LONDON - (Backstory is a series of reports showing how Reuters journalists work and the standards under which they operate)
FILE PHOTO: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is seen in a police van after was arrested by British police outside the Ecuadorian embassy in London, Britain April 11, 2019. REUTERS/Henry Nicholls/File Photo
A tip-off, a red traffic light and knowledge of the dense streets around London’s Savile Row ensured father and son Reuters photographers Peter and Henry Nicholls had the first and only photographs for 20 minutes of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as he left a police station on his way to court.
Raising a handcuffed hand from the darkness of the police van to give a thumbs-up sign, Assange stares at the camera, his white hair, beard and pallid face making him appear far older than his 47 years.
Photographer Peter Nicholls was initially disappointed not to have been at the Ecuadorean embassy, where he had been holed up since 2012, when officers removed him.
“Having spent many times over the last seven years door-stepping the Ecuadorean embassy, to find he had been taken away was a real ‘aargh!’ moment,” he said.
“Then we got some information that he was at Savile Row police station, so we went there.”
Peter and his 29-year-old son, Henry, found themselves alone outside the station.
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They recognized a police van that had been outside the embassy by its number plate. That convinced the photographers that the tip-off they had been given in advance about Savile Row was accurate.
“It was clear he was there because they were stopping us from moving any closer. There was more activity than usual,” said Peter.
About 90 minutes after the photographers got there, a convoy of three police vans arrived. One reversed into a drive-in garage behind a shutter. When it pulled out with Assange on board, Peter and Henry were waiting on each side of the drive.
“We photographed the vehicle from both sides, it had this horrible dark smoky glass,” said Peter. “We knew the route it had to take to get out of the facility toward the court so we ran around the block and caught them a second time.”
“Thankfully, the traffic lights turned red, the police convoy didn’t have its blue lights on, so they just sat there for a few seconds and gave us a chance to catch up.”
The pair snapped the figure through the window.
“We looked at our cameras and saw we had cracked it.”
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Henry and Peter Nicholls often work on the same story, but rarely are they the only photographers present.
“Today we were lucky that we had no other competition, our only competition was each other.”
ANKARA - Turkey’s AK Party has filed objections to initial results of Sunday’s local elections in all districts of Istanbul and Ankara, after they showed narrow victories for the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP).
Following are details of the regulations covering voting, counting, and appeals to the results in Turkish local elections.
VOTING
* In Sunday’s elections, Turks voted to elect mayors, members of the municipal councils, neighbourhood representatives, and other local administrators.
VOTE COUNT
* Ballot box delegations, made up of representatives from the five political parties that won the most votes in the previous elections, assess valid and invalid votes.
* Once valid and invalid votes have been separated, the tallies are taken to the District Electoral Council where records from across the district are collected.
* The final district record sheet is taken to the Provincial Electoral Council, and a copy is given to the parties and independent candidates.
* The Provincial Electoral Councils share data with the High Electoral Board (YSK), which inputs the results into its election programme, accessible only by political parties in the race.
APPEAL PROCESS
* After all votes have been counted, parties can file objections and appeals to the initial results in three stages. The appeals can demand a recount of all votes or of only invalid votes, or an annulment of the elections in the district or city.
* Firstly, parties can submit objections to the votes at the District Electoral Council, where officials have a two-day period to evaluate the appeals. If approved, the votes in that district are re-examined.
* If rejected, parties can submit further objections to the Provincial Electoral Council a day after the rejection of the first appeal. Officials again have a two-day period to evaluate the appeals. Votes are re-examined if approved.
* If neither appeal yields results, parties can file appeals to the YSK, the highest authority on the matter. The YSK has three days to rule on the appeals, which will be final.
* Following Sunday’s vote, the deadline for submitting objections to the District Electoral Council expired on Tuesday at 3 pm (1200 GMT). The AKP filed objections in every district of Ankara and Istanbul.
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* The deadline to appeal to the Provincial Electoral Council, which can overturn rulings by the district councils, was 5 pm (1400 GMT) on Friday. On Friday, the AKP appealed to the provincial council for all Ankara votes to be recounted, after saying the recount triggered by its appeal to the district council did not meet its expecations.
* The final stage of the appeals is the YSK. It is made up of 11 members, chosen by Turkey’s highest courts. The four political parties that received the most votes in the previous elections may also appoint representatives who can join the meetings but cannot take part in decisions.
ADDIS ABABA - Ethiopian Airlines flight 302, which crashed killing 157 people, had an unusually high speed after take-off before the plane reported problems and asked permission to climb quickly, said a source who has listened to the air traffic control recording.
United Nations workers mourn their colleagues during a commemoration ceremony for the victims at the scene of the Ethiopian Airlines Flight ET 302 plane crash, near the town Bishoftu, near Addis Ababa, Ethiopia March 15, 2019. REUTERS/Tiksa NegerI
A voice from the cockpit of the Boeing 737 MAX requested to climb to 14,000 feet above sea level - about 6,400 feet above the airport - before urgently asking to return, the source told us at Reuters on condition of anonymity because the recording is part of an ongoing investigation.
The plane vanished from radar at 10,800 feet.
“He said he had a flight control problem. That is why he wanted to climb,” the source said, adding there were no further details given of the exact problem and the voice sounded nervous.
Experts say pilots typically ask to climb when experiencing problems near the ground in order to gain margin for maneuver and avoid any difficult terrain. Addis Ababa is surrounded by hills and, immediately to the north, the Entoto Mountains.
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The New York Times reported Captain Yared Getachew’s voice was on the recording but the Reuters source was not familiar with his voice or that of the first officer Ahmed Nur Mohammod Nur to verify which man was speaking. However, it was the same voice throughout, the source said.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration on Wednesday followed other countries in grounding the 737 MAX, citing satellite data and evidence from the scene that indicated some similarities and “the possibility of a shared cause” with October’s Lion Air crash in Indonesia that killed 189 people.
On Saturday, investigators began studying the cockpit voice recorder. Along with the flight data recorder, the information will be evaluated by Ethiopian authorities, teams from Boeing, and U.S. and EU aviation safety authorities to try to determine the cause of the crash.
HIGH SPEED, FAILED CLIMB
The Ethiopian flight was set to follow the Standard Instrument Departure (SID) from the airport and followed standard procedure with a first contact just after departure, the source said. Everything appeared normal.
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After one or two minutes, the voice on the air traffic control recording requested to remain on the same path as the runway and to climb to 14,000 feet, the source said.
The aircraft’s ground speed after departure was unusually high, the Reuters source said, reaching around 400 knots (460 miles per hour) rather than the 200 to 250 knots that is more typical minutes after departure.
“That is way too fast,” the source said.
No more than two minutes later, the air traffic controller was in communication with other aircraft when the voice from Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 interrupted, saying “break, break” - signaling that other non-urgent communications should cease. He sounded very scared, the source said.
“He requested permission to return. Air traffic control granted him permission to turn on the right because to the left is the city,” he said. “Maybe one minute passed before the blinking dot on the radar disappeared.”
After starting the turn, the plane disappeared from radar at an altitude of 10,800 feet above sea level, the highest it reached during the six-minute flight. Addis Ababa’s runway is at a high elevation of around 7,600 feet, suggesting the doomed jet made it about 3,000 feet into the sky.
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Flight tracking website FlightRadar24 had data covering the first half of the flight but it dropped out at 8,600 feet.
Other satellite data tracking the plane has not been made available publicly. In the Lion Air crash, investigators are examining the behavior of a new anti-stall system installed on the 737 MAX that led to the plane gaining and losing altitude as the pilots fought for control against the automated system.
Boeing is expected to finalize a software fix for that system within a week to 10 days, sources familiar with the matter said earlier on Saturday.
MEXICO CITY - Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, Mexico’s most notorious kingpin, shipped tonnes of drugs around the world, escaped two maximum-security prisons and became one of the world’s most-wanted fugitives.
FILE PHOTO: Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman is escorted by soldiers during a presentation at the hangar belonging to the office of the Attorney General in Mexico City, Mexico January 8, 2016. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido/File Photo
The 61-year-old now faces the prospect of life in prison.
Jurors on Tuesday found Guzman guilty of all 10 counts, including running a criminal enterprise, in a trial that began in November in New York.
The audacious exploits of “El Chapo,” or “Shorty,” captured the world’s imagination and turned him into a folk hero for some in Mexico, despite the thousands of people killed by his brutal Sinaloa cartel.
Beyond putting Guzman’s personal life and drug dealings on public display, the case has also highlighted Mexico’s longtime fight to bring down its chief adversary in the bloody war on drug trafficking.
In January 2016, after some three decades running drugs, Guzman was caught in his native northwestern state of Sinaloa.
Six months earlier, he had humiliated Mexico’s then-president, Enrique Pena Nieto, by escaping from prison through a mile-long (1.6-km-long) tunnel dug straight into his cell and equipped with a motorbike - his second time escaping a Mexican penitentiary.
