Graphitti
News collates 12 national and international highlights from late-breaking news,
upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about Sunday:
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Image from http://earthquake.usgs.gov
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1. BREAKING
NEWS: DOZENS INJURED, POWER OUTAGES AS CALIFORNIA HIT BY LARGEST QUAKE IN 25
YEARS
Dozens of people were
injured and massive power outages were reported in North Bay area of San
Francisco and around the city of Napa, after California was shaken by a 6.0
magnitude earthquake. Eyewitnesses say windows were shattered in the affected
area.
The 6.0 quake struck at
3:20 am (10:20 GMT), the US Geological Survey said. Its epicenter was 6
kilometers from American Canyon and 9 kilometers from the city of Napa, at a
depth of 10.8 kilometers from the surface.
Residents of the cities
of San Francisco, some 40 miles away, and Davis, just over 70 miles away,
quickly took to Twitter reporting feeling the quake.
2. BREAKING:
NIGERIAN DOCTORS CALL OFF STRIKE, TO RESUME WORK MONDAY
The Nigerian Medical Association [NMA] has suspended
its 65-day old strike action. The body’s President, Kayode Obembe, told
journalists the association’s delegates resolved to suspend the industrial
action in the interest of the ongoing public health issues in the country
(Ebola outbreak).
He said all Nigerian doctors are expected to report to
work on Monday.
Mr. Obembe said the delegates also resolved among
others that the Federal Government recall all suspended resident doctors
without punitive measures.
Over 16, 000 resident doctors where suspended by the
Federal Ministry of Health following a presidential directive.
3. EBOLA:
JONATHAN FAILS TO STOP RALLIES FOR OWN REELECTION DESPITE ADVISING AGAINST
LARGE GATHERINGS
President Goodluck Jonathan has turned a blind eye to
the massive political rallies being staged across the country by Transformation
Ambassador of Nigeria [TAN], a group campaigning for his reelection in next
year’s presidential election.
The President wouldn’t halt the rallies despite
personally warning against such large gatherings as part of measures for
checking the spread of the Ebola Virus Disease in Nigeria.
“Religious and political groups, spiritual healing
centres, families, associations and other bodies should, in the meantime,
discourage gatherings and activities that may unwittingly promote close contact
with infected persons or place others at risk,” Mr. Jonathan said on August 8
while declaring the control and containment of the Ebola virus in Nigeria a national
emergency.
The president’s directive came on the heels of a
similar one by the Lagos State Government, which has been working hard to stop
the deadly virus from spreading in the country.
The state Commissioner for Health, Jide Idris, had
while briefing journalists on August 6 advised churches, mosques and other
religious organisations to suspend all activities that involve large gatherings
of people until the Ebola outbreak is brought under control.
The Minister of Information, Labaran Maku, also said
at the end of the weekly Federal Executive Meeting on Wednesday, August 20,
that the Osun Osogbo festival as well as other major events in the country
should be put on hold to curtail the spread of the virus.
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TAN's maiden rally in Awka mobilizing
"Nigerians Demand..." for Goodluck Jonathan to declare for 2015
Presidency... Photo Credit: Tranformation Ambassador of Nigeria
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4. GAZA POLICE SAY
ISRAELI AIRSTRIKES COLLAPSE 7-STORY OFFICE BUILDING, DAMAGE COMMERCIAL CENTER
Israeli airstrikes
leveled a seven-floor office building and severely damaged a two-story shopping
center in the Gaza Strip early Sunday, signaling a new escalation in seven
weeks of fighting with Hamas.
The strikes in the
southern town of Rafah came just hours after Israel bombed an apartment tower
in Gaza City, collapsing the 12-story building with 44 apartments. Around 30
people were wounded in the strikes, but no one was killed, Palestinian
officials said.
The targeting of large
buildings appears to be part of a new military tactic by Israel. Over the
weekend, the army began warning Gaza residents in automated phone calls that it
would target buildings harboring "terrorist infrastructure" and that
they should stay away.
A senior military
official confirmed that Israel has a policy of striking at buildings containing
Hamas operational centers or those from which military activities are launched.
The official said each strike required prior approval from military lawyers and
is carried out only after the local population is warned.
However, he said, there
was now a widening of locations that the military can target. The official
spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not permitted to discuss the
matter with reporters.
5. ISRAELI SPY DRONE
DOWNED NEAR IRAN’S NATANZ NUCLEAR PLANT – REVOLUTIONARY GUARDS
Iran
has shot down an Israeli spy drone trying to penetrate the "nuclear
off-limits area" of the Natanz nuclear site, the Revolutionary Guards said
on their website.
"The downed aircraft was of the stealth,
radar-evasive type and it intended to penetrate the off-limit nuclear area in
Natanz... but was targeted by a ground-to-air missile before it managed to
enter the area," Reuters quotes the statement by the
Revolutionary Guards.
