Important Takeaways:
Read the original article by clicking here.
LONDON (Reuters) – Britain could ease stringent COVID-19 rules to allow families to gather for Christmas as signs indicate that coronavirus cases are starting to flatten as a result of current lockdowns, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said on Friday.
The United Kingdom has the worst official COVID-19 death toll in Europe and Prime Minister Boris Johnson has imposed some of the most stringent curbs in peacetime history in an attempt to halt the spread of the coronavirus.
But heading into the holiday season, the government faces a dilemma – to ease restrictions, with the risk of renewed spread of the disease and death, or to ban large get-togethers.
“It of course won’t be like a normal Christmas, there will have to be rules in place,” Hancock told Sky News.
He said he hoped that restrictions, which include a strict lockdown in England, could be eased to “allow for a bit more of that normal Christmas that people really look forward to”.
Hancock said he was working with the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – which manage their own policies on combating the pandemic – for a UK-wide approach to rules for Christmas.
The head of London’s Metropolitan Police, Cressida Dick, said that while police might try to stop wild parties, there were better uses of police time than trying to catch families out.
“Let’s see what the rules are, but I have no interest in interrupting family Christmas dinners,” she told LBC radio.
There was some sign that infection numbers were flattening. The Office for National Statistics said incidence had levelled off in recent weeks, with daily infections increasing by 38,900 in England in the latest week, down from around 50,000 previously.
The government also reduced their estimate of the reproduction “R” number, and said the daily growth rate had fallen to between 0% and 2%.
England has been under lockdown for two weeks. It is due to end on Dec. 2, although ministers have not ruled out that it could be extended.
Scotland’s biggest city Glasgow and parts of the nation’s west and central regions begin a stricter lockdown regime on Friday to last until Dec. 11, including the closure of pubs and restaurants and non-essential shops.
(Reporting by Alistair Smout, Sarah Young, Kate Holton and Michael Holden, editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Angus MacSwan)
By Anthony Esposito
TLAHUELILPAN, Mexico (Reuters) – Officials now say that at least 89 people were killed after a pipeline ruptured by suspected fuel thieves exploded in central Mexico, authorities said on Saturday, as President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador defended the army despite its failure to clear the site before the blast.
Forensic experts filled body bags with charred human remains in the field where the explosion occurred on Friday evening by the town of Tlahuelilpan in the state of Hidalgo, in one of the deadliest incidents to hit Mexico’s troubled oil infrastructure in years.
One witness described how an almost festive atmosphere among hundreds of local residents filling containers with spilled fuel turned to horror as the blast scattered the crowd in all directions, incinerating clothing and inflicting severe burns.
Forensic technicians arranges bodies at the site where a fuel pipeline ruptured by suspected oil thieves exploded, in the municipality of Tlahuelilpan, state of Hidalgo, Mexico January 19, 2019. REUTERS/Henry Romero
A number of people at the scene told Reuters that local shortages in gasoline supply since Lopez Obrador launched a drive to stamp out fuel theft had encouraged the rush to the gushing pipeline.
“Everyone came to see if they could get a bit of gasoline for their car, there isn’t any in the gas stations,” said farmer Isaias Garcia, 50. Garcia was at the site with two neighbors but waited in the car some distance away.
“Some people came out burning and screaming,” he added.
To root out the theft, Lopez Obrador in late December ordered pipelines to be closed. But that led to shortages in central Mexico, including Hidalgo, where local media this week said more than half of the gas stations were at times shut.
Hidalgo Governor Omar Fayad said 73 people were killed and 74 people injured in the explosion, which happened as residents scrambled to get buckets and drums to a gush at the pipeline that authorities said rose up to 23 feet (7 meters) high.
Fayad said the condition of many of the injured was deteriorating, and that some had burns on much of their body. Some of the most badly injured minors could be moved for medical attention in Galveston, Texas, he added.
Hidalgo Attorney General Raul Arroyo said 54 bodies were so badly burned that they could take a long time to identify.
