Nora Quoirin: Family 'heartbroken' after body found in Malaysia - BBC News

The family of British teenager Nora Quoirin, whose body has been found in Malaysia, have said their "hearts are broken".

Nora, who had special needs, was found just over a mile away from the Dusun resort on Tuesday.

The 15-year-old Londoner had been on holiday with her family when she disappeared from her room on 4 August.

In a statement, her family thanked the 350 people who had been hunting for Nora in dense jungle near the resort.

They added: "Nora has brought people together, especially from France, Ireland, Britain and Malaysia, united in their love and support for her and her family.

"She has truly touched the whole world.

"The cruelty of her being taken away is unbearable. Our hearts are broken."

Her cause of death has not yet been confirmed and Malaysian police said a post-mortem examination was under way.

Police said the teenager's parents confirmed the body discovered by a search team was their daughter.

Malaysia's deputy police chief Mazlan Mansor said Nora, who was of Irish-French descent, was found beside a stream in a "quite hilly" area of plantation, and was "not in any clothing".

Authorities have been treating her disappearance as a missing persons case, but her family have said they believe she may have been abducted.

Nora was born with holoprosencephaly, a disorder which affects brain development, and her family said she was "not independent and does not go anywhere alone".

On Monday, her parents Meabh and Sebastien, a French-Irish couple who have lived in London for 20 years, put up a 50,000 Malaysian ringgit (£10,000) reward for help to find her.

Nora, her parents and her younger brother and sister arrived at the resort in a nature reserve near Seremban, about 39 miles south of Kuala Lumpur, on 3 August for a two-week stay.

Nora Quoirin disappearance: Timeline

3 August: The Quoirins arrive at the Dusun forest eco-resort

4 August: Nora disappears from her room

5 August: The Lucie Blackman Trust says Malaysian police are treating Nora's disappearance as a potential abduction, but officers deny any foul play is involved

6 August: Nora's family say they believe she has been abducted

11 August: Malaysian police set up a hotline dedicated to receiving information about teenager

12 August: A reward of £10,000 - donated by an anonymous Belfast business - is made available for information leading to Nora's safe return

13 August: A body is found in the search for Nora

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https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-49340903

2019-08-14 06:43:06Z
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Nora Quoirin: Family 'heartbroken' after body found in Malaysia - BBC News

The family of British teenager Nora Quoirin, whose body has been found in Malaysia, have said their "hearts are broken".

Nora, who had special needs, was found just over a mile away from the Dusun resort on Tuesday.

The 15-year-old Londoner had been on holiday with her family when she disappeared from her room on 4 August.

In a statement, her family thanked the 350 people who had been hunting for Nora in dense jungle near the resort.

They added: "Nora has brought people together, especially from France, Ireland, Britain and Malaysia, united in their love and support for her and her family.

"She has truly touched the whole world.

"The cruelty of her being taken away is unbearable. Our hearts are broken."

Her cause of death has not yet been confirmed and Malaysian police said a post-mortem examination was under way.

Police said the teenager's parents confirmed the body discovered by a search team was their daughter.

Malaysia's deputy police chief Mazlan Mansor said Nora, who was of Irish-French descent, was found beside a stream in a "quite hilly" area of plantation, and was "not in any clothing".

Authorities have been treating her disappearance as a missing persons case, but her family have said they believe she may have been abducted.

Nora was born with holoprosencephaly, a disorder which affects brain development, and her family said she was "not independent and does not go anywhere alone".

On Monday, her parents Meabh and Sebastien, a French-Irish couple who have lived in London for 20 years, put up a 50,000 Malaysian ringgit (£10,000) reward for help to find her.

Nora, her parents and her younger brother and sister arrived at the resort in a nature reserve near Seremban, about 39 miles south of Kuala Lumpur, on 3 August for a two-week stay.

