The world in brief

A backhoe removes sand hills to create a buffer zone along the Egyptian border with the Gaza Strip near smuggling tunnels (center left) Wednesday in Rafah.
A backhoe removes sand hills to create a buffer zone along the Egyptian border with the Gaza Strip near smuggling tunnels (center left) Wednesday in Rafah.

Hamas starts work on Egypt buffer zone

RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Hamas has begun work on a buffer zone along Gaza’s border with Egypt, the Islamic militant group said Wednesday, as part of an effort to assure Cairo that it’s serious about preventing the cross-border flow of weapons and militants.

Hamas officials hope the creation of the buffer will lead to an easing of the crippling decade-long blockade of the coastal territory.

Earlier this month, Egypt invited a high-ranking Hamas delegation for rare negotiations in Cairo. The Hamas-run Interior Ministry said the creation of the 7.5-mile, 330-foot corridor was a result of these talks. It said construction will take about a month. There are no homes in the sandy area.

Egypt has long accused Hamas of fueling unrest in North Sinai, where its army has been battling increasing Islamic insurgency since the toppling of former Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi after a year in office in 2013. Morsi was a Hamas patron.

Both Egypt and Israel imposed a blockade on Gaza after Hamas ousted forces loyal to the Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in 2007 in bloody street battles.

U.K. charges ’89 officer in soccer crush

LONDON — British prosecutors charged a former senior police officer with manslaughter Wednesday as they announced the first criminal cases in the 1989 Hillsborough stadium disaster that left 96 people dead — many of them crushed against metal fences — and changed English soccer forever.

The families of the victims have waged a decades-long quest to seek justice for their loved ones, who they believed were unfairly blamed in the April 15, 1989, tragedy. The initial deaths were ruled accidental — a ruling overturned in 2012 after a new, wide-ranging inquiry.

Last year, new inquests found that the 96 fans had been unlawfully killed. Files were sent to prosecutors to consider criminal charges and they announced their highly anticipated decision Wednesday.

Those charged include the police commander on the day, David Duckenfield, who is accused of gross negligence manslaughter in the deaths of 95 men, women and children. Prosecutors declined to issue a manslaughter charge relating to the 96th casualty because he died four years after the fateful match.

Kenya to distribute current HIV drug

NAIROBI, Kenya — Kenya is the first country in Africa to introduce a generic version of the current drug of choice for people living with HIV, officials said Wednesday.

Kenya’s government and the global health initiative Unitaid announced that the East African nation will make the generic version of dolutegravir available for routine use. They said Nigeria and Uganda will introduce the drug later this year.

The move is part of efforts to make such drugs that are widely used in developed countries more accessible to impoverished ones. It can take more than a decade for new drugs to be introduced in lower-income countries, Unitaid said.

Kenya’s health ministry says it will give the drug initially to 27,000 people living with HIV who can’t tolerate the current drug of choice used in the country, efavirenz. It will be distributed free of charge as part of the country’s free antiretroviral program in public hospitals, officials said.

An estimated 1.5 million people in Kenya are living with HIV, and a little over 1 million are on antiretroviral drugs.

Troops safe if civilians die, Duterte says

MANILA, Philippines — Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte assured troops on Wednesday that he would protect them from any legal action if they accidentally kill civilians while battling militants who have assaulted a southern city.

Duterte ordered the army to destroy the militants aligned with the Islamic State group who attacked Marawi on May 23, sparking fighting that has left more than 400 combatants and civilians dead. On Wednesday, retrieval teams recovered 17 more bodies believed to be those of villagers killed by the militants in an area of Marawi that has returned to government control.

Duterte said in a televised speech that troops don’t intend to kill civilians, but they should “not hesitate to engage just because there are civilians. It is the duty of the civilians to flee or seek cover.”

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