WORLD NEWS APRIL 20, 2016 5 Somalia Says About 200 Minister Resigns Under Pressure Over Citizens May Have Drowned QUITO (Dispatches) The death toll from Ecuador’s earth- Anti- Remarks quake rose to 413 on Monday STOCKHOLM (Press TV) Kaplan confirmed that he was as the State Department con- in Migrant Crossing firmed. Sweden’s Minister of Housing stepping down because of in- The developments came af- Mehmet Kaplan has resigned un- creasing criticism by the public ter Ecuador’s President Rafael der mounting pressure over re- and media, which he said had Correa rushed home Sunday to marks he reportedly made seven made it impossible for him to coordinate rescue and recovery years ago comparing the Israeli do his job. He made vague com- efforts from the 7.8-magnitude regime to the former Nazi regime ments on the media reports about temblor that injured an ad- in Germany. him. ditional 2000 people, reduced Sweden’s Prime Minster Stefan “Let me be clear; this is not a hundreds of buildings to rubble Lofven said on Monday that Ka- confirmation of reports about me and buckled major highways. Most of the deaths were in plan had submitted his resigna- that I consider wrongful. I know and around Portoviejo, a city tion and that he had accepted it. who I am and what I have done,” of 200,000 where rescue crews He said the minister’s decision Kaplan said. He also acknowl- worked around the clock to free to step down had been deemed edged that “on several occasions people trapped in the wreckage correct. [he] severely criticized” the Is- of collapsed buildings. “Mehmet Kaplan’s overall as- raeli regime’s treatment of the sessment of the situation is that Palestinians. ****** he will not be able to act as a Israel’s ambassador to Swe- VICTORIA (AFP) Unpopular minister and I share that assess- den, Isaac Bachman, roundly Hong Kong leader Leung Chun- ment,” Lofven said. denounced the remarks and de- ying gave evidence Tuesday in an The premier described Kaplan scribed them as “deeply anti- assault case against a legislator as “a man with humanist and Semitic.” who threw a glass at him in par- democratic values.” Sweden’s foreign minister, liament, the first time a sitting The 44-year-old Turkish born- Margot Wallström, also de- chief executive has testified in minister has come under increas- scribed Kaplan’s remarks as court. Migrants stand in line after disembarking from the SOS Mediterranee ship Aquarius An initially calm Leung became ing pressure since last week, “terrible.” at the Italian island of Lampedusa . increasingly exasperated as he when a Swedish daily published Relations between Sweden and was cross-examined for hours by MOGADISHU (Reuters) So- off from North Africa in rick- able to confirm the report of a pro-democracy and anti-China malia’s government said on Mon- ety boats that are packed full new sinking. lawmaker Raymond Wong, who day about 200 or more Somalis of people and which struggle in A U.N. refugee agency offi- is accused of common assault may have drowned in the Medi- choppy seas. cial told Swiss broadcaster SRF and was representing himself in a terranean Sea while trying to “We have no fixed number he knew of 40 survivors from courtroom packed with support- cross illegally to Europe, many but it is between 200 and 300 what appeared to be the same ers from both sides. Wong has pleaded not guilty to of them teenagers, when the boat Somalis,” Somali Information incident. the charge and questioned the they were on capsized after leav- Minister Mohamed Abdi Hayir “We know there are 40 survi- validity of allowing Leung’s tes- ing the Egyptian shore. told Reuters by telephone when vors and that as many as 460 timony, calling him “a liar and Italian President Sergio Mat- asked about possible Somali people may have been on the untrustworthy”. tarella had said earlier on deaths in the latest incident. boat who sailed from Egypt,” The court ruled however that Monday that several hundred One year ago, an estimated the UNHCR’s Beat Schuler Leung could be admitted as a people appeared to have died in 800 migrants drowned off the told the broadcaster in what it witness. a new tragedy in the Mediterra- Libyan coast when the fish- said was a report from Malta. ****** nean, after unconfirmed reports ing boat they were travelling Somalia has a large diaspora, spoke of up to 400 victims of in collided with a mercantile with many Somalis in Europe DAKAR (Reuters) - A vehicle capsizing near Egypt’s coast. vessel that was attempting to and the United States, after in the motorcade of the U.S. am- More than 1.2 million Afri- rescue them - the most deadly fleeing two decades of conflict. Sweden’s outgoing Minister of Housing Mehmet Kaplan (photo by AFP) bassador to the United Nations can, Arab and Asian migrants Mediterranean shipwreck in The Western-backed govern- struck and killed a young boy in have streamed into the Euro- decades. ment is seeking to rebuild the the comments he had made sev- Israel hit the lowest ebb when Cameroon on Monday during pean Union since the start of Egyptian, Italian and Greek Horn of Africa nation but is still en years ago about Israel. the government in Stockholm a visit to the Lake Chad region where countries have been tar- last