NEWS OF THE DAY
From Around the World
1 Ebola outbreak: Congo’s latest Ebola outbreak does not yet warrant being declared a global health emergency, the World Health Organization announced Friday, as health officials rushed to contain the often deadly virus that has spread to a city of more than 1 million. The vast, impoverished country now has 14 confirmed Ebola cases, with dozens of others probable or suspected. WHO officials, speaking after an experts’ meeting on the outbreak, said vaccinations are to begin on Sunday in a key test of an experimental vaccine.
2 Gaza inquiry: The U. N. Human Rights Council voted Friday to set up a commission of inquiry to look into a deadly crackdown on protesters in Gaza by Israeli forces. Meeting in a special session in Geneva, the council voted 29- 2 with 14 abstentions to back a resolution that also condemned “the disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force by the Israeli occupying forces against Palestinian civilians.” Nearly 60 people were killed and hundreds wounded by Israeli fire Monday in the deadliest day of crossborder violence since a 2014 war. Israel condemned the resolution, and the U. S. decried it as an example of a biased focus on Israel by the council. Both lamented that it didn’t mention Gaza’s Hamas rulers, whom Israel blames for the violence.
3 Reporters jailed: A Cambodian court on Friday extended the pretrial detention of two Radio Free Asia journalists who have been in prison for six months while espionage charges, which critics say are part of a crushing crackdown on independent media, are investigated. The journalists, Uon Chhin and Yeang Socheamet, were arrested in November and charged with undermining national security by supplying information to a foreign state. The government of Prime Minister Hun Sen and its allies in the judiciary have been clamping down on critics in recent months, shutting more than a dozen radio stations and dissolving the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party. Hun Sen has been in office since 1985 and has held a tight grip on power since ousting a co- prime minister in a bloody 1997 coup.
Ex- spy leaves hospital: Former Russian spy Sergei Skripal has been discharged from a British hospital more than two months after he was poisoned with a nerve agent and left fighting for his life, health officials said Friday. Russian President Vladimir Putin said the news gave him joy but used the occasion to denounce the British claim that Russia had poisoned the ex- spy with a military- grade nerve agent. Skripal, 66, and his daughter, Yulia, were found unconscious in the English city of Salisbury on March 4, and spent weeks in critical condition. Yulia, 33, recovered more quickly than her father and was discharged last month.
5 Presidential term extended: Burundi’s voters approved a new constitution that extends the presidential term to seven years from five, according to provisional figures released Friday, handing a major victory to President Pierre Nkurunziza. Nkurunziza, who beat a two- term limit under the old constitution through an electoral technicality to take a third term as president, is widely expected to run again, in 2020. Preliminary figures indicate that more than 80 percent of voters approved the change, after a campaign that critics said was undertaken in a climate of intimidation and abuse. The figures released so far were compiled by journalists and civil society observers who had fanned out at polling stations across the country.