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S.Africa shuts beaches, probes sea pollution after riots

AFP

South African authorities said Saturday they were investigating possible pollution suspected to be linked to a spill at a chemical plant attacked during last week’s riots after dead fish washed ashore.

The spill was identified on Thursday after an agrochemical warehouse near the eastern port city of Durban storing chemicals used for making herbicides, pesticides and fungicides was set ablaze.

“The warehouse was set alight earlier this week during the unrest that engulfed parts of the province,” said a statement from the KwaZulu-Natal provincial government.

The local municipality has closed beaches as a precautionary measure, and warned the public to refrain from fishing, surfing or picking up dead sealife.

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Large plumes of smoke from burning buildings filled Durban’s skies earlier this week as rioters ran amok, looting and setting structures ablaze.

Officials said the intensity of the fire meant large quantities of water were needed to extinguish it, “leading to contaminated water sipping” into a stream feeding the uMhlanga river and then into the sea. 

“This has had an impact on marine life,” the provincial environmental department said in a statement following the discovery of dead fish on the shore.

The local municipality said the “pollution is considered serious” and could affect anyone consuming the fish.

The violence, which has claimed 212 lives, erupted after former president Jacob Zuma was sentenced to 15 months in jail for snubbing a corruption inquiry.

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International

China shows at the UN its “condemnation” of Israel for the “violation of Iran’s sovereignty”

The Chinese ambassador to the United Nations, Fu Cong, showed the “condemnation” of his country against the “violation of the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Iran” after the air attack launched by Israel against multiple targets in that country, the official newspaper Diario del Pueblo reports this Saturday.

That media echoes Fu’s speech to the UN Security Council on Friday, in which he demanded that Israel “immediately stop all its military actions.”

“China (…) opposes the expansion of conflicts, and is deeply concerned about the serious consequences that may arise from Israel’s actions. The intensification of regional tensions does not interest any of the parties involved,” said the Chinese emissary.

Beijing called on Tel Aviv and Tehran to “resolve their disputes through political and diplomatic means, and maintain peace and stability at the regional level jointly.”

In Fu’s view, the Israeli attack will have a “negative impact” on the negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program: “China has always been committed to the peaceful resolution of the Iranian nuclear issue through dialogue and consultations, and opposes the use of force, illegal unilateral sanctions and armed attacks on peaceful nuclear facilities.”

This Friday, China had already expressed its willingness to “play a constructive role” to curb the escalation of tensions and facilitate conciliation, in line with its traditional position of active neutrality in the region’s conflicts.

The Israeli attack, which according to Tehran caused dozens of deaths, including senior military commanders and at least six nuclear scientists, targeted key facilities such as the uranium enrichment plant in Natanz. Numerous civilian casualties were also reported.

Israel justified the offensive by claiming that the Iranian regime is secretly developing a program to manufacture nuclear weapons.

For his part, Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, promised a “severe response” and assured that the attack would reveal the “evil nature” of Israel.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres also expressed concern about the bombing, at a time when Iran and the US The United States is holding talks about the Iranian nuclear program.

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International

Donald Trump’s government pauses its program of indiscriminate raides against migrants

The government of US President Donald Trump has decided to pause its campaign of discretionary roundings against migrants in certain areas due to its apparent concern about the growing unpopularity of these methods, according to The New York Times newspaper on Friday.

According to an email to which the newspaper has had access and the confirmation of US officials, the Executive has ordered the Immigration and Customs Control Service (ICE) to pause the beatings that affect the agricultural industry and the hospitality industry.

The spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin, confirmed in a statement that “the president’s instructions” will be obeyed and the portfolio will also continue to “work to get the worst illegal foreign criminals out of the streets of the United States.”

The decision points out that this campaign of discretionary arrests to try to deport large-scale immigrants is harming industries and electoral constituencies whose support Trump wants to retain for next year’s legislative elections.

The new instructions were transmitted to ICE in an email sent last Thursday asking that “all investigations/law enforcement operations be suspended in work centers in the agricultural sector (including aquaculture and meat packing plants), restaurants and hotels.”

These new guidelines come in turn after more than a week of intense protests in Los Angeles against this immigration policy and that Trump himself admitted that the raids seem to be affecting the agricultural sector, which in states like California, where beatings have intensified, depend almost exclusively on immigrant labor.

Since his return to the White House in January, Trump has implemented an aggressive policy of hard hand against immigration and as a sample of his Cabinet officials recently held a meeting with the ICE leadership to order them to carry out 3,000 arrests a day, a mandate that seems to be behind the intensification of the raids.

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Trump says he knew “everything” about the attack on Iran and assures that the dialogue remains open

US President Donald Trump said on Friday that Washington “known everything” about the Israeli attack on Iran and that the dialogue on Tehran’s nuclear program “is not dead.”

“We knew everything and I tried to avoid Iran all this humiliation and death. I tried hard to avoid it because I would have loved to see an agreement,” Trump said in an interview with Reuters.

The US president insisted on what he wrote today about the attack on social networks, where he said he gave an ultimatum of 60 days to Tehran to reach an agreement.

“We knew practically everything. We knew enough to give Iran 60 days to reach an agreement and today it is already 61 days,” he explained in the interview, in which he said he did not know what the current situation of the Iranian nuclear program is after the attack launched by Israel, which also ended the lives of key military leaders of the Persian country.

Regarding the dialogue between the US and Iran about the nuclear program of the ayatollahs, Trump assured that “he is not dead”, that “an agreement is still possible” and also recalled that on Sunday a sixth round of dialogue is scheduled in Muscat (Oman) that they consider is now in the air.

“We have a meeting with them on Sunday. Now, I’m not sure if that meeting will take place, but we have a meeting with them on Sunday,” he said.

The United States and Iran have held five rounds of talks on the Iranian nuclear program since April, with Washington demanding that Tehran discard its capabilities both to manufacture an atomic bomb and to enrich uranium, something that the ayatollahs considered unacceptable.

Both Israel and Trump himself had warned of possible preventive attacks on the Persian country due to this refusal by Iran.

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