7.4-quake shakes up southern Mexico
MEXICO CITY -- A powerful earthquake centered near the southern Mexico resort of Huatulco killed at least one person Tuesday, swayed buildings in Mexico City and sent thousands fleeing into the streets.
Mexico President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said one person was killed and another injured in a building collapse in Huatulco, Oaxaca. Otherwise he said reports were of minor damage such as broken windows and collapsed walls.
Ports, airports and refineries were not damaged, he said in a video-recorded phone conversation with his civil defense chief. There had been more than 140 aftershocks, most of them small.
Seismic alarms sounded midmorning with enough warning for residents to exit buildings. Power was knocked out to some areas.
People still milled around in close proximity on streets and sidewalks in some neighborhoods of the capital about an hour after the quake.
The U.S. Geologic Survey said the magnitude-7.4 quake hit at 10:29 a.m. along Mexico's southern Pacific coast at a depth of 16 miles. The epicenter was 7 miles south-southwest of Santa Maria Zapotitlan in Oaxaca state.
U.S.-deported Haitian held in '90s crimes
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- Former paramilitary leader Emmanuel Constant was deported from the U.S. on Tuesday and arrested as soon as he landed in Haiti, where he faces murder and torture charges stemming from killings in the 1990s.
Constant did not say anything as he was placed into a police vehicle and taken away for questioning.
He was among 24 deported migrants who landed in the capital, Port-au-Prince, the fourth such flight since the coronavirus pandemic began, said Jean Negot Bonheur Delva, director of Haiti's migration office.
Human-rights groups have accused Constant of killing and torturing Haitians when he became leader of the Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti after President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's presidency was toppled in 1991. They allege that between 1991 and 1994, the group that Constant led terrorized and slaughtered slum-dwellers loyal to Aristide. When Aristide returned to power in 1994, Constant fled to the United States.
He was ordered deported in 1995 but allowed to remain in the U.S. because of instability in Haiti. Constant kept a low profile and lived with relatives in Queens, N.Y., until he was arrested in 2006 and later found guilty of fraud and grand larceny. In October 2008, he was sentenced to at least 12 years in prison for his role in a $1.7 million mortgage-fraud scheme.
100-degree Arctic high intrigues U.N.
GENEVA -- The U.N. weather agency is investigating media reports suggesting a new high temperature of over 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the Arctic Circle during a heat wave and prolonged wildfires in eastern Siberia.
The World Meteorological Organization said Tuesday that it's looking to verify the temperature reading on Saturday in the Russian town of Verkhoyansk with Rosgidromet, the Russian federal service for hydro-meteorological and environmental monitoring.
The reports suggest yet another possible sign of global warming in the Arctic, which the agency said is among the fastest-warming regions in the world and is heating at twice the global average.
"Apparently, this particularly region of eastern Siberia has very, very cold extremes in winter, but is also known for its extremes in summer, so temperatures above 30 degrees Celsius [86 degrees Fahrenheit] in July are not unusual," said Clare Nullis, a spokeswoman for the U.N. weather agency. "But obviously 38 degrees Celsius [100 degrees Fahrenheit] is exceptional."
"We've seen satellite images this morning, and it's just one mass of red -- it's striking and worrying," she told a U.N. briefing in Geneva.
The area has been hit by wildfires that have driven up temperatures.
Ex-Kyrgyz leader gets 11 years for graft
MOSCOW -- A court in Kyrgyzstan on Tuesday convicted the country's ex-president on corruption charges and sentenced him to 11 years and two months in prison.
Almazbek Atambayev, who was in office from 2011 to 2017, was stripped of the immunity from prosecution that he enjoyed as a former president and arrested last year on a slew of charges, including corruption and the expropriation of property.
His arrest sparked two days of riots that left one policeman dead and over 100 people injured, raising fears of instability in the strategically placed Central Asian nation that borders China and hosts a Russian military air base.
Atambayev, 63, said the accusations against him were politically motivated.
On Tuesday, the former Kyrgyz president was found guilty of facilitating corruption. In addition to a prison term, the court confiscated Atambayev's property -- several plots of land, five cars, four companies belonging to him and shares in several Kyrgyz banks.
Atambayev's defense lawyer, Sergei Slesarev, said he will discuss appealing the ruling with his client.
-- Compiled by Democrat-Gazette staff from wire reports