DAILY NEWS IN ENGLISH
Andrew Brunson: US pastor on trial in Turkey on terror charges Evangelical Christian pastor Andrew Brunson ran a church in the Turkish city of Izmir. He faces two separate terms of 15 and 20 years in prison if convicted. A Turkish court on Monday decided to keep a US pastor in prison pending trial on terror-related charges. Andrew Brunson went on trail over alleged involvement with both the movement of Fethullah Gulen — a Muslim preacher who lives in self-imposed exile in the US who Ankara says masterminded a failed 2016 coup in Turkey — and the Kurdistan Workersʼ Party (PKK). The trial further increases tensions between Turkey and the US — two NATO allies. In the Syria conflict, the United States has backed fighters from the Kurdish Peopleʼs Protection Units (YPG); a group Turkey considers a terrorist organization, and Washington refuses to extradite Gulen, despite repeated demands by Ankara.
Russian investigative reporter dies after balcony fall Authorities have said that Maksim Borodinʼs death was likely a suicide. But both his editor and friends disagree that Borodin, who wrote about crime and corruption, was suicidial. Thirty-two-year-old Russian investigative journalist Maksim Borodin died suddenly over the weekend, his employer Novy Den confirmed on Monday. Authorities have described his death as a probable suicide, a narrative contested both by friends and Novy Den. Borodin was found underneath the balconies of his building in the city of Yekaterinburg on April 12 and died three days later without having recovered consciousness. According to the US government-funded Radio Free Europe, a policeman spokesman from Sverdlovsk Oblast said it was "unlikely that this story is of a criminal nature."
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Theresa May grilled in UK parliament over Syria airstrikes She argued the UK had to re-establish the global consensus against chemical weapons
The prime minister responded to allegations that she was "riding the coat-tails" of the United States. UK Prime Minister Theresa May defended the countryʼs recentmissile strikes in Syriato the House of Commons on Monday, despite criticism from all parties that she had not sought parliamentary approval before the strikes. "Seventy-five people, including young children, were killed in a horrific chemical attack," said May, calling the attack "a stain on our humanity." She went on to list the evidence that Syrian regime had to be behind the attack, including witness and NGO reports, as well as the fact that the military hardware required for such an attack could not have come from "Islamic State" terrorists or other Syrian rebels. May headed off criticism that she had not waited for a UN resolution –mentioning Russiaʼs inevitable veto– and that she was acting to restore the global norms against chemical attacks, not "following orders" from the United States. "It is in our national interest to prevent the further use of chemical weapons in Syria - and to uphold and defend the global consensus
that these weapons should not be used. So we have not done this because President Trump asked us to do so," she said. That did not stop opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn of the Labour Party, however, of forgetting that she was "accountable to this parliament, not the whims of the US president." He went on to castigate May for ignoring some precedents by permitting the strikes without putting the matter to a vote. Under the so-called royal prerogative, British governments are not obliged to take potential military strikes or wars to parliament for approval; however, in several recent instances governments have elected to do so — including two votes on potential military action in Syria in recent years. Calling the strikes "legally questionable," Corbyn brought up the subject of the war in Yemen, which has been described by various international groups as the "worst humanitarian crisis in the world" – challenging May on her claims that the airstrikes were a matter of moral responsibility.
Egyptʼs Nadeem Center for torture victims persists against odds Amnesty has recognized the Nadeem Centerʼs work in treating victims of torture and documenting abuse by the security forces with its 2018 human rights award. DWʼs Ruth Michaelson spoke with one of the founders. "According to the constitution, torture is a crime — but it is practiced every day," said Dr Aida Seif el Dawla (pictured above, second from left), as she sat on the sofa of her cozy Cairo apartment. "There is a total negligence of the law — ignoring the law, ignoring the constitution." Seif el Dawla is one of the founders of the Nadeem Center for Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence and Torture. She can immediately recall the number of people the center has helped with physical and psychological therapy: "4,968."
Gunmen kidnap German in Nigeria The German national was working at a construction site in northern Nigeria. Kidnapping for ransom is common in Nigeria. Five armed men kidnapped a German national and killed a policeman in northern Nigeria, police said on Monday. Gunmen on motorcycles opened fire on a vehicle carrying workers to a construction site run by construction company Dantata & Sawoe in Kano city, abducting the German national working for the firm and killing a police escort, said police spokesman Magaji Musa Majia.
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