The crackdown on fuel theft has become a litmus test of Lopez Obrador’s drive to tackle corruption in Mexico – and to stop illegal taps draining billions of dollars from the heavily-indebted state oil firm Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex).
Video on social media showed people filling buckets from the pipeline during daylight hours in the presence of the armed forces before the blast.
But Lopez Obrador, who vowed to continue the crackdown on theft, defended the army in the face of questions about why soldiers failed to prevent the tragedy.
“We’re not going to fight fire with fire,” the veteran leftist said. “We think that people are good, honest, and if we’ve reached these extremes … it’s because they were abandoned.”
In the aftermath, soldiers and other military personnel guarded the cordoned-off area that was littered with half-burned shoes, clothes and containers.
More than 100 people gathered at a local cultural center on Saturday afternoon, hoping to get information about loved ones who disappeared. Officials posted information about DNA tests for identification and a list of people taken to hospital.
A resident reacts at the site where a fuel pipeline ruptured by suspected oil thieves exploded, in the municipality of Tlahuelilpan, state of Hidalgo, Mexico January 19, 2019. REUTERS/Henry Romero
‘LIKE A PARTY’
Lopez Obrador said the army had been right to avoid a confrontation due to the large number of people seeking to make off with a trove of free fuel – a few liters of which are worth more than the daily minimum wage in Mexico.
Blaming previous governments for neglecting the population, he said the priority was to eradicate the social problems and lack of opportunities that had made people risk their lives. He rejected suggestions the incident was linked to his policy.
Still, Lopez Obrador had vowed to tighten security in sensitive sections of the oil infrastructure, and the ruptured pipeline was only a few miles away from a major oil refinery.
Pemex’s Chief Executive Octavio Romero told reporters that there had been 10 illegal fuel taps in the same municipality in the last three months alone. Neither he nor the president said exactly when the valves to the pipeline were closed.
Relatives of victims stood huddled together, some of them crying, after the massive blast. Much of the rush to siphon off fuel and the chaos of the explosion was captured on mobile phones and began quickly circulating on social media.
Mexican media published graphic pictures of victims from the blast site covered in burns and shorn of their clothes.
Local journalist Veronica Jimenez, 46, arrived at the scene before the explosion where she said there were more than 300 people with containers to collect fuel.
“I saw families: mother, father, children,” she told Reuters. “It was like a party…for a moment you could even hear how happy people were.”
When the blast hit, people ran in different directions, pleading for help, some burned and without clothing, she said.
“Some people’s skin came off…it was very ugly, horrible, people screamed and cried,” she said. “They shouted the names of their husbands, brothers, their family members.”
Grief-stricken family members blocked access to the field for over half an hour, saying they would not let funeral service vehicles pass until they were told where the dead were being taken.
Lopez Obrador has said his decision to close pipelines has greatly reduced fuel theft, but the death toll has raised questions about potentially unintended consequences.
“There was a gasoline shortage, people one way or another wanted to be able to move around,” said local farmer Ernesto Sierra, 44. “Some even came with their bean pots.”
(Reporting by Anthony Esposito and Miguel Angel Gutierrez; Writing by Dave Graham and Christine Murray; Editing by Alexander Smith and Marguerita Choy)
By Tom Hals
(Reuters) – A federal judge on Friday will consider imposing tougher rules on the U.S. government to ensure it reunites as many as 2,000 immigrant children with their parents by July 26.
In a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, U.S. Judge Dana Sabraw in San Diego ordered the government in June to reunite families that had been separated after crossing the U.S.-Mexican border. The government failed to meet a Tuesday deadline for reuniting an initial group of children under 5.
About 46 of the 103 children remain separated because of safety concerns, the deportation of their parents and other issues, according to court documents.
The government has said its efforts to reunite families were slowed by the need to conduct DNA testing and criminal background checks on parents and determine if they would provide a safe environment for the child.
That has raised questions how the government will manage with the vastly larger number of children it still must reunite, a task the judge has called a “significant undertaking.”
