Iraqi kidnappers have issued a new video of the three Romanian journalists and American they are threatening to kill, extending the deadline to yesterday for Romania to withdraw its troops from Iraq, al-Jazeera television said.
The militants said in the video they would begin killing the hostages at 6pm yesterday unless their demands were met.
The video showed the Romanian journalists -- two men and a woman -- sitting in handcuffs with pistols pointing at their heads. The woman, Marie Jeanne Ion, a reporter for Prima TV, could be seen talking to the camera and clutching her hands as if she were pleading.
Al-Jazeera did not broadcast Ion's voice, but its presenter said the Romanians appealed to their president to withdraw the troops, and to the Romanian people to protest to save their lives.
The video then showed Moh-ammed Monaf, an Iraqi American who translated for the Romanians, sitting alone.
A pistol was pointed at Monaf's head, which had a scarf wrapped tightly around it in the style of a turban.
Monaf pleaded to US President George W. Bush and the American people to save his life, the presenter said.
Al-Jazeera did not say how it received the tape or when.
A US YouTuber who caused outrage for filming himself kissing a statue commemorating Korean wartime sex slaves has been sentenced to six months in prison, a court in Seoul said yesterday. Johnny Somali, 25, gained notoriety several years ago for recording himself doing a series of provocative stunts in South Korea and Japan, and streaming them on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. South Korean authorities indicted Somali — whose real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael — in 2024 on public order violations and obstruction of business, and banned him from leaving the country. “The court has sentenced him to six months in
Former Lima mayor Rafael Lopez Aliaga, a Peruvian presidential hopeful, gathered hundreds of supporters in Lima on Tuesday and gave authorities 24 hours to annul the first round of the country’s election over allegations of fraud. Lopez Aliaga is locked in a tight three-way race with two other candidates for second place in Sunday’s vote. The election runner-up wins a ticket to June’s presidential run-off against front-runner Keiko Fujimori. “I am giving them 24 hours to declare this electoral fraud null and void,” said Lopez Aliaga, surrounded by a crowd of several hundred supporters. “If it is not declared null and void tomorrow,
Four contenders are squaring up to succeed Antonio Guterres as secretary-general of the UN, which faces unprecedented global instability, wars and its own crushing budget crisis. Chile’s Michelle Bachelet, Argentina’s Rafael Grossi, Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan and Senegal’s Macky Sall are each to face grillings by 193 member states and non-governmental organizations for three hours today and tomorrow. It is only the second time the UN has held a public question-and-answer, a format created in 2016 to boost transparency. Ultimately the five permanent members of the UN’s top body, the Security Council, hold the power, wielding vetoes over who leads the
A humanoid robot that won a half-marathon race for robots in Beijing on Sunday ran faster than the human world record in a show of China’s technological leaps. The winner from Honor, a Chinese smartphone maker, completed the 21km race in 50 minutes and 26 seconds, said a WeChat post by the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, also known as Beijing E-Town, where the race began. That was faster than the human world record holder, Ugandan Jacob Kiplimo, who finished the same distance in about 57 minutes in March at the Lisbon road race. The performance by the robot marked a significant step forward
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