UNITED KINGDOM
Russia killed Litvinenko: EU
The European Court of Human Rights yesterday ruled that Russia was responsible for the 2006 killing of Alexander Litvinenko, who died an agonizing death after he was poisoned in London with polonium-210. Moscow has always denied any involvement in Litvinenko’s death. Litvinenko, 43, an outspoken critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin who fled Russia for Britain six years to the day before he was poisoned, died after drinking green tea laced with the rare and very potent radioactive isotope at London’s Millennium Hotel. A British inquiry concluded in 2016 that Putin probably approved a Russian intelligence operation to murder Litvinenko. It also found that former KGB bodyguard Andrei Lugovoy and another Russian, Dmitry Kovtun, carried out the killing as part of an operation probably directed by Russia’s Federal Security Service. “The Court found in particular that there was a strong prima facie case that, in poisoning Mr Litvinenko, Mr Lugovoi and Mr Kovtun had been acting as agents of the Russian State,” the European court said.
AFGHANISTAN
More men join Cabinet
The Taliban yesterday announced a list of deputy ministers, failing to name any women, despite an international outcry when they presented their all-male Cabinet ministers earlier this month. Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid defended the latest additions to the Cabinet at the news conference, saying it included members of ethnic minorities, such as the Hazaras, and that women might be added later, even though he did not give a timeframe. Mujahid bristled at international conditions for recognition, saying there was no reason for withholding it. “It is the responsibility of the United Nations to recognize our government [and] for other countries, including European, Asian and Islamic countries, to have diplomatic relations with us,’’ he said.
RWANDA
Talks with Belgium canceled
The government said it has canceled a planned meeting with Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sophie Wilmes at the UN after she criticized the trial of Hotel Rwanda hero Paul Rusesabagina, a Belgian citizen. Rusesabagina, who is credited with saving more than 1,200 lives during the 1994 genocide, was on Monday convicted on terror charges by the high court in Kigali and sentenced to 25 years in prison in a widely criticized verdict. Wilmes said that despite repeated appeals from Brussels, “Rusesabagina did not benefit from a fair and equitable trial; particularly with regard to the rights of the defense.” The Kigali government slammed the comments in a statement dated Monday. It said they “reflected the contempt shown by the Government of the Kingdom of Belgium towards the Rwandan judicial system since the start of this trial, despite the significant contribution of relevant Belgian institutions to the investigation of this case.”
CAMBODIA
Endangered crocs found
Eight hatchlings from one of the world’s rarest crocodile species have been found in a wildlife sanctuary, raising hopes for its continuing survival in the wild. Conservationists found the baby Siamese crocodiles earlier this month in a river in the Srepok Wildlife Sanctuary, the Ministry of Environment and the World Wildlife Fund said yesterday. The team found the young reptiles after spending four days scouring habitat sites where months earlier they had discovered footprints and dung. It is believed only about 400 Siamese crocodiles remain in the wild, with most of them in Cambodia.
FRANCE
Macron to host Libya meet
President Emmanuel Macron is to host an international conference on Libya on Nov. 12, a month ahead of elections that aim to put an end to a decade of civil war, but that look increasingly uncertain. Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean-Yves Le Drian, German Minister of Foreign Affiars Heiko Maas and Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs Luigi di Maio are to cochair a meeting devoted to Libya on Wednesday at the UN in New York. France is asking for the elections to be held on schedule and for the “departure of foreign forces and mercenaries,” Le Drian said. The ratification earlier this month of an electoral law that was clearly tailor-made for Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, who controls eastern Libya, raised tensions three months before the ballot.
UNITED STATES
CIA officer falls ill
A CIA officer who was traveling with CIA Director William Burns to India this month reported symptoms consistent with Havana syndrome, CNN and the New York Times reported on Monday. The victim, who was not identified, had to receive medical attention, CNN reported, citing unnamed sources. About 200 US officials and family members have been sickened by Havana syndrome, a mysterious set of ailments that include migraines, nausea, memory lapses and dizziness. It was first reported by officials based in the US embassy in Cuba in 2016. Burns said in July that he had tapped a senior officer who once led the hunt for al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden to head a task force investigating the syndrome.
