UNITED STATES
Russia intelligence ‘sound’
A Senate committee on Tuesday said that intelligence agencies’ assessment of Russian activities during the 2016 presidential election was based on “sound” analysis not swayed by politics. The January last year intelligence assessment said that Russian activities in the run-up to the presidential election represented a “significant escalation” in a long history of Russian attempts to interfere in domestic politics, the committee said. The intelligence agencies found that Russians had engaged in cyberespionage and distributed messages through Russian-controlled propaganda outlets to undermine public faith in the democratic process, “denigrate” Democratic candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton and develop a “clear preference” for President Donald Trump. The Senate intelligence committee’s report comes two weeks before Trump is scheduled to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki.
ECUADOR
Ex-president faces arrest
A court on Tuesday ordered the arrest of former president Rafael Correa over alleged links to the kidnapping of an opponent in Colombia. The National Court of Justice said Judge Daniella Camacho “resolves to impose preventive detention” against Correa — who is based in Brussels — and has alerted Interpol. Correa, president from 2007 to last year, was one of the feistiest characters in Latin American politics. He now lives in his wife’s native Belgium, but is under investigation at home for involvement in the kidnapping of former lawmaker Fernando Balda in 2012. Correa questioned the motivation for the case, after he and his former ally, President Lenin Moreno, struggled for control of their deeply divided leftist ruling Country Alliance party. Balda considered himself a persecuted politician under Correa’s government. Last month, a judge ordered Correa to appear in court every two weeks to assist the investigation.
UNITED STATES
Hawaii bans sunscreens
Hawaii Governor David Ige on Tuesday signed legislation that would ban the sale of sunscreens containing two chemicals believed to harm coral reefs. The move makes Hawaii the first US state to enact a ban on oxybenzone and octinoxate. “This is just one small step toward protecting and restoring the resiliency of Hawaii’s reefs,” Ige said at a signing ceremony for the bill, which takes effect in 2021. Ige said the state would also need to continue other efforts to protect coral, including fighting invasive species, pollution from land runoff and climate change. Sunscreen containing oxybenzone and octinoxate would only be available to those with a prescription from a physician.
UNITED KINGDOM
Arrest in baby killings case
British police on Tuesday arrested a female healthcare worker on suspicion of murdering eight babies and trying to kill six others at a hospital neonatal unit in the northwest of England. Detectives began investigating the deaths of babies at the Countess of Chester Hospital in Chester more than a year ago, after the hospital reported a higher than expected mortality rate, which it could not explain, on the unit that cares for premature babies and infants needing special care. The hospital asked police to “rule out unnatural causes of death.” The investigation initially focused on the deaths of eight babies. Police said that they are investigating the deaths of 17 babies and 15 “non-fatal collapses” at the unit between March 2015 and July 2016.
DOUBLE-MURDER CASE: The officer told the dispatcher he would check the locations of the callers, but instead headed to a pizzeria, remaining there for about an hour A New Jersey officer has been charged with misconduct after prosecutors said he did not quickly respond to and properly investigate reports of a shooting that turned out to be a double murder, instead allegedly stopping at an ATM and pizzeria. Franklin Township Police Sergeant Kevin Bollaro was the on-duty officer on the evening of Aug. 1, when police received 911 calls reporting gunshots and screaming in Pittstown, about 96km from Manhattan in central New Jersey, Hunterdon County Prosecutor Renee Robeson’s office said. However, rather than responding immediately, prosecutors said GPS data and surveillance video showed Bollaro drove about 3km
Tens of thousands of people on Saturday took to the streets of Spain’s eastern city of Valencia to mark the first anniversary of floods that killed 229 people and to denounce the handling of the disaster. Demonstrators, many carrying photos of the victims, called on regional government head Carlos Mazon to resign over what they said was the slow response to one of Europe’s deadliest natural disasters in decades. “People are still really angry,” said Rosa Cerros, a 42-year-old government worker who took part with her husband and two young daughters. “Why weren’t people evacuated? Its incomprehensible,” she said. Mazon’s
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
POWER ABUSE WORRY: Some people warned that the broad language of the treaty could lead to overreach by authorities and enable the repression of government critics Countries signed their first UN treaty targeting cybercrime in Hanoi yesterday, despite opposition from an unlikely band of tech companies and rights groups warning of expanded state surveillance. The new global legal framework aims to bolster international cooperation to fight digital crimes, from child pornography to transnational cyberscams and money laundering. More than 60 countries signed the declaration, which means it would go into force once ratified by those states. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the signing as an “important milestone,” and that it was “only the beginning.” “Every day, sophisticated scams destroy families, steal migrants and drain billions of dollars from our economy...
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