Ash from volcano taints island's water
KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent -- Leaders of volcano-wracked St. Vincent said Tuesday that water is running short as heavy ash contaminates supplies and they estimated that the eastern Caribbean island will need hundreds of millions of dollars to recover from the eruption of La Soufriere.
Some 16,000 to 20,000 people have been evacuated from the island's northern region, where the exploding volcano sits, with more than 3,000 of them staying at more than 80 government shelters.
"We have to get stuff rolling into people," Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves said in a news conference.
But no casualties have been reported since the first big blast from the volcano early Friday. "We have to try and keep that record," he said. Gonsalves said some people have refused to leave homes closest to the volcano and urged them to evacuate.
Falling ash and pyroclastic flows have destroyed crops and contaminated water reservoirs. Garth Saunders, minister of the island's water and sewer authority, noting that some communities have not yet received water.
The volcano, which had a low-level eruption in December, experienced the first of several major explosions Friday morning, and volcanologists say activity could continue for weeks.
Another explosion was reported Tuesday morning, sending another plume of ash into the air.
WHO urges pause on wild-animal sales
GENEVA -- The United Nations' health agency on Tuesday urged countries to suspend the sale of live animals captured from the wild in food markets as an emergency measure, saying wild animals are a leading source of emerging infectious diseases like the coronavirus.
The World Health Organization, backed by key partners, issued new guidance saying that animals -- particularly wild animals -- "are the source of more than 70% of all emerging infectious diseases in humans, many of which are caused by novel viruses."
The coronavirus's origins more than a year ago have been the source of intense speculation, much of it centered around the likelihood that it was carried by bats and passed to humans through an intermediary species sold as food or medicine in traditional Chinese wet markets. The pandemic first appeared in the city of Wuhan, China.
WHO highlighted the risk of direct transmission of emerging infectious diseases to humans who come in contact with bodily fluids of an infected animal, and cited the "additional risk" of picking it up in places where such animals are housed or sites that could have been contaminated with such viruses.
WHO joined with the World Organization for Animal Health and the U.N. environment program in its analysis leading to the new recommendations.
Sentences issued in N. Macedonia graft
SKOPJE, North Macedonia -- A North Macedonian court on Tuesday convicted the country's former intelligence chief and three more ex-officials of abuse of power over a surveillance equipment procurement deal, and sentenced them to between five and 15 years in prison.
The three-year trial had looked into the purchase of the British-made equipment in 2010 under conservative former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, who fled the country to avoid serving a prison sentence for corruption.
The former intelligence chief, Sasho Mijalkov, a first cousin of Gruevski's, was sentenced Tuesday to eight years in prison.
Former Interior Ministry official Goran Grujevski was sentenced in absentia to 15 years in prison, while another two former officials each received five-year sentences. Judges ruled that the purchase of the equipment was handled through an intermediary company and cost the state much more than if it had been done directly from the manufacturer.
The court decision also ordered the defendants to jointly pay $969,000 in damages.
In February, Mijalkov also was sentenced to 12 years in prison as a lead organizer of a wiretapping scandal that broke in 2016 after it emerged that 20,000 people -- including opposition politicians, judges, and journalists -- were targeted.
Egypt activist freed from pretrial hold
CAIRO -- Egyptian authorities on Tuesday released an activist known for his outspoken criticism of the government after he spent more than a year and a half in pretrial detention, his lawyer said.
Khaled Dawoud, an opposition leader and former head of the liberal Dostour, or Constitution party, arrived at his home in Cairo after prosecutors ordered his release.
Dawoud, a journalist, was set free pending an investigation into whether he disseminated false news and joined an outlawed group, his lawyer, Gamal Eid said.
It was not immediately clear whether his release was conditional.
He was arrested in September 2019 after small but rare anti-government protests. Hundreds were arrested at the time, but many were released.
Egyptian authorities have in recent years opened a wide-ranging crackdown on dissent, jailing thousands of people, mainly Islamists, but also several well-known secular activists.
-- Compiled by Democrat-Gazette staff from wire reports