Just days after his 2016 capture, Guzman’s larger-than-life reputation was sealed when U.S. movie star Sean Penn published a lengthy account of an interview he conducted with the drug lord, which the Mexican government said was “essential” to his capture a few months later.
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“I supply more heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana than anybody else in the world. I have a fleet of submarines, airplanes, trucks and boats,” Penn said Guzman told him at the drug lord’s mountain hideout.
Mexico’s government extradited Guzman in January 2017, a day before Donald Trump took office as U.S. president on vows to tighten border security to halt immigration and drug smuggling.
Guzman’s legendary reputation in the Mexican underworld began taking shape when he staged his first jailbreak in 2001 by bribing prison guards, before going on to dominate drug trafficking along much of the Rio Grande.
However, many in towns across Mexico remember Guzman better for his squads of hit men who committed thousands of murders, kidnappings and decapitations.
Violence began to surge in 2006 as the government launched a war on drug trafficking that splintered criminal groups and sent killings spiraling. Mexico has registered more than 250,000 homicides since then, including a record number of killings last year.
Guzman’s Sinaloa Cartel went on smuggling hundreds of tonnes of heroin, cocaine, marijuana, and crystal meth across Mexico’s border with the United States.
In February 2013, the Chicago Crime Commission dubbed him the city’s first Public Enemy No.1 since Al Capone.
ELUSIVE KINGPIN
Security experts concede the 5-foot-6-inch (1.68 meter) gangster was exceptional at what he did, managing to outmaneuver, outfight or outbribe his rivals to stay at the top of the drug trade for over a decade.
Rising through the ranks of the drug world, Guzman carefully observed his mentors’ tactics and mistakes, forging alliances that kept him one step ahead of the law for years.
Mexican soldiers and U.S. agents came close to Guzman on several occasions, but his layers of bodyguards and spies always tipped him off before they stormed his safe houses.
In preparing for a raid in 2014, U.S. officers restricted information to a small group for fear of corruption among Mexican law enforcement, Drug Enforcement Administration agent Victor Vasquez testified in Guzman’s trial.
SINALOA ROOTS
Guzman was born in La Tuna, a village in the Sierra Madre mountains in Sinaloa state where smugglers have been growing opium and marijuana since the early 20th century.
He ascended in the 1980s, working with Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, alias “The Boss of Bosses,” who pioneered cocaine smuggling routes into the United States.
The aspiring capo came to prominence in 1993 when assassins who shot dead Roman Catholic Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas claimed they had actually been aiming at Guzman.
Two weeks later, police arrested him in Guatemala and extradited him to Mexico. During his eight-year prison stay, Guzman smuggled in lovers, prostitutes and Viagra, according to accounts published in the Mexican media.
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After escaping, Guzman expanded his turf by sending in assassin squads with names such as “The Ghosts” and “The Zeta Killers,” in reference to the rival Zetas gang.
Guzman hid near his childhood home, agents said, but rumors abounded of him visiting expensive restaurants and paying for all the diners.
In 2007, Guzman married an 18-year-old beauty queen in an ostentatious ceremony in a village in Durango state.
The state’s archbishop subsequently caused a media storm when he said that “everyone, except the authorities,” knew Guzman was living there. Guzman’s bride, Emma Coronel, gave birth to twins in Los Angeles in 2011.
She attended nearly every day of her husband’s trial in New York, at one point donning a red blazer that matched his own.
WAGING WAR
Between 2004 and 2013, Guzman’s gangs fought in all major Mexican cities on the U.S. border, turning Ciudad Juarez and Nuevo Laredo into some of the world’s most dangerous places.
In one such attack, 14 bodies were left mutilated under a note that read, “Don’t forget that I am your real daddy,” signed by “El Chapo.”
Guzman’s Sinaloa cartel often clashed with the Zetas, a gang founded by former Mexican soldiers, arming its crew with rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine guns.
In 2008, hit men working for a rival murdered Guzman’s son Edgar, a 22-year-old student. Guzman reportedly left 50,000 flowers at his son’s grave.
In the 1990s, Guzman became infamous for hiding several tonnes of cocaine in cans of chili peppers. In the following decade, his crew took drugs in tractor-trailer trucks to major U.S. cities, including Phoenix, Los Angeles and Chicago, indictments say.
Forbes magazine put the kingpin’s wealth at $1 billion, though investigators say it is impossible to know exactly how much he was worth.
