JAPAN
Radiation detected in nose
A worker at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant has had a high radiation level detected in his nose, authorities said. Radioactive materials might have touched the worker’s face on Monday as he took off a mask after finishing his work, Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) said on Thursday. The employee was not experiencing any adverse health effects and a full body scan showed no internal contamination, but a full analysis will be available next month, TEPCO said.
MEXICO
Animal kills tourist
A Belgian tourist was killed in an attack on Thursday by either a shark or a crocodile in Zihuatanejo, officials said. The civil defense office in Guerrero State said that a man and a woman were bitten in the legs by an unidentified animal. The man was reported dead at the scene, while the woman was taken to a hospital. State officials said the man was from Belgium and the woman’s nationality was not immediately clear. The office said it was studying the wounds to determine whether they were bitten by a shark or a crocodile, both of which inhabit the area.
HAITI
MSF reacts after attack
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) on Thursday said that it was suspending work at a medical center in the capital after an armed group pulled a critically ill patient from an ambulance and shot him dead in the street. The attack took place on Tuesday near Turgeau Emergency Center in Port-au-Prince, the group said in a news release. As two ambulances left the center with patients on board, including a man recently admitted in critical condition, about 10 armed individuals blocked the vehicles. After firing shots into the air and inspecting the interior of the ambulances, they ordered “the second ambulance to reverse while they pulled the patient from the first,” MSF said. The armed group then beat the man before shooting him several times at close range, then fleeing the scene. “MSF remains one of the last international organizations to provide healthcare in the Haitian capital and cannot accept that its ambulances are violently attacked and patients shot dead in the street,” MSF head of mission Benoit Vasseur said in the news release. The center would be closed “indefinitely” while MSF conducts a security analysis, the group said, adding that it would continue providing medical care at other sites in Port-au-Prince.
UNITED STATES
Baby survives tornado
A four-month-old boy has survived after a tornado in Tennessee sucked him up from his family’s mobile home, which was demolished in the storm. Sydney Moore told WSMV-TV that when the tornado hit their home in Clarksville on Saturday, it ripped off the roof and lifted the bassinet with her son inside. Her boyfriend, the child’s father, grabbed the bassinet, but was spun up into the twister as well, Moore said. “He was just holding on to the bassinet the whole time, and they went into circles, he said, and then they got thrown,” Moore said. At about the same time in another room, Moore jumped on top of their other son, who is one. She grabbed the child as the walls collapsed, she said. Moore and the one-year-old were left under the trailer, but she pushed them out, she said. They searched for the younger son for 10 minutes and found him lying in a fallen tree in the rain. “I was pretty sure he was dead and we weren’t going to find him, but he’s here and that’s by the grace of God,” Moore said. All the family members survived, but their home and belongings were a total loss.
OPTIMISTIC: A Philippine Air Force spokeswoman said the military believed the crew were safe and were hopeful that they and the jet would be recovered A Philippine Air Force FA-50 jet and its two-person crew are missing after flying in support of ground forces fighting communist rebels in the southern Mindanao region, a military official said yesterday. Philippine Air Force spokeswoman Colonel Consuelo Castillo said the jet was flying “over land” on the way to its target area when it went missing during a “tactical night operation in support of our ground troops.” While she declined to provide mission specifics, Philippine Army spokesman Colonel Louie Dema-ala confirmed that the missing FA-50 was part of a squadron sent “to provide air support” to troops fighting communist rebels in
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
ECONOMIC DISTORTION? The US commerce secretary’s remarks echoed Elon Musk’s arguments that spending by the government does not create value for the economy US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Sunday said that government spending could be separated from GDP reports, in response to questions about whether the spending cuts pushed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency could possibly cause an economic downturn. “You know that governments historically have messed with GDP,” Lutnick said on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures. “They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.” Doing so could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the US economy’s health. Government spending is traditionally included in the GDP because
Hundreds of people in rainbow colors gathered on Saturday in South Africa’s tourist magnet Cape Town to honor the world’s first openly gay imam, who was killed last month. Muhsin Hendricks, who ran a mosque for marginalized Muslims, was shot dead last month near the southern city of Gqeberha. “I was heartbroken. I think it’s sad especially how far we’ve come, considering how progressive South Africa has been,” attendee Keisha Jensen said. Led by motorcycle riders, the mostly young crowd walked through the streets of the coastal city, some waving placards emblazoned with Hendricks’s image and reading: “#JUSTICEFORMUHSIN.” No arrest
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