VENEZUELA CRISIS: MADURO DECLARES VICTORY AFTER BLACKOUT ENDS
CARACAS: Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro declared victory after restoring electricity in most of the Latin American nation, which has been in the grips of a blackout since last week. “Today, five days since the attack on electricity was carried out from the US using cybernetics against the electric system, I can say that victory is in our hands, the victory of restoring the Venezuelan electricity system,” Xinhua quoted Maduro as saying on Tuesday. The chief prosecutor Tarek William Saab said opposition leader Juan Guaido is being investigated for allegedly sabotaging the national power grid, whose collapse last week has inflicted misery on millions. AGENCIES
Pentagon sets limits on transgender troops
WASHINGTON: The US defence department signed a memo on Tuesday that would enforce limitations on transgender people serving in the military, a policy that has been the subject of court challenges. The policy will take effect on April 12 and will bar most transgender individuals from serving if they require hormone treatments or transition surgery. The memo will allow service secretaries to issue waivers on a case-by-case basis. President Donald Trump announced in July 2017 a ban on transgender people serving in the military. REUTERS
Malaysia shuts schools after toxins dumped in river
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia has closed 34 schools after hundreds of people fell ill when toxic waste was dumped into a river, the education minister said on Wednesday, warning the situation was getting worse. A lorry is believed to have dumped the waste in southern Johor state last week, sending toxic fumes across a wide area and causing those affected to display symptoms of poisoning such as nausea and vomiting. About 300 people, many of them children, received medical treatment.
California set to impose moratorium on executions
LOS ANGELES: Governor Gavin Newsom will impose a moratorium on Wednesday on carrying out the death penalty in California, granting a reprieve to the 737 inmates on death row - the largest such group in the US. Newsom is a Democrat who took office in January and a longstanding opponent of the death penalty, which was last carried out in California in 2006. “The death penalty is inconsistent with our bedrock values and strikes at the very heart of what it means to be a Californian,” Newsom will say, according to prepared remarks from his office.
Top cardinal gets six years jail for choirboy abuse
MELBOURNE: Disgraced Australian Cardinal George Pell was on Wednesday sentenced to six years in prison for the “brazen” sexual abuse of two choirboys, in what the judge lambasted as a “grave” abuse of power. The former Vatican number three was sentenced in a Melbourne court on five counts, including oral rape and molestation of boys in 1996-1997. Judge Peter Kidd said he was guilty of “appalling offending” and “breathtakingly arrogant” attacks that took advantage of his position.