ARGENTINA
Judge pursues ex-president
A judge is seeking to revive an investigation into former president Cristina Fernandez over an alleged cover-up on behalf of Iranians suspected in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires. Judge Claudio Bonadio asked judge Daniel Rafecas to turn over the case file and the latter consented, the state news agency Telam reported on Tuesday. Rafecas had refused just days earlier to reopen the case against Fernandez, which he had closed last year. The case against Fernandez, a left-of-center politician who governed from 2007 to last year, was compiled by late prosecutor Alberto Nisman. He was found shot in the head 19 months ago in his apartment just hours before he was to present the case to Congress. His mysterious death remains unsolved. Nisman had alleged in a stunning accusation that Fernandez reached a secret deal with the Iranian government to cover up the role of several Iranian officials suspected in the bombing, which killed 85 people.
UNITED STATES
University chancellor quits
University of California, Davis, chancellor Linda Katehi, who was placed on administrative leave amid allegations that she used university money to eliminate negative online search results about the institution, resigned on Tuesday after an investigation found that she had violated several school policies. Katehi, courted controversy over a series of purported actions, including the use of university funds to suppress search results after a 2011 episode in which campus police officers used pepper spray against seated protesters, many of them students.
UNITED KINGDOM
Duke of Westminster dies
Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor, the sixth Duke of Westminster — a friend of the royal family and one of the country’s wealthiest landowners — has died, his family said on Tuesday. He was 64. The Grosvenor Estate said the duke died at the Royal Preston Hospital in northwest England after suddenly becoming ill at his vast Abbeystead Estate nearby. The estate owns 121 hectares in some of London’s wealthiest areas.
UNITED STATES
Dogs get bullet-proof vests
Thor, Ben, Argo, Duke and Gimme have more protection to help fight crime in Detroit. Those five members of the nine-dog Detroit Police Department’s Canine Unit were outfitted on Tuesday with bullet-resistant vests — a donation from a Detroit-based firm. “They weren’t exactly happy or thrilled about it,” police spokesman Sergeant Michael Woody told reporters. “They are going to have to do some training.” The vests costs about US$1,000 each, but were donated by Strategic Staffing Solutions, a consulting, staffing and desktop support company.
UNITED STATES
‘Pokemon’ parents arrested
An Arizona couple accused of leaving their two-year-old son alone for up to 90 minutes so they could go out and play Pokemon Go have been indicted by a grand jury. Pinal County prosecutors said 27-year-old Brent Daley and his 26-year-old wife, Brianna Daley, each are facing one count of child abuse. They were arrested after a neighbor found the boy crying outside the couple’s home in the southeastern Phoenix suburb of San Tan Valley on July 29. Sheriff’s officials said the Daleys initially told deputies they went to buy gas, but then they said they had gone in search of virtual Pokemon creatures in their neighborhood.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese