A Baltimore police officer involved in the arrest of Freddie Gray, an African American man who later died in custody, has been acquitted of assault and other charges, raising questions about whether anyone will be held accountable for his death.
	The verdict by a Baltimore judge yesterday found Officer Edward Nero not guilty of four misdemeanors: second-degree assault, reckless endangerment and two counts of misconduct in office.
	The 25-year-old Gray was arrested April 12 last year after fleeing police, and suffered a broken spine while being transported in the back of a Baltimore police van, unsecured and with his hands and feet bound. He died a week later.
	Gray's treatment and death triggered violent riots in Maryland's largest city and fuelled a national debate about police brutality.
	The six police officers being tried over his death -- three white, including Nero, and three African Americans, including a woman -- claim it was an accident.
	The first case ended with a hung jury 

Baltimore officer cleared over Freddie Gray custody death

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An Argentine court has jailed two former top security officials for the deaths of five demonstrators in a 2001 crackdown on protests that brought down then president Fernando de la Rua.
	De la Rua was forced to resign and flee the presidential palace at the height of a raging economic crisis that triggered riots in the streets after his government slashed Argentines' salaries and froze their bank deposits.
	The court yesterday ruled that former security secretary Enrique Mathov and former federal police chief Ruben Santos were responsible for the deaths of protesters killed when police opened fire on a crowd outside the presidential palace.
	Mathov was sentenced to four years and nine months for culpable homicide and culpable injuries and banned from public office for nine and a half years.
	Santos was sentenced to four years. Two former police chiefs and four police officers were given sentences ranging from three to three and a half years.
	The sentences can be appealed.
	The ...

Argentine ex-security chiefs jailed for protest deaths

South African state prosecutors said they would appeal against a court ruling that President Jacob Zuma should face almost 800 corruption charges, triggering accusations that he was being protected from justice.
	Zuma has endured months of criticism and growing calls for him to step down after a series of corruption scandals as the country battles falling economic growth and record unemployment.
	National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) director Shaun Abrahams announced the decision to challenge a High Court order to reinstate 783 charges against Zuma, but denied there had been any political pressure.
	The charges, relating to a multi-billion dollar arms deal, were dropped in 2009, clearing the way for Zuma to be elected president just weeks later.
	At the time, state prosecutors justified dropping the case by saying that tapped phone calls between officials in then-president Thabo Mbeki's administration showed undue interference.
	But the Pretoria High Court last month dismissed the ...

S Africa appeal ruling sought on Zuma's 800 graft charges

Iraq has executed 22 people over the past month who were convicted of terrorism and other crimes, the justice minister has announced.
	The ministry "carried out death sentences against 22 convicts condemned for crimes and terrorist acts," Justice Minister Haidar al-Zamili said in a statement.
	It also quoted Zamili as saying that, with the start of the Iraqi operation to retake the city of Fallujah from the Islamic State group, "we confirm... That the ministry is continuing to carry out just punishment against terrorists."
	Rights group Amnesty International said that Baghdad executed at least 26 people in 2015.
	Iraq has faced widespread criticism from diplomats, analysts and human rights groups who say that due to a flawed justice system, those being executed are not necessarily guilty of the crimes for which they were sentenced to die.
	But the country has repeatedly defied such criticism and continues carrying out executions.

Iraq justice ministry announces execution of 22 convicts

Prison riots in northeast Brazil has left 14 inmates dead last weekend, officials said.
	The riots broke out during a strike by prison guards, local media reported, pitting rival groups of inmates against each other at two prisons in the state of Ceara.
	"I deeply regret what has been happening in our penitentiaries and will spare no effort, together with our security forces, to ensure stability in the prison system as quickly as possible," Governor Camilo Santana said in a Facebook post yesterday.
	He called for reinforcements from the elite National Security Force.
	State prison officials said they were still investigating the reason for the deadly brawls, which they said had been brought under control by yesterday.
	Police and guards found a makeshift tunnel in one prison, "but there are no confirmed escapes," they said.
	The striking prison guards have since returned to work.
	Brazil's prisons are massively overcrowded havens for criminal gangs. Human Rights Watch recently called .