Nora Quoirin disappearance: Timeline

3 August: The Quoirins arrive at the Dusun forest eco-resort

4 August: Nora disappears from her room

5 August: The Lucie Blackman Trust says Malaysian police are treating Nora's disappearance as a potential abduction, but officers deny any foul play is involved

6 August: Nora's family say they believe she has been abducted

11 August: Malaysian police set up a hotline dedicated to receiving information about teenager

12 August: A reward of £10,000 - donated by an anonymous Belfast business - is made available for information leading to Nora's safe return

13 August: A body is found in the search for Nora

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https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-49340903

2019-08-14 06:13:17Z
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Hong Kong Protesters Apologize After Chaos at Airport - The New York Times

HONG KONG — Protesters began issuing apologies on Wednesday for causing disruptions at the Hong Kong airport, as fallout from scenes of violence and chaos there, along with a court injunction, threatened to eliminate the transportation hub as one of their most effective venues for demonstrations.

Protests led the airport, one of the world’s busiest, to suspend check-ins for two days in a row this week, causing hundreds of flight cancellations and delivering a blow to a symbol of Hong Kong’s efficiency and economic prominence.

The airport said Wednesday that at 2 p.m. it would begin limiting terminal access to ticketed passengers and airport workers.

Demonstrations at the airport began Friday and stayed peaceful for days, as protesters made their case to many of the 200,000 passengers it handles each day. When disruptions to flights began on Monday, some travelers complained, but others said the movement to protect Hong Kong’s civil liberties was more important than their inconvenience.

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Protesters briefly scuffled with riot police officers on Tuesday night.CreditLam Yik Fei for The New York Times

But uglier scenes developed on Tuesday, as a few scuffles broke out between protesters and travelers, who for the first time were being blocked from the departure gates. In the evening, with tensions rising, some protesters surrounded, tied up and beat two men from mainland China — one of whom they suspected of being a security officer, while the other proved to be a reporter for a Communist Party-owned newspaper.

Riot police officers briefly entered the front doors of the airport, and one drew but did not fire his pistol after a scuffle with protesters.

[Here’s a guide to what prompted the Hong Kong protests and how they evolved.]

On Wednesday, protesters seemed well aware of the negative image they had presented. “We apologize for our behavior but we are just too scared,” read one post on a messaging channel used by protesters, which gained wider distribution on other social media. “Our police shot us, government betrayed us, social institutions failed us. Please help us.”

“Please accept our sincere apology to all travelers, press reporters, paramedics,” read another post. “We will learn from our mistakes. Please give us a second chance to prove ourselves that we can be better.”

The protests — which began over a now-suspended plan to allow extraditions to mainland China, but have grown to include calls for more direct elections and investigations into the police’s use of force — have been largely leaderless. A march in June drew as many as two million people, according to organizers, and thousands have continued to join near-daily demonstrations.

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Fu Guohao, a reporter for a Chinese state-run newspaper, was taken from the airport early Wednesday after being tied up and beaten by demonstrators.CreditLam Yik Fei for The New York Times

No single voice speaks for all the participants. Some embrace nonviolence, while others say confrontation is needed because the government has ignored the calls of peaceful protesters. Thus far, protesters have embraced overall messages of solidarity, despite differing beliefs about the best strategies.

The violence at the airport quickly received prominent coverage in mainland China’s state media, which, after initially ignoring the protests, has become laden with strident criticism and misinformation about them.

“What a shame for Hong Kong,” People’s Daily, the ruling Communist Party’s main mouthpiece, said in a message on social media.

A quote from the reporter who was beaten, “I support the Hong Kong police,” became a top trending term on Weibo, a Twitter-like platform. The reporter, Fu Guohao, is doing well and was not seriously injured, said Hu Xijin, editor in chief of Global Times, the nationalist tabloid that employs him.

“It’s the utmost disgrace for the protesters to treat a reporter like this,” Mr. Hu said in a message. “This shows that they have lost their rationality. Hatred has muddled their minds.”

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Security was tightened at the departures area on Wednesday.CreditLam Yik Fei for The New York Times

A spokesman for the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs office, the Chinese government agency that deals with the two cities, denounced the airport violence in a statement on Wednesday, calling it “conduct close to terrorism.”

Some protesters said that recent police tactics, including undercover officers apparently dressing as protesters to make arrests, had contributed to a sense of fear. Video of one recent arrest showed officers, one in the black T-shirt and yellow helmet commonly worn by demonstrators, grinding a protester’s bloodied face into the pavement.

“We hope everyone, including travelers in and out of Hong Kong, would also understand the stress, the panickiness, the suspicion, the restlessness involved in the crowd at the airport ever since the Hong Kong police force’s admission of masquerading a certain number of officers as protesters with the aim of getting them arrested,” Claudia Mo, a pro-democratic legislator, said at a news conference on Wednesday.

The Hong Kong Airport Authority said it had obtained an interim injunction to prevent interference with airport operations. It was not clear what immediate effect, if any, the injunction would have on the protests. Similar orders were used to allow workers, under the supervision of police officers and bailiffs, to dismantle protesters’ encampments during the large pro-democracy demonstrations that swept Hong Kong in 2014.

On Wednesday morning, a few dozen protesters remained in the airport, sitting in an area designated for protests. Parts of the arrivals halls were still covered with posters carrying their messages, which have focused in recent days on complaints about the police’s use of force.

“We are not rioters, we just love HK too much,” read one sign.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/14/world/asia/hong-kong-airport-protests.html

2019-08-14 06:11:51Z
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Trump says he delayed tariffs because of concerns over Christmas shopping season - CNBC

President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that he was delaying some tariffs on Chinese imports ahead of the Christmas season to stem their potential impact on holiday shopping.

The Trump administration announced hours earlier that it would delay until Dec. 15 some of the tariffs that were originally scheduled to come into effect on Sept. 1.

"We're doing this for the Christmas season," Trump told reporters on an airport tarmac around noon Tuesday. "Just in case some of the tariffs would have an impact on U.S. customers."

"But so far they've had virtually none," the president added. "But just in case they might have an impact on people, what we've done is we've delayed it, so that they won't be relevant to the Christmas shopping season."

The acknowledgement that tariffs could harm holiday sales marks a shift for Trump, a self-described "tariff man" who has long claimed that the taxes on imports help the U.S. while applying pressure on China.

The U.S. trade representative said the delay would apply to a wide variety of goods, including certain electronics such as cellphones, laptops and video games.

A slew of Christmas-related products also appeared on the delay list. They include decorations for "Christmas festivities, nativity scenes and figures thereof," Christmas tree lights and ornaments.

No other items for specific holidays appear to be included in the delay list.

President-elect Donald Trump speaks at the USA Thank You Tour 2016 at the Wisconsin State Fair Exposition Center December 13, 2016, in West Allis, Wisconsin.

Don Emmert | AFP | Getty Images

Trump had announced in early August that he would slap 10% tariffs on the remaining $300 billion worth of Chinese goods that had so far avoided import duties. The White House has already imposed tariffs on $250 billion worth of imports from China.

China had already slapped retaliatory tariffs on $110 billion worth of U.S. imports; they responded to the most recent tariff threat by canceling all purchases of U.S. agriculture products.

The White House's move to back off on the hard-and-fast date for the new tariffs came as a sigh of relief for markets, which have been increasingly on edge amid the intensifying trade war between Beijing and Washington. Major indexes, which had been trading in the red before market open, shot up on the news.

Rising shares of tech companies, tech distributors and other retailers carried the market higher. Apple shares traded nearly 5% higher on the news and Best Buy soared more than 8%. Chipstocks also moved out of correction territory with the Semiconductor ETF down 8% from its July high.

Trump has long voiced full-throated support for tariffs. He regularly claims that China, not the U.S., bears the burden of the duties, and says that the U.S. is taking in "billions" from China.

Most economists are quick to point out that U.S. importers are the ones who directly pay the taxes, though tariffs can hurt China by making their goods more expensive for Americans to buy.

Trump's comments Tuesday came just before traveling from his New Jersey golf resort to the Shell Pennsylvania Petrochemicals Complex, where he will deliver remarks about U.S. energy and manufacturing.

