senate rejected it, and it was then shelved, but the protests escalated, switching from a campaign against the amnesty to a bid to bring down the government. | Protest_Online Condemnation | November 2013 | ['(RTE)'] |
Sir Mark Thatcher, son of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, is arrested at his home in Cape Town, South Africa, on charges related to his alleged involvement in an attempted coup in Equatorial Guinea. He is later released on bail, and is to return to court on November 25. Meanwhile, his "distressed" mother returns from holiday in the US. | Sir Mark Thatcher's lawyer today claimed charges against his client were a "showboating exercise to make a political point", as Equatorial Guinea officially asked South Africa's permission to question the former prime minister's son over his role in the alleged coup plot.
This morning the government of Equatorial Guinea said it hoped to extradite Sir Mark, although no charges or arrest warrants have yet been issued in the country, which would normally be among the first steps in a legal extradition.
This evening, Reuters news agency reported that a request had been received from Equatorial Guinea to question Sir Mark.
However, the South African government has already said it would be unlikely to extradite Sir Mark, who is now under effective house arrest in Cape Town, since the equatorial state still operates the death penalty.
This morning Ron Wheeldon, a solicitor acting for Sir Mark, insisted that his client would be demonstrated to be innocent of the allegations.
Mr Wheeldon also denied accusations that his client had his luggage packed and was ready to flee South Africa when he was arrested on Wednesday, and insisted he had "nothing to hide".
Speaking from Johannesburg, Mr Wheeldon told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that Sir Mark would cooperate fully with the police investigation.
Mr Wheeldon was also asked about suggestions that Sir Mark featured on the so-called "Wonga List" of those who invested money in the alleged coup plot.
He said: "Mark has no idea why he would be on that list, because he shouldn't be on that list."
Mr Wheeldon was asked whether Sir Mark had ever had discussions with mercenary Simon Mann about investing in any of his schemes.
He told the BBC: "No, not at all. It is not the sort of thing that he would do. He is a public figure and he is quite an astute man, and it is not the sort of thing he would get involved in.
Mr Wheeldon was pressed on whether it was true that at any point Sir Mark had offered or given money to Mr Mann or his associates for anything they might have been planning to do in Equatorial Guinea. He said: "Absolutely not."
He added: "We would like it to be cleared up as soon as possible.
"We think that this is a political showboating exercise that is aimed at making a political point, rather than a criminal trial of Mark Thatcher.
On Wednesday Sir Mark was charged with violating South Africa's anti-mercenary law in connection with the alleged coup attempt.
'Mann found guilty in Zimbabwe'
Earlier today, Sir Mark's friend and former neighbour, Simon Mann, was found guilty by a Zimbabwean court of attempting to buy arms for the alleged coup. No sentence has yet been passed, but he could face up to 10 years in jail.
In another development, it was reported today that the elite South African police squad, the Scorpions, intend to question Jeffery Archer, the disgraced Tory peer and novelist, over the 74,000 payment by a "JH Archer" into a Guernsey bank account linked to an alleged coup attempt.
Lord Archer's initials are "JH", although his lawyers say he had "no prior knowledge" of the attempted coup.
Lady Thatcher returns home
Meanwhile, Sir Mark's mother, Lady Thatcher, arrived back in Britain from a lecture tour of the US, refusing to comment to reporters on the affair.
Accompanied by six armed bodyguards, she returned to her London home this morning; Sir Mark's twin sister Carol, arrived there later, saying only: "I don't know anything about it at all, I'm very sorry."
Lady Thatcher, who is 78 and in failing health, had been speaking at the Jepson School of Leadership in Virginia, where she was the guest of honour at a dinner where other guests were instructed not to raise the matter of her son's situation.
However, last night one of her closest advisers from her days as prime minister said she was "obviously distressed" over the affair.
Lord Bell told Channel 4 News: "She is very confident about the South African legal process and she is sure he will be cleared and named innocent at the end of it."
Lord Bell, who is acting as Sir Mark's spokesman, dismissed claims that he was planning to flee South Africa when arrested.
He also said he was unaware of claims that Sir Mark had received death threats from people linked to those already facing trial. He repeated Sir Mark's insistence that he had nothing to do with any coup. | Famous Person - Commit Crime - Accuse | August 2004 | ['(BBC)', '(Guardian/Reuters)', '(AP)'] |
U.S. President Donald Trump tweets that Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke will quit his post at the end of the year. | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, who has aggressively sought to roll back Obama-era environmental protections, will be leaving his post at the end of the year, President Donald Trump tweeted on Saturday, the latest high-profile departure from his administration.
