Today's World News covering, Africa, Europe, Middle East

At least 221 people have died and more than 1.5 million been displaced by monsoon flooding across India, Nepal and Bangladesh, officials said Tuesday, as rescuers scoured submerged villages for the missing.

In Nepal, severe flooding has left tens of thousands of homes totally underwater in the populous southern lowlands, with nearly 20 percent of the population affected.

"As per the data we have received so far, 111 have been killed, 35 are still missing and a search operation is underway," Home Minister Janardan Sharma told parliament Tuesday.

A third of neighbouring Bangladesh is flooded, with at least 29 dead as relentless monsoon rains pound the densely-populated riverine country.

"Another 1.5 million people have been marooned," Reaz Ahmed, head of Bangladesh's disaster management department told AFP.

Almost 1,200 shelters have been erected across Bangladesh, while the army has been deployed to reinforce weakened river embankments and to assist with search and rescue operations.

In the border district of Lalmonirhat, roughly 600 Indian nationals took shelter in Bangladeshi villages along with their stricken livestock.

India has also suffered from torrential downpours and flash flooding, and a worsening monsoon that has already claimed the lives of at least 81 people in the eastern states of Bihar and West Bengal, and northeastern Assam state, over the last few days.

Train services have been cut entirely to the northeast, and at least 200,000 people are living in emergency camps in Assam, a remote state that suffers frequent flooding during the annual rains.

In Nepal, residents in hard-hit Saptari district blamed the government for failing to solve the seasonal floods and quickly send aid to those in need.

 Source: France24

www.primenewsghana.com/ Ghana News

 The Zimbabwean first lady, Grace Mugabe, is to appear in court in South Africa on Tuesday after handing herself in to police over allegations that she assaulted a woman in a Johannesburg hotel.

Mugabe, 52, allegedly attacked Gabriella Engels, 20, with an extension cord, wounding her forehead and the back of her head.

Mugabe went to a police station on Tuesday, Agence France-Presse reported. According to the local eNCA TV channel she will appear in court later on Tuesday.

Police minister Fikile Mbalula said Mugabe would appear at Wynberg magistrates court on Tuesday afternoon, telling reporters: “She’s not under arrest because she co-operated and handed herself over to the police.”

Earlier in the day, Mbalula told the local Eyewitness News agency: “If she came here with her diplomatic passport, she’ll have diplomatic immunity. This doesn’t mean she cannot be arrested.”

A Zimbabwean intelligence source said Grace was travelling on a normal passport. “She was here on business,” the source told Reuters.

Pictures on social media appear to show Engels bleeding in Capital 20 West hotel in the upmarket district of Sandton.

Mugabe allegedly arrived with bodyguards at the hotel on Sunday and accused Engels of living with her sons, Robert and Chatunga, both in their 20s, who are based in the city.

“We were chilling in a hotel room, and [the sons] were in the room next door. She came in and started hitting us,” Engels, a model, was quoted as saying by the TimesLIVE website.
“The front of my forehead is busted open. I’m a model and I make my money based on my looks.”

Mugabe, who is 41 years younger than her husband, Robert, has two sons and a daughter with the Zimbabwean president.

“There was a criminal case opened in Sandton at Morningside [station] yesterday, but I can not release any name. Right now we have not arrested anybody,” national police spokesman Vish Naidoo told AFP.

Foreign affairs spokesman Clayson Monyela said Mugabe’s trip was “a private visit so government cannot get involved if an alleged crime is committed”.

Sizakele Nkosi-Malobane, a provincial minister in Gauteng province, told Jacaranda FM that the case should be pursued through the courts.

“We hope that it will send a strong message to all leaders who abuse their power and assault innocent people in our country,” she said.

Grace Mugabe regularly speaks at rallies in Zimbabwe and is seen as a potential successor to her increasingly frail husband.

Source:theguardian.com

The Zimbabwe government made no immediate comment.

The desperate dig for survivors is resuming in Sierra Leone's capital, after mudslides and floods claimed the lives of more than 300 people.