Brazil prison riots leave 14 dead

A key minister in Brazil's new government who was caught on tape allegedly discussing a plot to derail a massive corruption probe said today he is taking a leave of absence.
	Planning Minister Romero Juca said he would step aside starting Tuesday. He is one of the main figures in the government assembled by acting president Michel Temer after the suspension of president Dilma Rousseff on May 12 for an impeachment trial.

Brazil minister in latest corruption scandal to step aside

Around 2,000 migrants seeking to reach Europe were plucked to safety from unseaworthy boats in the Mediterranean in 15 operations off the coast of Libya today, the Italian coastguard service said.
	Two Italian naval vessels rescued more than 500 people while two Doctors Without Borders (MSF) boats took another 788 migrants.
	An Irish navy boat rescued hundreds more as did a passing cargo ship, according to the coastguard.
	They did not give the nationalities of those saved, but most of the migrants who undertake the perilous journey in overcrowded vessels come from sub-Saharan Africa.
	So far this year more that 34,000 people have been brought to the Italian coast after being rescued off Libya, according to the UN refugee agency.
	With the return of the good weather the rescue operations are expected to increase. For the time being the numbers arriving are similar to those seen last year and in 2014.

2,000 migrants rescued from Mediterranean: Italian coast guard

Residue on pottery unearthed at an archeological site in northern China has revealed traces of a 5,000-year-old beer recipe that contained elements of East and West, researchers said today.
	The site offers the earliest evidence of beer-making in China, and shows that people of the era had already mastered an "advanced beer brewing technique," said the study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a peer-reviewed US journal.
	Yellowish residue gleaned from pottery funnels and wide-mouthed pots, revealed the ingredients that had been fermented together -- broomcorn millet, barley, a chewy grain known as Job's tears, and tubers.
	"The discovery of barley is a surprise," lead author Jiajing Wang of Stanford University told AFP, noting that this is earliest known sign of barley in archeological materials from China.
	"This beer recipe indicates a mix of Chinese and Western traditions -- barley from the West; millet, Job's tears and tubers from China."
	The research ...

Ancient Chinese pottery reveals 5,000-yr-old beer brew

The United States urged Russia today to press Syria to stop bombing opposition forces and civilians in Aleppo and the Damascus suburbs, the State Department said.
	The appeal came in a phone call from Secretary of State John Kerry to his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov.
	"Russia has a special responsibility in this regard to press the regime to end its offensive attacks and strikes that kill civilians, immediately allow relief supplies, as determined solely by the UN, to reach all in need, and to comply completely with the cessation of hostilities," the department said in a statement.

Kerry urged Lavrov to press for end of Syrian bombing

Russian said today it had summoned a US defence attache, claiming an American military aircraft had carried out a reconnaissance mission over the Sea of Japan and risked collision with passenger planes.
	The US surveillance plane had its transponders turned off during Sunday's incident near the Russian border, the defence ministry said, adding that the crew had not informed regional authorities of the plane's route.
	The plane used the same flight levels as those typically used by passenger jets, Moscow said, adding that "the unprofessional actions" of the US crew had created a risk of collision with other aircraft.
	The defence ministry said measures needed to be taken to prevent such incidents in the future.
	In recent months, Washington has repeatedly accused Russian aircraft of seeking to provoke US forces or buzzing US warships. Moscow has countered that the US military has no business getting too close to Russia's borders.
	Ties between Russia and the West have plunged to their .

Russia summons US attache over plane incident

FIFA today sacked deputy general secretary Markus Kattner for financial 'breaches' involving millions of dollars, according to sources close to an inquiry by the world body.
	Kattner's downfall topples another member of ex-president Sepp Blatter's inner circle at football's world body.
	Kattner, a German-Swiss national, had been acting general secretary after previous general secretary Jerome Valcke was also dismissed for irregularities.
	"Kattner has been dismissed from his position effective immediately," the world body said in a statement.
	"FIFA's internal investigation uncovered breaches of his fiduciary responsibilities in connection with his employment contract," it added.
	"There was enough to determine there was a breach of his responsabilities and to take action against Mr Kattner," a source close to an internal FIFA investigation said.
	"We are talking about significant sums of money, millions of dollars," the source added.
	The source said the money came from bonuses under 

