News in Brief

Date: 27 July 2016 - 20:49

News ID: ۲۹۳۰۰

BERN (The Guardian) - A woman who wanted to stop her husband boarding a plane at Geneva has admitted making a false bomb threat, prosecutors said on Wednesday, after hours of tightened security that caused traffic chaos around the airport on the French-Swiss border.
"Yesterday in the evening, a woman called Swiss customs at Geneva airport. She said that today a person carrying a bomb would be in the French sector of the airport,” the Geneva prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
The Swiss authorities traced the number to Annecy in France, some 45 kms from Geneva, where French police raided an address.
"They found a woman who admitted to having made the call and explained that she wanted thereby to prevent her husband from leaving,” the statement said.
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ISTANBUL (Washington Post) — Turkish leaders on Tuesday stepped up their calls for the United States to punish Fethullah Gulen, the reclusive cleric living in Pennsylvania whose organization is said to be behind the failed July 15 coup attempt that sought to topple President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his government.
Officials in Ankara insist that Gulen had a direct hand in the coup plot, a mutiny led by a faction in the military that led to about 290 deaths before it was quashed.
U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry said he would consider an extradition request should Turkey submit "legitimate evidence [of Gulen’s involvement] that withstands scrutiny.”
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London (Press TV) - British security services have warned that a terrorist attack in the country is "highly likely” following attacks in other parts of Europe.
"The threat level currently stands at SEVERE (sic), which means that an attack in the UK is highly likely,” read a writing argument by James Eadie QC for the security services.
He presented his argument before the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) in London as Britain’s intelligence agencies were defending themselves against allegations of mass collection of communications data and UK citizens’ personal information without proper legal safeguards.
In the latest terrorist attacks in Europe, two knife-wielding men interrupted a French church service on Tuesday, took a number of people hostage and killed an 85-year-old priest.
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TEHRAN (Press TV) - Heavy monsoon rains and subsequent flooding and landslides have left at least 58 people dead in Nepal, the government says.
Jhanka Nath Dhakal, deputy spokesman for Nepal’s Home Ministry, said Wednesday that 20 people have also gone missing.
"Our teams are working continuously in search and rescue operations, as well as to provide relief,” the official stated.
Hundreds of people are stranded in submerged villages. Photos released by the army show villagers awaiting evacuation on rooftops.
Each year from about April to October, monsoon causes floods with widespread destruction in Nepal, India and other southern Asian countries.
Heavy rains claimed the lives of two children earlier this month when a school in Nepal’s capital Kathmandu was partially damaged.
Nepal is not only prone to monsoon but also earthquakes. Millions of people are still living in makeshift shelters following a devastating quake that hit the country in 2015 killing nearly 9,000 people.
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CANBERRA (Dispatches) -Australian police have launched an investigation into the Vatican’s finance chief, Cardinal George Pell, over allegations of child sex abuse.
According to a report by the national broadcaster, Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), police in Victoria State are conducting the probe into allegations of abuse by Pell in Ballarat, Torquay and Melbourne.
The ABC has obtained eight police statements from complainants, family members and witnesses contributing to the investigation.
The report also includes claims that Pell touched two boys inappropriately in a pool in the late 1970s. The two men, who were in primary school at the time, said Pell abused them when he would frequent Ballarat’s Eureka pool.