Mes: agosto 2019

(AP) BEIJING – A series of earthquakes collapsed houses and triggered landslides Friday in a remote mountainous part of southwestern China where damage was preventing rescues and communications were disrupted. At least 64 deaths have been reported. The quakes started with a 5.6-magnitude shock before 11:30 a.m. along the borders of Guizhou and Yunnan provinces, and another equally big quake struck shortly after noon followed by more than 60 aftershocks, Chinese and U.S. government seismologists said. Though of moderate strength, 실전바둑이게임 the quakes were shallow, which often causes more damage. Hardest hit was Yiliang County, where all but one of the deaths occurred, according to the Yunnan provincial government’s official website. Another 715 people in the county were injured, the sites said. Yiliang county’s high population density, weak building construction, and propensity for landslides were blamed for the relatively high death toll. China Central Television showed roads littered with rocks and boulders, and pillars of dust rising over hillcrests — signs of landslides. Footage showed a couple hundred people crowding into what looked like a school athletic field in Yiliang’s county seat, a sizeable city spread along a river in a valley bottom. With some roads impassable, rescuers had yet to reach some outlying villages and towns, the official Xinhua News Agency said. Though quakes in the area occur frequently, buildings in rural areas and China’s fast-growing smaller cities...

(AP) BUENOS AIRES, Argentina – Argentine prosecutors put a former president on trial for bribery on Tuesday, accusing Fernando de la Rua of bribing senators for votes. A three-judge panel already has ruled that $5 million was paid to a group of senators in exchange for their votes to remove worker protections in the year 2000, when the International Monetary Fund was making workforce flexibility a requirement for extending loans to Argentina. The law, which enabled companies to fire workers without cause or severance pay, was overturned in 2004. Now prosecutors must prove the payments were ordered by De la Rua, who served from 1999 to December 2001, when the IMF refused to extend more loans and the economy collapsed. Deadly riots followed, forcing de la Rua to flee by helicopter from the rooftop of the presidential palace. De la Rua’s co-defendants include his liaison to Congress, former parliament secretary Mario Pontaquarto, who confessed a decade ago to delivering the money on the orders of De la Rua himself. Pontaquarto said he picked up the $5 million from Argentina’s Intelligence Service, giving $4 million to one senator, Emilio Cantarero, and $1 million to another, Jose Genoud. Cantarero now suffers from Alzheimer’s disease and Genoud committed suicide, but Pontaquarto said he helped prosecutors compile solid evidence. “I’m looking for the truth to put an end to all of this,” Pontaquarto...

(AP/CBS) ISLAMABAD – A U.S. soldier held by Afghan militants will not be harmed despite the Obama administration’s decision to declare his alleged captors a terrorist group, a senior member of the Pakistan-based Haqqani network told The Associated Press on Saturday. However, the United States and NATO can expect stepped up attacks, he said. The commander, who spoke by telephone from an undisclosed location, denied that the Haqqanis held the only American prisoner of war of the Afghan conflict, Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, as the U.S. believes. He did however say that Bergdahl was a captive of another branch of the Taliban, and denied earlier reports that the 26-year-old soldier from Hailey, Idaho, was in danger. Haqqani: Terrorist designation may bring “hardships” for U.S. POW Bowe BergdahlBowe Bergdahl: Prisoner of war, politics and diplomacyU.S. designating Haqqani network a terrorist organization “I deny the remarks . . . that this will endanger the life of the American soldier,” the commander said, speaking on condition he not be identified because field commanders fear being targeted if their identities are known. “We are not cowards and we consider it as coward to harm prisoners,” he said. The U.S. says that Bergdahl has been held by the Pakistan-based Haqqanis since 2009. However, the commander suggested he was with militants on the other side of the Afghan-Pakistan border. “The American soldier is with the...