Trump did not give a reason for Zinke’s departure. However, the former Navy Seal and ex-congressman from Montana has faced scrutiny of his use of security details, chartered flights and a real estate deal.
“Ryan has accomplished much during his tenure and I want to thank him for his service to our Nation,” Trump said on Twitter. “The Trump administration will be announcing the new secretary of the Interior next week.”
Zinke has run the Interior Department, which oversees America’s vast public lands, since early 2017. He has aggressively pursued Trump’s agenda to promote oil drilling and coal mining by expanding federal leasing, cutting royalty rates, and easing land protections despite environmental protests.
Zinke, 51, was among Trump’s most active Cabinet members, cutting huge wilderness national monuments in Utah to a fraction of their size and proposing offshore oil drilling in the Arctic, Pacific and Atlantic. He became a darling of the U.S. energy and mining industries and a prime target for conservationists and environmental groups.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer welcomed Zinke’s departure in a tweet: “Ryan Zinke was one of the most toxic members of the cabinet in the way he treated our environment, our precious public lands, and the way he treated the govt like it was his personal honey pot.”
“The swamp cabinet will be a little less foul without him,” Schumer said.
Related Coverage
Jamie Williams, president of the non-profit Wilderness Society, said he expects Zinke’s deputy and likely successor, David Bernhardt, to continue with the “drill everywhere” agenda.
“Deputy Secretary Bernhardt has made it his mission to stifle climate science and silence the public so polluters can profit,” said Williams. “Unfortunately, even with Secretary Zinke out, the Interior Department remains disturbingly biased in favor of special interests over the health of American communities and the public lands that they love.”
Critics have questioned Zinke’s ethics and some of his moves triggered government investigations.
In July, the Interior Department’s Office of Inspector General began investigating a Montana land deal between a foundation Zinke set up and a development group backed by the chairman of oil service company Halliburton Co, which has business with the Interior Department.
In late October, that investigation was referred to the U.S. Justice Department for a possible criminal investigation, according to multiple media reports. The Department of Justice and the Interior Department have declined to comment.
There are two other investigations of Zinke’s conduct. Interior’s watchdog is examining whether the department purposely redrew the boundaries of Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument to benefit a state lawmaker who owns adjoining property.
It is also probing Zinke’s decision to block casinos proposed by two Connecticut Native American tribes. Critics allege he made that move, overruling his staff’s recommendation, shortly after he met with lobbyists for MGM Resorts International, which owns a new casino in the region.
Zinke has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
Earlier this year, Interior’s inspector general wrapped up two other investigations related to Zinke’s travel expenses. Those probes found that a $12,000 private flight he took after a meeting with a professional hockey team could have been avoided and that the security detail he took on a family vacation to Greece and Turkey cost taxpayers $25,000.
Trump, who has repeatedly praised Zinke, said on Nov. 5 that he would look at the allegations.
Zinke’s departure makes him the ninth Cabinet-level official to leave since Trump took office two years ago. Other departures have included Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt. | Government Job change - Resignation_Dismissal | December 2018 | ['(Reuters)'] |
Protests continue in several U.S. cities, including New York City, Washington, D.C., and Minneapolis. Several clashes with police result in arrests. | Protestors take to the streets as results of the presidential election remain uncertain on Wednesday in New York City.
David Dee Delgado/Getty Images
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Protestors take to the streets as results of the presidential election remain uncertain on Wednesday in New York City.
Updated at 3:00 p.m. ET
Public protests took place in several U.S. cities, including New York, Washington, D.C., and Minneapolis, as demonstrators call for every vote to be counted in the presidential race. President Trump has falsely declared he has already won the election. Several clashes with police brought arrests.
Some of the protests had been planned ahead of Election Day. They were apparently intensified by Trump's attempts to pronounce himself the winner of a presidential race that's still playing out.
The president has also urged officials not to count ballots after Nov. 3 – and he is now amplifying that sentiment.
"STOP THE COUNT!" Trump tweeted Thursday morning.
Trump trails Democrat Joe Biden, with several key states too close to call. But on the day after the election, the president said his campaign will "claim" electoral votes in the undecided states of Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina, and also in Michigan – where a narrow victory has since been called for Biden.
Police block traffic as demonstrators march on to highway I-94 on Wednesday in Minneapolis.
Stephen Maturen/Getty Images
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Police block traffic as demonstrators march on to highway I-94 on Wednesday in Minneapolis.
