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Wednesday, August 29, 2012
CYPRUS
WORLD
EDUCATION
Police ‘violating rights’ by filming public gatherings
Court clears Israeli army for Corrie death 9
Marijuana use lowers IQ in the under-18s 13
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Murder inquiry for Arafat death Palestinian negotiator welcomes inquiry while Israel hopes will shed light on demise By Yves Clarisse
A
FRENCH court has opened a murder inquiry into the death eight years ago of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, prosecutors said yesterday, following claims by his widow that he may have been poisoned. Arafat died in a Paris military hospital in November 2004, a month after being flown, seriously ill, from his battered headquarters in Ramallah, where he had been effectively confined by Israel for more than two and a half years. Saeb Erekat, chief negotiator for the Palestinian Authority, welcomed the inquiry. However, he said the Arab League would also call on the United Nations for an international investigation into the death of Arafat, who led Palestinians’ campaign to create a state through years of war and peace. Allegations of foul play have long surrounded Arafat’s demise after French doctors who treated him in his final days said they could not establish the cause of death. Many Arabs suspect Israel of being behind his decline, and the case returned to the headlines last month when a Swiss
institute said it had discovered high levels of the radioactive element polonium-210 on Arafat’s clothing supplied by his widow, Suha. That substance was found to have killed former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006. Suha asked a court in the Paris suburb of Nanterre to open a murder investigation following the revelations publicised by the Qatarbased Al Jazeera satellite TV channel. However, the Institut de Radiophysique in Lausanne said that symptoms described in Arafat’s medical reports were not consistent with polonium-210 and conclusions could not be drawn as to whether he had been poisoned. Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said he hoped the French inquiry would reveal more on the circumstances of Arafat’s death. “This does not pertain to us. The complaint lodged by Suha Arafat with the French police does not address Israel or anyone in particular,” he said. “If the French justice system has decided to open an investigation, we hope that it will
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A woman dressed as a mermaid swims in a tank during the ‘Spirits of Tampa’ event, which was held for participants of the Republican National Convention, at The Florida Aquarium in Tampa, Florida
Wanted: Sri Lanka hangman. Very light work, males only SRI Lanka yesterday began interviews for the post of hangman a year after two positions fell vacant, with at least 480 convicts on death row. But it was not quite clear how the two successful candidates would fill their days - the death penalty has not been used in Sri Lanka, a predominantly Buddhist country, since 1976.
“About 176 applicants are there and interviews are going on today and tomorrow,” Gamini Kulatunga, commissioner operations at the Prisons Department, told Reuters. “Only males will be eligible for the post.” The two posts fell vacant after one hangman was promoted and the other retired. At least 480 people convicted of
murder and drugs offences could potentially be executed, Kulatunga said. There has been an alarming rise in child abuse, rapes, murders, and drug trafficking since the 25-year war against Tamil Tiger separatists ended in May 2009, prompting some lawyers and politicians to push for the death penalty to be reintroduced.