UN: 4.5 million need food assistance in northern Nigeria

UNITED NATIONS –  The United Nations' World Food Program is warning that the number of people in need of food assistance in northeast Nigeria has risen to 4.5 million — nearly twice as many as in March.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Tuesday that a worsening economy could cause this figure to rise by another 1 million as early as next month. The WFP is scaling up its response, aiming to reach 700,000 people with food and cash in the coming months.

Dujarric says the agency still needs $52 million to providing life-saving assistance until the end of the year in the region.

Dujarric also says the World Health Organization is ramping up its response in the same region because more than half of the health facilities in Borno State, the area most severely affected, are not functioning

Germans told to stockpile food and water for civil defence

For the first time since the Cold War the German government is advising citizens to stockpile food and water for use in a national emergency.

Some opposition MPs said the new civil defence concept, to go before ministers on Wednesday, was scaremongering.

Citizens are advised to store enough food to last them 10 days, because initially a disaster might put national emergency services beyond reach.

Five days' water - two litres (half a gallon) per person daily - is advised.

The German news website Frankfurter Allgemeine (FAZ) said the new concept was set out in a 69-page German Interior Ministry document.

The document said "an attack on German territory, requiring conventional defence of the nation, is unlikely". But, it said, a major security threat to the nation in future could not be ruled out, so civil defence measures were necessary.

Soon, Germans began tweeting ironically under the hashtag "Hamsterkaeufe" (panic-buying).

Phoenix - Maryvale shooting might be the work of ( serial killer ?)

August 18

PHOENIX -- A man has been killed in a Phoenix neighborhood that’s been hit by a string of fatal shootings that authorities say appear to be the work of serial killer,reports CBS Phoenix affiliate KPHO-TV.

Police told the station a man was shot at about 10 p.m. Wednesday, then walked to a house in the Maryvale neighborhood, and collapsed and died outside.

Maryvale is one of two predominantly Latino neighborhoods in which a total of seven people have beenkilled and two others wounded in shootings from mid-March until mid-July.

Police haven’t tied this killing to the investigation of the other shootings in Maryvale.

According to KPHO, police say they don’t know where the man was shot or the identity of the attacker. A police officer told the station investigators found shell casings.

Police haven’t released the name of the victim.

At Least 30 Die in Turkey Wedding Hall Bombing

ISTANBUL – A terrorist attack on a wedding hall on Saturday has left at least 30 dead and dozens wounded in the southern Turkish city of Gaziantep, the NTV network reported.

As the press was told by provincial Gov. Ali Yerlikaya, who defined the bombing as a “terrorist attack” without indicating who might be the perpetrators, the bomb was detonated at a wedding party in the downtown area just before midnight.

A legislator of the CHP opposition party, Mehmet Gokdag, told the network that according to local authorities, at least 13 people were killed.

For his part, a lawmaker of the ruling AKP party, Mehmet Erdogan, said on the same TV channel that this was probably a suicide bombing.

The wedding party was being held on a downtown street of Gaziantep, a hub of southern Turkey, some 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the Syrian border and the scene of rearguard activities by numbers Syrian armed groups.

A great many ambulances have rushed to the scene and it is feared that the number of dead and wounded could increase.

FBI Probing Possible U.S. Ties to Corruption Involving Former Ukrainian Government

WASHINGTON – The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Justice Department are investigating possible U.S. links to an alleged corruption scheme involving deposed Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, CNN reported, citing sources from those agencies.

Among those under investigation by U.S. authorities are Paul Manafort, a political consultant who recently resigned as chairman of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s campaign; and prominent lobbyist Tony Podesta, the brother of the chairman of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

Last weekend, The New York Times reported that Manafort appeared on a handwritten ledger maintained by the party of Yanukovych, whose government – deposed in a popular uprising in February 2014 – was closely allied with Russia.

Entries showing $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments designated for Manafort were made between 2007-2012, the Times reported last Sunday, citing Ukraine’s newly formed National Anti-Corruption Bureau.

But law-enforcement officials cited by CNN said that neither Manafort nor his firm were the focus of the investigation, which also is examining possible irregularities at the Podesta Group, a Washington-based lobbying firm led by Tony Podesta, and other consulting firms.

After the Times’ report surfaced, Manafort issued a statement Monday vehemently denying any wrongdoing, saying he had worked on overseas campaigns but had “never received a single ‘off-the-books cash payment’ as falsely ‘reported’ by The New York Times, nor have I ever done work for the governments of Ukraine or Russia.”

“Further, all of the political payments directed to me were for my entire political team: campaign staff (local and international), polling and research, election integrity and television advertising. The suggestion that I accepted cash payments is unfounded, silly, and nonsensical,” the statement added.

The Podesta Group, for its part, said on Friday that it had hired a law firm to study whether it conducted any improper lobbying on behalf of pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine.

The FBI’s investigation stems from a probe by Ukraine’s current pro-European administration into the finances of Yanukovych’s deposed government, which they say ran a vast corruption network.

Trump’s opponents have seized on the reports about the undisclosed cash payments to Manafort to bolster their claims about possible Russian interference in the U.S. elections.

Those suspicions have been partly fueled by Trump’s frequent expressions of sympathy and admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Eight Workers Killed at Highway Construction Site in Southern Mexico

MEXICO CITY – Eight workers were killed in an accident at a highway construction site in southern Mexico, the Guerrero state Attorney General’s Office said.

The accident occurred during construction of the Acapulco-Zihuatanejo highway, known as the new Route of the Sun.

“Regarding the regrettable accident at the construction site of the new Route of the Sun, Acapulco-Zihuatanejo, eight construction workers lost their lives near the town of Los Organos de San Agustin,” the state AG’s office said in a bulletin.

It added that it would make sure the construction company guarantees swift payment of life-insurance benefits owed to the workers’ family members.

It also said the company would expedite the process involved in returning the bodies to their relatives.

The accident occurred at 5:50 p.m. Friday when the formwork of a bridge under construction collapsed and brought down part of the road, leaving several people trapped, local media reported.

Mexican Cops Executed 22 Civilians, Rights Committee Says

MEXICO CITY – Officers of Mexico’s Federal Police executed 22 civilians during a May 2015 operation on a ranch in the western state of Michoacan, the independent National Human Rights Commission said Thursday.

Police committed grave violations of human rights at Rancho del Sol, commission chairman Luis Raul Gonzalez Perez told a press conference.

A total of 43 people, including a police officer, died at the ranch and 22 of those deaths were the result of “arbitrary execution,” the chairman said as he presented the conclusions of the commission’s investigation.

“Excessive use of force” was the cause of four other civilian fatalities and a fifth person appeared to have been run over by a vehicle, according to the report.

Authorities have maintained that the deaths at Rancho del Sol took place in the course of a gunfight between police and suspects.

The commission, however, determined that police tampered with the scene by placing guns next to 16 bodies and that the officers involved submitted false accounts of the events.

The human rights commission also found fault with the actions of investigators from the Michoacan Attorney General’s Office, who deviated from protocol and mishandled ballistics evidence.

Medical examiners likewise came under criticism for irregularities in the autopsies and delays in the return of bodies to their families.

Responding to the rights commission document, the chairman of Mexico’s National Security Committee rejected the characterization of arbitrary executions and defended the actions of police.

“The use of arms was necessary and the police acted, in our judgment, in legitimate defense,” Renato Sales said.