Foreign News
Irish woman charged with attempting suicide in UAE
An Irish woman is facing criminal charges – including attempted suicide and consuming alcohol – in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and has had her passport destroyed.
It is understood 28-year-old Tori Towey has been working as a flight attendant and is based in Dubai – the largest city in the UAE.
A lawyer and human rights advocate who is assisting her said the 28-year-old was overwhelmed and exhausted but was hopeful of being able to leave Dubai soon.
Radha Stirling, who runs the Detained in Dubai group, said she spoke to Ms Towey on Wednesday morning and that “things seem to be moving”. “The Irish government is certainly stepping up in record time, we usually don’t see them come together that fast,” she said.
The lawyer also said the victims’ support division of the Dubai police had now contacted Ms Towey.
“I’m expecting with that diplomatic push we might be able to get her home even before the court date next week, but of course we have to plan that it could go very badly and she could end up with a prison sentence,” she told BBC News NI.
Ms Stirling previously said Ms Towey had been charged with consumption of alcohol and attempting suicide, both of which she said had historically been illegal in the UAE.
“The Irish government is rightly behind us in having the UAE police drop the case against her,” she said.
Ann Flynn, Ms Towey’s aunt, told Irish broadcaster RTÉ that the family are “all very, very anxious” but that they are “just very hopeful”. Ms Flynn said: “We keep hoping that we will get word that they’re on a plane on their way home. I don’t know will this court case go ahead or if it does what will happen?”
Ms Flynn said she has been in contact with Ms Towey and her mother “every day, several times a day”. She described Ms Towey as a “beautiful young woman” who loved to travel, “was full of life and full of adventure”.
Speaking about the charge of attempting suicide, Ms Flynn said: “It’s very, very hard to believe it”. Ms Flynn described how Ms Towey and her mother, Caroline, are “trying to keep positive” as are the rest of the family “but it’s on your mind constantly and I’m sure it’s on their mind”.
Taoiseach (Irish prime minister) Simon Harris told RTÉ he had spoken to Ms Towey and her mother and said the “horrific situation” was “utterly unacceptable”.
Mr Harris said it was his “absolute priority” to get her “back home to Roscommon”.
The case came to international attention after it was raised by Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald in the Dáil (Irish lower house of parliament) on Tuesday.
She said Ms Towey’s mother had travelled to Dubai to be with her and that she “wants to come home”.
“She has been the victim of the most gross domestic violence,” Ms McDonald said.
“Her passport has been destroyed. There was a travel ban imposed on her.”
The Irish government should make it “absolutely plain to the authorities of Dubai that no woman should be treated in this way”, Ms McDonald told the Dáil, and that “an Irish citizen, an Irish woman, will not be treated in this way”.
The Department of Foreign Affairs said it was aware of the case and was providing consular assistance.
The BBC has approached the UAE government for comment on the case.
[BBC]
United States President-elect Donald Trump has threatened to demand control of the Panama Canal after accusing Panama of charging excessive rates on US ships passing through one of the busiest waterways in the world.
“Our Navy and Commerce have been treated in a very unfair and injudicious way. The fees being charged by Panama are ridiculous,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform on Saturday.
He later doubled down during a speech in Arizona on Sunday, saying the US was “being ripped off at the Panama Canal like we’re being ripped off everywhere else”.
The US largely built the canal in 1914 and administrated territory surrounding the passage for decades. But Washington fully handed control of the canal to Panama in 1999 after a period of joint administration.
Trump also hinted at China’s growing influence around the canal, which connects the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans.
“It was solely for Panama to manage, not China, or anyone else,” he said in the original post. “We would and will NEVER let it fall into the wrong hands!”
“It was not given for the benefit of others, but merely as a token of cooperation with us and Panama. If the moral and legal principles of this magnanimous gesture of giving are not followed, then we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to us, in full, and without question,” Trump said.
Panama’s President Jose Raul Mulino firmly responded to Trump on Sunday.
“Every square meter of the Panama canal and the surrounding area belongs to Panama and will continue belonging so,” Mulino said in a recorded message posted on social media.
He further denied that China or any other country has direct or indirect influence over the canal. He added that fees were not decided on a “whim”.
The canal is key to Panama’s economy and generates about one-fifth of the government’s annual revenue.
[Aljazeera]
At least 13 people, including four children, have been killed in two incidents in Nigeria as large crowds gathered to collect food and clothing distributed at annual Christmas events, police say.
In the capital, Abuja, at least 10 people died on Saturday and many more were injured in a scramble to receive gifts of charity being distributed by the Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Maitama district.
“This unfortunate event, which took place around 6:30am [05:30 GMT], resulted in a stampede that claimed the lives of 10 individuals, including four children, and left eight others with varying degrees of injuries,” said Josephine Adeh, a police spokesperson.
In a separate incident in Okija in Anambra State in southern Nigeria, three people were killed in a crush at a charity event organised by a philanthropist, state police said.
“The event had not even started when the rush began,” police spokesman Tochukwu Ikenga said. There could be more deaths recorded as officers investigate, he said.
In both incidents, the victims were mostly women and children who were trampled as crowds tried to reach the provisions being offered.
[Aljazeera]
A nine-year-old child and four adults have been killed, and more than 200 injured after a car drove into a crowd at a Christmas market in the eastern German city of Magdeburg on Friday, officials say.
At least 41 people were critically injured after the incident which lasted around three minutes, police said.
The arrested suspect has been named in local media as Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, a 50-year-old Saudi citizen who arrived in Germany in 2006 and had worked as a doctor.
Reiner Haseloff, the premier of Saxony-Anhalt state, said a preliminary investigation suggested the alleged attacker was acting alone.
He added that he could not rule out more deaths due to the number of injured.
The suspect is currently being questioned and prosecutors expect to charge him with murder and attempted murder in due course, the head of the local prosecutor’s office said on Saturday.
Prosecutor Horst Walter Nopens added that the investigation was ongoing but suggested the background to the crime “could have been disgruntlement with the way Saudi Arabian refugees are treated in Germany”.
The suspected attacker has no known links to Islamist extremism – social media and posts online appear to suggest he had been critical of Islam.
Footage from the scene showed numerous emergency services vehicles attending while people lay on the ground.
Further footage then emerged of armed police confronting and arresting a man who can be seen lying on the ground by a stationary vehicle.
Unverified video on social media purports to show a car ploughing into the crowd at the market.
City officials said around 100 police, medics and firefighters, as well as 50 rescue service personnel rushed to the scene.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who travelled to the city on Saturday, described the attack as a “dreadful tragedy” as “so many people were injured and killed with such brutality” in a place that is supposed to be “joyful”.
He told reporters that there were serious concerns for those who had been critically injured – which German media reports is in the dozens – and that “all resources” will be allocated to investigating the suspect behind the attack.
There would be a memorial service for the victims at the Magdeburg Cathedral later on Saturday, he added.
[BBC]
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