The Star Online: World Updates
The Star Online: World Updates |
- Algerian president in France for medical tests after minor stroke
- Older Boston bombing suspect spoke of "jihad" with mother - report
- Mexico detains 108 in immigration sweep; most from Central America
| Algerian president in France for medical tests after minor stroke Posted: 27 Apr 2013 08:56 PM PDT ALGIERS (Reuters) - Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has been transferred to France for further medical tests after suffering a minor stroke on Saturday, Algeria's official news agency said.
The APS agency said late on Saturday that Bouteflika, 76, was in Paris at the recommendation of his doctors. He was hospitalised after a minor stroke, according to an earlier state press agency report that quoted the prime minister as saying his condition was "not serious." The health of Bouteflika is a central factor in the stability of the oil-exporting country of 37 million people that is emerging from a long conflict against Islamist insurgents. APS said Bouteflika had an "ischemic transitory attack," or mini-stroke, at 12:30 p.m. (1130 GMT) on Saturday. "A few hours ago, the president felt unwell and he has been hospitalised but his condition is not serious at all," Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal was quoted as saying. Elected in 1999, Bouteflika is a member of a generation of leaders who have ruled Algeria since winning independence from France in a 1954-62 war. They also defeated Islamist insurgents in the 1990s and saw off the challenge of Arab Spring protests two years ago, with Bouteflika's government defusing unrest through pay rises and free loans for young people. Bouteflika has served three terms as president and is thought unlikely to seek a fourth at an election due in 2014. Leaked U.S. diplomatic cables said in 2011 that Bouteflika had been suffering from cancer, but that it was in remission. It is unknown who might take over Africa's biggest country by land area, an OPEC oil producer that supplies a fifth of Europe's gas imports and cooperates with the West in combating Islamist militancy. More than 70 percent of Algerians are under 30. About 21 percent of young people are unemployed, the International Monetary Fund says, and many are impatient with the gerontocracy ruling a country where jobs, wages and housing are urgent concerns. Copyright © 2013 Reuters | ||
| Older Boston bombing suspect spoke of "jihad" with mother - report Posted: 27 Apr 2013 06:20 PM PDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The older suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings spoke to his mother about "jihad" in a 2011 phone call secretly recorded by Russian officials, CBS News reported on Saturday. U.S. authorities learned of the wiretapped discussion between Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of two ethnic Chechen brothers suspected of carrying out the April 15 blasts in Boston, and Zubeidat Tsarnaeva within the last few days, CBS said.
It provided no other details. CNN quoted U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder as saying that the matter was "ongoing" and that he could not comment on it. Jihad can refer to a holy war waged on behalf of Islam as a religious duty, or to a Muslim's personal struggle in devotion to the faith. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, died in a shootout with police in Watertown, Massachusetts, last week. His brother, 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, was captured and has been charged with using a weapon of mass destruction and malicious destruction of property in connection with the Boston attack, which killed three people and wounded 264. Tsarnaeva and the suspects' father told reporters on Thursday in Makhachkala, the capital of Russia's Dagestan region, that they believed their surviving son was innocent. Attention has turned to whether U.S. officials missed signs that Tamerlan Tsarnaev may have posed a security threat, including a warning from Russia that he might be an Islamic militant. The FBI interviewed him in 2011 but did not find enough cause to continue an investigation. Tamerlan Tsarnaev's name was listed on the U.S. government's highly classified central database of people it views as potential threats, sources close to the bombing investigation have said. Law enforcement authorities do not closely monitor the list, which includes about 500,000 people. (Reporting By Xavier Briand; Editing by Paul Simao) Copyright © 2013 Reuters | ||
| Mexico detains 108 in immigration sweep; most from Central America Posted: 27 Apr 2013 04:54 PM PDT MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican authorities said on Saturday they detained 108 undocumented immigrants along highways, at bus stations and on a cargo train route that thousands of Central Americans use every year to cross Mexico and enter the United States illegally. Ninety five Central Americans, mostly from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, were detained in the southern states of Oaxaca and Tabasco during sweeps by federal police in the last 24 hours, Mexico's migration institute said in a statement. Seven of the Central Americans were children, the institute said. An increasing number of Central Americans are sneaking across Mexico's largely unpoliced southern border en route to the United States. Migrants have been spurred on by rampant poverty and rising drug gang violence in their home countries. Citizens of other countries are also risking the dangerous route across southern Mexico. Eight people from India and five from Bangladesh were also detained in the southern Mexican police sweeps. President Barack Obama will travel to Mexico and Central America later this week, and his talks with leaders will likely include prospects for a sweeping reform of U.S. immigration laws and efforts to reduce the tide of undocumented immigrants. The U.S. Senate, which is controlled by Obama's Democrats, is pushing ahead on a bi-partisan bill that would bolster border security and put 11 million people living illegally in the United States on a 13-year path to citizenship. The legislation, however, faces a challenge in the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives. The number of undocumented Central Americans deported from the United States has risen in recent years. Nearly 95,000 people from the region were deported from the United States last year compared to about 78,500 in 2011, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement data. Most of the migrants were from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala where gang violence has increased in recent years. Mass detentions of Central Americans in Mexico are common, but authorities have been criticized for lax enforcement at the border. Police are accused of exploiting migrants for bribes, while local gangs regularly kidnap migrants and seek ransoms from their relatives. Another 120 Central Americans were detained in Oaxaca earlier this month. The migration institute said on April 3 it deported 66 Honduran children, most of whom were travelling with people who had been paid to take them across Mexico to the United States. (Reporting by Michael O'Boyle; Editing by Paul Simao) Copyright © 2013 Reuters |
| You are subscribed to email updates from The Star Online: World Updates To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
0 ulasan:
Catat Ulasan