US professor charged with hiding link to China on NASA-funded project
AFP, Washington
US authorities on Thursday charged a professor at a university in Tennessee with fraud and false statements, saying he hid his link to a Chinese institution while taking funding from NASA.
In the latest case related to US efforts to halt alleged unauthorized technology transfers to China, the Justice Department said Anming Hu hid his ties to Beijing University of Technology while he taught and did research at University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
Parents of ‘terrified’ Africans stranded in China want help
AP, Kampala
She wakes every day long before dawn to chat with her three stranded daughters on the other side of the world in China’s locked-down city of Wuhan, anxious to see they have started a new day virus-free.
“If I don’t get a reply it worries me, but if I get a reply from any of them I say, ”Thank you, Jesus,'” Margaret Ntale said.
Fire kills 5 in residential building in Iranian city of Qom
AP, Tehran
A fire erupted in a residential building in the Iranian city of Qom before dawn on Friday, killing at least five people, including a 2-year-old, and injuring 38, Iran’s state TV reported.
The report did not say what caused the blaze at the 228-apartment building in the holy city of Qom. It said two men and two women died of smoke inhalation in a hallway of the building as they tried to escape the flames and the child died at the hospital.
Mexico court jails man over murder of journalist Valdez
AFP, Culiacan
One of the murderers of acclaimed journalist and AFP contributor Javier Valdez Cardenas was sentenced Thursday to 14 years and eight months in prison by a Mexican court.
Heriberto Picos Barraza, nicknamed “El Koala”, was one of the perpetrators of the crime committed in the northwestern city of Cualiacan in May 2017, according to the prosecution.
