ROME: Prime Minister Matteo Renzi vowed yesterday to change Italy’s “nightmare” statute of limitation rules after the conviction of a Swiss billionaire related to nearly 3,000 asbestos deaths was overturned. In a ruling greeted with fury by relatives of the victims, the Court of Cassation on Wednesday quashed the conviction and 18-year prison sentence given to tycoon Stephan Schmidheiny over inadequate safety provisions in asbestos-cement plants run by his now defunct group Eternit in Italy in the 1970s and 80s. “If an episode like Eternit is not a crime or if it is a crime and subject to presciption then we have to change the rules of the game,” Renzi said. “We cannot have this nightmare of prescription. The demand for justice does not diminish with time. There is some pain that cannot be healed by time.”
UKIP set for landmark poll win
ROCHESTER: Britain’s anti-European Union UK Independence Party (UKIP) was set to claim its second seat in parliament a month after gaining its first foothold as voters went to the polls in the town of Rochester. The by-election in southeast England was called after MP Mark Reckless defected in September from Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservative Party to UKIP, which wants strict quotas on immigration. The Conservatives have campaigned hard for the Rochester and Strood seat, leading experts to portray the election as a historic moment in British politics if polls indicating a UKIP win bear out. “UKIP was not supposed to win this by-election,” explained Matthew Goodwin, politics professor at Nottingham University. The party’s victory in Clacton on October 9 was more predictable as it was “perfect territory for UKIP”. Polls opened at 0700 GMT and will close at 2200 GMT with results expected early today.
Second bird flu outbreak in Dutch farm
THE HAGUE: Dutch officials have detected a second case of bird flu on a southern Netherlands farm, officials said yesterday, but could not yet say whether the strain was of a highly contagious variety discovered earlier this week. The latest outbreak was detected in three barns containing 43,000 chickens on a farm at Ter Aar, just east of The Hague, the Dutch food and safety watchdog NVWA said. The outbreak was of the H5 strain, but “it is not clear whether it was of the highly pathogenic variety or not,” added the Dutch economic affairs ministry. The powerful Dutch poultry industry has now been paralysed for a second time this week with a nationwide ban on the transport of all poultry and products since 2pm (1300 GMT) yesterday. The ban will last up to 72 hours.
Miss World contestant, sister buried
SANTA BARBARA: A shaken Honduras held a funeral for its Miss World contestant and her sister yesterday after the sister’s boyfriend shot them in a jealous rage, according to police and media reports. Mourners held a dawn vigil for Miss Honduras, 19-year-old Maria Jose Alvarado, and her sister Sofia Trinidad Alvarado, 23. The violence-plagued Central American nation has been in shock since police found the sisters’ bodies buried along the banks of the Aguagual River on Wednesday and accused Sofia’s boyfriend Plutarco Ruiz of killing them on the night they went missing a week ago. Maria Jose, who won the Miss Honduras crown in April, had been due to fly to London on Wednesday to compete in the Miss World pageant.
Ebola death toll rises to 5,420: WHO
GENEVA: The World Health Organisation said yesterday that 5,420 people had so far died of Ebola across eight countries, out of a total 15,145 cases of infection, since late December 2013. On Friday, the UN health agency had reported 5,177 deaths and 14,413 cases. The WHO believes that the number of deaths is likely far higher, given that the fatality rate in the current outbreak is known to be around 70 percent. The deadliest Ebola outbreak ever continues to affect Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone the most.
Agencies
