Spain takes control of 'independent' Catalonia
MADRID, Oct28 ( AFP) - Spain moved Saturday to seize direct control of Catalonia, sacking its police chief a day after the Catalan regional parliament's independence declaration sent shock waves through Europe.
The firing of Josep Lluis Trapero, the highest-ranking officer of the Mossos d'Esquadra regional police, follows Friday's dismissal of Catalonia's president, his deputy, all ministers, and the entire parliament.
Moving to quash what he termed an “escalation of disobedience”, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy called December 21 elections in the region under sweeping powers granted by the Senate in response to Catalan lawmakers voting to declare an independent republic.
Th e dismissal of Trapero, seen as an ally of his region's separatist leaders, was announced in Saturday's official government gazette.
Madrid accuses Trapero of disobeying court orders to block a banned October 1 independence referendum.
Instead, the ballot was disrupted, violently in some cases, by officers from Spain's national police and Guardia Civil paramilitary forces.
All eyes this weekend will be on whether Catalonia's separatist exec- utive, led by Carles Puigdemont, will willingly step aside for caretaker envoys from Madrid.
Spain's Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria is due to meet later with secretaries of state who will likely take charge of Catalonia's regional ministries.
Tens of thousands celebrated in Barcelona and other Catalan cities after Friday's independence declaration, which analysts say the region has no legal power to execute.
But anti-secession rallies have been called for the capital, Madrid, on Saturday, and for Barcelona on Sunday.
The move to quash Catalan powers under Article 155 of the Spanish constitution is likely to anger many in a region of some 7.5 million people that enjoyed considerable autonomy, with control over education, healthcare and police.
OTTAWA, Oct28 ( AFP) - Setsuko Thurlow was 13 years old and standing only a mile away from ground zero when the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima in 1945.
More than 62 years after that horrific day, she will jointly accept the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of this year's laureate, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), an organization in which she has played a major role.
“I remember a bluish-white flash. My body was flung into the air, and I remember a sensation of floating,” she said in an interview with AFP, describing the day of the bombing.
Now 85 and living in Canada, Thurlow tells her story widely -- to school children and diplomats alike -- in order to bring attention to the horrors of nuclear war in the hope of stemming nuclear proliferation.
She has been a leading figure in ICAN since its launch in 2007 and played a pivotal role in the UN negotiations that led to a treaty outlawing nuclear weapons in July, the group said in a statement.
Myanmar detains Turkish media reporters for flying drone over capital
had only been operating for six weeks when the ferocious fire broke out on Thursday, killing nearly half of the company's employees and injuring 45 others in one of Indonesia's worst industrial accidents in recent memory.
Factory owner Indra Liyono was named a suspect by police along with the company's operational director Andri Hartanto and welding equipment operator Subarna Ega.
The trio could face a maximum of five years in prison and a Rp 500 million ($37,000) fine for workplace negligence resulting in death.
Bid to expand Antarctic marine protection area fails - conservationist
S Y D N E Y, Oct 28 ( REUTERS) - A proposal to expand the world's largest marine conservation park in Antarctica by linking it with smaller ones failed at a meeting as Russian and Chinese delegates did not endorse it, a conservationist attending the session said on Saturday.
The plan was proposed at a meeting in Hobart, Australia, on Friday of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, which last year created the Ross Sea Marine Protected Area.
Twenty-four countries and the European Union agreed to protect 1.55 million square km of ocean from commercial fishing for 35 years in the Ross Sea.
The giant marine park becomes active on Dec. 1.
Canada pauses military assistance to Iraqi troops