Tag Archives: entertainment
India rape verdict to be given July 25
India rape verdict to be given July 25 (AP) / 11 July 2013 An Indian juvenile court will hand down a verdict later this month in the fatal December gang rape of a young woman on a New Delhi bus, a defence lawyer said Thursday. The verdict would be the first handed down in the rape case, which led to furious street protests in India and sparked major reforms to the nation’s antiquated sexual assault laws. Lawyer Rajesh Tiwari told reporters outside the court that his client would learn his fate July 25. The defendant was 17 at the time of the attack and is being tried as a minor on charges including murder and rape. He faces a maximum sentence of three years at a reform centre. Court rules forbid the publication of his name even though he has since turned 18. The defendant was one of six people accused of tricking a young woman and her male companion into boarding an off-duty bus Dec. 16. Police say the men then raped and brutalized the woman and savagely beat the man before dumping them on the roadside. The woman died from her injuries two weeks later in a Singapore hospital. Four of the other defendants are being tried in a special fast-track court in New Delhi and face the death penalty. The sixth accused was found dead in his jail cell in March. The attack set off furious protests across India about the treatment of women in the country and led to a swift overhaul of sexual assault laws. Continue reading
Nearly six million die from smoking every year: WHO
Nearly six million die from smoking every year: WHO (AFP) / 11 July 2013 Despite public health campaigns, smoking remains the leading avoidable cause of death worldwide, killing almost six million people a year, mostly in low- and middle-income countries, the World Health Organization said Wednesday. If current trends hold, the number of deaths blamed on tobacco use will rise to eight million a year in 2030, the WHO said in a briefing unveiled at a conference in Panama. About 80 percent of tobacco-related deaths forecast for 2030 are expected in low- and middle-income countries, the report added. “If we do not close ranks and ban tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship, adolescents and young adults will continue to be lured into tobacco consumption by an ever-more aggressive tobacco industry,” said WHO Director-General Dr Margaret Chan. “Every country has the responsibility to protect its population from tobacco-related illness, disability and death.” Among the dead this year, five million were tobacco users or former users, while more than 600,000 died from second-hand smoke, according to the WHO. Tobacco use is believed to have caused the deaths of 100 million people in the 20 th century. Barring dramatic change, the tally for this century could soar to one billion people, the WHO warned. “We know that only complete bans on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship are effective,” Dr. Douglas Bettcher, the Director of the WHO’s Prevention of Noncommunicable Diseases department, told the Panama conference. “Countries that introduced complete bans together with other tobacco control measures have been able to cut tobacco use significantly within only a few years,” he said. The report noted that 2.3 billion people from 92 countries benefit from some form of smoking restrictions, more than double the number who did five years ago. However, that figure still represents just a third of the world’s population, it said. Continue reading
Egypt PM struggles to form government
Egypt PM struggles to form government (AFP) / 11 July 2013 Egypt’s new leadership faced increased difficulties on Thursday in forming an interim government after it issued a warrant for the arrest of the leader of the movement backing ousted president Mohamed Mursi. Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood has spurned an offer from interim premier Hazem Al Beblawi to join the new government, and called for a mass rally on Friday against what it called “a bloody military coup.” After a year in power through Morsi, the Brotherhood is now in tatters, with much of its leadership detained, on the run or keeping a low profile following the president’s overthrow last week in a popular military coup. Police were searching for the Brotherhood’s Supreme Guide, Mohamed Badie, after a warrant was issued for his arrest on Wednesday, in connection with deadly violence in Cairo. Badie and other senior Brotherhood leaders are wanted on suspicion of inciting clashes an army building on Monday which killed 53 people, mostly Morsi partisans, judicial sources said. Mursi himself is currently being held in a “safe place, for his safety,” foreign ministry spokesman Badr Abdelatty told reporters Wednesday, adding: “He is not charged with anything up till now,” he said. Military and judicial sources have said the ousted leader may face charges eventually. His overthrow by the military last week, after nationwide protests demanding his resignation, has plunged Egypt into a vortex of violence. In the restive Sinai peninsula, gunmen opened fire on the car of a senior military commander leading to clashes between security forces and “terrorist elements” which left one girl dead, the army said in a statement. The army later withdrew the statement from its official Facebook page, without providing an explanation. Witnesses had contested its account, telling AFP the girl was killed after soldiers opened fire on the car she was in when her father refused to stop at a checkpoint. Thousands of Morsi supporters joined those camped out at the Rabaa Al Adawiya mosque in Cairo’s Nasr City, vowing to leave only when Morsi, the country’s first freely elected president, is reinstated. “We are gathering here for Morsi. I voted for him and I want to know where he is,” said protester Mohammed, 47. “We will stay here either until the president’s return or martyrdom,” he said. According to the health ministry, 53 people died and 480 were wounded in Monday’s clashes in Cairo. The Brotherhood accuses the army of “massacring” its supporters, and the army says soldiers came under attack by “terrorists” and armed protesters. The public prosecutor pressed charges on Wednesday against 200 of the 650 people it detained during the violence. The warrant for Badie’s arrest will make it harder for Beblawi to reach out as he attempts to form an interim civilian administration. The liberal former finance minister, who began talks on his cabinet line-up on Wednesday, is ready to offer the Brotherhood ministerial posts, the state-run MENA news agency quoted an aide as saying. But the Islamists spurned the overture. “We do not deal with putschists. We reject all that comes from this coup,” Brotherhood spokesman Tareq Al Mursi said. Last week Badie gave a fiery speech in which he vowed that Brotherhood activists would throng the streets in their millions until Morsi’s presidency was restored. Interim president Adly Mansour has set a timetable for elections by early next year, while appointing Beblawi as premier and Nobel Peace laureate Mohamed ElBaradei as vice president for foreign affairs. Opponents and supporters of Morsi alike have criticised the interim charter issued by Mansour to replace the constitution, which he suspended, and steer a transition the army has itself acknowledged will be “difficult.” An official with one of the parties in the National Salvation Front (NSF), the main coalition formerly led by ElBaradei, criticised Mansour’s 33-article declaration for according extensive powers to the interim president. Many within the coalition are wary of repeating the mistakes of the last military-led transition, between Hosni Mubarak’s ouster in 2011 and Morsi’s election in June 2012. Human rights groups condemned the use of “excessive” force against Brotherhood supporters on Monday, and called for an independent investigation. The United States, which provides $1.5 billion in mainly military aid to Egypt, said it was “cautiously encouraged” by the timetable proposed for a new presidential election. Continue reading
