30 2GM Friday July 31 2020 | the times
Wo r l d
Salvini loses immunity
in migrant ship cases
Italy The senate has voted to lift
Matteo Salvini’s immunity from
prosecution, clearing the way for
kidnap charges against the
former interior minister for
refusing to allow 164 migrants to
leave a ship in Sicily in August
last year. During his 14 months in
office the leader of the right-wing
League party denied ships
carrying rescued migrants access
to Italian ports. Migrants were
stuck at sea until other countries
could find a willing port or the
courts intervened. In the latest
case Mr Salvini refused access to
the aid ship Open Arms, which
stayed at sea for three weeks until
it was allowed to dock on the
Italian island of Lampedusa. (AP)Farmers protest about
water sent to America
Mexico Demonstrators in the
north burnt vehicles, blocked
railways and set a government
office alight to protest against
water payments to the US. Mexico
is behind on the amount of water
it must send from its dams under
a treaty. Farmers in Chihuahua
state want the water for their
crops. President López Obrador
said there was enough to satisfy
the treaty and local farms. (AP)Taiwan’s first popularly
elected president dies
Taiwan Lee Teng-hui, Taiwan’s
first popularly elected president,
died in Taipei yesterday at the
age of 97. He had been suffering
infections, cardiac problems and
organ failure since being taken to
hospital in February. He served
as president from 1988 to 2000
and brought direct elections to
the self-governed island despite
missile launches and other
sabre-rattling by China. (AP)Nine years in Russian
jail for former Marine
Russia A former US Marine has
been sentenced to nine years in
jail for endangering the lives of
two police officers. Trevor Reed,
29, said he did not remember the
events in Moscow last summer
because he was drunk, but denied
the charge after hearing what he
said was flimsy evidence. The
conviction is likely to spur media
speculation that he could become
part of a prisoner swap. (Reuters)Gorilla’s killer is sent
to prison for 11 years
Uganda A man who killed a
much loved mountain gorilla in
Bwindi Impenetrable National
Park in Uganda has been jailed
for 11 years for wildlife offences.
The male gorilla, named Rafiki,
appeared to have been killed with
a spear. The man was arrested
last month in possession of
hunting equipment, including a
spear. He said that he had killed
the gorilla in self-defence. (AP)Ohio Speaker is ousted
over $60m bribe claim
United States The Ohio House of
Representatives ousted its
Republican Speaker yesterday
after he was arrested in an
alleged $60 million bribery
scheme. Larry Householder and
four associates are accused of
secretly accepting corporate
funds for personal and political
use in exchange for easing the
passage of a bill to bail out two
FirstEnergy nuclear plants. (AP)Cities across the Middle East are
enduring their highest temperatures on
record as a heatwave strikes the region,
raising concerns that global warming
will threaten the sustainability of
already troubled countries.
The worst affected is Iraq, already
suffering from insurgency, sectarian
divisions and economic decline
brought about by widespread
corruption.
Baghdad recorded its highest and
second highest temperatures this week.
Towns across the south of the country
have topped 50C (122F) — something
that used to be a rarity — every day.
Iraqis rarely have electricity for 24
hours of the day, making air condition-
ing a rarity even if they can afford it,
and many are struggling to keep vital
equipment such as refrigerators run-
ning, on small, expensive supplemen-
tary generators.
Worldwide, the US National Aero-
nautics and Space Administration
(Nasa) has said that this June was the
warmest ever measured, equalling the
record set last year. Southern Iran and
Iraq have the world’s most consistently
high temperatures.
The highest recorded air tempera-
ture in the past half century was in
Kuwait in 2016, where it reached 54C
(129.2F). That would officially be the
highest ever recorded but for a reading
made in 1913 in Death Valley in Califor-
nia, which is now generally thought to
have been erroneous.
That has yet to be matched this year
but it is the regularity of temperatures
above 50C that is causing concern. As
Temperatures
in Middle East
top 50C every
day for a week
of today Basra, Iraq’s southern port city
on the Gulf, had recorded temperatures
of 50C or above every day in the past
week, hitting 53C on Monday and
Tuesday.
On Tuesday Baghdad, further north,
reached its highest on record of 51.7C
(125F). Wednesday was half a degree
cooler, but still the second hottest day
on record.
Shortages of electricity regularly
lead to summer protests. Basra sits on
the world’s largest oil field but war and
corruption have meant that its
residents have shared little of the
benefit, with electricity supplies
regularly interrupted.
Last year demonstrations and the
violent response to them by the author-
ities, particularly in the south, led to the
resignation of the government and a
protracted crisis, setting pro-Iran mili-
tias, the intelligence services, pro-west-
ern factions and ordinary people
against each other.
