Новости за 10.07.2023

The killing of a newly qualified teacher who was kidnapped, raped and murdered by a man who had only recently been released from jail shocked Spain.  But a legal case against a journalist who had covered the subsequent investigation and trial has also sent shock waves through the media community.  Laura Luelmo, a 26-year-old teacher who had just moved to El Campillo, was killed December 2018 in a village in southern Spain.  Her death led to questions in the Spanish parliament over the release... Читать дальше...

Analysts say a right-wing victory may bolster the Catalan independence movement in the north-eastern corner of the country when voters go to the polls in Spain this month. Several recent polls suggest the opposition conservative People's Party (PP) will get more votes than the ruling Socialists in the election on July 23 but will fall short of a majority so it may have to rely on the support of the hard-right Vox party to form a government. In 2017, a former PP government ordered hundreds of... Читать дальше...

The United Arab Emirates has promised $15 million in aid to support United Nations relief operations in Jenin after deadly violence turned the refugee camp’s streets and houses into rubble and cut off power and water.   U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres urged Israel to abide by its international legal obligations, saying that “escalation is not the solution,” warning that violence “simply bolsters radicalization.”   Israel maintains that it was uprooting radical militants and weapons caches in the West Bank camp. Читать дальше...

Iranian rapper Toomaj Salehi, who was arrested during last year’s nationwide protests, has been sentenced to six years and three months in prison, his Twitter account managed by supporters announced Monday.  His lawyer, Rosa Etemad Ansari, told the Shargh newspaper that Salehi was sentenced over the charge of “corruption on Earth,” which is punishable by death.  Ansari said he was acquitted of the charges of "insulting the founder and leader of the Islamic Republic" and "collaboration with... Читать дальше...

With the trial of 17 Kurdish journalists due to start in Turkey on Tuesday, lawyers and media analysts say prolonged judicial processes are being used as a punishment and deterrent. The journalists were detained on June 8, 2022, but prosecutors did not release an indictment in their case until March of this year. Of the 17 facing charges, 14 have been kept in pretrial detention. The group worked for pro-Kurdish media outlets including the Mesopotamia News Agency, a production company called Pel and the Dicle Firat Journalists Association. Читать дальше...

Preparatory work for the transfer of a million barrels of oil from a decaying floating supertanker onto a rescue vessel off the coast of Yemen in the Red Sea has begun, the United Nations said.   The transfer should be completed by early August, allaying fears of a potentially catastrophic oil spill.   “The replacement vessel Nautica is preparing to sail from Djibouti,” David Gressly, U.N. resident and humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, said in his briefing to the Security Council. “It will... Читать дальше...

The European Union signed off Monday on a new agreement over the privacy of people's personal information that gets pinged across the Atlantic, aiming to ease European concerns about electronic spying by American intelligence agencies. The EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework has an adequate level of protection for personal data, the EU’s executive commission said. That means it's comparable to the 27-nation's own stringent data protection standards, so companies can use it to move information from... Читать дальше...

SB19 is a Filipino boy band consisting of five members – Pablo, Stell, Ken, Justin an Josh.  “Gento” is the title track of the soon to be released 2nd EP, “Pagtatag.”  The group is set to have a world tour for the new EP.

The U.S. media has run several stories recently on the "death of the humanities," with undergraduate enrollments dropping by more than 50% at some schools. But Karin Beck, an associate dean at Lehman College in New York City, says this is misleading. Elite schools’ humanities programs are declining – but her school, which mostly serves low-income and first-generation students, is graduating more humanities majors than ever before. She argues that culturally sensitive and rewarding humanities classes can captivate anyone... Читать дальше...

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi will embark Tuesday on a rare Africa tour in the latest diplomatic efforts to reduce the Islamic republic's isolation by forging new alliances. The three-day trip — which includes Kenya, Uganda, and Zimbabwe — will be the first by an Iranian president to Africa in 11 years. Raisi will head a delegation that includes Iran's foreign minister as well as senior businesspeople. He is scheduled to meet with presidents from the three countries, according to the official IRNA news agency. Читать дальше...

A senior U.S. official says the Biden administration is "working tirelessly every day" to ensure the Taliban stick to their pledges to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a haven for transnational terrorists. White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan discussed the matter with reporters aboard Air Force One when asked by VOA if Washington is working with the Taliban to hunt down terrorist targets on Afghan soil. Sullivan traveled to London, where President Joe Biden met with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Читать дальше...

Heavy rain washed out roads and forced evacuations in the U.S. Northeast on Monday as more downpours were forecast throughout the day. One person in New York drowned as she was trying to leave her home. The slow-moving storm reached New England in the morning after hitting parts of New York and Connecticut. Heavy downpours with possible flash flooding were forecast in parts of Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine. One of the worst hit places was New York's Hudson Valley... Читать дальше...

The Republicans who lead three key House committees are joining forces to probe the Justice Department’s handling of charges against Hunter Biden after making sweeping claims about misconduct at the agency. Leaders of the House Judiciary, Oversight and Accountability, and Ways and Means committees opened a joint investigation into the federal case into President Joe Biden's youngest son days after it was announced last month that he will plead guilty to the misdemeanor tax offenses as part of an agreement with the Justice Department. Читать дальше...

