NEW ZEALAND: The death toll in the mosque shootings in the country has reached 40 after 10 more people were reported to have been killed in another mosque on Friday.
According to a Daily Mail report, 30 people were killed while 50 others sustained critical injuries an Australian national went on a shooting spree at Al Noor Mosque in Christchurch in New Zealand. Similarly, 10 people died at a gunshot incident at Linwood Mosque.
The culprit is identified as 28 years old Brenton Tarrant from Grafton, New South Wales. Police have taken him under control. It is not yet known whether the same assailant was involved in the gunshot incident at Linwood Mosque, too.
The incident occurred at 1:30 pm (according to local time) during prayer time at the mosque. The culprit is believed to have been inspired by the racist motive of white supremacy.
Incidents of gunshots had been reported at Linwood Mosque and a Hospital outside of Christchurch.
NEW ZEALAND: Several people have been feared dead after shootings at two mosques in the city of Christchurch, police in New Zealand have confirmed.
Police commissioner Mike Bush confirmed that one person is in custody, but said it was unclear if others were involved.
Witnesses told local media they ran for their lives, and saw people bleeding on the ground outside the Al Noor mosque.
Authorities advised all mosques to shut down until further notice. All Christchurch schools are on lockdown.
In a statement to the nation, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said details were not yet clear, “but I can tell you now – this will be one of New Zealand’s darkest days”.
Mohan Ibrahim, who was in the area of the Al Noor mosque, told the New Zealand Herald: “At first we thought it was an electric shock but then all these people started running.
“I still have friends inside.
“I have been calling my friends but there are many I haven’t heard from. I am scared for my friends lives.”
It is not yet known how many shooters there were, but the Herald reports that one gunman is believed to be an Australian who has written a manifesto outlining his intentions. In it, he espouses far-right ideology and anti-immigrant ideology.
Unverified footage purportedly taken by the shooter has emerged, suggesting he filmed as he shot victims.
Just 1% of New Zealand’s population of almost five million are Muslim, according to government statistics, less than 50,000 people in 2013.
“Muslims are the most rapidly growing religious group in New Zealand with the population increasing six-fold between 1991 and 2006,” according to Victoria University of Wellington research.
In comparison, New Zealand has a much higher population of Christians, including Catholics, Anglicans and Presbyterians, as well as Hindu and Buddhist citizens.
3/5 We urge New Zealanders to stay vigilant and report any suspicious behaviour immediately to 111. We are mobilising resources nationally and support is being brought into the District. We are still working to resolve this incident and we continue to urge Christchurch…
— New Zealand Police (@nzpolice) March 15, 2019
(Agencies)
DUBAI: At least four people were killed and five others injured on Thursday in a gas pipeline explosion in southwest Iran, the Iranian Students News Agency ISNA reported. “Gas leakage from a pipeline that linked the gas network from Mahshahr city to Ahvaz city, caused the blast,” ISNA quoted local official Kiamars Hajizadeh as saying.
“At least four people, including one child and a woman, were killed in the blast and five people were wounded.” Iran’s state TV reported that five cars in the area had caught fire. “Fire fighters and ambulances have been dispatched to the area,” state TV reported. Poor safety measures and Iran’s aging infrastructures have been blamed by some authorities for blasts in the past.
(Agencies)
1. BETO O’ROURKE ANNOUNCES 2020 WHITE HOUSE BID
The former Texas congressman ends months of speculation over whether he’d try to translate his newfound political celebrity into a Democratic presidential bid.
2. WHO IS HANDLING ETHIOPIAN AIRLINES’ BLACK BOX PROBE
The French air accident investigation authority, or BEA, says it will handle the analysis of the flight data and cockpit voice recorders retrieved from the crash site.
3. UK LAWMAKERS SET FOR ANOTHER BIG BREXIT VOTE
With “no deal” off the table, parliament will now decide whether to delay Britain’s departure from the EU as Theresa May struggles to overcome further erosion of her authority.
4. CHARITY USED IN FRAUDULENT COLLEGE DONATIONS
Prosecutors and tax documents say the mastermind of a college admissions scandal set up a charity that funneled money from wealthy parents to bribe coaches and others to get their children into elite universities.
