Six In The Morning Tuesday April 28

Baltimore riots: State of emergency declared as looters ransack stores and set fire to police cars after Freddie Gray's funeral

Mr Gray died in police custody a week after being arrested

DAVID USBORNE  , ANDREW BUNCOMBE

 

BALTIMORE, NEW YORK

 

Tuesday 28 April 2015

A state of emergency has been declared for the entire city of Baltimore as whole neighbourhoods were engulfed in rioting and destruction of property, plunging one more major American metropolis into civil turmoil over allegations of persistent police abuse of minorities.

Hundreds of mostly teenage African-Americans began a frenzied rampage, throwing rocks at police lines and torching police vehicles and some buildings, just hours after leaders of the community had gathered to to bury 25-year-old Freddie Gray, who died one week being arrested by police with a severed spine.

'DO NOT GIVE THEM A REASON': MAN STANDS BETWEENS POLICE AND RIOTERS

The Governor of Maryland, Larry Hagan, said he declared the state of emergency and activated National Guard troops to try to return calm to the city as “last resort. For hours, the rioters had apparently had free run of parts of the city, ransacking shops and setting fires with little sign of a police response.

Indonesia set to execute eight foreigners as families make last visit to prison

Australian pair, four Nigerians, a Brazilian and a Filipino face a firing squad within the next 24 hours after mercy pleas for drug smugglers fail

Michael Safi

@safimichael

Tuesday 28 April 2015 07.20 BST

The distraught relatives of two Australians on death row in Indonesia had to be carried through a media pack on Tuesday as they arrived for what is expected to be their last visit to see their loved ones.

Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran are among a group of convicted drug smugglers facing execution, which also includes four Nigerians, a Brazilian, an Indonesian and a Filipino woman.

No official time has been set for when the group will face the firing squad on an island prison off the coast of Java, but a 72-hour notice period expires at midnight on Tuesday, local time.

Police on Tuesday morning used dogs to clear a path through surging media at the port of Cilacap as Chan and Sukumaran’s visibly distressed relatives arrived.

Badly decomposed bodies of 400 men, women and children discovered in Nigerian town of Damasak in suspected Boko Haram massacre

The town was liberated from the clutches of extremist militants last month

HEATHER SAUL 

 

 

Tuesday 28 April 2015

The badly decomposed bodies of hundreds of men, women and children have been discovered in the north-eastern Nigerian town of Damasak, in a massacre government officials suspect was carried out by the Islamist militant group Boko Haram.

The gruesome discovery comes weeks after military forces from Nigeria and Chad launched a successful operation to free the town from the clutches of extremist militants on 9 March. Troops found the bodies of least 70 at an apparent execution site under a bridge leading out of the town shortly after.

Babagana Mustapha, a local government spokesman for Damasak, told CNN a provincial government committee was visiting the area to assess the damage caused by Boko Haram’s insurgency when the bodies were discovered. The group overran the town in November.

Television crew 'killed by Islamic State in Libya'

Five journalists who were members of a Libyan television crew are reported to have been found dead in the country's east. "Islamic State" (IS) militants are suspected of carrying out the killings.

"Islamic State" (IS) militants have slit the throats of five journalists working for a Libyan TV station in the eastern part of the country, according to Reuters.

The news agency reported that a military official confirmed the deaths of the reporters, who had been missing since August.

They disappeared after leaving the eastern city of Tobruk, where the elected parliament meets, to travel to Benghazi.

Their journey took them through the Islamist militant stronghold of Derna.

District army commander, Faraj al-Barassi, told Reuters that militants loyal to IS were responsible for the killings.

Their bodies were discovered outside the city of Bayda, which is the temporary home of Libya's internationally-recognized government.

Life for captain in South Korea ferry disaster

April 28, 2015 - 4:57PM

Choe Sang-Hun

Seoul: The captain of the South Korean ferry that capsized a year ago, killing more than 300 people, most of them teenagers, has been sentenced to life in prison in an appeals court ruling that convicted him of murder.

The conviction of the captain, Lee Jun-seok, on murder charges marked a victory for prosecutors and victims' families, who protested a lower-court ruling last November that acquitted him of murder, citing a lack of evidence, and sentenced him to 36 years in prison on lesser charges, like violations of ship safety laws.

On Tuesday, the high court in Gwangju, a city in the country's southwest, reversed the lower-court verdict, accepting prosecutors' arguments that Lee, 70, committed "murder through willful negligence" when he and his crew abandoned his ship and passengers without taking required steps to help them.

Why Kenya became a country of marathoners, not boxers

Kenyan runners continued their winning streak at yesterday's London Marathon. The large cash prizes offered to marathon winners attract Kenya's best athletes, at the expense of other sports. 

By Josephine Opar, Contributor

NAIROBI, KENYA — When Eliud Kipchoge won the London Marathon on Sunday, the Kenyan runner took home a $50,000 cash prize – excluding time bonuses.

All the world’s major marathons offer significant cash prizes to top finishers: Boston pays $150,000, New York $130,000, and Dubai offers the largest at $200,000. Even mid-to-low tier races offer hefty prizes. And Kenya's runners are nearly always at the front of the pack. 

This was not always the case. Take boxing for example: from the 1960s to 1980s, Kenya had a formidable boxing culture that regularly produced champions that could compete – and win – in the Olympics, Commonwealth Games and world championships.