PHILIPPINES
Manila backs AUKUS deal
The government has backed a new defense partnership between Australia, the UK and the US, hoping that it can maintain the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific region, a view that contrasts sharply with some of its neighbors. The AUKUS alliance would see Australia get technology to deploy nuclear-powered submarines as part of an agreement intended to respond to growing Chinese power. “The enhancement of a near-abroad ally’s ability to project power should restore and keep the balance rather than destabilize it,” Secretary of Foreign Affairs Teodoro Locsin said in a statement yesterday. Locsin’s remarks differ to the stance of Indonesia and Malaysia, which sounded the alarm about a burgeoning superpower rivalry in Southeast Asia.
PANAMA
Sale of artifacts disputed
The government has called for a German auction house to withdraw from sale seven pre-Columbian artifacts believed to be part of the nation’s heritage. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that it had asked Munich-based Gerhard Hirsch Nachfolger to produce export permits for the pieces, which were set to go under the hammer yesterday. It had informed its German counterpart of its “disagreement with the sale of these objects, as they could be part of Panamanian historical heritage,” it said in a statement.
GERMANY
Man killed after mask row
Police said that a 49-year-old man had been arrested on suspicion of murder in connection with the killing of a gas station worker who was shot dead on Saturday following a dispute over masks. Authorities in Trier on Monday said that the suspect told police officers he acted “out of anger” after the 20-year-old clerk at the gas station asked him to put on a mask. The suspect initially left the gas station after the dispute, but then returned wearing a mask and shot the clerk dead, police said.
Showcasing phallus-shaped portable shrines and pink penis candies, Japan’s annual fertility festival yesterday teemed with tourists, couples and families elated by its open display of sex. The spring Kanamara Matsuri near Tokyo features colorfully dressed worshipers carrying a trio of giant phallic-shaped objects as they parade through the street with glee. The festival, as legend has it, honors a local blacksmith in the Edo Period (1603-1868) who forged an iron dildo to break the teeth of a sharp-toothed demon inhabiting a woman’s vagina that had been castrating young men on their wedding nights. A 1m black steel phallus sits in the courtyard of
HIGH HOPES: The power source is expected to have a future, as it is not dependent on the weather or light, and could be useful for places with large desalination facilities A Japanese water plant is harnessing the natural process of osmosis to generate renewable energy that could one day become a common power source. The possibility of generating power from osmosis — when water molecules pass from a less salty solution to a more salty one — has long been known. However, actually generating energy from that has proved more complicated, in part due the difficulty of designing the membrane through which the molecules pass. Engineers in Fukuoka, Japan, and their private partners think they might have cracked it, and have opened what is only the world’s second osmotic power plant. It generates
JAN. 1 CLAUSE: As military service is voluntary, applications for permission to stay abroad for over three months for men up to age 45 must, in principle, be granted A little-noticed clause in sweeping changes to Germany’s military service policy has triggered an uproar after it emerged that the law requires men aged up to 45 to get permission from the armed forces before any significant stay abroad, even in peacetime. The legislation, which went into effect on Jan. 1 aims to bolster the military and demands all 18-year-old men fill out a questionnaire to gauge their suitability to serve in the armed forces, but stops short of conscription. If the “modernized” model fails to pull in enough recruits, parliament will be compelled to discuss the reintroduction of compulsory service, German
Hundreds of Filipinos and tourists flocked to a sun-bleached field north of Manila yesterday, on Good Friday, to witness one of the country’s most blood-soaked displays of religious fervor, undeterred by rising fuel prices. Scores of bare-chested flagellants with covered faces walked barefoot through the dusty streets of Pampanga Province’s San Fernando as they flogged their backs with bamboo whips in the scorching heat. Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalists said they saw devotees deliberately puncturing their skin with glass shards attached to a small wooden paddle to ensure their bleeding during the ritual, a way to atone for sins and seek miracles from
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