A large march in Manhattan on Wednesday night resulted in 25 arrests, the New York City Police Department says.
"Count every vote! Every vote counts!" the protesters yelled as they marched.
Clashes with police broke out later in the evening, and some protesters lit fires on sidewalks.
NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said weapons were found on some people at the march. These included knives, a Taser and M-80 explosives.
"Many businesses in this part of the city are boarded up anticipating more postelection unrest," NPR's Brian Mann reports.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said Thursday that protests in his city have "overwhelmingly" been peaceful. He urged New Yorkers to respect the democratic process, adding that violence won't be tolerated.
"If people have concerns, express them — but express them peacefully," de Blasio said.
In Minneapolis, police issued citations to hundreds of protesters after a march went through downtown and onto Interstate 94.
"Troopers and Minneapolis police cited and released 646 people," member station Minnesota Public Radio reports, citing the State Patrol.
Police officers arrest some protesters in New York City on Wednesday. The department said there were 25 arrests.
Lev Radin/Sipa USA via Reuters
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Police officers arrest some protesters in New York City on Wednesday. The department said there were 25 arrests.
"We're here because the simple fact is we want to make sure that Donald Trump and his cronies don't steal this election," protest organizer Rod Adams told MPR.
Many of the demonstrations included a mix of activists with differing strategies and goals.
In Denver, a march to the state Capitol building included Black Lives Matter activists as well as anti-police protesters, Denverite reports.
"The mood and actions of demonstrators and police changed as the march moved toward the District 6 police station in downtown Denver," according to the news site. "At least one protestor threw a firework at the station, which prompted officers to respond with what appeared to be tear gas and pepper-spray projectiles."
In the Denver suburb of Arvada, people gathered at city hall, urging patience as vote tallies are finalized.
"I just want every vote counted," Pat Malone, a rally organizer, told Denverite, which is owned by member station Colorado Public Radio.
"You know, Trump might win it if every vote is counted," she said. "So I honestly don't understand why everybody wouldn't embrace that."
Her goal is to support America's democracy, Malone said.
"If we can't even elect and get through an election, oh my gosh, I honestly feel like we're done," she told Denverite.
Hundreds of protesters gathered in downtown Seattle for a Count Every Vote/ Protect Every Person rally – one of several demonstrations that were planned for Wednesday night, according to Esmy Jimenez of member station KUOW. As the rally ended, people danced and sang, "Count every vote." KUOW's Casey Martin says the event ended without police involvement – and that more demonstrations, organized by Black Lives Matter, will be held this week.
#CountEveryVote march in Seattle is now in full swing heading north on 1st Ave. pic.twitter.com/DmY3XxzLqF
The Seattle Police Department says seven people were arrested during demonstrations in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. The charges included property damage and "pedestrian interference." Officers issued a dispersal order, citing damage to property, police vehicles and a blocked intersection.
Outside the White House in Washington, D.C., "hundreds of people gathered in Black Lives Matter Plaza for a second night in a row," member station WAMU reports.
There were sporadic clashes with police, the station says. People danced and shared art and music as they waited, along with the rest of the country, for news about who will occupy the Oval Office for the next four years. | Protest_Online Condemnation | November 2020 | ['(NPR)'] |
ASKY Airlines suspends flights to Liberia and Sierra Leone as the death toll from the Ebola outbreak reaches 672. | A major West African airline has stopped flying to Liberia and Sierra Leone amid growing concern about the spread of the deadly Ebola virus. Asky said it took the decision to keep "its passengers and staff safe during this unsettling time". The number of people killed by the virus in West Africa has now reached 672, according to new UN figures. In Sierra Leone, the doctor who led the fight against Ebola, Sheik Umar Khan, has died of the disease. Government officials hailed Dr Khan, 39, as a "national hero". The government disclosed last week that he was being treated for Ebola and had been quarantined. His death follows that of prominent Liberian doctor Samuel Brisbane at the weekend.
Ebola kills up to 90% of those infected, but patients have a better chance of survival if they receive early treatment.
It spreads through contact with an infected person's bodily fluids.
The outbreak - the world's deadliest to date - was first reported in Guinea in February. It then spread to Liberia and Sierra Leone. Asky is the second airline, after Nigeria's largest airline, Arik Air, to ban flights to Liberia and Sierra Leone.
It had not halted flights to Guinea, but passengers departing from there would be "screened for signs of the virus", Asky said. Last week, Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, reported its first case - that of Liberian finance ministry official Patrick Sawyer who flew to the main city, Lagos, in an Asky flight. Liberia has deployed police officers at the international airport in the capital, Monrovia, to ensure passengers are screened for symptoms of Ebola.
