Reuters, Geneva
Nearly 3,000 migrants and refugees have already perished in the Mediterranean this year while almost 250,000 have reached Europe, the International Organization for Migration said on Friday.
IOM spokesman Joel Millman told a news briefing that the death toll stands at an estimated 2,977, adding that the 3,000 benchmark had been reached earlier than in previous years of the four-year emergency. “This is the earliest, it was Sept 2014 and Oct 2015,” he said.
Karadzic appeals 40-year genocide sentence
AFP, The Hague
Wartime Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic on Friday lodged an appeal against his 40-year jail sentence for genocide, accusing UN judges of “subjecting him to a political trial.”
Karadzic, who appealed on 50 grounds before the UN’s Yugoslav war crimes court, “was subjected to a political trial that was simply designed to confirm the demonisation of him and the Bosnian Serb people,” his lawyer Peter Robinson said in a statement.
Five charged over France truck attack
AFP, Paris
Five suspects have been formally charged over the truck attack in the French Riveria city of Nice that killed 84 people, the Paris prosecutor said,
Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, who mowed down crowds of people enjoying a Bastille Day fireworks display, had long plotted the carnage, prosecutor Francois Molins said. The revelations come as the French government continues to be plagued by questions over possible security failings, prompting authorities to launch an investigation into potential oversights..
N Korean nuclear site found
Reuters, Washington
A US policy institute said it may have located a secret facility used by North Korea in the early stages of building its programme to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons, which if confirmed would be critical to the success of any future nuclear deal, according to a report seen by Reuters on Thursday.
The report by the Institute for Science and International Security said there has always been doubt about whether North Korea has disclosed all of its nuclear facilities.