Football: FIFA sack top official over breaches worth millions

Mohamed Nasheed, the former president of the Maldives, has been granted refugee status in Britain, his office claimed today.
	The 49-year-old was jailed last year on controversial terrorism charges, but was allowed to travel to Britain in January for spinal cord surgery after he fell ill in prison.
	Nasheed claimed today he had "no choice" but to work from exile against President Abdulla Yameen.
	"Former Maldives president Mohamed Nasheed has refugee status in the UK," a statement on his website said.
	Nasheed became the first democratically-elected president of the Indian Ocean island nation in 2008 and served for four years before he was toppled in what he called a coup backed by the military and police.
	He was jailed for 13 years on terrorism charges relating to the arrest of an allegedly corrupt judge in 2012, when he was still in power.
	"President Yameen has jailed every opposition leader and cracked down on anyone who dares to oppose or criticise him," Nasheed said in the ...

Maldives ex-president says granted UK refugee status

The US Supreme Court today ruled in favor of an African American death row inmate who argued there was bias in the choosing of an all-white jury that convicted him of the 1986 murder of an elderly white woman.
	By a 7-1 vote, the justices struck down a Georgia Supreme Court ruling denying Timothy Foster appellate review of his death sentence. Conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, the court's only African American member, dissented.
	"This means that Timothy Foster is entitled to a new trial at which jurors are not excluded based on race," his lawyers said in a statement.
	The decision, coming nearly 30 years after Foster's death penalty conviction, highlighted the continuing effect of racism on jury selection in the United States.
	Foster's lawyers showed that prosecutors had maneuvered to keep blacks off the jury, presenting as evidence prosecutor's notes at a November 2015 Supreme Court hearing.
	The notes, which were obtained after Foster's 1987 conviction, included a list of ...

US SC rules in favor black death row inmate in jury bias case

Yemen's warring parties held their first face-to-face meeting in nearly a week today after the government delegation ended a boycott, the UN envoy said.
	Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed said in a statement that a joint meeting was held between the two delegations which have gathered in Kuwait and later he met with them separately.
	He urged the two parties "to exert all efforts to achieve a sustainable solution for the sake of easing the suffering of Yemenis".
	"Any delay, retreat or boycott will take us backward and slow down the solution Yemenis are waiting for," Ould Cheikh Ahmed said.
	The troubled negotiations which began on April 21 broke off last Tuesday when the government delegation suspended its participation accusing Iran-backed rebels who control the capital of failing to keep their word.
	The government demanded a written pledge from the Shiite Huthi rebels and their allies recognising an April 2015 UN Security Council resolution calling for their pullout from Sanaa and other ...

Yemen foes resume face-to-face talks after boycott: UN

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today condemned bombings claimed by the Islamic State group in two Syrian coastal cities and voiced concern about the military escalation in and around Damascus.
	More than 148 people were killed in the bomb blasts at bus stations, hospitals and a power station in the cities of Jableh and Tartus, two strongholds of President Bashar al-Assad's regime.
	Ban "condemns the terrorist attacks today that claimed the lives of dozens of civilians in the Syrian coastal cities of Jableh and Tartus," said his spokesman Stephane Dujarric.
	He expressed "great concern of the escalating military activity in many areas in and around Damascus", particularly in Daraya, Aleppo and Idlib and in northern Homs, especially Al-Houla, he added.
	Fourteen civilians -- four of them children -- were killed when a barrage of barrel bombs hit the town of Al-Houla and neighboring villages last week, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
	Barrel bombs are ...

UN condemns IS bombings in Syria, concerned about escalation

Life on Earth may have sprung from bombardment by a youthful Sun lashing out with flares as potent as a thousand trillion exploding atomic bombs, a study suggested today.
	Such violence may explain how Earth became hospitable to life about four billion years ago, when the planet, and its star, were much, much colder, a research team wrote in the journal Nature Geoscience.
	While the Sun was about a third fainter than it is today, it was likely much more tempestuous, they found.
	Repeated super-flares would have smashed nitrogen (N2) molecules in the atmosphere to yield a planet-warming greenhouse gas called nitrous oxide (N2O or "laughing gas"), as well as hydrogen cyanide, which produces amino acids -- the building blocks of proteins.
	While it is essential for all life, nitrogen in the form it would have existed in a young Earth's atmosphere is not chemically reactive, and needs to be transformed into more accessible forms.
	Very high temperatures can achieve this.
	The study was ...