Iran's
forces fired a missile at the drone as it neared its uranium enrichment
facility in Natanz, more than 300 kilometers south of Tehran.
The
statement did not say when the drone was downed, nor did it elaborate on how
the Guards knew the drone was from Israel.
The
Israeli military said it did not comment on foreign reports.
The
Natanz site is generally regarded as Iran’s central facility for uranium
enrichment and is said to operate over 5,000 centrifuges. However, enrichment
has periodically been halted due to negotiations with the International Atomic
Energy Authority (IAEA) and the six world powers over Iran’s controversial
nuclear program.
The
Natanz site is now inspected daily by the IAEA as part of the agreement reached
between Iran and the six world powers in November 2013.
6. ICELAND VOLCANO HIT
WITH 2 QUAKES OVER 5 MAGNITUDE AMID AVIATION ALERT, NO SIGN OF ERUPTION
Two earthquakes measuring
over 5 in magnitude — the biggest yet — have shaken Iceland's Bardarbunga
volcano after the country issued an aviation red alert warning that an
ash-emitting eruption may be imminent.
Iceland's Meteorological
Office recorded earthquakes of 5.3 and 5.1 in the early hours of Sunday.
The volcano, underneath
Iceland's vast Vatnajokull glacier, has been rattled by thousands of small
earthquakes over the past week.
On Saturday scientists
reported a small eruption under the ice, but it was not visible on the surface.
Authorities have declared
a no-fly zone of 100 nautical miles by 140 nautical miles (185 kilometers by
260 kilometers) around the epicenter as a precaution.
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| A general view shows the Natanz uranium enrichment facility in Natanz, Iran (Reuters / Raheb Homavandi). |
7. TENSIONS FLARE,
SUBSIDE IN FERGUSON AFTER DAY OF PEACEFUL PROTESTS, SEPARATE RALLY FOR OFFICER
Tensions briefly flared
then subsided late Saturday night and early Sunday in Ferguson as nightly
protests continued two weeks after a white city police officer fatally shot an
unarmed black 18-year-old.
Police reported only a
handful of arrests, and traffic flowed freely along the West Florissant Avenue
commercial corridor near the suburban St. Louis apartment complex where
Ferguson officer Darren Wilson shot Michael Brown six times in the middle of
the street on Aug. 9.
But once again, peaceful
daytime protests gave way to angrier shouts and more defiant marchers as night
fell — including some who argued angrily with one another. But well past
midnight, there were no sign of police riot gear, tear gas or armored vehicles
that marked earlier street skirmishes in the first week after Brown's death.
Earlier Saturday, a
diverse group of protesters — many of them children — marched peacefully
alongside community activists and uniformed police as calm largely prevailed
for a fourth straight day in north St. Louis County.
"I think some of the
frustration is dying down because more information is coming out," said
Alana Ramey, 25, a St. Louis resident who joined the afternoon march. "I
think there is more action going on. People are being more organized and that
is helping."
8. BACK TO WHITE HOUSE
FOR OBAMA AFTER 2 WEEKS OF 'VACATION' ON MARTHA'S VINEYARD
President Barack Obama's
summer vacation off the Massachusetts coast is about to end.
The president was due
back at the White House late Sunday after spending two weeks with his family on
the island of Martha's Vineyard.
What a break it turned
out to be. His attempt at rest and relaxation was largely overtaken by events
involving Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria, including the videotaped
execution of an American journalist they had been holding hostage, and the
unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, following the fatal police shooting of an unarmed
black man.
Obama broke from his
vacation to deliver statements on Iraq, Missouri and journalist James Foley on
four separate occasions, including one delivered during two days he spent back
at the White House in the middle of the getaway. The unusual mid-vacation
return to Washington had been scheduled before those issues came to dominate
the news.
Still, in the midst of
daily briefings on these matters and others, telephone consultations with nine
world leaders and his other official responsibilities, Obama squeezed in nine
rounds of golf on the island he has made his summer presidential retreat while
shrugging off criticism about how he was spending the time away from
Washington.
9. CHINA'S WAR ON MUSLIM
EXTREMISTS TAKES AIM AT ORDINARY MINORITY UIGHURS' CLOTHING, BEARDS
Outside a mosque in
China's restive west, a government-appointed Muslim cleric was dodging a
foreign reporter's question about why young men of the Uighur ethnic minority
don't have beards when one such youth interrupted.
"Why don't you just
tell them the truth?" he shouted to the cleric under the nervous gaze of
several police officers who had been tailing the reporters all day in the oasis
city of Aksu. "It's because the government doesn't allow beards."
A plainclothes Uighur
policeman swiftly rebuked the young man. "Be careful what you say,"
he warned.
