NEWS OF THE DAY
1 Suspect killed: Israeli security forces in an early morning raid on Tuesday shot and killed a Palestinian suspected of being behind the killing of a West Bank settler last month, Israeli and Palestinian officials said. Israel’s Shin Bet security service said the joint operation with the military surrounded Ahmad Jarrar’s home in the northern West Bank. When Jarrar emerged with weapons and explosives, they shot him dead. In January, Rabbi Raziel Shevah, 35, was killed in a drive-by shooting near his home in the unauthorized settlement outpost near the West Bank city of Nablus. Since then, the Israeli military has been conducting a large manhunt in the area of Jarrar’s hometown of Jenin.
2 Dinosaur discovery: A skeleton has been unearthed in Egypt’s Western Desert, whose ancient sands have long helped preserve remains, but unlike most finds this one isn’t a mummy — it’s a dinosaur. Researchers from Mansoura University in the country’s Nile Delta discovered the new species of long-necked herbivore, which is around the size of a city bus. Experts say the find is a landmark one that could shed light on a particularly obscure period of history for the African continent, roughly the 30 million years before dinosaurs went extinct, between 70 and 80 million years ago.
3 Taiwan quake: A magnitude-6.4 earthquake struck Tuesday near the coast of Taiwan, killing four people and leaving 145 missing, officials said. The ground floor of the Marshal Hotel in Hualien county caved in, causing the death of one employee. Another person died in a residential building, the national fire and rescue service reported. With aftershocks continuing, shell-shocked residents were being directed to shelters, including a newly built baseball stadium, where beds and hot food were provided.
4 Assange warrant: A British judge on Tuesday upheld a British arrest warrant for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, leaving him still a wanted man in the country where he has spent more than five years inside the Ecuadoran Embassy. Judge Emma Arbuthnot rejected a call from Assange’s lawyers for the warrant to be revoked because he is no longer wanted for questioning in Sweden over alleged sex crimes. It was issued in 2012 for jumping bail. Assange, 46, has been holed up in Ecuador’s embassy in London since he took refuge there in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden. Swedish prosecutors at the time were investigating allegations of sexual assault and rape made by two women in 2010. Swedish prosecutors dropped the case last year, saying there was no prospect of bringing Assange to Sweden in the foreseeable future. But Assange was still subject for breaching his bail.
5 Maldives crisis: Three Maldives Supreme Court justices on Tuesday annulled their own order to free a group of imprisoned opposition politicians after two of the court’s justices were arrested amid a political crisis in the Indian Ocean archipelago nation. The new ruling came as President Yameen Abdul Gayoom moved to assert his power over the court, declaring a state of emergency and ordering security forces to raid the court compound where the justices were arrested. Political turmoil has swept the Maldives since the surprise court ruling last week ordering the release of the opposition leaders, including many of Yameen’s main political rivals. Yameen has rolled back a series of democratic reforms during his five years in office.
Chronicle News Services