News Headlines - 11 March 2019
▽Bells and sirens as Japan marks tsunami anniversary, pledges recovery | Reuters
Bells rang and sirens sounded on Monday as Japan observed a moment of silence to commemorate the eighth anniversary of a massive earthquake and tsunami that left more than 20,000 people dead or missing, and triggered triple nuclear meltdowns.
The quake of magnitude nine on March 11, 2011 struck north of the Japanese capital, unleashing a tsunami that engulfed large swathes of the Pacific coast and caused the world’s worst nuclear accident in 25 years.
A team of lawyers representing South Korean plaintiffs who won a case against Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. over wartime forced labor is considering seeking a seizure of the Japanese manufacturer’s assets in Europe, one of them has said.
▽Ethiopian Airlines crash kills 157, spreads global grief - Boston Herald
An Ethiopian Airlines jet faltered and crashed Sunday shortly after takeoff, carving a gash in the earth and spreading global grief to 35 countries that had someone among the 157 people who were killed.
There was no immediate indication why the plane went down in clear weather while on a flight to Nairobi, the capital of neighboring Kenya. The crash was strikingly similar to that of a Lion Air jet in Indonesian seas last year, killing 189 people. Both accidents involved the Boeing 737 Max 8, and China ordered a temporarily grounding of those planes for Chinese airlines Monday.
▽May wins ‘improved’ Brexit deal but it may not be enough for MPs | The Guardian
Theresa May has called for MPs to “come together” to back her deal after claiming to have secured the legally binding changes parliament wanted to ensure the EU cannot trap the UK in the Irish backstop and a permanent customs union.
But within minutes of the start of a late-night joint press conference in Strasbourg, those words rang hollow, as Jean-Claude Juncker, the European commission president, conceded the EU had not agreed to the prime minister’s central demand.
Juncker told reporters that a freshly negotiated legal add-on to the Brexit deal, emphasising the temporary nature of the Irish backstop, “complements the withdrawal agreement without reopening it”.
▽Sotheby’s celebrates 275 years of history with London exhibition | Culture | The Guardian
On 11 March 1744, Samuel Baker, a “joyous fellow” with a “fondness for plum-coloured coats”, who for a decade had sold books from his corner table in Covent Garden’s Angel and Crown pub, brought the hammer down on his first auction... Exactly 275 years on, the international auction house Sotheby’s, which grew out of Baker’s entrepreneurial endeavours and is one of the UK’s oldest businesses, marks its anniversary by ringing the opening bell on the New York stock exchange trading floor. Sotheby’s is almost 50 years older than the stock exchange itself.
