Mes: septiembre 2019

(AP) BELFAST, Northern Ireland – Queen Elizabeth II and a former Irish Republican Army commander offered each other the hand of peace Wednesday in a long-awaited encounter symbolizing Northern Ireland’s progress in achieving reconciliation after decades of violence. The monarch and Martin McGuinness met privately inside Belfast’s riverside Lyric Theatre during a cross-community arts event featuring Northern Ireland musicians, poets and artists. Media were barred from seeing their first handshake during an ice-breaker over coffee and tea. But the two shook hands again a half-hour later for the cameras’ benefit, documenting a moment that would have been inconceivable back in the days when IRA leaders were plotting to kill the British royal family. McGuinness’ Irish nationalist Sinn Fein party had never attended a royal function before. Underlying the sensitivity of the occasion, no live footage or sound was permitted to be broadcast. Outside, flak-jacketed police shut down all roads surrounding the theater and told residents to stay inside their homes. Both smiled broadly as McGuinness took the queen’s white-gloved hand and spoke to her for about 5 seconds. Afterward McGuinness said he had told her in Gaelic — a language neither of them speaks — “Slan agus beannacht” and told her this meant “goodbye and godspeed.” The latter word actually means “blessing.” The 86-year-old head of state, resplendent in a suit and broad-brimmed hat of matching apple green, didn’t...

PARIS — Paris authorities are building a permanent security belt around the Eiffel Tower. The renovations seek to protect against terror threats, BBC News reports. The company operating France’s most-visited monument said see-through panels are being set up at the north and south ends of the site. Each panel, 루비바둑이게임 made from over 6-centimeter thick armored glass, measures nearly 10 feet high and weighs 1.5 tons. In all, 450 glass panels will compose the two walls north and south of the monument.  Two graphic grids have been erected on the two other sides of the site and bollards against vehicle ramming attacks will be set up all around. French soldiers and police will keep patrolling outside and inside the area, as they have done since the deadly November 2015 attacks in the French capital.  The glass walls being installed allow visitors to admire the views from the nearby Champ-de-Mars gardens to the other side of the Seine River that cuts through Paris.  Bernard Gaudillère, president of the Société d’Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel, which runs the monument, described the new walls as “rock-solid for absolute security,” the BBC reported.  The renovation, which will also embellish the gardens beneath the tower, is part of a $350 million project announced last year to modernize the 129-year-old tower that has become the most recognized landmark in Paris. Between 6 and 7 million people...

(AP) JOHANNESBURG – Investigators on two continents are at last probing accusations a Hall of Fame tennis player was a serial pedophile, three decades after the alleged rapes. But an advocate for child abuse victims in South Africa, one of the places where tennis star Bob Hewitt is accused of preying on young girls he coached, says the sporting world has yet to face the challenge of protecting children. Also this week, South African police said they had completed an initial investigation into a rape case a South African woman filed against Hewitt in December. Police say they are awaiting guidance from prosecutors on how to proceed with a case involving allegations dating to the 1980s. Hewitt has not commented on the allegations or investigations. Luke Lamprecht, spokesman for the South African group Woman and Men Against Child Abuse, said athletes, their parents and coaches must recognize that pedophiles seek opportunities in sports, just as they do in church, school and other organizations where children can be found. Lamprecht said sport officials may shy away from acknowledging that because they think it reflects badly on them, but “they have a special responsibility in the same respect that the Catholic Church does. “They absolutely do need to acknowledge that they are a haven.” Lamprecht said he has helped church and scouting groups write rules so that adults know what to...

(AP) BELFAST, Northern Ireland – Queen Elizabeth II and a former Irish Republican Army commander offered each other the hand of peace Wednesday in a long-awaited encounter symbolizing Northern Ireland’s progress in achieving reconciliation after decades of violence. The monarch and Martin McGuinness met privately inside Belfast’s riverside Lyric Theatre during a cross-community arts event featuring Northern Ireland musicians, poets and artists. Media were barred from seeing their first handshake during an ice-breaker over coffee and tea. But the two shook hands again a half-hour later for the cameras’ benefit, documenting a moment that would have been inconceivable back in the days when IRA leaders were plotting to kill the British royal family. McGuinness’ Irish nationalist Sinn Fein party had never attended a royal function before. Underlying the sensitivity of the occasion, no live footage or sound was permitted to be broadcast. Outside, flak-jacketed police shut down all roads surrounding the theater and told residents to stay inside their homes. Both smiled broadly as McGuinness took the queen’s white-gloved hand and spoke to her for about 5 seconds. Afterward McGuinness said he had told her in Gaelic — a language neither of them speaks — “Slan agus beannacht” and told her this meant “goodbye and godspeed.” The latter word actually means “blessing.” The 86-year-old head of state, resplendent in a suit and broad-brimmed hat of matching apple green, didn’t...

(CBS/AP) LONDON – Can Britain’s government ditch the dukes, eject the earls and kick out the cronies? Prime Minister David Cameron was setting out ambitious plans Wednesday to replace Britain’s 700-year-old House of Lords, the country’s unelected upper chamber, with a smaller, mostly elected body — taking on a task that has frustrated his predecessors for decades. If passed by Parliament, Britain would strip the country’s non-elected elites of a legislative role they have held since the Middle Ages and hold its first elections to a new, 450-seat chamber — which could potentially be renamed the Senate — in May 2015. The reforms would see the remaining hereditary peers — members who inherited a place in the chamber from their nobleman forebears — removed, and impose 15-year term limits on those elected. Currently, members of the House of Lords — known as peers — are appointed for life. “We’ve been talking about it as a country for 100 years,” Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said. “I think we should just now get on with it.” Cameron and Clegg’s coalition government faces an uphill battle, however. Many members of the lower chamber – which would have to approve the reforms – are against changing the House of Lords, including many from Cameron’s own Conservative party. But the biggest challenge may be apathy. Previous governments have laid out similar, even less-ambitious...