TURKEY
Three dead in collapse
One more person has been found dead in the rubble of a eight-story building in Istanbul that collapsed on Wednesday, raising the death toll to at least three, Istanbul Governor Ali Yerlikaya said early yesterday. Rescue teams working overnight pulled 12 people out of the rubble with injuries, three of whom were in serious condition, he said. It is not clear how many people are still trapped in the debris of the building, which had 43 residents in 14 apartments. The cause of the collapse is under investigation, but authorities said the top three floors had been illegally built.
Photo: Reuters
PHILIPPINES
Outcry over new charges
Award-winning journalist Maria Ressa has been hit with another lawsuit following tax evasion charges brought against her in November last year. She now faces libel charges over an article published in 2012 allegedly containing “defamatory” content. The Department of Justice ordered the indictment her Rappler Web site, Ressa as chief executive editor, and former reporter Reynaldo Santos Jr, in a decision made public on Tuesday. The story uncovered businessman Wilfredo Keng’s alleged ties to a then-judge on the nation’s top court. Keng filed the complaint in October 2017. The charges carry up to 12 years’ jail. Reporters Without Borders condemned the “absurd charges,” while Amnesty International demanded an end to the “harassment of Maria Ressa.”
CHINA
Plasma tests negative
Tests on a batch of a plasma product feared to have been contaminated with HIV have turned up negative for the virus, the National Medical Products Administration said yesterday. A batch of 12,000 plasma products manufactured by Shanghai-based China Meheco Xinxing Pharma Co were tested for HIV, hepatitis B and hepatitis C and all proved negative, it said. However, it demanded that Shanghai regulators conduct on-site inspections of the company and check products made from lots made before and after the suspect batch.
PHILIPPINES
Measles outbreak in Manila
The number of measles cases in Metro Manila has surged 10 times at the start of the year after jumping more than 900 percent last year. Fatalities from measles rose fivefold to 200 last year from 40 in 2017, Health Undersecretary Rolando Enrique Domingo told ABS-CBN News Channel. From December to last month, there had been about 50 deaths, he said, blaming vaccination fears. Measles cases in the first three weeks of last month rose to 196 from only 20 cases a year ago, the department said. The government hit only 40 percent of its immunization target last year, Domingo said.
NEW ZEALAND
Suspect retains secrecy
The man accused of murdering British tourist Grace Millane will continue to keep his name secret while a judge decides whether he can be publicly identified. The 27-year-old man appeared yesterday in Auckland’s High Court. His lawyer argued his name should continue to be kept secret so he can get a fair trial, Radio New Zealand said. A judge said he would announce a decision later. The man’s trial is scheduled for November.
UNITED KINGDOM
Stansted 15 spared jail
Fifteen protesters who locked themselves together around a plane at London’s Stansted Airport to stop migrants being deported were yesterday spared prison sentences. The demonstrators, who have become known as the Stansted 15, cut through the airport’s perimeter fence on March 28, 2017, then used expanding foam, scaffolding poles and lock-box devices to secure themselves to the wheel and wing of a Boeing 767. The plane had been chartered by the government to repatriate passengers to Nigeria, Ghana and Sierra Leone. The 15 were found guilty in December of breaching aviation security law after a prosecutor said they had put the “safety of the airport in a likelihood of danger.” Judge Christopher Morgan gave three protesters who had previous convictions suspended jail terms and sentenced the other 12 to community service..”
CANADA
Nation welcomes ex-slaves
The nation is to welcome about 750 former slaves from Libya as refugees, Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen said on Wednesday. The number of migrants traveling through Libya to reach Europe has increased 10-fold since the fall of former Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi in 2011, according to the UN. “In 2017, the world was shocked to see the harrowing images of people being sold into slavery in Libya,” Hussen said in a statement. “Canada was one of the few countries to step up to work with the UNHCR [UN High Commissioner for Refugees] to resettle these refugees directly from Libya and offer them a new home in Canada,” said Hussen, a former refugee from Somalia. Canada is “also taking action to resettle 100 refugees from Niger, rescued from Libyan migrant detention centers, including victims of human smuggling,” he said. “Some people have already begun to arrive in Canada.”
