Wed, Jun 03, 2015 page7

• World News Quick Take

  • Agencies
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  AFGHANISTAN

  Nine killed in attack

  Nine Afghan employees of a Czech aid organization were killed when militants attacked their guesthouse early yesterday, officials said. “Those killed in Zari district of Balkh Province include seven aid workers — six men and one woman — and two guards,” deputy provincial police chief Abdul Razaq Qaderi said, blaming the Taliban for the attack. The victims were employees of People in Need, a Czech organization which has been delivering humanitarian aid since 2001. “Unfortunately, last night unknown armed men attacked our guesthouse in Zari and martyred nine of our employees,” an official said, requesting anonymity. In the first four months of this year, civilian casualties jumped 16 percent from the same period last year, according to the UN Assistance Mission to Afghanistan.

  UNITED STATES

  Obama to honor veterans

  President Barack Obama is bestowing the nation’s highest military honor posthumously on two World War I army veterans who may have been denied the honor because of discrimination. Obama was holding a White House Medal of Honor ceremony yesterday for Sergeant William Shemin, who was Jewish, and Private Henry Johnson, from an all-black regiment. Both are being honored for their heroism in rescuing comrades on the battlefields of France in 1918. The award comes after Congress passed an exemption from Medal of Honor rules specifying that heroic actions have to have taken place within five years to be considered. Shemin raced across the battlefield repeatedly under gunfire to pull wounded comrades to safety and Johnson rescued a wounded comrade while fighting off a German attack.

  UNITED STATES

  TSA acting head reassigned

  The Department of Homeland Security on Monday reassigned the acting director of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and ordered the agency to revise its security procedures after screeners at airport checkpoints failed to detect weapons and other prohibited items 95 percent of the time in a covert test. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said that he took the findings of the investigation by the department’s inspector general “very seriously.” He called on the TSA to retrain airport security officers, retest screening equipment and increase its use of covert testing in airports. In the investigation, undercover agents were able to get prohibited items through security checkpoints in 67 of 70 instances, according to ABC News, which first reported the findings. Melvin Carraway, the acting administrator of the TSA, was replaced by the acting deputy, Mark Hatfield. In April, President Barack Obama nominated Vice Admiral Peter Neffenger of the Coast Guard to be the agency’s next administrator.

  UNITED STATES

  Shining Path assets frozen

  The Shining Path rebels which terrorized Peru in the 1980s have evolved into a major drug trafficking group, the Department of the Treasury said on Monday. The Treasury officially designated the Maoist group, whose war with the government left 70,000 people dead over two decades, a “significant foreign narcotics trafficker” under the US Kingpin Act, which freezes assets tied to those designated. “Since its founding over three decades ago, the Shining Path has evolved from a militant terrorist group to a criminal narco-terrorist organization responsible for trafficking cocaine throughout South America,” Office of Foreign Assets Control Acting Director John Smith said.

  TURKEY

  No gold toilets: Erdogan

  President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has invited the nation’s main opposition leader to inspect the lavatories in his lavish palace, insisting that he would not find any gold-plated toilet seats. Erdogan invited Kemal Kilicdaroglu to the 1,150-room palace for the inspection on Monday after the Republican People’s Party leader accused the president of excessive spending of taxpayers’ money on luxuries, including gold-plated toilet seats. Kilicdaroglu has refused to set foot in Erdogan’s palace — which opposition parties and some non-governmental organizations say was constructed on protected land despite court rulings — and has boycotted events there since it was inaugurated last year. On Sunday, Erdogan told state-run TRT television in an interview that he would resign if Kilicdaroglu found a gold-plated toilet seat at the US$620 million palace. He also challenged Kilicdaroglu to resign if none is found.

  FRANCE

  Police clear Paris migrants

  Dozens of law enforcement officers yesterday cleared several hundred African migrants from a camp under a subway bridge in northern Paris. More than 350 refugees, most of them from Sudan, but also from Eritrea, Somalia and Egypt, have been living in the makeshift camp below the metro tracks between the stations of La Chapelle and Barbes-Rochechouart. The camp sprang up last summer, but swelled in April as fair weather led thousands of migrants to cross the Mediterranean from North Africa to Europe. Authorities had put up signs over the weekend ordering the migrants to leave the camp within 48 hours. Early yesterday morning, police surrounded the site and blocked nearby traffic. The refugees, most of them men, but also including several families, waited to board buses to be taken to shelters in the Paris area.

  UNITED KINGDOM

  Woman jailed over loud sex

  A woman who kept her neighbors awake by engaging in enthusiastic sex was sentenced to two weeks in jail on Monday after a neighbor complained about her “screaming and shouting.” The court ruling said that at about 5am on Jan. 28, “the defendant [Gemma Wale] was guilty of screaming and shouting whilst having sex at a level of noise which caused nuisance or annoyance.” The woman’s neighbor in a social housing complex in Birmingham, England, who was woken up by the sounds, added: “It lasted 10 minutes.” The woman’s boyfriend, Wayne, received no punishment. A former neighbor was quoted by the Birmingham Mail as saying: “There were men going in and out of her flat all the time. Then she would sleep all day. It was the worst two years of my life.” The ruling also found her guilty of “banging around the house,” “running around in the property,” having loud arguments with her boyfriend, playing loud music, swearing and slamming doors.

  MALAYSIA

  Flight 370 settlement for two

  Two boys whose father was a passenger on the jetliner that vanished last year secured an out-of-court settlement in the incident’s first legal case against Malaysia Airlines and the government. Lawyer Arunan Selvaraj yesterday said their mother decided to accept compensation on their behalf so they can “move forward with their life.” Arunan declined to reveal the amount. Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 was en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people aboard when it disappeared on March 8 last year. Other relatives of passengers are waiting for the outcome of the first case.
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