year, many of them setting officials had earlier been un- battling an Islamist insurgency. The Svenska Dagbladet dai- recognized the geted by the Boko Haram group. ly quoted Kaplan as saying in in 2014. It was the first member Samantha Power, who is vis- March 2009 that, “Israelis treat of the European Union (EU) in iting Cameroon, Nigeria and ‘EU Needs More Than Turkey Palestinians in a way that is very Western Europe that made the Chad, said the boy was hit by a like that in which Jews were recognition. vehicle in a motorcade carrying treated during Germany in the Palestinians want to establish U.S., U.N. and Cameroonian Needs EU’, Says Erdogan 1930s.” an independent state on the ter- officials. Medics in the convoy ANKARA (AFP) - The Europe- Kaplan, however, was not a ritories of the West Bank, includ- treated him but he died of his injuries. an Union needs Turkey more than minister when he made the re- ing East al-Quds (Jerusalem) and Power also described meeting Ankara needs the bloc, President marks. the Gaza Strip. Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tues- refugees and called for financial day, denouncing a new European support from the international Parliament report that was sharp- community to aid the develop- ly critical of the rule of law in his China Sends Military Plane ment of areas battered by Boko country. Haram. His comments come amid con- troversy in Europe over a deal to Disputed Island ****** between Brussels and Turkey to BEIJING (Press TV) China and outcrops. stop the flow of migrants from says it has sent a military aircraft The move, however, has drawn BERLIN (AFP) The founder of war-torn Syria and other troubled to one of its controversial islands criticism from regional coun- Germany’s xenophobic and anti- countries to EU territory. in the South China Sea in order to tries as well as the United States, Islamic Pegida movement faced “The European Union needs evacuate workers wounded during which accuse Beijing of undergo- court Tuesday on hate speech Turkey more than Turkey needs construction work there. ing a massive “land reclamation” charges for branding refugees the European Union,” Erdo- The Chinese Defense Ministry program in the Spratly archipela- “cattle” and “scum” on social gan said to cheers in a televised said in a statement posted on its go of the South China Sea. media. speech to municipal leaders in website that the plane was on Washington claims that Bei- Lutz Bachmann, founder of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan denounces last week’s Ankara, denouncing as “provoca- patrol on Sunday when it was or- jing’s alleged land reclamation the far-right “Patriotic Europe- European Parliament report as “provocative” (AFP Photo) tive” last week’s European Parlia- dered to head to the Fiery Cross could further militarize the re- ans Against the Islamisation of ment report which accused Anka- in a positive phase regarding the side of the deal unless the EU ful- Reef island to evacuate three gion. Beijing, however, accuses the Occident” movement, was ra of backsliding on democracy. migrants... it is provocative to fils a promise to grant Turks visa- workers and fly them to the coun- Washington of meddling in re- charged in October with inciting He lashed out at the report for come out with a report like that,” free travel by June. try’s southernmost island prov- gional issues and deliberately racial hatred through a series of not praising Turkey’s hosting of he added. “This is a mutual commitment. ince of Hainan for treatment. stoking tensions in the South widely-shared Facebook posts. some 2.7 million refugees from Turkey has been given a string If the EU cannot take the neces- China has reportedly trans- China Sea. The trial was held under tight the war in neighbouring Syria. of promises from the European sary steps required of it then of formed Fiery Cross Reef into a China claims nearly all of the security in Dresden in the for- “Three million people have Union in return for stepping up course it cannot be expected of man-made island. It sent three South China Sea, to parts of mer communist east, the birth- been looked after in this country work to stop migrants crossing to Turkey to take these steps,” Da- commercial jets to the island in which Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan, place of Pegida, which bitterly so they don’t disturb the Europe- EU territory and also taking them vutoglu told reporters at Ankara January after the runway on the Vietnam and the Philippines also opposes Chancellor Angela ans. Is there anything about this back. airport before heading to Stras- island was completed. lay claims of their own. Merkel’s liberal migration policy in the report?” said Erdogan. Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet bourg to address the Parliamen- In recent years, China has built China is also locked in disputes that brought more than a million “At a time when our relations Davutoglu warned Monday that tary Assembly of the Council of major structures, including radar with Japan and South Korea over asylum seekers to Germany last with the European Union are Ankara would not abide by its Europe. systems and air strips, over reefs the East China Sea. year.