The tense exchange
provided a fleeting glimpse of both the extremes of China's restrictions on
minority Uighurs and the resentment that simmers beneath the surface in their
homeland. Such a mood pervades Xinjiang's south, a vast, mainly rural region
that's become a key battleground in the ruling Communist Party's struggle to
contain escalating ethnic violence that has killed at least a few hundred
people over the past 18 months.
The personal matter of facial
hair has taken on heavy political overtones in the Uighur heartland. Also
proscribed are certain types of women's headscarves, veils and
"jilbabs," loose, full-length garments worn in public. Such
restrictions are not new but their enforcement has intensified this year in the
wake of attacks Beijing has blamed on religious extremists.
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Protestors hold up letters forming "Stop
Coal" (Stop Kohle) while form a humain chain in the German-Polish border
river Neisse in Gross Gastrose on August 23, 2014. (AFP Photo / DPA / Patrick
Pleul Germany out)
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7,500 people from 27
countries have formed an 8-kilometer human chain across the German-Polish
border to protest opencast brown coal mining, which could entail the
destruction of villages in both countries.
The line was formed
between the villages of Kerkwitz in Germany, and Grabice in Poland on Saturday.
Residents of the two communities, home to some 3,000 people, fear they could be
resettled to make way for more brown coal mines as a result of investments by a
group of energy companies, including Polish giant PGE.
“Future
instead of brown coal,” some banners read while several
protesters even entered the Neisse River, which divides the two countries, as
part of the chain.
Joerg
Haas, one of the organizers of the protest, told RT that he sees the
alternative in renewable energies, which constitutes over 23 percent of
Germany’s energy mix.
“[Coal] is the form of
energy generation which is very environmentally damaging. The burning of coal
is destabilizing the climate, which causes a lot of human suffering. The
burning of coal also poisons the air with mercury and particles. Most
importantly, lignite mining is destroying entire villages, forests and a lot of
land. In Germany, we’re moving towards a system based on clean renewable
energies, and this is entirely possible,” he said.
The
leaders of Germany's opposition Green party, as well as Greenpeace, were
attending the event.
“The
age of coal is over and the era of renewables is here,”
claimed Meri Pukarinen, climate and energy unit head at Greenpeace Poland, as
quoted by PAP (Poland’s Information Agency).
“This
human chain clearly shows the growing anti-coal movement, not only in Germany
and Poland, but in the whole of Europe,” she added.
11. IN PAKISTAN'S LARGEST
CITY, BOTH POOR AND RICH THIRST FOR CLEAN WATER IN GROWING SUPPLY CRISIS
On the outskirts of the
slums of Pakistan's biggest city, protesters burning tires and throwing stones
have what sounds like a simple demand: They want water at least once a week.
But that's anything but in
Karachi, where people go days without getting water from city trucks, sometimes
forcing them to use groundwater contaminated with salt. A recent drought has
only made the problem worse. And as the city of roughly 18 million people
rapidly grows, the water shortages are only expected to get worse.
"During the last
three months they haven't supplied a single drop of water in my
neighborhood," protester Yasmeen Islam said. "It doesn't make us
happy to come on the roads to protest but we have no choice anymore."
Karachi gets most of its
water from the Indus River — about 550 million gallons per day — and another
100 million gallons from the Hub Dam that is supplied by water from neighboring
Baluchistan province. But in recent years, drought has hurt the city's supply.
Misbah Fareed, a senior
official with the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board that runs the city's water
supplies, said that only meets about half the city's needs — 1.2 billion
gallons a day.
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Protestors form a humain chain near the
German-Polish border near Gross Gastrose on August 23, 2014. (AFP Photo / DPA /
Patrick Pleul Germany out)
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12. SECRETIVE SOUTHERN
CALIFORNIA HOT-SAUCE PLANT ONCE LABELED A NUISANCE OFFERS FIRST OPEN HOUSE
A Southern California hot
sauce plant that came under fire for its spicy odors is throwing open its doors
to the public, offering a whiff of excitement and perhaps a breath of fresh air
in its relations with its neighbors.
As many as 3,000 people
are expected to visit the factory that makes Sriracha hot sauce over the
weekend in this eastern Los Angeles suburb. The factory is holding its first
open houses to kick off the chili harvest season.
During a 20-minute walk
through the 650,000-square-foot facility, visitors can watch chili grinding;
sample Sriracha-flavored ice cream, popcorn and chocolate caramels; visit the
new gift shop; and take photos with a cardboard cutout of David Tran, CEO of
plant owner Huy Fong Foods.
Tran gave an explanation
for opening the factory doors when he previously had been secretive about its
trade secrets and customized machinery.
"To prove we make
hot sauce, we don't make tear gas," Tran told the Pasadena Star-News.
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