Britain to respond if Russia is behind ex-spy’s collapse
SALISBURY, England — Britain’s counterterrorism police took over an investigation Tuesday into the mysterious collapse of a former spy and his daughter, now fighting for their lives. The government pledged a “robust” response if suspicions of Russian state involvement are proven.
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said he wasn’t yet accusing anyone of harming Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia. The two Russians collapsed Sunday on a bench in southern England after coming into contact with an unknown substance.
But he stressed that Britain would act — and possibly limit its participation in the upcoming soccer World Cup in Russia— if Moscow’s hand is shown.
Russia denied suggestions of involvement in Mr. Skripal’s collapse.
Bolivian ex-president
FORTLAUDERDALE, Fla. — A former president of Bolivia and his one-time defense minister went on trial Tuesday in connection with a lawsuit filed by family members who they say their relatives were indiscriminately shot by the military in a heavy-handed attempt to quell civil unrest in 2003.
The federal case against former President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, and his former defense minister, Jose Carlos Sanchez Berzain, has been pending since 2007. It was brought by families of eight people shot and killed under the Torture Victim Protection Act, which authorizes lawsuits in the U.S. for extrajudicial killings in foreign countries.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages from the two men, who have lived in the U.S. since fleeing Bolivia in 2003. Leftist Evo Morales, who was behind many of those protests by indigenous Aymara Bolivians like himself, became president later that year and remains so today.
An estimated 50 people were killed in the confrontations between the Bolivian military and protesters or civilians in September and October 2003.
Japanese volcano erupts
A column of volcanic ash spewed skyward and blanketed a city in southern Japan on Tuesday, grounding flights at a nearby airport as the ash reached a height of 7,500 feet in Mount Shinmoedake’s most violent eruption since 2011.
The volcano billowed smoke and ash from smaller eruptions last week, local media reported, but the new series of eruptions on the country’s southern island of Kyushu was a significant increase of potentially dangerous activity, Japan’s Meteorological Agency said.
The smoke forced the Kagoshima Airport to cancel all flights after 3 p.m. local time, an airport announcement read. The airport is about a 20-mile drive from the base of the volcano and operates about 80 flights per day.
Also in the world ...
The Northern Ireland party that props up the government of British Prime Minister Theresa May insists that European Union proposals to avoid a hard border in Ireland after Brexit are “not acceptable.”