44 1G M Saturday January 27 2018 | the times World

ERAN GERSHONI/CATERS NEWS AGENCY 37 killed and 70 injured in A&E fire at hospital Injection rooms Seoul At least 37 people died in a fire that started in the A&E unit of a hospital (Richard Lloyd Parry writes). More than 70 people were injured, nine critically, at Sejong open as opioid Hospital in Miryang, about 170 miles southeast of Seoul. The fire burnt for three hours yesterday but did not spread above the ground floor, where 194 crisis deepens mainly elderly patients were being treated. Some patients survived by clinging on to a rope United States opioid overdose. In Boston, pub owners dangled from a helicopter. Others check lavatories regularly for overdos- were carried out on the backs of Boer Deng New York ing addicts. In Baltimore, Rajani Gudla- staff or firefighters. It is South It wasn’t the first time Danny had over- valleti, a community organiser, said: Korea’s worst fire in 15 years and dosed. But when he shot up a 100mg “There are so many spaces in that grey comes days before athletes and bag of heroin after two clean years, it zone, where people try to create a safer spectators begin to arrive for next was certainly the worst. environment for consumption. They’re month’s Winter Olympics. Fortunately, someone was on hand to everywhere already.” revive him: he had injected the drug in Legally sanctioned sites would be Dutch start DNA drive the public lavatories at the Washington better, she added — and research seems Heights Corner Project, a charity on the to support her view. In Canada, fatal to find campsite killer west side of Manhattan where staff overdoses fell by 35 per cent over five The Hague Dutch police have monitor the washrooms for just such an years in the neighbourhood surround- asked 21,500 men to submit DNA emergency. Every five minutes there is a ing the first SIF in Vancouver compared in an attempt to resolve a 1998 tap on the brightly coloured cubicle with 9 per cent in the rest of the city. murder. Nicky Verstappen, 11, doors. If no one responds, a worker goes The first “fixing rooms”, as they were vanished from a summer camp at in, ready to administer an antidote if initially known, appeared in the UK in a nature reserve near the there has been an overdose. the 1960s, and they now exist in ten German border. His body was “Thank God for them checking,” said other countries. With Americans over- found the next evening. Police Danny, 35. “When I woke up, I felt the dosing on substances such as fentanyl, said the men, who lived near the blankness. But then it kicked in: oh my and even carfentanil, a compound reserve or in Nicky’s village, were god, I was just dead.” Last year, the char- 10,000 times more potent than mor- not suspects but that their DNA ity prevented 67 overdose deaths. phine, advocates say the US needs to could show family links. (AFP) Safe injection facilities (SIF) such as embrace them urgently. the Corner Project, where drug users However, opponents say the idea is Worm threatens to kill are supervised by medical profession- an implicit endorsement of drug use, als and provided with clean needles, are and illegal. As with marijuana laws, off farming in Africa illegal under US federal law. Such is the states and cities that sanction SIFs Rome A crop-eating pest is gravity of America’s drugs crisis, how- could invite federal lawsuits. spreading rapidly across Africa. ever, with 60,000 people dying of over- Many taxpayers resent paying for The fall armyworm larva can doses last year, that they are at the fore- needles and naloxone, and although feed on more than 80 plants and front of the drive to cut fatalities. the goal is to refer people who use SIFs will soon be in every maize field The authorities are increasingly to treatment centres, some addicts have on the continent, the UN Food turning a blind eye. Philadelphia no intention of getting clean. and Agricultural Organisation announced this week that it would be- Tish, 45, recalled the struggle her son said. It “poses a challenge to the come the first American city to allow Chris had with rehabilitation centres. “I survival of agriculture in Africa,” SIFs, and Boston, San Francisco and signed him up into every rehab pro- Mark Green, head of the US Denver may follow suit. gramme possible. He’d leave year after Agency for International The popularity of places like the Cor- year,” she said. “He worked to be free of Development, said. (Reuters) ner Project proves that there is a need addiction, but when he wasn’t, he would for them, said Liz Evans, the charity go to the Corner Project. In the begin- Migrants drown after director. “Part of the reason people die ning I was sceptical. But if he’s going to is because they are hiding,” she said. If use, then there should be a place where smugglers open fire addicts are going to use, the argument he can use safely and be monitored.” Geneva At least 30 African goes, it is better to reduce the likelihood The last time he injected, last migrants drowned off the coast of that they will die. autumn, after being drug-free for a Yemen in a boat operated by Staff at the public libraries in year, the charity was closed. He went to smugglers who are reported to Philadelphia and Washington