Late Thursday, the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed the lawsuit that led to Sabraw’s order, said it wanted the judge to impose timelines on the government for background checks and to share information sooner in the process.
The rights group said that a lack of information about where and when reunions would happen had led to potential dangers for families. In one case, the ACLU said, immigration officials reunited a mother with her 6-month-old daughter then dropped them alone at bus stop late at night.
Sabraw will consider imposing those requirements on the government at a hearing on Friday at 1 p.m. PDT (2000 GMT) in San Diego.
The government adopted its family separation policy as part of a broader effort to discourage illegal immigration earlier this year. The Trump administration buckled to intense political pressure and abandoned the policy in June.
(Reporting by Tom Hals; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
By Tabita Diela
JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesia said on Monday it was calling off a two-week operation to retrieve the bodies of nearly 200 passengers thought to have drowned in one of the world’s deepest volcanic lakes.
The overcrowded wooden ferry capsized during a storm on June 18 in Lake Toba, which is around 450 meters (1,500 feet) deep, as travelers were heading home after the Eid holiday marking the end of the Muslim fasting season.
Relatives of missing passengers of a ferry that sank at Lake Toba pray in Simalungun, North Sumatra, Indonesia July 1, 2018. Antara Foto/Sigid Kurniawan/via REUTERS
Eighteen passengers survived, three were confirmed dead and nearly 200 are missing.
The operation to find the ferry and retrieve the victims has faced numerous technical and logistical hurdles – dangerous currents and cold, murky water far deeper than any scuba diver can go – in a lake that has never been completely surveyed.
Video footage taken last week using a remotely operated underwater vehicle showed human remains, motorcycles and ropes from the ferry at a depth of 450 meters.
Rescue spokesman Muhammad Yusuf Latif confirmed that the search operation would end, adding that an official statement would likely be made on Tuesday.
“We’ve already had face-to-face discussions with the families of the victims (on) the difficulties faced in the field (and) reasons why we won’t continue; why we want to end it,” Latif said by telephone.
“They understand why we’re stopping.”
According to Muhammad Ilyas, head of the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology, the wreckage was found on Saturday, but the remotely operated underwater vehicle used to find it had also become stuck in ropes connected to the ferry.
“We have proven 100 percent” that the ferry is there, Ilyas said, adding that the submersible was later retrieved but needed to be repaired as its cable had broken.
A relative of missing passengers of a ferry that sank holds a flower before throwing it into Lake Toba in Simalungun, North Sumatra, Indonesia July 2, 2018. Antara Foto/Sigid Kurniawan/via REUTERS
Rescuers earlier said they were considering borrowing a heavier vehicle from Singapore to retrieve the victims and the vessel, but that plan was canceled as it would take more than three weeks and was “high cost”, Latif said.
Craig Chesner, a geologist from Eastern Illinois University who conducted a survey of Toba in 2012, said the ferry had sunk “in the deepest part of the entire lake”.
According to media reports, a monument will be erected by the government in memory of victims.
(For a graphic on ferry accidents, click https://tmsnrt.rs/2tJOHlq)
(Reporting by Tabita Diela; Additional reporting by Simon Scarr in SINGAPORE; Writing by Fergus Jensen; Editing by Nick Macfie)
By Roberta Rampton and Steve Holland
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump backed down on Wednesday on an immigration policy that sparked outrage at home and abroad, signing an executive order to end the separation of children from their parents when immigrant families are caught crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally.
The order requires that immigrant families be detained together when they are caught entering the country illegally, although it was not immediately clear for how long.
It also moves parents with children to the front of the line for immigration proceedings. The order does not end a “zero tolerance” policy that calls for criminal prosecution of immigrants crossing the border illegally.
“It’s about keeping families together while at the same time making sure that we have a very powerful, very strong border,” Trump said as he signed the order in a hastily arranged Oval Office gathering.
Videos of youngsters in cages and an audiotape of wailing children had sparked anger in the United States from groups ranging from clergy to influential business leaders, as well as condemnation from abroad, including Pope Francis.
