BOSTON: The accused Boston Marathon bomber will face trial in November, a US judge said yesterday, denying a request by Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s attorneys for more time to prepare a defence on charges tied to the largest mass-casualty attack on US soil since September 11, 2001.
Attorneys for the 20-year-old native of Russia’s Chechnya region argued that they needed more time to review massive amounts of evidence. Tsarnaev faces the threat of execution if convicted of the April 15 attack that killed three people and injured 264.
Panama canal deal reached
PANAMA/MADRID: The Panama Canal Authority said yesterday it had reached an initial agreement to resolve a weeks-long dispute over cost overruns on a project to widen the 100-year-old waterway that connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
The builders, led by Spain’s Sacyr, have stopped work on doubling the canal’s capacity while a dispute rages over $1.6bn in cost overruns and extra financing for the work that is 70 percent done and due to be finished next year.
Bulgaria govt survives vote
SOFIA: Bulgaria’s Socialist-led coalition survived its third no-confidence vote yesterday.
The opposition GERB party had called for the vote, accusing the government of failing to deal with an influx of Syrian refugees and of failing to stem a rise in car thefts and burglaries. Prime Minister Plamen Oresharski’s minority coalition struck down the motion by 116 votes, out of a total of 217 lawmakers who took part.
Four ministers sacked
ABUJA: Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan sacked four cabinet ministers yesterday, including his aviation minister, in a move seen as linked to his expected re-election bid next year.
Chief government spokesman Labaran Maku said “those who were asked to go by the president” were aviation minister Stella Oduah; police affairs minister Caleb Olukolade; junior finance minister Yerima Ngama; and Godsday Orubebe, minister for the oil-producing Niger Delta region.
Kenya court charges 70
MOMBASA: Seventy men arrested during a raid on a mosque in the Kenyan port city of Mombasa were formally charged yesterday with being members of Somalia’s Al Qaeda-linked Shebab rebels, officials said.
The 70 were also charged on six other counts: possession of firearms, possession of ammunition, inciting violence, planning to commit a felony, being in possession of illegal material in the shape of Shebab flags and robbery with violence. The 70 denied the charges.
Paris cabbies to continue strike
PARIS: Paris taxi drivers vowed yesterday to push on with strikes that caused logjams on city streets and at airports. Paris taxis have been carrying out strikes since Monday in protest over the growing use of minicabs, which they say cut into their business. The minicabs were introduced in 2009 as an attempt to address a chronic shortfalls of taxis. Some 12,400 were operating by the end of 2013, and the cabbies want no more be granted licenses.
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