UNITED STATES
CIA to fight Mexican cartels
New CIA operatives and retired military personnel are being sent to Mexico and may deploy private security contractors to fight drug cartels, the New York Times said. Small numbers of CIA operatives and civilian employees have been posted at a Mexican military base, it said late on Saturday. Security officials from both countries work there side by side in collecting information about drug cartels and helping plan operations, the report said. Officials are also looking into embedding a team of US contractors inside a specially vetted Mexican counter-narcotics police unit, it said. The new efforts have been devised to get around Mexican laws prohibiting foreign military and police from operating on its soil.
UKRAINE
US urges ex-PM’s release
The US called on Saturday for the immediate release of former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko following her dramatic arrest during trial. A statement published on the US’ Kiev embassy Web site said Tymoshenko’s detention “raised concerns internationally about the application of the rule of law in Ukraine and further contributes to the appearance of politically-motivated prosecutions.” A Kiev court on Friday placed Tymoshenko under arrest for contempt of court during her ongoing trial on charges of abuse of power, which she claims is a vendetta pursued by her rival, President Viktor Yanukovych.
UNITED STATES
US Jews pressure Cuba
American Jews urged Cuban President Raul Castro on Saturday to release a US contractor “on humanitarian grounds” after Cuba’s highest court upheld a 15-year sentence. In his appeal, Elan Steinberg, vice president of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors & Their Descendants, said that Alan Gross has lost 40kg and “is suffering from serious physical ailments as well as from extreme mental stress and anguish.” Gross’s daughter and mother-in-law are battling cancer, a point cited by critics of his incarceration. “Holocaust survivors wish to renew their heartfelt appeal to release Alan Gross from prison on humanitarian grounds and allow him to be reunited with his family in the United States,” Steinberg said in a statement.
FRANCE
TV satellites launched
An Ariane-5 rocket placed two telecommunications satellites into geostationary orbit early on Saturday, the 45th successive success for the European rocket, Arianespace announced. The rocket blasted off from the European space center at Kourou, French Guiana. The two satellites are the Astra 1N, belonging to Luxembourg’s SES Astra, and the BSAT-3c/JCSAT-110R, owned by Japan’s B-SAT Corp and SKY Perfect JSAT Corp. The Astra 1N will provide direct-to-home television services across Europe for 15 years while the other will help provide television services in Japan.
FRANCE
Mushroom eaters taken ill
Tourists and locals alike are flocking to hospital wards in the southwest after eating mushrooms that this year sprouted much earlier than usual due to the rainy summer, officials said yesterday. Twenty-one people were treated for diarrhea, vomiting and stomach pains on Friday in hospitals in the Lot department, after munching on what they thought were edible mushrooms. Thirty more have been treated in the nearby Tarn-et-Garonne department over the past two weeks, while dozens more may have been affected, but not sought medical treatment, hospital officials said.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of