SS Sagaing: WW2 shipwreck refloated by Sri Lanka navy
A British passenger ship that sank after it was bombed in a Japanese air strike in World War Two has been raised off the Sri Lanka coast after 75 years.
The SS Sagaing, whose passengers and cargo were largely saved back in 1942, has been refloated with the help of a team of divers from Sri Lanka's navy.
It had been resting about 35ft (10.7m) under the water at Trincomalee harbour.
The salvage operation took several months and was carried out by Sri Lanka's Eastern Naval Command unit.
It required the strengthening of the 452ft long vessel's main structural framework, which began on 11 September 2017, Sri Lanka's navy said in a statement on Saturday.
'Dialogue of the deaf'? Iran deal talks persist as Trump looks poised to kill it
None of Trump’s serial deadlines is likely to be more consequential than the one looming on 12 May. That is the day on which he must sign a presidential waiver on sanctions on Iran, or violate a landmark multilateral agreement on the future of Iran’s nuclear programme signed in 2015 with European allies, the UK, France and Germany, Russia, China and Iran itself. Trump has threatened to keep his signing pen in his pocket.
The dramatic tension over what he will decide is fast diminishing. The greatest uncertainty now is over how rapidly it will be followed by a slide towards a new conflict in the Middle East.
Deal struck between rebels, Russia to evacuate wounded from Douma
Negotiators in the last rebel-held bastion in Syria's eastern Ghouta reached a deal on Saturday with the Russian side to evacuate the wounded from Douma to rebel-held northern Syria, local sources familiar with the deal said.
The agreement was reached by the negotiating committee that comprises both civic leaders and representatives of Jaish al-Islam, the rebel faction in control of Douma, the sources said.
The committee has been negotiating a deal to spare the city a military assault by the Syrian army and its allies who encircle it. They have threatened to storm the city if rebels do not agree to surrender the last patch in the enclave in return for safe passage to insurgent-held territory in northwestern Syria.
Firing at RefugeesEU Money Helped Fortify Turkey's Border
Turkey has barricaded its border to Syria with the help of funding from the European Union. There are few options left for Syrians trying to flee the brutal war in their home country and those who do risk death.
When the Turkish soldiers opened fire, Ibrahim Khaled took his mother's hand and ran. He recalls hearing the rattling of the machine guns and the screams of refugees who had been hit by bullets. "I thought if I stopped running now, I would be shot or arrested," he says.
In their efforts to flee to Turkey from Syria, Khaled and his mother walked for hours in the direction the smugglers had told them to go. He says they walked, lost, through olive groves before reaching a Turkish village at dawn. Of the 60 refugees with whom Khaled had set out from the camp near the city of Darkush in the province of Idlib, in northwestern Syria, only a few made it over the border. The others, Khaled suspects, are either dead or back in Syria. "We were lucky," he says.
College student who had distressing behavior, rifles will be deported for visa violation
Updated 0454 GMT (1254 HKT) April 1, 2018
A Chinese college student who made no threats but had alarmed a roommate and a friend with his behavior and bought two semiautomatic rifles will be deported for an unrelated visa issue, University of Central Florida police said Thursday.
Police at the Orlando school said they were first alerted by a campus official in late January that Wenliang Sun, 26, was a "student of concern," UCF police Chief Richard Beary said.
Campus police received information that Sun had altered his appearance and his behavior was changing, the chief said. They contacted the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and were told Sun owned an AR-15-style rifle and ammunition.
April 1 2018
FOR OVER 14 YEARS, Libyan citizen Omar Khalifa Mohammed Abu Bakr was imprisoned without due process by the U.S. at Guantánamo Bay. He was never charged with, let alone convicted of, any crimes. After suffering years of torture and mistreatment, Khalifa was released to Senegal in 2016.
His release was the by-product of a deal negotiated by his attorneys with the U.S. government. Khalifa’s lawyer, CUNY School of Law professor Ramzi Kassem, told the Intercept that the agreement expressly guaranteed that the Libyan would have the right to permanently settle in Senegal and rebuild his life there, rather than be returned to war-torn Libya. In addition to the deteriorating security situation in his home country, Khalifa’s status as a former Guantánamo detainee as well as his tribal background meant that being sent back to his country of origin would mean an almost certain death sentence.
No comments:
Post a Comment