Section:GDN 1N PaGe:26 Edition Date:190808 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 7/8/2019 20:42 cYanmaGentaYellowbl
- The Guardian Thursday 8 August 2019
(^26) World In brief
US
Sex traffi cking victim
who killed man is freed
Afghanistan
Taliban bomb attack
fuels withdrawal fears
Sweden
Indigenous skulls
returned for reburial
Syria
Turkey and US reach
agreement on safe zone
A woman who said she was a
16-year-old sex-traffi cking victim
when she killed a man in 2004 and
whose case has been championed
by celebrities including Kim
Kardashian West has been released.
Cyntoia Brown was serving a
life sentence for killing the man
after being allegedly forced into
prostitution. She was granted
clemency in January by Tennessee’s
outgoing governor. Now 31, Brown
will remain on parole for 10 years.
She released a statement saying she
wants to help other women suff ering
sexual abuse and exploitation.
The US supreme court has
ruled against life-without-parole
sentences for juveniles. But the state
of Tennessee argued successfully in
lower courts that Brown’s sentence
was not in violation of federal law
because she would be eligible for
parole after serving at least 51 years.
Brown plans to have a book
published in mid-October and a
documentary about her is set to be
released this year.
Guardian staff and agencies
A Taliban car bomb aimed at Afghan
security forces ripped through a
minority Shia district in western
Kabul yesterday, killing 14 people
and wounding 145, including
many women and children. The
extremist group and the US had just
reported progress towards ending
Afghanistan’s near-18-year war.
The attack has raised fears
about what will happen once the
estimated 20,000 US and Nato
troops in the country leave.
The car blew up at a security
checkpoint outside police
headquarters. The Taliban said they
had targeted a recruitment centre
for security forces. Ninety-two of
the wounded were civilians, the
deputy interior minister, Khoshal
Sadat, told reporters. Four police
offi cers were also killed.
The Taliban have said the attacks
will continue as long as US and Nato
forces remain. AP Kabul
The skulls of 25 Sami people are
to be reburied in the northern
Swedish graveyard from where they
were exhumed in the 1950s, in a
ceremony acknowledging historic
injustices suff ered by the country’s
indigenous community.
The so-called repatriation
ceremony, which will take place
on 9 August, Sweden’s indigenous
people’s day, will involve returning
the remains to an ancient Sami
burial ground in Lycksele in Lapland
from the Swedish history museum
in Stockholm, where they were
taken for research.
The remains of indigenous Sami
people, whose homeland covers
large parts of northern Sweden,
Norway, Finland and Russia, were
routinely collected in Sweden
through barter, excavations and
grave robberies throughout the 19th
and early 20th centuries.
Jon Henley
Turkey and the US appear to be
edging closer to setting up a safe
zone in north-eastern Syria, saying
yesterday that they had agreed to set
up a joint operations centre.
The vague announcement , after
three days of Turkish-US talks in
Ankara, appears to avert a possible
new Turkish incursion into Syria.
Turkey wants joint control with
the US of a 19-to-25-mile- deep
zone within Syria, running east of
the Euphrates river to the border
with Iraq. It wants the region to be
cleared of Syrian Kurdish forces and
has previously threatened to launch
a new operation in Syria if a safe
zone is not established.
A joint statement by Turkey’s
defence ministry and the US
embassy in Turkey said they had
agreed on rapid implementation
of measures addressing Turkey’s
security concerns, although it
did not say if the region would be
cleared of Kurdish fi ghters.
No detail was provided on the
safe zone, but the aim was to make
the area a “corridor of peace” and
measures would be taken to help
displaced Syrians return. AP Beirut
Legal warning Lawyers in Hong Kong yesterday protesting
against what they say are political prosecutions. Some wore
masks at the rally, which comes in the ninth week of action over
lost freedoms. About 600 people have been arrested in what is
seen as the biggest crisis since Britain handed back the territory.
PHOTOGRAPH:
KIN CHEUNG/AP
Burundi’s malaria crisis
infects 6m – but still no
emergency declared
Peter Beaumont
A serious outbreak of malaria in
Burundi has reached epidemic propor-
tions, killing almost as many people as
the Ebola crisis in the nearby Demo-
cratic Republic of the Congo.
The outbreak in the tiny Great Lakes
country has infected almost half the
total population, killing about 1,800
people since the beginning of the year.
According to figures gathered
by the World Health Organisation,
almost 6m cases have been recorded
since January to the end of July, with
infections reaching crisis levels in May.
The figures look on course to
outstrip the epidemic of 2017, when
more than 6 million cases were
recorded for the whole of the year.
The situation has continued to
worsen as the government of Burundi
has refused to declare an emergency.
The scale of the outbreak was
described in the latest report for the
UN’s offi ce for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Aff airs , which warned
that the outbreak had reached
“epidemic” proportions.
“The national malaria outbreak
response plan, which is currently
being validated, has highlighted a
lack of human, logistical and fi nancial
resources for effective response,”
reported the organisation. The organ-
isation and other experts have blamed
a coincidence of issues for the crisis,
including low use of preventive
measures and a vulnerable population
with low levels of resistance. Experts
have also noted an increase in drug
resistant strains of the disease.
The climate crisis has been cited as
a factor. Mosquitoes, which spread the
disease, are reaching higher altitudes.
Agricultural policies have encouraged
more rice production, with farmers
using mosquito-infested areas.
While Burundi has long struggled
with malaria, the latest fi gures suggest
cases running more than 90% higher
than the equivalent period last year.
Although Burundi declared a
national health emergency in 2017,
after 1.8 million cases and 700 deaths
were recorded, it has declined to call
one this time, apparently concerned
about the potential impact ahead of
elections expected next year.
Leading conductor settles lawsuit
over sexual misconduct claims
Ben Beaumont-Thomas
The New York Metropolitan Opera
has settled a breach of contract
and defamation claim by its former
conductor James Levine, who
has denied accusations of sexual
misconduct.
Levine’s lawyer, Edward JM Little,
confi rmed the settlement to the New
York Times , but its terms, including
any fi nancial settlement, were not
revealed.
Levine, the company’s music
director between 1976 and 2016 and
for a time one of the most esteemed
conductors in north America, was
suspended in December 2017 and
dismissed three months later after
sexual assault allegations. The Met
said it had found “credible evidence
that Mr Levine had engaged in sexually
abusive and harassing conduct ”.
Before his suspension, four men
accused Levine of molesting them,
three saying they were under 18 at the
time. Levine’s lawyers said the Met’s
investigation was “nothing more than
a pretext to suspend, fi re and defame
him”. No criminal proceedings have
been brought.
Levine sued the Met for defamation
and breach of contract, saying he was
due $5.8m (£4.8m) over the remainder
of his 10-year contract as music
director emeritus. The Met counter-
sued, citing allegations of sexual abuse
from unnamed accusers.
The bulk of the defamation claims
were thrown out by a judge in March.
Italy
Salvini hits the beach
in pre-election tour
Matteo Salvini is taking his
campaign to Italy’s beaches as
the far-right leader seeks to whip
up more support before widely
anticipated new elections.
Salvini, the deputy prime
minister and interior minister,
began a two-week trip across coastal
regions to woo voters yesterday. At
his favourite haunt, Papeete Beach
resort in Milano Marittim a, he posed
for photos (right), drank cocktails,
ogled dancers and did a spot of
DJing. Angela Giuff rida Rome
1,800
Number of people killed by malaria
in Burundi this year. Half of the
12m population have been infected
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