NEWS OF THE DAY
From Around the World
No recall vote: The Venezuelan opposition’s campaign to oust President Nicolas Maduro has been thrown into disarray with elections officials’ decision to suspend a recall drive against the socialist leader a week before it was to start. With the latest actions, the government has effectively halted the plan to stage a recall effort that polls suggest Maduro would have lost by a wide margin. The ruling is particularly dramatic because it comes just days before critics of his administration were to start gathering the one-fifth of voters’ signatures needed to place the issue on the ballot. Officials cited alleged fraud in a preliminary effort to get 1 percent of voters’ signatures as justification for blocking the opposition from proceeding to the next stage of the referendum. Maduro’s critics blame him for Venezuela’s economic collapse, bare store shelves and the jailing of opposition leaders.
Train crash: Cameroon’s transport minister says at least 53 people have died Friday after a train overloaded with passengers derailed along the route that links the country’s two major cities. The derailment, which also injured at least 300 people, occurred in Eseka, about two hours from the capital, Yaounde. Rail officials say the train had been carrying 1,300 passengers instead of the usual 600. The accident comes as heavy rains have caused landslides along roads in the region.
Missing students: Felipe Flores, the former police chief of the city where 43 students went missing in 2014, was detained Friday after two years at large in a development that Mexican authorities hope could shed new light on the disappearances. Attorney General Arely Gomez said the detention “will allow the collection of key testimony to clarify the facts.” The students were taken by police in Iguala, in the state of Guerrero, and have not been heard from since. Prosecutors say they were handed over to a drug gang, killed and incinerated at a trash dump. But independent experts have cast doubt on the contention that the students’ bodies were burned, and the victims’ families continue to demand more answers.
Mars landing: Europe’s experimental Mars probe hit the right spot — but at the wrong speed — likely ending up in a fiery ball of rocket fuel when it struck the surface at high speed, scientists said Friday. Pictures taken by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show a black spot in the area where the Schiaparelli lander was meant to touch down Wednesday, the Paris-based European Space Agency said. The images end two days of speculation following the probe’s unexpected radio silence 50 seconds before the planned landing. The ESA also stressed that Schiaparelli’s mother ship will begin analyzing the Martian atmosphere in search for evidence of life.
Spy law: German lawmakers approved a bill that allows the country’s foreign intelligence agency to spy on European Union institutions and fellow EU member states. The legislation passed Friday is part of a range of measures meant to improve oversight of espionage in the wake of revelations by former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. A panel of independent judges will have to be informed when the spy agency eavesdrops on Germany’s allies. Parliament’s intelligence oversight powers will also be increased and intelligence chiefs will have to attend a public hearing before lawmakers every year. Critics say that instead of clamping down on questionable activity the law will merely legalize them.
Chronicle News Services