Violent young Sun may have seeded life on Earth: study

South African authorities have detained three Chinese vessels and 100 crew members for allegedly illegal fishing in Indian Ocean waters off Port Elizabeth, officials said today.
	The three ships were escorted into East London port after trying to flee from South African patrol vessels early on Sunday, and inspectors found about 600 tons of squid on board.
	"The operation has resulted in capturing of three foreign vessels," said a joint statement from the agriculture ministry, maritime security agency and the defence forces.
	The South African ships "had to increase speed in order to intercept the foreign fishing vessels which were speeding off," it added, saying the fishing vessels had no permits.
	Sicelo Fayo, manager with the South African Maritime Safety Authority (SAMSA), confirmed to AFP that the three trawlers were Chinese.
	The 96 sailors from the ships have been held for allegedly violating territorial waters regulations and illegal fishing.
	Another Chinese vessel was held ...

South Africa detains 3 Chinese fishing vessels, 100 crew

Oil prices slipped today after Iran said it had no plans to join any output freeze by other major producers.
	Despite a recent rebound, world crude prices are still at less than half of their levels of June 2014 because of a supply glut, partly fed by Iran's return to world markets in January after the lifting of nuclear-linked Western sanctions.
	"The government has no plans for the time being to freeze or interrupt its increase in oil output and exports based on plans that are being carried out," National Iranian Oil Co. managing director Rokneddin Javadi told Iran's Mehr news agency, according to Bloomberg News.
	Tehran's stance appeared to reinforce market doubts that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) -- of which Iran is a member -- will take any firm action to curb oversupply at its next meeting in Vienna on June 2.
	Last month, talks in Doha involving OPEC members and other major producers such as Russia had already failed to reach a deal to cap ...

Oil prices dip as Iran says no plan to freeze output

FIFA today sacked deputy general secretary Markus Kattner for financial 'breaches' linked to his job.
	Kattner had been acting general secretary after previous general secretary Jerome Valcke was also dismissed for irregularities.
	"Kattner has been dismissed from his position effective immediately," the world body said in a statement.
	"FIFA's internal investigation uncovered breaches of his fiduciary responsibilities in connection with his employment."
	FIFA said it would not comment further but "will continue its cooperation with the relevant authorities." Kattner, a German, had also been FIFA's longstanding financial director.
	The world body named Fatma Samoura as its new general secretary at a congress this month.

Football: FIFA sack deputy general secretary Kattner

Russia today announced its return to the international bond markets for the first time since the West slapped it with sanctions over its role in the Ukraine conflict.
	Russia's second largest bank VTB has been selected to arrange the bond issue, the finance ministry said in a statement, giving neither the timing nor the amount.
	According to banking sources questioned by Interfax news agency, 10-year bonds were issued starting today with expected yields of between 4.65 and 4.90 per cent.
	The last such operation happened in 2013 and was worth nearly USD 7 billion.
	The Russian authorities in 2010 returned the international bond market for the first time since the 1998 default.
	But they ceased all such operations after the first Western sanctions were imposed on Moscow due to its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014.
	The sanctions were sharpened after pro-Russian separatists launched armed combat in eastern Ukraine and a Boeing airliner carrying out a Malaysia Airlines ...

Moscow returns to bond market for first time since sanctions

The spiralling crisis surrounding the Zika virus is due to decades of policy failures on mosquito control and poor access to family planning services, the World Health Organisation said today.
	"The spread of Zika... (is) the price being paid for a massive policy failure that dropped the ball on mosquito control in the 1970s," WHO chief Margaret Chan told the opening of the UN health agency's annual assembly.
	Those failures have allowed the mosquito-borne virus to spread rapidly and create "a significant threat to global health," Chan told some 3,000 delegates gathered from WHO's 194 member countries.
	Experts agree that Zika is behind a surge in Latin America in cases of the birth defect microcephaly -- babies born with abnormally small heads and brains -- after their mothers were infected with the virus.
	The virus, which also causes the rare but serious neurological disorder Guillain-Barre Syndrome, in which the immune system attacks the nervous system, is mainly spread by the ...

AFP

AFP

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