"We have a presence of the police at the airport to enforce what we're doing,'' said Binyah Kesselly, chairman of the Liberia Airport Authority. "So if you have a flight and you are not complying with the rules, we will not allow you to board.''
Most border crossings in Liberia have been closed to contain the outbreak and affected communities are being quarantined.
Liberia has also suspended all football activities in an effort to control the spread of Ebola. "Football being a contact sport - people are sweating - they do contact each other, and that could result in contracting the disease," the president of its football association, Musa Hassan Bility, told the BBC.
"It also has to do with the fans because whenever there is a game, a lot of people come together and we want to discourage gathering at this point," he said. The association had also told football governing body Fifa to cancel trips to Liberia scheduled for August and September because "we do not want the life of the Fifa president [Sepp Blatter] to be exposed to this disease", Mr Bility said.
In a statement, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) said that 1,201 Ebola cases had been reported in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Of the 672 deaths, the highest number was in Guinea with 319, followed by Sierra Leone with 224 and Liberia with 129, it said. The BBC's Jonathan Paye Layleh in Monrovia says that public awareness campaigns around Ebola have been stepped up in the city. Many people are worried about the outbreak, and fewer people are going to restaurants and entertainment centres, he says. | Disease Outbreaks | July 2014 | ['(BBC)'] |
India's home minister Shivraj Patil has submitted his resignation, taking "moral responsibility" for the Mumbai attacks. | . Protests in Mumbai over the handling of the attacks
Indian Home Minister Shivraj Patil and national security adviser MK Narayanan have submitted their resignations in the wake of the Mumbai terror attacks.
The moves come amid growing pressure on the Indian government to explain why it was unable to prevent the militant strike in which at least 172 died.
It is not clear whether Mr Narayanan's resignation has been accepted.
The attacks have increased tensions with Pakistan after allegations the gunmen had Pakistani links.
Islamabad denies any involvement, but India's Deputy Home Minister, Shakeel Ahmad, told the BBC it was "very clearly established" that all the attackers were from Pakistan.
"Whether they had government backing or whether there was any official involvement in it - it will come to light after proper investigation," Mr Ahmad said.
Last gunman killed
The home minister wrote to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh "owning moral responsibility" for the attacks, the BBC's Sanjoy Majumder, in Delhi, says.
His resignation has been accepted, and more departures may follow, our correspondent adds.
Hundreds of people took to the streets of Mumbai on Sunday to protest at what they say were government failures in the face of the attacks.
Protesters say the authorities should have been more prepared for the attacks and also question whether warnings were ignored, and how long it took commandos to reach the scenes of the attacks.
As customers entered the cafe, staff wearing red polo shirts burst into applause and one man led a cheer of "God bless India".
"We will prove to terrorists by opening that we have won, you have not won," said Farhang Jehani, who owns and runs the cafe with his brother.
Death toll
Indian troops killed the last of the gunmen at the Taj Mahal Palace hotel on Saturday.
As few as 10 militants may have been involved in the assault which saw attacks in multiple locations including two hotels, a major railway station, a hospital and a Jewish centre.
While the vast majority of victims were Indians, at least 22 foreigners are known to have died, including victims from Israel, the US, Germany, Japan, Canada, Australia, Italy, Singapore, Thailand and France. One Briton, Andreas Liveras, was also killed.
Some of the gunmen came ashore by rubber dinghy on the night the killing began, others are reported to have been in the city for months gathering information on their targets.
The number of people killed remains unclear.
India's home ministry said the official toll in Mumbai was 183 killed, but earlier disaster authorities said at least 195 people had been killed and 295 wounded.
On Sunday morning the state governor put the death toll for the bombings at 172, although this could rise if more bodies are discovered in the search of the siege hotels.
Claim of responsibility
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said earlier he believed that a group based outside India was behind the killings and senior Indian politicians have said the only surviving gunman to be captured is from Pakistan.
A claim of responsibility for this week's attacks was made by a previously unknown group calling itself the Deccan Mujahideen - a reference to a mainly Muslim region of India.
According to a statement leaked to Indian newspapers, the one alleged militant captured alive, named as Azam Amir Qasab, said the Mumbai militants had received training from an Islamist group once backed by Pakistani intelligence, Lashkar-e-Toiba. | Government Job change - Resignation_Dismissal | November 2008 | ['(BBC News)'] |
The 68th Tony Awards are held in Radio City Music Hall in New York City with "All the Way" winning the Tony Award for Best Play. | NEW YORK — Some big stars were honored, and others acknowledged, at the Tony Awards Sunday night at Radio City Music Hall.
