New York

NEW YORK (AP) — New York City’s medical examiner ruled Jeffrey Epstein’s death a suicide Friday, confirming after nearly a week of speculation that the financier faced with sex trafficking charges hanged himself in his jail cell.

Epstein, 66, was found dead at the Metropolitan Correctional Center on Aug. 10, touching off outrage that such a high-profile prisoner could have gone unwatched at the Manhattan federal lockup where infamous inmates Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman and Wall Street swindler Bernard Madoff came and went without incident.

New York, Aug 16 (AFP) An autopsy of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein found broken bones in his neck, US media reported on Thursday, as New York's medical examiner said the cause of death required further study.

Epstein, a convicted sex offender who befriended many celebrities and politicians, was found dead in jail on Saturday from an apparent suicide as he awaited trial on federal charges that he trafficked underage girls for sex.

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 15 (APP): The UN Security Council is expected to meet behind-closed-doors on Friday to take up Pakistan’s request for the 15-member body to deal with the grave situation in Indian occupied arising from New Delhi’s decision to abolish the special status of the disputed region that have heightened tensions between the two South Asian neighbours.

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 14 (APP): Pakistan has expressed the hope that the 15-member Security Council would meet soon to deal with the grave situation in Indian Occupied Kashmir resulting from India’s move to annex the disputed region, Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi said Tuesday,

“We would like the Security Council to take note of the illegal annexation by India,” she said in an interview with BBC News, after making a formal request for a Council meeting.

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 14 (APP): Diplomats and humanitarian experts on Tuesday praised the 1949 Geneva Conventions that for 70 years have banned attacks on civilians, schools and hospitals while acknowledging an uptick in egregious violations of the laws of war in high-tech modern warfare.

“We are failing the most vulnerable,” Heiko Maas, Germany’s minister for foreign affairs, said at a meeting of the Security Council to mark the birth of the Geneva Conventions in 1949. “We are not living up to our legal and ethical obligations.”

UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 13 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations on Tuesday said in a statement that it stands ready to support China's search-and-rescue efforts after the Typhoon Lekima.

"The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says that, on 10 August, Tropical Cyclone Lekima made landfall in the Chinese city of Wenling in Zhejiang Province and made a second landfall the following day on the coast of Qingdao in Shandong Province in the country's east," according to the statement.

UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 13 (Xinhua) -- Despite recent stepped-up violence in Aden, the United Nations "has remained focused on staying and delivering essential life-saving programs," a UN spokesman said on Tuesday.

Aden port, which is one of the main gateways for commercial and humanitarian goods to Yemen, remains operational, Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said. The airport has also re-opened, and roads in Aden are mostly open.

NEW YORK (AP) — The warden at the federal jail where Jeffrey Epstein took his own life over the weekend was removed Tuesday and two guards who were supposed to be watching the financier were placed on leave while federal authorities investigate the death.

The move by the Justice Department came amid mounting evidence that the chronically understaffed Metropolitan Correctional Center may have bungled its responsibility to keep the 66-year-old Epstein from harming himself while he awaited trial on charges of sexually abusing teenage girls.

NEW YORK, Aug 13 (APP): India’s revocation of Kashmir’s special status is a slap in the face of a renewed American commitment to solve the Kashmir dispute, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the U.S., Asad Majeed Khan, has said, referring to President Donald Trump’s offer to mediate the Indo-Pakistan dispute during a meeting with Prime Minister Imran Khan in Washington last month.

In an article published in The Washington Post on Tuesday, he said India’s unilateral action in Kashmir makes “plain to the world the depth of India’s arrogant indifference to the region’s peace and stability.”

NEW YORK, Aug 13 (APP): The Editorial Board of a respected American newspaper has condemned India’s annexation of the disputed Kashmir region, a move, it said, has thrown into turmoil the world’s most militarized region.

“These unilateral, aggressive and provocative acts by the Indian government do no credit to the world’s largest democracy,” The Los Angeles Times’ board said in an editorial.