Taiwan mourns quake victims; toll at 94
TAINAN, Taiwan — Taiwanese leaders and relatives held a memorial service for victims of last weekend’s earthquake as the Ministry of Interior raised the death toll to 94.
President Ma Ying-jeou and president-elect Tsai Ing-wen attended the ceremony this morning, offering flowers and shaking hands with relatives and Buddhist monks before leaving without making any public remarks. Family members lit incense and bowed before the victims’ photographs, arranged in rows.
Friday marks the seventh day since the earthquake and is a day of special mourning, according to traditional Chinese funeral rituals.
Most of the dead were residents at the Weiguan Golden Dragon apartment complex that collapsed during the tremors. The Interior Ministry says as many as 41 people are still missing and presumed trapped under the rubble.
Government prosecutors have detained three construction company executives on suspicion of professional negligence resulting in death amid accusations that the structure, built in 1989, was not properly reinforced.
A total of 327 people in the building survived. Rescuers say the chances of finding more survivors are now slim.
French arrest 7 after attack on migrants
PARIS — A French prosecutor says seven masked men carrying iron bars were arrested overnight in northern France after an attack on migrants near the city of Calais.
Prosecutor Eric Fouard told Le Parisien newspaper that the men aged 24 to 44, several from the area, were in police custody Thursday after their arrest in Loon-Plage. They are accused of attacking four Iraqi Kurdish migrants.
Advocates for migrants in the Calais region say attacks are growing in frequency and severity. The Legal Center, which has offices within the Calais shantytown, blames both police and right-wing groups and says several hundred people have been injured.
Tensions have risen in the region, home to 4,000 migrants camped in hopes of sneaking across the Channel to a better life in England.
Pakistan executions set for 12 militants
ISLAMABAD — Pakistan’s powerful army chief, Gen. Raheel Sharif, on Thursday confirmed death sentences handed down by military courts to 12 “hard-core terrorists” over their involvement in a series of attacks against security forces, the military said.
In a statement, it said the men included a Pakistani Taliban militant, Muhammad Arbi, who abetted the 2012 attack on a jail in the northwestern district of Bannu. A large number of militants managed to escape when a group of Pakistani Taliban armed with rockets, guns and grenades attacked the jail.
The military said two al-Qaida operatives and two militants from an outlawed Sunni militant group were also among the 12 terrorists tried by the military courts. The military has said it gives a fair trial to all suspects
Pakistan has hanged nearly 350 inmates, mostly routine criminals, since lifting a 2008 moratorium on executions in 2014 after a Taliban attack on a school in the northwestern city of Peshawar killed 150 people, mostly children.
Iranians mark 1979 overthrow of shah
TEHRAN, Iran — Iranians held nationwide celebrations Thursday to commemorate the anniversary of the 1979 revolution that ousted a pro-Western monarchy and brought Islamists to power.
State television aired footage of rallies in Tehran and other cities and towns across the country, many of them in frigid winter weather conditions.
As in years past, demonstrators chanted slogans against the U.S. and Israel, and the streets in many cities were decorated with anti-U.S. and anti-Israeli banners and posters.
Many top officials appeared at the rallies, including President Hassan Rouhani. The moderate president described Iran as a peace-seeking nation working toward “stability in the region and the world.”
Some protesters Thursday made a point of taunting the United States. At one rally, a group of demonstrators reconstructed a scene from last month of 10 U.S. sailors kneeling in Iranian custody.
The rallies commemorate Feb. 11, 1979, when followers of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ousted U.S.-backed Shah Reza Pahlavi. The U.S. orchestrated the 1953 coup that overthrew Iran’s popular prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh, which brought Pahlavi to power and set the stage for decades of mistrust between the countries.