As widely predicted, Neil Patrick Harris earned the Tony for performance by a leading actor in a musical, for his spellbinding portrait of an East German transgender rocker in Hedwig and the Angry Inch, also named best revival of a musical; and Bryan Cranston took the prize for leading actor in a play for his portrayal of LBJ in All The Way, which won best play. (A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder, the production that entered with the most nominations, took best musical.)
But an even more established star who was eligible for Broadway's biggest prize in Cranston's category was not forgotten, though he hadn't even been nominated.
An acclaimed staging of A Raisin in the Sun featuring that star, Denzel Washington, won best revival of a play, and also best direction, for Kenny Leon. Leon opened his acceptance speech with three words: "Denzel, Denzel, Denzel."
Leon was more blunt in the media room, telling reporters, "Yes, Denzel was snubbed" — before stopping to watch Sophie Okonedo, who won featured actress in a play for portraying Washington's character's wife, accept on one of two screens showing the ceremony in progress. "Wow," Leon said, clearly moved.
Another member of Raisin's cast, LaTanya Richardson Jackson, lost leading actress to Audra McDonald, who earned her sixth Tony — a record for a performer — for playing Billie Holiday in Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill. Jessie Mueller won best leading actress in a musical for playing another music legend in Beautiful: The Carole King Musical.
Both Mueller and McDonald gave emotional acceptance speeches that paid homage to, among others, the women they brought to life (or back to life, in McDonald's case) on stage. McDonald remarked that Holiday "deserved so much more than you were given on this planet."
Asked in the media room how she felt about setting a new record, McDonald replied, "I'm overwhelmed — completely overwhelmed, and grateful."
Cranston was asked if he had done research to play an American president who championed civil rights after Holiday died, and responded, chuckling, "It feels like I'm still doing it." The actor added that heaimed to capture the "good ole boy, back-slapping, story telling s--- kicker" in Johnson.
Mueller and King arrived in the media room together, where the latter admitted that she had "learned a lot of new things about myself watching Jessie portray me." As a younger artist, the singer/songwriter said, "I had no idea who I was," and she added that "to myself as the woman I was then and actually like myself" was a "gift."
Harris told reporters that painting his nails a garish color for his role in Hewdig was no biggie: Having 3½-year-old twins at home, "we do nail color all the time."
Another prominent winner was Gentleman's Guide director Darko Tresnjak, who had faced stiff competition from Michael Mayer, who guided Harris in Hedwig. Tresnjak thanked his husband and his mother; the latter "literally taught me to jump out of airplanes." She fought during World War II and is still alive.
Robert L. Freedman's book for Guide also won. Accepting, Freedman acknowledged leading man (and leading actor nominee) Jefferson Mays, who "died so beautifully 64 times a week" in the romp, in which Mays juggled eight roles. (The award for original score went to The Bridges of Madison County composer/lyricist Jason Robert Brown.)
Critical darling Mark Rylance collected his third Tony, in the category of featured actor in a play, for a U.K.-based staging of Twelfth Night, while James Monroe Iglehart was named best featured actor in a musical for his show-stopping turn as Genie in Disney's Aladdin. (Asked later how he would celebrate, Iglehart told reporters that he and his wife were "going to McDonald's.")
Harris' co-star in Hedwig, the vocal chameleon Lena Hall, accepted the prize for featured actress in a musical breathlessly, thanking her parents, a sister who had done her hair and "my soon-to-be-born niece."
An opening sequence featured host Hugh Jackman greeting nominees, and performers from nominated productions, backstage — at one point feigning boxing with Rocky's Tony Karl, at another bouncing onto a piano bench with Mueller.
"It's going to be after midnight before I catch my breath!" Jackman told the crowd, once onstage.
Then, rather than lead the kind of cheeky production number that has earned Neil Patrick Harris raves in his recent years presiding over the ceremonies, Jackman threw the spotlight to entertainers from best-musical contender After Midnight — among them Patti LaBelle, Gladys Knight and Fantasia, who have been guest stars in the revue.
Several awards were announced before the live telecast on CBS, at a presentation hosted by stage vet Karen Ziemba and Billy Porter, last year's Tony winner for performance by a leading actor in a musical. Beautiful won for sound design in a musical and Lady Day (which featured music prominently) won for sound design in a play. | Awards ceremony | June 2014 | ['(USA Today)'] |
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