NEWS OF THE DAY
_1 Climate talks: Negotiators at a U.N. climate summit in Katowice, Poland, rested Sunday after the first week of talks ended on a sour note the previous day when the U.S. sided with Russia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait in blocking endorsement of a key scientific report on global warming. Scientists expressed frustration Sunday at diplomats’ inability to welcome the recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change laying out the consequences of a 1.5 Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) rise in average global temperatures. A leading author of the study, Valerie Masson-Delmotte, asked in a tweet Sunday: “What is so disturbing in our (report) that four governments cannot even ‘welcome’ its findings?” Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists said high-level talks this week will probably see “more contentious discussions like we saw last night.”
_2 Bolivia manhunt: Jorge Roca Suarez, one of South America’s leading drug traffickers in the 1980s who served 28 years in prison in the United States before returning to Bolivia this year, has fled a medical clinic where he was receiving treatment. Police said a search was under way Sunday to find Roca Suarez, who had been arrested when he returned to Bolivia in April. A judge gave a 10-day pass to the 67-year-old to seek treatment at the clinic, and he fled the facility Thursday night. A video posted by the Santa Cruz newspaper El Deber purportedly showed Roca Suarez eating in a market in the town of San Ana de Yacuma, about 430 miles north of La Paz.
_3 Iran attack: Four suspects have been arrested in a suicide car bombing last week in southeastern Sistan and Balouchestan Province, Iran’s semiofficial Fars news agency reported. Ali Movahedirad, provincial prosecutor, said the suspects were arrested in various cities in connection with Thursday’s attack in the city of Chabahar. A suicide car bomber struck a police headquarters, killing at least two officers and wounding 42 people. The Sunni jihadist group Ansar al-Furqan claimed responsibility.
_4 Brazil bank heists: The death toll in attempted bank robberies in northeastern Brazil has risen to 14, authorities said. Military police said the heavily armed group of assailants took hostages who were traveling on a highway early Friday leading to the city of Milagres. The group was planning to take the hostages to two banks when they came under police fire and a shootout ensued. Eight suspected robbers and six hostages between the ages of 13 and 60 were killed, police said. Lielson Macedo Landim, the mayor of Milagres, said the hostages were executed by the criminal group and not killed by police fire. Public Security Minister Raul Jungmann called the incident a tragedy.
_5 Kashmir violence: Indian troops killed three suspected rebels on the outskirts of Kashmir’s main city of Srinagar during a nearly 18-hour-long gunbattle, officials said Sunday. Two police officials and a soldier were wounded, said Indian paramilitary spokesman Sanjay Sharma. Indian troops had laid a siege around a neighborhood on Saturday on a tip that militants were hiding there, Sharma said. The fighting sparked protests against India as residents tried to march to the site of the battle in solidarity with rebels. Residents said government forces blasted at least five houses with explosives during the fighting, a common tactic employed by Indian troops. Kashmir is divided between rivals India and Pakistan, and both claim the territory in its entirety. Most Kashmiris support rebel demands that the territory be united either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country.
Chronicle News Services