French couple held after 8 dead babies found
Forsenic policemen arrive at a house in Villers-au-Tertre, northern France.
(AFP) – French authorities said a couple have been arrested after the bodies of eight newborn babies were found in a northern village, in what could be the country’s biggest infanticide case.
Police with sniffer dogs searched two houses in Villers-au-Tertre near the northern city of Lille after detaining the pair, both aged in their mid-40s, on Tuesday.
A local councillor said the new owners of a house in the village had called in police on Saturday after finding the bones of infants in the garden of their new home as they were digging there.
The house previously belonged to the parents of the arrested woman.
Police have found two bodies at that site, the councillor said.
Their inquiries led them to the couple’s home in the village around a kilometre (less than a mile) away, where six more babies’ bodies were found, the councillor said.
A judicial source said the case could turn out to be the deadliest infanticide incident ever known in France.
Iran stoning case lawyer Mohammad Mostafaei’s relatives arrested
The lawyer of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, who faced death by stoning, now faces re-arrest and his wife and brother-in-law have also been held by Iran's authorities. Photograph: AP
(Guardian)-Authorities in Iran have issued an arrest warrant for an acclaimed Iranian lawyer and arrested his wife and brother-in-law over his involvement in the case of a woman sentenced to death by stoning.
Lawyer Mohammad Mostafaei’s office in Tehran was ransacked, and he was interrogated in Evin prison for four hours on Saturday over his human rights activities and involvement in the case of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the 43-year-old mother of two who was convicted of adultery and whose plight in Iran has drawn international attention since her children launched a campaign for her release almost a month ago.
Mostafaei called Sakineh’s stoning sentence “a bogus conviction” and “absolutely illegal” in an interview with the Guardian earlier this month.
He was released, then called back for further questioning before being set free. Authorities then issued an arrest warrant.
When they were unable to find him the authorities arrested his wife, Fereshteh Halimi and her brother Farhad Halimi to try to force him to surrender. However, it is still unclear whether Mostafaei has been arrested or he has managed to evade officials.
“It is ridiculous that they [officials] have taken Mostafaei’s family as ransom, they have somehow taken them hostage. This confirms what Sakineh’s son wrote in his public letter, that there’s no justice in Iran,” said Mina Ahadi, a human rights activist for Iran Committee against Stoning (ICAS), based in Germany who spoke to Mostafaei after he was interrogated.
“Mohammadi Ashtiani’s sentence is not Mostafaei’s first stoning case, he has defended many others against execution by stoning but it was Sakineh’s story which took world attention and made the Iranian authorities angry,” she said.
Mostafaei initially wrote an open letter about Sakineh’s death by stoning after her sentence was handed down. He then tried to publicise her case by giving interviews to international media and helping her children launch the campaign for their mother’s release.
China rushes to clean up oil spill
China rushes to clean up oil spill
(AFP) – – Authorities in northeastern China have mobilised 1,000 vessels to help clean up an oil spill in the Yellow Sea caused by a weekend pipeline explosion and fire, the government said on Monday.
Dozens of oil-skimming vessels were working to remove the slick off the port city of Dalian following Friday night’s accident which spilled an estimated 1,500 tonnes of crude into the sea, press reports said.
Another 1,000 local fishing vessels have been ordered to aid the clean-up operation, the Dalian government said in a statement on its website.
Authorities predicted the clean-up would take 10 days.
The worst of the spill, which initially covered 50 square kilometres (19 square miles), had been reduced to 45 square kilometres as of Monday, the official China Central Television (CCTV) reported on its news website.
But a dark brown oil slick had stretched over at least 183 square kilometres of ocean, the state-run Xinhua news agency said.
The Dalian government said the last remnants of the fire had finally been put out and it declared a “decisive victory” against the spill, but did not explicitly say whether it had been completely halted.
Two pipelines exploded at an oil storage depot belonging to China National Petroleum Corp near Dalian’s Xingang Harbour in Liaoning province, triggering a spectacular blaze that burned throughout the weekend. No deaths or injuries have been reported.
Authorities have since limited ship traffic at Dalian port to allow the clean-up operations to proceed, according to Xinhua.
CNPC is the country’s biggest oil company.
Media reports quoted Dalian authorities saying investigators were still trying to determine the cause of the accident, which occurred after a Libyan-flagged tanker discharged its load at the port.
The tanker made it away from the oil storage facility safely, reports said.
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/afp/20100719/tap-china-environment-oil-pollution-8d4ea94.html
Hong Kong pollution expert leaves to seek clean air
Hong Kong pollution expert leaves to seek clean air
(AFP) – – Hong Kong’s leading authority on air quality said Thursday he is leaving the city to avoid its polluted air and keep his respiratory problems under control.
Anthony Hedley, who created the Hedley Environmental Index, which tracks the public health and economic costs of Hong Kong air pollution in real time, is relocating to the Isle of Man off the west coast of Britain.
“I need to reduce my exposure to polluted air because I know from experience that my respiratory symptoms subside quickly when I am in cleaner air,” the 69-year-old Briton told AFP.
“Because of my medical history I now want to avoid the biological stress which comes directly from breathing the polluted air in Hong Kong.”
Hedley said he had beaten cancer but was now confronted with respiratory symptoms such as cough and phlegm, which he said were aggravated by the poor air quality in the financial hub.
He said he will continue to work with his colleagues at the University of Hong Kong’s Community Medicine Department, but mainly electronically.
A government spokesman said it was a losing one of its “good comrades on combating air pollution”.
“To combat our and regional air pollution, we have been taking a two-pronged strategy to cut emissions from local sources and work closely with our neighbouring cities,” the spokesman added.
Over the past two decades, Hedley has campaigned for radical measures to control emissions of air pollutants from road traffic, shipping and power plants.