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2019-08-13 16:49:42Z
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'Accidents happen,' says Kremlin as it breaks silence on suspected nuclear missile explosion - CNN

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to confirm widespread international speculation that the accident -- which claimed the lives of at least five nuclear specialists last Thursday -- involved a nuclear-powered cruise missile known as the Burevestnik or Skyfall.

But in a conference call with reporters, Peskov denied that such mishaps would set back Russian efforts to develop advanced military capabilities.

The spokesperson said that only experts could speak with authority on such matters, but added: "Accidents, unfortunately, happen. They are tragedies. But in this particular case, it is important for us to remember those heroes who lost their lives in this accident."

Peskov then repeated an assertion by President Vladimir Putin that Russian efforts to develop such technologies remained "considerably far ahead of the level other countries have managed to achieve."

He also responded to a tweet by President Donald Trump, who said the US was "learning much from the failed missile explosion" and claimed that America has similar, but more advanced, technology.

"It would certainly would be quite strange if a country -- a world superpower that spends more money on defense than all the rest of the countries of the world -- was not involved in such projects," Peskov said, when asked to respond to Trump's statement. "That is why is this is not new information."

Rosatom, Russia's state atomic energy company, confirmed that five of its nuclear specialists were killed in the incident. The total casualty count is still unclear.

Local authorities reported a brief spike in radiation following the incident, while Russia's Defense Ministry said radiation levels were normal.

Asked to comment on the conflicting reports and concerns about the consequences for the local population, Peskov said: "I have nothing to add beyond what I stated. ... I can just assure you that in such a situation all the competent agencies do everything to assure the safety of the citizens of the Russian Federation is fully provided."

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https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/13/europe/russia-missile-technology-kremlin-intl/index.html

2019-08-13 13:45:00Z
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Flights canceled in more Hong Kong airport chaos - CNN

Flight attendants walk past a display board covered with memos and posters at Hong Kong's international airport on Tuesday. Philip Fong/AFP/Getty Images

The latest showdown at Hong Kong's international airport is extremely concerning for businesses, says Davide De Rosa, chairman of the European Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong.

Prior to this week's disruptions, companies were already worried that the protests would tarnish Hong Kong's image as a global financial hub and a favored gateway to China.

Now that demonstrations appear to be blocking operations at the airport, "this particular action is having [an] echo all over the world," said De Rosa.

"It just simply doesn’t look good ... It's a very worrying situation for the businesses, or for the companies doing business in Hong Kong, and then for Hong Kong itself," he told CNN on Tuesday.

It doesn’t look like a situation that can resolved soon. I think it looks like a longer situation than expected.” 

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https://www.cnn.com/asia/live-news/hong-kong-protests-airport-chaos-intl-hnk/index.html

2019-08-13 12:32:00Z
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Flights canceled in more Hong Kong airport chaos - CNN

Cathay Pacific, Hong Kong's flagship airline, has suspended a second person for misuse of company information.

It follows a Monday warning from the airline to its staff that those who "support or participate in illegal protests" in Hong Kong could be fired.

In a statement sent to CNN from Cathay Pacific’s Corporate Affairs Department, the company said an officer was suspended from operating Flight CX216 on August 12, which flies from Manchester, England, to Hong Kong. 

The company did not disclose specifics of the violation but said it has a “zero-tolerance approach to issues involving operational and aviation safety.”  

Cathay Pacific said last week that it had removed a pilot from duty in July who had been arrested during one of the protests.

The city's largest airline outlined its "zero tolerance" approach in a memo sent days after Chinese authorities took steps to prevent Cathay workers who participate in protests from flying to mainland China or passing through the country's airspace. Cathay said that it would comply with that rule.

"It is important to remember that actions and words of our employees made outside of working hours can have a significant effect on the company," CEO Rupert Hogg told employees. The airline shared a copy of the memo with CNN.

China's Civil Aviation Administration said Friday that it would ban Cathay employees who support or take part in "illegal demonstrations, protests and violent attacks, as well as those who have had radical behaviors" from working on flights in China's airspace.

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https://www.cnn.com/asia/live-news/hong-kong-protests-airport-chaos-intl-hnk/index.html

2019-08-13 10:54:00Z
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