First Lady Grace Mugabe has been asked to hand herself over to police - or face arrest - over allegations that she assaulted a young woman during a visit to South Africa.

More than 300 people have been killed in mudslides and flooding near Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown.

A drunken American tourist was beaten up after giving a Nazi salute in Dresden, local police say.

Donald Trump arrived back in Washington on Monday amid a storm of criticism – some from prominent figures in his own party – over his decision not to directly condemn the white supremacy groups that targeted Charlottesville, Virginia, at the weekend.

At least 179 people have been killed in a mudslide near Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown, the Red Cross says.

Donald Trump is set to launch an investigation into China's trade practices, a move which could lead to the US imposing sanctions.

Twenty people have been killed and a number wounded in a terror attack in the centre of the capital of Burkina Faso, Ouagadougou, the government says.

The presidents of Nigeria, Angola, Zimbabwe, Benin and Algeria all have something in common - an apparent lack of faith in the health systems at home.

Britain will not stay in the European Union by the "backdoor" and will completely leave the single market and customs union after Brexit in 2019, Philip Hammond and Liam Fox have declared.

After a summer of bitter Cabinet infighting, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Dr Fox, the International Trade Secretary, appear to bury the hatchet with a joint pledge that there will be a fixed transition period after leaving the EU.

In an article written for the Telegraph, the ministers - representing the Remain and Leave wings of the Tory party -  say this will be "time limited" and designed to avoid a "cliff edge" that could damage British business.

Although they do not say how long this period will last, it will not represent an attempt to stay in the EU indefinitely, they say.

Source:telegraph.co.uk

An Oxford University employee who spent more than a week as a fugitive has appeared in court in the US accused of murdering a hairdresser whose body was found with more than 40 stab wounds.

Andrew Warren, who worked as a senior treasury assistant at Somerville College, appeared before a judge in San Francisco where he confirmed his identity. The 56-year-old handed himself in to police in California last week.

He and another defendant, Wyndham Lathem, 42, a US academic, are suspected of murdering 26-year-old Trenton James Cornell-Duranleau on 27 July in Chicago.

Warren declined to fight his extradition to Chicago to face the murder charge and said he would accept a public lawyer on the basis that he could not afford his own. The judge, Edward Torpoco, denied him bail and confirmed he would be held in custody.

After the hearing, Warren’s lawyer, Ariel Boyce-Smith, said: “Mr Warren is agreeable to being transported to Chicago. He wants the process to be started. I just want to remind everyone that he is presumed innocent and his agreement to go there to start the process is where we are now.”

Lathem plans to plead not guilty, according to his lawyer, Kenneth Wine, who described him as a “gentle soul”.

Chicago police said Cornell-Duranleau sustained more than 40 stab wounds to his upper body in a “very intense” attack at a high-rise apartment belonging to Lathem.

Authorities reported that the victim had been dead for at least 12 hours by the time he was found.

Anthony Guglielmi, a spokesman for the Chicago force, said detectives were examining the personal relationship between Lathem and Cornell-Duranleau. “We’ve been looking a great deal, not only at the relationship between Mr Lathem and the victim, but also the connection between all three,” he said.
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The two suspects were subjects of a nationwide manhunt and handed themselves in separately to authorities last week in California, more than 2,000 miles from the scene of the crime.

Warren, a resident of Faringdon, Oxfordshire, has been suspended from his job by Somerville College. Lathem, a microbiologist, was fired from his job at Northwestern University on 4 August.

During the pair’s time as fugitives, friends of Warren encouraged him to hand himself in and said he had not told anyone of his plans to visit the US.

Janice King, who said she had been a close friend of Warren’s for almost two decades, said: “This has come as a complete shock to us. He didn’t tell anybody about going to America. The first thing I knew was his sister rang me to ask whether I knew where Andy had gone.”

Warren’s family reported him missing to Thames Valley police on 25 July. He is understood to have left the UK the day before.

Source:theguardian.com