News in Brief
LONDON (AFP) -- Counter-terror police were on Friday probing a mass stabbing at a shopping centre in northwest England that left several people injured and needing hospital treatment.
The attack happened at the Arndale shopping centre in the heart of Manchester, where an Islamist extremist suicide bomber killed 22 after an Ariana Grande concert in 2017.
A man in his 40s was arrested on suspicion of serious assault.
Footage posted online appeared to show one police officer restraining the suspect on the floor as another stands over him pointing a Taser.
A shop worker who gave his name only as Jordan, 23, told Britain's domestic Press Association news agency that "a man was running around with a knife lunging at multiple people, one of which came into my store visibly shaken with a small graze".
Greater Manchester Police and North West Ambulance Service said four people were injured during the incident, revising downwards an initial toll of five.
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MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — President Donald Trump was defiant in the face of an impeachment probe as he sought to convert the threat to his presidency into a weapon on the campaign trail, with biting and unsupported attacks on potential Democratic challenger Joe Biden.
Confronting an investigation provoked by his unprecedented calls for Ukraine and then China to assist in digging up dirt on his political rivals, Trump continued to lay into Biden and his son Hunter, whom he and his allies have accused, without evidence, of illegally profiting off his father’s office.
"The Bidens got rich, and that is substantiated, while America got robbed,” Trump said. While the young Biden did have business interest overseas while he father was in office, there is no evidence of misconduct. Trump’s adult children have faced congressional scrutiny for their foreign business dealings while their father is serving as president, and Trump still maintains ownership stakes in his family’s businesses.
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MOSCOW (AP) — Alexei Leonov, the legendary Soviet cosmonaut who became the first human to walk in space 54 years ago — and nearly didn’t make it back into his capsule — has died in Moscow. He was 85.
Russian space agency Roscosmos made the announced on its website on Friday, without providing a cause for his death. Russian media earlier reported that Leonov had had health issues for several years.
NASA broke into its live televised coverage of a spacewalk by two Americans outside the International Space Station to report Leonov’s death. "A tribute to Leonov as today is a spacewalk,” Mission Control in Houston said.
Leonov was born in 1934 in a large peasant family in western Siberia. Like countless Soviet peasants, his father was arrested and shipped off to Gulag prison camps under Soviet dictator Josef Stalin but he managed to survive and reunite with his family
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JOHANNESBURG (AFP) -- South Africa's scandal-plagued former president Jacob Zuma will face a corruption trial, a court ruled Friday, in one of multiple alleged graft cases over his long political career.
The country's High Court unanimously dismissed Zuma's bid for a permanent stay of prosecution over 16 counts of fraud, racketeering and money laundering relating to a multi-billion-dollar arms deal dating back to before he took office in 2009.
Zuma, who has been accused of taking bribes from French defense company Thales, sought in March to have the case dropped.
He maintained the case was politically-motivated and years of delay would result in an unfair trial.
But the trial is now scheduled to begin on Tuesday after High Court Judge Willie Seriti ruled that Zuma's "application for the permanent stay is dismissed with costs".
The judge agreed with the prosecution that parts of Zuma's arguments to have the case thrown out were "scandalous and or vexatious".
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BERLIN (AFP) -- Chancellor Angela Merkel vowed Thursday there would be "zero tolerance" for hate in Germany after an attempted massacre at a synagogue, as Jews demanded action to protect the community from the rising threat of neo-Nazi violence.
Two people were shot dead in the eastern German city of Halle on Wednesday, with a synagogue the prime target on Yom Kippur. The suspect, 27-year-old German Stephan Balliet, filmed the assault and live-streamed it.
The victims, reportedly a German man and woman, appeared to be chosen at random when the assailant failed to gain access to the temple he had besieged with gunfire and homemade explosives, as the frightened congregation barricaded itself inside.
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QUITO (AFP) -- A key Ecuadoran indigenous leader Thursday rejected talks with President Lenin Moreno and issued a call to "radicalize" protests over fuel price hikes in violence that has left five protesters dead.
The call by Jaime Vargas, head of the indigenous umbrella organization CONAIE, flew in the face of efforts by President Lenin Moreno to resume dialogue after a week of protests which have disrupted the country's oil output.
"No dialogue with a murderous government," Vargas said in a statement after indigenous groups seized eight police officers during a tense standoff in Quito.
The officers, including a woman, were put on display before an angry crowd at Quito's House of Culture which indigenous groups have occupied since arriving in the city last weekend.