5. GOP SENATORS APPEAR READY TO BLOCK TRUMP BORDER DECLARATION
The breakdown of a compromise effort appears to be pushing the Senate toward a vote in favor of blocking the president’s emergency declaration at the Mexican border.
6. US IMMIGRATION AGENTS FIND WAYS AROUND ‘SANCTUARY’ POLICIES
Despite laws that shield immigrants from deportation, federal authorities are still getting back-channel cooperation from some local law enforcement agencies.
7. MALAYSIA WON’T DROP CASE AGAINST VIETNAMESE IN KIM JONG NAM KILLING
The murder case will proceed against Doan Thi Huong, accused in the killing of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s estranged half brother.
8. CUBA PLANS GOVERNMENT OVERHAUL
Havana is about to launch a sweeping makeover of its communist system with dozens of new laws that could reshape everything from criminal justice to the market economy.
9. ‘BOMB CYCLONE’ STORM BARRELS TOWARD MIDWEST
National Guard troops are rescuing stranded drivers in Colorado in the wake of a massive late-winter storm that is expected to unleash heavy rain and snow on the Midwest plains.
10. R. KELLY’S SEX VIDEOS HAVE BEEN AROUND FOR YEARS
Sex videos like those that have been integral to the criminal cases against the R&B star have been circulating across the nation since the 1990s.
(Agencies)
WASHINGTON: The United States grounded Boeing Co’s money-spinning 737 MAX aircraft on Wednesday over safety fears after an Ethiopian Airlines plane crash that killed 157 people, leaving the world’s largest planemaker facing its worst crisis in years.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) cited new satellite data and evidence from the scene of Sunday’s crash near Addis Ababa for its decision to join Europe, China and other nations in suspending 737 MAX flights. The crash was the second disaster involving the 737 MAX, the world’s most-sold modern passenger aircraft, in less than five months.
The new information from the wreckage in Ethiopia and newly refined data about the plane’s flight path indicated some similarities between the two disasters “that warrant further investigation of the possibility of a shared cause,” the FAA said in a statement.
The acting administrator of the FAA, Daniel Elwell, said he did not know how long the U.S. grounding of the aircraft would last. A software fix for the 737 Max that Boeing has been working on since a fatal crash last October in Indonesia will take months to complete, Elwell told reporters.
“The agency made this decision as a result of the data gathering process and new evidence collected at the site and analyzed today,” the FAA said, shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump announced the planes would be grounded.
It was the second time the FAA has halted flights of a Boeing plane in six years. It grounded the 787 Dreamliner in 2013 because of problems with smoking batteries.
Southwest is the world’s largest operator of the 737 MAX 8 with 34 jets. France’s air accident investigation agency BEA will analyze black-box cockpit voice and data recorders from the crashed plane, a spokesman said.
The French announcement resolved uncertainty over the fate of the two recorders after Germany’s BFU said it had declined a request to handle them because it could not process the new type of recorder used on the 737 MAX jets, in service since 2017.
Shares of the company ended up 0.5 percent at $377.14, recovering from a more than 3 percent fall in the afternoon when the FAA announcement was made. The United States had held back on suspending 737 MAX flights on Tuesday even as many of the world’s top economies such as China and European nations grounded the plane.
Trump called Boeing Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg on Wednesday to inform him that the United States was preparing to ground the fleet, a White House official said.
MELBOURNE: Cardinal George Pell, former Vatican treasurer, was sentenced to six years in jail on Wednesday by an Australian court for sexually abusing two choir boys in Melbourne in the 1990s, and will be registered as a sex offender for the rest of his life.
With the court’s decision, Pell, 77, could spend the rest of his life in prison, County Court of Victoria Chief Judge Peter Kidd said.
Pell, a former top adviser to Pope Francis, is the most senior Catholic to be convicted of child sex offences.
“In my view, your conduct was permeated by staggering arrogance,” said Kidd in handing down the sentence after Pell was convicted of five charges of sexually abusing two children.
“Viewed overall, I consider your moral culpability across both episodes to be high,” he told the packed court room.
His downfall brings to the heart of the papal administration a scandal over clerical abuse that has ravaged the Church’s credibility in the United States, Chile, Australia and elsewhere over the last three decades.
The offences against two 13-year-old boys took place after Sunday mass in late 1996 and early 1997 in a room and a corridor at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne, where Pell was archbishop.