carry the lavatories at a McDonald’s near by. A lick and a promise A lion cub appears to be enjoying a little pampering as its have fired on passengers. naloxone, a medication that reverses There, he overdosed and died. mother gives it a quick wash in the sunshine of Serengeti National Park, Tanzania Survivors reported that the overcrowded boat packed with about 100 Ethiopians and 50 Somalis left Aden for Djibouti on Tuesday but capsized, the Hammer-fisted Trump is bungling fight against FBI International Organisation for Migration said. (Reuters) “No previous president has made that the FBI had once bugged a the 2016 election, almost certainly Rhys public statements about the FBI like hotel room where he and a hurting her in what turned out to be Boko Haram suspect Trump,” Timothy Naftali, a suspected Nazi spy called Inga an astonishingly tight race. Blakely historian and former director of the Arvad had, as Hoover’s men This week the FBI was at the arrested in Germany Nixon presidential library, says. “His dutifully recorded in their notes, centre of a bewildering web of Berlin A 27-year-old Nigerian systematic belittling of members of “engaged in sexual intercourse on allegations. A Republican suspected of being a member of the FBI leadership, his efforts to numerous occasions”. Hoover, congressman, Devin Nunes, has Boko Haram and killing people in divide the leadership from what he Kennedy snarled behind closed prepared a memo that apparently Nigeria during attacks on schools washington calls the ‘rank and file’, his doors, was “a goddamned sewer”. draws on classified information to and a village has been arrested in arguments that holdovers [from the FBI directors are now supposed to argue that it abused its power to spy Germany. Amaechi Fred O. was uring an impromptu Obama era] are conspiring against serve ten-year terms, to insulate on the Trump campaign. The detained on Wednesday in press conference this him — it’s all unprecedented.” them from political pressures and to Department of Justice warned that Bavaria. He is accused of joining week President Trump The special counsel investigating prevent them building empires. releasing the document would be the jihadists in 2013 and taking was asked whether he his campaign’s links with Russia, This has not stopped the agency “extraordinarily reckless”. part in several attacks, including trusted the FBI. “Well, Robert Mueller, who he tried to fire from shaping the political landscape. Two FBI employees who were taking girls hostage, during one Dwhat am I going to say? I am very last June, is a former FBI director. It was a deputy chief of the bureau, appalled by Mr Trump's campaign year with the group. ( Reuters) disturbed, as is . . . everybody else Earlier presidents they tended to Mark Felt, who fed The Washington are known to have traded text that is intelligent,” he replied. fume in private — in large part Post information to fuel the messages criticising him, some of Zoo forced to shut by He then flagged a theory that has because of the power the FBI has to Watergate scandal that toppled which may have gone missing. One, swept through conservative media, scrutinise the commander-in-chief. Richard Nixon. The reporters Carl Peter Strzok, played a part in mass baboon breakout that a “secret society” in the bureau For half of its history, from 1924 Bernstein and Bob Woodward gave clearing Mrs Clinton of criminal Paris A keeper at Paris zoo plotted to topple his administration. until 1972, the bureau was run by him the codename Deep Throat. wrongdoing over her emails. He was thought that something had This was not the first time that Mr J Edgar Hoover, whose collection of In the 1980s the FBI built the also also involved in Mr Mueller’s probably gone awry when he Trump had maligned the FBI. He dirt provoked concerns that he was Iran-Contra case against Ronald Russia investigation. came across a baboon sauntering has accused agents of treason and building his own secret police. Harry Reagan’s national security staff. In The problem is Mr Trump is using down a staff corridor. It was soon the FBI leadership of being corrupt. Truman, who prided himself on the 1990s it ran the DNA tests that a sledgehammer rather than a discovered that about 50 of them This week it emerged that last May being the one man in Washington led Bill Clinton to be impeached for scalpel. His trampling of political had broken out of their enclosure. he demanded to know whether the not to fear Hoover, feared in the lying about a relationship with an norms raises questions over whether The zoo was evacuated and the acting FBI director had voted for 1940s that the FBI would become an intern. And it was an FBI director, he is genuinely concerned about the police and fire brigade were him in the presidential election. American Gestapo. James Comey, who publicly FBI’s integrity. If he believes that the called to help catch them. The The relationship has been Decades later John Kennedy reactivated an investigation into agency is guilty of dirty tricks there zoo said that none of the baboons uniquely antagonistic, experts say. occupied the Oval Office knowing Hillary Clinton’s emails days before are better ways to build a case. managed to reach a public area.