Some indigenous men prodded and berated one of the officers, Captain Cristian Rueda, who appeared before the crowd wrapped in an Ecuadoran flag.
The attack happened at the Arndale shopping centre in the heart of Manchester, where an Islamist extremist suicide bomber killed 22 after an Ariana Grande concert in 2017.
A man in his 40s was arrested on suspicion of serious assault.
Footage posted online appeared to show one police officer restraining the suspect on the floor as another stands over him pointing a Taser.
A shop worker who gave his name only as Jordan, 23, told Britain's domestic Press Association news agency that "a man was running around with a knife lunging at multiple people, one of which came into my store visibly shaken with a small graze".
Greater Manchester Police and North West Ambulance Service said four people were injured during the incident, revising downwards an initial toll of five.
***
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — President Donald Trump was defiant in the face of an impeachment probe as he sought to convert the threat to his presidency into a weapon on the campaign trail, with biting and unsupported attacks on potential Democratic challenger Joe Biden.
Confronting an investigation provoked by his unprecedented calls for Ukraine and then China to assist in digging up dirt on his political rivals, Trump continued to lay into Biden and his son Hunter, whom he and his allies have accused, without evidence, of illegally profiting off his father’s office.
"The Bidens got rich, and that is substantiated, while America got robbed,” Trump said. While the young Biden did have business interest overseas while he father was in office, there is no evidence of misconduct. Trump’s adult children have faced congressional scrutiny for their foreign business dealings while their father is serving as president, and Trump still maintains ownership stakes in his family’s businesses.
***
MOSCOW (AP) — Alexei Leonov, the legendary Soviet cosmonaut who became the first human to walk in space 54 years ago — and nearly didn’t make it back into his capsule — has died in Moscow. He was 85.
Russian space agency Roscosmos made the announced on its website on Friday, without providing a cause for his death. Russian media earlier reported that Leonov had had health issues for several years.
NASA broke into its live televised coverage of a spacewalk by two Americans outside the International Space Station to report Leonov’s death. "A tribute to Leonov as today is a spacewalk,” Mission Control in Houston said.
Leonov was born in 1934 in a large peasant family in western Siberia. Like countless Soviet peasants, his father was arrested and shipped off to Gulag prison camps under Soviet dictator Josef Stalin but he managed to survive and reunite with his family
***
JOHANNESBURG (AFP) -- South Africa's scandal-plagued former president Jacob Zuma will face a corruption trial, a court ruled Friday, in one of multiple alleged graft cases over his long political career.
The country's High Court unanimously dismissed Zuma's bid for a permanent stay of prosecution over 16 counts of fraud, racketeering and money laundering relating to a multi-billion-dollar arms deal dating back to before he took office in 2009.
Zuma, who has been accused of taking bribes from French defense company Thales, sought in March to have the case dropped.
He maintained the case was politically-motivated and years of delay would result in an unfair trial.
But the trial is now scheduled to begin on Tuesday after High Court Judge Willie Seriti ruled that Zuma's "application for the permanent stay is dismissed with costs".
The judge agreed with the prosecution that parts of Zuma's arguments to have the case thrown out were "scandalous and or vexatious".
***
BERLIN (AFP) -- Chancellor Angela Merkel vowed Thursday there would be "zero tolerance" for hate in Germany after an attempted massacre at a synagogue, as Jews demanded action to protect the community from the rising threat of neo-Nazi violence.
Two people were shot dead in the eastern German city of Halle on Wednesday, with a synagogue the prime target on Yom Kippur. The suspect, 27-year-old German Stephan Balliet, filmed the assault and live-streamed it.
The victims, reportedly a German man and woman, appeared to be chosen at random when the assailant failed to gain access to the temple he had besieged with gunfire and homemade explosives, as the frightened congregation barricaded itself inside.
***
QUITO (AFP) -- A key Ecuadoran indigenous leader Thursday rejected talks with President Lenin Moreno and issued a call to "radicalize" protests over fuel price hikes in violence that has left five protesters dead.
The call by Jaime Vargas, head of the indigenous umbrella organization CONAIE, flew in the face of efforts by President Lenin Moreno to resume dialogue after a week of protests which have disrupted the country's oil output.
"No dialogue with a murderous government," Vargas said in a statement after indigenous groups seized eight police officers during a tense standoff in Quito.
The officers, including a woman, were put on display before an angry crowd at Quito's House of Culture which indigenous groups have occupied since arriving in the city last weekend.
Some indigenous men prodded and berated one of the officers, Captain Cristian Rueda, who appeared before the crowd wrapped in an Ecuadoran flag.