Around the World: March 25, 2015

 

SEYNE-LES-ALPES, France (AP) — France's transport minister says the initial focus of investigators trying to access data from a damaged cockpit voice recorder will be on the conversations prior to the crash in the Alps that killed 150 people.

 

He says officials believe it's unlikely an intruder or attack caused the Germanwings plane to crash on a flight from Spain to Germany.

 

Helicopters are back in use for a second day of searching while ground crews slowly make their way to the crash site where 150 people were killed when the plane took a so-far unexplained eight-minute dive.

 

Meanwhile, the mayor of a town close to the site of the plane crash says bereaved families are expected to begin arriving today and that local families are offering to host bereaved because of a shortage of rooms to rent.

 

Leaders of France, Germany and Spain will also meet with them in a makeshift chapel set up in a gymnasium.

 

 

HALTERN, Germany (AP) — Students at the main high school in the western German town of Haltern are gathering by an ever-growing memorial of candles and flowers, weeping and hugging as they mourn the loss of 16 classmates and two teachers who died in the crash of a Germanwings flight in the French Alps.

 

Fourteen-year-old Lara Beer told The Associated Press Wednesday her best friend, Paula, was aboard the aircraft.

 

Wiping tears from her eyes, she said "I was waiting for the train that Paula was supposed to be on but the train came and Paula wasn't on it, so I went back home and that's when my parents told me Paula was dead."

 

School classes have been canceled but students are being encouraged to come in to talk with counselors and friends.

 

 

((Eds: The AP notified the International Organization for Migration about men in this story, who were then moved out of Benjina by police for their safety. Hundreds of slaves remain on the island, and five other men were in the cage this week. ))

 

BENJINA, Indonesia (AP) — A year-long AP investigation finds that hundreds of men in a remote Indonesian island and its surrounding waters are forced to fish, with some of the slave catch eventually reaching U.S. dinner plates.

 

The men often endure severe beatings, 22-hour shifts and even confinement.

 

The men the AP interviewed on Benjina were mostly from Myanmar, also known as Burma, one of the poorest countries in the world.

 

The slave catch often enters global commerce from Thailand, mixing in with other fish. U.S. Customs records show that several Thai factories ship to America. The AP tracked one such shipment.

 

Tainted fish can wind up in the supply chains of some major grocery and retail stores like Kroger, Albertsons Safeway and Wal-Mart, as well as in popular brands of canned pet food like Fancy Feast, Meow Mix and Iams.

 

Firms contacted about the investigation denounced the practices and said they would institute safeguards to examine supply sources.

 

 

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) — Thailand's biggest seafood company says it has cut relations with a supplier found by The Associated Press to have ties to human trafficking and forced labor.

The statement Wednesday by Thai Union Frozen Products follows a yearlong investigation that linked severe abuses on Southeast Asian fishing trawlers to dinner tables in the U.S. and around the world.

 

"Thai Union embraces AP's finding," the company says in a statement that calls the use of slave labor "utterly unacceptable." Thai Union said the supplier was "terminated" immediately after it was determined it might be involved with forced labor and other abuses.

 

Journalists followed a large shipment of slave-caught seafood by satellite to a Thai port town, where trucks picked up the fish and redistributed it to dozens of companies, including Thai Union.

 

 

SANAA, Yemen (AP) — Both sides confirm Yemen's defense minister is in custody as Shiite rebels continue their advance. They say the minister was captured while fighting the Shiite rebels, known as Houthis (HOO'-theez), in the southern provinces.

 

Yemen's embattled president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, fled his palace in Aden for an undisclosed location after rebels seized a major air base only 35 miles away.

 

The U.S. recently evacuated some 100 soldiers, including Special Forces commandos, from the air base after al-Qaida seized a nearby town. Britain also evacuated soldiers.

 

 

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — The Pakistani army says airstrikes have killed 30 militants near the Afghan border.

 

An army statement Wednesday says the airstrikes in the Khyber tribal region's Tirah Valley also destroyed two arms and ammunition depots.

 

It's the latest strike in a days-long army offensive in the area, home to the Pakistani Taliban and its allies. The army said the operation killed 80 militants and seven Pakistani soldiers over the weekend.

 

Pakistan has stepped up anti-militant efforts after the Taliban attacked a school in December in the northwestern city of Peshawar, killing 150 people — mostly children.

 

The Taliban have been launching attacks for more than a decade in a bid to overthrow the government and install their own harsh brand of Islamic law. Thousands have been killed.

 

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is taking up a challenge by industry groups and Republican-led states that want to roll back Obama administration environmental rules aimed at reducing power plant emissions of mercury and other hazardous air pollutants.

 

Those airborne substances contribute to respiratory illnesses, birth defects and developmental problems in children.

 

The justices are hearing arguments Wednesday over the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency to take action against coal- and oil-fired power plants that are responsible for half the nation's output of mercury. The EPA's rules on emissions of mercury, acid gases and other toxic substances are supposed to take full effect next year.

 

The dispute turns on whether EPA must consider costs, or only assess health risks, in deciding whether hazardous air pollutants from power plants should be regulated.

 

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. officials say Defense Secretary Ash Carter has gotten pushback from senior military leaders on whether the Pentagon should lift its ban on transgender people serving in the armed forces.

 

Carter initially told troops in Afghanistan that he was open-minded when asked if the Defense Department was planning to remove one of the last gender- or sexuality-based barriers to military service. But defense officials say several members of his top brass told Carter later that they had serious reservations.

 

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

 

Military officials are reluctant to openly discuss their opposition. Much of it centers on where transgender troops would be housed, what bathrooms they would use, and if their presence would affect unit cohesion.

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — Inspired by the popular "USDA organic" label, House Republicans are proposing a new government certification for foods free of genetically modified ingredients.

The idea is part of an attempt to block state efforts to require mandatory labeling of foods that include genetically modified organisms, or GMOs.

 

A Kansas congressman, Mike Pompeo, says the label would be voluntary. He's including the idea in legislation he plans to introduce as soon as Wednesday.

 

Pompeo says a government-certified label would allow companies that want to advertise their foods as GMO-free to do so, but it would not be mandatory for others. The food industry backs Pompeo's bill and has strongly opposed individual state efforts to require labeling, saying labels would be misleading because GMOs are safe.

 

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — Afghan President Ashraf Ghani is untested as a leader, yet he is expected to get a warm reception from both Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill.

 

The reason: He's not former Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

 

The White House says Ghani's speech Wednesday to a joint meeting of Congress is an opportunity to mark a new chapter in U.S.-Afghanistan relations, which were strained by acrimony between President Barack Obama and Karzai.

 

In a shift from his previous plan, Obama announced Tuesday that the U.S. would leave its 9,800 troops in Afghanistan in place rather than downsizing to 5,500 by year's end.

 

Obama says the size of the U.S. footprint for next year is still to be decided, but he's brushing aside any speculation the withdrawal will bleed into 2017.

 

 

NEW YORK (AP) — Twenty-five years ago, what was then the biggest mass murder in U.S. history turned a New York City dance club into a smoky, flame-filled inferno.

 

That night, Cuban refugee Julio Gonzalez went to the Happy Land social club in the Bronx to win back his ex-girlfriend. She spurned him.

 

In a rage, Gonzalez went out and got some gasoline, splashing it inside the club's only exit and lighting two matches. Within minutes, 87 people were dead, smothered by black smoke or fatally burned.

 

A Roman Catholic Mass commemorating the tragedy will be held Wednesday evening, followed by a procession to a granite memorial near the club where a candlelight vigil will take place.

 

Last week in upstate New York, Gonzalez was denied parole.