Pakistan officials say at least six people were killed in a gas cylinder explosion at a hotel in Jhelum in Pakistan’s Punjab province. Ten people were injured in the blast Sunday, authorities said.   Jhelum Deputy Commissioner Samiullah Farooq said Sunday that emergency workers were clearing the site to determine if there was anyone trapped under the rubble.

Health officials are reporting a deadly outbreak of cholera in the South African province of Gauteng Authorities say nearly 50 people have died, with most of the deaths concentrated in the Hammanskraal area. Cases have been reported in other areas as well.   Medical officials have urged residents to be vigilant about what they consume and to practice good hygiene, like hand washing.     Cholera mainly spreads through contaminated water or food.   Symptoms include diarrhea, vomiting and dehydration.

Parts of India are being inundated with rain. The heavy rains in northern India, causing landslides and flooding, have killed at least 22 people. The India Meteorological Department forecast Monday “intense rainfall” for Himachal Pradesh and adjoining areas of North Punjab and Haryana. The department said “isolated heavy rainfall is also likely over Delhi Monday. Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said Monday that Delhi’s infrastructure is not designed to withstand the amount of rain it is receiving. Читать дальше...

“Our first meeting with Total they said, ‘Your standard of living will be elevated, you will no longer be poor,” a 48-year-old Ugandan woman supporting seven children, told Human Rights Watch in March. “Now with the oil project starting, we are landless and are the poorest in the country.” The woman was referring to the French fossil-fuel giant Total Energies. Her comments are included in a Human Rights Watch 47-page report — Our Trust Is Broken: Loss of Land and Livelihoods for Oil in Uganda — released Monday. Читать дальше...

China and Solomon Islands signed a new deal on police cooperation Monday deepening their bilateral partnership four years after the Pacific island nation cut ties with Taiwan and formally established relations with Beijing.  The "implementation plan" on policing — effective through 2025 — was one of nine documents signed on Monday following talks between visiting Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare and Chinese Premier Li Qiang at Beijing's Great Hall of the People.  Li said that the development... Читать дальше...

Voters in Uzbekistan handed a widely expected victory to President Shavkat Mirziyoyev. He was returned to office with almost 90% of the votes without facing any strong opposition.   The snap presidential election came just months after another poll that changed the country’s constitution, extending presidential term limits from two five-year terms to two seven-year terms.   Without the change, Mirziyoyev would have had to leave office in 2026, after a second five-year term election in 2021. Читать дальше...

Authorities in southern China said Monday that an attacker killed six people and wounded another at a kindergarten.  Media reports say the dead include three children, two parents and a teacher.  The attack took place in the city of Lianjiang in Guangdong province.  Police said a suspect was in custody.  Some information for this story came from Agence France-Presse and Reuters

Two years after Brazil began emerging from its pandemic horror show thanks to a massive immunization campaign, officials face a paradoxical predicament: vaccination rates have plunged, and not just for COVID-19.  The troubling trend has left millions exposed to once-eradicated diseases.     Doctors, public officials and UNICEF have sounded the alarm over collapsing immunization rates in Brazil, where overall vaccination coverage has fallen from an impressive 95% in 2015 to just 68% last year, according to official figures. Читать дальше...

North Korea accused the United States on Monday of violating its airspace by conducting surveillance flights and warned that, while Pyongyang was exercising restraint, such flights may be shot down. Provocative military actions by the U.S. were bringing the Korean peninsula closer to a nuclear conflict, said an unnamed spokesperson of North Korea's Ministry of National Defense in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency.  The report also cited the use of U.S. reconnaissance planes... Читать дальше...

The Gambia has repatriated 296 migrants in a two-week period, more than half of whom had been stranded in Libya, the ministry of foreign affairs said on Sunday.   One hundred and forty Gambians were repatriated between June 21 and July 4 after authorities in Senegal, Mauritania and Morocco each intercepted boats carrying citizens of the west African nation, a ministry spokeswoman confirmed.   A total of 231 Gambians had been aboard the three boats, the ministry said in a statement, but many had "absconded" before being returned. Читать дальше...

West African heads of state on Sunday chose Nigeria's new president, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to lead their regional bloc for the next year, replacing Guinea-Bissau's leader, Umaro Sissoco Embalo, AFP journalists reported.  Speaking at a summit in Bissau after being named chairman of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Tinubu said democracy was "the best form of government," despite being "very tough to manage.”   "We need it, to be an example to the rest of Africa and the world," he said. Читать дальше...

At least 300 people who were traveling on three migrant boats from Senegal to Spain's Canary Islands have disappeared, migrant aid group Walking Borders said Sunday.  Two boats, one carrying about 65 people and the other with between 50 and 60 on board, have been missing for 15 days since they left Senegal to try to reach Spain, Helena Maleno of Walking Borders told Reuters.  A third boat left Senegal on June 27 with about 200 people aboard.  The families of those on board have not heard from them since they left, Maleno said. Читать дальше...