BAHRAIN
Protests after activists jailed
Protesters poured back to the streets after a security court sentenced eight Shiite activists to life in prison in the latest blow by the Western-backed kingdom to cripple the biggest Arab Spring opposition movement in the Gulf. The fast and angry reaction to Wednesday’s verdicts — the most significant display of unrest in weeks — underscored the volatility in the island nation after four months of unrest and raised questions about whether any credible pro-reform leaders will heed calls by the Sunni monarchy to open talks next week. Security forces used tear gas to drive back hundreds of Shiite marchers trying to reach a central square in the capital, Manama. In other Shiite areas, protesters gathered in the streets, but were held back by riot police. No injuries were reported.
NETHERLANDS
Politician acquitted
A court acquitted right-wing politician Geert Wilders of hate speech and discrimination yesterday, ruling that his anti-Islam statements, while offensive to many Muslims, fell within the bounds of legitimate political debate. Presiding judge Marcel van Oosten said Wilders’ claims that Islam is violent by nature, and his calls to halt Muslim immigration and ban the Muslim holy book, the Quran, must be seen in a wider context of debate over immigration policy. The court said his public statement could not be directly linked to increased discrimination against Dutch Muslims.
SOUTH AFRICA
Mrs Obama talks to youth
US first lady Michelle Obama urged young Africans on Wednesday to fight for women’s rights and battle the stigma of AIDS, using her husband’s “yes, we can” campaign slogan to motivate youth across the continent. Obama is on her second solo trip abroad as first lady to promote issues such as education, health and wellness. However, her speech to a group of young women and men at Regina Mundi Church, which played a role in South Africa’s anti-apartheid movement, touched on race, discrimination, democracy and development.
UNITED KINGDOM
Royal visit draws media
About 1,300 journalists are accredited to cover Britain’s Prince William and his wife Catherine’s visit to Canada from June 30 to July 7, Heritage Minister James Moore said on Tuesday. It is almost twice the number that followed the prince’s grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, during her trip to the Commonwealth country last year. Among them will be 241 foreign journalists, including from Japan, China, India and Qatar, Moore told a media briefing to highlight the massive interest from around the world in the couple’s first visit abroad as newlyweds.
SENEGAL
Police disperse protesters
Police used tear gas on Wednesday to disperse people demonstrating against proposed changes to the electoral laws that would make it easier for the country’s aging president to be re-elected. Private radio station Radio Futurs Media, or RFM, said the protesters were attacked in Place de l’Independance, the largest square in the capital’s downtown district, in the suburb of Pikine, and in the town of Kaolack in the interior of the country. No casualties were immediately reported. Anger is building in this normally stable country on Africa’s western coast because the proposed constitutional amendments are seen as designed to make it easier for 85-year-old President Abdoulaye Wade to be re-elected and to create the position of vice president for his son.
UNITED STATES
Guru sentenced over deaths
A US self-help guru was convicted of negligent homicide on Wednesday over the deaths of three people at an Arizona “sweat lodge” ceremony in 2009, a court official said. James Ray was found not guilty of the more serious charges of manslaughter over the deaths, which occurred after 60 people were packed into a sweat lodge for two hours after a 36-hour fast. The 60 participants paid Ray US$9,000 each in October 2009 for a spiritual retreat near Sedona, Arizona, in which participants could sweat out their worries in an enclosure where hot rocks were placed inside a tent. Three people died and 19 were taken to hospital.
UNITED STATES
‘Whitey’ Bulger arrested
US authorities said on Wednesday they have captured James “Whitey” Bulger, an alleged crime boss wanted since 1995 for a string of murders who was an inspiration for gangster film The Departed. The FBI said a recent publicity campaign had generated a tip that led agents to arrest Bulger, 81, and his long-time companion Catherine Greig, 60, in Santa Monica, California, “without incident.” Bulger has been indicted for 19 murders. The FBI said that Bulger had been sought for a string of murders from the early 1970s to the mid-1980s “in connection with his leadership of an organized crime group.” It said his gang “allegedly controlled extortion, drug deals, and other illegal activities in the Boston, Massachusetts, area.” The FBI said Bulger “has a violent temper and is known to carry a knife at all times.”
UNITED STATES
Lohan in trouble again
Troubled starlet Lindsay Lohan was due back in court in Los Angeles, California, yesterday for breaching probation after failing an alcohol test while already on home detention, officials and reports said. A court hearing will determine if Lohan, currently serving 35 days of home custody with an electronic ankle bracelet, breached the terms of her probation for a 2007 drunk driving incident, the LA District Attorney’s office said.
UNITED STATES
Palin to perform jury duty
Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin said on Wednesday she was pausing her “One Nation” bus tour to answer the call of jury duty and denied media reports her much-hyped multistate jaunt had been cut short. The 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee has hinted she may run for president next year, and many have viewed her bus tour as a possible campaign warm-up should Palin ever declare herself a White House candidate. Palin began her tour over the Memorial Day holiday weekend and visited a number of historic sites along the east coast.
UNITED STATES
Journalist admits secret
A prize-winning journalist who reported for the Washington Post went public on Wednesday with a secret he has been keeping for nearly two decades: He is an illegal immigrant. Jose Antonio Vargas, whose mother sent him from the Philippines to live with his grandparents in California when he was 12, says that now he wants to push Congress to pass a bill called the DREAM Act that would allow people like him to become citizens if they go to college or serve in the military. “I’m done running. I’m exhausted,” Vargas wrote in a York Times Magazine essay posted online on Wednesday. “I don’t want that life anymore.” He says he didn’t know about his citizenship status until four years after he arrived in California.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion