Category Archives: headline

headline

More Tragic Jamaica Violence as 6 Yr. Old Murdered

The Westmoreland police are searching for a 15-year-old boy, who is alleged to have shot and killed a six-year-old student on a Darling Street, Savanna-la-mar home on Monday afternoon.

The police say about 3:30 p.m, the boys were inside a yard when the teen used a firearm to shoot the infant in his upper body.

Frightened relatives in the yard rushed the wounded child to the Savanna-la-mar hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

The 15-year-old boy fled the scene.

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World View: Israel-Gaza, Attack on Abortion, New Ransomware Hack, More

March 19, 2021

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Here are today’s selection of top stories from The Associated Press at this hour .

The Associated Press

The Rundown

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GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel carried out a wave of airstrikes on what it said were militant targets in Gaza, leveling a six-story building, and militants fired dozens of rockets into Israel on Tuesday. Palestinians across the region observed a…Read More

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President Joe Biden expressed support for a cease-fire between Israel and Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers in a call to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but he stopped short of demanding an immediate stop to the eight days of Israeli airstrikes…Read More

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WASHINGTON (AP) — In agreeing to hear a potentially groundbreaking abortion case, the Supreme Court has energized activists on both sides of the long-running debate who are now girding to make abortion access a major issue in next year’s midterm elec…Read More

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NEW DELHI (AP) — India’s total virus cases since the pandemic began swept past 25 million on Tuesday as the country registered more than 260,000 new cases and a record 4,329 fatalities in the past 24 hours. …Read More

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Colorado Rep. Jason Crow, a former Army Ranger who served three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, says it took time for him to stop constantly scanning his environment for threats when he returned from war 15 years ago. …Read More

OTHER TOP STORIES

JERUSALEM (AP) — A week into their fourth war, Israel and the Hamas militant group already face allegations of possible war crimes in Gaza. Israel says Hamas is using Palest…Read More

NAGURSKOYE, Russia (AP) — During the Cold War, Russia’s Nagurskoye airbase was little more than a runway, a weather station and a communications outpost in the Franz Josef L…Read More

BANGKOK (AP) — The Thai affiliate of Paris-based insurance company AXA said Tuesday it is investigating a ransomware attack by Russian-speaking cybercriminals that has affec…Read More

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia’s oldest-ever man has included eating chicken brains among his secrets to living more than 111 years. Retired cattle rancher Dexter Krug…Read More

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headline

Melbourne mother told police she feared her son before her death

A Melbourne woman who was allegedly murdered by her son had told police she did not feel safe around him.

Thomas Bednar was arrested and charged yesterday after the discovery of 78-year-old Judy Bednar's body inside her Chelsea home about 10.30am.

Homicide Squad detectives arrested the 53-year-old man near his home, which was in close proximity to his mother's house.

READ MORE: Huge blaze engulfs Melbourne home

CCTV from Ms Bednar's home has revealed tense conversations between the mother and son.

"Hello Judy, I would like to know why you lied last year to say I was crazy," Mr Bedner said in a video of one of their last altercations.

"She slams the door in my face and walks away."

https://twitter.com/LanaMurphy/status/1394556274939863041

The Chelsea woman's friends called police after she had not been seen for several days.

Mr Bednar is an only child and previously worked as a taxi driver and published a book.

A diagnosed schizophrenic, he lived alone, 750 metres from his mother.

Ms Bednar's neighbours have expressed their sadness at the loss of the Holocaust survivor.

"She was a nice lady," family friend Ilana Cohen told 9News.

"My heart breaks for what happened to her, that's terrible."

READ MORE: Australians could need vaccination passports to travel interstate, Prime Minister Scott Morrison says

9News has confirmed Ms Bednar had asked police for protection a week before her death.

She'd shared vision captured on her CCTV over concerns for her safety.

Her son refused to face a magistrate in an after hours court hearing last night.