UNITED STATES
‘NYT’ editor denies charges
Former New York Times (NYT) executive editor Jill Abramson is facing allegations that she lifted material from other sources for her new book, Merchants of Truth: The Business of News and the Fight for Fact. A Twitter thread posted on Wednesday by Vice News correspondent Michael Moynihan lists several examples of passages in the book that closely resemble material in The New Yorker, Time Out and other publications. Released this week, the book is a critique of the news business focused on two long-running newspapers, the Times and the Washington Post, along with Vice and BuzzFeed. Appearing on Wednesday night on Fox News, Abramson disputed the allegations, saying: “All I can tell you is I certainly didn’t plagiarize in my book and there’s 70 pages of footnotes showing where I got the information.”
UNITED STATES
Police killed by suspect
A 17-year police veteran was shot and killed on Wednesday as he served a warrant on the Milwaukee’s south side. Assistant Milwaukee Police Chief Michael Brunson told a news conference on Wednesday afternoon that the officer, who name was not released, was 35 years old. Brunson said the officer who died was “well beloved by everyone in the department.” The officer was part of a Tactical Enforcement Unit serving the warrant in a residential neighborhood on the city’s south side when the officers made contact with two subjects “and shots were fired,” said Brunson, who did not release details of the warrant being served. One officer was struck and was rushed to Froedtert Hospital where he was pronounced dead.
AFGHAN CHILD: A court battle is ongoing over if the toddler can stay with Joshua Mast and his wife, who wanted ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ for her Major Joshua Mast, a US Marine whose adoption of an Afghan war orphan has spurred a years-long legal battle, is to remain on active duty after a three-member panel of Marines on Tuesday found that while he acted in a way unbecoming of an officer to bring home the baby girl, it did not warrant his separation from the military. Lawyers for the Marine Corps argued that Mast abused his position, disregarded orders of his superiors, mishandled classified information and improperly used a government computer in his fight over the child who was found orphaned on the battlefield in rural Afghanistan
EYEING THE US ELECTION: Analysts say that Pyongyang would likely leverage its enlarged nuclear arsenal for concessions after a new US administration is inaugurated North Korean leader Kim Jong-un warned again that he could use nuclear weapons in potential conflicts with South Korea and the US, as he accused them of provoking North Korea and raising animosities on the Korean Peninsula, state media reported yesterday. Kim has issued threats to use nuclear weapons pre-emptively numerous times, but his latest warning came as experts said that North Korea could ramp up hostilities ahead of next month’s US presidential election. In a Monday speech at a university named after him, the Kim Jong-un National Defense University, he said that North Korea “will without hesitation use all its attack
STOPOVERS: As organized crime groups in Asia and the Americas move drugs via places such as Tonga, methamphetamine use has reached levels called ‘epidemic’ A surge of drugs is engulfing the South Pacific as cartels and triads use far-flung island nations to channel narcotics across the globe, top police and UN officials told reporters. Pacific island nations such as Fiji and Tonga sit at the crossroads of largely unpatrolled ocean trafficking routes used to shift cocaine from Latin America, and methamphetamine and opioids from Asia. This illicit cargo is increasingly spilling over into local hands, feeding drug addiction in communities where serious crime had been rare. “We’re a victim of our geographical location. An ideal transit point for vessels crossing the Pacific,” Tonga Police Commissioner Shane McLennan
RUSSIAN INPUT: Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov called Washington’s actions in Asia ‘destructive,’ accusing it of being the reason for the ‘militarization’ of Japan The US is concerned about China’s “increasingly dangerous and unlawful” activities in the disputed South China Sea, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told ASEAN leaders yesterday during an annual summit, and pledged that Washington would continue to uphold freedom of navigation in the region. The 10-member ASEAN meeting with Blinken followed a series of confrontations at sea between China and ASEAN members Philippines and Vietnam. “We are very concerned about China’s increasingly dangerous and unlawful activities in the South China Sea which have injured people, harm vessels from ASEAN nations and contradict commitments to peaceful resolutions of disputes,” said Blinken, who
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