Trump, a frequent viewer of cable television newscasts, had recognized the family separation issue was a growing political problem, White House sources said. First lady Melania Trump, in private conversations with the president, urged him to do something, a White House official said.
“The first lady has been making her opinion known to the president for some time now, which was that he needed to do all he could to help families stay together,” an official said.
Wednesday’s move marked a rare instance since Trump took office in January 2017 in which he has changed course on a controversial policy, rather than digging in.
Trump has made a tough stance on immigration central to his presidency. In recent days, the Republican president had insisted his hands were tied by law on the issue of family separations and had sought to blame Democrats, although it was his administration that implemented the policy of strict adherence to immigration law.
The Republican-controlled U.S. Congress is also considering legislation to address the issue. The House of Representatives planned to vote on Thursday on two bills designed to halt the practice of separating families and to address other immigration issues.
But Republicans said they were uncertain if either measure would have enough support to be approved. Trump told House Republicans on Tuesday night he would support either of the immigration bills under consideration but did not give a preference.
(Reporting by Roberta Rampton, Susan Cornwell, Amanda Becker and Mohammad Zargham; Writing by John Whitesides; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh, Bill Trott and Frances Kerry)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump, facing a blast of criticism for the detention of children separated from their immigrant parents at the U.S.-Mexico border, was slated to meet with Republican lawmakers on Tuesday ahead of votes on immigration legislation.
The family separations, documented by online videos of youngsters detained in cages, put Trump back at the center of a furor over immigration, an issue he inflamed as a presidential candidate and that he has carried into his administration.
He will travel to Capitol Hill as Democrats hurl charges of “barbaric” treatment of children and his fellow Republicans move tentatively toward legislation that would curb, if not entirely halt, the practice of separating families.
In April, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a “zero tolerance” policy in which all those apprehended entering the United States illegally would be criminally charged, which has led to children being separated from their parents.
Parents who are referred by border agents for prosecution are held in federal jails, while their children are moved into detention facilities under the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), a division of the Department of Health and Human Services.
But Democrats and some Republicans have criticized the administration for dividing nearly 2,000 children from their parents between mid-April and the end of May.
Online videos showed immigrant children being held in concrete-floored cages at detention centers.
An audio recording said to capture the sounds of immigrant children crying in a detention facility was circulating online. Reuters could not independently verify its authenticity.
A grand bargain in Congress to finally resolve deep divisions over immigration law appeared unlikely, with Trump focused on winning funding for a wall he has long wanted to build along America’s southern border with Mexico.
Trump and House Republicans, in an evening meeting, were expected to discuss two bills scheduled for votes on Thursday. Both were drafted with no input from Democrats. Republicans control the House, the Senate and the White House.
One bill would limit, but not fully prohibit family separations, fund Trump’s wall and give legal protections to young immigrants, known as “Dreamers,” who were brought to the country illegally as children. Details were still in flux.
The bill faces strong headwinds as it is opposed by Democrats, who object to another provision that would cut legal immigration levels, and conservative Republicans who are backing a rival bill that takes a harder line on immigration.
In the Senate, Republican Senator Ted Cruz, who ran unsuccessfully against Trump in 2016 for their party’s presidential nomination, said he would introduce legislation this week to halt family separations.
Cruz said his bill would build temporary shelters where immigrant families could stay together in cases where there was no threat to the children’s safety, double the number of federal immigration judges and speed handling of asylum applications.
Border crossings briefly dropped after Trump took office in January 2017, but have since risen to levels seen during the administration of his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama. Almost 52,000 people were caught trying to cross the southern border illegally in May, according to government figures.
(Corrects reference to ‘zero tolerance’ policy in paragraphs 4-5)
(Reporting by Amanda Becker, Susan Cornwell, Makini Brice and Lisa Lambert, and Reade Levinson in New York; Writing by Kevin Drawbaugh; Editing by Peter Cooney)
By Kanupriya Kapoor
SURABAYA, Indonesia (Reuters) – A family of Islamist militants in Indonesia carried an eight-year-old into a suicide bomb attack against police in Surabaya on Monday, a day after another militant family killed 13 people in suicide attacks on three churches in the same city.
