Month: July 2019

Turkey fired its central bank governor Saturday and replaced him with the bank’s deputy governor, a presidential decree published on the official gazette showed. Murat Cetinkaya, who had been serving as the governor since April 2016, was removed from the role and was replaced by his deputy Murat Uysal, the order showed. No official reason was given for the sacking, but markets have speculated over recent weeks that Cetinkaya may be pushed out by the government because of his reluctance to cut rates. The central bank has faced pressure in the past from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to lower interest …

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President Donald Trump said Friday that mass deportation roundups would begin “fairly soon” as U.S. migrant advocates vowed their communities would be ready when immigration officers come. Trump, who has made a hard-line immigration stance a key issue of his presidency and his 2020 re-election bid, postponed the operation last month after the planned date was leaked to the press, but Monday he said the roundups would take place after the July 4 holiday. “They’ll be starting fairly soon, but I don’t call them raids, we’re removing people, all of these people who have come in over the years illegally,” …

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A quake with a magnitude of 7.1 jolted much of California, cracked buildings, set fires, broke roads and caused several injuries while seismologists warned that large aftershocks were expected to continue. The quake, preceded by Thursday’s 6.4-magnitude temblor in the Mojave Desert, was the largest Southern California quake in at least 20 years and was followed by a series of large and small aftershocks, including a handful above magnitude 5.0. There is about a 1-in-10 chance that another 7.0 quake could hit within the next week, said Lucy Jones, a seismologist at the California Institute of Technology and a former …

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Officials are gathering in Niger’s capital this weekend for an African Union summit that begins the “operational phase” of a long-sought continental free trade zone. Some 50 heads of state were to arrive in Niamey on Friday, a day behind their foreign ministers, for Sunday’s summit on the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). By integrating economies and reducing trade barriers such as tariffs, the pact aims to increase employment prospects, living standards and opportunities for the continent’s 1.2 billion people and to make Africans more competitive regionally and globally. FILE – Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari is sworn in for …

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Student unions from two Hong Kong universities said Friday that they have turned down invitations from city leader Carrie Lam for talks about recent unrest over her proposal to allow the extradition of suspects to mainland China. The invitations followed a pledge by Lam to do a better job of listening to the voices of young people. Student leaders said at a news conference that they do not think Lam is being sincere. Her office invited them to closed-door meetings, but the students said any meeting should be public and include a wider representation than just them. “A closed-door meeting …

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A U.N. report accuses the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro of extra-judicial killings and of repressive measures aimed at neutralizing political opponents. U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michele Bachelet presented the report Friday to the U.N. Human Rights Council. The report presents a grim picture of a society where people are killed, arbitrarily arrested, tortured and deprived of the basic commodities needed for survival. It reports a shockingly high number of alleged extrajudicial killings by Venezuela’s security forces against so-called criminals purportedly resisting arrest. Michele Bachelet, the U.N. human rights chief, says perceived political opponents and human rights …

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Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government on Friday proposed to invest heavily in infrastructure, digital economy and job creation to lift a slugging economy that’s burdened with a 45-year-high unemployment rate of 6.1 percent. Unveiling the budget after a major victory in national elections, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman Sitharaman proposed a bigger role for foreign direct investment in aviation, media and insurance sectors. The government set a target of a $5 trillion Indian economy by 2025 from the present $2.7 trillion. Sitharaman said the size of the economy would reach $3 trillion by March next year. She told Parliament that …

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A top Venezuelan diplomat has blasted the “biased vision” of a report by the U.N. human rights chief chronicling torture, sexual abuse and extrajudicial killings in the country, and demanded it be “corrected.” Deputy Foreign Minister William Castillo insisted the report from High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet “does not reflect the reality in our country.” He said Venezuela would heed “constructive” recommendations. Through a translator, Castillo told the U.N-backed Human Rights Council: “We demand that its contents be corrected, and we urge you to act in a balanced and respectful way.” He spoke Friday after Bachelet presented the …

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Days after gunmen, led by a top general, killed five government officials, including a regional president and the army’s chief of staff, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed planted olive seedlings at the National Palace in the capital, Addis Ababa, in their memory. Images of the symbolic tribute, distributed by the prime minister’s office and aired on state television, showed a gentle and plaintive Abiy tending to the fragile young trees, a metaphor for the role he has cast for himself in Ethiopia’s tumultuous transition to democracy. Speaking to lawmakers Monday, the 42-year-old leader, now in his sixteenth month on the …

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MAD, the long-running satirical magazine that influenced everyone from “Weird Al” Yankovic to the writers of The Simpsons, will be leaving newsstands after its August issue. Really.    The illustrated humor magazine — instantly recognizable by the gap-toothed smiling face of mascot Alfred E. Neuman — will still be available in comic shops and through mail to subscribers. But after its fall issue it will just reprint previously published material.    The only new material will come in special editions at the end of the year.    DC, the division of Warner Brothers that publishes the magazine, said MAD will pull …

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The U.S. government has imposed a travel ban on a special adviser to Malawi’s president because of corruption charges.  Malawi’s Anti-Corruption Bureau arrested Uladi Mussa in 2017, alongside a senior immigration official, on charges they fraudulently issued citizenship and passports to people from Burundi and Rwanda. Court documents show Mussa committed the offense in 2013 when he was minister of home affairs during the administration of former President Joyce Banda. Mussa has denied the charges; however, in a statement Wednesday, the U.S. State Department said it has credible information connecting Mussa to corruption. “We have laws on that, under Section …

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The U.N. human rights chief says in a new report that Venezuela’s government registered nearly 5,300 killings during security operations last year, saying the deaths stemmed from “resistance to authority.” Another 1,569 such killings were recorded in the first four to five months of 2019. The office of Michelle Bachelet decried a “shockingly high” number of extrajudicial killings during the operations.   Bachelet’s report focusing on the last 18 months follows her trip to the South American country in June, and draws on accounts from rights defenders, victims, witnesses of violations and other sources.   Bachelet also called for the …

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An earthquake rattled a large swath of Southern California and parts of Nevada on Thursday morning, making hanging lamps sway and photo frames on wall shake. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The 6.4 magnitude quake measured struck near in the Mojave Desert, about 150 miles (240 kilometers) northeast of Los Angeles, near the town of Ridgecrest, California. The United State Geological Survey initially said it measured at a 6.6 magnitude. People from Las Vegas to the Pacific Coast reported feeling a rolling motion and took to social media to report it. Local emergency agencies also took …

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