Iran reports foreign-drone shoot-down
TEHRAN, Iran -- Iran's air defense force has shot down an "unknown" drone in the country's southwest, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported Friday.
The agency said that Iranian air defense forces hit the drone in the early morning at the port city of Mahshahr, which is in the oil-rich Khuzestan province and lies on the Persian Gulf.
The report did not say whether the drone was a military or commercially available device.
The provincial governor, Gholamreza Shariati, told the news agency that the drone belonged to a "foreign" country and that parts of it had been recovered in a lagoon.
Shariati said the drone had violated Iran's airspace.
The U.S. military's Central Command later wrote on Twitter that America had no drone in the area of the reported shoot-down.
Later on Friday, the semiofficial Tasnim news agency quoted Gen. Alireza Sabahifard, chief of the army's air defense, as saying the drone was destroyed before reaching "sensitive" centers of the country. He confirmed that the drone was foreign but did not elaborate.
Ukraine's Russia case a go in U.N. court
THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- In a legal victory for Kyiv, the United Nations' highest court ruled Friday that it has jurisdiction in a case filed by Ukraine alleging that Russia breached treaties on terrorist financing and racial discrimination in eastern Ukraine and Crimea.
The decision by the International Court of Justice means the case will go ahead.
It likely will take many months or years to settle.
Friday's ruling was limited to the issue of jurisdiction and did not address the merits of Ukraine's complaints in the case, which related to Russia arming rebels in eastern Ukraine and reining in the rights of ethnic Tartars and other minority groups after its annexation of Crimea.
Kyiv went to the court in January 2017, asking judges to order Moscow to stop financing the rebels and to pay compensation for attacks including the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which was shot out of the sky over eastern Ukraine on July 19, 2014, killing all 298 passengers and crew on board.
Russia has denied involvement in the downing of the passenger jet, but an international investigation has charged three Russians and a Ukrainian with murder in the missile strike.
Injured in fall, Hong Kong protester dies
HONG KONG -- A Hong Kong university student who fell off a parking garage after police fired tear gas during clashes with anti-government protesters died Friday in a rare fatality in five months of unrest, fueling more anger against authorities in the semiautonomous Chinese territory.
The Hospital Authority said the 22-year-old man died Friday morning, but didn't provide further details. The government expressed "great sorrow and regret" over Chow Tsz-Lok's death and police said they will propose a public inquest.
At the parking garage in the Tseung Kwan O district, thousands waited in a long line to light candles and place white flowers and paper cranes at the spot where Chow fell.
Although the cause of his fall has not been determined, it deepened anger against police, who have been accused of heavy-handed tactics including widespread use of tear gas and pepper spray since the protests demanding democratic changes started in June.
Chow had reportedly been in a coma with a brain injury since he was found early Monday sprawled in a pool of blood on the second floor of the building. Police believed he plunged from an upper floor but it wasn't captured on security cameras.
China hands out 3 drug-case sentences
BEIJING -- A court in southern China sentenced a former Japanese politician to life in prison Friday for smuggling drugs in shoes packed inside a suitcase he was trying to take to his home country.
A man from Mali was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve and a Guinean received a life sentence for packing and delivering the suitcase, according to the Guangzhou City First Intermediate Court.
Takuma Sakuragi, 76, pleaded innocent and plans to appeal, said his lawyer, Chen Weixiong, who argued there was insufficient evidence to prove Sakuragi was knowingly carrying the drugs.
According to Chen, a Nigerian acquaintance asked Sakuragi to take what appeared to be a suitcase full of women's platform shoes with him back to Japan. The acquaintance claimed the suitcase was intended for his wife, who works as a designer in Tokyo, Chen said, but in fact methamphetamine had been hidden in the heels of the shoes.
Sakuragi is a former city assemblyman from Aichi in central Japan. Chinese law exempts people over 75 from the death penalty, which is often imposed for drug-related offenses.
He was detained in 2013 when more than 6 pounds of methamphetamine was found in his luggage, the court said.
A Section on 11/09/2019