Wed, Sep 16, 2015 page7

• World News Quick Take

  • Agencies
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  UNITED STATES

  Professor kills two, himself

  A university professor who studied the geography of crime is suspected of killing a woman he lived with before driving hours to a university in Mississippi to shoot another professor, police said. Shannon Lamb, a social science professor at Delta State University, then shot himself, police said, after they followed him and he pulled his car over, and he fled into woodland near the town of Greenville. Officers later heard a single gunshot and found Lamb’s body, Cleveland Police Chief Charles Bingham told a late-night news conference.

  UNITED STATES

  Shooter to stay in prison

  A court declined on Monday to release on bail a former police officer who had shot a South Carolina man in the back in April. Michael Slager, at the time a police officer in North Charleston, was fired, arrested and charged with murder three days after the incident when video emerged showing him shooting motorist Walter Scott in the back five times as Scott was trying to run away. Slager, 33, is white and Scott, 50, was black, and the shooting set off protests in the city as a string of incidents around the nation caused anger over police violence against African Americans.

  BRAZIL

  Austerity package unveiled

  The government announced a massive US$17 billion austerity package on Monday in a bid to boost its ailing economy amid a deepening crisis that has already caused a downgrade of the nation’s credit rating. The package — announced at a news conference by Planning Minister Nelson Barbosa — includes freezing public sector salary raises and hiring, entirely eliminating 10 of 39 ministries, cutting 1,000 jobs, and slashing housing and health-related social spending. “These are major corrections,” Finance Minister Joaquim Levy said. Just a few years ago, Brazil was in carnival mode as one of the BRICS group of emerging giants, winner of hosting rights to both last year’s FIFA World Cup and next year’s Olympic Games, but the government announced last month that the world’s seventh-largest economy was officially in recession and that the contraction could extend through next year, becoming the longest recession since 1931. Last week’s shock downgrade of Brazil’s sovereign credit rating to junk status by Standard & Poor’s sent the government scrambling to prevent an exit of foreign capital and to balance the books, in an economy already suffering from plummeting commodity prices and the effects of a huge corruption scandal.

  GREECE

  No grand coalition: Tsipras

  Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said he would not form an “unnatural” grand coalition government with conservative rivals if he wins Sunday’s general election, despite polls suggesting that neither party can score an outright victory. In a televised debate late on Monday, Tsipras vowed to form a “progressive” coalition that would not include opposition leader Evangelos Meimarakis’ center-right New Democracy party. Tsipras called the snap election after reaching an agreement with eurozone nations for a massive third international bailout, despite having served only seven months as prime minister. Harsh terms demanded for the 86 billion euro (US$97 billion) rescue deal split Tsipras’ SYRIZA party, with a breakaway group toppling the government and running against him in Sunday’s election. The 41-year-old has clung to a slim lead in the opinion polls, but has suffered a sharp drop in his approval rating.
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