Mr Bednar has never been in custody before and will return to court in October.

headline

Female Voters New Chilean Electorate Power

Chilean women made such a strong showing in elections to pick candidates to draft the country’s new constitution that adjustments to ensure the body was equally split between genders had to be made in favor of more men, elections body Servel said on Monday.

A total of five seats were handed to female candidates who polled lower than male counterparts in certain districts to ensure a 50-50 gender split, while seven seats were handed to men who polled lower.

The idea to ensure the body drafting the new constitution was equal in gender was originally blocked by right wing parties but eventually approved by Congress – in what rights activists said was a world first.

Analysts celebrated the moving to the fore of women in a historically conservative nation, while others lamented the fact any ceiling had been placed on victorious female candidates at all.

Alondra Carrillo Vidal, 29, a psychologist who acted as spokeswoman for the 8M women’s movement that has driven some of the largest protests against the center-right government in recent years, was picked to represent the capital Santiago’s working class southern suburbs. She said she had raised concerns at the start about a 50% cap on women which she suggested had been borne out.

“What this result shows is that our power overflows all the frameworks that try to contain it and what was presented as a democratic minimum was actually a way of maintaining the presence of men in representative spaces,” she said.

A total of 699 women stood for seats on the convention, and 674 men. The electoral body said 77 women had secured seats, and 78 men.

The requirement for gender parity forced political groups to look for competitive female candidates, Julieta Suarez-Cao, academic at the Catholic University’s Political Science Institute, told the Diario Financiero newspaper.

“This shows Chile is not a macho country, that if you find the competitive and good candidates – and there are many – people will vote for them,” she said.

Javiera Arce, a political scientist at the University of Valparaiso, told Reuters the victory of so many women underscored how they had previously been undervalued as a political force in Chile, while men had been nudged up through the ranks.

“From now on, I think men will simply have to up their game,” she said.

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Havana Displays Giant Rainbow Flags in Solidarity for Cuban LGBT Rights

Reuters

Cuba draped its health ministry with a giant rainbow flag on Monday to mark International Day against Homophobia, in a key year for LGBT+ rights as the Caribbean country decides on a new family code that could approve same-sex marriage.

Cuba, which sent gays to correctional labor camps in the early years after its 1959 leftist revolution, made considerable advances in LGBT+ rights in the 2000s and 2010s, despite the widespread persistence of machismo.

The island nation introduced the right to free sex-change operations, banned workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and started holding annual congas against homophobia – Cuba’s equivalent of gay pride.

Forced to suspend the conga this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Havana added a touch of gay pride through the giant rainbow flag instead. Authorities say they will project the flag onto two colonial castles in Old Havana at night as well.

“I never thought I would live to see the flag of the sexual diversity movement hung next to the Cuban one on such an important institution as the health ministry,” said Teresa de Jesus Fernandez, coordinator of the national network of lesbian and bisexual women, after posing for a photo with the flag.

Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel, who as a young provincial leader bucked party orthodoxy by backing an LGBT-friendly bar, wrote on Twitter on Monday the country was committed to guaranteeing all rights for all people.

People stand beside a projection to mark the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia in Havana, Cuba, May 17, 2021. REUTERS/Alexandre Meneghini
People pass in a vintage car in front of a rainbow flag hanging beside a Cuban flag at the Health Ministry building in Havana, Cuba, May 17, 2021. REUTERS/Alexandre Meneghini
People stand beside a projection to mark the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia in Havana, Cuba, May 17, 2021. REUTERS/Alexandre Meneghini

People pass in a vintage car in front of a rainbow flag hanging beside a Cuban flag at the Health Ministry building in Havana, Cuba, May 17, 2021. REUTERS/Alexandre Meneghini

Many members of the LGBT+ community say, however, they have been frustrated by a slowdown in the pace of change in recent years while a handful of other Latin American countries have moved forward with approving gay marriage.

Activists were further irked by the 2018 decision to withdraw an amendment to Cuba’s new constitution that would have opened the doorway to same-sex unions after campaigning by evangelical churches.

