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THE NATION WEDNESDAY, JULY 1, 2015
FOREIGN NEWS Athens seeks new deal on Greece debt
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HE Greek government has requested a new bailout deal from the eurozone, just hours before it must repay •1.6bn (£1.1bn) to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Greece is asking for a new two-year •29.1bn aid deal from a bailout mechanism for eurozone countries. Eurozone finance ministers will discuss the Greek offer in a teleconference on Tuesday evening. If it fails to make the IMF payment, Greece could risk leaving the euro. The European Commission, which is one of Greece’s creditors, wants Athens to raise taxes and cut welfare spending. No advanced economy has ever missed a payment on an IMF loan. Amid fears of a Greek default on its huge public debt of •323bn - and a possible exit from the euro long queues of people are continuing to snake from many cash machines in Greece, where withdrawals are capped at just •60 a day.
Scores dead in Indonesia plane crash
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ORE than 100 people are feared dead after a military transport plane crashed in a residential area of the Indonesian city of Medan. The Hercules C-130 plane hit two houses and a hotel before bursting into flames, creating a huge fireball. Air Force head Agus Supriatna visited the crash site and told reporters he believed there were no survivors among the 113 people on board. At least 66 bodies have been recovered so far. A major rescue operation is under way at the site which was covered in flames and thick black smoke. The BBC’s Alice Budisatrijo in Jakarta says that only the tail of the aircraft is still recognisable; the rest has been reduced to debris. Our correspondent says that there are reports that people are trapped inside wrecked buildings and the nearest hospital is continuing to receive bodies arriving from the crash site. Many of the passengers are thought to have been relatives of servicemen and women. It is too early to know exactly how many people were killed in the disaster, or what caused it, our correspondent says. Large crowds watched the emergency services search the flaming wreckage. The plane had just taken off when it ran into trouble.
“It passed overhead a few times, really low,” a witness told the Reuters news agency. “There was fire and black smoke. The third time it came by it crashed into the roof of the hotel and exploded straight away.” Mr Supriatna said that the
‘Plane crashed while it was turning right to return to the airport’ pilot had asked to return to base because of technical difficulties. “The plane crashed while it was turning right to return to the airport,’’ he said.
The Hercules transport plane was manufactured in 1964, but a military spokesman said he was convinced that it was in good condition. Correspondents say that it
is the second time in 10 years that a plane has crashed in Medan. In September 2005, a Boeing 737 came down in a crowded residential area shortly after take-off from Medan’s Polonia airport, killing 143 people including 30 on the ground.
• The tail of the huge Hercules army plane sits amid the rubble of residential Medan, in Indonesia's North Sumatra...yesterday
New Ebola case confirmed in Liberia
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IBERIA’s authorities have quarantined the area where a 17-yearold boy died of Ebola. This is the first reported case of Ebola in Liberia since it was declared free of the disease seven weeks ago. Deputy health minister Tolbert Nyenswah said tests confirmed that the teenager from Nedowein village, near the international airport, had died of the disease on 28 June. Officials are investigating how he contracted Ebola, Mr Nyenswah said. More than 11,000 people have died of the disease since December 2013, the vast majority of them in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. • Rescuers remove one of the aircraft's wheels as hundreds of others attempt to retrieve bodies from the crash site...yesterday
Islamic State ‘linked to France factory here are links between the suspect’s van. He was beheading’ into Islamic State and the knocked unconscious and
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man suspected of beheading his boss and trying to blow up a gas plant in south-east France, prosecutors say. Yassin Salhi was arrested on Friday at the Air Products factory in Saint-QuentinFallavier where he worked. He had cited a workplace dispute.
But prosecutor Francois Molins said the evidence indicated a terrorist motive, albeit influenced by personal reasons. Herve Cornara’s head was found with Islamist flags nearby. Mr Molins said Mr Cornara had been tricked into getting
then strangled. He had a long-bladed knife and a gun, the prosecutor said. About 500m (1,640ft) before he reached the plant, he decapitated his victim, and sent two photos of the remains to a friend in Syria. One was a selfie, and the other included an image of the severed head placed carefully on the torso.
Tunisia attack: Sousse killer Rezgui EIFEDDINE Rezgui, ‘trained in Libya’ the Tunisian man
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who killed 38 people at the beach resort of Sousse, is thought to have been trained in Libya, security sources say. A senior official at the Tunisian interior ministry told the Associated Press that Rezgui had been in Libya in January, the same time as two men who attacked a Tunisian museum in March. Most of the dead in Sousse were foreign tourists, including 30 Britons. The Islamic State group
(IS) has claimed the attack as its own. “The attacker trained in Libya with weapons at the same period as the Bardo [museum] attackers,” Rafik Chelli from the interior ministry told AP. IS also said it was behind the Bardo museum attack in Tunis that left 22 people dead. Mr Chelli said that Rezgui had travelled to the Libyan town of Sabratha at the same
time as the Bardo attackers. “He crossed the borders secretly,” Mr Chielli told AP. IS has a significant presence in Libya and is thought to control the major towns of Derna and Sirte. The Tunisian authorities have released photos of two suspects. The men, Bin Abdallah and Rafkhe Talari, are friends of Rezgui that the police have yet to locate. Rezgui, 23, was radicalised while studying engineering.
Russia examines 1991 recognition of Baltic independence
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HE Russian chief prosecutor’s office is to examine whether the Soviet Union acted legally when it recognised the Baltic states’ independence in 1991. The investigation was described as an “absurd provocation” by Lithuania’s Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were occupied by Soviet communist forces in 1940. The USSR broke up in 1991. Last week Russia’s chief prosecutor declared illegal the transfer of Crimea from Russia to Ukraine in 1954. At the time Russia and Ukraine were republics of the USSR, under communist leader Nikita Khrushchev. Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March 2014 was condemned internationally. Ethnic Russians there voted to rejoin Russia, in a highly controversial referendum. There are large ethnic Russian minorities in Estonia and Latvia, while Lithuania has a smaller ethnic Russian minority.