British liberals win Conservative seat
LONDON — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party has been easily defeated in a special election for a seat that it has held for decades.
The Liberal Democrats, which was in a coalition government with the Conservatives between 2010 and 2015 before seeing its electoral fortunes wane dramatically, won Thursday’s election in Chesham and Amersham, 35 miles northwest of London.
Sarah Green, the Liberal Democrat candidate, picked up about 57% of the vote and won a seat that the Conservatives have held since it was created in 1974. She added about 30 percentage points to the party’s result from the 2019 general election.
“This Conservative Party has taken people across the country for granted for far too long,” Green said Friday.
Her party leader, Ed Davey, said the result sent a “shock-wave through British politics” by showing that the “blue wall” of Conservative seats in southern England could be vulnerable.
“There are many Conservatives across the country who are now worried,” said Davey, who celebrated by using an orange mallet to smash a blue wall of cardboard boxes.
Youths abducted from Nigeria school
LAGOS, Nigeria — Gunmen abducted scores of children from a school in northwest Nigeria, the second kidnapping from a school in the country’s north within a week, officials said.
A policeman was shot dead in the attack Thursday at the Federal Government College in Birnin Yauri in Kebbi State, said police spokesman Nafiu Abubakar.
About 70 children were taken, according to the Lagos-based Guardian newspaper, which quoted an eyewitness and a school staff member.
Some students were taken away in two vans while others were put on motorcycles, the report said. One of the vans was stolen from the police who were supposed to be protecting the school.
The Yauri incident is the seventh mass abduction from a school in Nigeria this year.
Five teachers and the vice principal are also missing, and most of the kidnapped students are female, said a student who had been abducted and was later released. The gunmen released the student because he had a gunshot wound and was losing a lot of blood.
Officer gets 17 years for teen’s death
ISTANBUL — A Turkish police officer has been sentenced to nearly 17 years in prison for the murder of a teenager who was hit in the head with a tear-gas canister in 2013.
Police officer Fatih Dalgali was on trial for causing the death of Berkin Elvan, a 14-year-old injured by a high-velocity gas canister in Istanbul in 2013 as anti-government protests were taking place nearby. Dalgali rejects the accusations.
Elvan was in a coma for 269 days. His death in March 2014 at age 15 led to a flare-up in protests. Elvan’s family said he was out buying bread, not protesting.
But Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was then prime minister, claimed that Elvan was among the “terrorists” at the protests with his face concealed and argued that police had no way of knowing his age.
A court in Istanbul convicted Dalgali of “possible intent of murder,” sentencing him to 16 years and 8 months in prison, and barred him from leaving the country, according to the official Anadolu news agency. The court did not seek his immediate arrest. His conviction may be approved or overturned by a higher court.
EU team helps assess sinking’s damage
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — A team of technical experts from the European Union is helping Sri Lanka’s government assess the environmental damage caused by the sinking of a container ship that was carrying chemicals and caught fire, the government said Friday.
The experts held discussions with top Sri Lankan officials and stakeholders Friday, a day after the Singapore-flagged MV X-Press Pearl sank off the country’s main port and nearly a month after the vessel caught fire.
The 12-day fire ravaged the vessel, destroyed most of its cargo and caused severe pollution in the ocean and along a long stretch of the island nation’s famed beaches.
The team includes three experts sent by the European Union through the United Nations Environment Program at Sri Lanka’s request. The experts will work closely with government agencies, the Foreign Ministry said.
The fire broke out on the ship May 20 when it was anchored about 9.5 nautical miles northwest of Colombo and waiting to enter the port.
Authorities extinguished the fire last week, but the ship then began sinking and attempts to tow it into deeper waters failed when its stern rested on the seabed. The ship had remained partly submerged until Thursday.
The Sri Lankan navy believes the blaze was caused by its chemical cargo, which included 25 tons of nitric acid and other chemicals, most of which were destroyed in the fire. But debris including burned fiberglass and tons of plastic pellets have already polluted nearby beaches. There are concerns that remaining chemicals and oil from the ship could devastate marine life.