The suicide bombers rode two motorbikes up to a checkpoint outside a police station and blew themselves up, police chief Tito Karnavian told a news conference in Indonesia’s second-largest city.
He said the child survived the explosion, and CCTV footage showed the girl stumbling around in the aftermath.
Four officers and six civilians were wounded in the attack, East Java police spokesman Frans Barung Mangera said.
“We hope the child will recover. We believe she was thrown 3 meters (10 ft) or so up into the air by the impact of the explosion and then fell to the ground,” said Mangera, adding she had been rushed to hospital.
President Joko Widodo branded the attacks in Surabaya the “act of cowards”, and pledged to push through a new anti-terrorism bill to combat Islamist militant networks.After some major successes tackling Islamist militancy since 2001, there has been a resurgence in recent years, including in January 2016 when four suicide bombers and gunmen attacked a shopping area in the capital, Jakarta.
Police suspected Sunday’s attacks on the churches were carried out by a cell of the Islamic State-inspired group Jemaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), an umbrella organization on a U.S. State Department terrorist list that is reckoned to have drawn hundreds Indonesian sympathizers of Islamic State.
“In the case of Surabaya, they escaped detection, but once it happened we moved fast to identify their network,” Karnavian said.
The father of the family involved in those attacks was the head of a JAD cell in the city, the police chief said.
Earlier, police said his family was among 500 Islamic State sympathizers who had returned from Syria, but the police chief said that was incorrect.
During the hunt for the cell, police shot dead four suspects and arrested nine, media reported police as saying.
The police chief said the JAD cell may have been answering a call from Islamic State in Syria to “cells throughout the world to mobilize.”
He said the imprisonment of JAD’s leader, Aman Abdurrahman, could be another motive, and cited clashes with Islamist prisoners at a high-security jail near Jakarta last week in which five counter-terrorism officers were killed.
Karnavian said the JAD attacks used a powerful home-made explosive triacetone triperoxide (TATP), known as the “mother of Satan”, and commonly used in Islamic State-inspired attacks.
In another incident in Sidoarjo, south of Surabaya, police recovered pipe bombs at an apartment where an explosion killed three members of a family alleged to have been making bombs, Karnavian said. Three children from the family survived and were taken to hospital.
In all, 31 people have died since Sunday in attacks, including 13 suspected perpetrators and 14 civilians, police said.
CHILDREN USED IN ATTACKS
CCTV footage of the blast outside the police station early on Monday morning showed two motorbikes arriving at a checkpoint next to a car followed by an explosion as officers approached.
Security experts said the attacks represented the first time in Indonesia that children had been used by militants on a suicide mission.
“The objective of using a family for terror acts is so it is not easily detected by the police,” said Indonesian security analyst Stanislaus Riyanta.
He said that families could also avoid communicating using technology that could be tracked.
Indonesia’s chief security minister said that police backed by the military would step up checks across Indonesia.
In Surabaya, police officers wearing balaclavas were posted at major hotels and landmarks on Monday.
President Widodo said he would issue a regulation in lieu of a new anti-terror law next month if parliament failed to pass the bill.
Police have complained that laws do not give them enough powers to detain suspects to prevent attacks.
Speaker of parliament Bambang Soesatyo told Metro TV that the house was committed to wrap up debate on the bill this month, but called on the government to help resolve differences.
(For a graphic on ‘Bomb Attacks in Indonesia’ click https://tmsnrt.rs/2rBtid8)
(Additional reporting by Agustinus Beo Da Costa, Fransiska Nangoy, Tabita Diela and Gayatri Suroyo; Writing by Ed Davies; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)
By Elaine Lies
TOKYO (Reuters) – The U.S. ambassador to Japan on Tuesday met the families of people abducted by North Korea decades ago to train its spies, just a week before Japan’s prime minister is expected to raise the emotive topic at a summit with U.S. President Donald Trump.
