24 DEAD IN AZERBAIJAN DRUG REHAB CENTER FIRE

BAKU: Twenty-four people died as a result of a fire, which tore through a drug rehabilitation clinic in the Azerbaijani capital Baku early Friday, officials said. The fire happened at the Republican Narcological Center in Baku at 06:10 a.m., the General Prosecutor’s Office, the health, interior and emergencies ministries said in a joint statement. The statement said that 24 bodies have been found after the blaze tore through a one- storey wooden ward, the statement added. The statement cited a defect of the power grid as the initial cause of the blaze. Earlier Friday Azerbaijan’s APA news agency reported that at least 30 people had perished in the blaze. It said the fire broke out in a ward for bed-ridden patients. The ex-Soviet Caucasus nation has a history of large-scale casualties as a result of fires in residential buildings and elsewhere. In May 2015, 15 people—including five minors—were killed by a fire in a multi-storey building in Baku. In October 1995, 289 people died in a metro fire in Baku, in the world’s deadliest subway disaster that was caused by outdated Soviet equipment.

VENEZUELA PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION PUSHED BACK TO MAY

CARACAS: Venezuela postponed Thursday (Friday in Manila) its presidential election until May 20, as President Nicolas Maduro seeks a second six-year term despite the oil-rich country’s widespread economic woes. The chairman of the National Electoral Council (CNE), Tibisay Lucena, confirmed the new date, firming up an earlier statement from the electoral body saying the election had been pushed back from the previously scheduled date of April 22 to sometime in the second half of May. “It is proposed that the elections for president be held simultaneously” with elections for regional legislatures, it said. Maduro’s main challenger, dissident former socialist Henri Falcon, appears to have won several concessions on conditions for the elections in talks with the government, according to the contents of the CNE statement. Under the agreement, United Nations chief Antonio Guterres will be invited to send an observer mission to monitor “all phases of the process.” The government in Caracas also agreed to extend the deadline allowing Venezuelans abroad to register to vote and to ensure equal access to media and social networks during the campaign. Maduro’s leading opponents are barred from standing in the election, leading some to argue that the deeply unpopular leader is rigging the vote.