Authorities decided instead for the controversial issue to be determined in the update to the family code, a draft of which is slated to be unveiled at parliament’s July session, before it is eventually submitted to a referendum.

“We’ve already made it this far,” said LGBT+ activist Yasiel Valdes Girola, referring to the flag outside the health ministry. “What remains is for the new family code to recognize the legal union between two people, regardless of gender or sex, and the opportunity to build a family.”

Some LGBT+ activists complain that bringing about change in society has been complicated by the fact that grassroots campaigning outside state institutions is at best tricky in Cuba, and at worst causes run-ins with Communist authorities.

Two years ago there was a schism in the LGBT+ community when a small group of activists held an independent gay pride march, which eventually was dispersed by police. Authorities denounced it as an attempt to undermine the government.

Meanwhile, churches that oppose gay marriage have powerful platforms for spreading their message which they wielded to their advantage during the constitutional revamp, gathering signatures for a petition against the article that would have opened the door to gay marriage and railing against it at church gatherings.

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Galapagos Islands: Erosion Fells Darwin’s Arch

A famous rock formation off the Galapagos Islands known as Darwin’s Arch has collapsed.

The Ecuadoran Ministry of Environment said it was due to “natural erosion”.

“The collapse of Darwin’s Arch, the attractive natural bridge found less than a kilometre from the main area of Darwin Island, was reported,” the ministry said.

The formation, named after the English biologist Charles Darwin, is considered a top diving location.

Darwins Archimage copyrightGetty Images
The waters round the arch are considered a premier diving location

The Galapagos Islands, 563 miles (906km) west of continental Ecuador, are a Unesco World Heritage site renowned worldwide for their unique array of plants and wildlife.

The archipelago is made up of 234 islands, inlets and rocks. Four of them are home to some 30,000 people.

Tourists across the globe travel there to see the islands’ biodiversity, which inspired Darwin’s theory of evolution.

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‘A Decade’ to Vaccinate Venezuela Against Covid?

Head of country’s academy of medicine issues warning with less than 1% of population having received a dose

Workers handle a shipment of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine in Caracas, Venezuela, in March.
Workers handle a shipment of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine in Caracas, Venezuela, in March. Photograph: Manaure Quintero/Reuters
Reuters in Caracas

Venezuela’s slow rate of vaccination for Covid-19 means it could take up to 10 years for the country to be fully vaccinated, the president of the nation’s academy of medicine said on Monday.

Venezuela, with about 30 million inhabitants, has received 1.4m vaccines from China and Russia, according to its health ministry. Authorities hope to receive enough doses for about 5 million people from the World Health Organization’s Covax system.

The government has not announced how many people have received the vaccine.

Venezuela has administered at least 250,000 doses of Covid-19 vaccines, with less than 1% of the population having received a first dose, according to Reuters vaccine tracker.

Since the first Covid-19 infections were announced in March of last year, authorities have announced 215,301 cases and 2,396 deaths from Covid-19, increased by a second wave this past March.

But Dr Enrique López-Loyo, president of Venezuela’s National Academy of Medicine, said specialists from the independent institution and international studies calculate the official figure should be multiplied by eight or 10 due to the country’s low test rate.

‘They think they’ll be left to die’: pandemic shakes already fragile Venezuela

 

By the end of 2020, some 2,500 to 3,000 tests were being done each day in Venezuela, he said, comparing it with other South American countries such as Chile or Colombia, where about 30,000 to 50,000 daily tests were reported.

“No system of [quarantine] relaxation or restriction is perfect,” López-Loyo said, referring to President Nicolas Maduro’s quarantine plan that alternates between “flexible” weeks, during which it is easier to enter stores and move around, and “radical” weeks, marked by more closed businesses and more strict checkpoints.

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Flick of the switch that will cut down winter heating costs

Experts have revealed a simple flick of the switch on household fans could lead to significant savings across Australia this winter, among other tips to keep costs down.

