COLU @ CONCEPTS

LONDON (AP) — Britain is wrestling with a volatile nexus of crime, race and religion, after 18 people were convicted of sexually abusing women and girls as young as 15. One woman and 17 men were convicted of or admitted to charges including rape, supplying drugs and inciting prostitution in a series of trials that ended this week at Newcastle Crown Court in northeast England. As in several other recent cases, the convicted men come largely from South Asian Muslim backgrounds, while their victims are mostly white. Some claim the crimes were long ignored by authorities afraid they would be called racist or fearful the allegations might inflame ethnic tensions. But Helen Bailey, an expert on sexual exploitation, said Thursday that focusing on the perpetrators’ ethnic background risked missing other patterns of abuse. Source: www.apnews.com 

Kenya opposition claims election system hacked   01:37 (CNN) Former US Secretary of State John Kerry said he was confident in the "overall integrity" of the Kenyan elections and praised the country's election commission for its transparency and diligence on Thursday. The 73-year-old politician is leading the Carter Center's mission of election observers, who released their preliminary observations a day after opposition leader Raila Odinga claimed early electronic election results had been compromised by hackers. Kenya's Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) have a week to declare final results but it appears incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta, who leads the Jubilee Alliance, is on track for an outright win, which requires one vote more than 50%. "The IEBC has put in place and is thus far following a detailed process of paper ballot counting and security which, if followed through to the final steps, can give eac...

The US believes several State Department employees at the US embassy in Havana were subjected to an "acoustic attack" using sonic devices that left at least two with such serious health problems they needed to be brought back to the US for treatment, several senior State Department officials told CNN. One official said the employees could have suffered permanent hearing loss as a result. The employees affected were not at the same place at the same time, but suffered a variety of physical symptoms since late 2016 which resembled concussions. The State Department raised the incidents with the Cuban government over the course of several months and sent medical personnel to Havana, but have not been able to determine exactly what happened. "It can be quite serious," one official told CNN. "We have worked with the Cubans to try and find out what is going on. They insist they don't know, but it has been very worrying and troublesome." The FB...

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lanka’s foreign minister resigned on Thursday after being accused of possessing a luxury apartment paid for by a businessman investigated for shady treasury bond transactions. Ravi Karunanayake, who was the finance minister at the time the deals took place, denied the allegation but told Parliament that he is resigning from the Cabinet to “set an example” to others and protect the government. He said he would continue as a lawmaker. He has previously said the apartment deal was handled by his family and he was unaware of its contents or parties involved.  Although Karunanayake has not been charged, opposition lawmakers had been calling for his resignation over conflict of interest and ethical issues. In his statement to Parliament, Karunanayake said there was an attempt to destabilize the government using the allegations against him. “I will not allow such a coup to topple our government. I resign with pride ... setting an exam...

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — The leaders of Poland’s Jewish community have written to the country’s most powerful politician, urging him to denounce rising anti-Semitism which they say is leaving them on edge. Anna Chipczynska, the head of Warsaw’s Jewish community, told The Associated Press on Thursday the letter to Jaroslaw Kaczynski was sent last week. She said the community hadn’t yet received a reply. In the letter she and Leslaw Piszewski, who oversees all Jewish communities in Poland, said they fear that Poland is becoming less secure for Jews. They noted “an intensification of anti-Semitic attitudes in Poland, a brutality of language and behavior, some of which are directed against our community.” Kaczynski is the leader of the nationalist ruling Law and Justice party. The party spokeswoman wasn’t immediately available for comment. Source: www.apnews.com 

LONDON (AP) — Pope Francis has ordered a Belgian Catholic charity to stop offering euthanasia in its psychiatric hospitals. In May, the Brothers of Charity group announced it would allow doctors to perform euthanasia at its 15 psychiatric hospitals in Belgium, one of only two countries — along with the Netherlands — where doctors are legally allowed to kill people with mental health problems, at their request. To qualify, people must be in a state of “unbearable suffering” and at least three doctors, including one psychiatrist, must be consulted. The charity said in a statement that euthanasia would only be performed if there were “no reasonable treatment alternatives” and that such requests would be considered with “the greatest caution.” “We respect the freedom of doctors to carry out euthanasia or not,” the group said, noting that this freedom was “guaranteed by law.” The Vatican press office said this week that the pope had asked the Belgians not to perform euthanasi...

MOSCOW (AP) — A historical film about the last Russian czar’s affair with a ballerina has been cleared for release, the Culture Ministry said Thursday, despite passionate calls for its ban. “Matilda,” which describes Nicholas II’s relationship with Matilda Kshesinskaya has drawn virulent criticism from some Orthodox believers and hard-line nationalists, who see it as blasphemy against the emperor, glorified as a saint by the Russian Orthodox Church. Russian lawmaker Natalya Poklonskaya, who previously had served as the chief regional prosecutor in Crimea following its 2014 annexation by Moscow, spearheaded the campaign for banning the film. She even asked the Prosecutor General’s office to carry out an inquiry into “Matilda,” which is set to be released on the centennial of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution. The lavish production, filmed in historic imperial palaces and featuring sumptuous costumes, loosely follows the story of Nicholas II’s infatuation with Kshesinskaya that be...