SYDNEY — A 6.9-magnitude earthquake struck in the Pacific Ocean near Fiji this morning, prompting a tsunami warning and evacuations in some parts of the country’s main island.
The quake, earlier measured at 7.2 magnitude, was centered about 140 miles southwest of the Fijian capital Suva, according to the United States Geological Survey.
The earthquake was about 10 miles deep and struck just before 11 a.m.
A tsunami alert was initially issued by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center for some parts of the Fijian coast but was later rescinded.
Fiji Red Cross worker Corinne Ambler wrote on Twitter that although the tsunami threat was over, people were still trying to get out of coastal towns to higher ground in Suva.
There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage, however local media reported that people were being evacuated from resorts in the tourist town of Nadi.
Britain’s top envoy to EU resigns
LONDON — Complicating his country’s already fraught preparations for exiting the European Union, Britain’s top diplomat in Brussels resigned unexpectedly on Tuesday, less than three months before withdrawal negotiations are scheduled to start.
The decision by the diplomat, Ivan Rogers, the permanent representative to the European Union, deprives Britain of one of its most knowledgeable officials as it tries to form a coherent strategy for untying more than four decades of European integration.
It also underscores some of the tensions at the highest level of government as Britain’s exit, known as Brexit, dominates the political agenda after last year’s referendum, in which voters opted to leave the bloc.
Mr. Rogers did not offer a public explanation for his departure, but in an email to colleagues he appeared to suggest that warnings about the complexity of Brexit had strained relations with politicians who want to put a more positive gloss on the withdrawal process. “I hope you will continue to challenge ill-founded arguments and muddled thinking and that you will never be afraid to speak the truth to those in power,” Mr. Rogers wrote, according to copies of the message published in the British media.
In recent weeks he was the focus of criticism from hard-line supporters of a British exit, after reports surfaced that he had privately warned that trade talks on quitting the bloc could last a decade — and even then might fail.
Edited ‘Mein Kampf’ a hit
BERLIN — An annotated edition of “Mein Kampf,” Adolf Hitler’s notorious manifesto, has become a non-fiction best-seller in Germany. The publisher said Tuesday that a sixth print run will go on sale later this month.
Some 85,000 copies of the book have been sold since it was first published a year ago, according to the Munich-based Institute for Contemporary History. The publisher spent years adding comments to Hitler’s original text in an effort to highlight his propaganda and mistakes.
The institute said in late 2015 that it planned an initial print run of up to 4,000 copies and wasn’t sure whether more would be printed. In April, however, the book topped the weekly Der Spiegel’s non-fiction best-seller list.
The bulky two-volume edition, titled “Hitler, Mein Kampf: A Critical Edition,” weighs in at 1,948 pages and costs a hefty 59 euros ($62). It was the first version to be published in Germany since the end of World War II.
Before the copyright on “Mein Kampf held by Bavaria’s state finance ministry expired at the end of 2015, the ministry had used it prevent the publication of new editions in the country.
Despite its incendiary and anti-Semitic content, the book wasn’t actually banned in Germany and could be found online, in secondhand bookshops and in libraries.
Also in the world ...
Myanmar has detained four border police officers after a video surfaced online that appears to show two of them beating unarmed men in the restive border state of Rakhine, putting more pressure on the government to address tensions there between the authorities and the Rohingya, a persecuted Muslim minority. ... South Korea’s Constitutional Court formally opened President Park Geun-hye’s impeachment trial on Tuesday, despite the absence of Ms. Park, whose lawyers said she was unlikely to attend any of the proceedings.
First Published: January 4, 2017, 5:00 a.m.