Generally found on the side of a fan motor, the small switch reverses the direction the blades travel in, pushing all the hot air that rises down and throughout the room.

While it may seem like a small change, it's a feature that consumer group Choice says can halve your winter heating bill.

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Experts have revealed a simple flick of the switch on household fans could lead to significant savings across Australia this winter, among other tips to keep costs down. Chris Barnes from Choice told 9News that flipping the switch on your fan could cut your heating bill in half.

"We've done some tests, and we've got some heat map photos to show – it really makes a surprising difference," Chris Barnes from Choice told 9News.

With most household fans being cheap to run, the reverse mode means that heaters have to do less work to maintain at a constant temperature.

Experts have also suggested that households keep their windows and excess doors to empty rooms closed, as well as washing clothes at non-peak hour times and turning off extra fridges used during summer.

Other tools like door stops and sealing tape can be used to optimise your home temperatures during the cooler months, all of which can be brought from local hardware stores.

Experts have also suggested that households keep their windows and excess doors to empty rooms closed, as well as washing clothes at non-peak hour times and turning off extra fridges needed during summer.

"We're all going to be heating our homes to some extent, so the question is how do we mitigate that energy usage," Simon Downes from Compare the Market told 9News.

"There's an opportunity right now for consumers to have a plan in place for how they're going to use energy this winter."

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Biden expresses 'support' for Israel-Gaza ceasefire

US President Joe Biden expressed support for a ceasefire between Israel and Gaza's militant Hamas rulers in a call to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today, the eighth day of airstrikes and rocket barrages that have killed at least 200 people, most of them Palestinians in Gaza.

Mr Biden stopped short of joining the growing demands from Democrats and others for an immediate ceasefire in the fighting.

But the White House readout of the call showed increased White House concern that the fighting – including Israeli airstrikes aimed at weakening Hamas – come to an end, while still expressing support for Israel.

LIVE UPDATES: The latest on coronavirus across Australia and the world

The US leader also "encouraged Israel to make every effort to ensure the protection of innocent civilians," according to a White House readout.

As the worst Israeli-Palestinian fighting since 2014 raged, the Biden administration had previously limited its public criticisms to Hamas and declined to send a top-level envoy to the region, or press Israel publicly and directly to wind down its latest military operation in the Gaza Strip, a 10km-by-40km territory that is home to more than two million people.

Ceasefire mediation by Egypt and others have shown no sign of progress.

The US, Israel's top ally, also blocked for a third time what would have been a unanimous statement by the 15-nation UN Security Council expressing "grave concern" over the intensifying Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the loss of civilian lives.

The final US rejection killed the Security Council statement, at least for now.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki and national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the US was focusing instead on "quiet, intensive diplomacy".

The US administration's publicly tempered response comes despite calls from Security Council partners, some Democrats and others for Mr Biden' and other international leaders to wade more deeply into diplomacy to end the worst Israel-Palestinian violence in years and revive long-collapsed mediation for genuine peace there.

Speaking in Copenhagen, where he was making an unrelated tour of Nordic countries, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken ticked off other, quieter US outreach so far to try to de-escalate hostilities in the Gaza Strip and Israel and said he would be making more calls today.

"In all of these engagements we have made clear that we are prepared to lend our support and good offices to the parties should they seek a cease-fire," Mr Blinken said.

He said he welcomed efforts by the UN, Egypt and other nations working for a cease-fire.

READ MORE: Israel strikes Gaza tunnels as truce efforts remain elusive

"Any diplomatic initiative that advances that prospect is something that we'll support," he said.

"And we are again willing and ready to do that. But ultimately it is up to the parties to make clear that they want to pursue a cease-fire."

Pulling back from Middle East diplomacy to focus on other policy priorities — such as Mr Biden's emphasis on dealing with the rise of China — carries political risk for the administration.

That includes weathering any blame when violence flares as the US steps back from conflict zones in the Middle East, and Afghanistan.