During the trial the victim described how Pell had exposed himself to them, fondled their genitals and masturbated and forced one boy to perform an oral sex act on him.
(Agencies)
LONDON: Air pollution kills nearly as many people as smoking in Britain each year, new figures have shown. Although it was previously thought that emissions were responsible for around 40,000 deaths in the UK, new figures suggest it is closer to 64,000, just 18 percent less than the 78,000 deaths caused by tobacco.
A further 29,000 deaths in Britain were also linked to air pollution which exacerbated other conditions such as cancer, diabetes and chronic lung disease. Globally, dirty air from vehicle exhausts, factories and power plants causes more deaths than smoking, accounting for 8.8 million deaths a year, compared to the 7.3 million people that die from inhaling smoke.
Co-author Professor Thomas Munzel, from the University Medical Centre Mainz in Germany, said, “Smoking is avoidable but air pollution is not.” In a new study published in European Heart Journal, scientists used an updated modelling technique to calculate how the atmosphere and weather interacts with industry, traffic and agriculture, and mapped it against population data from the World Health Organisation (WHO).
In Europe alone the death toll was found to be 790,000 twice the previous estimate. The average lost life expectancy of someone dying in Britain because of air pollution was found to be 1.5 years, while across Europe it was 2.4 years.
In Britain, 98 deaths in every 100,000 can now be attributed to inhaled pollutant chemicals, according to the research, while in Europe the figure was Europe 133 per 100,000 deaths, more than one in 1,000.
(Agencies)
WASHINGTON: The United States of America (USA) on Monday claimed that it was safe to fly 737 MAX 8 planes amid growing concerns over the safety of the airbus that crashed near the town of Bishoftu, killing all 149 passengers and eight crew members.
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a “continued airworthiness notification” to assure operators of the plane saying that it was safe to fly.
It said it was collecting data on the crash and keeping in contact with international civil aviation authorities and would take immediate action if it identified any safety issues.
China and Indonesia grounded their fleets of 737 MAX 8 aircraft earlier on Monday, citing safety concerns, resulting in a drop in Boeing Co shares.
Investigators in Ethiopia found two black box recorders that will help piece together the final moments of the plane before it plunged, trailing smoke and debris, and crashed killing all the people on board.
A jet of the same model had crashed in Indonesia in last October, killing 189 people. (Agencies)
KUALA LUMPUR: An Indonesian woman accused of killing the half-brother of North Korea’s leader was freed on Monday after the Malaysian prosecutors withdrew the murder charge against her.
Siti Aisyah, 26, smiled as she was ushered through a pack of journalists and into a car outside the court, where she had been on trial alongside a Vietnamese woman for the murder of Kim Jong Nam at Kuala Lumpur airport in February 2017.
“Siti Aisyah is freed,” judge Azmin Ariffin told the Shah Alam High Court, as he approved a request from the prosecutor to drop the charge against her of murdering Kim Jong Nam.
NEW DELHI: Celebrities, politicians and sports stars descended on Mumbai to celebrate the wedding of the son of Asia’s richest man.
Akash Ambani, the son of oil and telecommunications tycoon Mukesh Ambani, is marrying Shloka Mehta, the daughter of Russell and Mona Mehta, at a ceremony in India’s financial capital on Saturday, according to the Press Trust of India.
Google LLC Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai, actors Aamir Khan and Shah Rukh Khan and cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar are among global policy makers, executives, politicians, Bollywood stars and sports personalities attending, according to a person at the function, who asked not to be identified.
Saudi Oil Minister Khalid al-Falih is making his second visit to India in less than three weeks to attend the wedding. Mukesh Ambani is Asia’s richest man, with net worth of about $50 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Estimates aren’t readily available for how much the celebrations are going to cost, but Akash Ambani’s sister’s marriage in December may provide a clue. At the time, people familiar with the planning of that event estimated the expense at about $100 million. A person close to the family said the amount wasn’t more than $15 million.
The guest list for her pre-wedding festivities ranged from Hillary Clinton and Henry Kravis to performers including Beyonce, according to the person. Akash Ambani also had a pre-wedding extravaganza in St. Moritz, Switzerland, according to press reports. The Chainsmokers and Chris Martin of Coldplay reportedly performed at the festivities.