NEWS OF THE DAY
_1 “Dirty war” case: Chile’s Supreme Court sentenced Tuesday 24 former police agents to prison from four to 13 years for the disappearance of a man who was arrested during the “dirty war” crackdown on leftists under dictator Augusto Pinochet. The ruling says Jorge Arturo Grez Aburto was detained in 1974 and was tortured before vanishing, presumably killed. Chile’s government estimates 3,095 people were killed during Pinochet’s dictatorship from 1973 to 1990, including about 1,200 who were forcibly disappeared.
_2 Migrants rescued: Malta on Tuesday agreed to let a private rescue ship dock on the island, with the 141 migrants it is carrying to be distributed among five fellow European Union nations in what was described as a “responsibilitysharing exercise.” The migrants were plucked to safety by the aid boat Aquarius in two separate operations in the Mediterranean Sea off Libya on Friday. The migrants will be distributed among France, Germany, Luxembourg, Portugal and Spain. Arrivals into Europe of migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea from North Africa numbered just over 61,500 through Aug. 12, with 1,524 deaths reported, the U.N. migration agency said Tuesday.
_3 Fatal crash: At least 24 people were killed and another 19 injured when a bus careened into another vehicle at high speed and overturned on a highway near Ecuador’s capital Tuesday, officials reported. The Colombian registered bus was traveling to Quito when it hit a smaller vehicle in an area known as dead man’s curve at about 3 a.m., Ecuadoran authorities said. Police were still investigating the causes of the earlier crash, but some eyewitnesses told local media that the bus carrying members of the Sur Oscura fan club that accompanies Barcelona to all its away games was seen trying to overtake other vehicles shortly before the crash.
_4 Ebola spreads: Congo’s latest deadly Ebola outbreak has spread into a neighboring province, the health ministry said Tuesday, as health workers began using an experimental treatment for the disease. Health officials are hoping the mAb114 therapy, isolated from a survivor of an Ebola outbreak in 1995, will be effective in this outbreak that so far has 30 confirmed cases including 14 deaths. The outbreak spread from North Kivu province into neighboring Ituri province in Congo’s turbulent northeast when a man who had been treated for heart problems in Mangina, where the outbreak was declared Aug. 1, returned home, the health ministry said. He has since died and tests confirmed he had Ebola.
_5 Crimea recognition: President Trump objects to an effort by Congress to prevent his administration from recognizing Crimea as part of Russia. Crimea is a region in Ukraine that has been occupied by Russia for several years, with the Russian Federation having claimed to have annexed the region in March 2014. Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed the territorial matter is settled, but many in Washington disagree. Language in the fiscal 2019 defense authorization, which Trump signed in to law Monday, purported to impose a funding blockade on the Pentagon acting on recognition of Crimea as part of Russia. Trump issued a signing statement this week saying that his administration wouldn’t be bound by the will of Congress on provisions that he believed interfered with executive branch powers — including decisions about the territorial integrity of Ukraine.
Chronicle News Services