200 environmental activists killed
in 2017
AFP, Paris
More than 200 environmental activists were murdered last year as government-sponsored killings linked to lucrative projects by vast agriculture multinationals soared, a rights group warned on Tuesday.
Global Witness said it had documented 207 cases where activists were killed while trying to protect land from development, often for production of consumer staples such as coffee and palm oil, making 2017 the deadliest year on record for environmentalists.
4 killed after falling off train in India
Xinhua, New Delhi
At least four passengers standing on the footboard of a crowded suburban train were killed and several others injured Tuesday after they hit an electric pole and fell off, police said. The accident took place at St Thomas Mount station in Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu.
“Today passengers travelling on foot board of an electrical multiple unit (EMU) train were hit by an electric pole here, following which about a dozen of them fell off from the train,” a police official said.
Hundreds missing as dam collapse
in Laos
AFP, Bangkok
Hundreds of people are missing and an unknown number believed dead after the collapse of a hydropower dam under construction in southeast Laos, state media reported Tuesday.
Several dams are being built or are planned in Laos, an impoverished and landlocked communist country that exports most of its hydropower energy to neighbouring countries like Thailand.
Turkey rejects to join US sanctions on Iran
Xinhua, Ankara
Turkish authorities told a U.S. Treasury Department delegation that Ankara will not implement new sanctions imposed by Washington on Iran, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Tuesday.. “A U.S. delegation visited Ankara. We told them that we will not join these sanctions,” Cavusoglu was quoted as saying by Daily Cumhuriyet.