Records are also falling in locations
in other countries, including Damascus
in Syria, which hit 46C (114.8F) on
Wednesday.
A monitoring station in Houch al-
Oumara, in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, re-
corded 45.4C on Tuesday, which if con-
firmed would be a record for Lebanon.
The country is also struggling with
an economic crisis, with a collapse in
the currency against the dollar restrict-
ing fuel imports.
Most households already relied on
generators for back-up power supply in
the face of a national electricity short-
age, but generator companies are now
turning off power at least overnight and
sometimes in the day to preserve the
engines and fuel supplies.Middle East
Richard Spencer Beirut
Teachers have clashed with police in
Jordan after a government crackdown
on dissent led to scores of arrests and
raised tensions in the western ally.
Police have been arresting union
leaders in recent days, as the leadership
apparently fears that a worsening eco-
nomic situation and coronavirus lock-
downs will lead to unrest.
The latest confrontation turned vio-
lent as the Teachers’ Syndicate
marched near the prime minister’s
office to protest against the arrest of 13
of its leaders.
The authorities said that protesters
had been detained on suspicion of cor-
ruption and other criminal activity.
However, Euromed, the human rights
monitor, said the actions against the
syndicate were politically motivated,
and Human Rights Watch criticised the
“dubious legal grounds [that] raises
serious concerns about the govern-
ment’s respect for the rule of law”.
The Teachers’ Syndicate has more
than 100,000 members. Last autumn it
Jordan
Jassar al-Tahat Amman
Jordan arrests hundreds of
teachers over violent clashes
paralysed schools by conducting a
month-long strike demanding that the
government deliver on promises of pay
raises and bonuses.
The pandemic is expected to con-
tract GDP by 3.5 per cent on top of an
unemployment rate of 19.3 per cent.
King Abdullah rules with a parlia-
ment that traditionally contains oppo-
sition members, led by the political
wing of the local branch of the Muslim
Brotherhood, the Islamic Action Front.
The arrests were made after the
attorney-general announced that he
was suspending the syndicate council
for two years.
Jamal Jeet, a lawyer for the detained
teachers, said he and his colleagues had
been prevented from reaching their
clients, and did not even know the full
number now being held.
“Hundreds were arrested,” he said.
“Even at the height of the Arab Spring
in 2011-12, we did not see such massive
numbers arrested in one day.”
The government said: “The teachers’
union was threatening again to stage
protests, sit-ins and strikes that harm
the state’s essential services.”Five people appeared in a South
African court yesterday charged with
the abduction and murder of two farm-
ers and their daughter in a case that has
caused widespread outrage.
Demonstrators held a rally outside
Hartswater magistrates’ court in the
Northern Cape and farmers drove a
convoy of tractors and cars through the
town in protest at the authorities’
handling of a surge in rural violence.
Daniel Brand, 82, and his wife Hy-
brecht, 73, were hosting their daughter
Elizabeth, 53, for lunch at their farm
near Hartswater when a group of at-
tackers struck on Sunday. The police
believe that the Brands were beaten
before being forced to drive their cars to
isolated areas, where they were killed.
Cash, phones and jewellery were taken.
Five suspects, including a woman
and two teenagers, were remanded in
custody until a hearing next month.
South Africa has one of the world’s
highest murder rates, with an average
of 57 recorded each day. However, theSouth Africa
Jane Flanagan Cape Town
Outrage after kidnappers
kill farmers and daughter
killings have gained wider attention
amid claims that the police did not act
after a report from a relative in Johan-
nesburg, 250 miles away, who had been
unable to reach the Brands. Afriforum,
a pressure group, said: “Who knows...
whether lives could have been saved.”
On Monday family members trav-
elled to the farm to find it ransacked
and bloodstained. The police began in-
vestigating and Elizabeth’s body was
spotted by a drone on Tuesday 20 miles
away near her abandoned car. Her
parents’ bodies were found hours later.
The Democratic Alliance said that
the attack was the latest in “a significant
upsurge” in rural areas. The opposition
party said that reports of farm attacks
had escalated since the start of the lock-
down, which began at the end of March
and has put millions out of work.
Mr Brand ran a water production
business. His wife, with whom he had
three children, grew up in Milton
Keynes. Their daughter, Heidie Tal-
jaard, told the EWN news website: “We
want the people that are supposed to
protect us to take a stand... my parents’
and my sister’s lives mattered to me.”Citizens of Baghdad must cool off when they can as its intermittent electricity
supply means that air conditioning and even small fridges cannot be relied onMURTAJA LATEEF/EPA