NEWS OF THE DAY
1_Italy politics: Sergio Mattarella, a Constitutional Court justice widely considered to be above the political fray, was elected Saturday as Italy’s president in the third day of balloting by lawmakers, and quickly established as priorities both efforts to revive his country’s moribund economy and to encourage unity in Europe’s fight against a “new season of terror.” Italian Premier Matteo Renzi pushed hard for Mattarella’s election to the largely ceremonial post.
2_Jihadi network: French authorities filed preliminary charges Saturday against five men allegedly implicated in a jihadi recruiting network based in the small southern town of Lunel from where about 20 youths went to fight in Syria and Iraq. The men were detained last week in raids.
3_Abortion: President Michelle Bachelet sent legislation to Congress on Saturday proposing to allow some abortions in Chile, a conservative nation that is among the few that ban abortion in all circumstances. The bill would allow abortions if pregnancy threatened the health of the mother or if it was caused by rape.
4_Factory fire: At least 13 people died Saturday after a fire swept through a plastic packaging factory in Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka, officials said. The fire broke out at the five-story factory in Dhaka’s Mirpur district. Thirteen bodies were recovered from the gutted building and three people were hospitalized with burn injuries.
5_Spy case: The former head of Colombia’s intelligence agency ended several years on the run and surrendered to face charges of spying on opponents of former President Alvaro Uribe. Maria del Pilar Hurtado late Friday turned herself over to authorities in Panama, where she fled in 2010. She was flown to Bogota, where she was taken to the chief prosecutor’s office for arraignment. The accusations against the spy chief threaten to further tarnish the legacy of Uribe, for years the United States’ staunchest ally in Latin America and credited with crushing leftist rebels once dominant across large swaths of the country.