Reuters, Madrid
Catalonia’s fugitive separatists on Thursday sought to get around a Spanish government ban on voting via webcast in a regional leadership election by seeking to vote by proxy instead, paving the way for a new confrontation with Madrid.
The region’s former leader Carles Puigdemont, who has been in Brussels since October to avoid arrest for leading a secession bid, is the separatists’ candidate to lead Catalonia again.
Nine dead as storms batter Europe
AFP, Berlin
Nine people including two firefighters were killed Thursday as violent gales battered northern Europe, snapping air and train links.
Germany halted all long-distance rail traffic for at least a day, while numerous domestic flights were scrapped as hurricane-force winds lashed the country.
The storm claimed six lives in Germany, including two firefighters deployed in emergency operations and two truck drivers whose vehicles were blown over by the gales.
France’s ‘Black Widow’ gets 22-yr jail term
AFP, Nice
A French woman dubbed the “Black Widow of the Riviera” was jailed for 22-years Thursday for poisoning four wealthy elderly men, two of whom died.
Patricia Dagorn, 57, was convicted of killing two men found dead in 2011 on the Cote d’Azur and of drugging two others. Prosecutors say she attempted to enrich herself by seducing older men she met mostly through a dating agency.
Tribal feuds spread fear in Basra
AFP, Basra
Daud Salman and his family stayed put in their Iraqi village despite years of regular clashes between tribes, but when a stray bullet wounded his son, it was time to move.
In the north of Basra province, “bullets talk,” he said.
Feuds between the region’s half-dozen tribes often flare into pitched battles with assault rifles and machineguns, killing bystanders and driving a never-ending cycle of revenge attacks.
5 killed as freight train derails in Mexico
Reuters, Mexico City
A train derailed in a densely populated Mexico City suburb on Thursday morning, killing at least five people, authorities said.
The train, which was transporting grain, crashed in Ecatepec, a large municipality in the State of Mexico that forms part of the urban sprawl extending from the capital.
Baby killed in Brazil road mishap
Reuters, Rio De Janeiro
A speeding car ploughed through evening strollers on a crowded sidewalk of Rio’s famed Copacabana beach on Thursday in an apparent accident, killing an 8-month old baby and injuring 15 people, police said.
Injured pedestrians lay sprawled out on the sidewalk, recalling recent terrorist attacks by vehicles mowing down pedestrians, but there was no indication that the Copacabana incident was deliberate.
