NEWS OF THE DAY
From Around the World
1 Humanitarian crises: Secretary-General Ban Ki- moon says over 80 percent of humanitarian funding requested by the United Nations is going toward life- saving needs in a growing number of conflicts, and urgent action is needed to shift from perpetual crisis management to conflict prevention and solutions. The U. N. chief calls for “far greater global leadership” to end conflicts that are driving millions of people from their homes and overwhelming humanitarian organizations. Ban’s comments come in a report Tuesday to the General Assembly on priorities for the first World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul in May.
2 Police brutality: An Egyptian court on Tuesday sentenced a policeman to eight years in prison for beating a veterinarian to death, in a case that sparked public anger over rampant police abuses. The funeral for Afifi Afifi, who was killed in the Suez Canal city of Ismailia in November, triggered protests against police violence. Police officer Mohammed Ibrahim was found guilty of beating Afifi to death and fabricating an official document. Police brutality was one of the main grievances behind the 2011 uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak.
3 Terrorism trial: A trial has started in Macedonia of 29 men charged with terrorism- related offenses in connection with a two- day shootout with police in 2015 that left 18 dead, including eight police officers. May’s shootout in the border town of Kumanovo came after a group of gunmen briefly seized control of a police station on the Macedonia-Kosovo border. The gunmen surrendered after two days of fighting which also left 42 policemen injured and damaged dozens of homes. The 29 have been charged with terrorism and participating in a terrorist organization. Seventeen are residents of Kosovo, one is from Albania and the remaining 11 are Macedonian ethnic Albanians. The fighting in ethnically mixed Kumanovo municipality was the worst since 2001, when an ethnic Albanian insurgency nearly developed into all- out civil war.
4 Mosul dam: U. S. Army Corps of Engineers say they have identified “signs of distress” at Iraq’s Mosul dam, indicating that it is at “significantly higher risk of failure” than previously understood. The assessment, made public by Iraqi lawmakers, concludes that the risk of the dam failing has increased over the past year. Studies show that over half a million people could die if the dam collapsed. Mosul Dam has suffered from structural flaws for decades, but was further destabilized when the area was overrun by the Islamic State group in 2014.
5 Party for nonsmokers: Turkey’s President Recep Tayip Erdogan hosted a reception for some 300 people who have quit smoking, including 18 people whom he has personally persuaded to give it up. Erdogan is known to persuade people to stop lighting up by taking away their cigarettes packets. Erdogan told his guests: “There can be no such freedom as the freedom to smoke.” Turkey banned indoor public smoking in 2009 and Erdogan has been leading a government drive to reduce smoking rates in the nation of heavy smokers.
6 Religious reconciliation: London’s Hampton Court Palace, from where the Tudor King Henry first threatened to break off ties with the papacy in 1530, will hold its first Roman Catholic service in nearly 500 years Tuesday, in a symbol of the growing reconciliation between the Catholic Church and the Church of England.