A round-up of other world news in brief
Tsunami alert after Tonga earthquake
WASHINGTON – A powerful earthquake struck off the south Pacific island of Tonga and generated a tsunami capable of causing severe damage to the area, the US Pacific tsunami warning centre reported yesterday.
The US Geological Survey said the magnitude 7.9 quake struck 132 miles (212.4km) southeast of Nuku’alofa, Tonga, at 6.17am local time.
“Sea level readings confirm that a tsunami was generated. This tsunami may have been destructive along coastlines of the region near the earthquake epicentre,” the US National Weather Service’s Pacific tsunami centre said.
It said a tsunami warning was in effect for Tonga, Niue, Kermadec Island, American Samoa, Samoa, Wallis-Futuna and Fiji. The centre said the tsunami might be felt as far away as Hawaii but was not expected to cause any damage there. – (Reuters)
Ex-Nazi deported by US to Austria
WASHINGTON – The United States has deported to Austria a former Nazi concentration camp guard who admitted he participated in the 1943 massacre of 8,000 Jews, the justice department said yesterday.
It said Josias Kumpf (83), who was living in Racine, Wisconsin, served as a guard at the Nazi-run Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Germany and at the Trawniki labour camp in Poland.
At Trawniki, he participated in a mass shooting in which about 8,000 Jewish men, women and children were killed in pits on November 3rd, 1943, department officials said. – (Reuters)
US state revokes death penalty
PHOENIX – New Mexico governor Bill Richardson signed a Bill to repeal the death penalty in the state and replace it with a sentence of life imprisonment without parole, his office said on Wednesday.
Last week, the state’s Democratic-controlled Senate voted 24-18 for a Bill to revoke the death penalty. It had already been passed by New Mexico’s House of Representatives.
There are two prisoners on death row in the state.
– (Reuters)