But a relatively hands-off approach in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict also could spare the US years of shuttle diplomacy in support of a peace process that neither side actively supports.

At least 200 Palestinians had been killed in the strikes as of today, including 59 children and 35 women, with 1300 people wounded, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

Eight people in Israel have been killed in rocket attacks launched from Gaza, including a five-year-old boy and a soldier.

Mr Blinken also said he had asked Israel for any evidence for its claim that Hamas was operating in a Gaza office building housing The Associated Press and Al Jazeera news bureaus that was destroyed in an Israeli airstrike over the weekend.

But he said that he personally had "not seen any information provided."

Mr Blinken's comments came after UN Security Council diplomats and Muslim foreign ministers convened emergency weekend meetings to demand a stop to civilian bloodshed, as Israeli warplanes carried out the deadliest single attacks Sunday in the week of fighting.

Mr Biden's ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, told an emergency high-level meeting of the Security Council on Sunday that the US was "working tirelessly through diplomatic channels" to stop the fighting.

READ MORE: 'They absolutely are going to kill us'

She warned that the return to armed conflict would only put a negotiated two-state solution to the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict even further out of reach.

However, the US blocked moves by China, Norway and Tunisia in the Security Council for the statement by the UN's most powerful body, including a call for the cessation of hostilities.

The proposed statement called for an end to "the crisis related to Gaza" and the protection of civilians, especially children.

In Israel, Hady Amr, a deputy assistant dispatched by Mr Blinken to try to de-escalate the crisis, met with officials.

Mr Blinken himself has no announced plans to stop in the Middle East on his current trip.

Representative Adam Schiff, Democratic chairman of the House intelligence committee, urged Mr Biden on Sunday to step up pressure on both sides to end the fighting and revive talks to resolve Israel's conflicts and flashpoints with the Palestinians.

"I think the administration needs to push harder on Israel and the Palestinian Authority to stop the violence, bring about a cease-fire, end these hostilities, and get back to a process of trying to resolve this long-standing conflict," Mr Schiff, a California Democrat, told CBS's Face the Nation.

Senator Todd Young of Indiana, the senior Republican on the Foreign Relations subcommittee for the region, joined Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy, the subcommittee chairman, in asking both sides to ceasefire.

Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia separately joined 26 other Democratic senators and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent, on Sunday in urging an immediate cease-fire to prevent further civilian deaths and any further escalation of the overall conflict.

More Democratic lawmakers joined the calls today.

Mr Biden focused on civilian deaths from Hamas rockets in a call with Mr Netanyahu on Saturday, and a White House readout of the call made no mention of the US urging Israel to join in a cease-fire that regional countries were pushing.

Ms Thomas-Greenfield said US diplomats were engaging with Israel, Egypt and Qatar, along with the UN.

Mr Netanyahu told Israelis in a televised address Sunday that Israel "wants to levy a heavy price" on Hamas.

That will "take time," Mr Netanyahu said, signalling the war would rage on for now.

Representatives of Muslim nations met Sunday to demand Israel halt attacks that are killing Palestinian civilians in the crowded Gaza strip.

The announcement is likely to further imperil the prospects for the Trump administration's long-touted but yet to be announced Middle East peace plan. Palestinian officials have dismissed the US' role as an arbiter in any peace negotiations given the Trump administration's policy moves. Under President Donald Trump, the US moved its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, shuttered the Palestine Liberation Organisation office in Washington, and slashed funding to the Palestinians.

READ MORE: Sydney charity worker tells of conflict's 'heartbreaking' toll on children

At the virtual meeting of the Security Council, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that returning to the Palestinian rocket fire and Israeli airstrikes in the fourth such war between Israel and Hamas, "only perpetuates the cycles of death, destruction and despair, and pushes farther to the horizon any hopes of coexistence and peace".

Eight foreign ministers spoke at the Security Council session, reflecting the seriousness of the conflict, with almost all urging an end to the fighting.