The issue is a top domestic priority for premier Shinzo Abe, whose support has been undermined by scandals over suspected cronyism and cover-ups.
But Japan worries it could take a back seat to nuclear and missile issues in a series of summits planned with North Korea.
North Korea admitted in 2002 it had kidnapped 13 Japanese in the 1970s and 1980s to train as spies, and five of them returned to Japan. Abe has said he will not rest until all 13 have come home, making the issue a keystone of his political career.
Sakie Yokota (R), mother of Megumi Yokota who was abducted by North Korea agents at age 13 in 1977, meets U.S. ambassador to Japan William Hagerty in Tokyo, Japan, April 10, 2018. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon
In an apparent nod to Japan’s concerns, U.S. Ambassador William Hagerty and his wife met abductees’ family members, such as Sakie Yokota, whose daughter Megumi was snatched from a beach as a teenager 40 years ago.
Trump, who met Yokota among other relatives of abductees when he visited Japan in November, has incorporated the story of Megumi into his attacks on Pyongyang.
“Even today, as we speak, we don’t know where they are, what life they are pursuing,” Yokota said. “We haven’t even seen one single photograph of them.
“The only thing we are asking for is to help our children who were kidnapped … captured on their way back from school, and forced upon ships and taken away to a land they did not know.”
Hagerty told them their plight had not been forgotten, pledging to convey their stories to Trump ahead of the summit.
“We’re deeply saddened by the misery these family members have endured,” he said after a meeting of roughly an hour at his residence in central Tokyo.
“I know that this issue is high on the list of priorities for both President Trump and Prime Minister Abe,” he told reporters.
Trump was the third president met by Yokota and the others. In the past, they have expressed frustration at how long their struggle has lasted, and appealed for action.
“That there has not been a result is very tough for us, who have suffered by not having any chance to meet our loved ones for such a long time,” said Shigeo Iizuka, whose sister, Yaeko Taguchi, was taken in 1978, leaving behind two infants in a creche.
“We ask for your personal contribution to tell President Trump that he must demand that North Korea give back the Japanese victims.”
(Reporting by Elaine Lies; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
By Kami Klein
On this quiet Autumn morning in Sutherland Springs, Texas, worshipers at the First Baptist Church, whose members spanned generations, were gathered together for their Sunday morning worship service. This is the kind of church that many were raised in and then brought up their own children, the kind of church where everyone was family. At approximately, 11:30 am a young man in his twenties burst through the doors and immediately began firing indiscriminately. After pausing to reload, the gunman continued to spray the church hitting men, women and children as they frantically tried to escape. The evil continued leaving 26 dead and at least 20 wounded. The victims ranging in age from 5 to 72. Because of the seriousness of the injuries, the sheriff’s office has said that the death toll could rise. Some of the church members did escape although that amount has not yet been released. Witnesses are currently being questioned.
Police were notified by a phone call when the suspect had exited his vehicle at a gas station close to the church wearing all black tactical clothing gear and a ballistic vest. The suspect began shooting at the church before entering and continued to fire. Bullets flew as he exited the building where a neighbor engaged in gunfire with the shooter. A car chase ensued, ending in a crash where the death of the suspect was confirmed. It is not known if the shooter committed suicide or was injured by the shoot out in front of the church.
The name of the suspect has not yet been released while federal, state and local authorities sift through the crime scenes.
The devastated community of Sutherland Springs located 40 miles Southeast of San Antonio with a little more than 800 residents and surrounding small Texas towns, rushed to gather at the community center just down the street from this horrible attack. These people are neighbors, family, friends and coworkers. Other area churches emptied and prayer vigils began in an attempt to give some peace and comfort for those suffering from the shock and pain of this tragedy. Answers have come slowly and has been agony for those waiting.
More information will be released after next of kin of those killed have been informed and allow family members to arrange to travel to San Antonio to those that are injured. The Texas police, Governor Abbott and the Federal authorities ask that the media respect all of those involved while they continue to search for answers.
